The Last Tribe (6 page)

“A cute boy?”  Greg thought to
himself.  The first person I run into in months is a teeny bopper?

The girl hesitated for a second. 
“You’re alone, right?  You’re not with the army or anyone else?”

Greg shook his head.  “At least she
is a smart teeny bopper.”  He thought.

The girl turned the deadbolt and
let Greg inside the house.  She threw her arms around him and hugged him for a
few seconds.  “Oh my god!  Oh my god!  You’re real, and you’re another person! 
And,”  She paused.  “You’re all wet.”  She stopped hugging him, pulled back and
hit him with a barrage of questions.

“What’s your name?  Where did you
come from?  I can’t believe you found me.  I haven’t seen anyone for 7 weeks,
since the army truck with like four people in yellow suits drove through town
really fast.  Have you seen anyone?  Is there anyone else alive?  Is the world
going on somewhere?  Oh my god, my name is Rebecca.  What’s your name?  I
already asked you that, and you already told me your name is Greg, sorry. 
Okay, I’ll be quiet now.”  Rebecca was a out of breath from the excitement and
asking so many questions.

Greg stood in the doorway and felt
the warmth of the house in front of him.  The cold air was still on his back. 
He let the questions come.  “Hi Rebecca, my name is Greg, Greg Dixon.  May I
come in and sit by the fire.  Maybe heat some of my food?”  Greg lied about
having food in hopes of eating some of hers, or because he was too tired to remember
he did not have any.  “I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear.  I am just as
excited to meet you.  I haven’t seen anyone, and I mean anyone, in months.”

“I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!”  She
replied excitedly.  “I can make you some soup.  That’s pretty much what I have,
lots of cans of soup.  My parents ran the local grocery store, and they held
the last two shipments of soup in the basement.  I have just about any kind of
soup you want.”

“Do you have the one with little
hamburgers in it?”  Greg loved that soup, but would eat anything she had.  She
could warm a bowl of water, and he would drink it just to heat his insides.

“I do.  Let me get it.”  She moved
aside to let Greg into the house.  “Come in.  Put your stuff anywhere you want,
and sit by the fire.”  Rebecca bounded through the living room ahead of him.  She
opened a cupboard next to the fireplace and pulled out a can with a red label. 
She pulled the tab off of the top and poured the soup into a metal pot, more a
cauldron, with a wire handle.  She hung the pot on a metal rod with a hook and
swung it over the fire.  “I looked at a house with a woodstove, but there were
people upstairs, you know, not alive, so I decided I could work with a
fireplace instead.  My dad loved the store that sells all this fireplace
cooking stuff.  I make it work.  Oh my god I’m so lonely.  I’m sorry I’m
talking so much.”

Greg warmed his hands, letting heat
flow through his freezing body.  He sat down and took off his coat and boots. 
Rebecca continued with questions.  She rambled about herself.  She even started
crying at one point.  Greg waited for the soup and listened.  He gave yes or no
responses when prompted.  He knew the girl wanted to talk to someone more than
she cared about his answers. 

Greg was almost in shock.  He was
hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted.  He was not capable of giving more than the
one word responses he offered. 

When the soup was hot, Rebecca used
an oven mitt to grab the pot handle and pour it into a paper bowl.  She gave
Greg a plastic spoon, and sat quietly, waiting for Greg to eat, and more
importantly, to answer her questions.

“I walked from Boston, well Hightower.” 
He began.  “I’m headed further north to Hanover.  My family is meeting me
there, probably not until the spring, but maybe this fall.  I don’t know which,
but I know I have to get up there.”  Greg explained as his warm, full belly
brought energy back into his body.

“You walked here from Boston?  Wow,
that’s pretty far.    Even if we had a car it would take you over an hour to
get to Hanover, and you want to walk?  I went to volleyball camp in Hanover
last summer.”  Rebecca stopped talking.   “Wait, you think your family is up
there?  Your family is alive?”

Greg nodded.  He explained the
phone call with his father.  He told her that his father, brothers, uncles, and
cousins were not getting sick, and they decided to meet in Hanover.  He told
her one of his uncles was in Raleigh when everything began, and was still alive
after a few months.

