Surviving the Fog (45 page)

It was time to make their way back to the
post.  They traveled farther to the west going back. It was
wetter.  There were several days when it snowed.  They
were about a week from the post, one frosty morning.  They
were traveling down a deer trail, and there was a light sprinkle of
snow on the ground.  As usual, Mike was following Annie.
 Mike heard Annie gasp and at the same moment, he heard a loud
spine chilling roar.

"Back, Mike, get back!" she yelled.

She was slinging her rifle from her shoulder.
 Mike stumbled back on the wet ground and fell to one knee.
 He heard another enormous growl.  Annie was trying to
back away, when she stumbled over Mike.  She fell over him to
the ground, and her rifle slammed into the snow covered mud.

"Get back, Mike!" she yelled again, as she
tried frantically to lever a cartridge into the chamber.

But the rifle was jammed.  Cursing, she
looked up, and then she froze.  It was if she was watching a
living image from the distant past.  The California brown bear
stood on all fours, growling, his snout was thrust forward.
 The young man was standing motionless facing the bear,
holding his spear cocked behind his ear. Annie sucked in a breath
and held it.  She could only watch; there was no time to clear
her rifle.  Whatever happened would happen.

"Mike," she whispered, fear for his life and
wonder at his brave audacity, surging through her.

"Be quiet, Annie," he murmured firmly.

The bear’s growls subsided to huffs.
 The huge animal stood there silently watching Mike.
 Mike did not move.  Annie held her breath.  For a
long moment, the boy and the bear faced each other.  Finally
the bear growled one last time, and then it swung around and ambled
down the trail, before it turned and disappeared into the
trees.

Annie needed to pee, and she needed to hit
something.  Her fear began to morph into anger.
 Growling, not unlike the bear, she sprang to her feet.
 When the boy turned, she grabbed the front of his jacket and
lifted him to his toes.

"You better get this straight, Chief," she
snarled.  "When we run into danger like that, you get to the
rear."

"No."  He said this firmly without any
expression in his eyes.

"What did you say?" she asked
incredulously.

"No."

She flung him backwards, and he landed on his
butt in the mud.  Reacting now to the danger, she began
panting.  Momentarily, she stared at him, and then she strode
past him. Her extreme anger was unreasonable; she knew this, but at
this moment, she was unable to control it. She hurried up the
trail, putting some distance between them.  Mike followed
silently.

They caught a break.  Before nightfall,
they found an old miner’s shack.  Inside, they found two
ancient beds with plain old fashioned springs and filthy
mattresses.  They were too tired to care.  They threw
their bags on the mattresses, and they sacked out.

Annie awoke just after
midnight.  She lay there in the darkness, thinking about the
incident with the bear.  She remembered vividly the sight of
Mike fearlessly facing the bear.  
No,
not fearlessly. He was afraid.  He was very
afraid
.  Somehow, she knew that.
 
So, why did he do it?  Why
didn't he run like I told him? You know why he didn't run.
He wouldn't have run in any case, because there
was someone he had to protect.  But even more, he would not
have run, because she was the one he was protecting.

In the past five weeks, she
had sensed the growing attraction he felt for her.
 
Why?  
She hadn’t been exactly friendly towards him, and she had
ignored his feelings.  She had ignored the way she was
beginning to feel about him.  But she was attracted to him,
too, and now in the quiet of the night, she faced that
feeling.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, it
was those damn horses
.  It was that
day in the green valley, when they had sat there, together,
watching the beauty of those animals.  As she had watched the
mares running and the yearlings prancing against the backdrop of
those majestic snow covered granite peaks, for the first time since
the coming of the Fog, she felt real joy, and she was glad that it
was Mike who was there with her.

But he's just a kid!  Well, all right,
he’s more than a kid.  But he's what?  Sixteen years
old?

She was a cradle robber.

And you were still eighteen when you realized
that you were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by this damn
mist, Annie.  For the first three months, you were scared
shitless.

Mike stirred and turned over.

"Mike," she whispered softly, not sure she
wanted him to hear her.

"Yeah?" she heard him say.

"Come here."

Mike crawled out of his bag and came to lie
down next to Annie, who was still in her bag.  He rolled onto
his back.

Annie tried to speak.  "I... uh...
today... uh…"

Mike rolled over and took Annie’s head
between his hands, as if it was the most natural thing to do.
 He kissed Annie long and tenderly, just as Desi had taught
him so long ago.  Annie kissed him back.  She kissed his
mouth and his forehead, and she kissed his ears, and she kissed his
chin.  Eventually, she let her hand slide down the front of
his body.

"Um..." she began in a soft hesitant voice.
“I think you're ready."

Mike stiffened.  "I can't," he said.

"Oh, I think you can," she replied, her voice
changing to a confident promise.

"No, I mean, it's against the rules.”

She moved back a little.  "What?" she
said.  He was sort of killing the mood.

"I'm not sixteen yet," he explained.  "I
have to be sixteen, before I can make love with you."

"Who the hell made up that rule?" she
exclaimed.

"I did," he said earnestly.

Annie rolled onto her back and laughed.
 She laughed long, and she laughed hard.  Finally,
through tears of laughter and maybe some of relief, she sat up and
wiped her eyes.

"So, when will you be sixteen?" she
asked.

"Next week," Mike answered eagerly.

"Ah," Annie replied.

Epilogue

Two and a half years later, Mike sat on the
lawn below the Lodge.  It was the middle of May, in the late
morning.  Desi sat on his right.  She was nursing her
daughter.  John sat on his left.  They were watching
Michael and Diego.  The little boys were just below them,
giggling and laughing as they chased butterflies.

“There’s another contrail,” said John while
pointing at the sky.

“Yeah,” Desi responded.  “I wonder where
the plane came from.”

“Maybe Denver,” her husband said.  “Eric
says that they have that airport up and running.  I suppose
that they would have to since that’s where they moved the
Capitol.”

"Something's wrong," Mike said, a frown on
his face.

"Nothing’s wrong," John answered.

"I'm telling you that something is wrong,"
Mike insisted. "She threw up this morning and, well, please don't
tell her that I said this, but she's gaining weight.  I think
she might have some kind of eating sickness."

"She's not sick," Desi said, rolling her eyes
and looking behind Mike’s back at her husband.

John mouthed, "Clueless.  Totally
clueless."

Mike absently scanned the village.  It
was noisy, now that Hector and a very pregnant Kathy had the
sawmill running at the lower end of the meadow.  The Army
engineers had been a great help with that.  He could see that
progress had been made on the hole which was destined to become the
trout pond.

Not far from the river on this side, were
four A-frame cabins; Mike’s was the most recently completed.
 They faced east and west.  Each cabin had a metal
fireplace made from the gas tanks and the exhausts systems of
recovered vehicles.  On the southern exposure of each cabin
roof was a window, made from a pane of glass taken the old school
bus.  It allowed the sun to shine in and heat up the cabin.
 Around the four cabins, a covered walkway with a high pitched
roof had been constructed.  In winter, it would be easy for
the residents to move from cabin to cabin.

“The Spears found five more cars yesterday,”
John said.

As the Fog receded, a treasure trove of
automobiles and buildings had been discovered.  No bodies had
been found, but what looked like old blood stains were often
noticed.  There was a friendly competition between the Army
post and Petersburg to find useful items as the Fog diminished.

“The Mayor said that they found all kinds of
stuff at the convenience store,” said Mike. “Hector was glad to get
the welding equipment.  He says that he might get the gas
pumps working.  We could sure use the fuel.”

“The Fog is down to five thousand feet now,”
John replied.  “We’re going to be finding all kinds of stuff
in the next couple of years.”

“What did Eric mean, when he said that
someone knows what happened?” Mike asked.

“The Mayor thinks it was some kind of ‘Dark
Matter’,” Desi replied. “Something was precipitated in the
atmosphere, whatever that means.”

“Something like that,” John added. “At least,
that’s what some scientist is saying over the radio.
 Supposedly the Earth drifted through a cloud of something in
space, and that caused something to be triggered in our atmosphere.
 Kevin says that he understands.”

“So the twins want to move to the Retreat,
huh?” Mike said.

“Yeah, but the Mayor wants them to wait one
more year before leaving the farm.  I wonder if Paige and
Makayla will go with them,” John replied.  “And Don is talking
about moving there, too.  Since Major Collins moved his
command to the Retreat, it’s become a popular place to live.”

“Poor Star,” said Mike.  “She’s going to
miss Paige.”

"I miss Yuie," Desi said.

"She and Lincoln will be back next year,"
John said.  "Besides if she was here, Mike would be at East
Post."

“I hate this arrangement.  We never get
to have them here at the same time.”

Mike noticed Eric step out of the Village
Office.  Tyler and Gabby were close by.  Gabby's belly
was growing.  Tyler kissed Gabby, and he walked over to
Eric.

"Time for Council," John said, observing the
gathering.

Mike saw Eric and Tyler go inside the Office.
 He saw Ahmad, Nathan, Kathy, and Lily also making their way
there.

“Ahmad is still Admin?” Mike asked.  He
had arrived the previous day and was not yet caught up on the
various roles people were filling.

“Yeah,” John replied.  “He’s been Admin
since Howard’s time.  But Eric’s refusing to run for Mayor
again this year, so Ahmad will have to take that job.  Some
people are trying to get Erin to come back and run for it, but she
likes working for the Major.”

“Howard was a good Mayor,” said Mike.
 “He was good about bringing different people on to the
Council.  He will be a good manager at East Post.  But
Eric’s doing a good job, and Ahmad will be a good Mayor, too.”

"Eric should have asked you to serve on the
Council, Mike," Desi complained.

"Nah," said Mike. "He doesn't need me looking
over his shoulder."

Mike looked at Gabby again.  Then he
looked at Kathy.  

"Oh!" he said.

"Finally," Desi muttered.

“Gotta go,” Mike said.

Mike waved to them and went down to his
cabin.  He opened the door and went inside.  Annie was
sitting in the rocking chair Hector had made for her.

"Are you pregnant?" Mike asked.

"Yep.”

“Then everything is okay.”

The End

I hope you have enjoyed this
story.  The same story, from a girl’s point of view, is told
in
Surviving the Fog-Kathy’s
Recollections
.  I hope you will enjoy
that book, too.  I’m considering another book featuring some
of the kids from this camp.  It will involve a girl from Hume
Lake, which is farther to the north.