CHAPTER 4

A flash of movement at the periphery, a splash of color dashing out of view, caught Johnny’s attention. He turned and thought he saw a sliver of red disappear around the corner. He rode his bike into the side street between the two corner houses and saw the little girl. She ran down the street like a bat out of hell, her blonde pigtails bobbing in the breeze.

She wore a red parka with the hood down, dark blue jeans and white tennis shoes. Her little arms were pumping like mad as she sped down the street in her attempt to get away, but she was no match for his wheels. He dropped his bike and reached out to grab her. It was at that point he heard the ominous, loud, and unmistakable rack of a shotgun.

“Let her go, get away from my daughter now, or you’re a dead man. I will not tell you again.” The woman pointing the shotgun at him radiated strength and determination.

Johnny could hear the other two bikes braking to a fast stop behind him. The last thing he wanted was for his father or his friend to die at the hands a terrified female. He dropped his hold on the child’s hood and placed his hands above him where the woman could see them. The child ran to join another identical one standing behind the woman. They knew not to get between their mother and a perceived threat.

“Ma’am, I meant no harm. We’re scouting for survivors. Your girl is the first person we’ve seen in a year. We only wanted to talk to her and offer our help.”

“We do not need any help from strangers. I can protect us well enough and will do so in the blink of an eye. I promise you; one step forward will be seen as a threat. Get on your bikes, turn around, and leave.”

“We’re not bad people, Ma’am. One of the men behind me is my father; his name is Daniel Montero. The other is Bill Salvo, a medical doctor. We’re looking for other survivors like us.”

“You may be what you say. Or, you may be predators looking to rape and murder. I have my babies to protect, so get your asses on your bikes and leave. I neither want nor need your help.”

“Johnny, let’s leave the lady alone,” his father called out. “Ma’am,” Daniel addressed the woman, “we camped at the commercial park by the highway exit. We’ll be there until tomorrow morning when we will take up our trek south again. If you change your mind, come and talk to us. It’s true, you’d be taking a chance. Sometimes, chances have to be taken.” The men turned their bikes around and rode away.

Sarah watched the three men ride away but didn’t put her shotgun down. She stood, rooted to the spot, for a long time, making sure the strangers didn’t lurk behind and follow her home. She was scared, her heart racing. Sweat ran down her sides under her clothes, although temperatures were near freezing. Her fear, however, was tempered with excitement.

These were the first survivors she’d seen in two years. At first, months after her town became silent, she would occasionally hear the drifting sound of a car passing by on the highway, always going south. It seemed that any survivors left, headed away from the harsh winters of the area. The last car she heard was months ago, before the first snowfall. It was racing to beat the storms before the highways became clogged with snow no one would clear.

Convinced the strangers were gone, Sarah herded her two little girls back to the safety of home, a block away. Once inside their house, she checked all doors and windows to make sure they were secured. She set the alarm which would warn her if anyone attempted to break in.

The house got its power off grid. Years earlier, her husband opted to invest in a separate solar system for the house instead of a pool. She fought him bitterly about it. Now she thanked God every day that he got his way. Not that she needed power for the television or the computer. There was no internet and no cable programming.

But the alarm would let her know if an intruder breached a window, and the stove and heaters still worked. Using the power judiciously and doing the maintenance she knew how to do, she survived two winters. She expected the system would break down soon, and she would not know how to fix it, but she didn’t want to dwell on that thought.

She fixed a lunch of canned veggies mixed with diced, vacuum-packed ham served over mashed potatoes. She used dry potato flakes and powdered milk. Their limited diets lacked fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, fresh milk, or fresh meats.

She salvaged all kinds of canned, dry, and preserved supplies from every place she could find. Decades earlier, plastic packaging had been eliminated due to environmental and health concerns. Most comestibles came in eco-friendly, recyclable materials. The problem was the packaging was not as durable and was more vulnerable to the damp and pests.

Her closets, garage, and spare bedroom were full of supplies. Water was a problem. Bottled water ran out fast, and you could not waste it washing clothes or bathing. She resorted to collecting snow to melt in the winter and rainwater in the summer.

The girls ate at the table, but she took her plate to stand at the window. The wind was picking up, its sad keening feeding her dark thoughts. How long could they live like this? Already, things were breaking down. Soon, the house would start to fall apart around her.

