Chapter 1 #16
“What were you studying?” Lane asked. He sounded like an estranged father trying to make up for lost time.
“I thought about a law degree, but I don’t know.
If we’d made it to junior year, there was a program where you could teach English abroad for a semester, and I was going to give that a try.
” Tim’s voice grew increasingly at ease, the old ways of blinking and breathing and speaking falling back into place.
Is this really what I was so afraid of? “Another part of me was just starting to see how big the world really was. A voice in my head wanted to just run away, y’know?
Find an empty place to take care of. Be a park ranger or a fire tower watchman or something like that. ”
The old man was grinning. “A what watchman?”
“You know, a fire tower? Where someone camps out in the woods and looks out for wildfires?”
Lane was trying to suppress his laughter.
“What?” Tim asked. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s nothing, just… nice. To listen to someone other than myself for once.” Lane sighed, as if that confession had been a great burden. “You can still do that, y’know? I bet a lot of park infrastructure is still in one piece.”
“Who would put the fires out?”
“Who would start them?”
Tim snorted, amused. He has a point. “Do you want to talk outside?” he asked. “I hate being cooped up when I don’t have to. Force of habit, I guess.”
“I understand.” Lane got to his feet. “Spent more than enough time in a hole myself.”
“Thanks.”
Tim followed as Lane and his lantern shuffled down the debris-riddled hallway. A marble bust of Lincoln rested on its side on the floor, half of his face crumbled to rubble.
“Y’know? It’s just kind of hitting me now,” Tim said. “We’re in the White House.”
Lane shrugged. “I needed someplace that was easy to find for whoever heard my message.”
“But it’s the end of the whole fuckin’ world. How did you know I wouldn’t be—”
“Looney? A nutjob? Insane?”
“Yeah… something like that.”
“Look around. Take in all the pomp and circumstance. The decor. Doesn’t all this feel a little crazy to you?”
“It feels gaudy and impractical. Utterly unnecessary.”
“Exactly. A reasonable response from a reasonable young man.”
Tim grunted. “That’s how you describe the guy who almost put a hole in your chest?”
“Well, it’s like you said. It didn’t feel right to you.” Lane grabbed hold of the door handle. “That makes you good in my book.”
Outside, the midnight metropolis awaited. Tim expected darkness, but the sky was so dense and cloudy that even a wide harvest moon would’ve been lost behind the brewing cumulonimbi.
“It’s going to rain tonight,” Tim said.
“Yes, I think so.”
Side by side, they strode down the stairs.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, following a paved trail that wound its way around the White House grounds. Heat lightning scratched the distant sky. Muffled thunder rumbled.
Tim had made a remarkable turn since yesterday. As far as Lane could tell, the young man hadn’t seen another human in years. Yet, despite all the isolated time Lane spent pondering and preparing for this moment, Tim seemed to be slipping back into the old ways with admirable ease.
“What happened last night?” Lane asked as he swept his light over the slimy green surface of an ancient water fountain. “It’s like you flipped a switch.”
Tim didn’t answer. Just stared into the algae.
“We can skip that question, if you want.”
“Is this an interrogation?”
Okay, Lane thought, still a little on edge. “Trying to get to know you, is all. You’re the first person I’ve seen in nearly six years.”
“Same for you. Living, anyway.”
“It must’ve been a long and gruesome road.”
“I guess so. This winter will mark my second year.”
“Since?”
“Since I stood up and started walking.”
They left the fountain, winding through lush gardens of overgrown shrubbery.
“Where was that?” Lane asked. “Your starting point?”
“Florida. Everglades University.”
“Jesus, you came that far?”
“I was sick of sitting still. Weren’t you?”
Lane thought about it. “No. I’m looking forward to a moment’s rest, just not until my work’s done.”
“And what’s that? I still don’t know.”
“I’ve got a story to tell. That’s all. For whoever’s willing to hear me out.”
“But you want to hear mine first?”
“I think I’ve just missed listening. Learning. Been worrying too much about what I was going to say.”
Tim smiled. “Y’know what? Me too.”
“Make a trade then?” Lane asked. “A story for a story.”
The young man stopped and reached out his hand, eyes soft and wanting in the flame. “Deal.”
Lane shook it. “Let’s find someplace to sit down then. My knees are killing me.”
Tim’s eyes widened in concern. “You’re right. Let’s sit.”
