“What kind of setup does this Max have?” said Rob.
“Oh, I don’t know exactly. It doesn’t sound like anything really advanced or anything.”
“So what’s the reason to head there?”
“Well, he’s out in the woods, away from all the chaos. About as much as you can be, I suppose. And there are deer there, plenty of them.”
“So they’ve got food, then?”
“Sounds like it. Not like this, of course,” said Dan, gesturing to the spread of packaged food laid out on the table between them.
“More nutritious, though,” said Rob. “All natural. That’s the real way to eat.”
Dan nodded, not really knowing what Rob was talking about.
“And how many of them are out there at this camp of Max’s?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. Half a dozen or so? Max kept it all pretty close to his chest with that kind of stuff.” Keeping something close to your chest was an expression Dan had heard his grandfather use from time to time.
“Sounds like a smart guy,” said Rob, who then fell silent, except for chewing some crackers, and cracking open another tin of smoked oysters.
“You seem like you’re lost in thought,” said Dan, after a few minutes.
“Maybe I am, kid,” said Rob. “You want to know what I was thinking?”
“What?”
“I was wondering if Max would have room for three more at this camp of his, if it still exists, that is.”
“You mean you’d come with me?”
“Why not? I don’t have long left living the way I’m living now. With every house I break into, I know it could be my last. I’ve had too many close calls already. I’d thought about getting out, into the woods somewhere, but it seemed too hard to do on my own. But a small community, banding together, that’s the real way to do it.”
Dan found himself smiling widely. For the first time in days, he felt like he had some hope.
If Rob was coming along, he was sure they’d be able to get to the camp. No matter what it took. Rob was big and strong. He had a gun. Dan was just a small little lost kid.
“What did you mean about if it’s still there?” said Dan, suddenly wondering what Rob had meant.
“Well, let’s just not get our hopes up too much. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life since the EMP, it’s that nothing’s permanent.”
Dan felt his stomach sinking a little, but he shoved a couple more salted crackers into his mouth to make up for it.
12
Georgia hadn’t seen any deer that morning. Maybe she’d gone out too late. She didn’t have a watch, and she had to guess the time based on the sun. It wasn’t hard to do, but it was difficult to be more exact than within a couple hours.
She was trudging on back to the camp. She’d ended up walking deeper into the woods than she’d initially intended. But when she hadn’t seen any signs of deer, she’d decided, almost unconsciously, to press on and on.
Georgia was out of breath. Her back was hurting her, throbbing with pain. She’d never had a lick of back pain before getting shot. She didn’t know if it was from the actual injury or the impromptu surgery that’d been done in the back of a moving vehicle.
She hadn’t mentioned the back pain to anyone. For one thing, she couldn’t complain about a surgery that had saved her life. But the main thing was that Georgia didn’t want anyone to know that she was still in pain, that she wasn’t as strong as she was pretending to be.
Sure, she was better than she had been. By a long shot. But aside from the back pain, the place where she’d been shot still occasionally throbbed with pain. She hadn’t figured out if there were certain ways of moving her body that made it worse or better.
So she’d decided to try to ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t there.
She knew that Max’s leg still gave him problems, and she never saw him talk about that.
But it was something deeper, something deep inside Georgia. Ever since she’d been a kid, she’d been independent. She’d always been strong. When she’d become a mother, she’d only gotten stronger. She’d had to be for her kids. There hadn’t been any other way.
Georgia could deal with the pain fairly well, but it hard to fight against the weakness that seemed to consume her whole body. The weakness wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been weeks earlier. She was stronger now, but maybe she’d pushed herself too far.
As she walked back to camp, she found her feet almost dragging on the ground. She found herself walking slower and slower.
OK. She had to take a break. No one was around to see her do it.
She sat down, leaning her back against a thick tree trunk.
She kept her rifle out and ready, laying it sideways across her stretched-out legs.
Since she hadn’t sat in proper furniture for weeks and weeks now, a tree felt almost like a luxury whereas before the EMP, she would have mentally complained about the hardness, the ridges in the bark. She would have felt how uncomfortable it all was. Of course, she would have never voiced any of this. But it was still there, inside her.
The forest was quiet and calm. Georgia took a deep breath of the fresh air.
She’d rarely noticed just how polluted the air had been back in the suburbs. People talked about city pollution, but it was everywhere too. It was just that people didn’t normally have anything to compare it to.
Before the EMP, sometimes, coming back from a hunting trip, Georgia could tell the difference. But it didn’t last long, the memory of the fresh forest air faded quickly as normal life and its obligations quickly took over. Sadie and James had needed to get to school. Georgia’d needed to get to her various jobs, clean the house, cook for the kids. She’d rarely had any time for herself, except on those hunting trips.
Georgia wondered how the air was now back in the suburbs, and even the cities. Would the thin, almost imperceptible, smog just slowly fade away? There couldn’t be many cars and trucks still operating. And slowly all the remaining engines would either grind down into disrepair, or remain rusting somewhere as gas become impossible to obtain.
The woods were calm and peaceful. Georgia breathed a sigh of relief. The pain was better now that she was sitting.
It wasn’t too cold. Just a bit of a chill to the air.
Soon enough it’d be spring, and the trees would be green once again. There’d be wild flowers blossoming and the air would have that sweet freshness.
Life had been hard since the EMP. Nearly impossible. There’d been so many moments where it had seemed like it was finally the end that Georgia had completely lost count of them.
But maybe things would settle down. The country, and maybe the whole world, was going through a difficult change, a complete upheaval of the established order. After that, when the dust settled, maybe they’d be left with a calm, peaceful life.
If it hadn’t been for the violence, the struggle to survive, Georgia probably would have preferred the simple, natural life, compared to life in the suburbs. She’d only been there because of the kids. They’d needed a good education.
Georgia took another deep breath of the fresh, cool air, savoring the taste and feeling of it as she held it in her lungs.
Maybe things would work out OK. Maybe they’d make it. Maybe life would be better, more enjoyable, less full of the bullshit that Georgia had hated about modern life.
A woman like her could really thrive in this new environment.
All they had to do was get through the tough parts, the changes, where violence was the rule of law and life was cheap to the point of being worthless.
She was realistic. She knew she couldn’t let her thoughts get ahead of herself.