The End of Hope (The End of Everything Book 4), page 21
I made sure the street was clear before I left the building and started making my way back to my home in the library.
I’d walked about half a block when a subtle twitch started traveling between my shoulder blades. You know, the kind you feel when someone is staring daggers into your back. Whoever they were they were good at disappearing. I stood there, examining every possible hiding space.
Seeing all the useless cars parked on the street made me remember the Tinker I’d met two years earlier. He’d driven to the farm in a horse-drawn wagon and laughed when he saw me staring at his horses.
He bitched about the useless electric cars.
“No electricity, no car,” he said as he unhitched his team and complained that all the gas had gone bad, ruined by the chemicals the big oil companies added to it.
After a few years of sitting around, the gas clumped together and ruined the engines. Because no one had pumped new oil since the illness, that meant no one went anywhere and that was why being a Tinker with horses was valuable.
“No gas, no car, no problem.”
My mind snapped back to the street. It wasn’t good to let my mind wander like that. I must be hungrier than I thought as I scanned the street again. Nothing!
The feeling was still there. It was so frustrating. I wanted to find people. I was done with being alone all the time. Unfortunately, they didn’t want anything to do with me.
Resuming my journey, I was almost at my new home when I spun around real fast and caught a movement. Someone had ducked back behind the big brown First National Bank on the corner.
Running as fast as the heavy pack would let me, I rounded the corner, but no one was there.
The street was emptier than my stomach. There wasn’t even blowing trash to distract the eye. They could be anywhere by now, having slipped into any of a dozen buildings.
“I just want to talk,” I yelled, surprised at the sound of my voice. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but I was getting pissed off with this constant game of hide and seek.
Frustrated, I turned for home. The shoulder twitch didn’t go away.
.o0o.
Sitting on the ledge of the cathedral’s bell tower, six stories above the street. I draped my arm over the ugliest of the gargoyles like a modern-day Quasimodo as I wondered about my future.
Looking out across the city I scanned everything, each street, building, or back alley for any sign of life. Hoping to see smoke, moving cars, recent construction, anything.
The city looked deader than the bodies in the church below.
I’d come to the cathedral ledge to watch the sunrise over the city and come to some type of resolution. Go or stay? If go, where?
The purple sky slowly turned red and eventually yellow enough to start throwing deep dark shadows. This was the most active time of the day, with enough light to see potential predators and enough shadows to find good hiding spots.
Dispersed people made quick trips from doorway to doorway and into derelict buildings to retrieve what they needed.
After several minutes of watching, I saw what I was looking for. A slight figure at the end of the block slowly opened a door and scampered across the street to a strip mall and into one of the stores.
They were dressed in jeans and a green sweatshirt with their hood up. I’d seen this person twice before and didn’t think they lived in either building.
If they followed the normal pattern, they’d return the same way they came. I gathered my things and ran down the stairs, two at a time. Within minutes I was in the tall building and in place. Crouched behind a receptionist's desk, my leg muscles burned as I waited.
It wasn’t long before I was rewarded with the crunch of glass as the person returned from their supply run. Quickly standing, gripping my bow and notched arrow aimed between their shoulder blades. I watched them close the door.
“Hello,” I said. What else do you say in a situation like that?
The person squealed and turned with a nasty looking spear in her hand. She crouched ready to take on whatever awaited her.
A girl! About my age. Eighteen or so, and she wanted to shove her spear into me three ways from Sunday.
She whipped her hood back to eliminate any blind spots and put her back to the wall, making sure nothing could come up from behind. All the while, her eyes bore into me with such hate that I felt dirty, like I’d failed somehow.
“Hold on, I just want to talk,” I stammered. My voice sounded horse and unused. I moved the arrow so it no longer pointed at her and held up my other hand.
“Just talk,” I said with more clarity this time.
Her ponytail whipped back and forth as she searched the area for other threats. Seeing none, her gaze returned to stare at me as she slowly slid back to the door. The tip of her spear never waved. Reaching behind her she grabbed the knob with her left hand.
“Please,” I said, sounding all needy and stuff. “Why is everyone hiding?” I added. Hoping that if she knew, I was curious and not a threat, she might relent.
Still no response
She was short, about five foot three with blond hair and blue eyes that didn’t stop moving and were so intense they could cut through steel.
She reminded me of a cornered badger, cute and ready to tear my heart out by the roots. Her jeans were tight in all the right places and made me feel sort of strange inside.
It was her face though that shocked me. It’d be beautiful if she ever stopped scowling.
“I just want to …” What did I want I wondered, not for the first time.
Taking a step to the side of the desk I stepped towards her, I didn’t know why, I just wanted to get closer.
“Stay back,” she screamed, emphasizing her point by thrusting her spear my way.
I froze in my tracks before slowly moving back behind the desk. Anything to make her feel comfortable enough to stay.
Both of us looked at each other across the room, neither knowing what to do next.
