Grants Pass (29 page)

She sauntered away from me, glancing
back over her shoulder; a performer until the end. She knelt down to her purse,
wavering just a bit. She removed something from within, stood, pivoted
flawlessly on her spiked heals and tossed me what was in her hand. I caught it
despite my intoxication. It was a prescription bottle for valium. It was empty.

Ruby looked me in the eyes, tears
once again trickling down her cheeks. “Dance with me until I’m gone Javier,
then lay me out with candles on Hibernia Beach.” I nodded and we embraced,
slowly dancing in the silence of the pub.

That night I laid her out,
surrounded by red and white candles. She was like sleeping beauty, if the
princess had been a trollop. Ruby looked good tarted up. I stayed there and
watched over her until dawn. I then returned to my bed at the Red Cross
station. I woke in the afternoon and started packing provisions. I was going to
make it to Grants Pass and if there was nobody there, I would continue on to
Seattle to see if by a miracle, Shannon had survived.

I met a few people on the way;
Lindsey Porter and her daughter Sam were the first two I met. They had had a
run in with an unsavory man. I helped them out. Thankfully, I had taken a gun
with me on my trip north. This man — Walter was his name — had apparently
decided that the end of civilization entitled him to anything he wanted; and
Lindsey was something he had wanted. He had been keeping her daughter near him
at all times with her hands bound. He had threatened to kill Sam if Lindsey
didn’t comply with his demands, which were all sexual. I shudder when I think
of what the two had to endure at the hands of that man.

I met Lindsey as she was gathering
berries for Walter. She had a wild look in her eyes; disheveled and dirty. I
smiled at her and she just stared at me for a minute.

“
Are you a
good man?” she asked.

“
I couldn’t
say,” I replied. “I try to be, I guess. Do you need help?” She nodded, tears
trickling down her face as she explained to me about Walter and her daughter. I
believe I did what any decent person would have done. I took the gun from my
pack and followed Lindsey back to their camp, such as it was.

Before Walter could even grab for
Sam, I had the gun trained on him and ordered him to step away from the girl.
Mother and daughter ran to each other. Lindsey removed the rope and as they
were coming back to me, Walter made a jump for his gun. I shot him. I wasn’t
sure if I had hit my mark at first. Everything slowed down. Walter’s body
slowly twisted and fell, crimson seeping across his chest. It was comedic and
horrific as his face twisted with surprise and what I would imagine was pain.
Time returned to normal when his body hit the ground.

I remember that I couldn’t catch my
breath; my heart was pounding in my ears. I absently dropped the gun at my
side. I sunk to my knees and vomited. The women rushed over to me, thanking me,
and looking for assurances that I was alright, but I just waved them away.

They gave me a few minutes, but soon
Lindsey’s mothering took hold. First she insisted that we move away from
Walter’s body and soon after that she had me eating berries and drinking water.
I didn’t talk much for the next few days and most of that was asking them to
stop thanking me.

 
Even now I
have a hard time accepting that I killed another human being, even one as wretched
as Walter. I still have nightmares about it, his twisted grimace accusing me;
mocking me. I stand before God — who is sort of back in my life — desperately
trying to hide my bloodied hands from him. I can justify it every which way,
but still it haunts me.

 
Sometimes I
wonder if Lindsey hadn’t seen me vomiting — hadn’t seen the glazed horror that
turned my skin white and made my hands shake — would she have accepted my
invitation for her and her daughter to travel to Grants Pass with me?

Somewhere near the border to Oregon
we found a little boy, seven years old. He had been living in a gas station,
eating the food from the snack mart. His name was Oswaldo Fuentes. He spoke no
English, but I had learned Spanish years ago. Strangely, he seemed to have adapted
quite well. I think mostly because he couldn’t comprehend what had happened. We
took him with us too.

We are all now in Grants Pass. As
are many people, nearly a hundred and more arrive each day. The town is
becoming a real refuge. We have no way of knowing if there are other places
where survivors are gathering, but we here in Grants Pass are doing our best to
build a future out of what has been left to us, which sadly is not much.

Monte, the friend mentioned in the
journal is here, but everyone is still waiting for Kayley — I hope she makes
it. It’s the one thing that is preventing this community from moving forward.
Nobody wants to go beyond what she started without her. Many here believe she
is destined to be our leader; a couple even think of her as our messiah. I
believe she’s just an insightful girl with a brilliant idea. I hope she’s safe.

