20. Out of Time
Out of Time
Solace
Life’s a bitch. Or at least it seems to be—specifically to me. You know that old adage that bad things come in threes? Turns out it’s true. Just for spite, apparently, because it turns out living through the end of the world wasn’t enough. No, life just had to go and fuck me again.
Not only was I dangerously low on water, but the antenna, or signal, or whatever the hell made the radio work had broken, and the air filtration system stopped working altogether. Miraculously, I still had power. But for how long? Who really knew at this point.
I could have lamented my death, and sat around crying about it. But mostly I was pissed.
I’d gotten Jude for a week. One week. Which is why I decided I wasn’t going to die.
Not in some musty, dark bunker that already smelled like a tomb.
If I was going to die, it would be under the same sky that sat between us, with the smell of the earth—no matter how rotten it might be now—lodged deep in my lungs.
I’d spent too long underground.
Waiting.
For something.
When really, nothing was coming. Except Jude. I didn’t know how he’d find me, and it was probably stupid to hope he would. Yet it didn’t stop me from tearing a page from one of Paul’s manuals and leaving a note on the control console.
Out of time. If you find this don’t look—
I scratched that part out. If Jude made it to Earth and actually came looking for me, I hoped he searched every inch of this miserable place.
I was done begging in silence. Done wishing for things to happen to me instead of making them happen myself.
It was the first comprehensible thought I’d had in years… I refused to die.
I bent over the paper again.
I hate being satellites.
I hesitated, then added the last line.
I love you. I always have.
I would stay near the bunker if I could manage it. For as long as I could, depending on the supplies I could find. Then—
Then I would move on, I sighed heavily. Try to find other survivors. Try to make a life out of whatever was left.
I folded the paper with Jude’s name across the front and set it on the control console.
After gathering what I thought I might need into a backpack, I sat on the edge of the cot and tugged on Paul’s extra boots.
They weren’t too big—Paul had been pretty short—and they were still brand new.
I’d found them tucked away in the bunkroom closet with a pile of other supplies I probably could have used years ago if I hadn’t been such a chicken.
It felt wrong to use their belongings or sleep in their beds.
I found it much more comforting to sleep beside the console just in case, so I never went in there.
My pants were worse for wear, but they’d survive another day. I wrapped the extra length of the laces around my calf and knotted them tight. Thermal shirt tucked into my belt. Wool sweater over top and then the thick winter coat I’d worn down here almost a decade ago. It hung loose on me now.
I eyed the flimsy hazmat suit hanging in the entry vestibule. It was bright yellow—the kind you’d expect to see on someone cleaning up a chemical spill. There was a big chance it probably wouldn’t do shit. Not with the poisons and things Jude told me were running rampant in the air.
Despite my jaded hesitation, I pulled it down and tugged it on. The rubbery-plastic had faded with time and squeaked as I bent my arms, but it made me feel nominally better. Like a shield between my skin and the elements waiting for me outside.
I tucked Patricia into my front pocket and zipped the suit over her.
Next came the gas mask. Which, again—I was a music teacher in my past life.
A composer. I knew absolutely nothing about radiation or hazardous gases.
I conducted music for an amateur ballet for fuck’s sake.
My grades in chemistry had scraped by only enough to get me there.
Tugging the heavy gray-green mask over my face, I winced as my eyes adjusted to the dim light through the round glass lenses.
A rubber tube curled down into a thick filtration disc at the chin.
I had no idea how often you were supposed to change those.
Technically speaking, it wasn’t even the radiation I had to worry about anymore.
It was the wreckage. Nuclear winter as they called it.
The weather could be unpredictable, the air was still riddled with smoke or ash, and Jude warned me of that toxic gas that hung in heavy pockets.
I shoved as many filters as I could find into my backpack. Better safe than sorry.
I took a deep breath, counting backwards in my head as to not incite a panic attack. I was going to be fine, besides—
Find water. Find food. Find people.
Three simple steps.
