“Nah,” she said. “None of us do. I like it here. Most people here were too young to remember much about life before the virus. If they were alive at all.”
“What’s it like? Living in this world now.”
“Fine. We eat. We laugh. We love. What more can you ask for? What else do you need?”
“This is true.”
“So where’s your friend?” Marilee asked.
“I don’t know. He said he’d be back. He wanted to look….” Nora paused when she heard the distant sound of music. “Aw. Bet that’s him.”
“What is that?”
“Music?”
“How is that possible? Joe the piano player is in the fields.”
“That’s not Joe. I bet. Jason plays.”
“What does that…?”
“Will you excuse me?” Nora wiped off her hands. “I’ll be back.”
“Sure.”
What was he doing? Nora wondered. Did he have an audience and didn’t tell her. There was no doubt where it came from. Jason told her he wanted to go to the church; she thought he’d wait for her.
In an empty town, sound traveled, and the tinkling of the piano transformed into the sound of Jason singing.
It was mellow at first, but Nora clearly could hear the emotion cut through the song. It was a spiritual song, she didn’t need to make out the lyrics to feel that. Nor did anyone else.
Suddenly, his singing didn’t just call to her, it called to many in the small area. People stopped what they were doing and followed her to the church.
Nora didn’t know to whether to walk in, or wait. The song intensified as Jason’s emotion and amazing voice did. As she reached for the door, he stopped singing, but continued to play. That’s when she heard him speak and she quietly slipped in and stood there in awe.
He sat at the piano, his eyes closed, head swaying.
“Does He exist? In this world, do we still believe in His presence? Are we angry and feel cheated or blessed to be chosen.” He spoke in such a smooth preacher way, then after a pause, he broke out. His voice gained a raspy sound, his face red as he drew from his soul the powerful portion of the song. Hands clamoring on the keys as he blasted the end, hitting a high note that shocked Nora. Crescendo over, Jason brought it down, mellow, to a whisper until he ended.
His head was down.
Nora clapped. Slow at first then she jolted in surprise as others applauded as well. She looked around, about ten people had also slipped into the church.
Jason opened his eyes, a slight blush swept across his face and he shook his head with a smile.
“Looks like we got a real preacher,” someone said.
Jason waved his hand as if to say ‘no’.
“We expect a concert tonight,” another man added with a laugh. “Okay people back to work. We’ll guilt him later.”
Nora waited until everyone filed out and she walked toward the front of the church.
“Wow, I had an audience,” Jason said shyly. “I didn’t know.”
“You called them.”
“I what?”
“You called them, Jason. Your voice, your passion brought them in. I see why you were such a big deal.”
“Nora, it was one song.” He stood and leaned with his arm against the piano.
“It was more than that.” She approached him.
“At least the piano was in tune.”
“Eh, Joe the piano player probably keeps it that way.”
“Who?”
Nora waved out her hand. “Can I say something?”
“You will anyhow.”
“True,” She smiled. “You’re home.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have spent every single second, of every day with you and I have never felt or seen you more at ease. More in your element. What brought it out?”
“I don’t know. I came in here and I just felt like it.”
“You talk a lot about how the network made you. Peeled your skin, plucked your eyebrows, cut your mullet and gave you…a…” she nudged him. “Wife.”
“Yeah, they did.” He lowered his head in a shy way.
“They didn’t give you this.” She touched his chest over his heart. “They didn’t make you a preacher, they didn’t give you spirit, they helped bring it out. You express guilt over who you were, time to take pride in the man you became. This is why you were chosen to live in this world.”
Jason lifted his eyes. “Those are pretty complimentary words.”
“I mean them. I don’t think I liked you much until right now.”
“What?” Jason laughed.
“Kidding. I liked you. But now I think you’re a pretty amazing guy, Jason.”
“All that over a song?”
“No. All that over making me feel something. Emotion. Missing. Strength. Everything that seemed frozen with me felt somewhat defrosted.”
“You’re pretty amazing too, Nora.”
“Yeah, I know.”
It took Jason by surprise and he laughed. He laughed hard, reached out, placed his hand behind her neck, pulled her to him and placed his lips on her forehead. He pulled back with another laugh.
“And you tell really dumb jokes.”
“Oh, I have another.”
His eyes widened. “I think I was going to search out a new home for us here.” He started to walk toward the back of the sanctuary.
“Seriously it’s good. How long did it take the plague to wipe out the world?’
Jason paused by the back door.
“No one knows. Time just flew by. Get it? Flew? Flu.”
After a groan, Jason chuckled and disappeared into the back of the church.
“Oh, he likes my jokes, he does.” Nora said to herself and followed.
They left camp under a pink sky, light enough for Malcolm to get a glimpse of Vegas, sad yet in a way beautiful. With seven hours road time ahead, barring any problems, they’d have to make camp at G1 Lab if they were held up there for longer than four hours.
It wasn’t something big, but it was enough to set up a jitter of worry in Malcolm’s gut. He spent hours trying to convince himself he was taking the tiny conversation out of context.
“And if it’s viable?” Maggie asked Norris.
“Orders to terminate,” Norris said.
“Just checking.”
They spoke in a whisper and admittedly, Malcolm didn’t catch what they were talking about. It could have been about road savages as the other soldier called them.
He listened to a nice history lesson from Lt. Gary Greg, the historian. Hearing about things that happened to successfully aid in building the wall that took ten years to construct. He told about the workers and how they were misled into believing they were automatically included. The most interesting part of the story was the great virus that occurred in year seven of building the wall when, fifty percent of those who worked on it, died within days.
“It was horrendous,” he said. “To replace all those workers was insane.”
“I bet,” Malcolm murmured.
It sounded sort of inhumane, but in a way it was the only humane way to save a portion of the country.
Malcolm didn’t speak to Maggie about the exchange he heard, he just kept playing it in his head and coming up with other reasons for it, other than what his gut was telling him. The search for the cure, in Malcolm’s mind went deeper than what they were saying.
Maggie was engrossed with a hand held contraption. He thought it was a phone at first, but he hadn’t seen her speak into it. It was about the size of an original iPhone, but as thin as credit card. Her finger swiped so it didn’t look like she was sending a text.
“Hey, Dad,” Trey slid next to Malcolm. He had been in the back of the van.
“How was your nap?”
“Fine. Bored. What are you doing?”
“What is that thing she has?” Malcolm asked.