Honeymoon: Part One

 

The next morning, we packed up the bikes, got last minute instructions from Daniel and headed out for the four-lane, where we turned southwest.  A couple of weeks away from the others would be adequate time to get accustomed to one another in this new way.  Honeymoon seemed like such a silly word to my aged mind, but that was the reality.  The others cheered us as we revved the engines and pulled away down the dirt road.    

From the dirt, we turned north on a narrow paved road which would take us to the four lane main drag that had been our customary route to the community where we picked up most of our supplies.  This particular stretch of highway was in need of repair due to frost damage, but with no construction crew to take on the project, we would just have to keep our eyes open and dodge the potholes.  I wondered, as the wind whistled past my helmet, how long it would take for the rest of the country to be taken over by nature to the point where all things human, would revert to their original wild nature, cement to stone and sand, city streets to trees and grass.  What about the world’s libraries?  Would they contain the knowledge necessary for someone to learn how to redo what we once took for granted or as in the movie, The Time Machine, would that knowledge simply turn to dust?  I could drive a truck and possibly handle a paving machine with time, but I had no idea how to prepare a road bed, where to get that heated asphalt, how to mix cement in large enough quantities to be of any use on a large project such as a highway.  In short, without some expertise, our little world was in trouble.

We hadn’t been on the road for very long before coming to a familiar interchange from months ago, so decided to take a look around.  Stopping at food stores was always interesting, because there was such a smorgasbord of things still fit to eat.  Sometimes, the building reeked of rotten, decaying flesh and vegetables, but with the passing of time, most of the odor was now gone.  We remembered an especially large store just off the highway whose interior had seemed as large as a football field.  I can still remember shopping there many years before when I had lived and worked nearby.  Even then, when I was much younger, it was a tiring trip around the aisles.  What I especially liked about that particular place was their fresh fruit and vegetable sections.  There were too many bins to count, all along the south wall of the building.  In the fall one could purchase pimento peppers with their thick red walls.  We roasted them, peeled the skin and soaked them in balsamic vinegar and oil for a day or two before feasting on them with toasted artisan bread.   “Boy! I could sure go for some of that,” I said out loud to no one in particular.

The store had been badly damaged, leaving several large holes where the enemy had entered and wiped out all the shoppers.  It was ironic that they had attacked a grocery store, took the shoppers and left the food.  And I could never understand why they had left the meat.

We entered through the front door, which was difficult, but not impossible to open.  The holes provided fresh air and some light to the interior, although not as much as I had expected.  The aisles were strewn with clothing, canned goods of all sorts and in some instances, parts of the overhead lighting was now covering the once immaculate floors.  Miraculously, some of the shelving was still standing, the goods, still intact and although more than likely out of date, probably safe to eat if the cans were not swollen.  We found this particularly true of potato chips.  Amazing the effectiveness of the preservatives in those bags! 

“Warren, Hon!” Lise called. 

“What is it Lise?” I asked returning to ascertain what she wanted.

“This whole section of corned beef.  It’s empty,” she said, “Does it make sense to you that maybe it was on sale the day of the invasion?”

Without thinking through what I was saying, I agreed.  Then I noticed that there were a few empty cans of it nearby both on the shelf and also on the floor. 

Lise followed my eyes and sensed what was on my mind.  “So, when do you think they had the sale, Warren?  Before or after they were attacked?”

“Look at the hole in the north wall. It looks like someone tried to fix it.  There was a survivor,” I added.

“Or survivors!”

“Yeah,” I said.  “But for how long?  And where are they now?”  I began to get an edgy feeling.  I was remembering what happened the last time we met survivors.   “Lise, come on.  We need to go back to the bikes.” I took her hand and gave her a slight tug.    Lise grabbed a few more bags of well preserved snacks as we headed back to the front door.

The motorcycles were where we left them.  We put on our helmets, hopped on, started them up and took off.  I headed for the highway, entered from where we had left it and drove under the overpass parking on the west side.  Lise pulled in behind me.  I pulled over to check the saddle bags.  I reached in and pulled out my handgun and holster, and began to strap it around my chest.  Looking back to Lise, I was about to suggest that she follow my example, but she wasn't on her bike.  Looking around, I didn’t see her anywhere.  This hadn’t happened before, so I began to get worried.  I needn’t have.

“Pst!  Over here, Warren,” I heard her voice say from somewhere behind me near where the embankment began to climb up, sloped toward the overhead roadway.  “Come on over here.  I have something for you.”

“What could you possibly have for me over there?” I replied, now able to make out her head poking out from behind a concrete pillar.

“How about this,” she said, jumping out from behind the pillar revealing a totally naked Lise, wearing nothing more than a big grin.  She seemed to have no hang-ups over her nude body.  Still, it was difficult to believe that I had known this creature intimately for only a day and a half.  She did a couple of jumping jacks, before darting back behind the column.  “Get over here now,” she commanded teasingly and with that darted into the uncut grass and pampas beside the road.

I was thinking that this was probably not the best place or time for such an encounter, but quickly deleted that thought, as I realized that anyone seeing us in town, would most likely not have followed us and considering how heavy the traffic had been for the last three years, how unlikely is was that we would be seeing anyone today.  However, I still took my gun with me and laid it nearby after a brief wrestling match with wiry Lise. 

