“True! After all, look at what I brought home.”
Home. When did he start calling her house home? She’s glad of it. It warms her and makes her feel safe.
“Do tell,” she says. “Wait till I get a cup of coffee though. Okay?”
He nods, then asks, “Want me to do it?”
Her fingers brush his shoulder as she passes. “No, you have your hands full. I can do it.”
The coffee maker is near the window, so she hurries over and checks it. It’s already been set up for her, fresh grounds in the hopper and the water filled. All she has to do is click the button.
“You’re so sweet,” she says, coming to the table and taking a seat.
He waves off the compliment with a flour-dusted hand. “Not really. It only takes a minute.”
“Tell me your good one.”
“If you insist,” he quips, his hands busy with the task at hand. “Do you know that vegan cafe? The one a couple of blocks over. The Clean Belly?”
She nods. “Yes, I love it. I didn’t even know I liked vegan food till I ate there one day out of desperation.”
He laughs at that. “Same here. Anyway, after you went to bed, I took a walk, trying to see what I could see. I wanted to see what the grocery store had posted for their hours too. It changes every day now. It was still quite early, just dawn. I saw a delivery lorry there. One of those big boxy ones, you know?”
“A truck. It’s called a truck.”
“Only to you barbaric colonists.”
“I’ll have you know my ancestors were sentenced to transportation and sold upon arrival. Nothing colonist about that. We’re proudly dodgy!”
“And that’s why America is America. All those dodgy criminal types.”
“Ha ha. Very funny and possibly true. Anyway, go on.”
“Fine. The truck was parked in the alley behind the place and I could see it was full of these bags and boxes. Some men were unloading into the basement. When they saw me looking, one of them came out and gave me a hard look. He told me not to even think about it.”
“Sounds reasonable, given the situation.”
“Of course. Perfectly reasonable, but that wasn’t really what I was looking at. There was a huge stack of plywood next to the truck, obviously unloaded from it.” He paused, changing topics. “You know who runs that place?”
“Sure. It’s right on the sign. Clean Belly Collective. They’re all very hip and above it all.”
That makes Tom laugh again. “It did seem that way, didn’t it? Anyway, they are a collective, though I might be tempted to call it a commune. They live in that building above the store.”
Miranda sees now. Plywood and people living above the store mean one thing. Survivors. “Oh, they have a survivor?”
Tom smiles and says, “Exactly what I thought. Anyway, I pointed to the plywood and told the man that they shouldn’t put it up. He looked a bit nervous then, so I figured I was right about a survivor. I told him that there were gangs of men going around looking for boarded windows, because survivors would be inside.
“When I said that, he looked around like he was scared of anyone hearing us, then came closer. I told him what I know, what we’d seen, and how we were handling it. Basically, I told him everything.”
Alarm flutters through her belly like disturbed butterflies. “Even me?”
“Even you,” he confirms. “But not where we live, so that’s alright. I just wanted him to know that I understood his fears.”
Glancing down at the bags on the floor. “So he gave you this?”
Tom grins and nods. “He did! I didn’t even have to ask for it. I ran back for my car and they even helped me load it.”
“Why?”
“He said if I had a survivor to take care of, then I should be helped in the doing of it. Also, and here’s the big news for you. They don’t have one survivor. They have four.”
“Four!”
“Yes, four survivors. They only lost one.”
“That’s amazing,” Miranda says, then has a thought. “Is it because they’re vegan?”
Tom bursts out laughing at that, creating a little cloud of flour dust when he does. “Oh, wouldn’t that be a comeuppance for everyone? But no, the man told me that all four of the ones who survived were in the basement kitchen having some kind of meditation or whatever. They’ve been living in the basement since, but they want to go back upstairs, hence the plywood.”
“You explained about the night?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, I guess you both did your good deeds for the day.”
“I suppose we did.”
Charlotte
She waits and watches the long driveway. It’s dark out and the night is moonless, so the only indication that the driveway exists is the glow bleeding over from the single bulb on their barn. Charlotte’s mother has been gone for over four hours and that’s too long.
Her mind churns, already shifting into panic mode. Wild, half-formed thoughts of how she’ll survive on her own have already begun.
It’s when she finally gets to the weeping stage of panic that she hears an engine rumble. Her tears immediately cease and her eyes are hopeful at the window. She smiles as the big truck rolls into view, all her former doom-laden thoughts forgotten. The headlights are off, leaving only the parking lights to guide the way, but she can see the truck well enough. It’s theirs.
It’s their store truck.
With a sound of excitement and relief, Charlotte leaps from her perch and runs for the door. There’s a moment of hesitation when she twists the knob, but she pushes it back. It’s strange how quickly she’s grown to fear the outside. It’s only been in the last few days that her mother has decided she can go outside at night.
Not without testing it first, however.
Her mother, Tabitha, went outside at night for a full week before she allowed Charlotte to join her. Charlotte thinks the world around them not getting back to normal is what spurred her
