The New Normal

(Lunacy) Prologue

“Warum Sie?”
Why her, indeed. I felt an affinity for her that even I didn’t understand. Maybe the shared genetics over a half millennium removed. Maybe the fact she was a victim of malicious gossip, a pawn, and the victim of what any sane person would call a serial killer.
Regardless, of reason, here I was contemplating the ridiculous. The sort of thing that could get you fired, arrested, or both. I really can’t say why her and know. Herr Engel was risking a lot. An awful lot. Ewalt Engel had cast the deciding vote to bring me into the firm. There isn’t much you can do with a history degree, and even less need of one in a science facility, unless your scientific research was warping the laws of commonly thought about time travel being impossible. One thing is certain though, if you are able to send people back, you need a historian to research the place and customs and time period.

That historian would be me.

The thought of saving her. The “Her” I had researched for the last nearly two decades was irresistible. She was the catnip that kept me in libraries until thrown out, the reason I had managed to survive when so many in the same time frame I spent researching her, had not. She was why that terrible year of the Spanish influenza that mutated in a lab with smallpox attributes was wiping out most of us, I didn’t get infected.

“Ewalt, can we speak in English? I know you feel it’s a barbarian’s language, but I understand it much better than your German.”

“Ja, English. Why do you think you can do this and not get caught? You owe her nothing. Nothing. This rumbly half kaput Wunderwaffen is supposed to be used to bring us back people of no historical value to help rebuild the genetic lines of every country, not people executed for treason. She was judged and dispatched a traitor. Even worse a nearly infertile traitorous whore. Again, I ask, Why Her? She can’t be brought back without notice; records will change and the council will have our heads.”

“They don’t practice the death penalty anywhere anymore. It isn’t practical or useful.”

“They should make an exception for you, Frau Coraline. They might after we do this, make that exception for both of us.”

“You’re too sweet, Ewalt. Too sweet.”

# (gambling)

Waiting for a job interview that wouldn’t get me very far, for the third time today, I was summoned to present myself upon consideration for other positions. History degree, a skill not needed and very unwanted in the world after a near extinction level event. Never mind the broken, barely literate German. My only language is English. Which was not in my favor during the relocation program after the Virus. My particular genetics had been mapped same as everyone else’s around the world 4 years prior to the Virus after the mass vaccination for what we had mistakenly thought was the virus to worry about. That virus had turned out to be not much more than a failed weaponized common cold that mutated rapidly to non-lethal.

The UN had felt, and all countries had agreed to mandate participation, in the hopes of eradicating hostilities. The idea was if we all knew our genetic origins, diversity and inclusivity could override wars. If we all could see how similar we are, it would help. It looked like it was working for the first year. Most peaceful year ever in our history. We felt relieved. But like most things, it didn’t last. The least diverse countries, were the least willing to participate in the new shared peace.

My DNA showed I was 51% German, 40% English, 5% Irish, and the rest was a little of everything. After the Virus, everyone knew their DNA results by heart. We were sent back to the areas we had the most shared common ancestor connection with. That fifty one percent sent me to Germany. A place my ancestors left in 1879! A place I had no connection and nothing in common with. I was American, was, but now I’m a German.

Getting this job, was my key to a better place in what remains of society. Society ravaged by the Virus. It killed nearly all of us. China and North Korea were driven to virtual extinction. The original peoples of each land mostly survived everywhere. Not too many people were particularly upset, popular opinion of the barely one billion survivors believed the Virus to be the work of what was once North Korea and China. For whatever reason, people of European or African and India descent were luckier in the survival of it.

Scientists had worked out that somewhere in the sixteenth century our shared exposures to viruses of the past had given us a hereditary immunity to a degree. Survival of that Virus was still down to luck, timing and if you got the good lottery number to medical care. And in my case, flouting all the laws, quarantines and a small bit of breaking and entering. I spent the quarantine year breaking into libraries trying to finish my thesis for my history doctorate degree. It was a solitary year and rather peaceful. I finished my doctorate, but never got to present it.

Society was gone and I hadn’t even noticed.

I don’t know if I am immune, or just lucky. I never caught it. I lived a solitary existence before it hit and during it, I was almost alone in book shelves lost in a world of pantaloons, garters, and ruffs. A world just discovering the North American side of everything. A time before mass destructive capabilities, when swords were the weapon of choice.

# (doubt)
Finally, people. The small committee was assembling behind the glass walls and door. I could hear the German rapid fire conversations. I had enough grasp after 15 years here to get the general gist of the flow. A short, plump blonde woman was gesturing at me. I don’t think it was to compliment my boots. I caught the words, “unqualified, illiterate and broken German”.

The man she was speaking to was of ruddy complexion, marked by the ravages of the Virus so heavily, I wondered how he survived. He noticed me staring and slowed down his speaking and raised his voice, I think he was being polite. It was a nice change from my normal daily life.

His name badge read Engel. I mentally translated it to English “angel”. It seemed he must have had their help to be that scarred from the Virus and live. His eyes were a clouded over blue. A mark many survivors wore glasses to obscure from view, he flaunted it. Tall, stocky and a once muscular man gone to the soft pudge some get in their elder years. He wore it well, Herr Engel.

“Give her a chance. Americans aren’t all bad. Some are good.”

“She has no useful science, she can barely speak well. She’s stupid. If you can’t speak the language 15 years after Relocation, how is she of use to us?”

“We need a historian. She is a historian.”

“She can’t speak the language.”

“Maybe she can read it better than speak it. See, she’s holding a book, it has a German title.”

I bristled at the implications of being stupid, I survived that Virus, I was educated. I had to give her the observation of being illiterate in speaking. It came very painfully to me. Herr Engel was correct, I could read it. Slowly, but I could read it. I could even speak it very slowly, I chose not to.

“She’s one of us now, Relocation didn’t make mistakes.”

“Bah!”

“You should feel fortunate you are here, you almost got sent to Russia. You missed it by half a percentage point, that some of us believe you got the data changed to stay here.”

“I was born here!”

“And she was sent here.” This was said with a slight smile that changed the scars from tragic to something beautiful, and he directed it toward me.

“It’s rude to leave her there, either bring her in or let me get back to my lab. I have far more important things to do today than stand here arguing over who belongs and who doesn’t. Our whole purpose is to fix what went wrong after the Virus swept through.”

I heard the swish of the door and felt the negative air pressure when the door opened.

“Frau Kuhn? Follow me.”

I put my book under my arm and grabbed my backpack. I swallowed hard and got my Guten tag out without butchering it. A grimace crossed her face, amusement across the faces seated silently around the table.

“I’m Dr. Lehmann. Have a seat”.

Miracles, she lowered herself to use English for me!

“I’ll not waste my time or yours, so we will use your language.” Another muttered few words too rapid fire said for me to catch, I don’t think they were all that complimentary from the stone set faces all too interested in a spot just over my shoulder.

I fumbled the chair out then fought the urge to slouch down in the warm leather.

“Thank you.”

“The council sent you to us, we have need of a historian. The exact nature of your work would be research, whatever Engel or the others need, you’ll research it. Without fuss, or back to the council you’ll go. I think you were farm labor for the last few years, since your grasp of the native language is so poor according to your file. Before the Virus you were a doctorate history student in America? Never finished?”

I was grateful for the reprieve of manual labor. I’d have agreed to anything at this point to leave bio suits during planting time behind. They were hot and a necessary precaution, the Virus had gone dormant and lived in the soil, bio suits on the farming acres were required to try and negate risk of it coming back.

Dr. Lehmann continued her description, I missed most of it, it was so science term riddled and I understood none of it.

“So do you agree to these terms?”, asked in harsh, precisely measured tones as I jolted back to reality and the present reality.

“Yes.”

“Herr Engel? Do you have anything to add?”

“No, I think she looks like she could be of use.” He threw a slight smile and either winked or blinked odd in my direction.

“Bah. I’ll leave you to show her to the neighborhood and get her settled in. I’ll let Council know we will keep her.”

Back to the German she switched, “This is on you Engel, if it doesn’t work out. We could have gotten someone who adapted, but you wanted her. So now she’s yours. Your fate is with her.”

“Good afternoon.”

Out she went in in a hushed swoosh and barely a rustle of clothing.

I stuck out my hand to Herr Engel. Remarkably, he grasped it in his own big callused hand.

“Welcome to our little firm. You’ll like it here, much better than sweating under the sun in a plastic suit. Council said you worked hard and told others stories from history. Made the best of a bad situation. Also, I have went and watched and to listen. You were happy. I like happy, so little of it left anymore.” Another gentle smile crossed his face.

I suddenly felt really awful for thinking of his scars as marking him unfortunate. I realized they made him appreciative of small things.