***

   The sun was still high as we returned to the bikes.  Lise obligingly strapped on the holster and tucked in the gun and snapped up her leather jacket.  I led the way back to town, but made a left at the intersection where the store had been.  There was a chain of tire stores and I wanted to check out the large one ahead on our left.

“Why are we going in here?” she questioned.

“Just a hunch!  As you observed back in the store, someone had been there after the attack.  That someone may still be alive.  Also, there may be more than one and they might possibly be timid or afraid of strangers or worse.”

“Yeah, but so what?”

“Think about it, Lise.  When people get scared, they can sometimes act irrationally.  They do sell guns here, so I’d like to check it out to see if any appear to be missing.  We may have to defend ourselves in case someone takes us for the enemy and they’re armed,” and then added, because I really didn’t know, “assuming someone is still alive, that is.  We’ll check the sporting goods department.”

“This place is pretty messed up.  Hon, I’m going to check out the camping section.  I remember seeing jerky and other dried foods at the other store when we were shopping, the day of the attack.  I’m sure it must be still good, and we could use the food.”

“Just watch yourself, sweetheart.  We don’t know where we might meet up with someone,” I cautioned. 

“Will do,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared behind another aisle. 

As I'd suspected, the display case was smashed, the locks were broken, and only a few, almost useless, pellet guns remained.  The thoughts of a rendezvous with a paranoid survivor didn't imbue me with confidence, especially if it were one who probably carried a loaded shotgun.  And we didn’t want to have another encounter with the likes of Daniel’s former friends.  Yet, the idea of abandoning someone, because they were afraid didn't sit well with me either.  Didn't we experience the same sense of fear every time we'd heard the snap of a twig, or the plunk of a dropping pebble?  If this person was alive, we'd have to risk finding him or her.  And yet, we had to be very careful.  We didn't want another encounter like the one we'd had with the three young men who visited our camp.

Lise returned empty handed.  I hadn’t given much thought to the food items she'd been searching for until I saw her.  “There wasn’t a thing there Warren.  Even the camp gas and things like that were gone,” she said.  I could see her gears working.  “The guns are gone, too.  Aren’t they?” she continued.      

“Lise, someone's definitely been here before us.  So now we know a couple of things.   Someone undeniably survived the attack and they’re armed.  And could be dangerous,” I added.  “I did find something useful for us, though,” I added.  I handed a couple of boxes of ammunition to Lise and we started for the door. 

The two of us sat down on our bikes in the parking lot and considered our next move.  No one had taken a shot at us, but then we hadn’t seen anyone yet, either. 

“Lise!  The empty cans on the floor.  Did that look recent?” I questioned.

“I’m not sure.  I really can’t say.”  

 “I’d like to tool around a bit and see if we can spot any other unusual…out of place things.”

"Are you sure you want to hang around here?  We might run into whoever it is and not like them."

"On the other hand, having picked up guns and food is the same thing we've been doing.  Are we unfriendly?"

"Okay, let's hang around and see what pops up.  But let's not do it for too long.  This place is starting to give me the creeps.  If we do hang around, what exactly will we be looking for?”

“Maybe repairs!  Most of the places are pretty beaten up.”  It seemed simple enough.  “If something has a repair, we'll assume that someone fixed it after the invasion.  Agreed?”

“Maybe,” she said.  “But isn’t it possible that someone just happened to make some repairs on their place before the invasion and it just looks like it happened afterwards?”

“Yes, that is a valid point of view, but perhaps, we can still assume it took place after, and check it out, just to make sure.  Can you agree to that?”

Lise nodded her head and we left the tire store parking lot and drove down the main avenue, a six lane highway.   We took our time navigating the streets.  Some buildings had very little damage, but none appeared to have been restored in any way.  We turned around and headed back in the direction of the grocery store, and before entering, circled the building a couple of times looking for anything strange.  There was nothing of note.  All looked like a battle zone.  Brick lay here and there, wood lay rotting on the asphalt parking lot.  Windows were shattered and small shards of glass lined our path.  We parked in front and re-entered the store.

***

We decided to return to the canned meat department for a second look to see if we could in some way determine if the survivor was still shopping at that particular establishment.  Seeing that most of the canned goods had already been taken, we decided to look further.  After all, people usually eat more than canned beef or pork.  What we determined was that a lot of food was gone, but the odd cans lying around didn't account for the amount of missing food items.  As we approached the jams, something with a lot of sugar and surely well preserved, I heard a noise behind me that brought on a familiar sensation on my arms and the back of my neck.  A low growl greeted me as I turned to face what appeared to be a very skeletal Golden Lab, its hackles raised and looking pretty mean.  “Don’t move,” I instructed Lise in a whisper.  The poor animal was obviously malnourished and in need of something to eat, but I wasn't interested in either Lise or myself becoming his meal.  The dog took a couple of tentative steps closer.  A Lab, normally a friendly canine, was more likely to lick a person to death than chew on them.  They seemed to lack the maliciousness of some other breeds, but there was no telling how this one was going to behave.  A couple of more steps and I was sure it was going to charge.  I remembered a story that my younger brother had told me when he had experienced an angry dog that was protecting his territory.  He had simply shouted to the dog to sit.  It had worked.  But would this animal, one that had been on its own for three years, with no human contact, still respond to commands?  I decided there was nothing to lose.  “Sit!” I commanded.  The dog stood still, but did not obey.  My cousin, a good friend and dog owner from the east had once told me not to repeat commands, but to simply say the word.  “No!” I ordered the second time.  Meanwhile, I didn't take my eyes off the creature.  It cocked its head to one side.  Was it trying to remember “Human?”  Was it trying to recall something from a distant past?  Then, like a well trained pet, down it went, tail scuffing along the floor. 

