[Forge04]

This post served as a teaser and now it is nothing. The work in progress is actually below.

[Forge04]

It started as these things do. A little boy went to school with a runny nose and a slight fever that his mother didn’t notice. His body normally would fight it off with barely a fuss. All it took though, was sharing a marker with a little girl, who went home not knowing she would be Patient Zero. That night, she would cook out on the back deck of her family’s home, getting bit by a mosquito carrying the West Nile virus, though normally it wouldn’t infect her. Normally.

However with the new infection already taking hold of her system, the two pathogens would interact and mutate, further progressing thanks to the bath she would take that night, her body temperature going from low to high to low in such a short span that the bug in her system mutates in order to survive, toughening it to temperature extremes. The bug takes advantage of her young age and progresses rapidly, being unique in that it uses the oxygen in the red blood cells of the body.

By morning she will be close to death, breathing heavily and too weak to stand. Her parents touch her, hold her, reassure her as the ambulance arrives, taking her to the hospital.

The ambulance is key.

It holds the bug in the air on dead skin, on the surfaces of the compartment and on the paramedics themselves. These paramedics transfer it around as they save lives, spreading it to new subjects rapidly. This bug loves to evolve, and does so without prejudice. Elderly, young, fit, obese. It passes through the skin, hangs in the air. The call to the airport is the beginning of the end.

By the time Patient Zero dies on day three of being in the hospital, Mar 14, 2015, over 2000 more people are breathing heavily in various parts of the country.

It takes two hours for the bug to become contagious, 6 hours for symptoms to show, and without treatment, two days for a patient to die.

It spreads around the world like a cleansing fire, mother nature laughing at the chaos she’s produced.

The speed of it ensures it spreads before safeguards can be put in place; before effective treatments can be found, patients are dead.

It is so contagious that the dead are still a threat, weeks after death.

In a month's time, over three quarters of the world is dead. Governments fall, utilities fail, supplies falter.

It is the end of the world as it is known.

The paranoid preppers fair the best. The ones who said for years something like this would happen, sequestering themselves almost immediately. Retreating into the hills and prairies, falling back to their bug out locations and bunkers. The short timers though, the ones without long term supplies, most of them accidentally stumble upon a body and wipe out their whole family.

Then there was Thomas Boice. He is a 15 year old boy from Burns, Oregon. Average build, Caucasian, above average height. Which is to say that he is 4’8” and 98 pounds.

By the time his father feels faint from a lack of oxygen, the bug has already infected over 90% of his city. His household is dead days later, as is the rest of the town.

He is the hope. One of the immune. There are a handful of them left in the world, only several hundred in all of North America.

This is the story of Thomas Boice, and other like him.

***

He watched them. His sister, Heather, his mother and father. He stood in the doorway of his sister's bedroom, looking at the bed they lay in, the flies beginning to do their work, starting to swarm with the mild heat of the April sun coming in through the window.

They’d died several days ago. His father was in the middle, eyelids half open, the fluid from them having drained out the back and into his skull. He held both of the girls, though his arms had dropped minutes before his last breath.

The Cough, as it had been called, had hit Thomas’s sister the hardest. She had died within the two days it normally took. The news had advised everyone to stay away from public places, to include hospitals. So, like many of the world, the Boice household had sat and waited for the end.

His father had ordered him to stay away from their door, relieved to his last thought that his son it seemed hadn’t been infected.

Truth be told the Cough was everywhere. It couldn’t be helped. It invaded Thomas’s body just as it did every other homo-sapien on the planet, however in Thomas’s case, it never made it into the lung tissue, therefore it never truly infected him. He touched it. He ate it. He was exposed to it everywhere in the house.

His father never knew that his son could’ve been with them to the end. It probably only would have made it worse for the boy.

So there Thomas stood, looking at the husks of his family in his sister's room, having waited five days after hearing the last cough come from them. The power was still on, as was the water, but they were running out of food. He had eaten the last of the canned goods, having moved on to actually cooking. The Playstation had gotten boring after two days. He slept on the couch. It hadn’t truly hit him until he’d seen his dad, mom and sister laying there dead.

He was on his own.

For the first time in days he went outside. The street wasn’t empty. The neighbors cars were in the driveways. The sun was still shining. He expected to see a car come around the bend of the subdivision road any second.

But one didn’t. He looked up, searching for a plane in the sky, but there wasn’t one to see.

The sudden reality of the emptiness of his world began to encompass him, sending him back into the house he grew up in.

He turned on the TV and instead of Playstation he flipped over to the local news channel, where a purple screen greeted him.

