Post by Admin on Apr 27, 2015 0:53:40 GMT
I didn't realize how far I had actually gotten since last post! I'm 11 pages ahead of the last post, so here you go. 
Keep it moving.
“Him?”
“Yes.”
“The guy who ordered his men to shoot us before?”
“Yes.”
I took a second to think about this and noticed Myra looking clearly confused and concerned.
“Myra, Krauser was…he’s a… a Christian-ish gangster I guess you could say. Anyways, towards the beginning of the war, when the first bombs were dropping, Leon and I drove to this church, Northview, for supplies or help. We thought it would have friendly people handing out food pantry items and helping those injured,” I explained. I left out Jay’s part of course. “Instead, we met unfriendly men on the church roof who worked under Krauser and called themselves the ‘Underground Salvation.’ We must’ve pissed them off cause we stuck around too long, so our car was almost shot. They were the ones in control of that place…and still are.”
She answered me fast. I KNOW WHAT PLACE THAT IS. YOU USED TO KNOW KRAUSER?
Leon replied, “Well, a little bit before the war. Most thugs out there know him for what he is now. Don’t know how he went from being part of a men’s bible study group to shooting anyone inside of his holy territory, but then again, where were all these terrible people before they turned into assholes?”
“Which brings us back to the question, how do you know he won’t just shoot us on sight like the first time we approached him? And what was that thing you said about showing up with the stuff he needs?” I asked. Was Leon going crazy; I wondered.
“This time, we have something to trade for their help,” Leon began to have slightly more confidence as he spoke. “This time, they’re bound to want us in. So many people in the city are suffering from it, they’re bound to have the problem too.”
“Leon, just spit it out,” I said, exasperated again.
He proceeded to hold up something I’d forgotten about. The medicine for the plague.
“The medicine from the supermarket? You want to trade that for…”
“For food and shelter. And I know they’re not too pleasant with outsiders, but once we’ve struck a deal and joined them, they’ll probably treat us like any of their own.”
Both Myra and I immediately said (or spelled), “Once we’ve joined them?”
He lost some of his confidence here, “Yes. Join them. Keep in mind that it would be stupid to get supplies for a week or two and return here. If we were to…join a group, like Underground Salvation, we could have people to watch our back and help us out for a while.”
“Hold up, Leon,” I was slowly but surely losing my mind here with all these bold statements. “So all this time, our main goal has been to keep safe and keep out of the big gangs’ business. We lay low. We trust no one. And now you’re just saying we should outright join one of the radical city groups that tried to shoot us before?”
“Look, it’s not as terrible as you think it might be,” Leon tried to explain.
“Yeah, but it’s still pretty terrible.”
I could see Myra first spell one thing, then erase it and start something else, then erase that again as we spoke. We weren’t slow enough for her to keep up in the conversation.
Leon saw her struggling to say something too. “Okay, I’ll say something else, then you two can beat me up for it, okay? But the way I see it, there’s only one way to continue long term.”
“You’ve said that,” I reminded, but let him have his last words about it.
“As I’ve said, if we can buy into their gimmick and make a calm, clean deal, we could probably let ourselves in with them. And I believe that if any leader would be willing to talk any sense at all, Krauser would be the one, considering I knew him before the war and we probably have what he wants, which is medicine and three extra people on his side,” he said. He had been thinking about the possibilities for a while now, I could tell. He was really convinced this was for the best.
“Okay, but all I’m saying is that we don’t know if he’ll even want any of this stuff. What if all his men miraculously don’t have any plague? Or what if he doesn’t have room for us there? What happens if he doesn’t want to even talk at all and his men shoot us before we even get to speak? Heck, Krauser could be dead by now and someone much more…disagreeable is in charge,” I put out there.
Myra had her statement on the board by now. RYKERS RIGHT. WE COULD DIE VERY EASILY.
Leon would not take this for an answer though. “But think about if we stay. What will happen then? We run out. We’ll be forced to loot somewhere, which is much more dangerous than going somewhere to make a generous deal. This house could get robbed again when those raiders find out we’re still alive. We can’t stay,” Leon stated again. “…We can die at any time now. The odds are way against us if we do nothing but sit around and go nowhere.”
He was really trying to drive his point. And the truth was, it was starting to make sense. After a moment, I saw Myra nod at Leon grimly. She was agreeing? And did I?
Leon looked a little more relieved at Myra’s sign of agreement. He spoke again, “Good, good. We can only try. If they accept, then we’ve managed to get a little safer. Ryker, please?”
