Notes from the Edge 15

Posted by Dell

Easter Sunday. As a Christian I suppose I should be in church today, but there is very little to attract me to a church. I have learned over the years that churches don’t make good practitioners of whatever particular religion drew them there, instead it seems to mass produce dumb sheep who then become followers of whatever hatred that particular church wants to inject in their people. I am satisfied to say that I am a Christian which means I believe in Christ. It doesn’t mean that I agree with churches that hate gays, or women that need abortions or any of the other hatred I have seen churches becoming more and more vocal about over the years. I guess I would have been one of the first heretics the church executed back during the crusades. I guess the more things change the more they do become the same.

The problem with someone like me, when it comes to religion or anything else that requires input or challenges thought, I read. I take the time to understand the argument before I speak. That doesn’t make me a good follower, and it makes people around me that talk crap tend to want to shut up. I think if I could encourage you to do something it would be to read. To read everything. To know what you truly believe., think, feel about a subject and then to hold that line. Don’t be a dumb sheep.

Please don’t write to me and tell me that I don’t like Jesus or believe in him. I said I do, and I do, but Jesus doesn’t have a lot to do with religion. Read the Bible and you will see that. In fact, Jesus hated religion. Jesus didn’t start the churches, his disciples did. The apostle Paul speaks directly about the corruption in the churches back then. So, this is nothing new. Religion doesn’t save you, a man speaking and telling you what the Bible says can’t save you either. Jesus was straight forward about what can save you. Simple belief. That’s it. Just believe. You don’t have to go to church, put money in the collection plate. Help old ladies cross the street, all you need to do is believe in Jesus and that will save you.

The problem is that churches can’t make money on that. If everyone did that there wouldn’t even be a need to have a church at all. I mean a building. You wouldn’t need money collected to do acts for the poor. You wouldn’t need to take a stance of any kind against anything. You could just live, believe, and that would be it.

The Bible also says the church is not a building it is the people. Big grand buildings don’t cut it. New sanctuaries aren’t needed. A drive to collect for new hymnals isn’t necessary either. The church is the people that believe together. You can meet in the back of Ed’s garage for all God cares. You can check in on the phone with one another. You could take all the money that you raised to build that multimillion-dollar addition and give it to the poor in American cities and they could have actual food to eat, which would give them real hope and probably teach them more about what God really is than anything else any church could ever do.

So don’t write and tell me I hate God or Jesus. This is about religion, not Jesus or God.

You might ask what do I believe in? I believe there was a Christ that came and was sacrificed. I believe Jesus existed, not a mythical man, but real flesh and blood. I also lean very heavily toward Native American beliefs. The Gods of the Heavens, thunder, Mother Earth. And those two things can exist together. Sure, I meet people who are very offended that I blend those two beliefs, but I could care less. I could care less because your beliefs are a personal thing between you and God. Those beliefs are the backbone of what you are, who you are, really if you strip those away you wouldn’t be much, or at least I can say that I wouldn’t be much.

I believe also that the Bible was written by men but inspired by God. I think God inspired men and women to write other works too. I believe that God also made many ways to reach him or her. I mean, if you are God are you going to cause one book to be written and call it good enough? If I was God no. I would make as many ways for people to get to me as possible. So I also believe that all those other beliefs that are different from mine are valid too. They’re okay with God because he caused those paths to be made, and they’re okay with me because they’re God’s business, not mine.

Right, I just said all of that. And that really means we can all stop killing each other over religious differences and practices. We can all believe what we choose and go about our lives. Lately this country seems to be anti-anything that isn’t Christian, yet this country was formed in part so that we could have religious freedom. How does that make sense? Hey, lighten up. Just food for thought from a man who has lived awhile, been a bad guy and got help from real people to make himself different. Life changing things like that make you look at the world differently, not just yourself.

So, it’s okay to write and disagree just don’t hate people for their beliefs, lifestyles, choices and opinions when they are different from yours. Happy Easter.