As for me? Well, a friend from
Seattle made it here, Annie Nguyen. She told me that Shannon died in his sleep.
The Super Flu. She burned his body, as he would have wanted. My gut clenches
every time I think of it, but I know it’s time to let go of the past, to
embrace the future, grim as it may be. I have adopted Oswaldo. Not officially
of course, but in my heart, where it matters. Ruby was right, I do cling to a
world that once was.

In fact, I carried that damn laptop
all the way from San Francisco to Grants Pass. After locating a battery for it
here, I decided to start a new journal. So if you’re reading this, then it
means you’ve found my laptop — better yet, you have a power source for it.

I ask, whoever you are, to remember
that Shannon Patrick Conner was loved. Please remember Miss Ruby Divine as the
bright light that she was — raccoon eyes and all. I hope that I, and the others
here, have been able to build something good for Oswaldo, Sam, and all the
other children.

Farewell to the past, may the hope
of Grants Pass be fulfilled someday soon.

With all regard,

Javier Antonio Gutierrez.

Biography

James M. Sullivan

James M. Sullivan has been
spinning tales since his formative years, entertaining his family with
tape-recorded stories and skits. As he matured, so did his medium — from school
book fairs to essays to short stories.

Then Jim discovered gaming. He did
not settle long for the role of participant and was soon creating plots and his
own worlds. Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) was his next step. He has co-run a
four-year fantasy LARP and a five-year vampire LARP. When a player asked Jim
why he did not write stories and pointed out the plots he created were stories,
he returned to writing short fiction.

He is a student now, pursuing a
graduate degree in psychology, choosing to leave behind such jobs as network
engineer, operator, and fundraiser. Jim enjoys volunteering at sci-fi/fantasy
conventions, role-playing, cooking, reading, movie viewing, and spending time
with friends and family.

****

Afterword

When Jennifer Brozek asked me to
write a story for her Grants Pass project, I was more than happy to write for
the project. Not only was it an opportunity to work creatively with a friend,
but I found the concept of Grants Pass a fresh and original idea for an
anthology. I knew immediately I wanted to have my story take the form of an
artifact discovered in the far future, and that I wanted to represent average
people dropped into chaos.

To show characters forced to make
the hard decisions, responding to internal and external stimuli, such as Ruby’s
choosing her own fate and our narrator’s decision in dealing with Walter — but
I did not want the characters to become subsumed by the need for survival and
lose who they are as people.

This story was also personal
therapy, as it allowed me to explore my feelings about my own move from
California to Washington, even if in an abstract way. I am pleased that Jennifer
asked me to write for Grants Pass and I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much
as I enjoyed contributing to it.

Epilogue
:

Journal Entry

Kayley Allard

JULY 1: OBLIGATIONS

Twenty days ago was the last time
I saw anyone alive in Redmond, Washington. That was June 12th. I had been at
the small family grocery store, picking up supplies. Only two people had been
in the shop: another customer and a checker. Both were very sick but both had
the same grim determination that they — above all — would survive this.

This. This being the end of the
world as we know it. I made a mark on the calendar to signify the day. Today,
Thursday, the first of July. Just days before the holiday of getting drunk and
setting off explosives, while someone burns slabs of meat over an open fire and
everyone hopes that the injuries from the celebration of freedom happen to
someone else. Only there will be no one to celebrate Independence Day this
year. Nor any other holiday for that matter. Between the three plagues, global
warming and the earthquake, the End, with a capital E, had come.

Now that it arrived and it seemed
that I had survived, I felt a weird sense of obligation to write down what
happened. I don’t really know what took place except for what I read, heard and
saw. People got sick and they died. Storms came and people died. The riots
started, the city was put under martial law and more folks died. People died
and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Some say I was lucky. My family was
three thousand miles away, so I didn’t have to watch them slip away. No.
Instead, I got to watch my chosen family die. Cheryl, then her kids and,
finally, her husband, Rory. Keane, Jim, Jeff and Robert. The last was Hans,
three weeks ago. I had gone over to his townhouse to force feed him chicken
soup. He was in bed, hallucinating. I think it was a happy hallucination. He
died with a smile on his face as I held his hand. All I could do was tuck him
back into his bed and leave before I threw up on him. I just made it to the
bathroom.

As far as I know, I’m the last
person alive in Redmond, maybe Washington. Hell, maybe the whole damn world. I
think that’s the most fucked up thing about this. I’m in the heart of Redmond,
three miles from Microsoft and I haven’t seen anyone in weeks. If anyone could
have survived beyond me, it should have been a bunch of geeks. Geeks are smart.
I should have seen someone by now.