“Why me?”

“Why not you?”

“You’re one of us.”

“I’m American.”

“America doesn’t exist anymore, hasn’t for a while.”

“Not everyone agrees.”

“They live in the past.”

I giggled, he had no idea. I really did live in the past. I lived in my head going over and over history long since gone.

“You are here now. You belong here.”

“What am I researching?”

“Things that will make you happy. I have books. They are in your language.”

“It won’t make my head hurt and waste paper for me to read it?”

“No. you’ll do fine.”

#(ghosts)

“Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“You’ll eat at my meal time in the mess hall with me. Always, with me. You are my assistant, you follow me. For tonight I left you food, it’s only apples and bread, lots of them.”

“Your quarters are in the house near mine. You’ll get your new card in the morning when you start. I’ll walk by to get you at five tomorrow morning. I hope you’ll like it. It’s one of the smaller houses, but it’s safe and clean and has a nice bed.”

I was completely lost, we’d been walking for more than an hour, somewhere after the third turn I couldn’t have found my way back without a map.

“It doesn’t have a kitchen?”

“It does, just more sensible to eat in the mess hall, yes?”

“If you’re anything like historians I used to know, you’ll probably forget to eat while chasing ghosts through books. I need you to chase ghosts, but the ghosts are different, so you’ll need to eat normally.”

It made sense, I did forget food. The year of the quarantine, food was scarce and mostly what you could forage. You got used to eating irregularly and ignoring hunger. The following year wasn’t better, only easier to forage with less people. The third year, survivors had grouped up and something resembling government had taken hold again, choices were made to restart the world’s diversity in all it’s beautiful glory.

The scientists had all agreed we’d only accomplish it by sending people where their ancestral origins had come from. Lost, hungry and desperate, humanity had agreed. Relocation began.

#

Triberg is an ancient city boasting access to the Black Forest. It has the magnificent 7 step waterfall unique to only here. It once had the largest cuckoo clock, its frame is all that remains with a large painted piece showing what it once looked like. The real clock had been lost in the retaliation over the virus war, Germany had tried so hard to stay out of it. They failed. Bodies laying in the streets dead from a weaponized lab created virus had caused even the sanest of people to turn toward violence.

Germany had brokered the peace and accepted all the refugees fleeing the conditions of extreme poverty left behind in South Africa. Most of the refugees were the remnants of the Boers who had come close to being killed completely out in the clearances the UN labeled much too late a genocide. The stains the Second World War left on Germany were finally coming full circle in something resembling redemption during and after the Retaliation Viral War. This time it was Germany who enforced sanctions against the United States for their role as the aggressor.

The modern hospital has been converted to a research facility, which is where I and most every other member of the town now work. On the outskirts are the farmlands, where I worked until yesterday. The houses are ancient, were ancient even before it all changed. The council planned well. A picturesque city with all the things anyone could want. Hiking trails gave the inhabitants a place to be alone and shed the stress of the day, only in the summer when it was safe from the threat of the soil releasing the disease.

If one had to be relocated, it was a fine place to be sent, much prettier than the land of my birth. It was a very long way from the Mississippi Delta. In my heart, I’d always be from that red clay dirt area on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. Hot, humid summer days and kudzu must have been missed in that genetic profile. Those days are gone, Cory, I whispered to myself, while trying to match Herr Engel’s steps.

He heard me and looked saddened and then slowed down his walk with a purpose stride to match my slower, shorter stride.
I could smell the faintest scent of sandalwood soap coming off him next to me. I hadn’t been close enough to another long enough to catch their scent. The last scent memory I had was of sweat and peppermint, I squashed it back into the memory hole. This was a new memory I could hold onto. It felt like friendship.

Dawn was still an hour or so off from breaking the eastern horizon. A fine mist hung low over the ground. The scent of the forest, loam and pine, was crisp and clean. It had rained last night and the earth was damp giving off the waft of new rebirth. I could hear the birds waking for the day and beginning their greetings to the sun. Just before daybreak was my favorite time of day. A time to be alone with your thoughts and rejoice to have come out of the dark unscathed.

“The house is nice.” I said in a feeble attempt at conversation.

“Surely, you can do better than that for trying to break the silence.” A neatly arched single grey streaked brow went up as he said this while staring deeply into my face. The barest hint of amusement quirked up the corners of his mouth.

“Perhaps. Herr Engel, what do you want to talk about?”

“Ewalt.”

“Huh?”

“ My name is Ewalt. Engel is what the others call me, also my name, and a name to keep distance between. A way to not feel if suddenly I’m gone. How do you prefer to be called Frau Kuhn?”

“Cory. Easier than the formalities.”

“Americans! Always butchering beautiful names, Coraline.” This said in German while studying my face for signs of comprehension.

“I thought you said I wasn’t American anymore? C’mon keep the story straight, either I’m an American or not.” I responded to him in his native language.

A sharp intake of breath let me know I had just proved I wasn’t as stupid as Dr. Lehman and all the others had nearly convinced him I was.

“So you do understand the language. I suspected you could. Why won’t you speak it?”

“I got told early on here I sounded like a cat choking back a hairball. One nice lady informed me I sounded like what she imagined a gaggle of geese set loose with tubas sounded like. I rather lost the desire to try after that.”

“It’s none as bad as geese with tubas, maybe only one tuba that is bent.”

I think the ice was broken finally. It might not be so bad to be his shadow after all. Anyone that could laugh in deep baritone and have a rumble like a purr in it couldn’t be all bad. I wondered what he’d looked like before the scars. In that moment of brief laughter I’d seen something I thought to never see again, happiness to be around other people. The after years had left people scared to be within breathing distance of others, touching was scarce and infrequent. Bumping into people seldom happened, distance was the new normal. The new normal was depressing.

Laughter is contagious, his laugh brought out my own. I’m sure we looked a sight to behold, standing not more than 30 feet from the cremation pits laughing like insane asylum patients let out for the day. Other people were noticing, and the stares only incited us to laugh more in the predawn chill.

“Ok, Double E, show me where we are going and you can call me anything you want. Just get me off the street before someone tattles to the Council and I get sent back to the fields.”

“I ask for a historian, they give me you. Bah. Let’s go or we miss our morning meal.” A brief pat to his belly while he grumbled something about how people who forget to eat shouldn’t keep those who do from enjoying it.

#(shopping lists)

Bleach. The scent hits you hard in every building when you walk in. Everything was bleached inside public spaces daily and in some twice daily. It’s something you never really get used to, it’s clean and crisp and not welcoming. The walls are white, the floors are grey marble. Nothing is fabric in the common areas, it’s all leather or metal, and those seem to handle the bleach regime well. My boots made no noise on the marble floor, Ewalt’s made a squish sound.

I’d learned Germans were a serious people. Only letting themselves out around the nearest and dearest to them. In public, the silence was deafening. A curious statement, silence doesn’t seem as if it should be deafening, however the absence of sound is truly loud. A sound made louder when excluded. I had not adapted well. Even before, I’d preferred to be alone. My friends all lived in books. They didn’t judge, they were never mean, and they all were beautiful.

Before all this I’d had a lovely camper and tons of books I’d parked in Roosevelt State Park in Mississippi. It was slightly against the rules, ok, it was illegal. I was a broke, unemployed doctorate student at Ole Miss. Doctorate students only needed to show up every so often to check in with advisors. The whole process of getting the degree is you write, read and write a whole lot more. You take in all this information and vomit it onto paper, so much paper and give citations where needed. It’s tedious stuff, you had best love the subject, because you’d get sick of seeing it long before the process was through.

When the Virus first started I was living rough, I only went to town for food and more books about every 2 months. It broke out in full fledged pandemic the week after my last town trip, by the time I went back, Jackson, Mississippi was an empty shell.

I’d decided when the curfews hit and took away my job because it didn’t fit the criteria for essential to get a rented truck to move my camper from the RV park to the state park and lose all utilities I could no longer pay for without a job. It was less than ideal, and illegal to boot!
It looked like a horror movie setting and I was more than a bit confused. I made it to the library, only to find it locked and everything in sight closed. No reason for it, lights were working fine as evidenced by the flashing red light.

I’d walked around the block and found not one person anywhere which could be explained by the harsh curfews that had been in effect. I decided then to break into the library. It wasn’t hard to find a brick, and I bashed out a back window and climbed through.
Then I found it. A newspaper dated almost to the last time I’d been here. The headline was in bold red font. It had to be a joke. I hoped it was a joke.

“WAR DECLARED”

“DEATH TOLL CLIMBING DAILY”

Articles about what to do with bodies, where the burn pits were located. Symptoms of the Virus described in gruesome detail. How had I missed this? Had I really missed all this working on a research paper? There’s no way, I wasn’t out of the loop that long. Two months isn’t very long.