NO SIGNAL FOUND shown in the upper left. He flipped to cable, where the same thing met his eyes.

He started to breath heavy, a panic attack coming over him. Thomas knelt on the floor of his living room, the purple screen baring down on him like a fluid hammer. He heard his heart in his ears, everything he looked at seemed to move and shudder. His hands on the carpet felt as though they were holding something as big as the earth.

His thoughts raced as he saw everyone he knew dead in his mind. The rest of his family in Ontario and Salem, his teachers, his friends, their families. The mailman, the cashier at Walmart, his football coach- everyone.

After twenty minutes of sheer inward terror, the panic turned to something else, anger.

He slammed his hands into the floor, got up and ran to the front door, shoving things off an end table as he went, barely hearing them shatter across the room.

He made it out to his front lawn where he screamed and swore. Punched and hit the ground. He cried.

In between sobs he said that it wasn’t fair. That it was bull♥♥♥♥. That it wasn’t happening. And after another 20 minutes of that, Thomas learned the first of many lessons.

He’d just wasted 40 minutes.

That thought slightly and suddenly galvanized the boy, maturing him as only crisis can. His tears dried, his sobs ceased. Suddenly the survival shows his father had watched started to playback in his mind, though he’d usually only half paid attention. How he wished he’d done it differently now.

“So what do you do now Tommy?” he said aloud, to no one, settling back on the grass.

“Make a list,” his mother had always scolded him when he’d had multiple tasks.

So that’s what he did.

He took stock of what he had left in the house, which wasn’t a whole lot anymore. He turned and looked at the faucet from the pantry door.

“Have plenty of water-“ he began to say, but stopped. “Everyone’s dead. How long til the faucet doesn’t work?”

Suddenly he was a flurry of motion, going through the house and finding anything he could that would hold water, and filling it up. He even went so far as to stop the bath tubs and filled those as well.

Satisfied that he had water for a good while now, he settled on the food issue. There was the Chevron down on the main road, that would have food. But then it was several miles into town before the first grocery store was available. He knew how to drive and who would stop him? The police?

Thomas chuckled out loud at that thought, morbid as it was.

He had shelter he decided. His house was plenty good for that.

The next ideas on the list made him stop and think. Think about the big picture. As his feet moved he began to enter a dark place, wondering what was the point.

What was the point? For some reason he hadn’t been infected, hadn’t gotten sick. Was it because he hadn’t been exposed like his dad had said? The TV had said that the Cough was extremely contagious, so odds were he’d been exposed. So why wasn’t he dead?

He shook his head as he went into the closet of his parents.

It didn’t matter why he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. But again, what was the point of not being dead?

At last he found what he was looking for, stuffed between stacked pants on the high shelf his sister couldn’t reach. His father's pistol.

He held it, remembering when his dad had taught him about it, just in case. The safety. The magazine release button.

The dark thoughts were rampaging through his mind as he held the heavy weapon in his hands. He could end it all. He could join his family, wherever they were. He wasn’t ready for this. He was just a kid.

But he remembered his dad, again trying to teach him.

“We just have to endure kiddo. Things get really hard sometimes. When that happens, just breath and endure. It’ll get better.”

He decided to modify his list.

Looking at his list now, a trip to the library was in store for him. He went and emptied out his backpack, putting some water bottles in it, along with the gun and some chips he had left.

He grabbed the keys off the hook by the door and set out, locking the door behind him.

***

Driving was still fun, Thomas found out. It took him several miles to get the hang of the Ford Edge his family owned, then overconfidence almost ran him off the road, humbling him greatly.

He almost went to Walmart first, but then thought better on it, deciding to go to the library first.

“What good is a shopping list if I don’t know what to get?” he thought to himself.

The library was of course locked. Thomas searched for several minutes for a way in, then sat on the step for another five before finally realizing that he was probably the only one left in the town. He found a good sized rock and busted the window of the door and went inside.

He knew he needed more knowledge, but what knowledge did he need? He thought about it long and hard, deciding he needed some basic information first. He went into the office and found the latest newspaper, a huge headline reading THE END OF THE WORLD? on the front. He read the article and remembered several words from it as he stuffed it in his pack.

SURVIVALIST. PREPPER. APOCALYPSE. ARMAGEDDON.

He then went to the computer and booted one up. He found the digital card catalog and began searching for those words, then went and found the books that looked like they’d be helpful. He plopped them down and picked out the one that looked like he needed right then.