There were shingles missing which the snowstorms had ripped off. There was no running water. Supplies would eventually begin to run out. If the solar system failed, she had no idea how to repair it. Without electric power, how would they survive winters? She wasn’t a strong, outdoors man to go out cutting wood and hunting. What if something happened to her? Who would take care of the girls?

The surrounding area was full of hungry, wild dogs running around in packs; she’d shot a couple already. Soon, the girls would have to stay inside. Would they end up growing up alone, to get old and die in an empty landscape?

She could picture her little girls as old women, clinging in fear to each other. At the end, one left to die alone with no one to bury her. Without socialization, would they even remain mentally whole? Sarah could not bear her thoughts.

That night, she didn’t sleep much. The images and fears running around in her mind kept her tossing and turning. Her daughters were her life. That they should live, survive, and thrive was her obsession. How could they be happy in an empty world, without a community, partners, or children?

She felt God had spared them for a reason. They’d survived to live and multiply and repopulate the planet, like Noah in the Bible. As a Christian, she believed that. If she trusted her faith, she must also trust that God had sent those men for a reason. What the stranger said, was right. Sometimes, chances must be taken.

At sunrise, Sarah got up and washed herself. She did her hair into one thick braid that fell halfway down her back. She donned a warm, oversized, gray sweatshirt and tucked black corduroy pants inside knee-high boots. Sarah grabbed her shotgun.

The girls would sleep another three hours at least. She locked the door behind her after setting the alarm out of habit. Taking her bike from the porch, she rode the distance of a little over a mile to the men’s camp.

******

Daniel Montero remained seated on the plastic patio chair he’d scavenged. He contemplated the woman in front of him. He knew a gentleman should stand in the presence of a lady, but he saw that she was ready to bolt if he made a move. He had hoped and prayed she would come.

She was cautious; she had reservations and no reason to trust him. She was also strong, smart, and knew her options were running out. Her shotgun was at her side, so Daniel made sure to keep his place and give her no cause to use it.

“I’m glad you changed your mind and are willing to talk to us. We have no hidden agenda. Too many people are gone for us to go around harming the rare person we find. To the contrary, if we’re to survive as a people, each one of us is precious, especially the women and children.”

“So you say and so it should be,” the woman answered.

“My name is Daniel Montero, in case you didn’t catch it last time we met. The young man behind me is my son, Johnny, the oldest of my four children, and the only one that survived. The gentleman seating next to me is Bill Salvo, a medical doctor. He was the last person left alive at the Detroit Medical Center. Bill spent a year ghosting its wards until we found him during one of our scavenging trips,” he stopped and waited.

“I’m Sarah Richards. The girls you saw yesterday are my twin daughters, Lizzie and Ellie. My husband and their little brother died early on.”

“Did anyone else in your neighborhood or town survive?” asked Doctor Salvo.

“No, no one as far as I know. I have been in every house in my neighborhood, in every cubbyhole, nook, and cranny. It was a small, residential community. I have traveled and searched nearby towns many times over. No one remains. At first, I could hear the rare car traveling down I-75, always going south. Those came from other places north of us, and none has passed in months. I have an independent power system in my house. In the beginning, I always kept a light on in the porch in the hope that anyone alive might see it. But no one ever came. Everyone is gone.”

“You have electricity!” Johnny’s face lit up. “Is there anything in the airwaves? Is anyone still broadcasting? Anything on the internet or the emergency system?” The hope in his eyes was heartbreaking.

“No, nothing. It all stopped so fast. Two weeks after the onset of the virus, you couldn’t get an internet connection. The local stations went out shortly after that. Now there is only silence.” Sarah gazed at the boy with pity in her eyes. To a young boy growing up connected to all the other young people in the world through the social networks, this silence and isolation would be devastating.

“I don’t understand how that can be. There are survivors; we’re proof of that,” argued the boy.

“Yes, there are survivors, but too few to make a difference to the infrastructure,” explained the doctor. “Broadcasting from a radio station may not require many people, but each one has specialized skills. The signal getting to us depends on many other interacting sites. Satellites, comm towers, power stations, cable lines, and electricity, are needed. Imagine a business of one hundred workers having to run with two. If your station had twenty workers, now it has none.”