“What? You want me to be willing to leave our only home we’ve stayed safe in for months and go somewhere else that may get us killed?” I said a bit agitated at the debate’s turn against me.
“It’s our best chance…” Leon added. But sensing my firm standing on this subject, he soon decided to stop trying, and with a sad sigh, he said, “All right. How about if we give it another day and wait till tomorrow to officially decide. Until then, we all need to think about it.”
That ended the talk about moving. The rest of the day moved kind of slow and depressed. We didn’t bother with the trenches anymore. I think over the course of a few minutes, we had determined that Leon’s side of the argument was the best. We had all realized that he was right again, of course, and we wouldn’t be needing trenches here anymore.
Thinking only about moving from our sanctuary for the rest of day, I concluded grimly that Leon was going to win. We were going to attempt his stupid plan, and we would probably die.
That haunting concept stayed with me as I did meaningless house chores. And those same damned dreary thoughts came back to me with a vengeance. Would I die soon? Was this really the end game? Was I going to die in my bed at night or out on the streets or in a church? Would I starve slowly or get shot quickly or be eaten alive? In two days? One week? Would I see the 2026 New Year?
We didn’t know anything really. But I tried as hard as I could to push the future matters away and focus on right now. Which was really hard.
Dinner was relatively quiet. Once I finished silently, I went to bed straight after the meal a second time in two days. I climbed up the stairs alone and returned to the safety of my room. It was safe. I knew it was. We would be okay…Everything would be better…
I went to my mattress with resignation to the day. The sun was still up, but my mind felt like it was the middle of the night. Thoughts swam in circles as they had been doing throughout the day. I felt like a child, craving only safety and not wanting anything to change. I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep for days, but even though I was drained and tired, I was not sleepy at all.
I don’t want change. We’ve made it this long staying here. We can’t leave.
…Myra eventually walked in. I don’t know how long I had been just laying on my mattress alone.
She was carrying the scrabble back in from the kitchen. She set it down quietly and began to spell something out. I didn’t look at her until I heard the final letter clack into place and silence ensued.
I turned my head on the unwashed pillow to see LEON THINKS YOU SHOULD TAKE THE NIGHT OFF WITHOUT SHIFT. ARE YOU TIRED?
Well, what the hell. I disagree with the two of them and stay quiet all day, so Leon thinks I need more sleep. Apparently, I really am an infant.
“No, I’m good,” I said through slightly narrowed teeth. I turned my head back away from her. “What makes you think that I’m tired?”
Some more clacks started as soon as I finish saying it. I officially give up on sleeping (or faking sleeping) for now and sat up.
DO YOU REALLY THINK WE CAN STAY HERE?
“Could we…not talk about surviving,” I sighed as soon as I saw it. Somehow just thinking about that ‘stay or go business’ suddenly made me want to throw up. “Could we think about something else for once?”
She wasn’t done with me just yet, was she? She was persistently trying to get me to talk. After less than a minute, more showed up on the board. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO READ?
It took me a second what she was asking. “Reading? What book is my favorite?” I asked. I hadn’t really read for a few weeks. I’d glanced over some of Jay’s collection of classics in the living room shelf, but recently, I had tried to make myself more useful in any spare time by making mouse traps, rechecking food rations, etc.
Myra nodded without a smile nor a frown. I scratched my head. This was too…easy. Too simple. Already, I was getting weirded out by the whiffs of a forgotten normality.
“Well…since the war started and we moved in here…I have read some of the old books in the living room. Like The Alchemist or The Hobbit…” I replied, but she was quickly whipping out letters to follow up. It was like she was excited at something I’d just said.
YOU HAVE OLD BOOKS? THE LIVING ROOM?
“Uh, yeah. We traded away most of them to the neighbors for more important stuff. There’s a small shelf in the living room, farthest away from the ceiling cave in. Only four or five left,” I said. And then she was off, out of the room and down the hall, heading straight to the promise of books. Real, printed out, untainted, unburned novels. I was alone in the room.
I inferred from this that Myra liked books a lot. Obviously. She must’ve overlooked Jay’s meager collection on yesterday’s tour because of the various clutter around the living room. She didn’t even know it was there.
When she returned within the minute, she was busy flipping through Animal Farm. She had The Hobbit and Anne of Green Gables tucked under her arm. Well, what a find; finally, she had found something to preoccupy herself with. That sort of took over the rest of her evening as she dived into her newly found, rare novels, so I put my head back to my pillow and tried sleeping again.
Now that I thought about it, man did Animal Farm stink when I read it in 8th grade. If Myra hadn’t come to read that crap, nobody in this house would’ve. Ever.