PREPPING FOR DUMMIES

Inside it was quite detailed, with bigger words that Thomas sometimes had trouble understanding. He sat there reading until the sun went down, the sudden chill bringing him out of the sponge state he was in.

But now he had a new list.




It wasn’t much, but it was a start.




***




Ryan Jackson was a former soldier. He’d just gotten out of the US Army and had relocated to south-western Montana when the Cough hit. He’d had a 5 year old son and a wife he’d fallen in love with in high school.

Now he was alone.

Much like Thomas he was immune. Though as an adult he processed it differently. He grieved his wife and son, every moment he allowed himself to. The small town he was in died slowly, as most of the population lived out in the woods. Eventually though, the Cough being so contagious, the only contact people had with each other was by radio. And even then, when the power failed after three weeks, that communication was cut off.

No one knew how long the Cough survived in the air. No one knew how long it survived in the dead bodies. So eventually, one by one, the houses around the city went quiet, until Ryan was the only one left.

The news had reported through the panic and while it was still on the air that people had been discovered who were immune. Some had even sacrificed their lives in the last ditch efforts to inject them with the Cough to see how their bodies handled it.

The secret had been the lungs. For some reason, one out of every 1,200,000 people were immune. Which meant that there were several hundred people in North America that were immune.

Ryan had put it together, too, that they had hope. They being human beings. His race. But they were scattered. They needed to band together, somehow. The US, Mexico, Canada. That’s what they had to work with. It was a race against time, eventually the fuel would go bad, immune people would succumb to starvation and/or regular disease.

He was quick. As an amateur prepper his mind went full on into military mode.

Guns and ammo. Bow and arrows. Food. Water. Transportation. He chose carefully when he chose all of these things.

An AR-15 would handle small to medium game and/or dangerous predators, ammo for it was plentiful, but how long until moisture contaminated the bullets? Realistically, how long would that ammo last?

A simple recurve bow with as many arrows as he could find. He raided the local grocery stores for canned goods, they’d travel well. He took all the water he could get as well. Transportation he decided to go with a diesel truck. Semis were bound to be abundant on the roads, he could syphon from them into his tank. Diesel was much more forgiving in the terms of quality as well.

The problem he faced when picking the actual truck however, was old or new? New would get better mileage, obviously be more comfortable for this long, frustrating mission, but if and when it broke down, could he fix it? If he went old, he’d lose those comforts and mileage, but with tools and the simplicity of a diesel system he’d probably be able to fix it himself.

He choose a brand new Dodge. Eventually he figured he’d jump from major city to major city, trying to rally anyone.

In the event the truck broke down, he’d acquire a new one.

Leaving his house was one of the hardest things he ever did. He spent an entire day to put photos of his wife and son, their lives together, in one album, wrapping it up in a sheet to protect it some and stashed it under the seat. He also brought his phone, a tablet and laptop. He’d have power for a good long while, being able to scavenge parts and what not. Might as well make use of them for the next few decades.

He took everything he might need from the house as well. Standard and metric wrenches. A 3/8 socket set. Screwdrivers.

He stopped at the parts store in town and grabbed a repair manual for the truck, also putting a short camper on the back of the truck.

He had in his mind, a crusade. Not that he was a religious man, nor was he a believer even, but that’s exactly what he was doing. He needed to find immune people and find them fast. The best opportunity for that was to get to the big cities as fast as he could.

In America, and from him, that meant going down to Denver, over to Salt Lake, up through Boise and to Seattle. Then down the coast, along the southern states and to the tip of Florida, then up to Maine. He figured he’d venture into Canada from there.

There were some problems with this plan, straight off.

1.How would he find the immune people?


2.How would he transport them once he found them?


3.Where would they go once he found them?


For the first few it would be fine to bring them along, but after that? Ryan remembered hearing that diesel lasted between 6 months to a year, under the right conditions. He figured on just hopping from one vehicle to the next, so he figured on the 6 month number. Did he want to bring these people with him though? Several would be fine, even a convoy, but once they numbered into the dozens it would be pretty difficult to find food and probably vehicles for them all.

No, he needed the promised ground. He needed the rally point. The long term solution. By his math, children at the age of 15 would be able to work. Contribute. So give him a year or two to find the immune, get to the colony, start repopulating- it all depended on how many he could find. He was pretty sure once he found them he could convince them to come, it was the end of the world after all.

He finished the wiring for the first speaker he’d mounted to the roof of the camper. It would have to do.

***

Thomas had settled into a decent routine these past two weeks. Everyday he got up. He ate from his pantry of canned goods. He went down to the river to wash up. The power had gone out two days ago. No more faucet water, no more Playstation, no more easy cooking either.

