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“Okay, there was an enormous solar flare. The last time the world had solar flares this extreme was before such widespread reliance on electricity. This time it knocked out power grids nearly everywhere. Most technology halted. Just-in-time delivery failed.”
“What’s just-in-time delivery?”
“Almost everything was running in a way where everything that needed to be delivered to various places from fuel to food was shipped and delivered at close to the last minute, so nothing had to be stored long term. Supplies arrived just as the old ones were running out. With trucks and trains and planes, long term storage of staples and essentials seemed unnecessary to people, and it wasn’t cost effective. And with cities so large, it gets less and less practical anyway. The point is... stores started running out of things... Hospitals ran out of things. People started panicking and looting, and then people started dying. The economy collapsed practically overnight. It was so fast. You can’t believe how fast it was.”
I just stared at him, trying to process everything he was telling me. Hadn’t I immediately thought something terrible must have happened when I’d woken in a rusted-out pirate ship ride? I mean, that couldn’t be a good sign.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.
“No.” What good would it do to keep things from me?
“Most of the nuclear plants were safely shut down, but a few weren’t. So there are some dangerous radiation zones out there. The ones that melted down near coasts and fault lines set off huge earthquakes, followed by tsunamis. The whole world was affected, so there was no one to send aid because everyone was struggling to survive. But with world economies collapsing, money wouldn’t have meant much anyway. There are pockets of survivors. We’ll be safer if we can find a bigger group, but for right now, we have supplies for a while. The park was well stocked with non-perishables, and even when we get through that, there’s enough wildlife around here to eat. The important part is that we have access to plenty of clean water here. That’s the trouble with moving on—what to do about water.”
“How long ago... when... when did this all happen?”
“A couple of years. Elodie, we’re going to be okay. We could stay here for another year or longer, and I’m already making plans on how we’ll get out and try to find another group of survivors. Don’t worry.”
“How did you know all this was here?”
“I didn’t. We stumbled on it. We were lucky. There are some chickens that have gone wild living here. I made a make-shift coop for them in one of the kiddie rides. So we have some eggs and meat I don’t have to hunt.”
No wonder I couldn’t remember anything. My brain had probably been waiting for any opportunity to fall and blank out everything, just scrub the slate clean and forget such a nightmare ever could have happened. This couldn’t possibly be my life.
“I really need a shower.” I felt gross and covered in grime from the humidity outside.
“There’s no running water.”
Of course there wasn’t. The electricity was fooling me into believing I was in some dingy but workable version of civilization.
“But, there’s a wide creek that runs under the park; it’s where the water from the moat comes from. We don’t drink that water. We use a well for drinking, but the creek water is clean enough to bathe in.”
The panic began to ease in, graying out the edges of my vision. “I can’t do this. I can’t live like this!”
“Elodie, you’ve lived like this for two years. And this is a step up from how it was in the beginning. You were so excited when we found this place. I wish you could remember. It’s hard to see you like this again. You were so despondent when we first had to learn how to survive without the convenience and safety we were used to. But things were getting better. You were adjusting. And now...”
He leaned closer, and I flinched to escape as he brushed the side of my cheek in a gesture that was meant to be comforting.
“I-I don’t know you.”
He sighed and rose from the bed. “I’m all you’ve got.” Before I could determine if there were nefarious undertones or some veiled threat in his words, he said, “I’m going down to the restaurant to make us something to eat.”
“Which one?”
“The big one in the middle... The Banquet Hall. It’s got the most working equipment. Come down in a few, okay?”
“Okay.”
After he’d gone, I closed my eyes, desperately trying to remember something—anything that could help me make any sense of all this. Or wake up. That would be a welcome option as well. I went to the bathroom to turn on the faucet, already having forgotten there was no running water. I stared at my reflection over the sink.
She’s pretty.
I was the woman in his wallet, but I wasn’t feeling nearly as generous with myself now that I was seeing it live and in person. My clothes were grimy and worn. I brushed back my hair and noticed a dark scar on my temple and wondered what had happened to produce it. I seemed to have a few other scars and wondered if they were injuries I’d sustained while here and how they’d managed to not get infected and kill me.
I looked down at my hand. No wedding band. But why would anyone in some post-apocalyptic wasteland still have a wedding band? We’d probably bartered or sold it early on when we were just getting our bearings, when people still cared about things like that. Or maybe some marauders stole it. I felt like if something apocalyptic had happened that suddenly marauders must have popped up everywhere, and we would actually start using that word to describe them.
Did I have surviving family? Friends? Maybe it was better that I didn’t remember anything—I mean, if they hadn’t made it. Trevor had said a lot of people died. Why wouldn’t my family and friends be with us? Or his family and friends? Wouldn’t we have done better in a larger group instead of just the two of us so isolated like this? I had a feeling I was getting the warm-and-fuzzy edited version of events, which was terrifying in itself.
The bathroom had once been luxurious with a giant tub with jets, a walk-in shower built for two on the other end, and an enormous counter with a sink large enough to bathe a fat baby in. Everything had been meant to look as if it were made of gold, but the plating was flecking off, and the whole place smelled like it had been packed up in someone’s grandmother’s attic for several winters.
