Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) (3 page)

I got up and grabbed the package of food and his water bottle. “Get better first, then you go,” I said as I held them out to him. Hopefully, I didn’t sound completely heartless.

It surprised me how easily these words came to me. And maybe I was heartless. It was this world that had changed me. I didn’t even recognize the person I’d become since losing my friends. I wasn’t even sure I liked the person I had become.

He nodded and lifted his foot out of the boot he hadn’t even managed to get halfway inside. I’d have to figure out a way to secure my bedroom door when I attempted to sleep. I always locked it, but I didn’t know if that would be enough when someone was already in the house. Hell, I didn’t think it was enough even when someone wasn’t in the house. These weak cabin doors wouldn’t stop someone if they desperately wanted to get inside. For all I knew a heavy wind could blow them open.

While he slowly nibbled at his food, I tried to think of some positives about having him here. As if that might make me feel better about allowing this stranger into my cabin. For starters, I wouldn’t be as lonely, which would probably be a good thing as far as my sanity was concerned. Although, then again, I’d constantly be on guard and worried he was going to attack me at any given moment. I would have someone to talk to other than the dust bunny upstairs. Although I’d have to be careful with what I said. But he could actually talk back to me, like an actual conversation, unlike the dust bunnies.

“So,” I said crossing my legs, “what’s your story? What brought you to my doorstep in this weather?”

He chuckled and looked at his hands as if they had become the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. I tilted my head, no doubt looking a little more impatient than I actually was. Although I was more than eager to hear how he ended up at my cabin in the middle of nowhere. Whether or not I’d believe it would be something else entirely.

“I’m not even sure,” he said shaking his head. “I’m from Anchorage. Originally. That’s where I survived the big storms, with my sister and my dad.”

“Where?” I asked quickly.

“Anchorage?”

“No, I mean like where in Anchorage?”

“In our house,” he responded matching my quick pace as if it was a race for who could talk the fastest.

“Underground?”

“No? Why?”

“What about all the tornadoes? The hail rocks? The blizzard?”

He chuckled again, “Snow? This is Alaska. We can do snow, but it did get cold. Very cold. A lot colder than ever before.”

“Tornadoes?”

“There were some reported before we lost TV, radio and the like, but they didn’t hit our house,” he said narrowing his eyes. I could tell he was wondering where I had been and what I had seen.

I didn’t know if I could believe his story. It was true that more buildings seemed to be standing around these parts, but if the storms weren’t as bad up here where were all the people?

“What?” he asked noticing my raised eyebrows pinched together. I wasn’t good at hiding my skepticism.

“If the storms weren’t that bad… where are all the people?”

“Like I said, it got cold. I’m talking below zero temperatures. We all lost power. And no power means no heat unless you have a fireplace and enough wood stored up to keep it going. It wasn’t like people could go anywhere in the freezing temperatures and feet upon feet of snow. If someone didn’t have enough heat, food and water in their house, they didn’t survive. Hypothermia would set in. My family was lucky. We had food, water and a nice, big, hot fire. We rationed everything… even the firewood.”

Penn fidgeted, and I saw a sadness wash over his face. Either he was a very good actor, or what he was about to tell me wasn’t something he wanted to share.

“When our wood supplies started to dwindle my dad got nervous. He ventured out collecting anything he could burn. It didn’t take long. Only minutes of exposure maybe, for the frostbite to set in on his toes… then his feet, and it was up to his calves before he even told us. At that point we could tell something was wrong because he could barely walk. He used two thick wooden sticks to help him get around. He wasn’t a quitter. My dad went out again the very next day. With how difficult it was for him to walk, I asked him not to go out, but he said he was fine… I let him go anyway. That was the day he didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing the words probably weren’t very comforting coming from the person who would soon be kicking him out of her house, and back out into the cold. But I had meant it. Everyone lost someone, and some people lost everyone, but it wouldn’t have been easy to watch it all happen right in front of your eyes.

“I should have done more to stop him,” he said turning his head away from me.

“You didn’t know….”

“The stuff he gathered kept me and my sister alive. What’s even worse, is the weather got better only a few days later. Maybe if he hadn’t gone out….”

I didn’t know what to say. While my mom was gone too, I didn’t know what had happened to her. It was easier to think that maybe she was out there somewhere, and she had survived. Perhaps she was wandering about looking for me. Even though deep down, I didn’t think for a second that was true. At least I didn’t have the visual confirmation that she was gone, like Penn had with his father.

“Anyway, when I went out for the first time to gather what I could for me and my sister, I found his body. It was only about fifteen feet from the house. My guess is his legs stopped working, and he collapsed… died from the cold. Had he just lied there and let the cold take him to get away from everything, or had he been shouting for me to help him until his voice didn’t work any more?” Penn swallowed hard and looked at me, “He was a good man. Like the best dad.”

It was hard not to shed a tear for the man I didn’t even know. He had done everything he could for his kids. Penn didn’t bother to wipe away the tear that trickled down his cheek. The story had gotten to me so much I moved over to the couch, and sat beside him. I placed my hand on top of his almost wishing I wouldn’t have asked him to tell his story.

“Ugh, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” I shook my head, pissed off at myself for being such a jerk to Penn. He wasn’t any different than I was. “I shouldn’t have asked you about it.”

“No. It’s fine. I would have asked the same in your shoes. I just haven’t really processed it myself yet, you know?” He looked down at our hands, “And it only got worse.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said thinking that he’d already told me enough. I didn’t want him to be any more upset than he already was in his weakened state. It was clear by the condition his body was in that he had indeed struggled. And since he had shown up alone on my doorstep that seemed to be enough evidence that his sister hadn’t made it either.