I learned it was a man created biological warfare weaponized virus. It was believed to have all the properties of smallpox and the Spanish flu, only with a grotesque twist. The virus attacked the internal organs with the smallpox sores before they were visible outside the body. The victims sometimes went blind before the body aches and fever set in. Most died after the pox marks appeared on the outside of the body. If you were lucky enough to survive, from the pictures, you’d be left nearly blind with clouded over eyes, scars and lung damage for life. And as we found out later, unable to reproduce.

North Korea was being blamed and in turn they were blaming China. We hadn’t actually gone to war yet as of the date on the newspaper. I surmised the virus killing people was responsible for that. No need to bomb anyone if nature is going to wipe them out for you.

A horrible thought crossed my mind. Am I the only one left? I can’t be the only one left. I don’t like large crowds of people, but no one, not even I would want to be the only person left alive.

I was scared, I had my first ever panic attack right there at the return desk in an empty library. The one place I’d always felt safe, now felt very unsafe. Was anywhere safe? What now?

Sheer panic set in and I walked over to the reading chairs and sat down, I put my head between my knees to keep from throwing up. When the waves of black spots in my field of vision passed I came back up and picked up the newspaper from off the floor and continued to read.

The more I read, the more frightened I became. It was airborne. They thought it was taking hold in the environment. I suddenly got a lot more panic stricken.

All of Asia had gone dark, no one was responding via any communication channels, Israel had instituted a country wide policy of shoot to kill anything crossing their borders. Large swaths of South America had also gone dark, India had stopped repatriating their citizens home.

People were supposed to be sheltering in place, and not going out for any reason. Hospitals were effectively closed. There was no room and very little they could do anyway from the descriptions being given.

As awful as this was to read it still didn’t answer the one burning, panic driven million dollar question, was I all that was left? If I was, humanity was in serious trouble. Never mind humanity, I was in serious trouble no matter what from the paper I was still clutching tightly so ineloquently informed me.

Time to take stock, I had nearly a full tank of gas in my car, I’d come to town for kerosene, food, books, and basic household camping gear.

When faced with the impossible, sometimes you get a bit spacey while kicking into self-preservation mode. Sanity hadn’t yet returned as evidenced by the fact that since I had come to town for a list of stuff, people or no people be damned, I wasn’t leaving without what I came for.

I proceeded to scan the book shelves for the items I wanted. Since there was no one to enforce the limit on check out, I filled up a small pop up laundry basket I pulled from my backpack with books of all kinds. Some sanity returned and I got a few books intended for scouting kids.

“Cory!”

“Coraline!” This accompanied by a light tap on my shoulder. Startled, I came back from the abyss of before.

Evidently, Ewalt had been trying to get my attention for quite some time, I snapped out of the dark memories and looked up. His face was creased with worry, and then I realized I had tears rolling from my eyes and some lovely snot bubbles too. I knew from experience I went blotchy when I cried, it wasn’t pretty. It seemed alarming to Ewalt.

“The red looks lovely against green”, he quipped, “it would look better in clothing than your eyes. What were you thinking about? You seemed far away, and it wasn’t good whatever it was.”

He looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, satisfied they weren’t he reached in his pocket and brought out a handkerchief and passed it too me. No one shares personal items of any kind ever, fear was still real all these years later.

“Wipe your face, blow your nose. We are to our little spot in the world, I have your desk ready to go. The books you need are already there.

Make notes, condense it down. Make them detailed.”

"What exactly am I looking for? Anything particular?”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I think you can find it for all of us, eh?”

“You don’t ask for a lot, do you?”

Again, the deep laugh slipped out and was muffled back just as quickly as the flash had come. Somehow, I wasn’t alone anymore, I’d made a friend. My only problem became just what do you do with those? I’d voluntarily went hermit status after a nasty marriage and even worse divorce the year I started my doctorate degree. Abuse is a hard thing to overcome.

#

My office was the size of a broom closet, ok, maybe a little bit bigger. It did share the no windows feature that broom closets have. There was a plain wooden desk that retained a few traces of white paint and gave off the bleach smell. I had a nice, oversize chocolate brown leather chair. As promised, there were stacks of books with English writing on the spines stacked on the desk and down one wall. There was a glass cup to one side filled with an assortment of flower topped ink pens. Flower topped? The whimsy was out of place here. A small computer tablet lay next to stacks of blank writing paper.

A shadow darted into the corner of the room. I followed it and cornered the shadow. The shadow was a small, orange cat glaring up at me with yellow eyes and black whiskers twitching.

Ewalt saw him and immediately lost color.

“Come here to me, Fritz.” Stooping down to his knees to be eye level with the small creature he said, “You aren’t supposed to be out of the lab. How did you get in here? Ah, my fat little boy, bad kitty!” Satisfied he had control of Fritz, Ewalt tucked him under his arm with an experienced hand cradling the little cat’s furry body.

“How’d you manage to get council to let you get him?”

“They didn’t let me, I found him on the hiking trails last fall. He was barely walking and no mama around. I brought him back here under my coat and he’s lived in my lab since. Fritz here is a good boy and he keeps me company. Not a talkative fellow, but company enough. He sleeps a lot, lazy sot.”

I reached out to stroke his fur. He was as soft as he looked, I could understand the urge to keep him hidden from discovery. I harbored a hope Fritz could keep me company sometime. A cat and books, some of my more favorite things in life, no longer left behind as much else had been.

An office, the item that propelled me to live in a camper illegally in a national forest to afford to go to school. The status symbol I had longed for was finally mine, only I had no students to teach and there were no office hours for students to hold lively discussions with me. Who says dreams don’t come true? Sometimes all it takes is a bit of waiting, a few catastrophes, and relocating halfway around the world to get it.

“Is good, ja?”

“It’s good. Thank you.”

He turned with Fritz to go.

“Wait.”

“Ja?”

“Can he, I mean, do you mind if he stays sometimes?”

Ewalt smiled and bent over and placed Fritz on the floor. With no words spoken he left me to the books with his cat.

“Ok, Fritz, what should I read first?” Fritz had no opinion on it and went back to batting a purloined flower topped pen around the floor.

I picked up the first book. It was a standard World History college book. I flipped open the cover and in flowery writing in the upper left corner of the cover was a name inscribed. E. F. Engel it read. The writing was entirely too feminine to be Ewalt’s. His wife? His daughter? I wanted to ask him, but it’s better to not throw salt on wounds. We all lost people, I’m not sure how others kept their sanity with it, but I tried to not think about it at all. A mark of trust. Ewalt had kept his sanity by hiding a cat and carrying around a college history book. Whoever E.F. Engel was, I hope they knew how loved they evidently were.

There were fiction books in the stack of history books. Whatever I was supposed to find, probably wasn’t in those. None of the books assembled for me followed any particular period. There were books on the Renaissance, the World Wars (all of them), the late 19th century through early 21st century. A few biographies of people I never found much interest in when forced to learn about them in school.

Chasing ghosts, which ghosts? There were a lot of ghosts and directions this could take if the books were any indication. There was at least eight hundred solid years of history laying around my office. Ewalt, may have known historians, but he missed a few things about our quirks. Narrow focus is the hallmark of most of us. We all found a little slice of time we find interesting, and we chase that until we run out of things to read about it.

“The Other Boleyn Girl”, Philippa Gregory. Ah yes, a favorite of mine. A long lost friend, the morning just became interesting. If you are going to chase ghosts, might as well catch up with friends you haven’t seen in a while first. Ghosts are ghosts and they could wait until I revisited

King Henry VIII’s court and all the madness it held.

“C’mon Fritz, come keep me company, Meine Katz.”

Fritz was less than impressed with my German from the twitched back ear, but he complied and jumped up in my lap. I opened the book and settled back, feeling more at home than I had in a decade.


#(slimed)

A few minutes later it seemed, Ewalt was standing beside me when I looked up. Fritz had been asleep for a while I had not the heart to move him, even when my legs had gone numb from his solid weight. He’d lent a comfort I didn’t know I needed until he was there.

“It’s time for lunch.

“Is it?

“Ja.”

“I didn’t even notice.”

“I assumed as much. Has Fritz been a good boy? Chased any ghosts?”

I looked down at the ginger cat still drooling on my lap and nodded. I knew it was time to wake the fur ball and return him to his owner. Fritz had been a good companion and I could only hope he’d be allowed back soon. I picked him up and was rewarded with a merph noise and yellow eyes blinking open in surprise. I handed him up gently to the waiting arms of his owner.

“Come, Fritz”, Ewalt said, as he took the warm still sleepy feline into his arms, “let’s put you back where you belong before we go.” I stood with a loud popping from both knees and shook each leg in turn to get blood flow back going. And then followed Ewalt out the door.

