Last Woman Read Free Page A

the river and I could feel the breeze coming from it along with a stench.
    Walk toward the river, look for the bridges. Quarantines, movement, something would be on one of the bridges.
    Find a direction.
    Those were my thoughts.
    I didn’t make it far. Only far enough to see the river, and I knew, whatever happened was bigger than a section of the city. Bigger than just a stadium filled with bodies.
    It was evident by thousands of bodies, an endless flow that carried downstream with the current of the river.

5. Watching and Learning
     
    I sat on the steps of the amphitheater, sipping my water and eating creamed chicken from an MRE as I watched the bodies float down the river.
    It was surreal, as if a dream that really wasn’t happening.
    The bodies didn’t stop. Once in a while they thinned out, a single body here and there, as opposed to groups, but they kept coming. Where from?
    Leaving the city and getting out of the death was foremost on my mind. Somehow, I was left there in a place that was completely dead. Not a sound. No birds, no dogs, nothing.
    I knew that it had been at least days since I had some sort of nourishment pumped in me via IV and if I were to get out; I needed to get some strength. That began with rehydrating,
    My headache started to subside. I attributed that to the water.
    Before taking my seat on those steps, I returned to the tent. There were answers there; I just had to decipher them.
    I remembered the duffle bag, and I went to retrieve that along with the clipboard, radio and watch.
    Opening that duffle bag was like discovering a gold mine. There were pants in there, a tee shirt, socks, and shaving kit. Wilkes had the smaller of the boots and I took them.
    Before getting into the clothes, I took his bar of soap and stepped into the fountain. The water was cold and sort of clean. It took my breath away, but I got used to it and eventually submerged myself. I know the water was old, but compared to what collected on my body, it didn’t matter.
    I honestly felt like the skin of my body absorbed that fountain water, it refreshed me much like a shower used to do after a hangover.
    I dressed in the clothes that were too big for me, but it was better than being naked. It was on my initial examination of the truck that I spotted the MRE’s, and blankets. There weren’t many MRE’s, and I would learn from a simple glance at the clipboard that earlier on, people came there for food. It was a distribution and drop off center.
    I took a blanket, the remaining MREs I’d save for when I left the city. But for the moment, I needed to get enough strength to leave that particular area.
    Blanket draped over me, eating my food, I watched the bodies. Everything that transpired, everything that brought me to that particular moment on the steps of the amphitheater was a mystery I needed to unravel.
    The clipboard was a start. The last page was the earliest date.
    Signed by Stevens, an arrival report dated April 20 th .
    Once I had my strength, I truly believed my memory of the missing days would come to me. At least bits and pieces.
    I stayed on the steps until the sun started to set, it was just before seven. I made sure I wound the watch; I didn’t want that to die.
    It was going to be dark and there didn’t seem to be power anywhere, to me, it would be too dark to travel.
    Though feeling a bit more hydrated and no longer hungry, I still felt weak.
    I made my way back to the abandoned military supply truck, climbed in the front, shut and locked the doors.
    I’d rest there for the evening and read from that clipboard until I was finished or fell asleep, learning all that I could. After all, what else was there to do?
    Then in the morning, I’d gather only what I needed and could carry and I’d find my way out. I may have been alone in that part of the city, but there was no way, no how, that I was completely alone.
    I was alive; others had to be as well. No matter how many bodies piled up in the stadium or