VIRUS (Completed)

Day 361

5 days. My mom smiled down at me.

"Good morning."

"Good morning mom," I yawned.

"Breakfast is ready," she said.

"How did you get stuff to make it?"

"Oh, Lilian has some pretty neat tricks up her sleeve!" mom grinned.

"What do you mean?"

All she would tell me was, "We'll show you after breakfast."

I sat up and saw Tim standing in front of a camp stove. The stove was sitting on top of a small metal portable table and was surrounded by four chairs. There were some paper plates on the chair next to Tim and a stack of pancakes were on the top of the plates.

Tim lifted the frying pan off and with a flick of his wrist the pancake was thrown in the air. It flipped over and over and the uncooked side fell back perfectly on the center of the pan. He smiled widely at his achievement.

"Oh, please I can do better than that," Lilian chuckled.

"All right ma'am, step right up!" Tim teased.

Lilian grabbed the pan and launched the pancake into the air. It went a lot higher than the one Tim had thrown. Lilian turned to Tim.

"See, mine went higher," she boasted.

I watched as the pancake descended. It seemed that it chose the exact moment that Lilian looked away, to do so. Lilian turned back but it was too late. The pancake dropped right beside her outstretched hand. Tim burst out laughing at the surprised look on Lilian's face. I looked from the pancake to Lilian's face and started to laugh. 

"I-can't-stop-laughing," Tim snorted.

Soon we were all rolling on the ground holding our sides. Tim managed to roll on top of the pancake which elicited another round of guffaws. Even mom was holding her side from laughing so hard.

Finally we settled down enough to eat. The pancakes were actually pretty good and we all congratulated Tim on his excellent cooking. I didn't even know he could cook! We cleaned up our mess and I looked around at the various stuff.

"How am I supposed to carry all that stuff and you guys at the same time? And how exactly did you get this stuff?"

"We actually rented it from a small camping store that's nearby," mom said, "Lilian has a lot of cash!"

"What if the general goes and asks people if they've seen us? That's dangerous."

"Oh, not with Lilian here," mom chirped.

She motioned to Lilian who merely waved her hand in an up and down motion. Mom's usually short brown hair changed to long straight black hair. Her facial features became pudgy and her entire body expanded. Her usually petite slender figure had changed into a fat old looking lady!

"It's not actually real it just looks that way," Lilian said.

"Wow...." I was lost for words.

Lilian waved her hand again and there was a sharp crack. My mom was back to her usual self.

"Okay, so you should probably return the stuff so we can be on our way," I put the chairs in a pile.

Mom returned a while later. I grabbed Tim and Lilian's hands and after making sure that mom was ready, I took off into the sky.

"Hey Lilian, make us invisible. We don't want anyone to see us," I shouted over the sound of the rushing air.

Everyone disappeared and we were on our way. I knew that we were heading in the right direction. Maybe it was because of my powers and I had some sort of compass in my brain. We passed over many houses and fields and cities.

Once I almost hit a bird but I twisted and narrowly missed it. It squawked after us but I kept on going. Alaska wasn't too much farther. Maybe I had a map in my brain too. Back before the nuclear war, Alaska had been one of the cold areas of Earth. Now it was just like the rest of the planet, sunny and warm like spring time.

After taking several breaks we finally arrived. I flew down to the ground near the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska. Lilian was better at illusions things than me since she had been doing it longer and so she made it look we were a family of tourists.

We got a hotel room under the fake name of the Walters. There were two beds in the room. Tim and I would share one and mom and Lilian would share the other. We continued to hold our tourist family illusion throughout the day. We didn't want to take any chances. Some time after lunch I suddenly had a thought. Did mom know that dad wasn't alive?

"Mom?"

"Yes, Max?"

"It's about dad...."

"I know son. Lilian told me."

"Mom, I'm so sorry-"

"Shh, it's okay. It wasn't your fault-" her voice broke off and her eyes started to water.

I ran over to her and hugged her. We held each other for a moment and then she let go.

"Oh, what am I doing. I'm a grown woman and here I am crying like a baby. Listen Max, what matters now is that no one else dies."

I nodded my head.

"No one will, I promise."

The rest of the afternoon went quickly. We bought some supplies, food and some clothes. It turned out that Lilian had accidentally grabbed a bunch of hundreds when we had split the money up a few days later to buy gifts. That reminded me of what I had gotten Lilian and I felt my pocket. It was empty.

I sighed. What am I supposed to do now? I decided to bring it up right before we went to bed. Evening came quickly. Nothing odd had happened and we felt pretty safe here. It was time for bed. I stood by the light switch and everyone else climbed under the covers.

"Lilian, I was going to get you something for Christmas and I had it in my pocket....Well, it's not there any more. Mom, I should have gotten you something too but I didn't know I was going to end up spending Christmas day in a facility. Tim, I honestly didn't think about getting you something...."

"Max, I actually couldn't think of what to get you! I was trying to figure something out when Emily showed up and you were taken. I guess we're even then," Lilian laughed.

"Honey, being together as a family is more than I could ever want," mom smiled gently.

I turned to Tim.

"Dude, you know that I wouldn't get you anything for Christmas!"

We all laughed and I turned the lights out. I climbed into bed and sighed into the pillow. Mom was right. Being together was better than any gift money could buy. I just hoped that we could stay together with General Whitcom trying to find us.

Author's Note:

Sorry this part is short but I really need to get stuff up in time for the wattys.

Here's a fun fact! The town of Talkeetna, Alaska is an actual town and has a cat for its mayor! I thought that was funny so I decided to use the town in my story.

What do you guys think of a little romance between Tim and Lilian? I might put some in the next part. I think they would make a great couple....