“My parents died about two months
ago, just like everyone else in town.  Concord and Manchester died early for
New England.  My parents said it was because half the town worked at the
airport and caught it early, but I don’t know.  I think the whole country died
at about the same time.”  Rebecca was not as frenetic in her conversation.  She
was serious and sad when she spoke of her parents.

“How did you end up here?  How did
you survive on your own for so long?”  Greg was curious because Rebecca was
young.

“I’m 13 years old.  I’m not a
baby.  Once I realized I was going to survive, I made some rules, made some
decisions, stuck to a plan my parents wrote for me.  You know, most of the kids
died first, I think because we’re younger and still growing, or because we’re
smaller, but whatever.  It was weird that I didn’t get sick like everyone else
at my school.  My parents kept me home, told people I was sick, and held back
canned food for me.  Right at the beginning, when Raleigh happened, they
started hoarding the food, mostly for the town and survivors, and then
specifically for me.  You know, people could tell they were sick.  They weren’t
hungry, had to force themselves to eat.  They just got wiped out.  My parents
knew, probably a week before they caught fevers.”  She paused, wiping away a
tear.  “It feels good to talk about it, you know, to talk to someone.”

Greg nodded.  He knew they would
have a lot of time to talk about what he had seen.  He wanted to ask more
questions about the rapture.  He was locked in his dorm when the sick were
moved to the infirmary.  He did not know much about the disease.  Greg knew his
mother was dead, and wanted to know how she died.  How she was at the end.

“Anyway, I wasn’t sick, and my parents
kept all this food, and we wrote down some rules: Don’t trust the military or
the government.  Don’t trust adults.  Don’t go outside or be seen or have fires
until you know everyone is dead.  Don’t share your food.  I stuck to those
until about four weeks ago.  I haven’t seen or heard anything for weeks.  At
first the airport was crazy busy, and I could see military planes and big jets
coming and going all the time.  I would sneak up there and watch.  Guards were
posted, but they weren’t paying attention.  The military was moving people and
equipment and supplies.  I have no idea where.  After the first week, there
were less and less soldiers, less planes.  Then there weren’t many planes
landing.  I hid in our house.  My parents went to the neighbor’s house to die. 
They wanted to make sure I had a clean place, no dead bodies to deal with.  I stayed
there until the gas ran out in the fireplace.  Oops, great planning, huh?  Gas
fireplace?”  Rebecca laughed.  Greg smiled.  He loved hearing her story.  He
enjoyed the sound of another voice.

“I knew they built this subdivision
pretty close to us, and there was a model home with a fireplace, a wood burning
one, not gas like ours.  I moved supplies over here, took wood from other
houses, and I moved.  I kept waiting for someone to show up, even a bad person
or the government, I didn’t care at this point.  You know?  I just wanted to
see and talk to someone.”

Greg continued to nod.  “Yeah, I
know.  I walked off the highway and smelled the fire, and thought the same
thing.  I had to see another person, even with the risks.  I didn’t want to be
alone anymore.”  He felt light headed, weak from his journey, and he swayed
slightly from side to side as if he was about to blackout. 

Rebecca sat on the couch while Greg
was on the hearth warming his bones and finishing the soup.  She got up and sat
next to him, giving him another hug.  She began to cry again.  Greg was not an
emotional person, but this time, unlike the first time she hugged him, he
hugged her back tightly.

Rebecca felt Greg’s ribs under his
thick fleece pullover.  He was a skeleton.  His clothes were filthy, and he was
soaking wet.  She could feel him shivering.  She saw the color drained from his
face.

“You have to get out of these clothes.” 
She announced.  “I don’t know how you aren’t sick as a dog.  How long have you
been walking in the cold and rain?”

Greg had to think about his trip
before answering.  He was a zombie.  “A week, I think.  I can’t remember.”  He
began to cry.  “I don’t know.  Oh my god, I don’t know.  A week?  I can’t get
there.  I keep walking, and I can’t get anywhere.  I have cat food in my
backpack.  I almost ate cat food.”  Greg’s composure was gone.

Rebecca stood.  “Take off your clothes. 
You need a bath, and some clean, dry pajamas.  I don’t think you have a fever,
but you need to rest.  I’ll drag another couch in from the other room.” She
picked up the soup pot and poured water into it from a nearby bottle. 

“Get out of those clothes.”  She
said to him again.  “Don’t be bashful.  Stay by the fire.  I’m going to get
some dry pj’s for you.”  She hung the water pot over the fire before heading
upstairs.

