“I’ve paid close attention to each symbol we’ve found. There’s a consistency to them I can’t explain, like how two people can draw basic stick figures and they look completely different. The perspective of the turtles is always the same, the flourishes exact. If somebody is copying the symbol, they’re doing a good job of it,” Tye said.
A row of brick houses stood in the distance to the west and Tye decided to do some scavenging. Most of the old structures they’d found along the way were picked clean, but out here in the middle of nowhere they might find something. So they left the tracks behind and worked their way through the knee-high brown sagebrush that covered the plain. Snakes, deer, lizards, and armadillos fled before them, and they were about half way to the houses when Tye bumped into Milly, who had halted. She gazed into the sky, slack jawed.
Tye followed her line of sight and saw a white line inching across the sky way up high. It cut through the clouds, and as it advanced, its tail grew wider. He couldn’t see what was making the line, but he knew.
“I’ll be damned,” Tye said.
“What is it?” Milly asked.
The others stared upward, shading their eyes and straining to see into the bright sunlight. “It’s a plane. A jet by the looks of it,” Tye said.
“Yes,” Hansa said.
“How can that be?” Peter said. “Even if someone had a functioning plane, how would they get fuel?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you say all the fuel would be bad?” Milly said. Despite all the signs she’d seen of the gone world she still appeared unconvinced, but Tye understood. Seeing a rusted lump of metal called a car and seeing a car drive are two very different things. Nothing from the gone world worked. It was like a bag of magician’s tricks that were missing pieces, their magic useless.
“Aviation fuel is different, and they had all kinds of additives and preservation methods. That plane is most likely military reconnaissance, and they had plenty of ways to keep things going. I have no doubts that some military bases have power, and other old world luxuries,” Tye said.
“Yeah, there has to be places that self-quarantined. I’m sure the military did in several areas,” Peter said. “My father didn’t understand why no military showed up on Respite.” Tye knew Peter’s father, Ben Hasten, claimed to have seen a submarine on a paddle he did to the closest atoll, but he had no proof and people didn’t seem to care. “My dad said there are probably several islands like ours with people on them. Why haven’t we heard any of these people on the ear?”
“I think that’s where we’re going. To a military place,” Milly said. “A place like that is who sent the message.”
“No,” Hansa said. “The greenies don’t mix with survivors.”
“Greenies?” Vera said.
“They wear green uniforms and live behind walls. Everyone not within their walls is the enemy.”
“That’s dour,” Tye said.
“You don’t understand. In the beginning they were attacked by all survivors. People needed supplies, food, and everyone knew the greenies had some. Folks felt like it was theirs as much as the greenies because they paid for it,” Hansa said.
“What do you know about it?” Milly said.
“That’s what my dad used to say,” Hansa said.
“What happened to dear old dad?” Jerome said.
Hansa said nothing.
“You know we can’t read minds, right?” Robin said.
“My father was a greenie,” Peter said.
“My mom, also,” Milly said.
“I am a greenie,” Tye said, though he hadn’t thought of himself as one for a very long time.
No one spoke.
They reached the village and Tye picked a side street to explore. Most of the houses were roofless, windows and doors gone, but there were still signs of the old world within.
“Is that supposed to be some kind of art?” Milly asked. A black glossy rectangle hung from a wall.
Tye laughed. “Nope. That’s a TV.”
They found plates, cups, and many other things that would have great value on Respite, but they couldn’t carry. Tye found a gold necklace, and to keep the girl in the fold, gave it to Hansa as a gift. The child beamed and constantly fingered the chain.
“Back to the tracks,” Tye said. They left the town empty handed. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but exploring inside the old buildings and seeing the fragments of the gone world helped him piece together pictures of the past and remind him he was sane.
They walked through the sagebrush and an arrow stuck in the ground before Tye. “Down!” he yelled.
Tye dropped and lay in the dried grass. Flies, ants, and mosquitoes attacked him. He was fresh meat, and insects had done well in man’s absence. Tye slowed his breathing, and wondered how cockroaches and rats, animals that lived off the waste of humans, had made out after The Day. Without millions of people creating garbage, what would they eat? The dried grass tickled his nose, and he sneezed. Everything went still. The fellowship waited for orders as he pondered the fate of cockroaches.
Tye stuck his head above the sagebrush. Virals came at them from every direction, stalking through the brush. They appeared different from the orc-men he’d seen in Mexico. These retained many of their human facial features, weren’t as dilapidated, and appeared smarter than their kin to the south as evidenced by their stealthy approach.
The virals charged as one, their footfalls like thunder, their battle cries a splinter in the brain. Milly stood and shot the viral closest to her, but the others kept coming, displaying no fear of guns. The lead attackers were twenty yards away. Milly opened up, squeezing the trigger and screaming with the fury of a year’s frustration and