“How do you figure how many may have survived? In my family, my two daughters and I survived, but we were the only ones in the whole town. Yes, it was a small town, but that is still not two in one hundred. How many survived in your family, Mr. Montero?”

“My son and I. We saw no one else until we found Bill a year later. You’re right. We have no way of knowing. People may be hiding out of fear. Many may have gone south to friendlier climates. Still, it may be that very few survived, as little as five out of 100,000. We can only guess. But still, we’re here. The question is: how do we move on and thrive? Survival is not enough. That will not save mankind. We must thrive.” Daniel held the woman’s gaze.

Her eyes were a very soft, almost grayish blue. They were rather long and slightly slanted. Her lashes were darker than her gold-blonde hair, and her brows were an even darker gold. Her face was oval shaped; it had strong bones and lovely, symmetrical features. Daniel realized that Sarah Richards was very pretty. Looking at her was doing things to him he didn’t want to think about.

“I have struggled with that same question for months. I could think of nothing else last night. It’s not for me that I worry but for my girls. What is their future? What happens to them if something happens to me? Are they fated to a life of desolation, no husbands or children of their own, no community?

“I know God spared them so they would thrive. I struggled all night with my fears and my protective instincts. It took all the courage I could muster to come here this morning.” Sarah looked down, tears flooding her eyes.

“Well, Mrs. Richards, I have a suggestion for you. Join us. We’re heading south and then at some point, we’ll turn west. We aim to find other survivors, and then we’ll find a nice stretch of territory that we can settle and start over again. If the Amish managed to thrive for centuries without electricity or technology, so can we.” Daniel very much hoped that Sarah Richards would join them.

Sarah paced back and forth looking down at the pavement. His words had, in fact, a very disturbing effect on her. “I can’t make that decision right now. You’re talking about leaving my home, the home we worked so hard to build. My husband, son, mother, father, sister, and the rest of my family are all buried here. Everything I own is in that house.”

Sarah found herself almost hyperventilating. “I see you guys riding south on bicycles. How can I put my little girls on bikes and take off for God knows what is out there? I can’t. I can’t. I am not that courageous.”

Daniel got up from his chair and approached the woman. “Mrs. Richards, calm down. If you don’t want to join us, that’s fine. It was only a suggestion.” Daniel looked up at the sky. “It might rain this afternoon and riding bikes in the freezing rain and wind is not easy. We’ll hang out here a couple of days and give you time to think it over. You might come up with some travel alternatives that may be more acceptable to you. If you still decide to stay, fine. No harm done.” Daniel smiled and stepped back away from her.

Sarah nodded and took a deep, calming breath. “Thank you. I’d appreciate the time to mull this over, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem. It’s a big decision. We took two years to make it, and we’re men.”

“Are you implying men are better at making decisions?” Sarah’s back was up, her eyes flashing. “Because I’ll have you know, it will be a cold day in hell when it takes me two years to decide on anything.”

Daniel could not help the laughter that burst out of him. It felt great to interact with a spitfire female. The sound of a woman’s voice was wonderful.

“I’m sorry if I implied anything of the kind. I would never insult a woman’s ability to make a decision. My own wife was a wiz at decision making. In fact, she ruled the roost. My mistake in wording, honest.”

Pacified for the moment, Sarah reluctantly smiled and took a few moments to observe this stranger. She could not help but like him. He seemed to be in his early forties. He wore his thick, dark, glossy hair combed back and cut short, almost touching his collar. A light touch of gray was beginning to show at the temples.

His eyes were dark and expressive. His gaze was direct, giving an impression of honesty that put her at ease. He sported a week’s worth of stubble, but then, why the hell would anyone shave.

His body was strong and streamlined; it fitted his tight jeans to perfection. His open parka gave a peek of a tight t-shirt over a solid, strong chest. He was a little taller than she was. All in all, he was quite attractive, an older version of his son.

“I need to get back home. The girls will be wanting breakfast soon. I will let you know what I decide in two days. Can you hang out that long?”

“Sure,” answered Daniel with an easy smile. “We have no deadlines. We are men of leisure. We’ll wait.”

******

A few hours later, the sky opened, and the sheets of freezing rain fell driven by a cold, gusting wind. Warm, dry, and cozy in her kitchen, Sarah made hot cocoa with evaporated milk. The “use by date” on the milk was long expired. They sat down to a raucous game of Parcheesi.