Right now, the power is still on and
I mean to take advantage of that for as long as it holds out. I have started
making a “To Do” list. I think it’s to help me keep calm. If I’m busy, I don’t
have to think about anything.

TO DO:

Move. Scout out areas close to the
library and the grocery store. Some place on 160th street. I’m getting tired of
that hill of mine. I need to be closer to these things for safety and comfort.

Figure out what to do about the
bodies of the dead people around the new home. This is both a cleanliness thing
and a smell thing. I’m debating about finding a dump or burning them in a grand
funeral pyre — sending them on their way to heaven if there is a God. Right
now, I have my doubts.

Turn off excess lights and machines.
Maybe that will help the electricity hold out longer.

Find a generator and learn how to work
it.

This is just getting depressing and
really is not helping me do what I want it to do. I know I’m trying to distract
myself. I can confess this here because no one is going to read it. If they do,
I will probably be long dead. Just in case: Hello alien or historian! Maybe
that is: alien historian. Wouldn’t that be a hoot.
“Dead planet, yellow
star. Tell us where your children are…”

Two days ago, while I was boxing up
my ‘essentials’ to take to the new place — once I choose it — one of my diaries
fell out of the pile. It was the print out of last year’s online journal. Being
a narcissistic lass, I sat down and started reading. I would read two or three
entries, then skip a few pages and start reading again. How simple life was. I
had a wonderful boyfriend, a good job, a great house and my only problems were
whether or not I was going to have time to clean before guests came over, what
the office gossip was and who my cat was going to bite next. Petty,
insignificant, marvelously human thoughts.

Then, I came to it. That journal
entry in May before everything went to hell in a hand basket. ‘Grants Pass.’ I
had totally forgotten about that entry, written in a fit of fancy after a
conversation with my friend, Monte. “If an apocalypse comes and you survive, think
of me and then head to Grants Pass. My whimsy could save your life.”

I lie. I had
almost
forgotten
about it, but I had not been ready or willing to remember it. Until now. It
probably explains why I have been so productive in raiding REI to gather supplies
for ‘just in case’. I have enough stores of dried food to last a single person
for a decade.

Grants Pass.

May 17th last year, I made a written
promise to meet any survivors of the end of the world in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Four hundred and some odd miles south of me down the I-5. I told the survivors
to meet me there. That I would be there to help rebuild in the new
post-apocalyptic world.

I never thought it would happen.
But, here it is.

Why the hell would I want to leave
my secure environment, to face who knows what, to go to a little town in Oregon
to meet other survivors who may or may not be there and may or may not be
friendly?

I’ve been wrangling with this
question for two days now. It reminded me of a brief conversation I had with
Thea. She had pretty much asked me the exact same thing, but added in “secure
bolt holes, a known fresh water source and a well known enough city that
surviving people would flock to it instead of her having to leave for some tiny
town in the middle of the mountains.” She was right. I was wrong. I wish I
could tell her.

I can’t decide if I should go or
not. I know I wrote that entry, but what are the odds of another survivor
having actually read it? Read it AND decided to go there? Practically none. The
only people I know who would have done so I lost touch with over three weeks
ago. Anyone else, there’s no guarantee that I would like them. That would be
just my luck. Stuck with an asshole as my only companion for the rest of my
life.

But I digress.

I said I would meet them and I have
always been a woman of my word. Always followed my promises. Does my obligation
still hold? Do I
have
an obligation to them, total strangers? I’m
comfortable and happy here. Happy enough. I have my plans. I have my books. I
know what I need to do to fix up Redmond. What’s waiting for me in Grants Pass?
Much less, along the way?

I’m afraid. I can admit it. I’m
scared shitless that there won’t be anyone there. Even more scared of
who
might be there. What if they want me to lead them because I was the one who
called them there? I’m good at making decisions. Just not always the right
ones. What if they don’t want me to lead? Maybe some know-it-all is there and
has already taken charge? Worse yet, what if he or she is damn good at the job
and should have it?

Christ! I’m insane! I don’t even
know if anyone is alive out there and I’m already making up enough drama to
float a soap opera for at least two or three seasons!

Still. I have to wonder. What if
Monte did make it through and is waiting for me, wondering where the hell I am?
Or if anyone else did survive. It has been kind of lonely without anyone
around. I could keep myself busy for a while with my list of tasks, but
eventually, I would have time to think. Time is one of those things I have an
abundance of now.