Not too much more was said between us. And I actually did end up falling asleep at some point, I don’t remember when.
Leon did wake me up at the ordained time, whispering, “You up for a shift?”
“Yeah, why not,” I answered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I may have said that line with a touch of irritability. He walked out and my watch started. 12:30 to 4 and nothing happened worth mentioning. It was an especially darker sky tonight. I guessed because of smoke or maybe even natural clouds. 4 a.m. came around eventually, I woke Myra, and I went back to bed.
But my dark dormancy was rudely interrupted by another shaking of my shoulder. This time it was Myra whose face was several inches away from mine. It startled me a bit, and I quickly flipped over to face her.
“What? What is it?” I asked half asleep. What time was it? There was the slightest trace of sunlight coming in through the window, so I supposed around 5 a.m.
She only gestured urgently over to the window. I followed her up to the pane and looked out, then she went over to the scrabble board to spell something. I didn’t see much of anything. The light of the moon was hidden behind the night or smoke clouds, and the sun was still too shy. What was out there that Myra had seen?
I looked around to see what she was hastily putting together on the board and quickly and quietly crawled over to see the words in the gloom. I SEE MAN ON THE SIDEWALK.
I quickly flew back to the window, trying to spot the street. The moon was taking its sweet time to return and help me see… That’s when I saw what Myra was talking about. A man, just barely a discernable shadow on the dark pavement, just stood there. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it sure looked like he was turned towards our house, facing us, looking in through the slats back at pathetic little me. A dark man was looking right at us. What was he doing? Who was he?
Only a few seconds passed before the moon once again disappeared behind the clouds and shrouded the outside in darkness. Now we were blind again. We crouched by the window, waiting with bated breath and hammering hearts, trying in vain to see. My legs grew tired from kneeling, and my eyes ached from straining to make out anything…
And when the clouds relented and I could see the street again, the figure was gone. He had left the scene, but if anything, the fear factor had grown.
“Do you see him?” I asked hesitantly and quietly.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes appearing wider in the tentative morning light. Our breath left a thin film of fog on the cold glass as seconds and minutes passed.
I pulled away from the still image of the outside and went to the door. I poked my head into the hall to try to hear if the man was (god forbid) coming inside which would be nearly impossible to do without making any noise. More minutes passed. Nothing!
Fear first rose, then fell with time, as the threat seemed to pass. Maybe he hadn’t been looking at us. Maybe he was just a random idiot waiting to catch his own death out on the street. What if it really hadn’t been anything at all and we had only imagined a figure on the street?
“Okay,” I sighed. “It was probably nothing.”
Myra swiveled her head around and nodded in nervous agreement. She looked back out the window despite the calm.
“Keep watching. You get Leon and me as soon as anything else happens,” I said, trying to seem as if people appeared on the streets during the night all the time. Which it did quite often actually. But rarely did anyone ever try to break in with us around. “I’ll try to keep on sleeping if you’re all right.”
She gave one more hesitant nod without looking at me, and I went back to my bed, listening all the way, even though the chance of a robbery was low. It wasn’t anybody. We’re fine.
I slid back under the cover and stopped moving so the mattress made no noise. The silence seemed to scare me just as much as, if not more than, the sight of the man did, and shivers continued to scamper up and down my spine. I stayed up for almost the rest of the early morning and watched the irritated sun gradually rise through my half closed eyes. If I had been hoping for some more sleep, that hope was pretty well gone by now. After ages of sleeplessness shared with Myra, we decided to officially get up since the sun was almost full above the horizon’s rooftops. No more threat…
I got up and headed to Leon’s room, the new day’s light flooding the hallway I ambled through. When I knocked and opened it, I found the room to be empty. Upon further investigation downstairs, I realized he was calmly sitting at the kitchen table alone, examining that telltale black rifle. My heartbeat returned to normal after seeing Leon. For some childish reason, I had almost childishly panicked, as if he had disappeared from not only his room, but the house. Silly. Stupid. But I still felt relief seeing him.
He looked up when I entered the room, Myra following shortly behind. I stopped, Myra stopped, and Leon glanced back at his newly acquired gun again.
“G’ morning,” Leon said without much emotion.
“Okay,” I answered. “I agree.”
Leon’s face showed his clear surprise, so I continued, “I agree with you. I think it’s best to at least try to join a group. Instead of wait alone.”
There was more silence because neither one of them expected that agreement from me so easily. But I had made up my mind overnight (The mysterious man might’ve had a part in my decision). Leon’s idea was definitely a bold move, but the best choice. And we were all in on this.
