Mother

Using only moonlight, she found the key, cleverly hidden in the moss under one of the rocks along a pathway leading up to the side door. It opened easily and, evidenced by the lack of prints in the dust on the floor, she was the first to have entered or exited since...

She did not allow herself to finish the thought but simply entered the open floorplan of the cottage, locking the door behind herself. Hesitantly, she first opened the door to the refrigerator. It was bare, aside from a large box of 'Arm & Hammer ' baking soda, revealing sensible forethought on behalf of the owner.

Kate felt gratitude, having been sickened to the point of vomiting by too many now-defunct refrigerators in her explorations around the lake. She had inventoried the contents of each cabin in her notebook, there would be no shortage of food if she decided to wait it out here in the mountains. The stove was gas, she'd noticed the bottled gas cylinders on her way in, hopefully in working order. There was the obligatory box of matches in a clever cast-iron container near the stove, the box looked to be at least half full. She made a note to herself to check the cylinders and, to check cylinders at neighboring cabins.

She found the pantry stocked with canned goods, whispering only, "Oh, baby, we have food, we have a cookstove, it's feast till we drop tomorrow!"...

She searched the cottage, thankful for the way the wall of windows allowed the moonlight to illuminate the main room. Unlike many of the buildings she had explored, there were no bodies in this cottage, no signs of the panicked flight evidenced in other cabins. Despite the remote location and the vast Desolation Wilderness surrounding it, Tahoe had been hit as hard as many of the cities she'd walked through in her months on the road. Many of the cars were gone as cabin dwellers who made a frantic exodus, headed for Sacramento or Reno. There must have been a nightmare of tangled traffic further on in Truckee or South Lake Tahoe.

She had started in Stockton, walked up Route 99, followed State Route 50 through Sacramento and other communities as she worked her way toward the Sierras, intending to cross them. Certainly, she reasoned, the less populated areas of the Dust Bowl would yield a survivor or two. She set Nevada as her goal, or perhaps the next state, or the next. She had to believe that she could not be the only one to have survived not only the natural disasters, the eruptions, and the tsunamis, but the virulent virus that decimated all the survivors she'd known. November 2, 2037, the day fully half of California disappeared, all radio and television transmission ended, and the deadly sickness was unleashed. She didn't allow herself to think about Nathan now, there had been too many of those memories already in the lonely hike through the mountains.

She decided that this cottage might do for a while, she deserved a long rest. Maybe even the final month or so, she thought as she put her heavy backpack on a chair and arched her back to ease some of the pain of carrying it. She shuffled through the cottage again, her dragging feet leaving a trail through the dust all the way to the master bedroom.

A quick search revealed a few hangers in the closet, there was a piece of luggage high on a shelf and she struggled to reach the handle to pull it down. She would come to regret that decision as it was monstrously heavy, her arms barely capable of keeping it above her head, and she took care to maneuver it to the bed before letting it drop. To her dismay, it was locked, she searched the walls and doors of the closet, looking for a key. Nothing on any of the walls, nothing under the bed or behind the shutters on the windows. She stopped to consider where she might hide one, knowing that it could be anywhere in the cottage. She knew there was a chance that the cabin owner had it, but she wouldn't allow herself to accept that there was only one key. If need be, she would break the lock with a rock, but she didn't want to do that just yet.

She moved to the nearest bedstand and pulled out the drawer to find nothing but an old paperback inside. The cover was mystical, like those fantasy novels her brother, Chase, once read, the title 'Moonheart' even looked familiar. Perhaps the author was someone her brother had tried to urge her to read. "Well, there'll be time for that now, won't there, Abigail?" she scoffed, laying the book on the top of the table. She stopped and considered, the memory of having to hide things like the key to her diary from her little brother tweaked a memory. Slowly she pulled the entire drawer out and turned it upside down. "Voila!" she whispered and pulled the tape securing the key off, with the key itself securely cradled in her palm, she smiled at her luck, "Thanks again, Chase!"

She unlocked the case and stood back in amazement; cradled in soft, black polyurethane foam was a handgun and a rifle and several boxes of ammunition for both. She would need them, she would be able to hunt and fish for the protein she needed. Many of the residents of the foothills had made their way down to the cities, only to be struck down by the virus but the forest had protected animals, she had seen deer and other creatures on her trek. She locked the box and pulled the long chain from around her neck out to add the key to the other treasures there, treasures like Nathan's ring. Struggling the case to the floor, she hid it under the bed.

