~ 17 ~

When Paths Collide

Date: May 29th 1999

Time: 7 A.M.

Place: Philadelphia, PA (9 days after the emergency landing)

+ AJ +

I dreamt that I was in my house with my mom and we were sitting in front of the TV just flipping the channels. No matter how hard we tried to land on something decent to watch, there was nothing to be found. In front of us on the coffee table was a pizza from Dominoes and a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. Nothing of major notice took place in this dream. There were no bad guys, no being chased by fans, no naked women, (that part bummed me out a little) and no sign of trouble anywhere. It was peaceful.

When I felt her shaking me awake, I didn’t want to open my eyes. I wanted to stay in that time and place. If I opened my eyes I would have to come back to this new reality, one where most likely I’d never see my mother again.

“Get up, we have to get moving!”

The shaking became more violent and I was forced to finally open my eyes to see her hovering over me. I still didn’t know her name, even though we spent all afternoon and evening together.

We walked for a little while longer after we encountered our Canadian friends yesterday but the snow started to fall pretty hard shortly after. My ankle was also really starting to hurt to the point that I was slowing us down majorly. I have to admit, she could have left me there to fend for myself but instead, she put her arm around my shoulder and led us down the road until we found an abandoned house to sleep in for the night.

She told me that this has become the normal way to survive here. You walk until you can’t walk anymore than you find some place to sleep. Almost all the houses are empty. No one is stupid enough to live in the city anymore. Only the people like her that refuse to let bullies drive her away from her home and me because I’m an idiot, according to her at least.

“Are you hungry? It’s not much but it’ll have to do.” She threw some really stale Oreo cookies at me. So stale and soft they were almost crumbling in my hands as I popped them in my mouth.

“We should get going pretty soon, how’s your ankle?”

I looked down at the ankle in question. It was a little swollen but otherwise it didn’t feel that bad. Of course I haven’t started walking on it yet either.

“I’ll live.”

She looked at me and snickered. “For now at least.”

I noticed she was wearing brand new clothes and her hair was wet. “Did you shower?”

“Yeah, the water is actually running in this place and it was a little warm, at least not freezing cold if you jump in and then out it’s not too bad. You might want to consider going clothes shopping before we leave.”

“You mean stealing?”

“Whichever you prefer, it’s not like they’re going to care. I’m sure they’ve moved on to a better place.”

I really wanted to like this girl and in fact I kind of did, but when she said crap like that I wanted to get as far away from her as possible. So, I did. I went upstairs, took a very cold ‘shower’ that I had to say actually felt good after over a week of not washing myself much at all. I found something new to wear and a little warmer. I even found a nice jacket and then we were off.

“Where are we going?”

“A friends.”

“More specific please?”

“Why, it’s not like you’re going to know who it is.”

“Even still…”

She sighed and picked up her pace, probably because she knew it would cause me pain.

“It’s this nice couple I met after it happened. They took me in and nursed me back to health.”

“You were hurt?”

I could tell she didn’t want to go down that road with me. She was letting me in and not liking it very much. “Yeah, I don’t know many people who weren’t.” She looked at me suspiciously.

“How hurt were you?”

“I don’t even remember. I was totally out of it but when I woke up, she was standing over me and telling me everything was going to be okay. Her and her husband treated me like I was their daughter. Her name is Clara, and they live about another two miles down that way.”

“Are you sure they’re still there? I mean you said yourself, everyone is leaving.”

“They are. They would never leave.”

“But what if…”

“We’ll have to wait and see. So, what’s your story?” She asked popping a piece of gum into her mouth and signaling that we were done talking about her.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Kevin was the one that usually did the talking and we kind of just nodded in agreement. “We were visiting here when it happened and we’ve been here ever since.”

“Who are we?”

“My friends and I, well really more like brothers. We all are really close.”

“Were,” she was quick to correct.

“ARE!” I yelled at her. I didn’t mean to but her negativity was not something I felt like I could deal with at the moment.

She shrugged as I continued on, “Anyway we ended up over by the Museum of Art…”

“Oh shit!”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“Did you see anyone hanging?”

“No.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Yeah we were. Anyway we ended up meeting this guy named Charlie who was leading a resistance movement.”

“Charlie Epps? Oh, I know him. He’s a good guy. Well, was before they killed him.”