“Wait here. You aren’t allowed in the lab.”

“Ok.”

A few minutes later we were heading back down the stairs through more hallways than I’d remember. Directionally challenged was an understatement.

Before I saw it, I could smell it. The cafeteria was close. It woke my stomach up to smell the warm yeast scent of what I hoped were the rolls from this morning wafting towards us.

I inhaled even deeper savoring the scent. Bread baking has to be the closest smell to heaven on earth, it transcends language barriers. The closer we got to the divine smell, the more noise I heard. Soft murmurs of muted conversations. I caught the occasional “Genau!” Uttered in agreement. A soft push and the double doors swung open and into the controlled chaos that is every cafeteria anywhere.

A tray in hand we waited our turn, I picked out three rolls, a container of orange juice, a small slab of cheese and some meats. Ewalt, saw the lack of fruit or vegetable and quirked an eyebrow back at the food line. I sighed and grabbed a helping of something green and slightly slimy looking. I’m not sure what it was supposed to be, I didn’t think slimy green mush was an official food category, yet here it was in all its glory.

“Engel! There you are.” We both turned to see who the voice belonged to.

Ewalt smiled to see the petite elderly lady. She was around five and a half feet tall with salt and ginger hair, big dimples dotting weathered cheeks. Her eyes were a clouded brown behind the tinted glasses much too big for her face. The soft pink long sleeved dress ended just at ankle length above her brown work boots. She was a handsome woman as my daddy would have said. The slight stain in Ewalt’s cheeks proved he thought so too.

“Janine, this is Coraline, my historian assistant. She’s new to our facility.”

Janine nodded her head at me, I didn’t stick out my hand for a handshake, and the inclined head nod meant she didn’t touch people often.

“Nice to meet you”, I said with an incline of my own in return.

She evidently enjoyed the slimy green mush, it and a roll were all that was on her tray. I wanted nothing more than to ask what it was, I also didn’t want to be rude.

She fell in step beside Ewalt and they lead the way to a table in the back corner. It had the feel of ritual long established. I squashed down jealousy that came from nowhere. I just made this friend, and now I had to share him. I’d thought he was like me and without friends, it was silly, he was long established and of course he had friends.

We took our seats and began the eating and small talk, I caught about every third word and realized it was a bit personal and went back to trying to figure out what the green slimy stuff was without actually eating it. I couldn’t take it anymore, I was going to be the rude person asking what it was, and maybe a quick sniff would give away what it was. Yeah, let’s try that first before I interrupt their date planning. Ever so cautiously I lifted a fork full of it up to my nose, just as I was about to inhale, it happened. Someone spoke to me, and the fork full of green slimy stuff went up my nostril. Oh, gross it was asparagus, boiled to mush asparagus.

I gagged, coughed and tried to control the snorting to no avail. It was getting stronger and weirder in my nose by the minute. I hate asparagus with a passion most reserve for stepping in animal waste.

I completely forgot to grab napkins and saw none readily available, when suddenly Ewalt thrust one into my hand after his observation that my sleeves were about to be the sacrificial asparagus clean up victim in this fiasco.

“Thank you”, I sputtered out around the napkin clutched to my face.

I could feel the red creeping into my face, and the longer they both sat there staring at me barely holding back laughter, the redder I could feel myself going. Beautiful, Cory, I thought, way to make a first impression. Snort the stupid asparagus up your nose. Smooth, really smooth, and so dignified.

Janine was losing the battle to contain her mirth, floodgates opened and out came the chuckles that devolved into full belly laughs, the sort that leave you gasping for air. Her laughter was contagious, and Ewalt’s came out to join it. I suddenly felt like I was back in grade school, the too tall, too chubby, freckle face kid with not the right clothes on. My face was flaming hotter. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Glad to have amused you.” I stuttered in an attempt to mask my embarrassment.

“What were you doing?” A sounder question couldn’t have been asked by Ewalt given the circumstances.

“Trying to figure out what it was.”

“By putting it up your nose? There were easier ways, all you had to do was ask.” This from the lady with a heaping pile of the stuff now diminished to a small amount of liquid left.

“I got startled, it sort of happened.”

“You should have asked.”

“I didn’t want to be rude, Janine.”

“Asking isn’t rude. Though, better to be rude than end up with things you don’t like in your nose.

“Before”, and a small wave at my face and the fork, “I was asking you how your research was going and if you found anything particularly interesting.”

“Oh, I’m still sorting it out.” Great, now I felt guilty for reading fiction. I really wished they’d tell me what they want me to help find and just how something from the last eight hundred years is going to help the here and now.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for to narrow this down.”

“People, diseases of the past. Plagues, epidemics, survivors and what they had in common. Didn’t Engel tell you this?” A sharp furrowed brow glance at Ewalt and he slumped a bit visibly in his chair at her reproach.

Her tone and face softened again as she looked back at me awaiting my answer.

“That helps narrow it down. Any particular time frame? Before vaccines or after vaccines became common and effective? That would be helpful to know.”

“Both”. said Ewalt.

I picked up a roll and tore it into pieces, after swallowing an asparagus tinged piece, I continued.

“My area of research was sixteenth century European. Mainly the politics and such of the time frame. The brutality of the era is tough to read, even less envision living through. As a narrower focus, I like reading the bits and pieces of women’s lives that managed to make it into history books. Very little was actually recorded of women that glimpses into their lives is fascinating.”

I felt the goofy smile spread across my face. It was refreshing to have people to speak to. I’d spent so long alone in a crowd of people, reconnecting to others was coming easier than I would have ever believed possible. Dakota would have been proud.

“In your previous exploration of this time period, what diseases did you come across that could be useful in pinpointing why only some groups had some immunity? There has to be a commonality to it. Something Africa and Europe had that Asia did not. We know from seeing so many survivors from Vietnam that had European and African genetics from the mid 20th century war America got involved in there, that it’s a shared immunity between these two divergent regions.” Janine was staring intently at me with her hands folded fingertip to fingertip temple style under her chin.

“Several things made the rounds during that time period, there was plague…”

“We’ve ruled out the plagues.” Janine interjected accompanied by a smack of her hand on the table. I jumped with the sound and implied violence behind it.

“There was also a disease that made the rounds predominantly in England. It hit the upper class much harder than the lower classes. The

Sweating sickness or as..”

“What was it?” This snapped so suddenly, again I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“There were numerous academic theories that it could have been in the hemorrhagic fever category, sort of like Marburg or Ebola. There were other theories that displaced this, and some have suggested it was a Hanta virus like the four corners outbreak in the 20th century American West.”

Janine had that about to interrupt again look starting. This was going to be a tedious thing if I couldn’t keep my train of thought going long enough to finish without having to start over. My temper was starting to flare at being interrogated and interrupted.

“We’ve ruled that one out too.” This was said as if speaking to an exceedingly slow witted individual.

“Ruled out the “English Sweat”? “

“No, the hemorrhagic fevers and Hanta viruses.”

“Ok, have you ruled out the brief, localized to predominantly early 16th century England, sweating sickness? There was a physician that wrote extensively of it, I forget his name off the top of my head, but he treated many in some astoundingly barbaric ways. One such method of treatment involved pounding a hole in the victim’s back to relieve pressure. Amazingly enough some survived the disease and that treatment.”

“I’m not sure that’s a real disease, if you don’t know or haven’t got any ideas we haven’t ruled out, it’s best to not invent make believe diseases and waste our time researching useless pretend diseases.”

“Oh, it was real and if you’d stop talking over me you’d have got more details on it.” My temper flared, and all patience was leaving me. It’s hard to talk history with people focused on science, and they found us hard to talk to as well. For me it wasn’t the diseases or whom they affected individually and what disease it was that isn’t the focus, the fallout from its wrath and sweep through England and things it brought about were my focus.

For every pandemic, there are social changes made in response, and those are what keeps history moving along with interesting results. Pandemics have stopped wars, they have started them as well. One thing history records well is that for every war ever fought has been accompanied by some sort of overarching disease. There was a reason Pestilence was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It was more deadly than War usually.

Janine looked taken aback that I’d snapped at her. I felt no remorse. If she wanted more information, she’d have to be the one to apologize and ask.

I was decidedly done. Done with asparagus up my nose, done with food, done with being talked to like I was stupid or slow, or both. I picked up the half eaten tray and looked around for where it was supposed to be taken. Ewalt, having had the good sense to stay out of women arguing got up and patted Janine on the hand and lead the way out for us.

