Kiss My Apocalips
The story of Jacob Jones and the end of the world
CHAPTER TWO -- Doriana
Hunger eventually drove us from the bed. She spent another ten minutes in that bathroom "freshening up" again, and when I went in there to relieve myself, I saw a pair of blue nylon panties drying on the edge of the tub. She was back in those tight shorts and the brief top and short boots that she'd been wearing when we met. My khaki pants and short sleeve shirt made up my high school "uniform," but I'd grabbed everything in the outdoor store that I could find in XXL (which hadn't really been that much), and I intended to change when I could.
For a girl that kept telling me that she'd "do whatever I said" in this adventure, Wanda did a lot of insisting. For example, she refused to do one more thing in that farmhouse until we had "moved the dead people somewhere else." There were no dead people, I told her flatly. But it turned out to be a firm mandate, and we picked up the seven small piles of clothing that we found and consigned them to one of the spare bedrooms. There had evidently been one woman (elderly, by the looks of the clothing) near the kitchen counter. A man's work clothes were in and around a chair by a kitchen table. He, by all appearances, had been enjoying a cup of coffee and looking at a tablet computer.
Three men had been working outside. A younger woman's and a little girl's piles of clothing were still inside. Those two individuals obviously hadn't yet made it to breakfast. It looked like the girl had been dressed for school. She had been about ten, judging from the framed pictures we saw on the wall that ran along a set of stairs leading up to the second floor.
The food in the refrigerator was still cool, and Wanda set to work making some sandwiches out of various things she scrounged in there. While that was going on, I went back outside and circled the house until I found what I was looking for: a generator unit that was sitting next to a relatively modern transformer box. A lot of richer rural residents had backup power supplies. I had seen a small windmill near the road leading up to the farm, but it looked more like it was for irrigation than electricity. The generator had its own fuel tank, which I discovered was almost full. The little engine was self-priming, and it started on the first pull of the cord. Satisfied, I went back inside.
"The lights are on!" Wanda shouted, running up to me and giving me a hug and a kiss.
"Do tell."
"You did it," she said, nodding, finally understanding. She sighed deeply. "You can do anything!"
"Please keep thinking that."
She had made ham and cheese sandwiches. The bread was fresh, and she'd garnished things with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise. Somewhere, she'd found some potato chips. It tasted wonderful. There were three big sandwiches, two for me, and I groaned in satisfaction when it was finally consumed. I checked my watch, sat back and stretched.
"Jacob, are we going to stay here?"
"For a little while. I'm going to stash the guns here. We won't leave until we have a firm plan."
"What's first?"
"Unpack the stuff from the camping store so we can reorganize and study locations. Is your comm device charged? We're both going to be making a lot of calls tonight, assuming we can find any active networks."
"Who are we going to call?"
"Lots of people. The big question is: Will anybody answer?"
I drove the EV around to the house and backed it up to the front porch, then left Wanda to unload it. Next, I investigated the big barn; and found, as I had hoped, that there was more than enough room for the two pickups. There was also evidence of animals, including at least one active horse stall (the droppings were still fresh). I also found food and water dishes for cats. There was a chicken coop, replete with fresh eggs. But not one animal, anywhere, dead or alive.
Back at the house, I helped carry in the last of the items, then I drove that truck into the barn, as well, and plugged it in to recharge before closing the big door and making sure everything was secure. I carried the eggs inside and gave them to my new life-partner.
"What could it possibly mean?" she asked me earnestly, weighing the eggs in her dainty hands. "Does any of this fit into your theory about what happened this morning?"
I shrugged. "Like I said before, ideas are cheap. Then, once a hypothesis has been made, it's easy to start dovetailing all the new facts in, making them fit." I paused and thought some more. "Yes, there's a possible explanation; But, in the end, it's all just as cockamamie as the foundation it's built on. Let's do some digging. Make some calls. I could eliminate all of my conjectures with a little more of the proper data."
It was late afternoon now, and the sun would be setting soon. There were too many things to do, not the least of which was to secure this place. I started making mental lists, trying to figure out what materials I'd need to hide things and maybe set a few traps. In the midst of all that, there were hundreds of questions that needed answering.
I picked up the tablet that had been left on the kitchen table. The house's network came back up when power was restored, but the device was protected. I got up and drifted toward the dining room. "Could you try to call all the contacts you have for your school? If there's somebody back in your home town that you know, see if you can give them a call, too. Phone anybody you can think of. See if anyone's left." I hesitated. "What IS your hometown?"
"Price Hill, near Cincinnati."
"Great. I'm going to look around a bit. Back in a sec." But I had another thought and paused. "Disable your phone's location reporting before you call." She nodded.
