What'll Happen to the Kids?

It’s been several weeks since Jack and I started living together. That sounds really strange. It’s totally platonic and mutually beneficial to both of us since we have no family left. For a spoiled rich kid, Jack is a great person and knows surprisingly more about survival than I would’ve credited him for.

We have a sunny patch of land outside the cabin and decided to plant a vegetable garden so, “We don’t get scurvy,” according to Jack. We raided the local hardware stores for seeds and planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, potatoes (rich in vitamin C to prevent scurvy), and other things, including herbs. As we harvest them, we’ll harvest the seeds of the fruits and vegetables for planting the following year. If we’re still here.

We each have our own room and a shared bathroom. There was some canned food in the house when we moved in, but we raided the grocery stores around for more. Canned meat and beans are our protein. I’ve not become desperate enough for meat to hunt and neither has Jack, so far. There are plenty of animals around if we ever do.

Jack has gone to gas up the Vespa and get some containers of kerosene since the cabin came with a kerosene heater as well as a fireplace. The power is still hanging on, but I don’t know how long it will last and we have to be prepared for a cold winter in the North Carolina mountains.

I’m cleaning up the dishes from dinner the night before—salmon cakes made from canned salmon and green beans, when I spy someone in the garden. I watch for a moment before I realize it’s a kid.

I don’t want to startle him, but I do want to know where he came from so I sidle out the back door and down the porch steps. The kid looks up and sees me just before I reach him. He has an orange tomato in his hand and other not quite ripe vegetables in a sack on his back.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?” I ask him. He jumps and tries to run off, tripping over his overlarge feet and stumbling. I grab his arm to help him up.

“Let go! Savannah! Let me go!” the kid, who looks about eight, starts screaming. “SAVANNAH!”

A girl of about ten, presumably Savannah, comes around the corner with a stick looking like she’s going to bash my head in.

“Let him go!” she screeches and comes at me with the stick. I let the kid’s arm go and he stumbles over to the girl.

“Can I help either of you?” I ask, snippily. “This is our garden that you’re stealing from.”

“Sorry. We didn’t know anyone lived here,” the girl said.

“I’m Daisy, what are your names?” I ask.

“I’m Savannah and that’s James,” the girl says. James is currently hiding behind Savannah, wearing dirty jeans and a t-shirt featuring Spiderman. Savannah is wearing shorts with a lavender t-shirt and has scabby knees. Neither child looks as if they’ve had a bath this month.

“Do you want to come inside?” I ask them.

They look at each other. They don’t trust me and that’s good. They shouldn’t. They don’t know me. If they are going to survive, they need to be smart.

“Look. I live with another kid, Jack. We don’t have any family left and so we’re trying to figure all of this out. Do you have any family?”

“No,” Savannah says. “We’ve been breaking into houses to get food and sometimes sleeping in them. A lot of them stink. There’re dead people everywhere.”

“I know. There aren’t any in there,” I point over my shoulder with my thumb. “And we have cookies. I don’t know if that helps any.”

“I want a cookie,” James says. Savannah rolls her eyes.

“Come on in. I promise we’re good people.” Which is exactly what bad people would say, but whatever. It works and the kids follow me inside. I grab a pack of Oreos and put them on the table. We don’t have fresh milk because it’s all spoiled in the stores. We do have powdered milk, which I offer them.

They each take about four cookies and greedily gulp the milk, despite the fact that it tastes awful. I’ve been making myself drink it because it does have vitamins, but it really is awful.

“Where are you from?” I ask them.

“Tennessee,” James says around a mouthful of cookies.

“Nashville. We were on vacation here at Sugar Mountain when my parents got the virus. Delta. That’s what they’re calling it. They got the Delta Virus,” Savannah explains.

“And you’ve been hanging around ever since? When did your parents die?”

“I don’t know. It was still cold when they died. James and I were sick too, but not as sick as them.” Savannah had tears in her eyes which she brushed roughly away. She scowls, seemingly at her weakness.

“It’s ok to be upset. I was very upset when my parents died.” I grab a cookie and munch with them.

“I miss my mom,” James says.

“Me too.”

At that moment, Jack comes through the front door. “I have gas!” he shouts as he slams the door behind him. James snickers. Jack comes into the kitchen and frowns at the sight of the two kids at the table.

“Who’s this?” he asks.

“This is James and Savannah. I found them in the backyard.” I neglect to tell him they were stealing from the garden, which I feel would just make Savannah defensive. More defensive.

“I’m Jack,” he says with a wave. “Can I talk to you out front?” I follow him onto the front porch.

“Where did they come from? Who are these kids? What do you know about them?” he asks.

“Slow down. I just met them. They were on vacation—a ski vacation,” I say pointedly, “when their parents got sick and died. They are from Nashville. That’s all I know.”

“Are they going to stay with us?” he asks.

“I don’t know. But it’s going to start getting cold in another month. We can’t just make them leave.”

“I know. But it’s more people to feed.”

“Food isn’t in short supply. Yet. And we’re growing our own food.”

“Yeah, but eventually we’re going to have to figure something more permanent out. Like farm animals or something.”

“Maybe there’s farms around with animals that need tending. Maybe we could get some chickens to lay eggs.”

“We need a car. If there are going to be four of us, we won’t fit on the Vespa. Plus, it won’t be fun riding the scooter in the winter.”

“There’s plenty of those too. No people to drive them, but lots of cars.”

“I had driver’s ed,” Jack says. “I can drive a car, probably.” I raise my eyebrows at probably, but honestly, he’s closer to driving than I am.

“We should talk to them.”

We head back into the house where James and Savannah sit at the kitchen table whispering to themselves. We ask them if they want to stay with us and they agree. There’s a loft upstairs above the living room, so we show them that space and tell them it’s theirs if they want it.

They seem excited to have their own space and I hear them chatter on about what they’ll do now that they have a home. Jack and I head back downstairs to give them their space to process everything.

We decide that the next day, Jack will find us a car and I’ll find us some chickens. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll do that, but I guess I’ll figure it out.