Janine had provided one thing for me, a starting place in the ghost chasing. My favorite era of history. If they’d already ruled out the Ebola type hemorrhagic fevers and plagues, then obscure diseases was what they were looking for. Things that history really provided no clue or explanation for. Things that had baffled the brightest of medical people even in its own time frame. Diseases that had seemingly vanished as suddenly as they came.

#
We walked the white corridors toward the last flight of stairs that would take us up to our corner of the world in stiff silence. It wasn’t the easy silence we’d shared going to lunch.

I could feel the weight of words unsaid between us. He was thinking about something so hard it was emanating off him. If he was going to be angry, I’d prefer he go on and explode and get it over with.

I stopped walking. I wanted this discussion over with as soon as possible and not done in a closed in space where I had no means of escape.

I didn’t think he’d physically hurt me, but my judgement has been flawed before on this score. Nearly fatally on numerous occasions.

He stopped and turned around. He looked at me with the weight of a thousand words unspoken. It was obvious he was attempting to find some not hostile to open with.

“Damn it!” And he failed. “Why must you be so hard headed and not listen and at least pretend to get along with other people?” His fists were clenched at his sides and his shoulders strained with tension.

I backed up a full step. I wanted out of reach if this got worse. Some scars go deeper than anything visible ever could. That Virus doesn’t scare me half as much as an angry man can. I’d lived what angry men could do, even with nearly equal matched weight and height, they could and had hurt me a lot.

Ewalt softened at the step back, he visibly relaxed his body and lowered his tone.

“I won’t hurt you”, he said. I wanted to believe this.

“Your girlfriend started it.” Not the best way to continue feeling like an adult, there Cory, I thought. Why not just call her names and stick out your tongue too while you’re at it?

I began to believe he could read minds at this point in my mental dialogue.

“Is name calling next?”, he asked softly.

I had nothing to respond with, and faced with the choices of say something and make it worse or run. I choose the coward’s way out and vanished into my office to hide. Running was something I was good at, I’d had to do it often and frequently all of my adult life. The only problem with running is that eventually there is nowhere left to run to.

#(forget the toilet paper)

Back in my office I found myself unable to read or concentrate. I berated myself a fool for alienating the one person in too many years to show me any kindness. I missed the person who had been with me from the day I broke into the library and found the world as I knew it had ended and had been replaced by a nightmare.

I missed him with every fiber of my being, time does not heal all grief, and you just learn to live in only a shadow of what your heart once knew. Despite trying to block out the past and all its pain, there were happy things too and memories of how I met him hit me full force.

After I’d left the library and was dragging my basket of checked out, ok, stolen books back to my little car determined to get my list of errands done and go back to the back of beyond. To run from whatever had happened and stay there and away from all this emptiness. I found him, or more accurately he found me.

He was tall, excessively thin, but muscled. His jeans looked ragged and dirty, his green flannel shirt had seen much better days. He was barefoot and leaned against the backside of the church next door. I thought he was dead when I prodded him with my foot. It turned out he was only sleeping.

He jumped nearly out of his skin and so did I.

“Stay back, don’t touch me!”

I nodded. Stupidly relieved to know I wasn’t literally the only human left. Humanity might have a fighting chance now.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes. Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.”

His brown eyes looked haunted. I had never seen eyes so filled with pain, and be so pretty at the same time.
I backed up a couple of feet and slid down the brick wall and joined him on the concrete alleyway. I sat and stared at him well past the point of politeness, hoping he’d talk and explain or tell me this was a joke.

We sat there for what seemed like days just looking at each other. In reality it wasn’t more than a few minutes.

“Are you sick?” he asked me quietly with less fear in his voice. His eyes were scanning me like I was an insect pinned to a board. It was disconcerting.

“No, I’ve been away and I’m not sure what’s been going on.”

“You’d have had to have been damn near on another fucking planet to not know what’s been going on.”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“I’ve been camping; primitively.”

“Camping where on Mars?”

“State forest not far from here.” C’mon Cory, don’t let a pair of pretty brown eyes sucker you into giving away your safety went through my head. Just get information and leave. Just get it quick and leave, it’s never good when you start internally begging yourself to do something.

He’d been studying me, whatever he saw convinced him I wasn’t lying.

“Damn, you really didn’t know” He sounded both envious and disbelieving all at once. My fear was giving way to another anxiety attack. Just how bad was it? I swallowed down hard a few times hoping to swallow the fear engulfing me.

I shook my head and started gnawing on my bottom lip, it was a bad and painful habit I had never outgrown. When I got really nervous I went from chewing on my lips to eating off all my fingernails. I was almost eat my fingers off nervous now. It had been a rough morning.

“I’m Dakota.”

“I’m Cory.” I wasn’t feeling reassured by introductions, his brown eyes looked too helpless and defeated. I was still too raw and defeated myself to handle any from anyone else. It hadn’t even been a year yet since my son had died. The only child I would ever have, gone as quickly as a dream you try to remember that fades so fast the harder you try to catch the fragments. His birth had left me with ovaries but no womb to carry another. I’d failed at the most important thing I’d ever tried to do. I couldn’t be the rescuer of Dakota, no matter if he did have pretty brown eyes. I was barely rescuing myself these days.

“It was nice meeting you, I’ve got to go. Good luck”. I started to stand and was abruptly yanked back down. My butt hit the ground hard enough my teeth clacked together. I tasted the copper of blood and realized I’d bit my tongue. I glanced down at his left hand holding onto my right wrist. I noticed a small set of Greek comedy and tragedy masks tattooed onto his forearm. It was an odd time to notice tattoos.

“Let go of me”. I said with more bravado and swagger than I actually possessed. It worked and he released my wrist.

“You might want to stay here for a bit longer.”

“Why?” The suspicion was palpable in my voice.

“The National Guard is rounding up people and taking them away. There’s a mandatory quarantine in place. If they catch you out, off to Camp FEMA you’ll go. I doubt they got arts and crafts time though.”

“So you were hiding and sleeping. A sound strategy.”

He caught the sarcasm and merely sighed.

“I was tired, haven’t slept right in days, not many people do. It’s not safe, either people are dropping dead with blood running out of their mouths around you. People trying to steal food and medicine from you. And then we got the National Guard people supposedly keeping us safe, but really they are just stealing and killing with permission to do so. It isn’t safe anywhere.”

“Dakota?” I couldn’t stop staring at his dirty and bleeding bare feet.

“Yeah?”

“What happened to your shoes?”

“I got jumped last night while I was sleeping, I ran so fast I left them behind.”

“Who jumped you?” It’s hard playing catch up when the world changed so fast.

“Guard. They came in the house we were at. I heard gunshots, everybody there is gone now. Gone. Oh God, my mama, she’s gone.” He broke down crying. I’d never seen a man cry in great gaping sobs until now.

His coffee with cream colored skin was getting blotchy. The tears rolling in rivers from his eyes was tearing out my heart. If laughter is contagious, sobbing is viral. All the tears and pain of losing my precious Andrew came flooding out. The months of trying to forget lost the barriers holding them at bay and I was dry heaving with the tears and sobs. The type you only get when your soul has suffered deeply some unspeakable horror. We were two sides of the same coin of grief. A childless mother and a motherless child. The horror doesn’t get more personal than this.

I felt a calm hand move my hair off my face and out of the way of the bile rushing out of my mouth. The bitter, vile taste clinging to the roof of my mouth and stinging in the back of nose. It was splashed on both of us, and I realized I’d managed to vomit on my own hands. The warmth of it was cooling quickly into a nasty mess of brownish yellow slime.

Then an even calmer hand pulled me into a hug. I’m not sure who needed the simple touch of another human more, him or me. I held onto the stranger I’d just met for dear life. He was all that was solid and real in an afternoon that had been anything but reality based. In that moment I didn’t want him to let me go. I buried my face into the crook of his neck. He smelled like sweat and peppermint.

My better judgement had left holding that newspaper. I pulled back enough to get a good view of his face, then asked him, “Do you want to go back to my campground on Mars?”

He laughed. After all the tears, laughter was good, a sign our sanity was unhinged, but good for all that.

“Yeah. Mars sounds good. How are we getting there? It sounds a might bit far to walk.” This with a barefoot waggled at me. I’d already seen they were both cut and scraped raw.

I sat back down and pulled my Doc Martens off and took off my thick boot socks and handed them to him. He gratefully pulled them on with a sharp intake of breath while I put my boots back on without socks. A few blisters seemed easy compared to navigating the world with raw, bloody bare feet.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, but you owe me band aids later when I get blisters.”

“Deal. Hell woman, you get us there, I’ll rub your feet.”

I ignored the part about rubbing my feet as if I had not heard him and only answered the first part. I was still shocked I’d let myself melt into such an intimate embrace with a man I’d only just met, it wasn’t me to share my grief with anyone.

“If you think it’s safe, we have to get two blocks back over near the library and to my car.”