He would return and venture into a section of town he hadn’t been in yet, scavenging for supplies and food he didn’t have at Walmart.

He’d learned a lot, being on his own. He had learned how to filter water to make it safe. He’d learned about how to plant and grow things, at least in theory. Being the middle of summer, it was pretty late to waste what seeds he did have now. Besides, he had plenty of food, propane and supplies left in town to get him through the year. He’d scoped out a little farm on the outskirts of town too, for the next year.

He had just parked at the doorway to Walmart when he heard the sound, faint in the distance. It was a voice. He craned his head around towards the freeway that ran between Walmart and the main town, the voice getting louder, sounding tinny, but Thomas could make out what it said.

“-a radio, we are on channels 6 and 13. We are going to Hershey, California. Meet us there. Somos sobrevivientes y te ayudaremos. Si tienes una radio, estamos en los canales 6 y 13. Vamos a Hershey, California. Nos encontramos allí.”

It got louder and louder, then started going quiet again. Thomas realized it probably was either still going down the freeway or had turned into town.

His mind began rushing. He’d seen movies. Maybe just his town had been eradicated. Maybe there were actual people out there. He wouldn’t be alone anymore!

But like the movies, what if they weren’t good people? What if they were bad? How could he be sure? Was it worth the risk?

A tan, Ford SUV appeared on the road, going pretty fast, then slowed down after being in sight for a moment, turning into the Wal-mart parking lot. Thomas thought about going to his car, thought about running away, but instead he just stood there. He remembered he had his gun in his backpack, which was on his back. He unslung it off one shoulder just in case.

The SUV came straight through the parking lot, and Thomas could tell when it saw him.

He heard the loud diesel engine slack for a moment, then the gas was reapplied. The SUV stopped a little ways off, but immediately the doors opened up and people came out.

Thomas did notice though that the passenger man stayed in the car and had a radio microphone to his mouth. He could hear voices from the vehicle, then he came out too.

The man driving was an older Mexican man. He was thinner, with jeans on and cowboy boots, a wife-beater tank top, plain sunglasses and a dirty trucker hat, while another Mexican man, the radio man, came out of the passenger seat, was middle aged and much heavier than the driver. He also had on blue jeans, but some generic sneakers and a faded graphic t-shirt. Again sunglasses but a more fitted baseball hat.

The man from the passenger side had a scruff of greying facial hair and the hair was coming messily from under the hat, while the driver didn’t appear to have any hair on top of his head, and a longer, blacker beard.

From the back seat came a white woman, again jeans but a pink spaghetti strapped tank top, her dirty blonde hair tied up in a simple ponytail, and as far as Thomas could tell, she was middle aged, while the baby was black and maybe a year old.

“Hello,” the driver said, his Hispanic accent harsh and heavy.

Thomas didn’t know what to feel. He just continued to stand there. He hadn’t seen anyone. He hadn’t hoped of seeing anyone. The past two weeks he’d slowly resigned himself to being alone, forever. Now here were people. Talking to him. They seemed nice enough.

“Is he okay?” the passenger said, not taking his eyes off of Thomas.

At this time the loudspeaker was noticeably louder and a dark red Dodge truck appeared on the road, not slowing down and turning into the parking lot with a slight screech of the tires. The men both turned to look at it, the woman though continued to look at Thomas.

It had a camper on the back and radio antennas that reached much higher than normal ones. Upon stopping a white man came out of the driver's seat, a (40 year old?) black woman coming out of the passenger side.

The driver of the deep red Dodge came right up to him and outstretched his hand. He was white, with brown hair and darker hazel eyes Thomas could see. He was thinner, but healthy too. He was honestly pretty average. But he had the play of a smile on his face, as if just ready to spring outward. He was in Khaki cargo pants, some brown-ish laced up boots and a green button up shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves. He had an odd looking, tan and black speckled scarf-like garment around his neck. On his head was military style hat in green and brown camouflage. And on his leg was a holster that came down from his belt and strapped around his thigh, brown nylon with a pistol strapped in.

“Ryan Jackson,” he said.

“Thomas Boice,” Thomas replied after a pause, shaking the hand.

“Anyone else in town?” Ryan asked him.

“Nope,” the hands fell.

“You okay?” he asked, putting his hand on his hips.

“I- I don’t- know,” Thomas replied.

“Well, normal people wouldn’t,” he said. “You immune?” he asked, adjusting his hat on his head.

“I think so.”

“Have you been around anyone after they’ve died?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’re immune,” Ryan said matter of factly. “We’re gathering all the immune that will come with us, starting over. A colony, community. Wanna come?”

