Chapter Twenty-Two
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WAKING WITH A START, Victoria saw she was now alone. She was relieved to find the bobcat hadn’t clawed her face off, or left any ticks behind. It had stopped raining, but the ground was saturated when she crawled out from beneath the log.
“I’m running fudging low on toilet paper,” she groused after answering the call of nature. She hoped she would come across some houses before she ran out. “No way am I wiping my azz with leaves,” she said with a shudder.
She ate breakfast, then took to the freeway.
It was cold enough that she was glad jogging kept her warm, even if it was wearing her down.
Birds called to each other in the trees, warning that a human was approaching.
Squirrels didn’t care and ignored her presence.
A pair ran across the freeway right in front of her, chasing each other in an endless game.
Nature was already reclaiming the land, but it wouldn’t last. “Humans will multiply once they sort their shiz out,” she predicted. “The fudgers will no doubt cause even more damage to the planet.”
Things could get so much worse now that only the bad and downright evil people remained. There was no one left to advocate for peace, or to take care of the world.
Her thoughts were gloomy as she followed the map ever closer to her destination. The Adirondack Mountains were looming over Victoria by now. She couldn’t see any snow, but she also couldn’t see to the tops of the furthest ranges.
“I’ll choose a spot fairly close to the base of the closest mountain,” she decided. “There’s got to be fresh water up there somewhere and I won’t be that far from what’s left of civilization.”
She would need to grab supplies from a town to take with her. It would require a lot of trips, since she could only carry so much.
“Fudging looters had better not have stolen all of the toilet paper,” she said. She might have to search far and wide for the precious commodity, which would be annoying.
Gas stations could always be found along her route. She lucked out and reached one just in time for her lunch break. This time, she wasn’t attacked by a rabid dog. The place had been looted, but she found toilet paper in a stall.
“Thank you, God,” Victoria said fervently and stuffed it into her backpack. “No leaves for me today,” she said in gratitude.
The rest of her journey was peaceful, for once. She didn’t encounter anyone and even came across a picturesque town.
“Ooh, a bookstore!” she said. “I’ll come back and loot it later,” she promised herself.
There were a couple of convenience stores and they still had food and other supplies.
She couldn’t sense anyone in the nearby vicinity.
Loading up some bags full of essentials, Victoria grunted in effort when she shouldered them.
She still had a few hours before it would be dark and continued to jog. Reaching the closest mountain, she found an animal trail leading upwards. “It’s like it was made for me,” she crowed quietly, then began to climb.
Luck was with her and she spotted a small cabin just as the sun was setting. It was set back from the trail and looked like it had been abandoned decades ago. A water tank hulked beside it.
“I bet it’s been taken over by a family of racoons,” she joked.
Just in case there were wild animals inside, she put her gear down and untied her reaping hook.
The bow wouldn’t be much good inside, but she was glad she’d brought it with her.
She’d seen a variety of animals that would be good for hunting.
Victoria approached the cabin quietly, glad for her night vision. She circled around the small building to see the windows were intact. The back door was wedged shut when she tried to open it. So was the front door. Putting her shoulder to it, she rammed it open and almost fell onto her face.
Dust whirled madly and she coughed, waving it out of her face. “Someone forgot to call the fudging maid,” she complained.
The cabin was tiny, with one main room that had a fireplace and what passed for a kitchen.
A small square table with two chairs sat in the middle of the main room.
There was also a bathroom and a bedroom that had a fireplace.
The water wasn’t working and the toilet was an outdoor one.
“I’ll have to shiz in a bucket,” she said, making a face when she inspected the outhouse.
She left some toilet paper on a rickety shelf on the wall and grabbed her gear.
The water tank was either empty, or something was broken.
Maybe she could fix it and get the faucets inside working again.
Victoria carried everything inside. Glad she’d stolen a battery-operated lamp, she switched it on and put it on the table.
She stored her food in the cupboards above and below the sink along the wall to the right of the fireplace.
The bedroom had a small closet and dresser.
The bed was a single and the mattress squeaked when she sat down on it.
More dust motes wafted up and she sighed.
“My first order of business will be to clean this thing,” she decided.
A broom was tucked into a corner of the room. She grabbed it and carried the mattress outside. It didn’t take long to beat the dust out of it. She left it propped against the wall outside and swept the entire cabin, including the ceiling and walls.
“That’s better,” she said in satisfaction once she’d swept the mess outside. “Now I can fudging breathe without inhaling a lungful of dust.”
She put the mattress back on the bed, then began hauling wood inside.
Logs were piled up against one wall of the cabin outside.
They were ancient, but caught quickly when she used some matches she’d taken from a convenience store.
She’d also been smart enough to bring some newspapers and lighter fluid to get the fire started in the bedroom.
Thunder rumbled, then rain and hail began to pummel the cabin. “I got that job done in the nick of time,” she said with a snicker.
Too tired to stay up for long, Victoria heated a can of potted meat over the fire.
It was nice to eat a hot meal straight from the can for once.
She ate some canned fruit for dessert, then headed to the outdoor toilet with her lamp in hand.
It was just around the corner and the overhanging roof shielded her from the weather.
“This is so mother fudging gross,” she said, cleaning the seat before gingerly sitting down. “I miss indoor plumbing the most,” she muttered when she was done. She’d been using hand sanitizers and wet wipes to clean herself.
She headed back inside and placed the empty cans in a plastic bag for now, then took stock.
“I need to find clean water so I can wash my clothes,” she said.
She’d grabbed washing detergent from a convenience store.
“You didn’t think to take a shizzing basket, though did you, dummy? ” she berated herself.
There were a lot of things she was going to need.
A pillow and bed linens were at the top of her list. For now, she was warm enough in her thermal clothes with the fire going.
Yawning widely, she removed her sneakers, turned the lamp off and lay down on the squeaky bed.
She used one of her jackets for a pillow and curled up on her side.
Sleep came and she gladly succumbed to it, knowing her new life was about to start in the morning.
Victoria’s dream started out ordinary enough. It was before the world had turned to shiz and she was on her way to her day job. Wrestling paid the bills, but it didn’t feed her soul. She had a lot of spare time on her hands and she filled it with the vocation she’d always dreamed of.
Whistling as she walked along the sidewalk, she enjoyed the sheer normalcy of watching the traffic go by. Cab drivers honked at each other in annoyance, grifters begged for spare change and tourists gawped at the sights and sounds of Manhattan.
Everything changed with her next step. The traffic was now at a standstill and people were in a panic. Victoria jerked to a stop when she saw a corpse ahead. The body was so fresh that blood still trickled from the gash in his throat.
The door to her day job was just a few steps away. Victoria shook her head, knowing what was waiting for her inside the foyer. “Nope,” she denied. “No fudging way am I going in there and putting myself through that again.”
Turning away, she found herself facing in the other direction, now even closer to the door.
She tried to run across the street, but ended up directly in front of the door.
It was like her subconscious was trying to punish her and she knew why.
That didn’t mean she was about to let this continue.
Her hand went to the doorknob of its own volition, twisting the handle and pushing the door open.
Victoria woke herself up before the dream could continue. She was sweating and it wasn’t from the heat of the fire. She wasn’t going to replay her first kill in her dreams. It would haunt her for the rest of her waking life, but at least she had control over what her mind did at night.
“Most of the time,” she corrected herself, turning her back to the fire. It wasn’t easy to drift off again, but her dreams were far more pleasant when she succumbed to sleep again.