“That’s a long way to go. Maybe we should wait a couple more hours until the sun goes down.”
“I got here just fine. Find a happy thought and follow me.”

“Happy thoughts aren’t gonna save us if we get caught”. He had a point. I just wasn’t ready to believe the National Guard was killing people.

Once I believed that, I don’t think you could keep hold of any sort of sanity. The day had been bizarre enough already without losing what fragile grip I had left on my mind.

I picked up my basket of books I’d set down at the corner and shifted my backpack back into place before walking to check out the body pooled on the ground, only to have it be a person, not the body I presumed it to be.

Dakota looked at the basket like I’d lost my mind. “You can’t eat that.”

“I know.”

“So why are you toting a basket of books?” This asked in the slow even tones one takes when talking to the mentally unstable.

“I checked them out of the library.” I sort of thought that might be obvious. I was wrong.

“The library’s been closed for weeks now along with everything else.” An astute observation he’d be in a position to know about.

“Ok, I stole them. But I plan to bring them back when everything gets back to normal. It’s not stealing if you have a card and left it and a note.”

“Define normal for me again. I don’t know what that is.”

We’d made it to the corner of the first block. Still discussing my burglary of the library and whether I was taking them with us. It was my car, my basket of books, and they were coming with us. If I gave up the books it would be admitting the world had vanished. I couldn’t face that yet. I’ll do that tomorrow first thing. Just not now and not here.

The sound of a slow moving vehicle caused Dakota to jerk me and the basket of books into the bushes. “What the hell?” I screeched at him.

“Shut up. Be still.” Dakota said while popping a hand over my mouth and jerking me lower to the ground. I had a limb poking me in the butt and one in my ribcage and few perilously close to taking out my right eye. He pulled me tighter into his body, and tucked his feet clad in my neon pink socks under us.

He took his hand off my mouth and gently moved a few limbs to the side to watch the street. He was vibrating slightly against me. I realized he was self-soothing like a small child does when fighting off sleep or fear. It was an endearing mark of bravery and vulnerability all at once.

“I don’t think they saw us” , was whispered into my ear.

“How much further we got until we get to your magic car?”

“About a block.”

“We can move faster without the books. There’s another set of bushes near not far up from us. We can run to them and wait, then run from there to your car.”

“I’m not leaving the books.”

“Why not?” He asked with a hiss.

“Because, I have to finish my doctoral thesis paper.” I was fighting the world changed drastically idea tooth and nail. It seemed perfectly normal to try and complete the list I’d left my home with so many hours before. If my hands hadn’t been covered in dried filth I’d have had my cuticles torn to ragged shreds, as it was I went back to gnawing my lower lip. Somewhere in all the excitement of the day, I’d lost my lip balm.

I hoped my keys hadn’t joined it in the land of the lost.

Since I wouldn’t leave my books behind, Dakota grabbed an armful out of the basket and started running to the next predetermined set of bushes he’d picked out near a closed up furniture store’s parking lot. I scrambled to keep up and realized I was not up to his level of athleticism. He had already disappeared into the bushes by the time I got there. The sound of the slowly approaching vehicle was alarming, it was echoing off the buildings in a city eerily quiet.

I stooped down and crawled in behind the basket I was shoving before me. I was trying to avoid getting stabbed by the limbs. Dakota was huddled into a ball, clutching my books tightly. His eyes were rounded with anxiety and his pupils were small black dots in a sea of brown and too much white showing round them. One of the sleeves of his shirt had come unrolled and was flapping loosely around his forearm. He had a fresh scrape down the left side of his cheek, the blood was welling up and starting to seep in rivulets down through the tear and sweat tracks. I could feel the grime creasing in my neck.

Our breath seemed extremely loud, ok, my breathing was what was loud. I was panting from the run and crawling into the bushes. I reached out for his hand. He took it and we sat there in the fading afternoon holding hands and waiting out the truck rolling by outside our cocoon.

Listening to the crickets chirping and trying to avoid the mosquitos that were starting their feast on us.

“Which way from here is your car?”

I was disoriented and went to poke my head out to get a sense of where I was. Dakota grabbed me and yanked me back in.

“Don’t.” He said in a low authoritative tone.

“I’m near the library around behind it at the flea market parking.”

“Ok, so we got to go left and through open space.”

I’d have to take his word for it, he seemed to have a map in his head that spoke of long familiarity with the city. Despite my trips here, I still relied on the navigation in my car to get me around.

“What..?”

“Shhh.” He leaned in and whispered, “I hear footsteps. Don’t move.”

His fear was real, mine wasn’t engaged from whatever he’d lived through to understand. I was rapidly getting there, but I wasn’t to that point yet. I’d never been hunted. Clearly, Dakota had been and recently. I heard the noise he’d referenced and it was the sound of several pairs of feet. They were close and searching for something. Had we been seen?

“I saw something move over here.” Said a gravelly voice not far from us

“I don’t see nothing”, another voice replied

Dakota was self-soothing again. His eyes had gotten bigger and slightly panicked looking. I was hoping they couldn’t hear my heart beat, it was thundering in my ears loudly. I felt a bit dizzy and was glad we were sitting down.

Dakota brought a fingertip to his lips in the universal sign of be quiet. No worries from me, I couldn’t have made a noise now if my life depended on it.

The second voice I’d heard was frustrated sounding when it said,” It was probably an animal, lots of ‘em around here. Let’s go, shift’s almost up.”

“It was bigger than a damn dog, man. I think it was people.” The first voice chimed back.

“We been out here looking for nothing, times up, time to head back. “

The walking had stopped outside our bushes. I heard a lighter rasp and smelled the sudden whiff of a freshly lit cigarette followed by the exhale of breath and smoke. The footsteps sounded like they were moving off further.

I wondered briefly if I could sleep in the cramped space inside hedges. My bladder was not of the same idea. I really needed to find a bathroom and soon. I was stifling back the squirming trying to be as still as possible. I wasn’t sure what had happened to the National Guard, but nothing prepared me to be hunted by people I’d only previously known to be helpful. This was uniquely unhelpful.

#(trust)

It was past dark when we crawled out of the bushes with my books and I followed Dakota in the general direction of where I hoped my car was at. This would be the worst time to have forgotten just which area I had parked in a lifetime ago. I doubted Dakota would allow me to use the alarm on my key fob to locate the car like I sometimes did when really turned around and lost. I couldn’t hold it any longer, I had to find a spot to pee or it was going to come out one way or another.

I fell behind and looked around, I then unbuttoned and unzipped and whipped my jeans down my thighs and squatted down. I’d barely made it into a squat when I felt the urine I’d been holding start to spurt out. Dakota heard the noise, stopped and turned around, then quickly averted his body back the other way to give me the illusion of privacy.

“Really?!” He asked.

“Yes, really, I don’t see a bathroom around here, do you?” I said while trying to not pee into the crotch of my jeans.

“You about done?”

“No.”

“Hurry up.”

“I’m trying. You don’t happen to have anything I can wipe with, do you?”

“No. When I was running for my life last night, toilet paper wasn’t on the high priority list of shit to grab on my way out.”

Valid point. I thought.

“Just shake it off and let’s go. We got to get out of here, before that second shift takes over. We only got another hour before that happens, so unless you want to go back to the bushes, let’s go.”

I sighed and bounced a few times to try to shake off the last few drops from using the city street as a toilet. I stood up and pulled my underwear and jeans up, I knew my bounce hadn’t been enough from the wetness I felt immediately up against my body now that all my clothes were done up again.

“Ok, I’m done”. I picked my basket back up and walked to him.

“Just take me to the car so we can go camp on Mars.”

“I still need to get some things on my list.”

Even in dark I could see the look of bafflement cross his face.

“Honey, you can hang up that list, we got to go, and these books are getting heavy.”

“I haven’t got a lot of food left back at home, and I really need to get some more fishing gear and kerosene.”

“We’ll make do, it’ll be ok.”

I gestured at the small red, beat up car. Its paint was faded and peeling, but it ran great. It was looking heavenly sitting there.

I beeped the unlock button and heard the clicks. Dakota tossed the books into the backseat on top of the other stuff I never seemed to get around to taking out. He looked back at the car seat sitting there with a bear strapped in and didn’t say anything. I put my basket in on my side and shut the door, then opened mine and slid in behind the wheel.

“Can I take the interstate?” I asked before starting the car.

“No”.

“Then you might need to drive.”

“I don’t know where you call home.”

“Currently it’s Roosevelt State Park over near Morton.”

“Then slide over and I’ll get us close to there and you can take over then.”

I got out and walked around and got in my own passenger seat. This was weird. I really hoped he could drive and not scare the crap out of me. It made me very nervous to not be in control and not be the one driving.