I’d spent most of my life underground moving at a measured pace—do this, then that.
Small tasks. Practical chores I could focus on when everything else grew out of control, but the bunker wasn’t a long-term plan anymore.
Technically speaking, it was still livable, but fixing the water system wasn’t realistic.
If it was the well pump, the issue could be anything.
A blown motor. A cracked line somewhere between the reservoir and the bunker.
Even if I figured it out, I didn’t have the tools—or the knowledge—to fix it. And the problems were stacking up. The air filtration had been acting strange for weeks, and the power outages were getting worse. Longer. The bunker had kept me alive, but it wasn’t going to keep me alive forever.
Besides… I wasn’t alone. Not really. Between my friends, who I’d discovered were somewhere across the world, and the other bunkers Jude and the Order had contact with, there were people out there. Which meant there was a world out there.
If I was being honest, the hardest part about the end of the world wasn’t the rationing or the lack of sunlight.
It was loneliness. I think that’s why I started dreaming of him in the first place.
Turns out Dr. Whelan and his stupid psychology book was right—the brain is exceptionally good at healing itself.
At protecting you from things you don’t think you can survive alone.
“Well, Patricia—” I placed both gloved hands on the heavy rotating lock. My stomach growled, reminding me that my rations had grown increasingly alarming. “Here goes nothing.” The metal resisted at first, then it groaned, and slowly the lock turned.
I didn’t know what I was expecting when I climbed the steep concrete path upward, but it wasn’t light.
Sunlight filtered through heavy clouds overhead.
It was weak—thin and brittle and gray—but it still broke through in fractured beams across the forest floor.
I stopped at the top of the ramp and for a moment, staring.
My boots sat between where the concrete ended and the moss began.
The budding green was stubborn, creeping across the path in reckoning.
The world, slowly deciding to reclaim what we’d abandoned.
Cold seeped through the rubber soles of Paul’s boots and into my bones, a damp chill that should have belonged to winter mornings and snow-capped mountains.
But it was air, real air that hadn’t been recycled from stale vents.
I knelt in the damp moss and ran a gloved finger over the tip of a budding fern. The fronds curled tightly toward the sky and I followed their gaze upward and studied the evergreens stretching toward the clouds.
Sure, it was dark and it was cold. So much had died in the darkness, but nature was already reclaiming what we’d stolen. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was rebirth.
My fingers twitched at the edge of the rubber mask, I wanted to take it off so badly, but I could still taste the ash in the air.
The forest was covered in it. Flakes of black soot floating in front of my eyes.
I was beginning to doubt I’d have much luck finding any nutritious food.
Maybe an abandoned gas station filled with chips and queso.
God, I’d kill for queso.
But first, I’d be hiking.
Paul’s house was worse for wear. It had taken me nearly an hour to hike there—embarrassingly so, mostly because I was terrible with directions and managed to circle the same grove of trees at least four times.
That, and with every step it became harder and harder to lift my boot and take another one forward.
I’d thankfully packed light, but each labored breath and dull squeeze behind my eyes was a reminder that water was abso-fucking-lutely essential.
The forest was eerily quiet. For once in my life, I almost wished a bear or cougar would wander past so I wouldn’t feel so alone. Although, I’d once seen a video of a bear attack and on second thought… I was better alone. Alone is cool.
Nothing was alive here anymore. It was inching its way back, but everything was half-consumed by smoke and ash, or snapped in half by the blasts themselves.
Inside the house wasn’t much better as there was nothing useful left. No food. No water. No tools. Unless you could count the small hatchet left beside the wood burning stove that someone had used to make kindling. Definitely not Paul, he didn’t seem like the type.
A fire had clearly torn through the place because half the house was collapsed or unreachable, the roof sagging inward like a broken rib cage.
I didn’t even attempt the stairs. Miraculously, Paul’s office was mostly intact.
I pushed the door open and began rifling through the drawers, not entirely sure what I was even looking for.
