Who Was That, And What Do They Want?

I consider this little bit some necessary moving of the characters around.  Not very illuminating or exciting, but it's what I have today.  

 I could see that Lou was dead on her feet, but there was really no option except to walk.  We could have crashed on the floor at the Wharf, but the Wharf was gone now. At our speed tonight it was going to take a good hour to get over the river and back home.  Buddy was staying right with Lou, being moral support if nothing else.  I sure wished I knew his real name. 

Doug, by my side, was thinking out loud.  He was puzzled to say the least. “I thought those things were just a hoax.  I mean, I’ve heard of such things, but who pays any attention to that stuff?  But, um, now we know.  They’re not.  Whose are they?  Why….”  Hands deep in his jeans pockets, he kept glancing up at the sky.  We both had to wonder if those things were done for the night, or what.  What if they came back?  We sure wouldn’t hear them, would we?  So, we kept looking up.

“What I want to know,” said I, “Is how did they know about your meeting?  And why were they so late.  Everyone was gone.  Was that a failure of mission…or was the whole thing just a big, horrible warning?”

Elvin was a few feet behind Lou and Buddy.  I guessed he was making sure nobody got lost.  He was just a kid too and he was yawning back there.  It was getting near to 4AM.  We had not even been gone 24 hours.We just had to make it to the house.  The boys could have the living room or my parents’ bed.  But I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want to sleep there.  I didn’t even really like going into their room.  It was awfully sad and there was nothing to be done about it. Gone is gone.  You just have to get on with it.

Returning by the same route we had taken this morning; we came abreast of Mrs. Steele’s old red house on the west side of the road.  Buddy took a quick look around at us and ran up the drive and up to the side door and he rattled the doorknob, like he knew where he was.  A light was on in the kitchen. The door opened and he slipped inside!  Well.  I did wonder what she called him when he was at home.  Maybe, I thought, I will go visit her and find out.

To cheer Lou up, or just irritate her awake, I started running in circles around her.  This never fails.  Usually it irritates her. Plaintive whine..”Jen, leave me alone!  I’m tired!”  I considered singing Dream Lover, but didn’t want to in front of guys, so they saved her that.

It was nearly five when we trooped up that familiar walkway to our front door.  Four very tired people. I fished out my house key and opened the door.  It smelled just like home always does.   A little familiar funk.  Life.  I said, “lets sit in the kitchen for a minute and decide how to do this. Oh, we should eat too.”  I began rooting around for the rest of those pink boiled eggs in our old fridge.  We still had bread, both sets of us and peanut butter and now I could make some tea.  While I did that, Doug sat in dad’s chair, Lou and Elvin sat at the back of our table against the wall. Once again it was just dried mint tea from the flower beds outside and there was no sugar.  I found four cups and some plates and knives, salt, and flopped down in mom’s place closest to the stove and sink. Yes, now that we were home, I was tired too.  No more running in circles.

It was a sober little breakfast.  Cold eggs.  Bread and peanut butter and plain mint tea.  But we were hungry and it was good.

“There is a sofa and a recliner in the living room.  There are quilts on my parents’ bed that you can pull off and use. They aren’t using them right now. Me and Lou sleep upstairs.”  I think we were all still in shock. How do you categorize a display like that?  We were having trouble with it.

It was decidedly weird having males in the house I thought, as I picked up the stuff off the table and piled our dishes in the sink.  But we were probably safer with them than without them.

Lou went upstairs and I could hear her getting into bed.  She didn’t even take a minute to get changed.  I went out to the living room where Doug and Elvin were still sitting up but wrapped in my parents’ quilts. “So, what do we do tomorrow” I asked looking from one to the other. Elvin waited for his brother to speak, as usual, I had learned.

“Jen, the main thing is still communications.  That and some kind of leadership.  I don’t know anyone else, besides me, who is trying to start something going.  The trouble is we are so thin on the ground.  I figure about ten percent of the population survived and only some of those are interested.  We need to attract the right kind of interest…but not like today.  That was weird.  It was worse than weird.  It looks like they know we are moving on something.”

I was of two minds. One said yes, this is the way forward.  The other said, get out of this before you end up in a mysterious fire.

Stretched out on our sofa, wrapped in one of mom's quilts, Elvin says sleepily, "Hey Doug, maybe we ought to tell them about Rupert Dillinger Jones?"  Then he snored.

Link to the whole thing so far: In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx