Instinct (8 page)

“What am I forgetting?” he asked.

Cedric sat on the tarmac. He knew he was supposed to wait until Tim told him to jump up onto the wing.
 

“It’s not like we’re going to be flying around for a week. We’ll have to land and find more fuel. I’m not even going to let it get below half a tank, in case we can’t find a hand pump. I should bring that siphon.”

Cedric wagged his tail and it swished back and forth on the ground.

“Yeah, okay, get in,” he said.

Cedric sprang up onto the wing and then nosed open the door. He was in his seat with a flash of auburn fur.

Tim could barely resist the urge to go back in the little house and wander around again. He’d already made several passes through the place. Anything he needed was already packed. It was an adorable airstrip. Tim was sad to leave it behind. When he’d discovered it, he thought he might never leave. Now, he was about to depart just because he couldn’t think of a reason to stay. There might be more people out there somewhere, and it was more important to find them than to stay at his perfect airstrip.

He climbed into his seat and buckled Cedric into his. The dog closed his mouth and let out a low whine.

“I brought your ball. It’s in the back. I can’t have it rolling around on the floor while we’re in the air.”

Cedric didn’t cock his head at the word “ball” like he usually did. His eyes were fixed on the little pond next to the house. It was his favorite place to get muddy. Cedric let out another tiny whine.

“I know,” Tim said. “If we don’t find anything, we can come back. I promise.”

He pulled out his preflight checklist.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

Tim headed north and west until he found the shore of Lake Erie. He flew low and slow up the shore, looking for any signs of life. He was looking for movement or smoke. Cedric looked out the window for a while and then settled against his harness. The dog’s head bobbed as he slept.

This lake seemed very democratic. Sure, there were golf courses and plenty of big, stately houses, but there were also a ton of little camps and farms along the shore. This wasn’t just a playground for the rich. This was everyone’s lake. Tim thought about finding a manual on water landing and looking for a plane with pontoons on the bottom. Maybe he could live right on the shore. Fuel would be a problem. At least with wheels on his landing gear he could always find a stretch of highway and steal some gas from an abandoned car.

Up ahead, a spit of land extended into the lake. The shore was stacked with big gray stones that looked out of place. The whole extension looked like maybe it was man made. That was one way to get more shore property—you just created it. The stones caught his eye at first, but what kept his attention was the white fluttering in the lawn. Near a long building, strung between two trees, someone had hung sheets. They blew in a strong breeze. Tim scanned the building and lawn, looking for any other movement.

Little wind-driven waves lapped at the rocks. The branches of the trees swayed gently. Tim couldn’t find the owner of the sheets anywhere.
 

“Wake up,” Tim said to Cedric. He nudged the dog’s shoulder. “There might be someone down there.”

The dog seemed to wake up with his nose first. It began twitching and then his eyes opened. He looked at Tim.

“Wouldn’t you come outside if you heard an airplane for the first time in months? Those sheets can’t have been hanging there since last Thanksgiving, could they?”

Tim banked the plane so he could get a better look at the house. He descended and circled. There was nowhere to land. The road that led along the shore was too narrow and was lined with trees and power lines. Tim brought up his altitude to look for a highway or at least a road big enough to safely land on. It looked like the nearest road was miles away.

He pulled out his map and marked the location.

“We’ll keep going and see if there’s anything else to investigate,” he said. His heart was beating fast. Leaving behind the fluttering sheets was torture. He wanted nothing more than to take to ground and find his way back to that point, but it wasn’t logical. If he intended to land, he needed a plan. Every time he brought the plane down he was taking a risk, and a set of hanging sheets wasn’t enough reward.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

Tim flew all the way to Buffalo before he turned the plane around. His mind wandered back to the sheets. He imagined people living in that long house. In his thoughts, they were probably out gathering supplies when he flew by. They’d heard his engine and rushed back to see him disappearing on the horizon.
 