What else: I continue to look forward to the end of this part of my life. I have a few more years before I strike out to find what there is for me. Who knows, maybe I will wish that I had remained a writer. I would like to live the sort of from the Earth existence as my book characters do. Can I? I think so. A few years and I will see. Maybe not completely self-sufficient but as much as the world will allow. My friends think I mean to walk off into the great unknown and never return. Totally unprepared and with nothing. Not true. I intend to be prepared, and I intend to have the things I need to make things work as easily as I can, but I do intend to do it.

Writing: Nothing is absolute right now. New ES books before Fall and I am thinking of a few other projects I would like done too.

A free look at the first chapter of book four…

EARTH’S SURVIVOR’S: BOOK FOUR

Based on the series by Dell Sweet

PUBLISHED BY: Writerz.net

EARTH’S SURVIVOR’S: BOOK FOUR

Copyright © 2010 – 2014 by Geo Dell & Dell Sweet All Rights Reserved

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your vender and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

LEGAL

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

This novel is Copyright © 2010 – 2014 Geo Dell and Wendell Sweet. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the authors permission.

Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print..

Note: These are the original website versions of the books. Some of the names are different, and they tell different stories, but it still melts into the whole. I found these, I had thought they were lost, and so I thought you might enjoy them, Dell…

CHAPTER ONE

On the road March 26th

The camp was up before dawn, tents packed away, and breakfast and coffee taken quietly together around the low embers of the camp fires. The breakfast didn’t consist of much more than the coffee and a few energy bars but it suited their purpose well enough. The Dog, who still had no name, was going person to person and begging little tid-bits even after his own breakfast of canned meat.

As the sun was touching the horizon the small caravan of six vehicles were once again winding their way southward, leaving the roads where they were impassable and taking to the fields.

The two Suburbans that had been fitted with lifts and bigger tires had no problem with the on and off-road transitions. It was tougher for the other four vehicles.

They monitored the radios as they drove along. Bits and pieces of conversation and skip came through the static. Sometimes clear, sometimes garbled and barely intelligible, but there were no conversations they could follow. Conner had never been a C.B. Radio fan, but James had been, and he explained skip to everyone.

Skip could be two thousand miles away, or only a hundred. It was a signal that hit the atmosphere just right, or cloud cover, or a mountain range and carried farther than it normally would have. You might talk to someone a thousand miles away as clearly as though they were no more than a mile down the road. And you might have that conversation for ten minutes or two hours and then suddenly they were gone because those atmospheric conditions that had allowed the conversation had changed.

Early on Conner had thought about Ham radio. You could reach around the world with Ham radio. But James had explained that Ham radio accomplished that with relays. All the people that did the relays were most likely gone, at least for now. Maybe they would be back eventually, but they had heard nothing but a soft electric hiss cutting across the miles the two times they had tried the bands, and no one had answered their calls.

The F.M. Band had also remained dead. It seemed all the traffic was on the C.B. Channels. The V.H.F. Bands, normally used for Marine conversations were empty too. But that offered a secure option for them to talk without being overheard. As they drove through the morning now they talked back and forth on the V.H.F. band. Monitoring the C.B. And the F.M. Bands.

~

They filled their tanks two hours after dawn at a collapsed gas station next to the interstate. A length of rubber hose connected to a hand operated Kerosene pump made the job quick. The only hard part had been locating the underground tank. The cover had been found though: The cap spun off, and the odor of gasoline drifted up into the air telling them that the underground tank had not been ruptured.

The little area that serviced the interstate contained a large garage, two small Mom and Pop stores, the gas station, and a chain auto parts store right next to the garage; probably built with the garage in mind.

On the other side of the asphalt parking lot sat a motel unit that had seen better days. Most of the units were flattened. The swimming pool was cracked and empty; wire mesh and what looked to be a bottomless void graced the middle of the rust stained pool. A second row of motel units running parallel to the pool looked to be untouched. Across the road were two name brand outlet stores, obviously placed to take advantage of the interstate. They had pulled the trucks onto the cracked pavement of the gas station and after they had finished gassing up the trucks Conner had gathered everyone together.