Lise, who with trepidation had been observing my canine instruction lesson 101, was now in awe at my success.  “Where did you learn to do that?” she questioned. 

“First time,” I answered.  “Lise, very slowly grab one of those peanut butter jars from the shelf and hand it to me.”  She slid it into my hand.  Continuing to keep the dog in sight, I twisted the lid open and peeled back the paper seal.  It didn't smell like anything I'd want to eat, but my experience with dogs told me that this animal might not care.  I hunkered down to the floor and put some peanut butter on my hand and clicked my tongue, using sounds I had used years before when I had had my own large breed who loved to eat this stuff right out of the jar.  The lab lowered itself to the floor and began to crawl towards me.  I could see a certain amount of fear in its eyes, but the way it was moving its mouth told me that its nose was working just fine and wanted what was in the jar.  When it was within about three feet of me, it stopped moving, fear overtaking hunger.  I placed some peanut butter on the back of my hand and reached as far as I could towards its face.  It inched forward, tongue stretching for my hand, until it made contact.  Slowly at first, then rapidly it cleaned my hand.  I spoke gently to the dog and slid the jar between us.  Turning to Lise, I saw her placing her gun back in its holster. 

“I wasn’t going to let it get you,” she said.  “The poor thing!”  Lise squatted down and moved ever so slowly to find her place beside me.  “What are we going to call him?” she asked.

“Him?  Call him?  What are you talking about?” I asked.  “Do you think we are going to keep it?”  I did a quick check.  Yup, Lise was right.  It was a he.  “We can’t take him on our bikes.  Besides, just because he eats off my hand and takes a jar of peanut butter from us, doesn’t mean he wants to marry us,” I insisted. 

“What if we find some other people here?  We can’t take them back on our bikes either,” Lise retorted.

I ignored Lise’s last remark and began to recall a time many years earlier when my friend, Sparky, arrived at our front door.  He was so cute, with the most beautiful markings, I couldn’t resist taking him.  My children were delighted to have a puppy.  In no time, he was house trained and was so attached to me, that when he was small, his nose often rested against my calf muscle as I walked around wearing shorts, Sparky apparently on an invisible short leash.  He had been purported to be a medium breed, but the salesman either lied about his heritage, or he was an aberration, a variety of the same breed with new features presenting themselves.  

When there was nothing to do, Sparky often simply sat nearby in some shady spot with his eyes on me, waiting for my next move.  If I moved away, he got up and followed.  Sometimes, he liked to jump at me and snap his teeth so close to my hand that I thought he was going to bite me, but he seemed to know his limits. 

I'd always wanted a dog that liked to jump in the river or lake.  I had envisioned Sparky darting out into the water to fetch sticks and swim with us.  But he didn’t like deep water.  “Slim!”  I mulled the name over in my mind. 

Yes, a lab would hopefully have a different view about water, like that stupid lab that lived at the camping spot we stayed at one summer.  I'd been trying to fish, but the camp owner’s lab kept splashing around at the shore line scaring away anything big enough to fit onto a plate.  And then it had the nerve to get as close as possible and shake itself dry.    In an attempt to get it away from me, I had picked up a rock and tossed it about half way across the river and the dumb animal went after it.  I was afraid it was going to drown; it was out there swimming for nearly twenty minutes looking for that rock. 

“Warren, are you listening to me?”

What was it she had been talking about?  Oh yes.  “True,” I thought, but said nothing to Lise.  “You know, there’s probably a whole selection of food in the pet section, unless some other animals have found it first.   Slim!” I said, turning and heading in search of dog food, this time loud enough for her to hear. 

“What?” Lise asked.  “Slim?  Slim what?”

“If the lab wants to hang around, we’ll call him Slim.”

“That’s a stupid name for a dog,” she replied. 

“Well, take a good look at him.”

“What if he was fat before and now puts all that weight back on?”  I had to laugh at that.  Thoughts of this dog putting on enough meat to be considered fat was more than my imagination could handle.   Besides, even people are sometimes purposefully and ironically nicknamed the opposite of their stature.  A tall fellow being called Shorty, was a good example.  So, “Slim,” it would be.  At least until Lise had her way.

The Morning After

Presently, as I studied this new morning, I felt a hand briefly caress my back. It slid up to my right shoulder, then, a second hand gently squeezed my other side as a warm face pressed against the back of my neck and a quiet voice whispered, “I’ll be back in bed if you need me.”  I tilted my head and raised my shoulder so I could press my cheek against the back of her soft hand.  I reached up and touched her gently.  Then she was gone, but I could tell that her heart too, was healing.  How long had it been since I had heard her sing?  There came that soft, sweet melody once again floating on the cool morning air. 

Doctor Manning happened to pass by, wearing a peculiar grin, a look I had never seen on her face before.  “Good morning,” she said, musically.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Not particularly,” I responded, making no mention of someone resting in my bed.

“I suspected as much,” she said, without turning around, and in a matter of fact manner that betrayed her knowledge of the night’s events. I’m sure my eyebrows rose as I envisioned the good doctor sitting at her desk, nodding and passing out advice to a certain young lady concerning her love life and was now convinced that last night’s activities had been of her devising.  And, it had worked. 

