2nd Earth: Shortfall (3 page)

She smiles, and says that her sister would like to sleep with Tim and she and I will be using the section at the end of the room. Tim smiles like a cat that got the canary. I tell her we shouldn’t sleep together. People should be married before they do that. She tells me that her father told her we were married as soon as I saved her from those other men. The old man comes out again and tells me she is right, they have no formal religion or government, to muddy the waters, so if two people want to be married they are. In this case since I saved her life then she owes her life to me so that makes us married. He tells me not to worry, if I find someone I like as much she can be my wife as well. He says if it was good enough for the Mormons, it’s good enough for them. He thanks me again for saving his daughter and tells me he knows I will be a good husband for her. Tim just smiles and says he hopes his strength holds up, he may have to find a store with vitamins tomorrow, just in case we get lucky enough to be stuck here for good.

We go to the area designated for us to sleep. Dayna doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact she is holding me close and kissing me on the side of my face all the way to our room. There is just a candle in here for light, but when she takes off the dress she has on and has nothing on under it, that seems to be plenty of light. At least she can’t see how red I am turning. Speaking of turning, Ma Horton must be turning over in her grave about now. Gunny would have that big grin he used to get all the time. Dayna tells me this is the first time for her and asks me to be gentle with her. I tell her it’s my first time as well, so hopefully I won’t do anything too dumb. She smiles and tells me we have a lifetime to practice so she is sure we will get the hang of it eventually. Surprisingly it doesn’t take long at all to figure it out, we’re both sure it will get better. For now we are both very happy with this arrangement. We are not sure how much our laughter is keeping the others awake as we try to figure out what to do with noses and chins as well as other parts of our anatomy that we are not used to trying to fit conveniently with each other. Now I know why Ma Horton told me that sex is like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. One bite is never going to be anywhere near enough.

3

I wake up in the morning fully expecting to be still sitting on that subway car and realizing everything that happened yesterday is a dream. That goes away quickly when I see Dayna sleeping with her head on my chest. Oh well, I’ve never been one to dwell on negatives. We will use today to find out if there is any way back to our world, and if not to see how we can make ours and our new families lives a little better. I try to get up without waking Dayna, but she is awake as soon as I move even a little bit. She smiles at me and Ma Horton’s forbidden fruit theory comes back to haunt me. When we do get up I go upstairs to see what kind of day we are going to have. Through the windows it looks like it is going to be fairly sunny, but it is a little on the cool side. I ask Dayna what month this is and she tells me she has no idea what I am talking about. I try to explain and she says that today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow, you do what you have to do to survive. Other than that it doesn’t matter.

I show her a calendar that is on the wall of the office, she says she has seen it many times, but has no idea what it is for. I try to explain, but finally smile and tell her as it becomes important we will discuss it more. That is if time ever does become important to this group of people. To be honest I have to admit that they may have the best idea of all. I open the front door to look out, much to Dayna’s horror. She is afraid I will be attacked by predators. I assure her if those guys yesterday are all we have to worry about then I’m not worried. She is right about one thing, there is someone waiting for me when I open the door. If I didn’t hear them and look down I would not have seen the tiny little girls staring up at me. There are two of them that appear to be the same age, which to my untrained eye for children is approximately four or five. I say hello to them and ask Dayna if she knows where they came from.

She says she has never seen them before although she has heard children crying for the past few nights and had no idea where it was coming from. We bend down to pick them up when we hear a voice frantically calling to us to please not hurt the children. We look up to see a young woman running across the street toward us, begging now for us not to hurt them. Before I can say anything she tells me to take her, but spare her babies. Finally I can assure her that I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, we just wanted to make sure the children didn’t get hurt. This young lady looks to be a little older than Dayna, but not by more than a couple of years. Dayna introduces herself and me and asks the young lady what they are doing here and where they came from.