James and Jake came back from checking out the garage and the auto parts store just after the trucks were gassed up. James nodded his head at Conner.

“You noticed James and Jake looking over the garage,” Conner said. “We’re thinking of stopping here. We’d probably end up here for a few days while James and Jake work on the other four trucks. And we need a few other things… Tail gate swing outs that can hold a spare tire… Gas can too. Roof racks to carry gear.. Lifts… Better, bigger tires… In short, the things we had intended to do back in the city.” He looked around trying to catch the eyes of each person individually.

“You can see how much easier it is for the two Suburbans to get around wrecks, buckled roads, down into and out of ditches… It just makes sense to give the other four trucks that ability, otherwise they’ll just be slowing us down… You saw a little of that this morning.”

“Makes sense,”Jana Adams agreed.

Molly nodded. “My only concern is… Are those…” she paused and her face reddened… “People,” she managed after a long pause, “coming after us?” Her eyes were dark and questioning. Conner could read the fear in her posture.

“I doubt it,” Katie said. She spoke quietly but forcefully.

“We’ll listen in on the radios,” Nellie added.

“They won’t come… In the city they knew how to get around… Out here,” Amy waved her arms around, finally lifting them to the sky. “They wouldn’t know what to do.. Couldn’t sneak up on us.” She shook her head. “I just don’t think they’re the kind that want to deal with even odds.”

Katie nodded in agreement. ”You know, Molly… Spineless, right?”

Molly nodded and Conner watched the fear leave her and something closer to determination replace it. She nodded her agreement once more, looking directly at Katie as she did.

Conner cleared his throat and continued. “The reason we traveled on was to put some miles between us and them. It’s a long way for them to come… I don’t see it,” Conner said. He let the silent nods continue for a moment and then continued.

“There are other things we can do too. Things we need. Canned goods… Maybe one of those Cows, or a Deer. They seem to be wandering everywhere. There really is enough to keep all of us busy for the next few days while James and Jake get the truck situation straightened out.” He paused but no one spoke. “So… If there are no real objections…?”

“Let’s do it,” Molly said.

“Yeah. I’m for it,” Amy added.

~

As Conner turned away, Amy, Katie, Molly and Nell began to set up a plan for monitoring the radios. Everyone agreed that they would probably hear about anything coming their way long before it reached them. Molly went over to the garage a few minutes later and pitched in helping James and Jake drag whatever was in the way out of the way so that they could reach the racks and garage bays. There were two tow trucks that they used to do most of the work, but chains and muscle power accomplished the rest.

In the end they cleared out three stalls that they could work in. Molly stayed and not long after Nell found her way over and began to work side by side with her.

The garage was a prefab steel building that, either because of a whim of the Gods or its design, had remained standing. By the time some of the others were returning with a Cow and two large Does in the back of one of the pickup trucks the garage was ready to go. Molly and Jake wheeled out a towering chain-fall for the hunting party to use to dress out the animals and then went back to work.

~

By late afternoon the third Suburban was well under way. The lift was done, brush-guards installed and they were working on the carrying racks. Conner and Aaron stopped by to look over the effort and were amazed. The Suburban looked like something that had rolled out of some sort of Safari outfitters garage. Or a futuristic end of the world epic, Conner joked. But that sent them all into silence for a few moments and Conner didn’t mention it again.

Molly and Nell were working on bolting a huge winch to the front bumper of one truck, while Jake and James worked on stripping out one of the pickups to get it ready for a lift kit.

Dustin and Allison had made their way to the garage and then found themselves drafted and made part of the work crew. Allison was in the third stall laying out the parts they would need for the lift on the pickup truck, while Dustin worked at mounting the oversize tires to new, larger rims using a pair of heavy iron bars and his body weight to accomplish the work. He and Allison joked back and forth as they worked.

