that had you so, well, tense?”
“Sorry about that. My paranoia sometimes gets the best of me,” I replied sincerely. I worried about that at times, now mainly late at night after Amy fell asleep. If the world ever somehow got back to normal, what would I do? Finish high school and go off to college? Study engineering like I planned?
I couldn’t sleep through the night without nightmares and I woke up every few hours to check the perimeter. I literally slept with a gun in my hand, and if the lights came back on tomorrow, what would I do then? My paranoid mind was fully engaged, and I worried about ever being able to normal. Living like an animal can do that to you.
“What happened, Luke?” Amy voice, soft and caring, suddenly broke though my dark thoughts.
“Alright, I guess it is story time. But everybody needs to keep their watch up, since we will be getting close to Berryville pretty soon. Eyes out. That includes you, Sophia.”
From the soft gurgle I heard, the baby was awake now, too. Hopefully she would not understand the words coming next. I sighed, but figured they needed to hear this story.
“About two weeks after I left Chicago, I was out of food again and nearly out of water as well. I’d been scavenging what I could find along the way but pickings were real slim because everybody else was doing the same thing.
“I think it was around Quincy, Illinois but I’m not really sure. The little road I was on had some foot traffic and I was real wary of some of the folks I was traveling with. But we were all headed the same way, so I tried to be polite and just kept my distance. Those with families were the most dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Why was that?” Amy asked cautiously, as if unwilling to offend our newly minted friends.
“They had the most left to lose, I guess. Anyway, we are all just about out of water when someone noticed the sign for a rest stop ahead. There were five or six of us walking close together at that point, not together but, you know, we just happened to be near each other was all. I’d learned earlier that some of the older rest stops still had hand pumps, so we could at least fill up our water bottles if this one did.”
“Of course, the place was already occupied by what looked like maybe thirty squatters, mostly men. The two women who were walking with us immediately took note of this and veered off back to the road. As we got closer, one of the squatters, an older man in an absolutely filthy black suit coat, said they were out of food but the water in the restrooms still worked and we were welcome to fill up our bottles.”
I stopped talking for a moment, my head on a swivel as I tracked the terrain around our truck. We were passing through a wide field, rows of corn swaying in the late afternoon breeze. No people visible, but a few cars dead on the shoulder of the road. That was a sign in some areas I had traveled that these vehicles had already been scavenged.
The others took note of my heightened sense of concern and conducted their own visual sweeps of the surrounding area. While that was being done I looked at the map in my lap and tried to calculate time and distance in my head.
“So Ruth, your parents have their farm between Siloam Spring and Gentry, right?” I asked, looking up from the map to look out the window once again.
“Yes, other side of Gentry, though. Between Gentry and Davenport, but nobody knows where those little towns are located so I just say ‘outside Siloam Springs’ when talking about the farm.”
I nodded to myself. We did the same thing back home.
“Well, I don’t think we are going to make it before nightfall after all. Too many distractions slowed us down.”
“Distractions? You figure people trying to kill you are distractions now?” Ruth replied, giving me a look like I had a second head growing out of my neck.
“So what happened next?”
“Sorry about that. My paranoia sometimes gets the best of me,” I replied sincerely. I worried about that at times, now mainly late at night after Amy fell asleep. If the world ever somehow got back to normal, what would I do? Finish high school and go off to college? Study engineering like I planned?
I couldn’t sleep through the night without nightmares and I woke up every few hours to check the perimeter. I literally slept with a gun in my hand, and if the lights came back on tomorrow, what would I do then? My paranoid mind was fully engaged, and I worried about ever being able to normal. Living like an animal can do that to you.
“What happened, Luke?” Amy voice, soft and caring, suddenly broke though my dark thoughts.
“Alright, I guess it is story time. But everybody needs to keep their watch up, since we will be getting close to Berryville pretty soon. Eyes out. That includes you, Sophia.”
From the soft gurgle I heard, the baby was awake now, too. Hopefully she would not understand the words coming next. I sighed, but figured they needed to hear this story.
“About two weeks after I left Chicago, I was out of food again and nearly out of water as well. I’d been scavenging what I could find along the way but pickings were real slim because everybody else was doing the same thing.
“I think it was around Quincy, Illinois but I’m not really sure. The little road I was on had some foot traffic and I was real wary of some of the folks I was traveling with. But we were all headed the same way, so I tried to be polite and just kept my distance. Those with families were the most dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Why was that?” Amy asked cautiously, as if unwilling to offend our newly minted friends.
“They had the most left to lose, I guess. Anyway, we are all just about out of water when someone noticed the sign for a rest stop ahead. There were five or six of us walking close together at that point, not together but, you know, we just happened to be near each other was all. I’d learned earlier that some of the older rest stops still had hand pumps, so we could at least fill up our water bottles if this one did.”
“Of course, the place was already occupied by what looked like maybe thirty squatters, mostly men. The two women who were walking with us immediately took note of this and veered off back to the road. As we got closer, one of the squatters, an older man in an absolutely filthy black suit coat, said they were out of food but the water in the restrooms still worked and we were welcome to fill up our bottles.”
I stopped talking for a moment, my head on a swivel as I tracked the terrain around our truck. We were passing through a wide field, rows of corn swaying in the late afternoon breeze. No people visible, but a few cars dead on the shoulder of the road. That was a sign in some areas I had traveled that these vehicles had already been scavenged.
The others took note of my heightened sense of concern and conducted their own visual sweeps of the surrounding area. While that was being done I looked at the map in my lap and tried to calculate time and distance in my head.
“So Ruth, your parents have their farm between Siloam Spring and Gentry, right?” I asked, looking up from the map to look out the window once again.
“Yes, other side of Gentry, though. Between Gentry and Davenport, but nobody knows where those little towns are located so I just say ‘outside Siloam Springs’ when talking about the farm.”
I nodded to myself. We did the same thing back home.
“Well, I don’t think we are going to make it before nightfall after all. Too many distractions slowed us down.”
“Distractions? You figure people trying to kill you are distractions now?” Ruth replied, giving me a look like I had a second head growing out of my neck.
“So what happened next?”
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