Despite my quick sway in the decision, Leon nodded coolly and said, “We shouldn’t wait too long then. Late tonight would be the best time to give it a try. With the cover of night, we can get through the several miles of city that stretch between us and the church, mostly undetected.”
“And if we get kicked out of the church with our lives?” I offered.
Leon looked at me, “I doubt it. But if we do fail, then we get back home and we try to come up with something else. Still…doubt that.”
“So…what do we do now?”
“Until nightfall, we pack and we get ready. We take anything necessary that we have left. I’ll show you our exact route to the church which I’ve worked out,” Leon hammered off as he took a city map out of his pocket. “I’ll give you, Ryker, one more lesson on the glock and let you hold it when we leave tonight. I’ll take up the rifle and the medicine.”
“Okay then,” I said as Myra nodded seriously beside me.
For the rest of the day, we prepared for the big outing.
An hour later, Leon brought me back outside to check up on the stuff I’d been taught the day before, and worked a little more on aiming down the sights, reloading magazines, and so on. At the end of the lesson, he handed me the two magazines we owned and said to keep track of this weapon and its bullets at all times from now on. As if I would lose it. 17 bullets per magazine, but 2 already spent, so 32 total.
Leon showed us the route on the kitchen table. Down several streets and alleys (with plenty of marked out alternate roads if one or two of them didn’t work out). We’d have to be vigilant and watching. This took us to many of the places we hadn’t been to since before the war started. These places we had almost no clue about.
We packed up what we needed and what Leon told us to in various packs for travel. It would be an hour, maybe two, of walking since we didn’t have gas, bikes, or anything else to help us move faster. I had a flashlight with sparing batteries, the glock which I held, some extra, large clothing from the closet just in case, etc. all stuffed into a large duffel bag from the garage.
Passing through the living room, I picked up a small frameless picture of our family (Leon, me, our parents, Jay and his old wife, Aunt Josie), but after a second, put it back on the shelf where it had sat undisturbed. That stuff wasn’t really necessary. It deserved to remain where it belonged. In this house.
Myra only had to pack what clothing we had given her, the scrabble board, The Hobbit, and Anne of Green Gables. Even though this was no luxury road trip, we let her take the books. Leon gave her some cans and extra supplies to fill her bag up.
Leon had the rifle, the medicine, and some more food that filled his backpack.
The day passed slowly, and as the night drew closer and closer, I grew more and more anxious. I was definitely wired to stay indoors and in the safety of this house, and now that I had to prep for the exact opposite thing, my mind was going into flips. In fact, I found myself actually saying goodbye to this house and getting mentally prepared just as much as I was getting physically ready and packed.
Afternoon, then dinner, then evening passed. Weirdly enough, we were all still awake at 8:00. It was about that time that Leon told us to try and get some sleep before we left at around 2 am. We all went upstairs, but were unsuccessful at sleeping well.
I just kept watching the open, darkening sky out the window I would probably never see again. If we didn’t die on the street, we’d try to be accepted by another group. If we weren’t accepted, we would die, soon after or weeks after. The chances of returning to this mattress, this house again…I rarely let these darker thoughts get to me, but they certainly were again. I just couldn’t stop thoughts enough to sleep. Damn, if only I could flip a switch to turn off my mind. It would never shut up. But thoughts persisted and I was kept awake. I wondered if Myra was awake, but didn’t want to check.
When Leon entered the room at 2 am on the dot, I almost freaked out (I certainly didn’t feel ready to do this) but somehow found the faint strength not to. His voice called us, “Okay, it’s time. Myra. Ryker.”
In the darkness, we rose like zombies, gathering our packs and final things. We trooped back downstairs wordlessly, and Leon turned to us once we stood before the front door.
“Got everything? Got the glock, the scrabble, the cans, flashlight?” he checked with each of us. We nodded at each one on his verbal list. I could see the glint of his burning eye in the faint light from the foyer windows. “And remember. No lights, no running ahead, no talking unless I say... Let's move.”
We nodded again. His silhouette moved to the door, removing the chair and basket of nails that would normally have been our alarm system for raiders. For the twentieth time, I thought, this is it.
And then, he opened the door.
Out into the front yard, the forbidden place at night, the three figures trekked silently. The tallest figure led the charge with his somewhat sure and steady footsteps, followed by the quick but cautious steps of the second closest figure. Then the third and final form in the darkness followed behind the first two with solemn, muted footfalls.
They each exited the untamed lawn and through the front gate. Each of them turned and looked at their protective shelter, their familiar and faithful house, for a short time. But then that heavy moment, too, passed, and they walked out onto the open, feared street which was only lit by the timid stars and nervous moon above…
Keep it moving.“Him?”