They were using a small twelve volt air compressor to inflate the tires after they had them mounted. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves, Conner thought, and they seemed happy to be in each others company.

Outside, near the far end of the garage, the chain-fall had been set up and a group led by Jana Adams, which included Sandy and Susan, were hoisting a large cow up into the air.

“Conner,” Jana said as he and Aaron passed by on their way out of the Garage.

Conner paused.

“We would like to smoke most of this meat… If we’re going to be here a few days, I thought…”

Conner nodded. “Yeah… Might as well, Jana. We have the time,” He assured her, “And, it’ll help to have the meat with us… Who knows what’s ahead.” He shrugged.

Jana Adams smiled, turned away, and Conner stood watching as the huge cow began to lift into the air from the back of the pickup truck before he and Aaron turned and walked away.

A few minutes later the two of them fell in with Katie and Amy who were sifting through what the chain stores had to offer in the way of clothing, canned goods and whatever else they came across that they could find a use for. They passed by Holly who had taken over the toy department, blocked off one aisle, and was keeping Brian and Janelle busy. She smiled and waved as they passed. Janelle waved too. Her dark eyes finally looking rested and happy.

Brian had built himself the biggest Lincoln Log village that Conner had ever seen and was now busy populating it with dozens of green, plastic Army Men. Conner smiled and Brian took the time out of his game to smile back at he and Aaron. He held a large plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex in one hand which seemed to Conner about to wreak havoc on the village and it’s population of Army Men.

A half dozen trips with Katie and Amy and late afternoon turned into early evening. Fires were burning to smoke the meat. Two large roasts were spitted over a huge fire pit made of field stone. A stew was bubbling in a pot that had been suspended over the flames. Nearly everyone had found a reason to stop by the area Jana Adams had set aside for cooking, most arriving just as she had been about to send some others out looking for everyone to round them up for dinner. The Dog was running around in circles happily racing from person to person, tail wagging crazily. The smell of roasting meat hung heavy in the still, cool air.

Early Evening

Everyone sat close together at several wooden picnic tables that Jana had drafted a few volunteers to bring over from the collapsed section of the motel. They had sat in a small clearing not far from the building, untouched, while everything around them had been leveled.

The temperature was in the low forties, but with the early evening sun still shining it felt much warmer.

Conner sat next to Katie, Aaron on his other side. Across the table Molly sat with Nell. They were both laughing, involved in conversation with each other. It was the happiest that Conner had seen Nell or Molly.

Canned potatoes, fresh beef and venison, a stew that held a little bit of everything in it, and a steaming platter of peas dominated the table center. Everyone had heaped up their plates. Too long eating thrown together meals or energy bars had left them hungry for real food.

Their basic protein needs had been met but there was nothing like real food to make you… Happy, Conner decided. He looked around the table at all the smiling faces. It was actually a mood elevator, he decided.

“What’s on your mind, Baby,” Katie asked? Her eyes smiled, but her mouth wore a question he had come to know was more serious than her smile insinuated.

He bent forward and kissed her, making the smile on her face spread wider still. “I was thinking how happy everyone looked.” He turned his head and let his eyes sweep the tables once more, then turned back to Katie whose eyes and face now wore another look he was becoming familiar with too. He bent forward and kissed her once more. “I’m pretty sure I love you,” He told her.

She laughed, “Pretty sure!” She slapped his arm with one hand. “You better be more than pretty sure, Mister.”

Conner laughed and kissed her again. “Positive,” he said… “I’d be lost without you.” His eyes turned serious. “That’s the truth,” His voice dropped to a near whisper as he leaned even closer. “I love you so much that I don’t have words for it… I only know it’s real. I only know I need you.” He kissed her once more and sat back up to catch Allison giggling and looking away.

Katie laughed beside him. An easy laugh that eased the seriousness of the conversation.

“I hope we’ll have some time later on,” she said, her voice still low, husky.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Conner told her.

“I was looking at that garage building,” Aaron said from beside him.

Conner nodded.

