Last Woman (15 page)

Just after we finished supper, Mikey came out of the room. He played with the boys for a little bit, talking, and doing some card game I knew Darie didn’t understand.

This was all while Dodge played with the other radio. Calling out in an imitation of Hashman. Cool, calm and reserved. It was odd because it really didn’t sound like Dodge at all.

He called out, I guess hoping to get the man in Kentucky or the boy I got on the radio. Neither with any
success.

Mikey went back to bed and about that point, Dodge decided he was done with the radio and was in the mood for grilled Spam. I didn’t think anyone would ever be in the mood for grilled Spam.

Unleavened bread he picked up from the store, jar of cheese whiz, and Spam in hand, he fired up the grill.

Dumb luck was about to kick in again when George asked if he could try calling out.

Dodge simply said, “be my guest." And George started on that radio.

It was a chilly night, so we were inside, Dodge attributed that to not being able to make clear contact.

I sat at the dining room table watching George, and Darie approached me with a picture of Sammy.

“Who is she?”

A lump formed in my throat. “That’s my daughter.”

“Did she get the flu?” Darie asked.

“No, she …” How to say it, how to tell a child younger than Sammy about what happened. “She had to go away before the flu.”

“Was she my age?”

“Just about.” I took the picture and stared at it. “This was her kindergarten picture.”

“Did she have lots of toys?”

“I think so.”

It was a conversation I didn’t want to have. But how do you turn away a four year old boy
? I gripped the picture of my beautiful daughter in my hands. She was smiling and still had all her baby teeth. What happened to her hair in that picture, I’ll never know. It was a mess, yet, I fixed it before school.

About the point where I wanted to just ask Darie if we could not talk about her, my reprieve arrived.

It came somewhere between Dodge announcing the Spam treats were done and Darie questioning if he could see Sammy’s room.

Hashman.

“Well it doesn’t surprise me,” Hashman said. “Another kid. Are you alone, son?”

“No, sir. Hold on.”

Dodge nearly dripped his plate of unappetizing Spam treats and whipped the radio receiver from George’s hand. “Is this Hashman in Kentucky?” Dodge asked.

“It is. I take it you picked up my radio call. You’re not coming through very clear, but I hear you. Speak slow. Over.”

“We did. We are planning on coming down. Over.” Dodge said.

“We? As in more than you and the child?” Hashman asked then completed with the signature, ‘over’.

“Yes. Five of us.”

“That’s good. The move is not me. It’s the military that remained on base. Over.”

“How many?” Dodge asked.

“Three soldiers. Seventy civilians. How many adults do you have?”

“Two. Over.”

Hashman exhaled over the microphone. “That’s good to hear. Good to hear. We need adults; we have an awful lot of children down here. It’s looking like it may be gender specific. We’ll know more in Florida. Supposed to be some CDC doctor down there. But we haven’t located a woman yet. You? Over.”

Dodge opened his mouth, paused and depressed the button. “Negative.” He looked at me. “I’ll keep an eye out though.”

“Gotta make my hourly. See you soon. Where you from?”

“Pennsylvania.”

“See you soon, P-A. Out.”

Dodge clenched that microphone in his hand and stared at the radio.

“She’s a woman, ain’t she?” George asked. “How come you didn’t tell him Faye was with us?”

“I want to keep that little tidbit to ourselves for now,” Dodge said. “Just for now.”

Then he did something I didn’t expect. He shut down the radio. Grabbing his Spam snack and his drink he sat at the table with me and said nothing about the exchange with Hashman. The only thing that came from Dodge’s mouth was when he swept up the playing cards and stated the fact that he hated the card game, Old Maid.

Something was bothering Dodge, and it wasn’t just a child’s card game.

I sent the boys into the other room to settle, so I could broach the conversation with Dodge. When they were clear from the room, I fixed a drink and rejoined Dodge. “That is a lot of people down there.”

“Yeah, it is.” Dodge flipped through the cards.

“How I can I be the only woman?”

Dodge lifted his eyes. “You’re not. Just …” he cleared his throat. “The only one found. There has to be others. There has to be.”

“What if there aren’t?” I asked.

“Then we have problems.” He dropped the deck.

“Are you rethinking going down there?”

He turned and looked at me. “It’s civilization; it’s a lot of people working together to rebuild or whatever. The boys need that. Not so much rethinking going, just maybe rethinking how we’re gonna go about it. Just on the outside chance …” He stood. “You are the last woman.”

He left me hanging and with a table full of scattered cards.

It scared me that they were looking for women, and I guessed it scared Dodge even more. He didn’t bring it up again the rest of the evening, at least not around the boys.

Dodge set up the living room camp, got them to sleep and checked on Mikey. I was still seated at the table, this time reading by the light of the lantern, when I heard the ‘thump’ on the floor and Dodge sat down across from me.

“What would you think about cutting your hair?”

“Cutting
my hair? It’s not that long.”

“I mean buzz it.”

“What?” I laughed. “Why would I ….” And I paused. “You want me to pretend I’m a man.”

“It may not be a bad idea.”

“It’s a bad idea. What am I supposed to do, be a mute, as well? Why are we even going then?” I asked.

“We have to go somewhere. We can’t stay north. Whether we go there or somewhere else, until we know you aren’t the last woman, it’s the best way.”

“I’ll think about it.” I flipped the page in the book. “What did you drop on the floor?”

Dodge lifted a backpack. I recognized it. I had it when I left the stadium camp. He unzipped it and emptied the contents on the table.