“Yes.”
“The guy who ordered his men to shoot us before?”
“Yes.”
I took a second to think about this and noticed Myra looking clearly confused and concerned.
“Myra, Krauser was…he’s a… a Christian-ish gangster I guess you could say. Anyways, towards the beginning of the war, when the first bombs were dropping, Leon and I drove to this church, Northview, for supplies or help. We thought it would have friendly people handing out food pantry items and helping those injured,” I explained. I left out Jay’s part of course. “Instead, we met unfriendly men on the church roof who worked under Krauser and called themselves the ‘Underground Salvation.’ We must’ve pissed them off cause we stuck around too long, so our car was almost shot. They were the ones in control of that place…and still are.”
She answered me fast. I KNOW WHAT PLACE THAT IS. YOU USED TO KNOW KRAUSER?
Leon replied, “Well, a little bit before the war. Most thugs out there know him for what he is now. Don’t know how he went from being part of a men’s bible study group to shooting anyone inside of his holy territory, but then again, where were all these terrible people before they turned into assholes?”
“Which brings us back to the question, how do you know he won’t just shoot us on sight like the first time we approached him? And what was that thing you said about showing up with the stuff he needs?” I asked. Was Leon going crazy; I wondered.
“This time, we have something to trade for their help,” Leon began to have slightly more confidence as he spoke. “This time, they’re bound to want us in. So many people in the city are suffering from it, they’re bound to have the problem too.”
“Leon, just spit it out,” I said, exasperated again.
He proceeded to hold up something I’d forgotten about. The medicine for the plague.
“The medicine from the supermarket? You want to trade that for…”
“For food and shelter. And I know they’re not too pleasant with outsiders, but once we’ve struck a deal and joined them, they’ll probably treat us like any of their own.”
Both Myra and I immediately said (or spelled), “Once we’ve joined them?”
He lost some of his confidence here, “Yes. Join them. Keep in mind that it would be stupid to get supplies for a week or two and return here. If we were to…join a group, like Underground Salvation, we could have people to watch our back and help us out for a while.”
“Hold up, Leon,” I was slowly but surely losing my mind here with all these bold statements. “So all this time, our main goal has been to keep safe and keep out of the big gangs’ business. We lay low. We trust no one. And now you’re just saying we should outright join one of the radical city groups that tried to shoot us before?”
“Look, it’s not as terrible as you think it might be,” Leon tried to explain.
“Yeah, but it’s still pretty terrible.”
I could see Myra first spell one thing, then erase it and start something else, then erase that again as we spoke. We weren’t slow enough for her to keep up in the conversation.
Leon saw her struggling to say something too. “Okay, I’ll say something else, then you two can beat me up for it, okay? But the way I see it, there’s only one way to continue long term.”
“You’ve said that,” I reminded, but let him have his last words about it.
“As I’ve said, if we can buy into their gimmick and make a calm, clean deal, we could probably let ourselves in with them. And I believe that if any leader would be willing to talk any sense at all, Krauser would be the one, considering I knew him before the war and we probably have what he wants, which is medicine and three extra people on his side,” he said. He had been thinking about the possibilities for a while now, I could tell. He was really convinced this was for the best.
“Okay, but all I’m saying is that we don’t know if he’ll even want any of this stuff. What if all his men miraculously don’t have any plague? Or what if he doesn’t have room for us there? What happens if he doesn’t want to even talk at all and his men shoot us before we even get to speak? Heck, Krauser could be dead by now and someone much more…disagreeable is in charge,” I put out there.
Myra had her statement on the board by now. RYKERS RIGHT. WE COULD DIE VERY EASILY.
Leon would not take this for an answer though. “But think about if we stay. What will happen then? We run out. We’ll be forced to loot somewhere, which is much more dangerous than going somewhere to make a generous deal. This house could get robbed again when those raiders find out we’re still alive. We can’t stay,” Leon stated again. “…We can die at any time now. The odds are way against us if we do nothing but sit around and go nowhere.”
He was really trying to drive his point. And the truth was, it was starting to make sense. After a moment, I saw Myra nod at Leon grimly. She was agreeing? And did I?
Leon looked a little more relieved at Myra’s sign of agreement. He spoke again, “Good, good. We can only try. If they accept, then we’ve managed to get a little safer. Ryker, please?”
“What? You want me to be willing to leave our only home we’ve stayed safe in for months and go somewhere else that may get us killed?” I said a bit agitated at the debate’s turn against me.
