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Memoirs
From the End of the World
Entry
#13
At dusk, the boys still hadn’t returned from their scavenging
trip. Peter had woken, but he’d pulled
the covers over his head, refusing to leave. Sheera went in to try to coax him out.
Meanwhile, RC went to each window and peered cautiously
through the curtains. She moved about
the house, gripping an old rag to make it appear as though she was dusting. This poor attempt at disguising her nervous
pacing left a bizarre pattern of clean and dirty areas, making it all too
obvious that she actually wasn’t focused on cleaning.
As RC absent-mindedly wiped the dirt off her grandmother’s
abandoned toaster, which transformed from a dingy gray to a sparkling white
(though in the fading light, it wasn’t actually doing any sparkling), a sound
at the back door made her jump. She
immediately froze after that, listening intently to what followed. Under most circumstances, she would hide or
prepare to run in case it was a patrol coming to search the house, but this
time, she couldn’t do anything but wait, her muscles tensed in anticipation.
Much to her relief, Alyx and Ollie appeared in the doorway.
“Good, you’re here.
Now we can eat.” RC did the best
she could to mask her relief.
Alyx dumped an armload of food on the counter before
emptying the backpack while Ollie, whose arms were loaded with scavenged
clothes, dumped his haul on the kitchen table.
The size of their bounty was more than welcome. With the coldest months of the year fast
approaching, and the increase in the group’s number, they’d need to store up
all they could. It would make it harder
to move if they were discovered, but they’d have to worry about that if and
when the problem arose.
“We have food, at least, but I can’t promise a lot of
variety,” Alyx replied apologetically as he rubbed his hands together. The cool air must have worked its way to the
bone in the time he was out.
“No gourmet meal?” RC asked jokingly. “That’s a shame.”
Even though the last rays of sunlight streaming through the
window were dimming fast, Alyx noticed the work she’d already done. “I guess it was nice of you to clean the
toaster, but without electricity, I don’t think it’ll do us much good.” The attempt at humor was weighed down by
something else, though RC didn’t know what.
“I just got bored,” she replied nonchalantly, though even
she knew it sounded unconvincing. “Next
time, I’m going with you. I don’t do
well waiting around all the time.” That
much was true at least.
“Ollie might fight you on that, but you’d probably make
better company.”
“Better company than me?” Ollie demanded. “Impossible.
I can carry more too.”
In spite of the teasing sound to his voice, RC also detected
a hint of something else in his words.
Was it protectiveness? Posturing?
She’d certainly heard a similar tone
from the men in her life before, but she certainly didn’t want to hear it from
Ollie. Yet, even that didn’t seem to
tell the whole story.
Alyx must have sensed it too. “Since we have kids in house now, we should
probably feed them before we rip each other’s heads off.”
RC turned to the food and started to organize it on the
counter, carefully selecting the things she thought could feed all of them. As she worked, she asked, “Did the kids tell
you about where they came from?”
“Yes, they did,” Alyx said heavily.
“I think we should consider trying to get out of town,” Ollie
jumped in. “If it really is better out
there, I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”
“I agree, but we should wait until after winter,” RC
said. “If we went out there now, we’d
have nothing. At least here, we can find
food for now.” Then she paused. “Do you think we should try to find the other
kids they escaped with? I know it’s
dangerous to have too large of a group, but they might have valuable
information.”
“We already thought about that,” Alyx replied. A sorrowful note definitely hung from his
words now.
RC’s insides went cold.
Before she could ask him to elaborate, though, two sets of footsteps
were moving to intercept them. “Are we
going to eat soon?” A little boy’s
voice.
Within an hour, they were all assembled over a dinner of
beans, canned carrots, and biscuits fashioned from a box of pancake mix around
a covert fire in the backyard. Everyone
huddled around the flames while wrapped in the newly acquired clothes and thick
blankets. The plates weren’t exactly
overflowing with food, and the food itself wasn’t exactly fit for a king (or
even for a simple meal pre-invasion), but to empty stomachs, it hit the spot. The flames offered just enough light for them
to dine by.
Very little conversation passed between them while they
ate. The kids were probably shy given
their introduction to new people, but Alyx and Ollie’s silence said a lot
more. That which remained unspoken
hovered over them all, and she suspected whatever it was couldn’t be uttered in
front of younger ears.
Once her plate was empty, RC turned to Ollie. “Can you keep an eye on the kids for a
minute? I want to talk to Alyx alone.”
He hesitated for a moment before begrudgingly answering. “All right.”
Alyx and RC found some privacy inside the chilly, and now
pitch-black, kitchen. They stood next to
the window, the firelight from the yard barley illuminating their faces.
“Ollie and I went to check out the place where Sheera said
they were hiding before being captured,” Alyx confessed. “It only seemed right to at least tell them their
friends were okay, and to see if we could help them out with anything.”
RC’s stomach turned. “What
did you find?”
“No one was there, but the basement they’d been using for
shelter was covered with blood.”