Thomas stayed quiet. The radio crackled from all the open doors, prompting the heavier Mexican passenger to reach back into the SUV.

“Tell you what Thomas. We’re gonna stay in Burns for the night. Do you know of any clean places we can shack up?”

“Just about all of them have bodies,” Thomas said.

“There’s no where?” Ryan asked.

“The courthouse. The library. None of those places have bodies. I busted out the window of the library though.”

“Yup, businesses. Awesome,” Ryan said, but then stopped and turned towards the sound of a higher pitched motor back where the freeway was.

***

“I’ll be back, spread ‘em around,” Ryan said to the other truck’s people, then he and the woman jumped back in the Dodge and roared away with little regard for the fuel consumed.

“Haven’t seen two since us right?” Tonya asked him, holding onto the grip as the needle went up over 100 mph.

“Yup, and that sounded like a bike, on the freeway. Sounded fast too. Hope we can catch up,” and he was trying. The throttle was pinned open.

They came to the turn right to the onramp and Ryan power-braked around, holding his foot on the throttle but braking, keeping the RPMs up and not allowing the power band to come down. It was hell on brakes, but when one needed to, it saved seconds.

Tonya had learned Ryan knew how to drive, and knew how to drive well, much better than her husband had. He’d driven because she was a worse driver, though at least she knew the she was bad at it. She heard the engine and felt the braking, but didn’t even realize what Ryan had done was out of the ordinary. She knew gas and brake. Gear shifter thingy. She knew to stay in the lines and to look in her mirrors, especially if changing lanes, as she’d not done so at 19 and hit a semi, scaring her half to death along with actually almost killing her.

She saw ahead of them the bike, at least two miles away, barely visible.

So Ryan brought out his secret weapon.

He reached over and hit the button on the side of the dash, sending a signal to the solenoid under the hood, sending air to the horns on top of the truck, next to the loudspeaker. He’d found them in Denver at the off-roading store and thought of a situation similar to this. He also turned on the flashing strobe and emergency lights he’d installed, just in case.

Maybe, just maybe, whoever that was up there would hear something over the roar of that bike and look in the mirror.

“How long will you chase him?” Tonya asked Ryan, when he’d let off the horn.

“Til the mountains up there, this sucker’ll never be able to hang, hell, we’re not even hanging now,” he said.

But they saw a brake light suddenly, and the black dot on the straight line in front of them got bigger, as the bike turned sideways, then small again and a light shined towards them.

They’d found another one, maybe.

***

Ryan slowed the truck down and came to a stop long before the bike did, roughly 50 meters apart from each other.

“I hate this part,” Ryan said, sighing and opening the door to step out, Tonya doing the same.

So far it’d gone well, with everyone he’d encountered. He’d convinced them all to come with him. To start over. But each time, he was nervous. It was the end of the world, and as an atheist he handled it well. For those that believed in something though, he felt like they’d see it as a betrayal.

They prayed. They devoted their lives and in some cases money to God, or whatever they believed in, and then this happens. It made people unpredictable, or more unpredictable than usual. Though he did enjoy that in Gloria and Juan’s cases, it seemed to solidify them. Give them a purpose. He respected that.

But he knew not how this person felt, or what he- she believed.

That thought was apparent as she rose off the bike, and though he wasn’t a follower of them and didn’t know what kind it was, the term Harley came to mind. This one though was loaded down with two saddlebags on the back as well as a large hard compartment above the back tire. It had a windshield as well, with a big bag on the tank.

As he was 5’9” at his tallest, he tended to slouch, she taller than he, though not by too much. Maybe three inches, though she was thinner, athletic it looked like. She had a black leather motorcycle jacket with matching gloves and black leather chaps as well, with black leather boots that fit the motorcycle look. She had a dark grey and black plaid scarf wrapped around her neck. If a biker look was what she aimed for, she’d hit it on the head.

“You going to be friendly?” she said, popping open the visor on the dark grey helmet.

She appeared to be of caramel color, with dark brown eyes that were larger looking, with a button nose. There was no weapon on her hip that he could see, and unless it was in the small of her back, the buttoned up jacket restricted her access enough to think he was safe if she intended him harm.

He was also cognizant of the weapon on his own leg, so he put up his hands non-threateningly. The fact that she asked that question, in his mind of not intending harm, was a good thing. She wasn’t a non-thinking person.

“I’m planning on it. There’s not enough of us left to hurt each other. Don’t make sense,” he responded.