Dakota started the car and backed us out, popped the clutch and shifted us into first and then took off. He was giving new meaning to the
expression, “drive it like you stole it”. I grabbed the handle on the roof and held on for dear life.

The streets were just as deserted as they were when I was driving in earlier today. Today? Was it really only about 12 hours earlier I’d been driving in with a list? The clock on the dash assured me it was today.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, hoping it wouldn’t seem as scary and the tension headache that had been threatening to hit came roaring in behind my sinus cavity and settled with a pounding fierceness inside my head. The waves of nausea would hit next unless I had the magic migraine pills in the console. I opened my eyes and moved his elbow out of the way and started foraging in the console. I found the prescription bottle and popped the top. There were two capsules left. I palmed one and popped in my mouth and pulled the half drank water bottle off the floorboard. I had no idea how long it had been there and right now I didn’t care. I only cared about stopping the migraine before it got bad enough I couldn’t think or move. I put the cap back on the pill bottle and dropped in back into the console and closed it. I gulped the last of the stale, hot water down and put the bottle back into the mess of the floorboard.

“Where are we?”

“We got a ways to go, I’m having to take us the long ways around to get there. As long as I avoid the main roads, we should be okay”. He glanced over at me, then back to the road and continued. “Just lay back and try and rest, it’s been a long day and you seem out of it. I’ll let you know when you take over.”

I nodded and reclined the seat back and closed my eyes. I must have drifted off between the stress of the day and the migraine medication. Sometime later I felt the car stop and a hand gently shake me. “Your turn”, Dakota said softly. He sounded exhausted.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes and stretched. I looked out the window to get a visual on where we were. We were inside the park near the paddle boat rental. Dakota had parked the car and was staring out of the windshield at the night time black water rippling in front of us. It was peaceful. He’d cracked the window to get a breeze. The chilly April air was settling in. It smelled like rain wasn’t far off.

We swapped seats and I drove us off the paved section and avoided the ruts and trees. I got us to my camper and turned off the car. We got out and I started gathering up the books into the basket. Then I unbuckled the bear gently, settled it on one hip and the basket on the other and lead the way up the steps and into my camper.

Once inside I set everything except the bear down and fumbled for the lantern and matches. I got it lit and back on its shelf in front of the mirror to throw off more light. I hadn’t been able to get any more fuel for the lantern and had at most only a few days of sparse usage left at best.

I carefully placed the bear on my futon bed and made the rounds of the whole camper. It was clear and everything where I left it this morning.
Dakota was still standing near the door, he looked ready to run. I couldn’t blame him, I felt the urge to run as well.

“I saw the car seat, where’s your kid?”

“He’s gone”. I said simply. The tone of my voice must have conveyed I wouldn’t elaborate and Dakota dropped the topic.

“I’ve got some fish I fried last night in the cooler. There might be some peanut butter on the counter. Nothing else is cooked. I can’t waste charcoal and I don’t start fires after dark out here. I’m parked illegally and the rangers might see.”

#
I pulled the dining room table into the locked up position and slid the two small bench seats into their positions as a twin size bed. I pulled out my futon into the bed position and got my quilts and pillows out of the closet in the corner of the living area. I hesitated, then pulled out an extra one for my company. The extra quilt had previously belonged to my son, it was pale blue with cars driven by teddy bears in goggles printed on the fabric. I carefully placed it and one of the pillows onto the now converted bed.

“I’ve got some water left in the bathroom tanks, just use the bathroom outside because there isn’t enough to flush and clean us up with too.”
Dakota had cautiously come further into my home and was looking around at it. All that could be seen in the flickering light was shadows of grey and black.

“I figured it would be a wreck after seeing your car.”

“Nah, I’m actually fairly organized, the car just never seems all that important on the lists of things to do.”

I walked over to my dresser and pulled out clean clothes and then from the bottom drawer I got out towels and washcloths for us. I separated them into his and hers stack. He noticed the stacks and didn’t say anything. Realizing it was probably futile to clean up with nothing to wear I went back into the limited wardrobe of mine and got out a clean t-shirt and pair of ratty blue sweatpants for him to wear. I placed these onto the stack of bathroom stuff I got out for him.

“I’ve got to get cleaned up, I’m not going to be able to sleep this gritty. Do you mind sitting in the dark for a few minutes, so I can see in there?”

“It’s ok.” His voice tone implied it was anything but ok. I decided to go with the spoken words.

I took the kerosene lamp and all my stuff into the very tiny camper bathroom and set it carefully on the closed toilet lid. I poured the water into a closed sink and stripped down. The scars across my ribcage gleamed a raised white in the mirror. I ignored them and lathered up my cloth and started getting the worst of the grime off. The sink water was getting really foul, if I hadn’t had company, I’d have repeated my ablutions to get it all off.

“You about done in there?” came his voice at the door. He had that panicked sound again.

“Yeah.” I said as I pulled the plug and hung my washcloth and towel on the shower door.

I hastily yanked on my gym shorts and faded Ole Miss tank top, then opened the door.

Dakota was standing there looking lost and exhausted.

“There’s enough water in there left in the bucket to fill up the sink. Soap is on the counter next to the faucet. I’m sorry I haven’t got an extra toothbrush for you. But once you get clean we can put some anti-bacterial stuff on your feet, under the sink there’re some bandages.”

“Thanks”, he said and turned to the side so I could edge my way out past him into the tiny space leading back to the living room. I heard the door and lock click into place. I couldn’t blame him, after the day we’d had, locking everything down seemed the best choice. Only one problem with my thoughts, the door to my camper hadn’t locked when I bought it and I’d never gotten around to getting it fixed.

Dakota reemerged a few minutes later carrying his clothes clutched against him in one hand and the lantern in the other. He set the lantern back in the original spot on the shelf. His clothes he put carefully under the place I’d fixed for him to sleep. He looked worse the wear with his face all scrubbed clean. The scrape he’d gotten earlier was deeper than it first appeared, he’d put a couple of small bandages over it to hold the skin closed at the deepest section. His eyes in the dark appeared entirely black, but they’d lost the haunted look he’d had when I met him hours earlier.

“Thanks for the use of your stuff. I haven’t been this clean in weeks.”

He walked over to the door and started trying to lock it. A few minutes of trying later he realized it wouldn’t catch and looked at me and said,

“The lock’s broke.”

“It never worked.”

“We need to find someplace secure to sleep.” The anxious sound was back in his voice.

“Why? I’ve been here for months and no one has bothered me. I haven’t left here in weeks, I didn’t even know the world had ended until today. It’s safe, we’re safe.”

“You really didn’t know”, Dakota said softly. Looking around at the tidy camper, he said,” Mars wasn’t far off. Tomorrow, I’ll fix that lock.”

He sat down on the bench bed and picked up the quilt and wrapped it around his shoulders. He looked ready to drop, all the questions I had could wait until tomorrow. As it was, I had to find a way to sleep with a stranger under my roof, a male stranger. Those scars across my ribs were proof of what could happen while you slept, even when the other person wasn’t a stranger. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake bringing him here.

“Well, good night then.”

“Good night and thanks again for bringing me here. I appreciate it.”

I blew out the lantern and climbed on my futon and settled my quilts and pillows around me. After I had made my cocoon, I pulled my son’s teddy bear into my arms and buried my face into it for solace and protection against the thoughts in my head. The world changed again, only it was the whole world this time, not just my own.

I could hear the deep, rhythmic tones of my guest asleep across the room from me. I was trying to fight off sleep and every time my eyes closed it took me longer and longer to open them again. Despite my best intentions of staying awake until daylight broke so I could send him on his way, I fell into troubled sleep. Sometime in the night the rain I had smelled coming moved in hard and fast. The sound of the drops on the roof lulled me further into sleep where my troubles couldn’t follow.

#(teddy bears have feelings too)

I’d been so lost in my thoughts of time past, that time had passed rapidly. I knew it was late, I guess Ewalt wasn’t coming back to walk me home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I’d been alone before and I could again.

I gathered up my belongings and set off to find my way to my assigned place to sleep. Home, was a long way and many years lost from here.

Where I was headed was only a place to sleep. At least I had my ragged teddy bear waiting for me. It was one of the few things I had been allowed to keep and take with me from before.

I felt more alone suddenly than I had that first day I realized all this had begun. For the first time in 18 years I was suddenly scared. Ewalt not showing up to walk me home had done what the Virus, Relocation and the loss of Dakota had all failed to do. I really was alone and scared.

Good job Cory, I thought, if you wanted to be the crazy cat lady, all you need are a few cats and you are there. I felt the tears start to flow freely. I had to hurry up before the sobbing I was barely holding back broke loose.