Suddenly, I heard the music again, quiet at first, then a little louder.  It was Lise, singing a song I thought long forgotten, one from her homeland in Africa.  There were those high silky sounds that only she could produce, that made my hair stand on end. 

A few moments later, I shook my head slowly and with a broad smile, one I had not worn for a couple of years, turned and joyfully returned to my bed and her waiting outstretched arms where I would spend several sleepless hours entangled in her warmth and love.  I had not had a heart attack.  To the contrary, I was a man reborn.  Today, the world was a better, happier place.  Since that tragic event so few months ago, this had become the best day of my entire life.  I couldn't have felt better.  Hope lived on. 

***

Lise had discretely left my quarters looking this way and that before exiting my room and carefully returned to hers although I wasn’t sure this was necessary.  That didn’t diminish the excitement in her as her roommates pummeled her with questions, many of which, Lise would not answer.  With so few of us and so few rooms to go around, the only ones who knew nothing, or were at least presumed to be ignorant of the facts were the Doctor, Bruce and Daniel.  The former’s knowledge of events, I had figured at least, was as it would be stated in legal terms, accessory before the fact.  The boys, on the other hand, unless they had actually seen Lise enter or leave my quarters were completely out of the loop.

It was still early in the day when I met up with Carol in the woods.  She said nothing much at first, but just kept the conversation about the weather.  For someone who had to have known about last night, she was pretty tight lipped.  Then, feeling as if we were alone, she entered my personal space, put her arms around me and uncharacteristically, planted a sustained kiss on my cheek.  She immediately stepped back and with a big smile congratulated me.

“You know, Warren, I wondered if you would ever catch that kid.  She certainly gave you lots of opportunities.”

“What do you mean?  Me catch her?  I wasn’t chasing her.”

“Whether you realize it or not, Warren, I saw how you acted when she was around you.”

“Everyone’s different around her,” I defended myself.

“Everyone, as in Bruce, or Daniel?”

“I never noticed either of them taking any interest in Lise.”

“Exactly!  They didn’t.  But whenever she was around you, you went starry eyed.”

“Oh, come on.  I’m not a teenager.”

“No, but you were in love with her.  That was obvious to everyone except you.”  I was about to speak, but Carol cut me off.  “Actually, I’m not sure if it wasn’t obvious to you, too.  You just didn’t want to admit it.”

“I’m an old man.  What child would want an old man?”

“Obviously, Lise wanted you.”

“It’s not like she had a lot to pick from.”

“She’s probably had her eyes on you since kindergarten.”  A broad smile appeared on her face.

“Now you’re being ridiculous.  She’s not that kind of girl.”

“Warren, you may be a little older than her, well, actually a lot older, but I can assure you, you are a good looking man.  Don’t put yourself down.  And, in my opinion, you’re a good man.  That’s important to Lise.”

“Did you talk her into coming to see me?”

“Well, not exactly.  It was her idea, but she did come to me for advice.”

“And?”

“And I told her to follow her heart.  It is a gentle, kind, sweet heart, too, so be nice to her, Warren.  She’s gone through a lot.  In her eyes, you’re all she has left.”

I'd had enough of the conversation.  I made as if I were going to restart my walk.  “It’s been nice talking to you, Carol.  We should meet like this more often.”  I was about to turn and leave, when Carol gave me another kiss on the cheek.

“See you around camp, then,” she said, turning around and walking in the direction of her cave.

***

No more than fifteen minutes had passed as I sauntered along the now dry cross-country ski trail, when I heard the snapping of the twigs behind me and turning around, caught sight of Lise.   My heart skipped a beat.  She was wearing a most uncharacteristic expression.  “Lise, my darling, what a surprise!  Did you come to accompany me on the trail?”

She said nothing until she was upon me.  “What have you done to me?  I thought you loved me.  You told me that last night.  Or did you just make that up so you could have your fun?”

“Excuse me?  Lise, what are you talking about?  Of course I love you.  What’s gotten into you?”

“All night long you hold me, kiss me, make love to me and tell me how much I mean to you and then this.”  She grabbed at my arm and then started to pound on my chest.

“What this are you talking about?”  I had to deflect her blows as they were coming pretty hard.

She was crying freely now, but between sobs, out came the words, “Doctor Manning…kissing…hugging…kissing.” 

"Lise, are you listening to yourself?"  She certainly wasn't acting rational, for it had been she who'd offered herself to me.  If she could remember the entire dialogue from our night together and her apparent talk with Carol, she wouldn't have jumped to any conclusions.  But, here we were.  She had either seen or been told of my encounter with the good doctor, the doctor who meant a great deal to me, but who would never find herself in another relationship with a man.  This would have been comical if Lise’s pain were not so evident.  I tried to console her, reassuring her that she meant the entire world to me, but she would have none of it.  She spurned my touch, but I managed to grab hold and hang on long enough to give her a message.  “Lise, you don’t understand.  I do love you, but you will have to just go and tell Doctor Manning.  Make her understand.  Please.”  I hoped that I had given her the impression that Carol was after me.

Lise jerked herself free and stomped off toward camp.  I figured that by the time I got back, if Lise had gone directly to see Carol that she might be ready to speak to me again.  I wasn’t sure how Carol would handle this, but I felt that it was partly her fault.  After all, she'd never kissed me before.  It had even taken me by surprise.

