Ping - From the Apocalypse by Susan Lowry

you realize it was just your imagination darling. That’s what happens when people are put under such extreme stress. It’s nothing to be worried about. Over time you will see.”
     
    But Jack was wrong. She spoke to both Ping and the boy that very night. And she made up her mind right then and there — never to doubt her instincts again.
    She would have thought that after surviving the apocalypse, nothing would feel difficult or complicated again. But it appeared that her life couldn’t have become more complex. She really did want to start a family with Jack, finally admitting to herself that she was in love — though she still missed Jon so much the pain was often unbearable and she felt dreadfully guilty about being with Jack.
    But all of their plans had taken place in a world that she would never see again. It was terribly soon to begin a new relationship, she knew that; yet the cards laid out for her now were an entirely different kind of deck. What was normal back then was no longer relevant. After everything she had gone through Kate needed intimacy and love. Jon would understand that. She realized a part of her had died, and what was left had been slowly fading away, and that Jack’s arrival had probably saved her.
    Her life was not going to be the way she had pictured it, not within any stretch of her imagination, but she believed that having a child was the right thing to do — for humanity and for her own survival. It would help her forget the horrible past and move forward into a life that she hoped would become as close to normal as possible.
    T hey were going to try to save mankind and restore some of civilization; eventually they would find other survivors and their children would not be alone. Both Ping and the boy agreed.
    Ping could take months to show up and it might be even longer before they had the ability to locate the boy, who had made it clear that developing the skills of telepathy — which had been natural for him even before he could speak — was a time-consuming process for people like Kate.
    W aiting for Ping was a good strategy. Her arrival would convince Jack that she was not having hallucinations after all. Then he would have to agree to join their search. In the meantime, Kate wanted to conceive a child; that kind of optimistic planning helped make the pain of the past a little easier.
    She wished it we re simpler than that, but then her situation had rarely been easy — from the day she turned three years old until years afterwards, Kate’s life had been extraordinarily difficult.
    The first three years shared with Sarah, her twin sister, were joyful and innocent, the two of them always together, side by side. But then her life changed, when on the morning of their birthday they’d been instructed to remain inside the car for a few minutes while their mother popped into a store.
    Sarah soon became squirmy. She had always been the one to get bored first. And when she decided to get out of the car, Kate had screamed at her not to go. But Sarah was stubborn and instead of refusing to allow her to leave, all Kate did was follow her, hoping she could keep her from getting into trouble. Even back then she’d ignored her instincts.
    They had walked through a maze of parked vehicles because Sarah wanted to find the bubble-gum machine. They’d remembered that it was outside the pharmacy the last time they had been there.
    “But we don’t have any money,” Kate had said.
    Sarah had picked up a piece of cardboard from the sidewalk and tried stuffing it in the slot as if it was a coin.
    “I'll do it Sarah . That's too big.” Kate had removed the pretend money and was trying to tear it smaller and rounder like a loonie, which took all of her concentration.
    She was struggling to force it in, hoping that just a bit further and the gum would come rolling out of the shoot.
    “Sarah , this isn’t working,” she was saying. “Sarah!” But when she finally looked around her sister was