Chapter 1 #15
Lane sat on a foldout chair before a foldout table, atop which sat a portable Coleman grill with a cherry-red hood.
Propane flames flickered below a sizzling pan.
A handful of large white eggs sat idly in a plate resting on the table.
There were ornate salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of hot sauce with a surprisingly recent expiration date.
Beside those, a glass of whiskey with no ice.
The liquor bottle was on the floor, surrounded by strings of shredded paper.
He did not know when the young man would come to breakfast, nor if he would come at all. Perhaps he’d already left.
Not that I’d blame him, thought Lane. What reasons had he given the stranger to stay? What did he have to offer? Food, shelter, and firearms were plentiful. Whatever information he knew might as well be folklore by now. A creation myth. But neither the fox nor the hare had any need for fairy tales.
The stranger seemed sane, but Lane had no way of knowing where he’d come from or what he’d been through.
The last two years had been quiet, so quiet.
There was hardly anyone left in North America by Lane’s estimate.
For all he knew, they might be the lone and final two.
Even in the old days, that kind of isolation was dangerous.
It may have been a miracle that Lane’s own mind had not totally bent and shattered, but he thought it more likely to be a punishment.
The universe wanted him to face his crimes with a clear, conscious, crying mind.
Haven’t even told him why I’m here yet. Who I am. If the young man didn’t run for the hills at that moment, it would be a blessing. If he was furious, then it would be righteous.
Lane had no way of knowing if his housemate was still there, not unless he went back downstairs and checked every room.
All fifty of them. Maybe later, when his knees weren’t so sore.
The hike from the Appalachians had been hell on his body.
The daily body-weight workouts of the past six years had done little to prepare his charred, aging lungs and dry, aching bones for those midnight inclines.
If Interstate 66 hadn’t been there, he’d still be tripping over tree roots.
Lane pressed a cold palm to his warm forehead, elbow resting on the table.
The veins and arteries around his heart were tangled, asphyxiated.
He took a sip of his morning whiskey, swishing the liquor around before swallowing.
Savoring the burn. It was the first drink he’d had in three years, since whenever his bunker booze ran out.
Not that he’d needed it back then; the solitude had warped perception enough. Hadn’t bothered to stop by a—
“Lane,” a somewhat-familiar voice said from behind.
He whirled around to face the once-hidden staircase.
In the open doorway stood the nameless young man who’d nearly left last night, but he looked…
different. Posture straighter, standing taller.
Scruffy chin held high. His hands were still covered in cuts and scabs and scars, but they seemed at ease.
Thumbs casually stuffed in the pockets of his safe-room sweatpants as the other fingers rested over his thighs.
The unnamed man was neither smiling nor frowning, lips pursed as if waiting for some unknown cue to speak.
Yesterday’s perpetual scowl had faded, making him appear at least five years younger.
Even his breathing registered as more regular, his chest rising and falling in a relaxed rhythm, no longer heaving like cornered prey.
“Good morning, Nightwalker,” Lane said, unsure of how else to break the silence. What else to call someone who had no name in a world with no day?
But the man recoiled at the nickname; he looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“What? What’s wrong, kid?”
He exhaled. “Nothing, just a coincidence… and… it’s Tim, all right?”
Lane stood, a little shocked at this sudden turn. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard him right. “Tim? As in Timothy?”
He smirked. “Yeah. What else could it stand for?”
“Wiseass,” Lane said, splitting a grin of his own. “So? What does this mean? You trust me now?”
The man, Tim, walked into the room, his boots kicking up stray strands of shredded paper. “I want to trust you. Beginning to think that’s good enough.”
Lane stepped forward and extended his hand. “Okay. Then we’re on the same page, Tim. How ’bout it?”
They shook. “I’ll hear you out,” Tim said. “Whatever it is you’re selling.” He had a stronger grip than Lane expected. Maybe he was just getting old.
“Not selling anything. Just my story, and some breakfast if you’re interested.”
Tim made no protest, peering at the grill. “Where did you get that?”
“The representative from Alabama’s office,” Lane replied, rocking back on the heels of his dusty hiking boots. “Rolled it over in a shopping cart the night before you got here. Capitol Hill’s worth a field trip.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing about the Pentagon on my way in…” Tim’s nose twitched at the air as he continued looking at the makeshift kitchen. “Are those… eggs?”
“Yessir. Don’t get too excited, though. I got ’em from a goose.”