She and Dayna are now holding the little girls. She says they have been staying in the building across the street for the past few days. They left where they had lived because the gangs were getting closer and they lost their food runner three days ago now. They can only guess that he was either killed or captured to be used as a slave. No matter how few people there are on earth some of them will still try to take advantage of the others. She continues saying that they haven’t eaten since he disappeared and everyone could smell the food cooking after dark last night. The girls must have come over here to see if there was any food for them. She apologizes and says she will take them home and make sure they don’t bother us again. Dayna tells her she will do no such thing, she asks her how many people there are in her family. There are a total of six adults and the two children. Five of the six adults are women and one is an older man kind of like Dayna’s father. We tell her to go get them and join us. We have plenty of food for them and us.

She looks very relieved to be invited. I can imagine how frightening it must be living the way these people have been living all their lives. Tim comes up with one of Dayna’s sisters, we help the lady and her family carry all their possessions to the basement where we are staying. That is going to change today. We will not live where we can’t see our enemies. As soon as we determine whether or not we can get back home, we will begin the process of teaching these people how to survive. I was wrong about having plenty of food so Dayna volunteers to show Tim and me where we can get more. On the way I see an old toy wagon in a storefront. I ask Dayna why they don’t use something like that to carry more food. She tells me that they always have to grab what they can and run. That is getting to be increasingly more difficult because the food supplies are starting to run out. She says being able to open the cans without ruining the food will help a lot because there are plenty of cans left.

We take the wagon in the window and find another just like it inside the store so we take both. When we get to the store we see a couple of guys that look like the ones that chased Dayna yesterday, lurking around outside the store. Dayna says we will have to find another store because this will be too dangerous. Tim agrees, but only for those guys if they try to stop us. We walk right into the store and fill the wagons with food, until we can’t carry any more, then walk out the same way we came in. The guys across the street yell at us, but no one gets close enough to do any harm. I even find a new can opener in the store, it’s still amazing to me how people can grow up and not even know how to use a can opener. Everyone is excited to see the food when we get back. They are even more surprised when Dayna tells them we went right in past the predators. They think we have some kind of magical powers to be able to do the things we do. Those two little girls are much happier now that they have their bellies full.

After we eat, Tim and I ask Dayna if she knows where the old subway station is. We got kind of turned around when we chased those guys and then came here. At first she doesn’t know what we are talking about then understands. She says there is nothing there though. You can’t even get below the ground. We tell her we came up through there only yesterday and it was totally open. She says she will be happy to show us, so we head out to answer that question once and for all anyway. We have plenty of company on the way there, most of the girls don’t go out much because of the predators, but they feel safe with us. That fully loaded Sig makes me comfortable, plus violence has been a way of life for me the past six years and four for Tim. Compared to most of the fighting we have done, those predators are nothing to worry about. Not that we underestimate them, we are just confident that we can handle whatever they throw at us.

The subway station is only about ten blocks away. I am looking for certain items on the way because I am pretty sure what we are going to find. When we get there, the entire subway station including the stairs and tunnel leading down to the trains below is totally caved in. Tim and I turn around to see the area as viewed from the entrance and it is definitely where we came out yesterday. We both recognize the street signs and the signs on the stores. Dayna has not let go of me since we left the building where we live. She asks me if I am going to leave her now. I take her arms in my hands gently and look her straight in the eye.

“I have no intentions of leaving you, if we could have found the way back to where we come from, I was going to help Tim go back and I was going to stay. I have no idea why, but it feels like I have known you for all of my life and I don’t ever want to leave you or have you leave me.”

She gives me a big kiss much to the delight of the other women with us. Tim tells me he thought I wanted to go back, he says he has nothing back there except a family that hasn’t seen enough of him in the past six or seven years to miss. He says he feels the same way about Dayna’s sister Charity. She hasn’t let go of Tim since we left either. I tell Tim what I am thinking about our living arrangements. He agrees totally so we decide to tell the family what we are proposing and then get started making the move. When we get back we outline a sort of plan, and then see what they think. They agree that with us being here they have the confidence to do whatever we want to do. Tim agrees to stay with the family while I go with Dayna and a couple of the others to look for a new place to live. Dayna says when she was younger she used to explore all over this area. She asks what exactly I am looking for. When I describe it in more detail she says she knows just the place.