The elder man waved him off. “It’s fine. Just getting old, that’s all. Here, these’ll do.”
A pair of wooden benches faced one another, flanking either side of the overgrown path. Lane took the left, Tim the right.
“How’d you survive?” Lane asked. “Said you’ve only been out here two years. What about the other three or four?”
Tim sat down, stretched his arms over the back of the bench, and gazed skyward. “It was four years, I guess. November 2024. After New York. That’s where my mom was, so… I don’t know. I felt done.”
Lane’s heart dropped. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that earlier.”
“It’s okay. Long time ago.”
“It wasn’t right, no matter how long.”
“The Scorpions were already in the city. In the East River, the Hudson. It was a matter of time once the mayor assured everyone’s safety,” Tim said with a coldness in his voice.
“Mom said she believed them. Said the northern blockades would hold.” A sniffle.
“I didn’t believe her, of course. She wasn’t telling me the truth.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have told me to stay south. She would’ve asked me to come home.”
Lane tried to meet Tim’s eyes, but he was still looking for stars between the clouds.
“Thank God you didn’t listen.”
“Didn’t have much of a choice. Or a car. Or money for a flight. Had a train ticket, but it left the day after they shut down the Mason-Dixon. Nobody could pass north of Maryland. Didn’t even get a refund.”
Lane didn’t want to say anything. There was a storm swelling inside his new friend. Best for Tim to let it out at his own pace.
“After New York, I was… just lost. Classes had already shut down by then, and the school was about to kick out the few who remained on campus, mostly international students or folks like me from the Northeast. Everyone who’d lost family was kinda manic.
Planning one-ways to Colorado and California, Europe if they were rich, job hunting as far from the swarm as they could, people trying to be normal.
But… I just couldn’t, and there were plenty like that too.
Just dazed, y’know? I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
Where I was going. All of a sudden, I was just…
alone. Couldn’t withdraw from the bank since it was based back in the city.
I couldn’t drive, and even then the traffic might’ve gotten me killed, not that I knew that. I thought…”
“You were desperate.”
“Yeah. I was. The Scorpions had footholds in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, even Delaware by then. New York was going to slow ’em down but… it seemed like just a matter of time.”
Lane nodded. “So what’d you do?”
No response. The wind picked up. Scaffolding creaked.
“Tim?”
“I had a soccer scholarship, but it didn’t cover housing.
Food. I still needed to work as much as I could in the offseason.
The local Home Depot manager was poker buddies with one of the Everglade U football coaches, so athletes had part-time jobs waiting for them if they wanted.
Spent the weekends of my first summer preseason pouring concrete… Well, more like lugging bags of mix.”
“Work is work,” said Lane.
Tim took a deep breath. “Sure, but one of the gigs was… different. This was 2023, just a few months after Maine got locked down. Most folks thought the military would handle it, but plenty were scared. I guess that’s my way of saying nobody was too shocked when we found out we’d be working on a ‘storm shelter.’
“Everyone in town knew the guy who hired us, or his car anyway. A beat-up Chevy with conspiracy theory stickers plastered all over the windows and bumpers, most of them related to Scorpions by the time I got there. A big yard outside of town where he shot live ammunition.
“I only ever talked to him once, when I went inside his house to piss. He was sitting at the kitchen table, with a goddamn arsenal of pistols and rifles laid out in front of him. But… he seemed nice enough. Big guy. Bald, sunburned head. Said his name was Ron and showed me to the bathroom.
“The shelter was nearly finished by then; my shift just had to pour the top layer and enclose this sort of… entrance shaft. A ladder in a tube that went straight down into the dirt. We buried the whole thing and went about our lives, but even a year and change later, I hadn’t forgotten about Ron’s bunker. ”
Lane folded his hands in his lap. He thought he knew where this was going, and it was his responsibility to listen.
“I don’t know if that’s context or an explanation or an excuse, but it is the truth.
When the shit hit the fan, I was all alone.
Afraid. I just needed direction, y’know?
I didn’t know where to go. What to do. The world was ending, and all I wanted was a dark, safe place where I could hide out and process it all.
“So… I thought, Fuck it, what’ve I got to lose? I needed help, and everyone else was gone. If this Ron guy was taking the Scorpions seriously from day one, maybe he could point me toward a safe place. Give me an idea of what the hell was going on.