I miss everyone so much. I used to
dream about a world where I could be by myself with no one around me. No one to
tell me what to do or to cut me off in traffic. No one to yell at me or ask me
about deadlines or to forget to invite me to a movie. A world where I could be
left alone.

Oh, God! What if all this is my
fault? I wrote about it in my journal. I secretly wished for it from time to
time. I loved to watch
The Stand
by Stephen King and my favorite
apocalyptic 80s film,
Night of the Comet
. What if I had wished for it
and the universe decided, for some unknown reason, to grant my plea? I killed
everyone with my own romanticized selfishness!

No. No. No. I’m getting myself
worked up for nothing here. The apocalypse was not my fault. Talk about the
ultimate in egomania. Global warming is a bitch and the three plagues were a
terrorist plot.

I really need someone here to slap
some sense into me. The world is not all about “I”. It may seem like it right
now, but that’s not true.

You want to know how I know?
Because, two days ago, I made a subconscious decision that I was going to take
it on faith that there were other people out there and that by some miracle,
not only had they survived, they had read my post and are coming to meet me in
Grants Pass. It has taken me until now to actually admit that to myself. Now
that it has been written and acknowledged, my obligation is clear.

The question has become: Am I brave
enough to make the trip?

JULY 12: THOUGHTS

It’s been almost two weeks since I
wrote in my journal. Writing longhand sucks. I have terrible penmanship. I
haven’t moved. I’m still in my condo. But, I have been thinking about Grants
Pass. I think I am going to go. The silence is driving me insane.

I’ve been wondering about what I
should bring. Books mostly. Specific books on keeping a community going. I’ve
got a lot of my own in my apocalyptic cabinet. I never thought I would have to
actually use it. I suppose that’s one of the reasons the
Zombie Survival
Guide
was in there next to
When there are No Doctors
.

Seriously though, if I’m going, I’ve
got to be prepared. I’ve got to prove that my thoughts of meeting in Grants
Pass were valid and not random happenstance. I’ve got to make sure that if
there are people there, waiting for me, depending on me, that it was not in
vain.

I’ve got to prove it to myself if no
one else.

Beyond the books are the emergency
supplies, batteries, crop seed and medicine. And weapons. I can’t pretend that
everyone is going to be nice and happy and polite. The old rules of order and
society are gone.

I wonder if Monte made it. I hope to
God — if there is a God — that there is at least one friendly, familiar face
waiting for me.

JULY 31: JOURNEY

I’m ready to go. This is it.
Everything is packed. Tomorrow, I will leave at 9am. That should put me there
by 4pm, barring any unexpected nastiness. August 1st has always been my
personal New Year’s Day. It is an appropriate time to start a new life.

I decided to take a jeep instead of
my car because it has four wheel drive, more room and can navigate rough
terrain better. My neighbors had one and it’s not like they are going to be
using it. They decided to drink a nice batch of special Kool-Aid instead of
fighting to survive. But that is neither here nor there. I am going to let the
cat out of the house to fend for herself. I hate doing this, but it is better
than a slow death of starvation if I don’t make it back.

That’s if I don’t decide to take her
with me. I might. I probably will. We’ll see.

The jeep is packed with gas, food,
water, medical supplies and weapons. I think I’m prepared. I have driven to the
San Francisco Bay Area and back several times before. At 430 miles, I should
make it within five to six hours. Barring any major mishaps.

My plan is to drive directly there
and to stay for ten days. Then, I will put up signs with directions and return
home to Redmond. Or, I will continue on towards the Bay Area, to my old
stomping grounds and see if there are people there. It’s damn hot in the
summer, but you don’t have to deal with snow in the winter.

I still can’t decide whether I want
to meet people at Grants Pass or along the way, or not. The idea excites and
terrifies me. I think I’m leaning towards the former. It would be nice to hear
a voice other than my own.

I’m leaving this journal, along with
all of my other journals, here in the library, in case I don’t make it back and
someone else comes along. I know I’m vain. I want to be remembered. I want
someone to know that I was here and that I had survived the end of the world.

I’m leaving a map to Grants Pass as
well. Maybe it will turn out that Grants Pass is the right place to go and
whoever finds this journal will meet me there.

Over a year ago, I made a promise to
six billion strangers. I guess it’s time for me to go see how many of them took
me up on it.

Please don’t forget me.

Love,

Kayley Allard