“It’s one of those industrial prefabricated jobs… I’ve put up a few, but I had no idea how well engineered they were. They hold up pretty well, or at least this one did. The buildings not really damaged at all.”

“I noticed that too,” Conner agreed, “What are you thinking?”

“Well,” Aaron grinned. “When we get where we’re going it may not be a bad idea for a dwelling… or dwellings, at least for a temporary dwelling until we build, if we build. Lite weight, easy to put up. Easy to insulate. Not bad in an earthquake, if that stuff’s not completely done with us.”

Conner was nodding his head. “I’m for it, but are they hard to come by. I mean, where could we get one?”

“Not as hard as it seems. There are outlets where you can buy them in most larger cities. And there are thousands already set up. We could take them apart pretty easily, take them where we want them and put them back up. All the structural supports are pretty much the same. You just add more or take away to make the building the size you need. Very light weight, so they’d be easy to transport. They’d go up or down pretty fast,” Aaron finished.

“Has my vote,” James added. “Fast, easy. They seem solid. It will save us a ton of time too.”

“I’ve seen them around. I think it’s a good idea. We wouldn’t have to worry about wooden structures falling down on us…” Conner looked around. “Almost all of the wooden structures are down too… Concrete seems okay, for the most part… Steel… But wooden structures just give too easy… Putting them up fast would also be a plus,” he finished. He raised his eyes from the ground, he had a habit of looking at the ground to visualize his thoughts, and saw that Molly and Nell had been listening to their conversation. They were nodding their heads in agreement.

“That garage is really solid,” Molly agreed.

“Cement’s cracked here and there, but the building itself held up really well,” Nell agreed. “I don’t even like walking into a wooden building anymore. You can feel it move. Hear the creaks and groans… Pops.” She shook her head.

Conner and Aaron both nodded.

”It’s a good plan,” Conner said. He turned his head to Molly…. “Where did you learn to turn wrenches,” he asked her.

Molly smiled. “My dad had a race car. It started out as a hobby but became something else. He’d work on it all week long and then run it in races on the weekends.” She smiled shyly. “When I was a little girl, as far back as I can remember, I used to go out and watch.” She laughed. “Pretty soon I was fetching wrenches… parts.” She laughed again. “The first time I came in with greasy hands I thought my Mother was going to die. When I was fifteen my Dad bought an old beat to shit Mustang… A sixty four. It was a project car, he’d said. We’d work on it in our spare time… Together… Finish it up and sell it for a profit.” She smiled and her eyes misted as she seemed to be looking back through the years.

“It took nearly a year of work. That was also the time I was eligible to get my permit. The day I got my license he handed me the keys,” she finished, smiling happily at the memory.

“Pretty nice,” Katie said.

“Yeah, except it got smashed flat when this,” she lifted her hands and gestured helplessly, “happened… But once we’re where we’re going to be I think I’ll try to find another one… Or maybe a two door sixty two Chevy Impala. I’ve always liked the way those Chevy’s look.” She shrugged, “Crazy, I guess. But I really think I’m gonna do it. There must be one somewhere.”

“I can see that,” Amy said. “Or something else worth rebuilding.”

More than a few heads nodded in agreement.

“Sometimes,” Amy added as an afterthought. “The thing you find is better than the thing you thought you wanted.”

Nell looked at Molly. Molly smiled and Nell leaned closer and kissed her.

“You two,” Katie asked?

“Nell tempted me,” Molly said.

“It’s like Amy said, sometimes the thing you find is better than the thing you thought you would find… Or want. I hadn’t expected this much out of life in the old world let alone this one.,” Nell said smiling, but serious. She worked her hand into Mollies and leaned closer to her.

Conner’s eyes swept across Patties face expecting to see a smile but finding a distracted, sadness on her face instead. Amy swept it away so quickly though that he wasn’t sure just a second later that it had really been there at all. Maybe, he decided, he had imagined it. After all, Amy had found the better thing she hadn’t known she would find in Aaron. There would be no reason for that sadness to be on her face. He found his own hand holding Katie’s and she leaned into him for a kiss.