“I can go with that. Helen,” she said, and started walking towards him, pulling off her glove.

He did the same, sans a glove, and they shook hands. She had a strong grip he noticed, especially for a woman.

“I’ve been trying to catch you. Been following your signs,” she said, pulling off the helmet next.

Her hair was a deep auburn, though the natural black was growing out at her roots. Apparently the end of known civilization didn’t warrant hair dying. It wasn’t put up, Ryan guessed due to the helmet, so it feel to just touching her shoulders.

Her skin was a caramel color, and Ryan couldn’t help but pause for a moment, a slight moment, at her features. During his time in the service he’d been attracted to women of color, though being married he’d recognized it for what it was and merely appreciated that he wasn’t predispositioned to only like white women.

“You almost bypassed us,” Ryan said. “We were stopping here for the night. Heard you go by.”

“That air horn works,” she said, and flashed a bright smile.

***

The Ford could be heard before they seen, but the vehicle in the middle of the road helped, and Thomas could see that it had papers on the windows. He didn’t pay attention to them, instead pulling in and going straight to the hotel.

The two other trucks and trailers were parked cross-wise across the parking lanes, not bothering to make it harder on themselves. There was a motorcycle he noticed too, next to the Dodge from earlier. They had a fire going, having pulled couches and chairs outside and were gathered around, looking like they were enjoying themselves. It was a nice evening, though still somewhat warm.

Thomas pulled the key out of the slot, killing the engine, and got out.

“Kid! You made it! Come grab a seat if you want. You hungry?” Ryan called out, having already risen from his seat.

Thomas immediately smelled the smell of cooking and barbeque, his stomach grumbling. He’d mostly been surviving on canned food. He’d gone into the Walmart, thinking about nothing but the people that had suddenly entered his life. The voices were what had gone to his brain, to his heart. He hadn’t heard anyone but himself in weeks.

“That smells good,” he said out loud, coming up to the metal fire pit and just standing there, but looking at the thinner man cooking.

“Ah, let me introduce you proper kid,” Ryan said, extending his hand out, which Thomas shook. “That’s Horatio at the grill, he’s a master of carne asada. He’s had that batch marinating all day. This is Gloria, she was in truck 3 with Horatio and Juan here, who drives 3. Oh, Horatio also mans the radio in 3.”

“Damn right!” Horatio piped up with a raise of the tongs at the grill.

“The little guy there is David, Tonya actually found him in Denver too. He was strapped into his carseat still. You’ve kinda met Tonya, she rides with me in 1 and handles the radio there. And this is Trevor, he went into town before, but he drives truck 2. Sometimes Tonya or Gloria or whoever will ride with him. And that’s pretty much it for those who rode in. This is Helen. She was the motorcycle we heard at Wal-Mart earlier.”

As he’d spoken, Thomas had looked around at them all. Trevor was the only one who hadn’t said anything back or even acknowledged. He just stared into the fire with a closed mouth and unfocused eyes.

He was a tan white man, looked to be quite tall too, with red hair that was kind of balding, but he was young, maybe 24, and stubble on his face. He wore blue jeans and hiking boots, with a navy blue T-shirt on. He had no tattoos that Thomas could see, but there was just something kind of off putting about him.

Helen though was a black woman, young that he could tell. She had on black jeans and black leather boots, with a hot pink tank top. Her hair was a red-ish color that kind of matched the Dodge pickup. Her smile though, brought his spirits up immediately.

“Hi,” she said, coming over and shaking his hand. “So like I was saying,” she continued, apparently explaining something as Thomas had walked up.

They settled around the fire then, Thomas picking a stand alone chair that Juan had gotten up and produced.

“The waste isn’t that big a deal, it’s about reconfiguring things and writing code, which I’ve already done, to make things fairly self-sufficient without anyone there. Those systems have redundancies and emergency, long-term power generating capabilities.

No the real problem is the reactors,” she said, sitting down again, by where Ryan sat.

“What about missiles and ♥♥♥♥?” he asked.

“Mmm, there’s basically inert. They’re not like active fuel rods that generate heat. There’s machinery that makes a nuclear bomb nuclear, and a multitude of safeguards in place. Plus, we’re worried about fallout. About it getting outside and traveling. In those silos? Contained.

Plus, if we can get our hands on potassium iodide, that stops radiation sickness.”

“Really?” Ryan asked, just taking in all of her information.

The two of them continued on like that, even when Horatio came with food, Juan having gotten up and procured plates and silverware from somewhere.

“So kid, any questions you’ve thought of?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know what to say I guess,” Thomas said finally.