“No. I can… I want to. It might help me on some level, you know, just to get it out,” he glanced up at me and then back down at our hands. “It was still quite cold at the time, but we were doing OK with what I had been able to gather for the fire. That was until we started to run low on food and water,” he said lifting his shirt to show me his ribs. I attempted to hold in my gasp but I failed. He was very thin, and it was even worse than I had imagined. It was almost as if he was just a skin covered skeleton.

I worried that if I touched him too hard, I might break him. I dropped his hand abruptly, almost as if his condition might be contagious. It was a little strange to react in such a way considering I wasn’t all that far off from being skin and bones myself.

“You need to eat,” I said as I stood up, practically spinning in a circle. It was like I didn’t know which way the kitchen was or where to start.

“I can’t eat your food… you need it.”

“I have enough.”

“No one has enough,” he said shaking his head.

“I insist,” I said without waiting for him to argue. After I decided on what to make him, I grabbed my little pot by the fireplace and filled it with water. I set it down on the wire rack in the fireplace while I measured out a cup of rice. It felt as though it was taking eons for the water to boil. I could feel his eyes on me as I worked to prepare the food, but I didn’t bother to turn around to see if I was right. He coughed hard before he cleared his throat and continued his story.

“We had two choices, stay and ration what little food we had left, hoping help would come, or we could go out into the cold. Each day had been warmer than the last, but it was still far too cold to wander around aimlessly for long. So we stayed. It was only a day after we made our choice that the men came. They walked right into our home as if they owned the place. One of them grabbed me by the back of my shirt, lifted me off the ground and punched me in the face. I blacked out. They were so much bigger, and I was already far too weak to do anything about it. Not that I really had a chance to.

“When I came to, I was lying on the floor shivering… I had been too far away from the fire. My vision was still blurry from being hit in the face,” he said squinting as if he was reliving the moment so vividly that he saw my cabin go in and out of focus. “I couldn’t see my sister anywhere. I tried to get up, but my hands and feet had been tied. Then I heard her ear-piercing scream. She was alive somewhere in the house, but I couldn’t see her. I listened and realized that one of the men had her in another room. At first she was pleading for him to stop, but then I didn’t hear her any more. The other man was eating some of our food at the table with his back turned towards me. Somehow I managed to get my hands free, then my feet. And what those monsters didn’t know was that my dad had a gun hidden away.”

I poured the rice into the pot, stirred, and put the lid on. He looked at his feet as if he could still see them tied together. “Really, Penn, you don’t have to go on.”

“I grabbed the gun and pressed it against the man in the chair’s skull. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the trigger. Then as if something had control over my body, I walked straight for the other guy and pulled the trigger again. The weird thing is I don’t remember leaving the house. All I remember is running hand in hand with my sister away from the house with nothing but the gun.”

He didn’t have to tell me in words what had happened to his sister in that room. I didn’t even blame him for doing what he’d done. If that had been me and Sienna, I would have done the same and she wasn’t my sister. At least not by blood.

“I am so, so sorry,” I said as I scooped the slightly watery, and undercooked white rice into a bowl. His eyes were glued to the bowl of bland food as if he was seeing it filled to the brim with something much more tasty than what I was putting inside. I was glad he hadn’t lost his appetite after telling his story. He kept his eyes on me as I set it down on the coffee table in front of him. And just like anyone starving to death might do, he grabbed the bowl and ravenously shoveled the rice into his mouth. He seemed a little frustrated because it looked as though his arms were moving slower than he would have liked. His hands shook so much he couldn’t accurately aim the spoon. I sat down on the sofa and crossed my arms in front of my stomach, watching him wolf down his meal.

“And it was all for nothing. When we couldn’t find heat, the cold took her just as it had my father. Then I was all alone, and wandering aimlessly around Alaska. I picked a direction and kept walking hoping I’d find help. Each day got warmer, and I was able to find a little food and water here and there. Of course I was stronger back then than I am now so it was easier to find things. After all my random wandering I got lost, and I had no idea where I was. I kept moving around from place to place, I don’t even know how much time went by before winter returned,” he said pointing towards the window. He was referring to the current weather we were experiencing, but I already knew the weather outside wasn’t the deadly winter he had experienced with his family. “That’s when things went downhill fast. I really started to struggle, I couldn’t find food or water. And well, that’s where my story ends because that’s when I arrived here. If not for you, I would have died too.” He shook his head, and a tear fell into his rice. Penn looked towards the wall, “And it probably would have been better if I had,” he muttered.

“Don’t say that,” I said softly. There was no way I could send him back out into the winter all skin and bones after what he’s been through. He was far too weak. And I wasn’t that cruel. I had changed since everything happened, but I wasn’t evil. Sending him back out into the world would be the same as handing him a death sentence. Or worse, he’d wander so far he’d find HOME and they’d take him in.

Penn set the empty bowl down and looked me in the eyes, “Well, sometimes I think it’s true.”

“You can stay here,” I said without even thinking it through. He could be lying about the whole thing, but if he was, he wasn’t lying about being too weak. Even if he tried something I could push him over with my pinky finger.

His face brightened a little but I could see that the grief from losing his family lingered. My stomach tightened as if it was trying to send me a message and I wasn’t getting it. All I knew is I couldn’t be the one responsible for sending him to his death when he’d done nothing wrong as far as I knew. Yes, he had admitted to shooting two men, but that was to save his sister, and probably both of their lives.

“But only until you are well enough to go out on your own again. Then I’ll give you food and water, and you’ll have to be on your way. Deal?”