The Most Miserable Winter, page 13
part #14 of Alone Series
She hadn’t eaten that day at all.
The previous day either, for that matter.
The day before that they’d finished off half a box of saltine crackers.
Dry, stale saltine crackers.
Yummy.
She had to push them onto Kristy, who sat there silently while staring off into space and not saying a word.
Each time Angela shoved a cracker into her sister’s hand it seemed to invoke a practiced response. Kristy seemed to feel the cracker and would look at it for a moment. Then out of habit she’d raise it to her lips and nibble at it. But she obviously got no joy or satisfaction from it. When she finished, she would have been content to go back to whatever she was thinking in her own little world, until Angela would repeat the process by shoving another cracker into her hand.
Angela, for her part, worried as each and every cracker was consumed. For each time their food supply was shrinking more and more.
Finally they were down to a single saltine. She wanted to give it to Kristy, but she was oh, so hungry herself.
Rarely in the history of the world had such internal turmoil been wrought from a single cracker.
She finally went the King Solomon route and broke the cracker in half. But since it didn’t break evenly she found room in her heart to give Kristy the bigger half.
Now, walking up Tillie Drive and catching the dreadful scent which awaited her, it was her empty stomach more than anything else which urged her to go on.
That, plus the thousand pounds of resolve she had packed into her tiny sixty pound frame.
At the intersection she had absolutely no problem telling which one of the four corner houses was the death house.
Damn that breeze.
She walked up the steps and approached the shattered and open window next to the front door.
She remembered Kristy telling her she’d left it open. She hadn’t understood why.
She’d asked her sister, “Why leave it open? Why make it easier for someone else to enter the house, where they might find the food you left behind?”
Kristy was patient in explaining her reasoning.
“Part of it was to let the place air out a bit, so maybe the stench wasn’t quite so bad when I went back for a second load.
“And part of it is that I try never to go into a house the same way twice, if I can help it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, these days there isn’t a lot of stuff to do for people who are stuck in their homes most of the time. No TV to watch, no video games to play…
“A lot of people get bored and spend a lot of time looking out of their windows or sitting on their porches. I see them every time I go out.”
“So?”
“So, say the neighbor across the street from a death house is sitting on his front porch and sees me open the window on the front of the death house.
“He’s likely to watch out of curiosity. Especially if no one’s had the stomach to go into that particular house before.
“If there’s anything in the house I’ll load it up into my backpack and go out the back door. For future trips to the house I’ll use the alley, since it’s less conspicuous.
“The old man watching from across the street will eventually figure out I left a different way and will stop watching.
“However, if he’s back on his porch the next day when I go back for more, and sees me show up again and crawl through the same front window, he’s gonna start wondering.
“He’ll know there had to be a reason for me to come back to the same house two days in a row and fight my way through the stench. He’ll realize there must be something pretty good inside for me to do that.
“So he’ll wait awhile until he’s sure I left.
“Now, he might never get the nerve to walk past the bodies of people he probably knew.
“But if he’s curious enough or hungry enough he may take the plunge.
“If he does go in, hopefully he won’t find where I hid the rest of the food. Hopefully he’ll think I got it all on my second run and give up.
“But… if he does find my hiding spot we’re screwed. He’ll grab every bit of it and move it across the street to his house and it’ll be long gone before I make my next run.”
Hearing her sister explain her logic, Angela saw things from a different light, a different perspective.
She thought about going around the house and going in the back door, just in case a nosy neighbor had eyes on her.
But she saw the six foot privacy fence which surrounded the back yard as she approached the house. Almost all corner houses in San Antonio have them.
The gate was likely locked and she couldn’t climb such a tall fence.
She could leave through the back door, but the front window was really her only option for going in.
She reasoned it was probably okay. If a neighbor was watching they wouldn’t see Kristy entering the same house a second time.
They’d see a totally different and much smaller scrounger going in, and wouldn’t make the connection.
She tossed her backpack through the open window ahead of her, took a deep breath, and climbed in.
Chapter 39
Angela tried to ignore the rotting bodies in the living room as she walked past them.
But she couldn’t help herself.
She made it halfway through, and something caught her eye.
It was a silk dress about her size.
Red on the bottom, white on top, with a wide black vinyl belt.
It was quite pretty, before it became covered with blood and brain matter and bits of skull.
The first time Angela saw it, you see, it was clean and pristine and not long off the rack of the department store where it was purchased.
It belonged to a classmate named Becky Morgenstein.
Becky sat behind her in class at Benedict Elementary School.
Back when there was such a thing as school.
It was the same Becky Morgenstein who now lay before her in a heap upon the floor, her corpse slowly turning into dust.
