Ryan Westfield - Getting Home

She’d barely been surviving by the time the soldiers picked her up. She’d been all alone. She’d convinced one friend to come with her, and they’d left campus together in an old vehicle that worked fine.

They’d lived for weeks on provisions taken from their campus dormitories, where they’d kept huge supplies of dried noodles, which they ate like crackers.

Olivia and her friend had had a few different run-ins, but none of them had turned violent until they’d encountered the soldiers. They’d shot her friend first without even asking any questions. Then they’d taken Olivia captive, and that was when Dan had first seen her.

Dan told her about the plan to get to Max’s camp. He told her what he knew about Rob, which wasn’t that much, and that Rob was coming with them.

“Do you think we can survive at this camp?”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “If it’s still there, I mean.”

“They’ll let us in? I mean, they’ll accept us?”

“That’s the sense I get, as long as we’re willing to work. Do our share, and all that.”

“That’s never been a problem for me,” said Olivia. “I’d be happy to have something to do, something to build. Everything seems like it’s falling apart.”

“I know what you mean,” said Dan. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Better,” said Olivia, glancing down at her wound. “I think your friend did a good job on my wound.”

“And your ankle?”

She wiggled her foot around, moving it in all directions.

“Not great, but better. I’ll try to see if I can walk on it soon.”

“I don’t think you broke it, so it should get better.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Dan had found himself a seat on the floor, sitting cross-legged. To Dan’s surprise, when he looked up the next time at Olivia she was smiling down at him, looking almost as if she was trying not to laugh at some joke.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” said Olivia, still smiling. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how in our old world, I could be babysitting you, but you ended up saving my life. And now you’re taking care of me.”

“You saved my life, too,” said Dan.

“I guess we’re even then.”

“Are you hungry?” said Dan, feeling for some reason that he wanted to change the course of the conversation.

“Starving,” said Olivia. “But I don’t suppose there’s much food.”

“That’s where you’re going to be surprised. We found all sorts of stuff here. It’s incredible. But Rob’s sleeping in the kitchen. I’ll go in and bring you some stuff.”

“Thanks.”

Rob was snoring comfortably on the floor, still lying on his back. Dan tiptoed around him and gathered up a bunch of different foods. He made sure to get some tins of fish along with crackers and things like that. Olivia would need both protein and carbohydrate. The rest of the nutritional details didn’t matter so much.

She was ecstatic to see the food when he brought it back, and she dug in immediately. Dan joined too, having grown hungry once again. He’d gone so long without really feeling full that his body was relishing the opportunity for more food, more calories, and more nutrients.

They ate together in silence.

“So you’re supposed to wake up Rob for the next shift?” said Olivia, her mouth still partially full, a couple crackers in her hand.

Dan nodded.

“Why don’t you two just sleep? I can do the next shift.”

Dan shook his head. “You need to rest more than we do,” he said.

“I don’t want to be a burden on everyone.”

“It’s going to be more a burden if you’re still too weak to make the journey.”

“Fair point. And how are we going to get there anyway?”

“Walking, unless we can find a vehicle.”

“Where are we anyway?”

“Not really sure,” said Dan. “But we need to go northwest in order to get to the hunting grounds where the camp is.”

“And how far away do you think it’ll take us?”

“Without knowing where we really are, it’s hard to say.”

Dan watched as Olivia set her food down and stood up slowly. She put the weight on her ankle slowly, treating it gingerly. Her face began showing pain, and soon she was wincing. But despite it, she did manage to stand on both her feet. She held her arms out as if she might lose her balance and fall down.

“You’d better sit back down,” said Dan. “You don’t want to overdo it.”

“Just a minute longer. I know I can do it.”

But soon the pain was too much, and she flopped back, exhausted, on the couch.

Neither of them said anything, but Dan knew they were thinking the same thing.

What would they do if she couldn’t walk? Here she was, unable to stand up. There was no way she could walk all the way to the hunting grounds. It would take days, at a minimum.

But they couldn’t abandon her. They couldn’t just leave her there.

The silence hung heavy over the room.

“You two should just go without me,” Olivia finally said.

Dan shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“For one thing, you saved my life.”

“You’re just a kid,” she said. “You deserve to get out of this madness if there’s a chance for you.”

Before Dan could respond there was a loud crack that came from outside the house.

Dan stood up, grabbing his gun.

Before he could make another move, Rob had already rushed into the room, eyes wide and alert, gun in his hand.

No one spoke for another thirty seconds. Rob and Dan moved to the windows, looking out through the blinds.

“Did it sound like it came from the front of the house to you, too?” Rob finally said.

Dan nodded.

There seemed to be nothing in the street. No cars, no people. Nothing.

There was another crack. Louder this time than before.

Dan couldn’t identify the sound. It wasn’t a gunshot. It wasn’t thunder. The closest he could get was of some kind of material breaking, something stronger than wood, yet maybe more brittle.

“What do we do?” said Dan.

“We wait,” said Rob. “Whatever’s going on, what we know for sure is that there’s someone out there. The last thing we need to do is rush out into the open where we’ll be at a disadvantage. If they’re dangerous, let them come to us.”

The day had seemed to drag on and on. Physical work had never been something that Sadie had enjoyed before. In fact, she’d hated it. Before the EMP, she’d dreaded mowing the lawn and picking weeds.

It wasn’t the work that made the day drag on. It was the worry. Her mother still wasn’t back from her hunting trip.

Her mother had been a stickler for making sure her kids did their chores. And there hadn’t been any talking her out of it. Sadie had pleaded with her mom, telling her that none of her friends at school had to mow the lawn at home, and that it was work for boys.

Of course, her mother wasn’t having any of it. She’d divided the chores evenly between Sadie and James. She gave Sadie a little more slack than James because of her age, but didn’t treat her any differently because she was a girl and James was a boy.

Since the EMP, Sadie had recognized the importance of what was going on. She’d understood the seriousness of the situation. She’d been happy to pitch in.

But she’d never, until today, really enjoyed physical work. It had always been a chore.

Now, she dove happily into the project of digging the ditches. It was something that helped her. It distracted her from the worry, from the worry about her mother, who still wasn’t back from her hunting.