Solaris Mortem: The New Patriots Read Free Page B

family up in Everett?”
    “Nah, my family is all back East. I don’t imagine I’ll be seeing them anytime too soon.”
    “It’d be a helluva walk,” Terry agreed.
    Joe nodded and they ate in relative silence for the next few minutes until Terry broke it. “So, what do you think of walking together? Probably a little safer in pairs.”
    “That would be great, yeah. After lunch?”
    “Works for me,” Terry said.
    They were just heading out when an elderly man wearing a name tag stopped them. ‘Chuck,’ it said. “Are you leaving so soon?”
    “Uh, yeah…we’ve got a long walk ahead of us,” Terry said.
    “You sure I can’t convince you to stay? We’re looking for warm bodies around here to help protect the town. We’ve got water and plenty of food.”
    As good as that sounded, Terry and Joe had to decline.
    “Well, at least, fill your water bottles before you go and I’ll fetch you a little food for the road.”
    “You’re too kind, Chuck. Many thanks,” Terry said, and they were on their way, richer than when they came. It was unbelievable what a difference three miles up the road made.
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    “So, what do you think all this is?” Terry asked Joe.
    “I’m going to go with solar flares—it’s really something isn’t it? The sun has a little hiccup and just like that—life as we know it is over.”
    “I’ll say…how long do you think it will last?”
    “What? The power outage? I would say for the foreseeable future—it’s going to get really ugly,” Joe said.
    “Sadly, I’ve come to the same conclusion…. How long do you suppose till people start dying?”
    “You mean large scale? I’d give it a week, maybe two. Without access to fresh water and sanitation issues—it’s just going to be bad.”
    Terry nodded. They kept walking and it kept getting hotter. They talked about Katherine, Jonathan, and Tabitha. They talked about wildlife biology and long haul trucking. They drank a shit-ton of water and by the time the sun began to dip behind the hills, they got to Salem.
    They camped just outside of town beside the river. Terry didn’t think he’d ever had a swim that felt so good.
    He and Kat used to swim all the time when they were kids down at the local rec center and out at the cabin their parents had on the Olympic Peninsula. Those were good times, some of the best of his life. They would go there for three weeks every summer. It was just man, woods, and water, and it was perfect.
    Everything after that had been kind of a disappointment. Dad died when Terry was sixteen and Katherine was fourteen. They had to sell the cabin after Dad passed and Mom was so busy working that they never went on another vacation again; never had rec center passes again, either.
    Mom died when Terry was nineteen and Kat was seventeen. They were more or less grown and able to care for themselves, but it was one helluva blow, especially for Kat. She was devastated. She stayed with Terry for about a year until she met that shit-bag who was to become her husband.
    Dale Hodges—what a douchebag. Terry knew he was bad news from the very start. The first tip off was the way his ring finger was shrunken beneath the knuckle. ‘Kat, c’mon! He’s either married or freshly split.’ It turns out he was married, but no matter, Katherine loved him. She could not be swayed, try as he might. Terry tried to tell her it was just a matter of time before he did the same to her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Everybody makes mistakes,’ she would say, ‘that’s behind us now, it’s the past.’ Only it wasn’t. Well, it was, but it was also the future.
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    Terry woke to the aroma of fresh coffee. At first, he thought his mind was playing a cruel joke, but sure enough, his new companion had a percolator bubbling away over a small fire. “Is that—is that—coffee?”
    “It is,” Joe said.
    “Oh shit. I love you, man.”
    Joe chuckled, “It’s the little things that make all the difference. Here, I’ll