Her face was unrecognizable, of course.
Angela remembered her as a pretty girl, with blonde hair and blue eyes and a warm smile. She remembered that Becky giggled a lot, even at the worst of jokes.
Now she was anything but pretty.
Even before her skin turned gray and then black her beauty was spoiled.
Spoiled when her father shot himself in the head next to her and covered her with a disgusting collection of bodily fluids.
She was already dead then herself, so she was beyond caring. But that didn’t make it any less sad.
Angela specifically remembered the pretty dress, for Becky had worn it on picture day when all the boys and girls were encouraged to wear their “Sunday best.”
Poor children who live in dysfunctional homes hate picture day, for it advertises to everyone in the class just how poor they are.
For they have no “Sunday best.”
Angela’s version of Sunday best was a relatively unfaded pair of blue jeans and a purple blouse she borrowed from her sister.
The blouse was too big, of course, but Kristy was kind enough to take it in a bit on the sides.
“There’s not much I can do about the sleeves,” Kristy said. You’ll probably be okay if you just roll them up.”
Kristy loaned her an old pair of dress shoes, which only fit after Angela put on three pairs of thick socks. She said they looked like clown feet, but Kristy assured her that no one would notice.
“I’ll braid your hair and put some really nice ties in it,” she said. “Everybody will be so dazzled by your beauty that they won’t even notice your clothes.”
And it worked, or so it seemed.
Angela was at least presentable, if not dazzling.
And even though she stood right next to Becky in the photograph she was not outshone.
She held her own.
She remembered being so enamored by Becky’s dress and how shiny it was that she asked the girl if she could touch it.
It was soft and smooth and felt so amazing.
Now it was the last thing in the world she wanted to touch.
She hurried through the living room and made it almost to the stairs before retching.
She didn’t know it now, but the sight of Becky’s rotting corpse would haunt her dreams off and on for years.
But that was later.
Now she was focused on her mission.
Up the stairs she flew, taking them two at a time.
It didn’t take her long to find the room where Becky once slept.
The furniture was painted little-girl pink, the walls decorated in a manner typical of a pre-teen girl. It was a rather odd mix of cartoon characters and boy band posters.
As odd as it was, though, it perfectly summed up the room’s occupant. On display were the things which were important to a girl transitioning from cartoons to crushes, beginning a journey headlong down a long path toward womanhood.
But with the turmoil of her coming teenaged years standing in her way.
Angela looked around, impressed with Becky’s decorating skills and liking the room immediately.
It was the way she’d have decorated her own room if things were different in her own life.
And if her family had money for such frivolous things.
Angela was forced to decorate her room using a different technique, with a different media.
Angela’s walls were covered with newspaper articles she found interest in, stapled or taped to the walls with no rhyme or reason.
Those, and magazine photographs of anything and everything which piqued her fancy. And yes, her collection included a fair number of boy bands which came and went, playing at the Alamo Dome or one of the city’s arenas.
It was a pitiful way to decorate the walls, sure. But it suited her, for she was used to settling. She’d settled all her life.
Only in her dreams was she good enough to have the things most girls her age took for granted.
She shook herself back to reality, and to the mission at hand.
She didn’t come here to sightsee, or to feel sorry for herself.
She came here to gather food, and whatever else Kristy left behind. And she’d best get to it.
For months she’d listened to Kristy’s almost daily reports of where she’d gone, what she’d found; and what she left behind.
She knew Kristy’s normal hiding places, and she knew that beneath Becky’s mattress, hidden in an upside down box spring, was whatever her sister had gathered worth carrying home.
She shoved the mattress aside and smiled.
Any doubts she may have had that she’d picked the wrong house or that looters had beaten her to it vanished immediately.
For piled before her was enough food to keep her and Kristy alive for at least a couple of weeks.
Chapter 40
Angela’s mouth watered as she rifled through the pile, trying to decide which items to take with her and which to leave behind for her next run.
The chocolate chip cookies were going for sure, and were the first thing she tossed into the bag.
That was for the little girl inside of her.
The one with the sweet tooth which hadn’t been satisfied in oh, so long.
Next went three cans of tuna fish, for the adult side of her told her they needed protein far more than they needed cookies.
Of course, with no mayonnaise to mix with the tuna and no bread to make sandwiches with, plain tuna out of the can would be an awfully boring meal.
But maybe not.
Into the bag went three boxes of macaroni and cheese mix.
They’d learned, though Angela couldn’t remember where, that they could make macaroni and cheese without the milk and butter the box listed as required ingredients.
All they had to do was add a bit of vegetable oil, which didn’t have to be refrigerated and which was a lot easier to come by in the new world than milk or butter.