When I got back to camp, everyone was in sight but Lise.  Wherever could she have gone?  Doctor Manning saw me coming and headed in my direction. 

“Warren, I just had a chat with a young lady.  You might want to find her and have a chat with her yourself.”

“I will.  Thanks.”  And with that, I walked about the camp speaking to the girls and both boys, asking if they'd seen her.  She wasn't in her quarters and I knew that she wouldn't be with the boys.  And since Doctor Manning had been the one to tell me to speak with her, I was certain she wasn't hanging out in the dispensary. I finally figured that she'd probably taken another walk.  I'd talk to her when she returned. 

I entered my quarters, closed my door and reached for the lamp switch.   Nothing!  I reached my hand to the bulb and found it was missing.  That was odd.  I was about to open the door when the sound of and the light from a match drew my attention to the corner of my room where my bed was located.  The match moved ghost-like in the darkness until the room began to glow in the pale light of a single candle.  Someone was in the room and that someone had to be Lise.  I followed the light, so to speak, for I knew it was a special place, but not for the dead.  In this case, it was for the living.

It was such a small candle and my eyes having been just outside in the sunlight were having difficulty adjusting to the darkness.  I could make out a single figure sitting on the edge of the bed.  Her voice finally removed any doubt.

“Warren, I’m so sorry.”  I wanted to respond, but Lise was a fast talker when she wanted to be.  “How could I have doubted you?  How could I have doubted what I experienced last night?  How could I be so jealous?”

I was thinking, “Well, sometimes what we need to do is to ask questions before we jump to conclusions,” but I really said, “I can understand how you were feeling.  You saw me with another woman in a compromising situation.  What else could you think?”  Then I added, “What did Doctor Manning tell you, Sweetheart?”

“What you already know.  Why didn’t you tell me?  She’s concealed it so well.  I had no idea.  I thought you were playing a trick on me and that you were secretly in love with her.”

“I promised Carol a long time ago, that this would be our secret.  So, how do you feel right now?”

“Stupid!  Embarrassed!”

“Lise, don’t feel bad.  I have nothing but what is left of an older man to give you.  But I can assure you of one thing.  The heart beating in my chest is owned by no one else but you.”  I sat down beside her in the flickering candle light, took her face in my hands.  “Lise, didn’t we marry last night?  Didn’t I promise to be faithful to you and not let anyone come between us?”

“Yes.  But no one else got to take part last night.”

“We can rectify that.  We can make that a part of the process, the protocol as I like to say.  But I don’t think anyone else belonged in that room but the two of us.”

She encircled me in her arms, kissed me hard on the mouth, several times all over my face and ran out of the room. 

“Thank you Carol,” I said out loud when Lise was gone.  It was all I could think of at that moment.   She had gotten me into the mess and she also got me out.  But now, Lise also knew the secret.  I hoped that she could keep it that way.

***

 Other than the misunderstanding with Lise, it had been a wonderful night, and morning.  The sunny, cloudless afternoon would be the perfect ending of an almost perfect beginning.  There was no point in waiting.  After all, we'd already experienced the wedding night.  And it was the ideal day for an outdoor get-together. 

There was no tuxedo, no fancy wedding dress, no preacher, but at about 4:00 P.M. two people confirmed their belief that marriage was still alive and well and renewed their commitment before the group of survivors of our small community.  After a brief ceremony, overseen by Doctor Manning in which we exchanged hastily prepared vows, we ate a delicious meal, obviously prepared well in advance.  Lise smiled her usual smile, her face aglow with her inward beauty that no others could match.  We didn’t sit at our table for this celebration.  Sitting next to Lise cross legged on a blanket, picking out viands from the platters set before us, I realized another fact.  Those smiling, happy, excited faces seated around us, were all in on it, even Bruce and Daniel.  Talk about a conspiracy!  How could I have been so blind?  One thing for sure, what people were thinking, was the least of our worries.

Stranger in the Night

The sky seemed more blue, the sun brighter and the air fresher than it had felt in a long time, or at least it seemed that way that early morning, as I stood alone outside the entrance to my quarters.

I'd hit the sheets early that night, or at least earlier than usual, still bottling in that sense of futility that comes with tragedy, the tragedy of an Armageddon for which there was no cure, no fix, no future and no understanding.  Where had this all come from?  We were alone and so few of us that it didn’t take a clairvoyant to prophecy the final outcome.  Within a couple of generations at best, assuming we weren’t discovered and destroyed ourselves, the world would be inhabited by morons, the products of severe inbreeding, or at its worst the inability to reproduce resulting in a dead planet, humanly speaking at least.

But, something had been different last night, something like that phone you hear ringing, just before you wake up to an alarm clock.  It hadn't been a sound however, it was more a feeling of an ominous presence, as if something were about to reach out and grab me.  Yet the moment that I actually awoke, was not sudden, but a slow transition, so much so that I began to reach out to touch that something that I was now sure inhabited my bed.  It dawned on me that we did have solid doors at our entrances and that an animal could very easily have crawled onto my bed only if I had for some stupid reason left that door open.  It was possible.  It had happened before.  I'd awoken in the morning to see the door wide open.  Anything could've crawled in during the night and I wouldn’t have known a thing. 