“Can I meet your group, maybe your leader?” I asked. God how lame, I thought, kicking myself internally. This isn’t some alien visiting the planet, you’ve been reading too many Sci-Fi books.
Watching her, I wondered if she thought I was a total idiot or only partly one.
“What makes you think I’m not the leader,” she said, her voice pitched high and tight. Sticking her chin out a little she dared me to contradict her. “And what do you know of our group?” she added with a worried look on her face.
“Nothing, I mean, I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on around here,” I said. Exasperated that I couldn’t think straight, and continued to make a fool of myself.
“Nothing’s going on, the world ended,” she said. As if that was all the explanation I needed.
“What about here in the city, who’s in charge?”
“No one’s in charge,” she said as if it should be obvious. “And before you ask, there are no zombies or mutant aliens. Between the dogs, the slavers, and the Bengal Tiger some idiot let out of the zoo, we have more than enough monsters thank you. We’re all trying to avoid becoming someone’s next meal. And the best way to do that is to avoid other people.”
It was as if someone had hit me upside the head. No one in charge, how was that possible?
I’d counted on some kind of organization, something I could join. I didn’t care if my emotions were showing. I’d hoped for so much.
Five years of hiding, of following my father’s instructions to the letter. I’d risked everything, abandoned his wishes to find something else. And these people were no better. In fact, they seemed to have it worse. At least in the forest and on the farm, I knew what I was dealing with.
Did she say Bengal Tiger?
Looking at her, I didn’t know where to go from here.
The girl’s brow furrowed with pity, but she didn’t leave the door. “Welcome to the big city,” she said with a sneer. “You should probably go back to where you came from.”
The words hurt, did she think that little of me? Hell, I was the one who'd trapped her. Believe me, my bow outweighed her puny spear. I knew I could take care of myself, that wasn’t the question.
Besides, I didn’t need some girl telling me what to do, even if she did fill out a pair of jeans to perfection.
I’ll admit up front, I didn’t have a lot of experience talking to people, especially female-type people. Five years in the mountains will do that.
This one seemed awful bossy, maybe they just naturally told people what to do. Shaking my head, I tried to get my mind wrapped around what she’d told me.
“I’ve got to go,” she said and was out the door in a flash.
I ran to the door to stop her but she was already across the street and entering another store. At the last moment, she turned and looked back at me, those blue eyes boring into my soul.
“The Library was a good choice,” she yelled. Pushing a wisp of hair behind her ear, she knocked a piece of hanging glass out of the way with her spear as she ducked into the building.
I stood there hoping she’d come back. Slowly realizing I was alone once again.
My anger slowly built as I made my way back to the library. Things were so screwed up. By the time I got back, my face was beet red, and my hands ached from clenching the bow so hard. It wasn’t right; someone should have done something about it by now.
Reaching my room, I put my things into the corner and flopped onto the bed I’d dragged in from the department store down the block. My anger slowly gave way to despair as I realized that all of my hopes, plans, and dreams had vanished.
Should I go back to the mountains? Maybe somewhere else might be better.
As my mind wandered, trying to figure out what to do next, I thought of the girl and the way she looked in those jeans.
I hadn’t even gotten her name but could remember every curve, the way her eyes cut right through me. I cringed when I remembered the sting of her words.
Go Back! Not on your life.
Chapter Two
I climbed into the bell tower the next afternoon in a rather foul mood. I was going to have to start naming the gargoyles if I was going to continue coming up here. Hell, they may be the only friends I ever had.
“She isn’t the only person in town,” I mumbled to the stone creature next to me. “Not even the only girl I’d bet. There must be other people. Someone must be willing to talk, maybe an adult.”
Okay, I talk to myself. It happens when you live all alone for as long as I did.
I could easily see what the city used to be like. Full of movements, never still. Cars and people rushing everywhere, horns blaring, music spilling out of the bars and taverns, traffic lights, neon signs, and street lights mixing together to create a canvas of vibrant images.
The aroma of fresh bread, car exhaust, and the ozone of electric motors mingled to form the sweet smell of progress and comfort. I could taste it on my tongue I wanted it so bad.
Now the city was dead stone buildings, tan, brown, and gray interspersed with glass and steel. All of it drab, dirty. The black streets laid out in a grid. Shuffling blowing trash from one side to the other.
If I listened hard, I could hear the wind whistling through the man-made canyons, across the sun faded cars parked neatly along broken sidewalks.
Today’s city had that sweet dry smell of dust and old death. The smell was constant, regardless of which way the wind blew. A deep sadness at the huge waste of it all washed through me.
Pulling my dad's pocket knife from my pocket, I absent-mindedly flicked it open. Closed it, and flicked it open again. It was a habit I'd picked up since leaving the mountains. I think it kept me in touch with my home, my dad, and all I'd left behind.
If I closed my eyes, I could also see what the city would become. A future pile of grass-covered rubble located next to the river. A huge hill between the prairie and the mountains. The type of place that the future local wandering nomads spoke of in hushed tones as they migrated with the great herds. A place filled with un-placated ghosts.