Stacks and stacks of driver’s licenses and identifications.

“What are you doing with those?”

“There was a reason you brought these along and it wasn’t just to remember civilization. I think it was a psychic intuition.”

“For?”

“Finding people.” He tossed a stack my way. “Did you look through all of these?”

“No. There are hundreds if not a thousand.”

“Good. Then start looking again.” He grabbed a stack and undid the rubber band. “What was Mikey’s mother’s name?”

“There’s no way,” I said.

“Worth a shot. Didn’t you say you’d help him in any way?”

My jaw dropped.

“Don’t say ‘really’ ”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Besides, what else is there to do? Again, it’s worth a shot.”

“You’re right.” I undid my rubber band. “Elizabeth Carrington. Westwood Drive.”

“Elizabeth Carrington, Westwood.” Dodge slowly flipped through the stack he held.

Boys asleep, Mikey resting, Dodge and I began to search through the massive amount of driver’s licenses. It would take a while, holding each license or identification card up to the small amount of light to read the name.

It was something to do and it was something productive, whether it was in vain or not. In a way, I was helping Mikey. That was something I really wanted to do.

For as much as I thought it, I probably said it. Dodge was right. More than likely, it wasn’t just some creepy thing I did, taking the licenses. It was a gut instinct. Maybe somewhere deep inside me I knew I’d eventually need them.

We called it coincidence that Dodge knew one of the women. He lifted the card, said her name then recited a laundry list of car repairs he had done for her.

It ceased being a coincidence when he found another and another. Either he had the most popular car repair shop in town or those bodies were from our locality. Dodge didn’t live or work far from my house.

The Wilkes reports still never made any sense to me. There were names, but none of them matched a single license we found. Colors and numbers, and dates. I recognized dates and every so often he wrote a notation.

Both Dodge and I were either talking too loud or George couldn’t sleep. In any event, he staggered his little body into the dining room and sat at the table with us.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Searching.” I told him.

“For?” he asked, then reached forward and slid the clipboard to him.

“Honey, that’s something I found. It won’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” George said. “This is just truck numbers, locations and the color codes are how old the bodies are. Black means they have been bagged a while.”

Dodge repeated his words almost as if he were in shock that George would say it like that. “Bagged a while?”

“Trucks came by four times a day, more at first,
then less. Then not at all. That’s the bodies that are still there.”

I looked at the clipboard, lifted a page. “So this N-8, April 28. White? Means what?”

“It means that North region eight, have a pickup of fresh bodies. If anyone was gonna wake up it would be in that stack. We were S-12. South region 12.”

“My God, you poor thing,” I said. “To know this.”

“It was something I did. That and collect wallets, take the …” He lifted a stack of identifications. “Licenses, put them in a band, and then in a box by the bodies.”

“And here I thought Wilkes did this, instead it was an eight year old boy.”

“In our region,” he said. “I don’t know who did those.”

Dodge said. “You, probably. I know several of these people. They lived around there. Good job. But I am sorry you had that task.”

George shrugged.

I reached over and ruffled his hair.

“So if you are looking through S-12 photos you must be looking for … for Mikey’s mom.”

“Wow,” I huffed in disbelief. “That was pretty good. You’re really smart.”

Again, he shrugged. “It’s a curse.” He spoke nonchalant, lifting a stack.

That made me laugh.

“I was in special classes at school. Not like the special classes that Darie would have to go to. The smart kind.” He looked at each picture on the license as he talked to us. Not even realizing he was making us smile. “This lady looks nice.” He handed Dodge the license. ‘Yeah, I won Calcusolve, which was a math competition, and I was supposed to go to Harrisburg for the state Spelling Bee final. Guess that’s not happening.”

“Next thing you know, Buddy,” Dodge said. “You’re gonna tell me you play chess.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

I raised my hand. “I don’t.”

“Well, I do,” Dodge replied. “And you’re on George, I love a good chess game and somehow I think you’d be the one …”

He stopped talking and all of us jolted when there was a knock at the door. It startled me so much, I felt my whole body go into spasms of trembles.

“Stay here,” Dodge jumped up and pointed to George “Faye, grab the baby from the living room.”

Another knock, it wasn’t pounding, it was gentle. “Dodge.” I watched him reach behind his waist of his pants for the revolver and pull it out. “Dodge, seriously? You’re pulling a gun.”

“You don’t know.” He walked to the door.

“Yeah, I do. I’m pretty sure the bad guys aren’t gonna tap on the door.”

He grunted at me, stared me down for a moment and walked to the door. “What are you doing?” he asked

“Seeing who’s there.”

“Faye,” he held up his hand. “Just ... just stay back.”

I folded my arms. “Fine.” Then I felt George move behind me, obviously he wasn’t heeding Dodge’s warning either.

Weapon ready, Dodge placed his foot near the bottom of the door to stop it from blasting open. Then he turned the knob, peeked through the slight crack, and with an exhale, opened the door all the way.

The senior man, who looked more like a retired executive, rather than pandemic survivor, took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I was out looking for my daughter. I saw the light in the distance. Imagine my surprise when I got home
to find most of my food was gone and my Fastball is parked in your back driveway.”

I exhaled loudly with a laugh of relief and charged forward. “Mr. Doyle.”

I embraced him with gratitude and welcomed him into my home. Although I made a mental note to tell Dodge about all the times he made fun of me for not wanting to loot my neighbors. Maybe I did have more of a psychic intuition than I gave myself credit for.