I wandered upstairs looking for any room that might have been used as an office. One of the four bedrooms up there was crammed with filing cabinets. A small desk had a computer cube sitting in front of a gaming keyboard, and I unplugged it, stacked it on top of a few choice cardboard folders, and I carried it all back down to the Dining room.
"Any luck?" I asked her.
"No. I connected to a few numbers at school, but they just rang and rang before going to voicemail. All I've gotten so far from Ohio is a notice of connection error."
I nodded. "Makes sense. Let's set up the dining room table as our communications hub. I found an old cube. Still haven't cracked the tablet."
She drifted into the room. "Let me see it." I handed it to her, then set to work getting the cube fired up. I couldn't tell how old the thing was. The cube had been the standard home computer since the late-twenties, and they were always the same format and size: 15X15X15 centimeters. The earliest models had used plug-in peripherals. By the mid-30s, literally everything was wireless, and the only thing on the smooth external surface was the manufacturer's name and a couple inset lenses for the holo-display and camera. This looked to be an old one, since it came with a plug-in charging pad. I was surprised to see that it wasn't encrypted. The cubes only had one thing the laptops didn't ... bigger internal storage, which is really only important if you're a data hoarder or have something to hide. Like porn. This one had a zettabyte, and was using about 30% of that for actual storage.
"Got it," she told me, holding up the tablet and patting one of the file folders. "Last six of his social."
I nodded. "Great work. Remember to kill the location reporting, then start looking around. Even if this thing is world-wide, the web's going to come down in bits and pieces."
She grinned broadly, set the tab down in front of her on its built-in stand and began poking and swiping.
The cube was mostly useless. I'd rather use my watch. As I suspected, the thing was packing a whole shit-pot of porn. There were also more than a million books that ranged in genre from barnyard sex novels to the Bible. Like I said: data hoarder. I disabled location on the thing, then did the same with my watch. Finally, I pulled up my copy of the Acton comm directory and looked up a number. Taking a deep breath, I touched the connect prompt, voice-only.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Gonzoles, it's good to hear your voice. This is Jacob Jones."
"Jacob! Hi! I didn't see you at school this morning. Are you okay?"
I hadn't planned this conversation very well. "Um ... My mother was out of town. I went to check up on her."
"Oh. Did ... Did you find her? Is she okay?" I didn't know how to answer that, and I was silent for too long. He continued. "Jacob, I am so very sorry. I only met her a couple times, but she was ...."
"Mr. Gonzoles, you're one of my favorite teachers, and one of the few people in this world that I actually trust. I'd like to share what little information I have. In return, I'd like you to be square with me and tell me whatever you know. Deal?"
I heard a long sigh. "Okay. The mayor has declared martial law; but he doesn't really have that authority, and everyone has pretty much just blown him off. He ordered the sheriff's department to barricade the routes out of town, but the sheriff simply told him no. He said he wasn't about to start shooting people, and he especially didn't want people to start shooting at him. They've called a meeting at City Hall for seven o'clock, but they also requested that people bring any personal firearms with them and turn them in. I wouldn't be at all surprised if nobody showed up."
"Sounds about par for the course," I said. "Is there anybody else? Have you heard from any other communities that weren't affected?"
"Yes. Yoncalla made it. Also, Reedsport, down on the coast, though I hear Coos Bay was hit by whatever this was. I'm beginning to think that all the larger towns and cities were. Eugene is completely deserted."
"This is going to sound weird, but please humor me. Are all the pets and farm animals in Acton still there?"
There was a long pause. "Yes, as far as I know. I'm sitting here petting my cat as we speak."
"How about Yoncalla and Reedsport?"
"I have no idea," he said. "I'll try to find out."
"Never mind," I told him. "Of course, they're still there." I sighed heavily. "There's no place unaffected between Acton and Junction City. It was deserted, also. There was some sort of crash at the Eugene Airport; I saw the smoke. Some town north of Junction City was also unaffected. There was a vehicle driving south into town, but I didn't pursue it. Also, some town on the east side of I-5, north of Springfield was spared, but I don't know which one. That's all I have for you, Mr. G. I'll try to call you again at this number next week. Goodbye, sir. And good luck."
"Same to you, Jacob. Thanks for the info. Goodbye."
I took a deep breath and stood, turning toward Wanda, and I was startled to find her standing right next to me. There were tears streaming down both of her cheeks. "Hey," I said uncertainly. "What's wrong?"
"You!" she sobbed. "I ... we just ... I'm such a ... You didn't ...."
"Hey!" I repeated, reaching out with both hands and pulling her into my arms. "What the hell is the matter?"
