I was beginning to like her. It was a good question and I had an answer, and I didn’t miss that she included herself in the we she mentioned. “In the morning. Early. Hopefully, the snow will still be falling to cover our tracks. If so, there’s a nearby cabin where I got the food and part of the supplies stored in here. We’ll make a trip there and back.”
“What if someone else has already taken it?”
“On my first trip, I thought of that, so carried most of it into the woods and hid it in three different places, along with some other stuff.”
She gave me a critical look and eventually managed a smile. She said, “What’d I do, find a survival genius to team up with?”
“Who said anything about teaming up?”
Sue flashed another smile as if she had already twisted her fourteen-year-old personality around my little finger like a tiny python. Now she would begin to constrict until I couldn’t resist her. The freckles across her nose made a sort of mustache and when she smiled, the ends raised. She was probably unaware of the effect she was having on a lonely man who hadn’t had a decent personal conversation in a couple of years, let along with someone of the opposite sex.
Not that I was physically attracted to her. Well, not her body. Her mind was drawing me in and demanding attention. Sue asked, “Where those shotguns back there in the tunnel entrance set to fire if anyone comes inside?”
“They are,” I agreed, expecting her to make a comment about shooting an innocent person, in which case I’d explain that an innocent person would remain outside and call to me. Once inside the tunnel, there were plenty of indicators someone lived inside.
Instead, she said, “Good. You dug the holes covered with cardboard and wood to hide the shotguns. And the can alarms to rattle and warn you. I feel safer than at any time since the flu killed so many.”
That brought up the next question. “Your family?”
“All dead.”
“Were you sick?”
“Nope. I stayed and took care of them, but they died at the very beginning, during the first wave. I buried them in our back yard and lit out.”
“How did you end up in the mountains?”
A tear leaked from one of her eyes. “My dad. Just before he died, he said to come here to the mountains and not to trust anybody.”
That statement was like cold water was thrown on our conversation. I said, “At the cabin where I got the food, there are more sleeping bags. We’ll get you one of those, too.”
She turned to look at the side of the tunnel where I had my sleeping bag on the tarp. The air in the tunnel constantly moved, creating a slight breeze and the nights were cold. I’d resisted building a fire large enough to warm the tunnel because it would be impossible and would take too much firewood in any case. Sue took it all in and looked back at me. “Are you thinking of giving me your sleeping bag while you sit out here and shiver all night long?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Probably dead by morning in those damp clothes. Then you can’t show me to the cabin we’re going to rob. So, listen to me, Bill. We are going to share the sleeping bag.”
I shook my head. “Your parents wouldn’t approve, so we should respect that.”
“A good man wouldn’t take advantage of me in any situation.” Her voice had hardened.
I waited before answering. “With all that has happened in the past two weeks, I’m not sure I’m a good man. I used to be. But now I think I’m less than a good man in ways that matter.”
“You’ve killed?”
It was a flat statement. Not something to lie about. “I have.”
“Me too. What does that make me? Less than a good woman?”
Woman? Sue was a girl. Fourteen. That age means middle-school or freshman in high school. Yes, she was talking and acting like an adult older than myself, and she had just admitted she’d killed at least one person. It made little difference. With a heavy sigh, I admitted to myself that the world had changed drastically over the last two weeks and I hadn’t managed to keep up with it.
That idea made me wonder what the next two weeks would bring. I suspected sleep wouldn’t come easy and the nightmares that had begun two weeks ago would resurface when I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
Sue slipped out of her clothing and into the sleeping bag as if we’d slept together a hundred times. I was slower, but the cold got to me, and in the end, I leaped into it as she giggled and zipped the side. I’d warned her it was warmer to sleep without clothing in a cold climate than to sleep in damp pants and shirt. That was another helpful item learned from the Internet, and not first-hand experience. If it turned out to be untrue, I’d feel like a predator.
She wore panties, a bra, and a tee-shirt with a rose printed on the front. I wore shorts and a shirt emblazoned with the logo of a new-age band that probably no longer existed. I tried to be a gentleman and turned away in the confined space, only to feel her shift until she spooned me, either offering her warmth or stealing mine. It didn’t matter.
I talked, she whispered in my ear, and her arm eventually circled around my chest. Sue was chubby, short. When I took the time to notice, Hispanic. At least some of her. Maybe other things too. I’d always had a hard time distinguishing some Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics from each other as if that mattered. Somewhere not too far back in human history I suspected they had all merged together. If not, in probably the near future only a race of brown people would exist.
In stark contrast to her olive skin and short stature, I was nearly six feet tall, my skin pasty white, and gaining another twenty pounds wouldn’t hurt. My favorite tee-shirt had been green and in large white letters, it said, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” printed around a four-leaf clover. A jock at school who used to tease and embarrass me at every opportunity had pretended to try kissing me one day while I wore it. In retrospect, I should have kissed him back in front of the entire student body, then spread romantic rumors about our relationship. Maybe then, he would have left me alone. It would have spared me months of his endless pranks and crude humor. However, for some crazy reason, I loved that shirt.
Those memories aside, turning over in a sleeping bag made for one but occupied with two people, one heavyset, one tall and skinny, is nearly impossible. Sue was also an aggressive sleeper, taking far more than her fair half. My meager attempts at recovering space were met with angry grunts, shoves, and once, an elbow jammed into my ribs.
The experience was my first. Sleeping with a woman, I mean. Not that I was sleeping a lot. My eyes wouldn’t close, her closeness and the musky smell was strange, welcome, and fearful. I’d been a near-recluse since my parents died, and with the Internet, food was delivered to my door, along with clothing, computer parts, a new large screen monitor, and hundreds of other things. Hardly a day passed without the big brown truck honking a signal that it had left a package on my porch.
But the thing on my mind was that I was a cripple when it came to interacting with real people. I was the nerd, the awkward young man who didn’t fit in, the one who was never invited to parties, and the few I’d attended were more torture than fun. Crowds of three were uncomfortable. Ten or more were unbearable.
For three years, those worries, and fears were suppressed as I lived alone in my basement. Now, a fourteen-year-old girl was sleeping beside me. She was going to depend on me. At twenty-nine, she saw me as a responsible adult who could help and protect her. Nothing was farther from the truth.