Greg pulled off his fleece, folding
it neatly on the hearth just behind where he sat.  His fingers were clumsy,
nearly useless.  He was more exhausted and feeble than he realized. 

Rebecca came back downstairs
holding an armful of linen, pajamas, a robe, and a set of slippers.  She
dropped them in front of Greg.  A towel sat on top of the pile.

“I’m going into the other room. 
Call me when you are changed.”  She looked at the water over the fire.  It was
forming bubbles, but not at a boil.  “Try and hurry.  I’m making you more
food.  You feel like a skeleton.  Also, it’s cold in the other room.  I don’t
want to be in there long.”

The young woman went around the
corner into the dark.  “I’m waiting.”  She called, as if she knew Greg was
still sitting on the hearth and not getting dressed.

He shook his head to clear some of
the cobwebs that were forming, took off his clothes, and dried himself with the
plush towel.  He pulled on the clean pajamas, wrapped up in the robe, and
slipped the fuzzy shoes onto his feet.  “Okay.”  He called to her.

Greg looked like a little old man. 
Matching light blue plaid adorned his body.  The clothes were flannel and warm,
but they were slightly too big for him, particularly in his current
malnourished form. 

Rebecca bounced around the corner
and clapped her hands.  “There.  You are starting to look healthier already.  I
can wash these clothes tomorrow if you want to keep them.  I think they should
just go in the trash, but it’s up to you.”  She picked up the folded wet outfit
Greg wore just minutes earlier and placed them on the bottom step of a
staircase.  “I don’t know if you will be able to keep it down, but I’m making
you some ramen.  I know it’s salty, but it’s calories, it’s fast, and it’s
warm.”  She opened a cupboard next to the fireplace.  Greg saw rows of soup,
pasta, and ramen.  He saw canned vegetables, fruits, soda, and bottled water. 

Rebecca grabbed a package of chicken
ramen noodles, placed it into the now boiling water, and stirred the noodles
with a metal fork. 

“One more thing.”  She jumped up
and ran through a swinging door.  She returned with an egg, and a cold soda she
offered to Greg.

“An egg?  Where did she get an
egg?  How old is that egg?”  Greg’s mind asked questions while his mouth remained
silent.  He opened the bottle of soda and began to drink.  Despite his attempts
to find water during the trek, he was always on the edge of dehydration.  The
clear, sugary liquid felt fantastic against his dry throat.

Rebecca cracked the egg into the
ramen, stirring the noodles rapidly to scramble the concoction.  She used her
mitt to pull the pot off the rack, and poured the mixture into a large plastic
bowl.

“Eat what you can.  I mean, when
it’s cool enough to eat.”  She placed the bowl of steaming food next to Greg. 
The metal fork she used to stir rested across the top.

“I know you’re dead tired, but I’ve
been so lonely.  Do you mind if I just talk to you?  You don’t have to
respond.  I just want to talk to another person.”  Rebecca looked at him eagerly.

“You have someone to talk to now.” 
He said quietly.  “We each just made a new best friend.”  Greg reached passed
the food and wrapped his arms around the young girl.

They stayed by the fire for a few
minutes, hugging.  Rebecca let go.  “One of my house rules, trash goes outside
in the containers.  No trash in the house.”

Just like that, with the listing of
a house rules, the tender moment was over. 

Greg did as he was told, walking
out to the trash can in his newly acquired outfit to throw away the egg shell
and ramen wrapper.  It was cold, and sleet drizzled down on him.  He was happy
to be in a house with a fire, and not trudging towards Hanover, or curled up on
the floor of a random house, hungry and cold.  He came back onto the porch and
noticed firewood stacked on half of the covered porch, conveniently placed next
to the door.  Rebecca was a smart girl. 

Greg grabbed an arm full of wood to
load into the basket by the fire. 

“There is another sofa in the other
room.  We can pull it into here.  Do you think you can help?  I know you’re
tired.  You can call it a night if you need to rest.”  Rebecca hoped for his
help, but would manage without him if necessary.

“Sure.  I have one more burst of
energy left, especially after the egg ramen.”  Greg replied.  He ate all of the
food.  His stomach ached from overeating.  Six months ago he could eat an
entire pizza by himself.  Today his stomach was so small a bowl of soup made
him feel full.