The rain and wind rattled her kitchen window. The dozen water barrels she kept behind the house would fill up nicely; it meant baths and clothes washing when the rain stopped. Those activities were now weather determined.

Sarah wondered how the men were managing down at their camp site. They could always seek shelter inside the moldy, leaky, decaying, and full-of-rats, commercial center. Still, they must be cold and uncomfortable. She couldn’t help feeling guilty that she was not.

It also made her think about what would happen if they joined the men. At times like this, it would be her girls out in the cold and rain, exposed to bad weather, disease, danger, and hunger. On the other hand, how could they learn to face adversity and hope to survive if they remained hiding behind safe walls?

But the walls were only an illusion of safety. Sarah knew that. How long would the walls stand? How long would it be before the wild vegetation and animals claimed everything? How much longer before danger encroached on their vicinity?

How long before they had to go farther and farther out to scavenge for the things they needed? How long before the things they scavenged began to run scarce? Already, water was a problem. This rain was a good thing. The drums she kept at the corner gutters of the house were filling up with precious rainwater.

“Momma, your turn,” said Ellie. Sarah had been deep in her thoughts; she wasn’t paying attention to the game.

“Wait a minute. What happened? I was halfway home!”

The girls burst out in jubilant laughter. “Oh, Momma, I landed on you, and you didn’t even notice.” Lizzie’s laughing blue eyes, lovely and guileless, looked up at her mother. Innocent and vulnerable, full of the joy of childhood, she was born to a world of ease and plenty.

The girls had no understanding of the situation, no concept of how insecure and unpredictable their lives had become. Fear of the future was a concept they could not yet grasp. Sarah tossed her dice and wallowed in that fear.

******

That afternoon, the men pulled their chairs as close to the fire as possible. They sat listening to the sound of the rain, drinking tea made from a powdered mix and boiled rainwater. The tent was a drafty and flimsy shelter, but it was clean and free of rats and nasty smells.

“You know she’s right. It’s one thing for three strong, healthy, adult males to take off across the country in bikes. You can’t expect two little girls to follow suit. Even their mother would have a hard time.” The doctor was ever the voice of logic.

“Yes, a hard time at first, but it can be done. We will have to slow down, take more breaks, ride fewer hours.” Daniel wanted Sarah Richards and her daughters to come.

“It will slow us down. It will take us months to get where we’re going.” Johnny thought only of his desire, as the young are bound to do.

“The second purpose of our journey is to find survivors. To form a community. To do that, we must make compromises. Besides, if we leave them behind, they might remain alone forever.” Daniel thought of his own dead wife and daughters. What if it was them alone in the world, vulnerable and unprotected? He would’ve been grateful for a few good men to take them in and keep them safe.

“Well, we may not have a choice. Sarah Richards doesn’t seem the type to be pushed into anything. She may well choose to remain in her familiar world, crumbling as it is around her. Be ready to get going without them, Daniel. It’s not your choice nor mine; it’s hers and hers alone.”

“But Doc, if she chooses to come along, how will we work it? There must be a way we can take the girls and not have to slow down too much.” Johnny’s focus was on this one single issue. He was eager to get going because he really hated the cold.

“We can rig the bikes so each girl can ride with one of us. There will be four of us, and we can take turns. Besides, the roads seem to be clogged with litter. There is a limit to how fast we can ride, anyway.”

“Yeah, dad. That is a good idea. Better than having them tag behind on their kiddy bikes. It might work.”

Early evening, during a break in the rain, Sarah rode to their camp. “Gentlemen, I feel guilty. I’m snug and warm in my house, and you’re here huddled in the gusty wind and rain. You’re welcome to follow me back to my home. I can at least offer you a hot meal, a game of Parcheesi, and comfortable seating.”

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll rape and pillage?” asked Daniel, his head tilted to the side, a mischievous glint of humor in his soft, brown eyes.

“I figured that if you meant to harm us, you’d not have waited for an invitation. Besides, if I’m going to have to trust you, it might as well be sooner than later.”

“We’ll be happy to accept your hospitality. These chairs are a pain in the butt, and I don’t mean it as a metaphor.” Doc Salvo made a show of rubbing his behind. Sarah couldn’t help laughing.