ZPD 8.7

 When civilization fell, real civilization, it was the little things that made you notice.  It was like that lunch we had that day in the treehouse.  I didn’t grab any plates.  I didn’t grab any cutlery.  We didn’t have paper towels to wipe our hands or our faces.  We just split the sandwich meat, and broke the cheese up by hand.  We knocked the caps off the beer using a window sill.  Simple things.  It made us feel like the world was broken.  It was.  It also helped us realize what we were really in for.  We were not hunters.  Not yet.  We knew little about vegetation, of what was edible and what was not.  We would have to survive as scavengers.  Picking at the remains of our own fallen civilization.  Safe inside the treehouse, I brought it up to Pete.

"Have you thought about what we’re gonna do?" I asked.

"How do you mean?"

"About where to go? About where to live?  We can’t just stay in the treehouse."

"Why not?  You can’t see it from the street.  It’s out of the way, secluded, and gives us a vantage point to see what’s coming.  If it’s one of those twitchy freaks, we stay hidden.  If it’s the goddamn army, we sign up!"

"What about supplies?  There’s not a ton of food in your house, and a lot of it will go bad in a few days.  We’ll need to eat something else eventually.  What about neighbors?  Why haven’t we seen anyone else?  They can’t all be dead."

"They’re probably being smart and staying out of sight, like we should be doing.  Didn’t your mum ever teach you not to go out into dangerous neighborhoods?"

"I never won a fight by being a coward." It was a true statement.  Technically, I’d never won a fight at all.  A bit of a low blow though.  I regretted saying it immediately.

"Coward?! Have you forgotten?! I smashed your dads brains onto my lawn, while you were lying on your back.  You were running for your life before that.  Looking for a place to hide right?  You’re an idiot.  You can go if you want.  Go get yourself corpsed.  Idiot."

We both hung our heads a bit, and chewed slowly through what was left of our lunch.  It was a hot day out, and the end of my beer was kind of warm.  I hate warm beer.  Apparently they drink it like that on purpose in some places.  Even now, if I get a beer, I try my best to make it cold.

I still didn’t want to stay forever in that tree house.  It was out of the way, but there was only one way in or out.  The branches of the big oak didn’t get anywhere near to the house, so there was no chance of jumping onto a roof or anything.  It would make it really easy to defend, but really difficult to escape if we got caught in a jam.  These were the kinds of things I thought about.  I wasn’t always the strongest, or fastest kid in school, but once I knew the rules of a game, I was always hard to beat.  It was pointless trying to talk Pete out of there though.  Our little fort in the tree was like a stronghold to him.  He was sure it would keep us safe.  I did owe him my life as well, and it made no sense to abandon him.  Going out there, just the two of us, was extremely dangerous.  Going out alone, was suicidal.  I could at least make the best of the situation.

"You got anything we can use out here at least?  It was alright last night, but we don’t wanna freeze to death outside."

"Check the house.  I don’t know all what was there."

"Watch the door for me at least?"

"I can watch it from here."  He was sour.  That’s for sure.  I wished I hadn’t called him a coward.

I went through the house again.  Opened a few windows this time to get some air in there.  It smelled terrible.  We would eventually have to start doing something about the bodies.  The smell was bad enough, but you can catch some pretty terrible diseases from a cadaver.  Lot’s of people did.  I found some blankets in a closet, and dragged them out.  I found some old knapsacks and decided to stay proactive.  One or two bottles of water each, a small blanket, some matches, few pairs of socks, some knives from the kitchen, and some granola bars.  Whatever was light, and seemed to make sense at the time.  Pete was ready for a siege, but I felt better having some bags packed just in case.  There was another nice little surprise.  In the hallway coat closet, I found a guitar case. At least I thought it was a guitar case.  When I opened it up, there was an old .22 rifle inside, and a box with about 14 bullets left in it.  I used to be lousy with guns.  Couldn’t tell you a shotgun from a mauser back then.  If there had been any other firearm in that case, I probably would have just put it back, but the .22 was the one gun I had ever shot.  My Grandfather had let me shoot one at some cans outside his house one day.  Made my mom furious.  It was a good memory.  I was happy to see that gun.

Feeling a little militant, I decided to make some molotov cocktails out of Petes folks liquor cabinet.  I’d never made one before.  Always wanted to.  I sliced up some of their pillow cases to stuff in the bottles.  A lot of it was sweet liqueur stuff.  I wasn’t even sure if it would light.  They did have a big bottle of cheap rum though, and that would definitely work.  I found a big barbeque lighter that still worked in the kitchen.  By the time I was finished all of this, the sun was starting to go down.  There still wasn’t a soul to be seen on the street.  I figured Pete was probably right.  People were staying in hiding.

Pete had a funny look on his face when he saw me loading the bottles inside.

"Probably not the best time to throw a party bud."

I gave him my best mischevious grin, and flicked the lighter on and off.

"Maybe not, but it might be a great night for fireworks."

We heard shots not long after that.  We huddled up next to the window and looked out.  There were fires burning all over the city.