I’d left the mountains on my eighteenth birthday two weeks earlier, after spending five years up there on my own. Ignoring everything my father had said on his deathbed.
Disregarding the three black and white marbled notebooks crammed with dictated information passed along by a dying man who knew he was leaving his son all alone in the world.
Books filled with everything from how to dress a deer to changing a flat tire, all of the things he thought I’d need to survive in this new world. The pages interlaced with a single message – Avoid people at all costs.
After five years I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t care. I couldn’t stay there all alone anymore, living like a hermit. Something inside my gut pushed me.
An unknown force was driving me to stretch the limits, to break some rules, to ignore what was smart, and do what felt good instead. To hell with the consequences. Maybe it was hormones. I don’t know, and there wasn’t anybody to ask.
So without really thinking about it, I’d left our small farm on a tree-covered mountain and sneaked into the deserted city hoping to find other people.
This was not what I expected.
I sat there on the ledge sixty feet above the empty street. My feet dangled over the side as my mind drifted to the past.
The plague was pretty efficient, leaving five people for every ten thousand it took. It’d come out of some Mid-East war and spread across the world in less than a month.
Most people had time to make it home and crawl into bed before dying an agonizing death. Not everyone had chosen that path of course, as the pews in the church below demonstrated.
Old white bones covered in old clothes were the iconic image of this new age.
Movement caught the corner of my eye; a pack of feral dogs was hunting near the park. Their noses close to the ground, sweeping back and forth as they searched for that elusive scent that would signal dinner. I shivered.
It hadn’t taken long after the illness swept through before they’d gotten used to human flesh. There’d been a full-course meal on every corner.
My mind flashed back a couple of months ago to Mrs. Jacobson on the side of the road. It looked like some wild dogs, or a wolf pack had caught her too far away from her house.
I don’t think I’ll ever get that sight out of my mind.
She’d been the last person I knew from before the plague. In fact, she was the last person I knew period. A sweet lady like her shouldn’t have had to worry about wild dogs.
She’d stop by and make sure I was alright. Even tried to take me in after my dad died. I’d always found some excuse not to. Maybe if I was there, she wouldn’t have been taken like that.
As I watched, the dogs caught a scent and tore into the park, baying in full-throated glory.
A doe sprang from the bushes and scampered across the park’s meadow and into the trees. The dogs had her scent though and wouldn’t give up easily. A large German Shepherd raced to the front of the pack while a beautiful Red Irish setter turned to the left, trying to herd the deer back towards the shepherd.
I had a bird’s eye view and watched, fascinated when the dogs trapped the young deer by a chain-link fence, her path cut at every turn. She turned to face her enemies, frantic, still searching for that escape.
I felt sorry for her, it was hopeless.
The dogs moved in cautiously, knowing they had her trapped. Working together they turned the deer, and the shepherd got in close to hamstring her. As he held her heel, the big red setter got her by the throat. In an instant, she was down.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away as the dogs tore into the tawny hide and began to feast, snapping and snarling at each other over the choicer parts.
Without thinking, I reached for my bow and quiver, making sure they were close. Even at sixty feet above the scene, a disquieting sliver of fear crept up my spine.
I’d taken my share of deer, this was different. Seeing such violence inside the city made me uncomfortable.
For the thousandth time, I desperately wished I had a gun. A bow, even a professional compound bow like the one dad had left me was great for hunting, but I’d need a machine gun if I ever got cornered by a large pack of wild dogs.
Living was easier at the beginning, as long as you didn’t mind the overpowering stink when going into some dead person’s house to retrieve their food. Now, after five years, the easily found stuff was running out or had already spoiled.
I could survive in the mountains on my own, - barely, but it was close and wasn’t much fun and only a small step up from the dogs below.
Tearing my gaze away, I returned to scanning the city. The cathedral sat catty-corner from my library overlooking the park and the river. Several places on both sides of the river had been turned into blackened rubble. There hadn’t been anybody to put the fires out. Still, other buildings had smashed windows and doors hanging open on their broken hinges.
Most of the city looked normal, only abandoned. As if someone had vacuumed up all the people and left everything else untouched.
An eagle cruised above the building behind me. Suddenly a pair of crows flew up to harass the bigger bird. They acted like fighter jets attacking a lumbering bomber. They’d swoop in from above and then dart out of the way before getting too close. Cawing, and raising all kinds of hell the whole time.
The eagle tried to ignore them, probably frustrated out of his mind. Deciding he’d had enough, he turned and slowly left the area. He must have traveled a good mile before the smaller black birds left him alone.
Smiling to myself I returned to searching the city.
I tried to come here at least once a day. It was definitely the best vantage point. Automatically I looked at the last place I’d seen her, what I called ‘Her building.’
I tried to scan the rest of the city, but my eyes kept being pulled back to that spot.
Only after a long time, could I force them away. I slowly searched each street and the park. Gasping with shock as I grabbed the ledge for balance.