In my half sleeping mode, my imagination held sway.  Would it have fur?  What if it was rabid?  Perhaps it was a skunk.  We'd seen those around.  If it perfumed the cave, I'd lose everything.  We'd even seen wild dogs.  It occurred to me that whatever this creature was, it was giving off a lot of heat, more than I had felt under the covers in months.  Under the covers?  What animal would crawl under the covers?  At any rate, it was no small animal.  I reached out a tentative hand, then a single finger and touched...flesh, warm, soft flesh, flesh that responded to my touch by moving closer.  The skin was bare from head to toe, although I didn’t actually check for socks. 

Although a relief to know I was not about to become dinner, this was more than I could handle.  There was only one real possibility.  But surely it was not Lise.  We had gone through this discussion before.  She was far too young for me.  Hadn’t she just turned 18 yesterday? 

She spoke, removing any remaining doubt.  Since the invasion and discovery of the loss of her family and friends, Lise had begun to cling to me as...I thought, as a father.  After all, I was certainly old enough to be her father or maybe her grandfather.  I had been her teacher, she my student.  There were no such relationships between teachers and students, especially with students so young.  I had to maintain my separateness, my principles.  I had to do what was right.  What would the others think of me?   At least that was what my brain was telling me, most of the time anyway. 

All the while, my heart was arguing another story.  The situation in which we found ourselves was not at all ordinary or customary.  Sometimes, my thoughts drifted to my own losses, my wife, whom I assumed had been reduced to a small sphere and my children who lived out of the country and had no way to contact me, and that was assuming they too, were survivors. Perhaps the rules had changed.  “No,” I thought, “Rules in a civilized world never change.  They are based on sound principles.” 

Finally, I broke the silence.  “Lise, I told you two years ago that this wouldn't work.  We can’t be together.  I’m much too old for you, and besides, I’m your teacher,” I had argued.

“Why are you talking like the world is the same as it was ten years ago?  You can see that we’re all there is.  There IS no society.  Who’s going to care?  I certainly don’t.   And for that matter, you’re not my teacher.  In case you haven’t noticed, school’s out!  For good!”

“Do you think it just matters what a few people think?” I responded.  “This is about doing what is right, no matter who’s watching.” 

“You mean like stealing something when no one is watching?  Mr. W, I love you.  I have liked you for a long time, and I don’t think inappropriately, but my feelings for you have changed in the last little while.  Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we have no one else.  Please don’t write me off.  Do you care for me at all?”

Until that moment, I'd felt some semblance of control of my feelings.  However, when I thought about what Lise was telling me, how she felt, I too began to take stock of the way I really felt.  I had to admit, I was drawn to her.  She was right.  I had no one and neither did she.  I was concerned about what the others in our camp would think, but heh.

“I want to know how you feel about me.  I'm pretty sure you like me, because you've always treated me kindly and never turned me away, other than like this.  I want to know if your feelings for me go beyond that.  I need to know.  If you care for me, I don’t care what others do, or say, or think.  I’ll be with you.”

“Lise, what's this about?  What are you asking of me?  This is your birthday.  Am I just a birthday present, one you'll throw away tomorrow after you sneak away?

“You are a birthday present all right.  But you have the wrong idea.  I’ve never heard of a birthday present that you use one day and then throw away the next.  You’re like getting a house.  It’s forever.  But you haven’t answered my question.  Do you care for me?”

I hesitated, so Lise began to put things together and started to slip out from under the sheets.  I could feel her at the edge, trying to find what I assumed were her slippers, then, there was that springing of the mattress that revealed that she had indeed left me.

“Is it because I'm not beautiful enough?” she questioned.  It was true that she was not stunningly beautiful, but this attribute was hardly noticeable due to her wonderful character and personality. She could light up a room with her presence.

I couldn’t lie to her.  When it came to what men usually thought of as beauty, Lise didn't have a lot of.  Were her eyes the exact distance apart or her nose set just right?  Were her ears the right size?  And her cheek bones were they high enough?  But who cared, for perhaps God, if there was one, had given me a little of his insight, for I saw in Lise a truly beautiful person.  “Lise!  Beauty, as man sees it, is only skin deep.  You truly are beautiful, but God chose to put more of your beauty inside you.  If he had put it on your outside, it would have made the rest of the world look ugly by comparison.  You’re probably the most beautiful person that I’ve ever known.”  Lest I give the impression that Lise was ugly, misshapen, or plain, that was hardly the truth.  It was just that according to scientific experiments with what men worldwide considered beautiful, she did not quite match up.  But what others had ignored, now became a blessing to me.

 My comment hadn't stopped her retreat from the room.  The realization that the greatest gift anyone had ever offered me, other than my own first wife, was about to simply walk away, brought my senses to high alert.  I sat up with a start.  There'd been times of regret in my life that I'd remained silent when I should've spoken up, had failed to take an action and later regretted it. 

Heart and mind were in a combat to the death, a struggle for control of my life or what was left of it.  How did an older man, her former teacher, tell an eighteen year old that he loved her?  Even as I rehearsed the words over in my mind, they didn't resonate as sensible.  Yet, I suddenly realized that Lise was right.  What society thinks of something isn't necessarily about right or wrong.  Other societies on the planet, both present and past, had marriages such as this and thought nothing of it.  Many mores of society were simply constructs of that society.   Had earth’s people set up a committee to decide who could marry whom and when?  To some extent that'd been true.  Court cases had taken place where prosecutors had convinced judges that certain older men should be punished for having the gall to have consensual sex with a minor.  While I certainly don't think that minors should be having sex, upon what sound basis did the judge make his ruling other than that he thought that the majority of the country frowned upon what the couple had decided to do.   Now, there was no country.  Now, there were no judges.  Now, there were no prosecutors.  All the body of law created by the decisions of judges over several hundred years, right or wrong, was now null and void.  We were starting from scratch.

