We were getting out. Right there in the middle of the road. It made no sense. To me, if we were looking for people, shouldn’t we follow the smoke signals?
Duke had taken over the driver’s position.
“What are we doing?” I asked when I stepped from the Jeep.
Tony pointed to the store. It was one of those discount dollar places. “I want to see what kind of damage was done to items. Are they viable? Are the people that survived able to access them or will they get desperate?”
“Meaning will they come after us?”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe if we offered to help them, they wouldn’t.”
“Maybe if we did, they’d know we had things. No, Anna, we assess and we leave.”
“Then this whole trip makes no sense.”
“Did you think we were here as good Samaritans?”
“Yes. You said we were looking for survivors.”
“I said that and I meant that. Not look and aid. It can’t work that way.”
Admittedly, I was irritated. It seemed like such a waste. “Then why did we bring supplies?” I asked.
“In case we got stuck or someone asked for help or we needed to bribe our way out of a situation.” Tony stood before the broken store front. “Are you coming in or are you letting your bleeding heart seep into the sidewalk?”
Spencer placed his hand on my back. “Look, I know you want to help folks. I know you do. But we can’t advertise. We can’t…”
Tony walked ahead of us into the store. Some of the shelves had been overturned. Most were empty. The cheap dollar nick knacks were shattered on the ground.
We followed Tony thought the dark.
He picked up a water bottle that was empty and melted. He tossed it to the ground.
The cheap reader glasses rack was still standing, but some of the glasses had fallen and some were adhered to the rack. It had gotten so hot that some of plastic had melted.
Tony headed to the back of the store, it was darker back there and there was an odd wall of shelves. They looked as if they had been moved.
Tony pulled his rifle from his shoulder, extended it, and held his hand back for us to stop while he checked it out.
He inched his way there, but wasn’t quiet. His boot crunched against the frosted glass that was scattered around the floor. We kept out lights on him and he made it to the edge of the wall and peered around.
Then I knew. Something was wrong.
Tony lowered his weapon.
“What were they thinking,” he said. “All these houses. Why here?”
What was he talking about? He didn’t tell us not to look, so Spencer and I walked to the wall.
Once I did see, my insides churned. There were four people. A man, a woman and two children. They lay covered with towels, blankets and curtains from the discount store, huddled around a tin pot that was obviously used as their source of heat.
It hadn’t worked.
They were white and looked like ice statues. They had frozen to death.
Eyes open, completely gray. The woman’s arm extended from the blanket. It was eaten to the bone. By her arm was a dead German Shepherd.
I backed up, it was too much.
I felt my stomach twist and turn, wrench and squeeze and I fought with everything I had not to throw up.
It was visually and emotionally too much to bear.
How desperate they must have felt. The parents had to have felt helpless. I felt helpless for them.
Despite my trying to contain it, I ran a few feet and trying to be inconspicuous, I vomited what little I had in my stomach. It came upon me so sudden. Afterward, I had to remove my mask and place it in my pocket.
Spencer walked up behind me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“As hard as this is, this is the reality of it. This is the way it is everywhere. Unfortunately, these people were not the exception to the rule. The longer they go without shelter and food, the more people will die. Nothing we can do about it.”
Still half bent over, I looked over my shoulder. “How can you say that?”
“What choice do we have?”
“It’s easy for us to say isn’t it? We have three meals a day, water, heat and shelter.”
“We’re lucky Anna. That’s not our fault, that’s our salvation right now in this dead world.”
Tony walked up to us. “You ready? We have to go. A running Jeep is a call out for trouble. They probably already spotted us.”
“We don’t need to be followed,” said Spencer.
I walked out with the two of them and immediately Spencer got in the Jeep while Duke stepped out to ride as a passenger again so Tony could drive.
It still baffled me why we came into town. Were we that callous that we only went in to see what we had to worry about? What dangers lurked in Elwood City?
Before getting in the Jeep, I went to the back of it and lifted the hatch.
“What are you doing?” Tony asked.
I grabbed one of the bags. “I’m leaving the supplies here. Maybe someone…”
“No. No, you aren’t. No trails to us.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s the way it has to be.” Tony took the bag from my hand, placed it back in the Jeep and closed the hatch. Hand on my arm, he guided me to the vehicle and I got inside.
We were leaving.
Pulling away, I looked at the dances of thin streams of smoke in the air. They signified life. I thought of that poor family and wondered how many others were scattered throughout the town, freezing and starving, with no food and nothing left to burn to stay warm.
We had enough supplies in the jeep to save one family like the one in the discount store. We could save someone of dying a cold death.
But we didn’t.
We just drove away.
Something was not right about that.
50 – DEFINING ROLES
The entire short return trip, I was like a spoiled child that didn’t get what she wanted. I was quiet and snippy when spoken to. Increasingly, my irritation level rose when I realized that Duke didn’t stay behind at the Jeep to guard it. He did so to take pictures.
He continued taking them all the way back. My first defensive feelings were that we weren’t on some tour bus. But in fact we were tourists. Sightseeing the apocalypse. I felt that way. Duke explained that the pictures would give us an indication of how many people were there. Were they thin streams of smoke? The larger ones indicted bigger fires and more people.
Our arrival was greeted by almost everyone. It was as if we had been gone on a long voyage instead of just an hour or two.
We parked the Jeep just outside the blast doors, unpacked and walked in.
They all greeted us. They all wanted to know what it was like out there, what did we see?
Surprisingly, Gil wasn’t there, but I didn’t expect it to be long before he came up.
Melissa looked curiously around. “I’m shocked. I would have bet my double yolk eggs that you would have brought someone back.” She said to me.
That made me pout and stew.
Then when Craig said, “Me, too. That’s why I’m here. I expected someone to need medical help. A survivor.”
“Tony said no.” I barked out in a whining manner, without thinking how it would sound. “He said no. I wasn’t allowed. He wouldn’t let me.”
“It’s your bunker,” Melissa stated. “You can do what you want.”
“See? My thoughts exactly.”
“No.” Tony interrupted. “This bunker may be in her name, but we all live here. All of us. And this sisterhood for the betterment of nomads thing you two have happening, doesn’t wash.”
“What the hell was that?” Melissa snapped at Tony.
Internally, I cheered her on. Go, Melissa, pummel him. Someone please help me out on the Tony arguments.