“Si, it’s a bit of a shock,” Juan said, again his accent heavy.

“What happened?” Thomas asked. “It was on the news, but I didn’t really pay attention. Then suddenly my sister was sick, then they canceled school and stuff. Then they just died.”

The mood got somewhat somber, but Ryan spoke, again.

“They called it the Cough. The news did. Started over in Europe somewhere. Aggressive and adaptable. It spread like crazy. People died in days. In weeks there wasn’t anyone around. It’s just that simple.”

“So like, everyone’s dead?” Thomas asked. He saw everyone tense up around him, except for Trevor, who continued to stare into the fire while he ate.

“Just about kid. Something like 1 out of every 1.2 million people were immune. Something about our lungs aren’t affected by the Cough.”

“That sucks,” Thomas said, and some of the adults smiled or chuckled. “How did you all find each other? You said something about starting over?”

“Roger that. I kinda figured if I was immune, there’d be others. The math said so. But it’s so damn random, the only way to do it is to go around. It’s been a work in progress. The loudspeaker with the recording. The radio broadcast. We’re also putting flyers that we’ve laminated up along the freeway and in the big cities.”

“Like what I saw on my way up,” Helen said.

“What do they say?” Thomas asked.

“Just that we’re survivors and we’re headed down to Sacramento. If we find a couple more people, I’m thinking a rig should go down there and start setting up,” Ryan said.

“Where’d you start?” At the question Ryan thought for a moment, then spoke again.

“Montana, then came down through Wyoming, hitting Denver in Colorado before turning to Utah and up. We’ll hit Seattle then come down to Sacramento.”

“I ain’t never been to Cali,” Gloria said, rocking David more. It shocked Thomas when he saw she had her tank top pulled to the side and the baby was at her breast. She saw him and smiled.

“Milk is kind of a hard thing to come by anymore. If you try long enough, a girl can start even without having a baby,” she explained.

“Kind of amazing when you think about it,” Tonya said a person over from Gloria.

“Every life is precious now kid,” Horatio said, taking another fork full of food into his mouth.

“Yup,” Ryan said. “Trevor, you gonna say anything tonight man?” he asked. Trevor looked up from the fire for the first time Thomas had seen, looking at Ryan though, then looked over at Thomas.

“Hey,” he said, then his eyes went back to the fire, still no emotion from him.

“The food was good,” Thomas said, rising. The sun was down at this point, though there was still some very little light from it on the horizon. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” Horatio said. “You leavin’?”

“I think I gotta go and think. Like, this morning it was like the others. Silent and stuff. Now there’s all this talking- I gotta go,” he said and walked away from the fire.

“Thomas,” Ryan called to him when he got to his car, but Thomas didn’t turn around. “We leave tomorrow no later than noon. If you want to come along, we have room.”

He got in and drove away.

***

The bike rolled to a stop in the dark, pulling up to the curb of the sidewalk, the others having gone to bed in the hotel. Again, it was warm so heat wasn’t a consideration, just the beds. Trevor though, had still been up and in the chair he’d claimed silently, feeding the fire every now and then.

Though they’d only known each other for several hours, Helen and Ryan felt a connection between them. There was a drive to them both, and they could sense it. When Thomas had left, Helen had seen a look in Ryan’s eyes and offered to tail him on her motorcycle. They’d ridden with no lights and killed the engine when he’d turned into a driveway several miles away from the downtown La Grande area.

“Okay, what’s that one guy’s story?” Helen asked as Ryan dismounted the Harley.

“Which one?” Ryan chuckled.

“The silent one, um,-”

“Trevor?”

“Yeah! Him. What’s his deal?” she asked.

“Don’t really know. His name’s Trevor, but he never told me that. I got it from the wallet that was in his pocket. He thinks, he cares enough to dress and eat, to wear sunglasses. He knows how to drive and he cares enough for that. I’ve noticed he doesn’t sleep much. He talks a little, like you saw back there, but that’s rare. I like to put someone in 2 with him, but they get weirded out by him. He wanted to come with. When I explained the mission he nodded. He’s smart too, he looked at the Dodge and figured out what to do with his own. Like, I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is like a PTSD, that’s what it looks like. Don’t know if he was a soldier or what, he looks like he could’ve been, but he’s messed up.”

“And you?” she asked him.

“What about me?”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you never talk about yourself. You talk about your mission, and it’s just plain obvious you are military. Or were. One or the other.”

“It’s pretty simple honestly.”

“Walk me through it though. All of it. I’ve told you what I’m doing, but I’ve only kind of gotten bits and pieces, I want the whole of it.”