Once again I nodded, trying to forget about that part of my story. “Yeah, he really helped us all out until we parted ways. We were heading to New York when that last explosion separated us all.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. I’m not sure what I was expecting. We walked on in silence for a little while, occasionally ducking out of site when we thought we heard a noise.

“Why do people hate celebrities so much here?”

“They didn’t where you were from?” She seemed surprised by this.

“A little, but not to the point that people hunted them down.”

“Because, this is their fault.”

“I thought it was Canada’s fault.”

“Canada wouldn’t have even been able to do this if it wasn’t for our stupid fascination with celebrities. They run for office, we vote them in, they get in over their heads, make deals with the devil and then run.”

“Trump.”

“Trump.”

“I can understand hating him, but why everyone else?”

“People need someone to blame. You know the only reason he got elected was because of his money and fame. All those famous idiots got on board and gave money to the Canadians thinking they were backing Trump The whole united North American front garbage…Anyway when he ran we needed someone to blame, so famous people it is. Works for me.”

“Yeah.” I tried to sound like I didn’t care one way or the other.

We turned a corner and started heading down a small path, “Not too far now.”

I was happy to hear that because my ankle was slowly starting to scream at me. We were going to need a break soon and I didn’t really want to tell her that.

“Shit…” I was so focused on my steps and not hurting myself further that I wasn’t really looking.

“What?”

“There are people up ahead.” She pointed at them as she started to walk us off the path and into the wooded area beside it.

I glanced at them just as we moved off the road. I had to be seeing things. I had to be.

“Kevin?” I asked when I was sure I recognized him as they walked towards us.

She pulled at me but this time I ignored her and screamed “KEVIN!!” as loud as I could. I knew I was taking a chance but I had to. If this was Kevin and I…right then he put his hand to his eyes, probably to get a better view.

I quickly started waving my arms at him, “It’s AJ!” I screamed.

Brian was with him as well as one other guy. The two of them started running towards me while the other stayed put. Meanwhile I had totally forgotten about the pain in my ankle and did the same leaving my travel mate in the dust as well. It probably looked comical, the three of us running at each other like two distant lovers meeting after a long time. All we needed was some sappy music and slow motion action.

Kevin grabbed me into a huge hug, “Thank God you’re okay. We thought you were dead!”

“I thought you were too.”

Brian joined in the hugging as my unnamed friend made it next to us. “I take it these are the friends you were talking about? Guess I was wrong. They are alive after all.”

I got a good look at Kevin and Brian once we all let go of each other. Neither of them looked all that great. Kevin had a big gash on his head and Brian just looked pale and unwell. Judging by how they were looking at me, I’m sure I didn’t look all that hot either.

“Howie and Nick?” I asked hopeful.

The cousins looked at each other and my heart immediately sank. I prepared myself for the worst. “Not yet, we’re still looking. We found you! Now we’ll find them.”

“Well we need to get moving or we’ll all be found by the bad guys.” She said as she moved ahead of us.

“Who is she?” Brian asked as we approached the guy they had been walking with.

“Hey Syd.” He said to my female friend, thus ending my quest to find out her name.

“Hey Scott, where’s the family?”

The man took a deep breath, “They didn’t make it.”

She nodded but didn’t show any sign of emotion. “Sorry.”

“Scott this is our friend AJ, AJ this is Scott.”

“Hey.” I held out my hand and he shook it.

“And this is Sydney.” I smirked at her and gave her a wink. She hated the fact that I now knew her name.

Kevin and Brian both went to shake her hand but just like me, she brushed them off. “We were heading towards Clara and Randy’s.” She said to Scott, acting as if Kevin and Brian were figments of her imagination.

They all looked at each other and I knew to expect some bad news. Scott is the one that answered, “Don’t bother, we just came from there. They’re gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” It was the first time I have ever witnessed her distressed and maybe even a little sad.

“I mean gone. The shack was empty; it looked like it was ransacked. It looks like the whole neighborhood was.”

I went to put my hand on her shoulder. I could tell these people meant something to her, but the second I tried to show her some sympathy she pulled away. “Well, we better come up with a plan B because if they did raid that street, then they’re probably not too far away.” She had the same very cold tone of voice when I first met her. She managed to put her wall up again, I could tell.

“Thank God you’re safe.” Brian said giving me a hug as we started walking the way we had come.

I nodded, grateful that I had found my friends and hopeful that we would soon find Nick and Howie and be reunited.