“Get a room, you guys,” Dustin said as he and Allison passed by. Allison was blushing but had a huge smile on her face.

“Horn dogs,” Dustin told her as they walked away, laughing with each other and holding hands as they went.

“Horn dogs,” Conner asked?

“I don’t know about you but I am no horn dog,” Jana Adams joked as she passed by.

The thought of prim and proper Jana Adams making a statement like that caused everyone to crack up. Jana stopped, a shocked look on her face.

“Good one, Jana,” Katie said.

“I can’t believe I said that,” Jana said.

Everyone cracked up then, including Jana Adams herself.

Evening

Katie lay in the crook of Conner’s arm as they talked quietly.

“Gotta go in about five minutes,” Conner told her. “My watch.”

“No,” Katie said. “You can’t go if you can’t get out of bed. Besides, we paid for the room for the night,” she finished and laughed.

Conner chuckled. “This is nice… Privacy… First we’ve had in… Well, forever.”

“When we leave we’ll be back to getting none at all again,” Katie told him. She snuggled against his side, one hand resting against the flat of his stomach. Her index finger drawing small circles. “But,” she lifted her eyes to his. “I guess I have to let you go. Just think about that alone time for later.” She kissed him softly. “Something to keep you thinking about it.” She turned away, swung her feet to the floor and began to get dressed.

“You do give me things to think about,” Conner told her. He trailed his fingers down her back, bent forward and kissed her shoulder.

Katie looked back at him. “Do you want to make that watch?”

Conner laughed. “No. But I have no choice at all.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “Later,” he said.

“Later,” She agreed.

~

The room had not been in bad shape. It was funny how fate could be, Conner had thought. One wing flattened one untouched. From sleeping in a factory a day ago, to sleeping in a real bed the next.

The room was dusty, a slight musty, unused odor, but dry. The roof had held up. The walls seemed untouched.

“Where are you going,” Conner asked.

“With you.”

“You’re not on, Babe,” Conner grinned.

“Correction. I wasn’t on. You had Amy on, but she wanted to spend time with Aaron so we switched. That way, when we’re done, we can come back here again…” She cocked her eyebrows. “And take our time?”

“What, not be rushed,” Conner asked?

She stood and turned into him as he was getting ready to leave. A beautiful woman wearing only a pair of white socks, which was all she had managed to get on. She stretched up onto her tip toes and kissed him. His hands pulled her close. She pulled away with a smile.

“I thought you were coming with me,” Conner said.

“I am,” She giggled.

He reached for her once more but she skipped away. “We’ll never get there, Baby,” she told him.

“As it is I’ll probably be thinking about you throughout the whole watch and waiting to get back here. God, Katie, you’re so beautiful.”

She looked at him seriously. “Keep that up and we’ll never get out of this room.” She crossed the short distance between them and kissed him once more. “Say it just once more…?”

“You’re beautiful,” Conner told her as he pulled her close.

~

It was about an hour and a half past sunset when Conner took over one of the perimeter guard posts from Susan. It was simply the far corner of the garage complex that overlooked a field and the highway beyond it.

“Quiet,” He asked?

“Pretty much. The dog… What’s that dogs name anyway,” she asked?

“He doesn’t have one,” Conner admitted. “We, uh… We just call him The Dog, you know. He survived. He got through it same as us, he made it, you know, he’s The Dog.” Conner finished lamely.

“Oh… Sounds like a little guilt there, Conner. Maybe we should all get together and name it,” Susan suggested.

Conner nodded.

“Well… Anyway… The Dog kept looking off towards the highway. He didn’t, like, bark or anything. I thought maybe Deer… Cows… Something else. But with the meat drying it could have drawn anything at all. The fires and so many people should be enough to keep anything away. Even if it’s wolves they’ll probably stay away, right? I just thought you should know about it.”