Angela would like to think there were still cows out there.
And that she would someday savor a glass of cold milk once again.
She hated to think she’d dunked her last cookie in milk.
It was the simple things which made life worth living. Angela was young and therefore short on life experience, but even she knew that.
She also knew, though Kristy took care of her on most occasions, that they were a team. And that occasionally it was incumbent on Angela to return the favor.
Kristy was in a very bad place and had been for a couple of weeks. And while Angela didn’t know what caused her to be despondent and depressed, she knew she had to do what she could to change it.
That’s why the last thing she threw into the backpack was a chocolate bar.
With almonds.
It was one of Angela’s favorite sweet things. One she’d trade away every worldly possession to own.
But one she’d give away without hesitation if there was even the slightest chance it would help Kristy get out of the bad place she was in.
She lifted the backpack and saw that it was right around half full.
It was time to stop.
Kristy was her source of knowledge regarding many things.
She trusted her sister to lead the way when it came to all things survival.
One of the things Kristy stressed to her over and over again was never to advertise to others she was successful in her scrounging efforts.
“I’d like to believe that most of them are good people, just like us, and are willing to scrounge for their own food.
“However, I also have to consider that their situations are just as dire as ours. And that they’re just as desperate as we are when we’re out of food and really hungry.
“And that hunger and desperation make a lot of people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”
“Like use force to steal food from others?”
“Exactly. That’s why we have to make them think we’re unsuccessful. That’s why I never put anything in my pockets. Because they can see the bulges.
“And what’s why I try my best to make my backpack appear empty.
“And if anyone asks what’s in the backpack I point my gun at them, muster up the meanest face I can, and tell them it’s water and ammo.”
“And that makes them leave you alone?”
“Usually. Sometimes they hesitate, like they’re trying to size me up and determine whether I’m bluffing about shooting them.
“That’s where the mean face comes in.
“Maybe I’ve just been lucky so far. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the combination of my gun pointing at them with my finger on the trigger and the mean face.
“All I know is that they’ve always backed off. And I’ve never been robbed yet. And I don’t plan to be.”
That was almost a month before.
Long before Kristy had the run in with the thug in the alley.
Long before Kristy’s inner turmoil began; before she started questioning her devotion to God and His teachings… before she started wondering whether she was bound for the fires of hell for all eternity.
Back then Kristy believed herself to be among the better humans. The ones who wouldn’t take advantage of others regardless of their personal plight.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
But if Kristy’s confidence suffered, if she was no longer sure of herself, the same didn’t hold true for little sister.
In Angela’s mind, Kristy wasn’t just the wisest and most capable woman she knew.
In Angela’s mind, Kristy was her hero. The one who’d lead them through the darkness and guide them to safety.
If the pair survived the worst the world had to offer, and someday found themselves in a better and safer place, it would be totally Kristy’s doing.
Angela saw herself as a babe in the woods, unable to fight for herself.
She saw her sister as her savior; strong, willing and capable.
Now granted, she needed a little help on this occasion.
But every superhero has his or her bad day occasionally.
Her heart told her to fill the backpack until it was overstuffed; to take as much as she could so she didn’t have to come back into this putrid house the following day.
But her head told her no. To learn from her sister, since Kristy hadn’t let her down before. She knew what she was talking about.
She was worthy of Angela’s trust.
Angela put the pack upon her back and tightened the straps.
She tightened the web belt which held her pistol another notch and practiced her war face, then walked through the open kitchen door and into the back yard.
And was confronted by someone she never expected to see.
Chapter 41
The “family meeting” was actually Lindsey’s idea. And although Red and Lilly weren’t part of the Spear family, they were invited to participate as special guests.
That was only fair, for it was actually a reciprocation.
The Spear family had been invited to be guests for the winter in Red’s home. So it was tit for tat; a quid pro quo, if you will.
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, so to speak.
Actually, that’s not quite true. It was none of that. It was just Lindsey wanting to get everyone together so she could satisfy something which had been bugging her.
Lindsey was, you see, fiercely independent and prideful.
Oh, she came by it honestly. Her mother and father shared the same traits.
In fact, each of them had been thinking of calling a meeting themselves. Each of them: Sarah and Dave, were a bit more diplomatic and planned to keep it in house and discuss it among themselves.
If Lindsey differed from them in any way it was perhaps that she was a hard charger.
She didn’t believe in talking out problems when yelling would solve them much faster.
Now, no one was yelling at this particular meeting. Everyone liked one another and everyone was cordial. Even Lindsey and Beth were getting along, which wasn’t often the case at such meetings.
