@@@@@
Frank and Trinity smiled and made puppy dog eyes to each other as they sat waiting for the vehicle in front of them to move. “I’m sorry, but when you were hanging next to me, I did sneak a peek.”
Trinity smiled a sly smile, “It’s okay, I did too.”
“I guess that took the surprise out of our relationship.”
“We have a relationship?” Asked Trinity as her cheeks flushed.
“What would you call it?” Asked a shy Frank? “I’d like to ask you out…”
“I see how you are. First you see me naked and then you ask me out. Is that how you act with all of the girls?”
Frank stuttered, “I, I,”
“I’m only teasing you. I’d love to go on a date with you. I really like you. Do you think we’ll make it all the way to Tennessee? Have you ever been there before? I really don’t know much about you, why don’t you tell me everything about you?”
Frank explained, “My parents went out one day to search for supplies, they said we could easily ride out the storm, that it was nothing more than a bad winter. They’d filled our basement with supplies. They searched every neighbor’s house after they left and we carried their supplies to our home. We had wood for our fireplace, propane to cook with and for space heaters, we had food, and of course melted snow for water.”
“What about a bathroom?” Blushed Trinity.
“We went in plastic bags we placed in the toilet then we tossed them outside where they quickly froze.”
Trinity asked, “Do you think of your parents often?”
“My parents went out of the cave one day and never returned. I think about them all of the time. They left and never returned. Then one day a man asked me where we had lived, he asked me if we owned any guns. I knew where my dad kept his guns so I held one ready to use it if I thought the man was a sicko. He told me things about my parents only a close friend would know so I trusted him. He helped take care of us.
“I learned later that the people in the cave went to our house and took all of our supplies and the supplies from all of the surrounding homes. There was enough food in the caves to keep us going for many years. Once in a while, a hunter would bring in fresh meat, usually a bear. For some reason, all of a sudden, there were a lot of bears. Four of us were killed by them. Their claws tore them apart. It was disgusting, so much blood and their guts were hanging out.”
Trinity’s face paled. She tried to think about what it must have been like seeing people she knew torn apart by a wild bear. She wanted to change the subject so she asked, “Would you have shot him?”
“If it meant me staying alive, yes I would have. I had decided I wanted to live.”
“I’ve shot people on our way here. I don’t know if I killed them or not, but they tried to hurt my family. I would have killed them if I had to in order to save my family.”
“I think you would. I saw your strength when I first saw you. I was instantly attracted to you. I’ve never been to Tennessee, but I understand it’s nice there. Is that where most of the Canadians were sent? My father was angry our limited resources were being given to Canadians and not used by what he called our people.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think I want everyone to survive.”
“Me too. How was life in the caves?”
“It was really nice. It was warm. We had three meals a day and clean water. The hardest was taking care of the young kids who kept asking when their parents were coming back. I had no answer for them so I kept telling them they would return very soon, I knew they were dead and never coming back, but I couldn’t tell them.”
“Did a lot of people you know die?”
“I don’t know. So many left. Others seemed to disappear and I don’t know what happened to them. I was a freshman in college when they closed classes because of the rock and the storms. I guess schools, no, I guess life as we knew it is over. I wonder what life after we reach the south will be like. I wonder if it will be anything like it used to be.” Frank shook his head.
“I don’t think life will ever be like it used to be. We heard that the glaciers are going to cover so much of the northern hemisphere it may take hundreds of years for them to melt…”
“Will they ever melt?” Frank asked.
“My dad told us that they will melt. They melted before when there was an ice age, sometime in the past. He said the weather will correct but it would take hundreds of years, maybe a thousand.”
Frank shook his head, “Wow. I can’t even image a thousand years.”
“Me either.”
The two continued to get to know each other until Frank said, “Look, the one in front of us just began to move! We’re going forward again.”
The convoy passed the spot of the attempted ambush. One tank sat on the side of the road while the other lowered its plow and continued to clear the interstate so the convoy could continue. Frank looked at the odometer,
