Page 56 of Them

“College, but yeah. Same thing.”

“What were you studying?” Lane asked. He sounded like an estranged father trying to make up for lost time.

“I thought about a law degree, but I don’t know. If we’d made it to junior year, there was a program where you could teach English abroad for a semester, and I was going to give that a try.” Tim’s voice grew increasingly at ease, the old ways of blinking and breathing and speaking falling back into place. Is this really what I was so afraid of? “Another part of me was just starting to see how big the world really was. A voice in my head wanted to just run away, y’know? Find an empty place to take care of. Be a park ranger or a fire tower watchman or something like that.”

The old man was grinning. “A what watchman?”

“You know, a fire tower? Where someone camps out in the woods and looks out for wildfires?”

Lane was trying to suppress his laughter.

“What?” Tim asked. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing, just… nice. To listen to someone other than myself for once.” Lane sighed, as if that confession had been a great burden. “You can still do that, y’know? I bet a lot of park infrastructure is still in one piece.”

“Who would put the fires out?”

“Who would start them?”

Tim snorted, amused. He has a point. “Do you want to talk outside?” he asked. “I hate being cooped up when I don’t have to. Force of habit, I guess.”

“I understand.” Lane got to his feet. “Spent more than enough time in a hole myself.”

“Thanks.”

Tim followed as Lane and his lantern shuffled down the debris-riddled hallway. A marble bust of Lincoln rested on its side on the floor, half of his face crumbled to rubble.

“Y’know? It’s just kind of hitting me now,” Tim said. “We’re in the White House.”

Lane shrugged. “I needed someplace that was easy to find for whoever heard my message.”

“But it’s the end of the whole fuckin’ world. How did you know I wouldn’t be—”

“Looney? A nutjob? Insane?”

“Yeah… something like that.”

“Look around. Take in all the pomp and circumstance. The decor. Doesn’t all this feel a little crazy to you?”

“It feels gaudy and impractical. Utterly unnecessary.”

“Exactly. A reasonable response from a reasonable young man.”

Tim grunted. “That’s how you describe the guy who almost put a hole in your chest?”

“Well, it’s like you said. It didn’t feel right to you.” Lane grabbed hold of the door handle. “That makes you good in my book.”

Outside, the midnight metropolis awaited. Tim expected darkness, but the sky was so dense and cloudy that even a wide harvest moon would’ve been lost behind the brewing cumulonimbi.

“It’s going to rain tonight,” Tim said.

“Yes, I think so.”

Side by side, they strode down the stairs.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, following a paved trail that wound its way around the White House grounds. Heat lightning scratched the distant sky. Muffled thunder rumbled.

Tim had made a remarkable turn since yesterday. As far as Lane could tell, the young man hadn’t seen another human in years. Yet, despite all the isolated time Lane spent pondering and preparing for this moment, Tim seemed to be slipping back into the old ways with admirable ease.