Conner nodded. “Could be something, but you’re probably right, most likely it’s nothing. I imagine the smell of the meat will draw every carnivore in the area. That’s okay as long as they don’t try to bother us. There will be plenty of scraps when we’re gone.”

Susan nodded this time. “Conner,” she hesitated and Conner nodded for her to continue. “Well, I wondered what you thought about Jana and James’s idea of settling in the wilderness. You know, deep in the middle of nowhere… A new Nation.”

Conner nodded slowly. “I think they really want to do it… I think they really believe in it, Susan,” he shrugged. Her eyes questioned him. “Okay… And… And I wish I could believe in it they way they do. Not that I believe it won’t work.. I think anything we do will take hard work… A good deal of hard work,” he shrugged again. “And I think they’ll put the work in. I really do… Maybe you’re asking me what I want to do and I can’t tell you that… I don’t know… I haven’t decided… It’s something Katie and I would have to take the time to sit down and decide and we just haven’t had the time to do that…”

“You know, in my head… The old world was selfish. It was all about selfish. The Me generation? Something like that. And I’m not saying I was any better, I wasn’t. Oh, I had my friends, and I helped them when I could, but when it came down to push or shove it was me. It was me and a lot of the people I knew, worked for, with, associated with, were the same way. Social on the surface, but scratch that surface and it’s a different story. Push or shove… And not too hard a push or shove either.,” he looked at her and Susan nodded.

“At least for me it’s been that way. I guess I sound cynical… But it’s not that way anymore. I’m not that way anymore. It’s not about me. It’s about me and Katie. And it really isn’t about us either. It’s deeper. There are people here I’ve really come to care about. I mean really care about. Do you realize that I haven’t watched T.V. Since the night this all started? Sounds ridiculous, right? None of us have, but I did computer work. Scripting, C, C plus plus, Graphics, More. I used to turn my computer on, turn on the T.V. for company and go to work. Eighteen hours sometimes. Even longer on occasion. It. That, was my life. No relationships. No one to really care about. No time for it. … And everyone I knew was the same way. Superficial… Shallow? Yeah, that too. Well… I don’t do that anymore, I don’t want to.”

Susan nodded. “Me too. Everyone I knew was too busy living to think about how they were living,” she said.

“That I do understand,” Conner said. “But… Not now… You know, somewhere, in some secure building, on some secure server I have a couple of bank accounts that were well over a million dollars each.” He laughed. “All means nothing now, Susan, nothing. I am happy with what I have. I don’t want what I used to have.” He sighed.

“The Nation? Probably a great idea. I can think of only a few things that I could do that would matter as much to me as that does to them. Kids… love… Katie, you know. Do it right. Not like the old world… And that’s the rub. It depends on Katie… And the baby. She’s trying to get pregnant. It seems like almost everyone is.” He rubbed the flat of his palm along his jaw feeling the stubble that was softening into beard. “If she wanted to do it, yes. If she wanted to travel to Alaska… Yes. When the time comes, and it’s probably not all that far away in the scheme of things, but, when the time comes for James and those that have committed to go with them, and those that will… I know there will be more… when that time comes if Katie wants to go with them I’ll jump in with both feet… That’s the truth of it.”

Susan’s eyes were misted. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you for being long winded and entirely too personal on short notice,” Conner asked?

Susan laughed. “No, for being honest. I think I’m going to go have a talk with a young lady… I’ll see you later, Conner,” she said. She smiled and then walked off into the shadows of the night.

Conner watched her go. Apparently everyone was more appreciative of people now, not just himself, he thought. He turned his attention to the field and the highway After his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could see the dark shapes of cattle grazing in the field, a few deer mixed in with them.

He thought about what he had just said. How much he felt for Katie. How for the next few nights they would have a real bed. His mind filled with thoughts of her. He almost missed the radio call. Almost wrote it off to one of their own until he realized it wasn’t…

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I hope you enjoyed the free reading. Enjoy your Easter Sunday. Have a great week and I will be back next week…