He felt a hard, hot lump in his chest when he saw that point of land again. It was harder to see the sheets from this direction, but when he circled back around, he was certain. He struck off east, to find a good place to land.
 

The nearest open space was a field. It might be fine, but it was impossible to know for sure from the air. There could be holes, or other pitfalls hidden below the growth.

He went farther and found a long parking lot next to a strip mall. It didn’t have any dividers or curbs that he could see, and if he headed into the wind, he should be able to take off again. He shook his head and changed his mind. His plane was heavy with gear, and the day was warming up. It wasn’t worth the risk.
 

Tim had to travel several more miles before he finally found a big open stretch of road with no hazards. He circled several times before brought the plane down without issue.
 

Cedric wiggled in his seat, anxious to explore the smells of this area.

“Okay,” Tim said. He unbuckled the dog and opened the door so Cedric could bound out into the afternoon. “Don’t go far. We have a way to travel.”

He tried to find his location on the map. He had to approximate. Some of the roads he’d seen weren’t on his map. They looked black and fresh. They might be recent construction.

Tim brought a small bag with a map and essentials. He climbed out.

The first few cars he found were all in the same condition. They had keys in the ignition, no fuel, and dead batteries. The people who’d abandoned the cars were simply gone and it seemed like they’d taken the vitality of their vehicles with them. This was familiar territory for Tim. Serviceable cars were getting harder and harder to find as the world aged. Back when the whole world had been alive, Tim had thought of cars as dependable, permanent machines. Now he saw them as spoiled fruit. They were beyond ripe and no longer fit for consumption.
 

“You ready?” he asked Cedric. The dog was sniffing around the tire of a dead car. He tilted up his leg and peed on the tire while Tim tightened the straps on his pack. Tim bent to stretch his legs and retie his laces.

When he was ready, he struck off in a casual jog. It took about a mile for him to really hit his groove, and then his feet moved automatically. He wasn’t fast, but he could jog for miles. Cedric moved in spurts at first. He would run ahead, investigate something until Tim passed, and then catch up. Eventually, the dog moved to his side and kept time with Tim’s jog.
 

They only stopped to consult the map.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

“Stay right with me,” Tim said to the dog as they turned down Sunset Point Road. It was a wide expanse of asphalt that was in better shape than the main road. Cedric stuck very close to Tim’s thigh.

The grass was high, but he saw no weeds in the lawn. Tim and Cedric walked down the middle of the road. They were flanked by two perfect rows of maple trees. One tree had a sign that read, “Private Drive.”

Their footsteps flushed some birds from the grass. Cedric turned his head and perked his ears, but he didn’t leave Tim.

The road ended in a circular drive at the entrance of the long building. A nice breeze blew across the narrow peninsula. They stood for several seconds, regarding the house from the circular drive. Tim tried to imagine someone looking out from those tall windows.
 

He approached as the hot lump of anticipation returned to his chest. His leg muscles were still twitching from his run, and it felt like he was walking on springs. He climbed the stairs and the shadow from the porch roof covered him and the dog. The porch ran the length of the house and the breeze swept through the space. It would be a great place to cool off on a hot day.

Tim walked to the front door.

The big black door was hidden behind a thin wooden frame that held a screen. Tim opened the screen and knocked. He waited and then knocked again. The sound was swept away by the wind.
 

His imagination took over. He pictured a dim, dusty room where a lifeless woman was laying on a bare mattress. He imagined her eyes flying open at the sound of his knock.

Tim shook away the vision.

“Let’s walk around back,” he said to Cedric.

They followed the south side of the house and walked down the length of the building. A row of tall lilac bushes flanked the building. The white paint was peeling away where the leaves were closest to the building’s siding.

They passed a picnic table and a swing suspended from the branch of another maple. They finally came around the final corner and saw the clothesline. The sheets were nearly horizontal in the breeze.

