We approached from the rear of the property, the same way we left it. By then two days had passed, and we assumed the building had been emptied or that a new group had taken control. Paige wouldn’t say much about what she hoped to see or do. Maybe she wanted to look for something of her father’s. Or maybe, one last time, walk where he walked.
But what we found was nothing like what we expected. It hurts to remember how excited she was.
“That’s a chopper,” Paige said as we peered through the trees. “A Chinook. Look!”
Until then, I’d never known what to call those helicopters with two sets of horizontal blades. I always thought of them as lovebugs, because that’s what they look like, two choppers mating in midair.
“There are two of them,” she whispered, her voice hopeful. “The Army is finally here.”
But Paige was careful as always, and soon we saw soldiers in defensive positions around the aircraft. Others were arranged in a line, relaying food out of the warehouse and into the helicopters. Beyond this operation, a group of civilians had gathered. It was smaller than the original crowd, but I bet there were at least 100 people. Maybe 200. Occasionally, we could hear the sound of someone yelling at the soldiers, as if in anger.
“They’re taking the food,” Paige said. “But for what? To whom?”
I explained to her about Blaise, how he believed there was a haven somewhere protected from all this, like maybe an island in the tropics. Paige seemed skeptical, but whatever the soldiers were doing was not meant to help anyone nearby. They didn’t take any food to the crowd, and when one man rushed the helicopter, the soldiers pinned him down and pushed a rifle into the back of his neck. I thought for sure they would kill the guy, but eventually they let him up, and he hobbled away.
Just before we left, Paige and I saw two more Chinooks approaching from the south. We heard them land on the lawn of the warehouse as we marched through the trees and away from there forever.
At first, as we walked northward, the sky remained a chalky sketch of blacks and greys and yellows. The heat was awful, and the smoke was so dense the air seemed to carry texture. There was ash on the road and in the grass and sprinkled over trees like snow. We rationed our water and refused to drink from ponds or streams, even though these were always surrounded by refugees. Later, we saw a lot of people on the sides of the road, collapsed or vomiting or just sitting there with glassy eyes. You don’t want to drink unpurified water, especially when there’s ash in it, so it’s a good thing we had our own supply until we were clear of the city.
Gradually, the skies cleared, we left the ash behind, and it was difficult to tell the pulse had even happened. I wanted to walk in the direction of Tulsa, to see if my house was still intact, but Paige vetoed the idea. It was starting to piss me off that she treated me like a child. But then, as we approached I-40, we saw a huge cloud of smoke on the western horizon, like a looming cold front. If Oklahoma City was still on fire, it meant Tulsa probably was, also. That taught me a lesson about making good decisions.
We’ve supplemented our food supplies with small game. At first it was Paige who did all the work, like killing rabbits and possums, cleaning them, cooking them. I couldn’t even watch. But tough times make tough women, as Paige likes to say, and now I help her with the food. My hands look like a man’s hands.
Originally, Paige wanted to take us in the direction of Minnesota or Wisconsin, but the day after we crossed into Kansas, we saw another cloud of smoke to our east. We were past Wichita, but not close enough to see Kansas City burning, so we didn’t know why there would be so much smoke… at least not until we ran into this awful-looking walker who had come from that direction. His face was red and shiny, and one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut. His bald head bubbled with blisters.
“What happened to you?” Paige asked him.
“Wolf Creek,” he croaked. “Nuclear hell.”
“Do you need help?” I asked him, shielding the boys behind me. “Where are you going?”
“Cibola,” he said, and walked on.
After that we veered westward, even though the ground became drier and the air hotter. The idea was to find a place far away from a nuclear plant, in the plains or in the mountains, but there’s no way to know for sure where all of them are.
I can’t believe we’ve been walking so long. Paige thinks we’re almost to Nebraska. I remember telling Skylar how a woman would never be able to make it alone in a world like this, and just look at us now: Paige and I have walked something like 500 miles together, taking care of two boys, and we’re still alive. Also, the supernova seems brighter than ever, especially at night. But after it sets, there are so many stars in the sky it feels like we’re in space.
I guess I should also put this in here: Paige has killed two people so far, both men.
The first was a nasty fellow who snuck into our camp and tried to steal our backpacks. Paige doesn’t sleep the way you think of normal sleep… any sound wakes her up. Like sometimes the wind wakes her up. Anyway, she walked the man away from our camp so the boys didn’t have to watch.
The second guy was perched above us on a small hill just east of Enid. I’m the one who spotted him. I think he was trying to steal supplies from people who passed by, and maybe this worked with others, but Paige drew her handgun so quickly the man never saw it coming. The sound of his body hitting the ground was awful and the impact left his head pointing away from his body in a direction that wasn’t natural.
I think I’m in love with Paige, especially for the way she has taken care of the boys (and let’s be honest, the way she has taken care of me). The first time we kissed, it wasn’t even her idea. We were sitting together beside the glowing embers of a fire, after our first hot meal in three days, and the sleeping boys looked so peaceful. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.
And when I did, the entire world opened up, a reality so powerful I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it sooner. Never in my life, not with Seth or Dan or the three boys I slept with in college, have I enjoyed the body-shaking desire I feel for Paige. It seems impossible, in a world where true love is a luxury, to have found her. But I did. And what I feel is more fundamental than lust. Paige is the engine that gets me from one day to the next. Every morning, I wonder what new challenge or reward we’ll encounter. Maybe that sounds earnest, like the end to a cheesy movie, but I know my feelings are authentic because I let her read my entire journal. I never imagined I would open myself like that to anyone.
I miss Seth a lot. We were married for many years, and you don’t disconnect such a profound experience from your life overnight. But I know he’s in a better place. Seth was not a happy man, not even on his best days. He suffered through terrible darkness that he didn’t share until it was too late, and I think that’s why he was willing to sacrifice himself for us.
During our big talk, the day of the pulse, he made it clear he had never cheated on me. But just because there was no woman doesn’t mean he was faithful. He lived every single day with someone who wasn’t me, treated her to lavish trips, to glamorous dinners and free drinks and fancy hotel suites. He drained our shared bank account and stole money from his father. Maybe the depression wasn’t his fault, but Seth still shouldn’t have hidden it from me.