She takes us to a very nice office building that is three stories high with lots of glass windows facing all directions. The windows are frosted glass so you can see out, but no one can see in. The third floor is plenty big enough and even has offices that have doors for privacy. For bathroom facilities people have been going pretty much where they can. This building like many from that era has a large reservoir of water in a tank on the roof just for the purpose of flushing the toilets. It uses gravity and will be far superior to the way they have been doing it. Also like many buildings of that time there is a generator on the roof that runs on propane. That may become a problem, but the tank on the roof for that purpose says it is over 95% full and should last us quite a while if we use the electricity sparingly. We find furniture on some of the other floors as well and move it to the third floor where we are planning to live.

When we get back to the office basement everyone is ready to leave. The new family asks if they can live here until they can find something better. We tell them they are more than welcome to join us if they would like. We made sure there is plenty of room and it will be no problem at all. They are very happy to hear that and it’s obvious they were hoping that we would invite them. When we get to the new home everyone likes it better than the dreary basement. The office has a kitchen that we can use to cook our food and even some cupboards for storing food in. Today we are seeing more groups of people, but they all seem to be afraid to even make eye contact much less talk to us. We spend the rest of the day cleaning and making the new home comfortable. In the store where we found the wagons we found some children’s toys and even some books. The children are having a great time playing and just being children. One of the ladies in the new family points out the window to a group of people a couple blocks away. She says that’s the young man that used to get their food for them. He is carrying some packages and is surrounded by predators.

Tim and I tell them to wait here and we will go and see if we can get him away from them. Apparently he is not the only one because there are two others also carrying packages or something obviously for the others. Every once in a while one of the predators will slap the ones carrying things and they all laugh. Tim and I angle up the street to come out right behind them when they cross the street at the next block. We can hear them talking about wanting to find some women that they can take back instead of only guys like these. Our plan works perfectly and when they cross the street we step around the corner telling them to stop right where they are. They do just that, then turn around to see who is talking to them. Four of them are the same ones that I tangled with yesterday. One of them has a black eye where my elbow hit him in the face. They take one look at me and run forgetting all about the young men they are supposed to be guarding.

They don’t know us so they are not sure if we are here to hurt them or help them. If their captors are afraid of us then they feel kind of obligated to be as well. Tim tells me I have the same effect on people here as I always did with the girls on the base. I ask him if he thinks I should try a new deodorant. He says it has nothing to do with smell, I’m just plain ugly. We ask the captives what they are carrying. They tell us they don’t know so we tell them they may want to see if it’s anything their families can use. They put down the boxes and opening them, find that they are carrying food for the predators. They all say their families can really use this food badly because they have been gone for several days now and most of them are their families’ only way to get food. Dayna and Melissa who is the mother of the little girls come running around the corner. When the young man from her family sees her he is concerned that she has been taken prisoner. She explains what has happened in the past several hours and he is excited to hear that his family is safe and well.

The others ask if they are allowed to take this food back to their families. We tell them of course and tell them that if they need help don’t be afraid to come and ask for it. There is much more safety in numbers and there is plenty of room for several more people. They tell us they will talk to their families about it and see what they think. On the way back to the new home we stop at a different market and get as much food as we can carry. After we get home for the day Tim and I spend the next couple of hours going over the generator making sure it will work. It takes a couple of tries, but we do manage to get it to fire up and keep running. Dayna’s father, whose name is Tom, says he remembers electricity, but hasn’t seen an electric light since the destruction. Most of our family is shocked to have light without fire. Our second night in this new world is a lot more comfortable than the first one. Dayna tells me how proud she is to have me for her husband. She tells me she just knew when she saw me yesterday for the first time that everything was going to be okay from now on. I wish I could guarantee that for her, unfortunately we still have no idea what lies ahead for us.