I made my resolve, a resolve based upon a losing battle between those two competing organs, the one of conscious, rational thought and decision making and the other of feelings, and emotions, emotions that I had unsuccessfully tried to bury since the loss of my wife and family.  I could hear her at the entryway.  “Lise, don’t go,” came the words from deep within me.  She was still in the room.  “I do care...very much.”  I had nothing to lose.  “Please stay.”  Could I repeat the words that would compel her to stay?  “Lise, I love you.”  The struggle was over.  As I was speaking, I hadn't heard her soft feet run swiftly to my bed.  “I don’t know how I could live without you,” I went on speaking to no one at the entrance, as she jumped in beside me once again and wrapped herself around me.   “Lise, although I want to be with you, and I agree with most of what you've said, there's a little issue I'd like to clear up before we take this relationship any further tonight.”

“What’s that?” she asked, sitting up beside me.  I could hear disappointment in her voice as if she sensed that I was about to send her away again.

“If I ask you some questions, will you answer honestly?”

“I’m always honest.”

“Of course you are.  I needn’t have asked.  Just a minute.”  I got up and lit a few candles, for I wanted us to be able to see one another, then again took my place on my bed.  “There are no priests, ministers, judges or anything like that that we know of, so the legal system as we know it is defunct.  We are in uncharted waters here.  Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to have a lasting relationship with me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s the same relationship I want with you.  I could never agree to anything else.”  I was quiet for a few moments.  “Lise, sit here in front of me.”  She squirmed her way to my feet and sat crossed legged, facing me.  Her beautiful ebony flesh gleamed in the candle light.  She was completely naked, having discarded her top and the sight of her bare skin and the parts of her that I had never seen before, coupled with the knowledge that she wanted to spend the night with me was playing havoc with my own formerly inert hormones.   My eyes followed the curves of her body as her flesh flowed gently over her shoulders and down her arms to her elbows.  The candle light created strange shadows on her torso.  Her breasts were not huge, but enough to fill my hands and the nipples appeared hard and erect.  The area behind her crossed legs was immersed in darkness.  Needless to say, I was beginning to feel like a sixteen year old sitting in a classroom full of mixed students and my own body parts were beginning to respond to this vision.  If she’d noticed, she didn’t let on.  I stared at her face, her ivory teeth and the whites of her eyes aglow.   My heart was pounding in my chest.  I was concerned I might have a heart attack, if not now, before the night was through.  Yet, I pressed on.

“Lise, I don’t have a lot to offer you.  I am not rich, handsome, or young.  I don`t have a pretty house for you or fine clothes or jewels.  I can`t promise you a lot of tomorrows for I don’t even know what today will bring.  All I have is this heart of mine that skips beats whenever I hear your voice. A heart that has known for a long time that I loved you.  No more denial!   Lise, sweetheart, will you marry me and end the suffering of this lonely man?”

 “When?”

That was not what I was expecting to hear.  “When?  Lise, the question has a yes or no answer.  And depending on how you answer, I’ll either become a most miserable, depressed old man, or the happiest I’ve been for a long time.  But to answer your question, I mean right now.”

“O Warren, of course I’ll marry you.  But what do you mean by now?  Do you mean to wake up everyone?”

“No Lise, we’ll let them sleep for now.  Remember what I said about uncharted waters?  I don’t think it really matters exactly how we marry.  But what does matter, if we are honest with one another, is that when we make promises to each other we intend to keep those promises.  So, in the quietness of this room, with no one to distract us, are you willing to commit your life to me, to marry me, here and now?”

“Yes.  This will be our official marriage?”

“That’s the idea.”   I took Lise’s hands in mine and spoke, “Lise, I love you.  I am so glad that you've come into my life.  You’ve given me a reason to live.  And I couldn’t be more blessed that I am at this moment.  I promise you that as long as I live, I will provide for you, protect you, be faithful to you, love and respect you, to the best of my ability.  I will never put anyone else before you; I will always be your best friend.”

Lise realizing that I had just made a vow to her had some words of her own.  “Mr. W, err I mean, Warren.”  At this, Lise burst into a brief fit of laughter.  “I too love you with all my heart.  There is no one that I could want more than you, even if there were hundreds of men to pick from.  I promise to be faithful to you, love and respect you, stick by you and support you for as long as I live.  I will never let anyone come between us.  And for the record, Warren, you are handsome.  At least to me.”

I got up and picked up something that I'd found with my wife’s clothing at her school, a small round piece of gold.  This, I slipped on Lise’s finger.  I had also retrieved my own wedding band that I hadn't worn for nearly a year.  This I gave to Lise, who placed it on my finger.  We had set a new protocol and considered ourselves married, if not in the sight of God, (for after the decimation of the human race, we both wondered whether there truly was a god), at least in ours.   We would share our relationship with the others tomorrow.  Now, we were together.