“It’s our best chance…” Leon added. But sensing my firm standing on this subject, he soon decided to stop trying, and with a sad sigh, he said, “All right. How about if we give it another day and wait till tomorrow to officially decide. Until then, we all need to think about it.”
That ended the talk about moving. The rest of the day moved kind of slow and depressed. We didn’t bother with the trenches anymore. I think over the course of a few minutes, we had determined that Leon’s side of the argument was the best. We had all realized that he was right again, of course, and we wouldn’t be needing trenches here anymore.
Thinking only about moving from our sanctuary for the rest of day, I concluded grimly that Leon was going to win. We were going to attempt his stupid plan, and we would probably die.
That haunting concept stayed with me as I did meaningless house chores. And those same damned dreary thoughts came back to me with a vengeance. Would I die soon? Was this really the end game? Was I going to die in my bed at night or out on the streets or in a church? Would I starve slowly or get shot quickly or be eaten alive? In two days? One week? Would I see the 2026 New Year?
We didn’t know anything really. But I tried as hard as I could to push the future matters away and focus on right now. Which was really hard.
Dinner was relatively quiet. Once I finished silently, I went to bed straight after the meal a second time in two days. I climbed up the stairs alone and returned to the safety of my room. It was safe. I knew it was. We would be okay…Everything would be better…
I went to my mattress with resignation to the day. The sun was still up, but my mind felt like it was the middle of the night. Thoughts swam in circles as they had been doing throughout the day. I felt like a child, craving only safety and not wanting anything to change. I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep for days, but even though I was drained and tired, I was not sleepy at all.
I don’t want change. We’ve made it this long staying here. We can’t leave.
…Myra eventually walked in. I don’t know how long I had been just laying on my mattress alone.
She was carrying the scrabble back in from the kitchen. She set it down quietly and began to spell something out. I didn’t look at her until I heard the final letter clack into place and silence ensued.
I turned my head on the unwashed pillow to see LEON THINKS YOU SHOULD TAKE THE NIGHT OFF WITHOUT SHIFT. ARE YOU TIRED?
Well, what the hell. I disagree with the two of them and stay quiet all day, so Leon thinks I need more sleep. Apparently, I really am an infant.
“No, I’m good,” I said through slightly narrowed teeth. I turned my head back away from her. “What makes you think that I’m tired?”
Some more clacks started as soon as I finish saying it. I officially give up on sleeping (or faking sleeping) for now and sat up.
DO YOU REALLY THINK WE CAN STAY HERE?
“Could we…not talk about surviving,” I sighed as soon as I saw it. Somehow just thinking about that ‘stay or go business’ suddenly made me want to throw up. “Could we think about something else for once?”
She wasn’t done with me just yet, was she? She was persistently trying to get me to talk. After less than a minute, more showed up on the board. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO READ?
It took me a second what she was asking. “Reading? What book is my favorite?” I asked. I hadn’t really read for a few weeks. I’d glanced over some of Jay’s collection of classics in the living room shelf, but recently, I had tried to make myself more useful in any spare time by making mouse traps, rechecking food rations, etc.
Myra nodded without a smile nor a frown. I scratched my head. This was too…easy. Too simple. Already, I was getting weirded out by the whiffs of a forgotten normality.
“Well…since the war started and we moved in here…I have read some of the old books in the living room. Like The Alchemist or The Hobbit…” I replied, but she was quickly whipping out letters to follow up. It was like she was excited at something I’d just said.
YOU HAVE OLD BOOKS? THE LIVING ROOM?
“Uh, yeah. We traded away most of them to the neighbors for more important stuff. There’s a small shelf in the living room, farthest away from the ceiling cave in. Only four or five left,” I said. And then she was off, out of the room and down the hall, heading straight to the promise of books. Real, printed out, untainted, unburned novels. I was alone in the room.
I inferred from this that Myra liked books a lot. Obviously. She must’ve overlooked Jay’s meager collection on yesterday’s tour because of the various clutter around the living room. She didn’t even know it was there.
When she returned within the minute, she was busy flipping through Animal Farm. She had The Hobbit and Anne of Green Gables tucked under her arm. Well, what a find; finally, she had found something to preoccupy herself with. That sort of took over the rest of her evening as she dived into her newly found, rare novels, so I put my head back to my pillow and tried sleeping again.
Now that I thought about it, man did Animal Farm stink when I read it in 8th grade. If Myra hadn’t come to read that crap, nobody in this house would’ve. Ever.
Not too much more was said between us. And I actually did end up falling asleep at some point, I don’t remember when.