Anything, I guess. I’d found pliers, a hammer, and a handful of Allen wrenches in a toolbox back in the bunker, but unless there was Ikea furniture around to assemble—they were useless.
I know what my mom would say. Beggars can’t be choosers. Which, to her credit, sure. When you’re seven and insisting you’re starving but refusing to eat your edamame because of the texture—yeah, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. But this was the end of the world. So…
I didn’t think it was too much to ask for a proper tool set. Or a full-sized axe. Or a chainsaw. Or—
Whoa. The bottom drawer of Paul’s desk slid open to reveal what could only be described as hidden treasure.
A gun. I picked up the compact weapon and held it toward the dying light.
I had no idea what kind it was, but it was small enough to sit comfortably in my hand.
There were a few boxes of ammunition tucked beside it.
Which meant that come tomorrow—if I practiced enough—I might actually survive an encounter with a bear.
Probably not, but you know, we were staying positive around here.
Unzipping my jumpsuit I checked to make sure the safety was on and then slid it into the pocket of my jacket. I’d need to find some better way to carry it on my person, like a belt, so that it wasn’t useless in my defense.
I was halfway through the rest of Paul’s desk drawers when I found a stack of photographs rubber-banded together.
Curiosity winning, I slipped the band free and flipped through them.
Paul on a beach somewhere tropical. Paul standing beside a boat.
Paul, standing beside a very beautiful blonde woman who looked relatively close to his age.
I squinted at the back of the photo. Paul and Patricia, Venice, 2018
“Oh,” I said slowly, glancing at my breast pocket.
Unzipping the puffer I opened my pocket to check in on Patricia, the gecko.
She blinked at me sleepily, completely unaware that her entire identity had been compromised.
I looked between her and the photograph, and then the next.
There were tons of them. Patricia in a bikini on a boat.
Patricia, sitting at a café table sipping red wine.
Paul and Patricia standing beside friends in front of a monument somewhere in Europe.
“Well this is awkward.” She stared back at me with the same blank judgmental expression she always had.
“Paul,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You creep.”
I tucked the photo back into the drawer and pulled Patricia out, holding her up to eye level.
“Alright, new rule,” I said. “You cannot be named after Paul’s ex-wife.
That’s deeply unsettling.” Who names their pet after their ex?
Bridget mentioned he’d been through a messy divorce and she one hundred percent painted him as the victim, but—
I wasn’t too sure about that anymore.
Patricia remained unmoved.
“Congratulations,” I sighed. “You’re getting a new name.”
She blinked.
“Don’t get too excited. I haven’t thought of one yet,” I said, choking. My throat was so dry.
A shudder ran through me. I had approximately three swallows of water left in my bottle and so far no decent way to secure any more.
It was gross—so gross I didn’t even want to admit it—but I’d already checked the only working bathroom on the remaining floor of the house.
The toilet bowl was empty. The garage had burned to ashes, so there wasn’t a hot water tank to drain.
Yeah, that’s right. I am a skilled enough plumber to consider the hot water tank, thanks to the Apocalypse for Dummies book in the bunker.
I really needed to find water. And food.
Paul’s crib was a few miles up the hill from downtown Port Angeles, and I remembered at least two gas stations and a small local grocery store we passed on the drive in. Except that was almost seven years ago, who knew what stood there now.
I yawned, tucked the photographs back into the drawer, then made my way to the sofa in front of the stone fireplace.
I was tempted to start a fire—it was so goddamn cold—but I wasn’t sure I should be burning anything with unpredictable drafts blowing through the house.
Besides, I was too exhausted to care. The sofa was dark, either stained by soot from the fire or made that way.
At this point I couldn’t tell. I sank into the cushions and wrapped my arms around myself. Only for a second.
In a few hours I’d start the hike into town to find water. “We’ll go in a few minutes,” I murmured to Patricia, my mouth dry.
The mask sat beside me on the cushion. I’d meant to keep it on, but breathing through the filter made my head pound worse than the thirst already did. If the air killed me in my sleep… well—at least I’d go comfortably.