Hanging from the line was a homemade bucket. It was the bottom half of a bleach container. A clothes hangar was hooked through each side and served as the handle. Tim took it down and saw it contained clothespins. There were no old leaves in the bucket. It didn’t have rainwater in the bottom. It hadn’t been there long. Tim hung it back up and spun around in a slow circle.

“Hello?” he yelled. Cedric turned with him and barked once, like he was trying to help call.

Tim looked up at the sky. It was still pretty clear, but there were thick clouds hanging on the western horizon.

“I thought we’d find out the sheets had been here forever,” Tim said. “I figured there was about a ten percent chance that we’d find someone here. I never considered that the sheets would be recent, but the place would be empty.”

He looked out over the water. The wind kicked up little ripples on the surface. It was a beautiful day on this private point. Tim looked at the grass. It wasn’t long here. Someone was keeping this lawn mowed. It was yet more proof that someone should be here.

“We have to go inside,” he said.

They walked over to a side door on the back part of the house. Tim looked through the window and saw a big room with a bar at one end and chairs along the wall. He knocked on the glass and waited. Cedric was right at his side.

He reached for the handle.
 

The voice called out as soon as his hand touched the brass knob.

“Can we help you?”

Tim turned around. Cedric, who had been panting with his tongue to the side, in his carefree way, closed his mouth. The young couple was standing about a dozen paces away with the water at their backs.

“Sorry,” Tim said. He felt the blood rising to his face. “We were just looking to see if anyone was here.”

Cedric sat down at Tim’s side.

“This is our house,” the young woman said. Tim guessed that they were, at the most, twenty years old. The girl was plain, but pretty in her summer dress and bare feet. The boy looked like he spent most of his time trying to look menacing. He wore dirty jeans and a white t-shirt that was smudged with grease. It looked like some of that grease might have made it into his hair. It was slicked back and shiny.

“I’m sure,” Tim said. “We saw the sheets from the air. That was us flying overhead earlier, if you heard the plane.”

“We didn’t,” the boy said.

Tim nodded. “Anyway, we saw the sheets and came down to see if anyone was here. I knocked several times. We were just looking for whomever hung up the sheets.”

“Those are our sheets,” the girl said.

“Of course,” Tim said. He took a step down the porch stairs. “My name is Tim, and this is Cedric. We’ve just been flying around, looking to see if anyone else was still in the area.”

The young couple exchanged a glance with each other, but they didn’t respond.

“Anyway,” Tim said, “I’m thrilled to find more people alive. It has been months since Cedric and I have seen anyone. We spotted a small group in Columbus, but by the time we landed, we couldn’t find them.”

“What’s in your bag?” the young man asked.

“Nothing, really,” Tim said. He began to take the bag off. The boy stiffened and a hard look crossed the girl’s face. Tim slowed his movement and removed the bag slowly. He held the strap delicately between two fingers and set the bag down on the steps next to Cedric.

They were still looking at the bag.

“I’ve got mostly maps and a few snacks. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find your place, so I thought I might have to camp out somewhere tonight.” Tim clamped his lips together to stop any more words from spilling out.

The girl came forward. She swung her hips for the first couple of steps, like she was trying to hypnotize him, but then she lunged and snatched the backpack. Cedric stood up. She smiled as she backed away. She pulled at the zipper and dumped the contents of the bag in the grass. The young man knelt down and pawed through the maps and food.

The young man raised up the book of laminated maps.

“You marked our house,” the young man said, while he traced his fingers over the map.
 

“I saw it from the air,” Tim said. “What’s your name?”

The young woman opened a bag of cashews and dumped them into her mouth. She moved on to some dried fruit. Watching these kids help themselves to the contents of his pack, Tim decided he was no longer interested in making their acquaintance.
 

“Listen, I’ll just take my map and we’ll go,” Tim said. “You can keep the food.”

The young man found one of Cedric’s tennis balls in the pack. The dog’s full attention was on the ball. The young man smiled and waved it back and forth. The dog’s head snapped left and right.