Leon did wake me up at the ordained time, whispering, “You up for a shift?”
“Yeah, why not,” I answered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I may have said that line with a touch of irritability. He walked out and my watch started. 12:30 to 4 and nothing happened worth mentioning. It was an especially darker sky tonight. I guessed because of smoke or maybe even natural clouds. 4 a.m. came around eventually, I woke Myra, and I went back to bed.
But my dark dormancy was rudely interrupted by another shaking of my shoulder. This time it was Myra whose face was several inches away from mine. It startled me a bit, and I quickly flipped over to face her.
“What? What is it?” I asked half asleep. What time was it? There was the slightest trace of sunlight coming in through the window, so I supposed around 5 a.m.
She only gestured urgently over to the window. I followed her up to the pane and looked out, then she went over to the scrabble board to spell something. I didn’t see much of anything. The light of the moon was hidden behind the night or smoke clouds, and the sun was still too shy. What was out there that Myra had seen?
I looked around to see what she was hastily putting together on the board and quickly and quietly crawled over to see the words in the gloom. I SEE MAN ON THE SIDEWALK.
I quickly flew back to the window, trying to spot the street. The moon was taking its sweet time to return and help me see… That’s when I saw what Myra was talking about. A man, just barely a discernable shadow on the dark pavement, just stood there. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it sure looked like he was turned towards our house, facing us, looking in through the slats back at pathetic little me. A dark man was looking right at us. What was he doing? Who was he?
Only a few seconds passed before the moon once again disappeared behind the clouds and shrouded the outside in darkness. Now we were blind again. We crouched by the window, waiting with bated breath and hammering hearts, trying in vain to see. My legs grew tired from kneeling, and my eyes ached from straining to make out anything…
And when the clouds relented and I could see the street again, the figure was gone. He had left the scene, but if anything, the fear factor had grown.
“Do you see him?” I asked hesitantly and quietly.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes appearing wider in the tentative morning light. Our breath left a thin film of fog on the cold glass as seconds and minutes passed.
I pulled away from the still image of the outside and went to the door. I poked my head into the hall to try to hear if the man was (god forbid) coming inside which would be nearly impossible to do without making any noise. More minutes passed. Nothing!
Fear first rose, then fell with time, as the threat seemed to pass. Maybe he hadn’t been looking at us. Maybe he was just a random idiot waiting to catch his own death out on the street. What if it really hadn’t been anything at all and we had only imagined a figure on the street?
“Okay,” I sighed. “It was probably nothing.”
Myra swiveled her head around and nodded in nervous agreement. She looked back out the window despite the calm.
“Keep watching. You get Leon and me as soon as anything else happens,” I said, trying to seem as if people appeared on the streets during the night all the time. Which it did quite often actually. But rarely did anyone ever try to break in with us around. “I’ll try to keep on sleeping if you’re all right.”
She gave one more hesitant nod without looking at me, and I went back to my bed, listening all the way, even though the chance of a robbery was low. It wasn’t anybody. We’re fine.
I slid back under the cover and stopped moving so the mattress made no noise. The silence seemed to scare me just as much as, if not more than, the sight of the man did, and shivers continued to scamper up and down my spine. I stayed up for almost the rest of the early morning and watched the irritated sun gradually rise through my half closed eyes. If I had been hoping for some more sleep, that hope was pretty well gone by now. After ages of sleeplessness shared with Myra, we decided to officially get up since the sun was almost full above the horizon’s rooftops. No more threat…
I got up and headed to Leon’s room, the new day’s light flooding the hallway I ambled through. When I knocked and opened it, I found the room to be empty. Upon further investigation downstairs, I realized he was calmly sitting at the kitchen table alone, examining that telltale black rifle. My heartbeat returned to normal after seeing Leon. For some childish reason, I had almost childishly panicked, as if he had disappeared from not only his room, but the house. Silly. Stupid. But I still felt relief seeing him.
He looked up when I entered the room, Myra following shortly behind. I stopped, Myra stopped, and Leon glanced back at his newly acquired gun again.
“G’ morning,” Leon said without much emotion.
“Okay,” I answered. “I agree.”
Leon’s face showed his clear surprise, so I continued, “I agree with you. I think it’s best to at least try to join a group. Instead of wait alone.”
There was more silence because neither one of them expected that agreement from me so easily. But I had made up my mind overnight (The mysterious man might’ve had a part in my decision). Leon’s idea was definitely a bold move, but the best choice. And we were all in on this.