I made it back to my little house and just inside the door when the dam of eighteen years’ worth of trauma, pain, loneliness, and loss hit me. I collapsed in the floor to my knees and started rocking back and forth holding my sides while the sobs and screams echoed off the sparse space I called mine.

#

The next morning I peeled myself off the floor and went to shower the tears and frustration away. I resolved that I’d be cool and calm and not let the loss overshadow the day. I’d pretend it all hadn’t happened. I was good at denial.

The bathroom was small, but clean with a bathtub deep enough to soak away the stiffness from sleeping on the floor. I knew I should have gotten myself to my bed last night, but after screaming myself hoarse and having seen the ragged edge of sanity barely clinging on; I’d slept where I’d had my breakdown.

I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink, it really needed to be a few inches higher, and I had to stoop my half an inch shy of six foot self-down to stare into my own green eyes. They were swollen and the marks of all of my forty-three years were clearly visible in the fine lines etched out in wings from the corners. The lines from years of smiling and frowning and all manner of emotion in between were just beginning to show around my mouth. My hair had a few strands of silvery grey caught up in the baby fine light brown with blonde highlights. I kept it short enough to not be in the way, but long enough to causally pull back into a messy ponytail. My freckles were standing out in stark contrast to my pallid complexion made paler from the emotions that had raged forth.

I studied the scars across my ribcage, they had gone completely white and shiny with age. The scars had been a gift of sorts from my ex-husband two weeks before the car wreck that had given me another set of scars across my back and up over my right shoulder. A broken, wooden barstool had given me the ones on my ribs, shattered glass and twisted metal had given me the others. The scars no longer made me glance away, they were just another facet of who I am and a reminder that I was tougher than the night before had left me feeling. My emotions were still raw and jagged and I wasn’t sure how to get it all back in the box I’d kept it all locked away in.

I wasn’t sure I could even find the box at this point, much less stuff it all back in. I sat down on the side of the tub and turned on the hot water as far as it would go, I poured enough Epsom salt into the running water I was fairly sure it would still feel gritty when I climbed my sore body into the embrace of water hot enough to scald me.

I remembered the first time Dakota had seen the scars that arced across my back and shoulder. They’d still been vividly red and you could see the indents where the staples had been. He’d been living with me a few weeks by then, he’d go out and forage and sometimes I’d go with him. Usually, he’d find a nice library to break into for me to stay safe with the books until he got done. He wasn’t sure I could handle being hunted or alternately that I could be the one sometimes doing the hunting.

Dakota had whistled low and sucked in his breath when he saw the scars. All he’d done was reach out a soft brown hand and traced the ones visible. He’d said words I never had heard from anyone to me. They were the treasure I kept close when things fell apart.

I recalled that he’d said, “I’m glad you were tougher than whatever tried to kill you.”

My bath was done, and I turned off the water and looked at the soft steam rising and climbed in. The heat was overpowering, I hoped it took the stiffness away. It wouldn’t help with the emotions, I knew those would never leave. For now, I’d settle for the stiffness to be gone. Forty-three was entirely too old to be spending the night curled into a ball on the floor.

Since Ewalt hadn’t walked me home last night, I assumed I was on my own this morning as well. I would get there when I got there, going back to the fields didn’t seem so bad this morning. There I’d be left alone and not have to think or feel. I could just exist.

The water was going cold when I finally climbed out and dried off. I went to my room to find clothes. I tossed the towel on the bed and immediately noticed it was missing. My bear was missing from my bed. Someone had been in my house yesterday. Where was my bear?

Who would take a ragged stuffed animal stained with travel and patched with care?

I was livid, that bear was more precious than anything on this earth to me. When I found out who had been in my house and took my bear there would be hell to pay.

I was shaking as I opened the closet and pulled out a plain black button up shirt and faded nearly to white jeans. I tucked my shirt in and got socks out of the dresser and pulled on my boots. The theft of Andrew’s bear managed what the bath couldn’t, I was ready to go to work to see
if I could figure out who the thieving bear kidnapper was and what they wanted for the safe return of it.

#(breaking barriers)

I made it to the hospital in record time, even with a few wrong turns and back tracking. I was later than I expected and Ewalt wasn’t in the cafeteria, neither was Janine. I stormed up the stairs into the general area of where my office was, and kept walking until I hit the big double doors of the lab I wasn’t supposed to go in. I hesitated only a minute weighing the odds of what the consequences would be for entering the forbidden domain.

To hell with it, I thought, my bear might be in there, and if it was, well it wouldn’t be pretty.

I pushed hard against the door and it was locked, I backed up enough to put my shoulder into the next shove and made a lot of racket.

People were peeking heads out of the offices near me. A few caught the murderous look on my face and decided the better part of valor was going back to their own business. That suited me just fine. One way or another I was getting in that room to look for my bear.

I shoved my shoulder into the door for the second time just as it opened inward. The momentum I had going took me and the person who opened it to the ground. We hit hard enough I heard the oomph of air rush out of whomever I had fallen on. I was almost relieved to have had my fall broken. If the person who broke my fall had my bear then this was only the warm up to the damage I intended to inflict on them.

I started the push up to stand up and realized it was Ewalt who had broken my fall. He was still gasping for air and trying to get an elbow under him to lift up. Under normal circumstances I’d have been polite and offered an apology and a hand up. My manners were decidedly on the frozen cycle right now, I was still blinded by the anger of realizing my privacy had been violated and my bear had been stolen. Neither was acceptable.

When he got to a sitting position and was looking less like he was going to die of a heart attack on me, I took my chance of his stunned silence to scream the most absurd thing any self-respecting adult woman could scream. “Where’s my fucking teddy bear?”

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid, I know my bear is here, now give it back.”

“I’m not sure what you are on about.”

“My bear. Give. It. Back”.

I hoped the spacing of words spoken slowly would get the point across. He looked confused by the words and more than a bit afraid of me.

“What bear?”

“My bear. The last link I had to my life before. My son. It’s all I had left and I just want it back”, I was close to crying. The anger was giving way to the fear I’d never see my bear again.

“I don’t have your bear.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving until I make sure it’s not here.”

I moved around him and pushed the second set of swinging double doors. Ewalt made a futile grab at my arm as I snatched it out of his grasp.

I stopped dead in my tracks. The lab looked nothing like I thought of when I thought laboratory. It looked like the inside of a mechanic’s garage, if the mechanic was deranged and unhinged. Tool boxes stood open and wrenches were scattered over the tables in front of hulking piles of bolted together scrap metal with dials and gauges. Fritz was napping contentedly in one of the open drawers.

The calluses on his hands made sense now. They weren’t the feel of a person unaccustomed to actual work. They were the hands of a mechanic. Just what sort of mechanic was he and what was all this junk? How was this going to fix the problems caused by the Virus?

“You should leave, Frau Coraline.”

“No.”

I stood my ground. He was only a couple of inches taller than me, but I was younger and less damaged. I wasn’t leaving without looking first.

It had to be here, if it wasn’t here I didn’t know where it would be or who would have known this was the reason for the backpack I carried everywhere.

“What is all this? What sort of lab is this? What in history could I possibly have to research for this?” I asked with a sweep of my arm at the mayhem and junk contained in the room.

He had the audacity to give me an offended look. He wasn’t the one standing in a junkyard losing his marbles over a child’s toy, more thoroughly confused now than a few minutes ago.

I needed to sit down, my adrenaline was gone and giving way to the limp dishrag state of being. I picked the lone stool near where Fritz was napping in the tool chest drawer. I didn’t wait to be invited but crumpled myself onto it and hooked my heels on the rungs.

“You really need to leave. Please, before we both get in trouble.”

“Nope, not until I get something resembling an explanation and an idea of who might have broken into my new place and kidnapped my bear.”

“I know you kept things from a person before all this took it away. E.F. Engel ring any bells?” I asked, referencing the name I’d found inscribed in the history book.

His mouth gaped open, and immediately he said, “That wasn’t supposed to be in there.”

“I’ll be happy to give it back to you, when I get my bear back.” I responded.

“That’s blackmail.”

“I know. Just give me the bear or find whomever took it and you can have your book back. Whose was it?”

“My daughter, Eva Francis Engel. She was away on a gap year in America. I never found out what happened to her. She’d be about your age
now.”

Good, he had incentive to find my bear. I had a glimmer of hope I’d be curled up tight with it before the day was over.

Fritz was waking up with a paw stretched out amid a massive fang baring yawn. The sort that curled a cat’s pink tongue into an impossible circle. Up came the butt and tail and both paws forward then a back arching stretch completed the transition to awake. He jumped out of the drawer with clink of metal disturbed. Then sauntered off in search of a quieter place to contemplate whatever cats contemplate.