Eli served in Afghanistan too, at the big military base there called Camp Bastion, and has seen active duty under fire.
I don’t know why, but when he said the camp’s name, I got a little shiver, like someone had just walked over my grave. Weird.
Anyway, with Eli is his younger brother, Theodore.
Side note here. Elijah and Theodore Beckett. You just don’t hear cool as fuck names like that round here. Everybody is Dave, Steve, Mike, John, Andy, and all those other common names. Elijah and Theodore Beckett sound like something out of a movie. Awesome names.
Theodore is early twenties, and is on the autism spectrum somewhere, though he seems quite high functioning. Apparently, he’s got perfect recall – like full on eidetic memory – and also has savant syndrome. Eli says he loves to draw and has beyond normal skills, able to recreate anything he’s seen from memory in perfect detail. That’s amazing, and I look forward to seeing that.
Eli left the service when their mum died. While Theodore can generally take care of himself, he struggles with the difficulties of emotional engagement and refuses to make eye contact with anyone except Eli. He speaks in a sort of flat, almost robotic manner, like his mind is always somewhere else and his mouth is doing the speaking for him. It’s devoid of emotion from what I’ve heard so far.
Eli used his skills learned in the military and flew through paramedic training so he could have a civilian job and be near his brother who needed him.
Well, my candle for the green-eyed saver of lives just started burning a little brighter. What a thoroughly decent and noble thing to do. After seeing how the brothers interact this evening here on campus, and how sweet and gentle Eli is with him, I’m fairly sure I heard my ovaries screaming.
The other survivors are a family unit. Clyde Ritchie is a big Scottish fellow in his early thirties (can you get a more Scottish name than Clyde Ritchie?) He’s a mechanic and welder by trade, so again, an awesome skill set. He moved to Cheshire to be with wife Ellie, which is short for Elizabeth. Again, she’s early thirties, really pretty and very warm. I think she might be the best find of the lot.
Freya, she’s a hair stylist.
We are a shaggy, messy bunch of apocalypse grunge hippies at the moment, so getting haircuts is high on the agenda, I think. We’ll need to get her the supplies and hit a salon for them, but fuck you, oh split ends of doom; your days are numbered.
Their son is Max, who is the same age as Charlie. When we came back to campus, well, those two hit it off like they were best friends in some former life that have just been reacquainted in this one. They love all the same things, they spent all evening chatting away, giggling, and playing video games, and Mark and Clyde got on like a house on fire as well. A mechanic and an engineer? Shit, those two will be geeking out over all things clunky and oily.
We decided to put the Ritchie family in the third and final little house in the maintenance area. Max and Charlie can hang out, and Mark and Clyde will likely be working closely together, so it makes sense. Letting the little family units with boys the same age live next to each other just seems right. I have no doubt that Ellie and Norah will become fast friends as well.
I’m so stoked by how happy Charlie is now. Having a kid his own age, who he gets on with so well, is amazing.
Eli and Theodore were put in one of the small staff houses that’s across from Hall Fire. With Theodore’s special needs, putting him in a large dorm with others might be a bit of a sensory overload for him. Eli nearly wept in joy when we told him and was so damn grateful it nearly had us all in floods.
The five of them were blown away by Crenshaw. Power, hot showers, clean water, food, vehicles, security, heating… all five of them spent most of the afternoon on the tour in a daze, hardly believing their luck. Clyde got a glass of water from the tap and laughed like he had just seen the most incredible invention of the era, shaking his head in awed disbelief.
They’ve all had it pretty hard and it’s a testament to their tenacity that they’ve lasted this long, just scavenging house to house, keeping on the move, avoiding the undead where they can. Max is a little trooper, and it can’t have been easy for Theodore.
I’m not shortening it to Theo in my journal so I can get it right in my head. Apparently, it’s one of his idiosyncrasies that we need to be aware of. His name is Theodore, so we have to call him by his full name, or he gets upset.
The last thing I want to note down are these so called ‘Nomads’ that we scattered. Eli and Clyde both said they’ve had run ins with smaller groups and just managed to avoid them, but they’re a bad bunch. They must have some smarts to have lasted this long,