Despite my quick sway in the decision, Leon nodded coolly and said, “We shouldn’t wait too long then. Late tonight would be the best time to give it a try. With the cover of night, we can get through the several miles of city that stretch between us and the church, mostly undetected.”
“And if we get kicked out of the church with our lives?” I offered.
Leon looked at me, “I doubt it. But if we do fail, then we get back home and we try to come up with something else. Still…doubt that.”
“So…what do we do now?”
“Until nightfall, we pack and we get ready. We take anything necessary that we have left. I’ll show you our exact route to the church which I’ve worked out,” Leon hammered off as he took a city map out of his pocket. “I’ll give you, Ryker, one more lesson on the glock and let you hold it when we leave tonight. I’ll take up the rifle and the medicine.”
“Okay then,” I said as Myra nodded seriously beside me.
For the rest of the day, we prepared for the big outing.
An hour later, Leon brought me back outside to check up on the stuff I’d been taught the day before, and worked a little more on aiming down the sights, reloading magazines, and so on. At the end of the lesson, he handed me the two magazines we owned and said to keep track of this weapon and its bullets at all times from now on. As if I would lose it. 17 bullets per magazine, but 2 already spent, so 32 total.
Leon showed us the route on the kitchen table. Down several streets and alleys (with plenty of marked out alternate roads if one or two of them didn’t work out). We’d have to be vigilant and watching. This took us to many of the places we hadn’t been to since before the war started. These places we had almost no clue about.
We packed up what we needed and what Leon told us to in various packs for travel. It would be an hour, maybe two, of walking since we didn’t have gas, bikes, or anything else to help us move faster. I had a flashlight with sparing batteries, the glock which I held, some extra, large clothing from the closet just in case, etc. all stuffed into a large duffel bag from the garage.
Passing through the living room, I picked up a small frameless picture of our family (Leon, me, our parents, Jay and his old wife, Aunt Josie), but after a second, put it back on the shelf where it had sat undisturbed. That stuff wasn’t really necessary. It deserved to remain where it belonged. In this house.
Myra only had to pack what clothing we had given her, the scrabble board, The Hobbit, and Anne of Green Gables. Even though this was no luxury road trip, we let her take the books. Leon gave her some cans and extra supplies to fill her bag up.
Leon had the rifle, the medicine, and some more food that filled his backpack.
The day passed slowly, and as the night drew closer and closer, I grew more and more anxious. I was definitely wired to stay indoors and in the safety of this house, and now that I had to prep for the exact opposite thing, my mind was going into flips. In fact, I found myself actually saying goodbye to this house and getting mentally prepared just as much as I was getting physically ready and packed.
Afternoon, then dinner, then evening passed. Weirdly enough, we were all still awake at 8:00. It was about that time that Leon told us to try and get some sleep before we left at around 2 am. We all went upstairs, but were unsuccessful at sleeping well.
I just kept watching the open, darkening sky out the window I would probably never see again. If we didn’t die on the street, we’d try to be accepted by another group. If we weren’t accepted, we would die, soon after or weeks after. The chances of returning to this mattress, this house again…I rarely let these darker thoughts get to me, but they certainly were again. I just couldn’t stop thoughts enough to sleep. Damn, if only I could flip a switch to turn off my mind. It would never shut up. But thoughts persisted and I was kept awake. I wondered if Myra was awake, but didn’t want to check.
When Leon entered the room at 2 am on the dot, I almost freaked out (I certainly didn’t feel ready to do this) but somehow found the faint strength not to. His voice called us, “Okay, it’s time. Myra. Ryker.”
In the darkness, we rose like zombies, gathering our packs and final things. We trooped back downstairs wordlessly, and Leon turned to us once we stood before the front door.
“Got everything? Got the glock, the scrabble, the cans, flashlight?” he checked with each of us. We nodded at each one on his verbal list. I could see the glint of his burning eye in the faint light from the foyer windows. “And remember. No lights, no running ahead, no talking unless I say... Let's move.”
We nodded again. His silhouette moved to the door, removing the chair and basket of nails that would normally have been our alarm system for raiders. For the twentieth time, I thought, this is it.
And then, he opened the door.
Out into the front yard, the forbidden place at night, the three figures trekked silently. The tallest figure led the charge with his somewhat sure and steady footsteps, followed by the quick but cautious steps of the second closest figure. Then the third and final form in the darkness followed behind the first two with solemn, muted footfalls.
They each exited the untamed lawn and through the front gate. Each of them turned and looked at their protective shelter, their familiar and faithful house, for a short time. But then that heavy moment, too, passed, and they walked out onto the open, feared street which was only lit by the timid stars and nervous moon above…
