yet at least, so they chose to take the back roads to Raj’s place.
The RV had come with a siphoning hose, so they stopped by an abandoned vehicle and took its fuel. Siphoning wasn’t an elegant thing to do, but the abandoned vehicle was able to fill up most of the canister.
“One for one,” said Ash to Heather. “Gas’ll always be a concern, but it won’t be our biggest one.”
They went to Raj’s place and filled the RV with water and food, most of it junk food, but Heather had brought enough vitamins to last them a year. Ash found a leftover metal pipe with one end covered in cellophane. It was completely opaque in the night, so dark that Ash wondered if it could see anything, even in the flare. Still, he took it and then searched for places where he might be able to put it in the RV. He found places on the front and on the side, two areas where he could wrap curtains around the pipe, perhaps even allow it to stick outwards so they could move it like a periscope.
“Time to go,” said Heather.
“Yeah,” said Ash, putting the pipe away. “You’re right.”
They started the RV and drove off into the darkness, and the red glow of the buried sun had given way to a sharp, metallic blue that covered the night sky so completely that it looked like it would protect them from the flare forever.
PART II
THE PATH TO SALVATION
COLM
Zeke walked through the town warily. He had seen a lot of people here, and they didn’t seem friendly. There was a boarded-up gymnasium, and although the windows in the rafters were large and couldn’t be covered, the gym was connected to a building with several rooms once used for administration, and most of them were windowless.
Zeke did some exploring and heard voices coming from the windowless rooms, but he didn’t trust their tone enough to approach. The voices were from a pack of teenage boys, and Zeke knew that young males could be trouble. Race, background and culture didn’t matter; groups of young men could be dangerous, because their primary imperative was to take over .
Zeke had a good sense of social dynamics and knew that in normal times, young men tended to plan out grand strategies of acquiring girls, getting their own businesses and outcompeting other groups of young men who were trying to do the exact same thing. Boys like these formed strong attachments with each other, but they often had the direction and imperative to destroy something else. Teenage males were the creators, the architects, the business-planners, the band-formers, the joke-tellers, the tight-knit group who always had something to offer the world. But boys, and eventually men, always put something into the world at the expense of something or someone else. Zeke listened to the voices coming from the gymnasium and knew that if these boys had survived the flare, it might have been at the expense of someone else on the outside. He knew that if he approached them they would only accept him if he had something to offer that far exceeded the cost of his presence among them. If he knew where food was, or possibly weapons, they might trust him, but only as much as it would be of use to them.
Zeke had no such thing to offer these young men, so he stayed in the shadows and walked by the gymnasium unnoticed.
Zeke trusted individual men though, and he trusted groups of women. Individual men tended to seek companionship, even if was with someone who didn’t have anything to offer them. And groups of women … they behaved differently than groups of men.
Zeke had seen how women treated each other, and had marveled at it. He knew that the dynamics between them changed when they competed for men’s affections, but when you removed that factor, what remained was a high level of cooperation. Zeke wasn’t so naïve to consider women better or nicer than groups of men of course, but he was amazed by their support for each other. They would instinctively form packs for protection, but
The RV had come with a siphoning hose, so they stopped by an abandoned vehicle and took its fuel. Siphoning wasn’t an elegant thing to do, but the abandoned vehicle was able to fill up most of the canister.
“One for one,” said Ash to Heather. “Gas’ll always be a concern, but it won’t be our biggest one.”
They went to Raj’s place and filled the RV with water and food, most of it junk food, but Heather had brought enough vitamins to last them a year. Ash found a leftover metal pipe with one end covered in cellophane. It was completely opaque in the night, so dark that Ash wondered if it could see anything, even in the flare. Still, he took it and then searched for places where he might be able to put it in the RV. He found places on the front and on the side, two areas where he could wrap curtains around the pipe, perhaps even allow it to stick outwards so they could move it like a periscope.
“Time to go,” said Heather.
“Yeah,” said Ash, putting the pipe away. “You’re right.”
They started the RV and drove off into the darkness, and the red glow of the buried sun had given way to a sharp, metallic blue that covered the night sky so completely that it looked like it would protect them from the flare forever.
PART II
THE PATH TO SALVATION
COLM
Zeke walked through the town warily. He had seen a lot of people here, and they didn’t seem friendly. There was a boarded-up gymnasium, and although the windows in the rafters were large and couldn’t be covered, the gym was connected to a building with several rooms once used for administration, and most of them were windowless.
Zeke did some exploring and heard voices coming from the windowless rooms, but he didn’t trust their tone enough to approach. The voices were from a pack of teenage boys, and Zeke knew that young males could be trouble. Race, background and culture didn’t matter; groups of young men could be dangerous, because their primary imperative was to take over .
Zeke had a good sense of social dynamics and knew that in normal times, young men tended to plan out grand strategies of acquiring girls, getting their own businesses and outcompeting other groups of young men who were trying to do the exact same thing. Boys like these formed strong attachments with each other, but they often had the direction and imperative to destroy something else. Teenage males were the creators, the architects, the business-planners, the band-formers, the joke-tellers, the tight-knit group who always had something to offer the world. But boys, and eventually men, always put something into the world at the expense of something or someone else. Zeke listened to the voices coming from the gymnasium and knew that if these boys had survived the flare, it might have been at the expense of someone else on the outside. He knew that if he approached them they would only accept him if he had something to offer that far exceeded the cost of his presence among them. If he knew where food was, or possibly weapons, they might trust him, but only as much as it would be of use to them.
Zeke had no such thing to offer these young men, so he stayed in the shadows and walked by the gymnasium unnoticed.
Zeke trusted individual men though, and he trusted groups of women. Individual men tended to seek companionship, even if was with someone who didn’t have anything to offer them. And groups of women … they behaved differently than groups of men.
Zeke had seen how women treated each other, and had marveled at it. He knew that the dynamics between them changed when they competed for men’s affections, but when you removed that factor, what remained was a high level of cooperation. Zeke wasn’t so naïve to consider women better or nicer than groups of men of course, but he was amazed by their support for each other. They would instinctively form packs for protection, but
Similar Books