“Well, it’s not that I won’t talk about myself, I just don’t want to. I can, but I’d rather not, and the others are fine with that. So, I guess you could say national guard counts as the military, but I don’t count it as such, not really. Had a wife and son, but I don’t like to talk about them. That’s done and over. I need to deal with it, I know, but I just can’t. Not now. There’s the mission. The crusade. Find these people, get them to the colony, get it started.

Rebuild. Get things going again. Sustainable and what not. I don’t think I’ll let myself relax, really, for at least two years. We get down there and get two seasons under our belts, get things really figured out. I haven’t talked about it much, Gloria and Tonya figured out the milk thing on their own-”

“Yeah about that. Holy ♥♥♥♥. That was a shock to me. I’ll be honest.”

“I mean, I thought of it, but they just pow, went for it.”

“It’s just, wow.”

“Everyone is precious. I have said that. It’s kind of the motto. It makes sense, but I get the shock and hesitation.”

“Anyway, back to what you were saying.”

“What was I saying? Oh right, so, I’ve gone over this in my head, this topic. Speech. And I hope you don’t get freaked out,” he said, but she nodded.

“I’m good, go ahead. I’m just taking it all in.”

“Repopulation. The Cough is still here. Just because we’re immune, doesn’t mean that it’s not here. And if it’s a matter of genes, then why didn’t my son survive? Why didn’t Horatio’s or Tonya’s? If it was only a matter of genes, then siblings should have been immune. But that ratio, the 1 in 1.2 million, that makes it so random. So hard.

If we want humanity to really make it, we’ve got to start repopulating like right now. Like right away. And that’s why I haven’t voiced this to anyone really yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a man. A white man at that. There’s a preconception. I’m a man and I’m just looking to get laid. But I’ve really thought about it. When a baby is born, if both parents are immune, the chances have to go up, have to. It makes sense. But what if ‘chances go up’ mean 1/500 thousand? Let’s say we end up with like 300 people total at the colony. Let’s say we have a perfect 50/50 split of men and women. And let’s say best case, they all have kids. That’s 150 kids. That’s a far number from 500 thousand. What if all those babies die? What if none of them make it? Are immune?

We die, and that’s it. Humanity is gone.”

“Jesus. You have thought about this huh.”

“Just a bit,” he said.

***

In the morning the burnt red Dodge traced the route Ryan and Helen had the night before, to a house in a nicer subdivision on the outskirts of Burns. Ryan got out and entered the house, the door being open, Tonya and Helen behind him. He called out Thomas’s name several times, and didn’t hear anything. But upon looking up the stairs he saw the shadow from the bedroom on the wall. The smell though, was that of rot.

“Kid,” he said. “Thomas.”

The boy turned around as Tonya came up behind Ryan on the stairs, then went past him to Thomas.

“Come on baby,” she said, taking his hand, “We’ll take care of you.”

She grabbed him by the hand and led him out, Ryan just searching the house for clothes of his.

***

“So boss, not just one but two more mouths to feed?” Juan said over the radio.

“Looks like,” Ryan responded over the net. He looked in the mirror to see the motorcycle at the rear of their convoy, Helen back in her biker outfit, without a radio but apparently enjoying the companionship.

They were traveling back on Interstate 84, making their way up to Seattle by way of Yakima. Then the plan was to go down the I5 to Sacramento. Honestly he had no idea what it was going to be like down there, but it was one of the best options they had. It was far enough away from the nuclear power plants, so if something happened with those they should be relatively fine. Those damn nuclear plants. He was collecting all of the remaining survivors in North America, and all it could boil down to was a strong wind over a melted down reactor to wipe them all out. He could account for almost everything, except those.

It was a risk worth taking, he’d decided then confirmed with people as he’d found them. Two in Denver, one in Salt Lake, the toddler they’d found by chance on the side of the road just inside the Idaho border, still locked in a car seat. Severely malnourished and dehydrated, they’d seen it as a bright spot. Gloria he’d found on his way through Wyoming of all places. And Tonya had been making her way to Seattle.

The PA system was working really well. Thomas was the second one that they found themselves, the rest had caught up to Ryan or the convoy after hearing it, though now he wondered about if they’d missed some. Helen had almost passed them. She was on her own crusade, cut of the same cloth as his own.

[Forge04]

I need help.

After looking at publishing I Amazon'd and found something along the lines of my story! Mine seems different still and the subsequent books sure will be, but in the meantime... the title of Survivors is used. Taken. Gone.

You've read what I have, help me find another title.