I encouraged Lise to move closer, as near as two bodies sitting cross legged could manage.  I drew the back of my right hand gently down her left cheek until my hand came to a rest under her chin, then lightly stroked her lips with my thumb.  I felt her shudder.  I was fairly certain that Lise had never been with a man before, though it seemed so common in our world for everyone to be sleeping around without benefit of clergy.  I on the other hand had been married before and was quite experienced.  This I saw as an advantage, for though I had not been with a woman for quite some time and knew that this could often lead to a lack of control, my experience offered a degree of self-control that most young men lacked.  I determined therefore, that this night was going to be a time that Lise would remember fondly for the rest of her life.  I would be as patient as humanly possible, for I knew that my own anticipation would eventually be rewarded.   

Addition to the Family

The next morning, we had our council meeting as planned.  What was to be done with Daniel?  As we discussed the options, occasionally Bruce would glance back at Daniel, who was now sitting quietly outside his shelter, propped against the rock face.  I wondered what must have been going on in his mind as he saw Bruce giving him that occasional look.  Were we discussing how to dispose of him?  I outlined the possible outcomes: we kill him, we send him away, or we allow him to stay with us.

Bruce was the only one willing to snuff him out, but having him leave or stay were the only real alternatives that we entertained.  If we let him go, would he return with the same kind of attitude as his friends had had?  How would he look after himself, alone?  On the other hand, if he stayed, where would he stay?  Could we trust him?  After all, we knew absolutely nothing about him.  Also, Daniel had been quite willing to drop his weapon earlier in the day.  Not only was he willing, but he'd seemed more than glad to do so and wouldn't pick it up, even while Gary tried to intimidate him into doing so.  In the end, we'd give Daniel the choice.

“I can stay or leave?”  He seemed puzzled by the options.  “Last night, I told you that I would have to leave.”

“That was last night,” I said.  “A few things have changed since last night.  If you left, where would you go?” I asked.

“I guess I would go back to the place we stayed at.” 

“What would you do there?  You don’t have any friends left.”

“I don’t know.  I feel uncomfortable around here now, because of the way things went yesterday.  You people are different somehow.  You seem like a family.  Gary and Frank were the only family I’ve had for months.  We took care of each other.  Now they’re both gone.”

“Yes, they are.  And you're right about our being a family.  We've been together since this began.  But whatever happened to Frank and Gary, that doesn’t have to happen to you.  If we didn’t want you to have the choice, we wouldn’t have offered it.”

“What happens if I want to stay?”

“Well, you didn’t come here with the best motives.  And that is certainly one strike against you, but I have learned over the years, that some people need a second chance to prove that they can be trusted.  In my years as an educator, I have seen a lot of kids who some people would have discarded as trash, turn out to be some of Border City’s finest citizens.”  I let that thought sink in before I presented him with the big promise.  “Are you willing to give me, and them,” I pointed to the others still seated at the table, “your word that you will make no attempt to harm anyone here, and that you will adopt our rules of conduct to govern your life while you live here?”

Daniel started to say something, but I interrupted him.  “And, is it your wish to become a member of our family, entitled to all the benefits and responsibilities thereof?”

“Are you a lawyer?”  Daniel asked.

“Nope.  Just a school vice principal.” 

“Sir, what's your name?”

“I hadn’t even thought of telling him who I was.  I'd been so interested in interrogating him.  My students call me Mr. W.  W, short for Woolsey.”

“What do you do when people make mistakes here, like break the rules?”

“When we meet around the table there, they apologize and make it right.”  I thought that a strange question, but then Daniel was a bit strange anyway.  “What were you thinking happened?   A beating or something?”

“Do you ever fight?” he wanted to know.

“We've had our disagreements.  We’re not perfect,” I assured him.

“This is a strange society,” he said.

“I suppose it is, but then it's a small society and with an increase in population come problems that we don’t have right now.”

“Do you mind if I call you Mr. W?”

“Not at all.  I'm picking up that you might have changed your mind since yesterday.”

“About what?”  and then realizing what I was talking about continued, “I’d like to stay if that's all right with everyone.”

“It’s almost unanimous.  You can thank Shari and your decision to sound the alarm last night to your good fortune today.  Do I have your word regarding the conditions of your staying with us?” I added.

“Yes, sir.”

Daniel was now the newest member of our small community.  He even had a friend to help him learn our ways.  Not that our ways were particularly strange, for we based our community standards on those standards that existed before the attack on the planet wiped most of us out.

Daniel proved useful almost immediately.  I'd always wanted to ride a bike.  No, not a bicycle, but a large heavy one, like the three boys had ridden into camp that evening.  I remember wondering about what a person would do if it ever fell over.  They seemed so heavy.  These bikes were not quite that heavy, but what I'd worried about actually was true.  It was possible to drop the bike and require more than one other person to help get it upright again.  That was why the riders put their foot down when slowing, just in case they came to a stop and needed to keep the bike straight upright.  If the bike had been Harleys, they would have been difficult to manage that way, but these were much smaller machines and wouldn't require as much leg power to keep from falling over.  Our lessons began with starting and stopping, then turning around pylons.  We graduated from that to using all the gears.  There'd been one stretch of highway that was particularly clear and free from damage.  It was here that we had our first thrill from the sensation of speed.  In a closed vehicle, looking straight ahead, there is little difference between sixty or seventy miles per hour.  But on the bike, even slow speeds seemed fast.

These bikes were not really made for off road, but Daniel decided that it wouldn’t hurt to have a little practice at that, too.  Besides, when we eventually used them, we might have to take them off road.  Sand was particularly a problem, much like trying to pedal a bicycle through the same terrain.