“Any word on Lane?”
I nodded. It was nice there was communications between us and Beckley, even if it was landlines. The wires for those were mostly underground and had survived.
“Last I heard his fever was done for good,” I said. “That was last night. He’s better. A lot better.”
“Did they say how long until he can be mobile?”
“A couple more days.”
“Then what?”
I growled in frustration.
“What? What was that about?”
“That two word question. Then what? Now what?” I huffed. “I hate it.”
“Because you don’t know?” he asked.
“I don’t know, you’re right. I’m supposed to know, right?”
“That’s the general consensus.”
“This whole, Martin, from getting stuff, running from the storms and making it here, this whole thing is like going to the grocery store, buying all this stuff and not knowing what you are going to make for dinner,” I said. “All the stuff and not knowing what to do with it.”
“Meal planning is always easiest when going to the market.”
“Exactly.” I held out my hand.
“Just like long term survival planning is best when preparing for the apocalypse. What is this job or responsibility the General wants you to take?”
“She needs to get this country back on its feet before chaos hits, if it already hasn’t. People need to know there is support. She wants me and others to take an area, be like the liaison to the resources they need to rebuild.”
“Are there resources?” Martin asked.
“I guess. I mean, she wouldn’t have someone there saying, ‘hey we’ll get you wood’ if there was no way to get wood.”
“She wants to rebuild to get the country going again in some way.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And where does she want you to go?”
“I get to pick, and if I can’t, if this is what I decide to do, she’ll put me somewhere.”
“What is the problem?” Martin asked. “Why is this so hard? It sounds like something you should do, something we all should do.”
“The problem is it isn’t just me. Or me, you, Lane and the kids. A lot of people followed me here. Followed me to be safe, to have some sort of safe life after everything died and got screwed up. And now they have to be thinking just like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they followed me here and a part of me is thinking … Why? Why did we even leave? Why did we leave and lose so many when Ares, the big bad storm, never happened?”
“But it could have,” Martin said.
“It didn’t.”
“It could have. It was a gamble either way. The correction worked, but what if it didn’t? I mean, that last storm wasn’t even part of Ares and look what it did. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if that correction didn’t work. And, besides, you heard Alice, things were bad, we may not have survived if we stayed.”
“It’s all theory at this point.”
“We’re alive. And I just don’t get where you’re having problems with this,” Martin said.
“I have more to consider than just you, me, Lane and the kids. Like I said, I dragged them out there, they have to be a part of what I decide to do. Do they want to stay where we go? Or stay here? Is it fair to drag them somewhere? If they go, they aren’t just rebuilding, they’re starting from scratch in a new place, a new area.”
“Jana, your solution is really simple. You’re making far too much out of this. In fact, it’s a great opportunity.”
“What are you talking about, Martin? How is it simple?” I asked.
“Find out from the general if this liaison and access to supplies extended to the other side of the Mississippi.”
“Okay.” I said slowly, trying to figure out where he was going.
“If so, then let’s go west. If you can get the resources out there, then let’s load up the group and go back home.”
“Martin there may be absolutely nothing left out there.”
“That may be true. Houses, any business, expensive bottles of bourbon, they may all be gone. And yep, we may all have to start over from scratch. But, Jana, it’s not a new place or a new area. It’s memories, it’s a lifetime of living there. And more than that,” Martin said. “It’s home.”
TWENTY-SIX – HOMEBOUND
Lane looked at me sort of sideways. I knew he was looking at my eye, not wanting to say anything.
After agreeing to spend some time in West Virginia, get acclimated on how things worked, get to know the people I would be communicating with, I had made all arrangements with Nel to go back home, at least to Texas. They would supply us with a bus, a horse trailer and fuel for the trip.
I hoped the trip wouldn’t be as eventful as when we went east. Something told me it wouldn’t be.
My husband had to be on antibiotics a full ten days before they gave him pills to take for another five. The infection was worse than first anticipated, the main goal was to stop him from becoming septic.
His lungs had finally cleared, but I was told that cough would be around a long time if not forever.
I alternated my nights between staying in Beckley and at the resort or as they were officially calling it, Olympus. I had to learn how Nel wanted things done, the procedure to get things back up and how to get the supplies we needed.
Martin and the kids opted to stay in Beckley. While there they gathered clothes we would need, a pair or two of jeans and shorts each, along with some shirts.
None of us really had any clothes.
Everything we had and we brought was lost.
For me, personally, the positive aspect was I was able to have my patch removed along with my sutures.
It was still healing and tight, my vision was slightly blurry, and I really didn’t think I looked all that good.
That was confirmed when my husband kept staring at it as we readied to leave.
“What? Say it,” I told him.
“It