“Is that safe?”
Lane shrugged. “Should be fine so long as we cook them all the way through.”
“And should you really have a… a portable grill in here? With so much shredded paper around?”
A wily chuckle. “What’s the worst we can do? Burn it down?”
They shared a moment of uneasy laughter, and then it was on to breakfast. Lane cracked two baseball-sized goose eggs over the pan and cast the yolky shells into the paper mountains, while Tim watched from a chair.
Nothing stirred outside, though Lane noticed every time the young man looked out a window or over his shoulder.
As if he were expecting someone—something—to be chasing after him.
Lane was about to ask about that when Tim broke the silence. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” he said, genuinely puzzled.
“Helping me.”
“Helping others is helping yourself.”
“You truly believe that?”
Lane did a sweeping gesture to the room around them. The framed newspapers faded into inkblots. The forgotten photographs and nameless portraits, each crooked and askew. “We can believe whatever we want at this point. Doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“But I almost shot you.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Why’d you come out unarmed?” Tim asked. His tone was still friendly, eerily rational. “I could’ve killed you.”
“But you didn’t. Why not?”
“I asked first.” He picked up an uncracked egg and held it in his hands, gazing into it like a crystal orb.
With a fork he’d borrowed from the White House kitchen, Lane scrambled the yolks. “I suppose I thought it was worth the risk.”
“What risk? What exactly do you want from me?”
“I wanted to meet you,” Lane said, the grill’s heat pressing up against his forehead. “You. A survivor of… of all this.”
Tim furrowed his brow but did not look away from the goose egg he held.
“Your turn. Why didn’t you shoot me?”
He looked at Lane, then back to the shiny white shell, firelight glinting off the calcium. “It didn’t feel right. That’s all.”
“That’s all? Give yourself some credit.”
“For what?” Tim smirked. “Not gunning down an unarmed old man?”
Lane scoffed. “It is a low bar, but here we are.”
Lane’s eggs were goddamn delicious. Nothing had tasted that good since Tim was still himself, since the time before monsters and evacuations and bunkers.
The scramble was seasoned with salt and pepper and even some hot sauce that had only just started congealing.
They ate on ornate delicate plates and used fine silver utensils stolen from the presidential dining room. The only thing missing was…
“Fuck,” Tim said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Pour me a glass of OJ and this would be perfect.”
Lane nodded as he chewed the last of his breakfast. “It’s all expired, and a damn shame. We could both really use some vitamin D. Although, I’m more of a cranberry guy.”
One of Tim’s eyebrows rose. “Cranberry juice?”
He shrugged. “What else are we talking about?”
“Nothing. It’s just kind of an old-person drink.”
“A what?”
A sly smile touched his lips. “Y’ever see anyone under the age of sixty-five drinking cranberry juice? I haven’t.”
Lane snickered. “Y’know who drinks orange juice?”
“Who’s that?”
“Little baby toddlers and senators. I rest my case.”
The joke made little sense to Tim, but he didn’t much care. Any reason to have a laugh seemed good enough, and so he did. Lane joined in as he turned off the grill and shut off the propane valve.
“Want one?” Lane asked, producing a pair of shiny red apples from his knapsack. “I grabbed them from an orchard on my way over here. Just outside the city.”
“Thanks.” The first bite brought a wilder, more earthy taste than Tim had expected, but it was a treat all the same. “So, were you a… politician, I take it? Before all of this?”
Lane didn’t answer right away, and after a while, Tim wasn’t sure he would.
“Military,” he eventually said. “Took a desk job right here in Washington once it was all said and done.”
“Vietnam?” Tim asked. His history was rusty, but the age seemed about right.
Lane nodded and took a seat.
Tim eased back down on his same chair from breakfast. “Were you retired? When everything… happened?”
“Nah. I was due—2025. As soon as I turned seventy, but… Look, I hope this doesn’t change your opinion of me. I know what we did. We left people to die. We let people die. Hell, we killed them. Blasted New York into marsh flats. I wouldn’t bla—”
“No, no, it’s not that… I was just wondering how old you were. What year it was. How old I am. That’s all.”
“It’s 2030,” Lane said after a long beat. “The thirtieth of August, by my count. Which makes me seventy-five. What about you?”
Tim did the math. “Twenty-six. I guess I turned twenty-six last month.”
“Christ, you were just a kid when all this started.”
“College, but yeah. Same thing.”