Sitting on the mattress, she noticed something on the floor nearly hidden in the dust beneath the bedside table. She bent to pull the silver chain out from under the table. a small silver locket followed. Engraved on the face of the locket was the word 'Mother'. When she opened the clasp to see the inside of the locket, it was empty. As if 'mother' lost the necklace before she added a picture. In her current situation, Kate felt unbearable sadness. There would be no more photos taken by cell phones, there would be no one to develop prints. She was sad for both 'mother' and herself, she found her hand was unconsciously rubbing the arch of her belly. She sighed and put the necklace on top of 'Moonheart', then slowly let her body sink onto the mattress, pulling her feet up and stretching out to sleep comfortably for the first time in weeks. In days to come, she would meet 'mother' in the photo albums she had left behind.

She found the car two weeks and several miles later. She had almost missed it, it was tucked back off the road behind a group of concealing bushes. She struggled to put aside what she surmised had happened to the car's owners, they were not killed for their car. What good would paper money or treasures do for those who attacked the hapless couple...or perhaps what was taken had something to do with what might have been in the car seat in the back. Kate had gotten sick to the heart trying to piece together the mystery as she mourned the bodies on the ground around the car. However, she was far too pregnant to do much more than mourn them. Like all the other bodies she had seen, she could do no more for them.

There was almost a full tank of gas. She drove the car back to the cabin she now called home, parking it in the driveway beside the cabin. She locked it and put the keys on the chain of treasures at her neck.

Rushing to the sink, she washed her mouth and then her face with bottled water but that did little to cover the cloying scent of death, the smell that seemed to be stuck in the lining of her nose, on her body, even in the confines of her memory. She had seen a lot of bodies since November but these, and the story that they implied, proved too much for her. The pain in her back had increased from the twinges she was feeling when she woke this morning so she decided to take a long nap. She knew better than to think she would forget but she could hope for at least some rest.

In the bedroom, she smiled at the dog-eared copy of 'Moonheart' laying on the top of the coverlet. There was no need to mark her place, she'd already read it about five times now, that and the other books she'd found in neighboring cabins. She put the handgun into the case and locked it, tucking the chain back into her clothing. She sank onto the bed, hoping to let sleep erase the memories of the day.

Almost an hour later, the first contraction hit hard. When she'd moved past it, breathing like all the books and memories from videos and television shows had taught her, she started to get up from the bed to pace. She only got a few steps when her body gushed and she knew what that meant. One of the cabins must have been the vacation home of an expectant mother, there were several books about pregnancy and childcare and, with plenty of time on her hands, Kate had read them all several times. "Okay, Abi, it's just you and me but we're going to do this, you hear me?"

It wasn't the worst pain she'd ever felt. Had she not been through such hell and back, it might have once been true, but this was pain she could deal with, this pain gave her a promise of a better tomorrow. She worked her way through contraction after contraction, finding herself trying to count off the seconds between...counting, counting as she paced and rested, paced and rested. She had already prepared nearly everything she would need weeks ago...a stack of towels, scissors, a pan for the clean water for bathing the baby. Bottled water lined up like soldiers near the other preparations. As the time neared, she laid down on the floor to begin pushing.

Moonlight illuminated the cottage as she was born, Abigail came easy and greeted the new world with a hearty and hiccupy cry. It was the best thing Kate had ever heard. She cradled her tiny newborn after tending to all the necessary steps the books had walked her through. "It's you and me, Abigail, and we've got our work cut out for us, chicklet," she whispered against the soft, downy cheek. Abigail's little bird-like mouth searched the skin of her mother's lips in hunger so Kate moved the baby down to her breast and helped her latch. There was a pinch of pain at first but it quickly became a pleasure knowing that Abigail was a lusty and quick learner and would be nourished soon.

Kate cradled the tiny little head. Her chain was pushed to the side of her breast to make room for the baby to nurse. Looking down at the locket, she could see the engraving 'Mother', it took on a whole new meaning for her. It would be her name, her moniker, engraved on her heart from now forward. They now had transportation and, somehow, someway, they would work their way down the other side of this mountain and they would find others like them. They had to. She had to believe that. It wasn't just a matter of her own survival anymore.