Daimones - Book 1 of the Daimones Trilogy. Booktrope Publishing Edition

Others?

Unexpected Expectations

Later that evening, all discussions revolved around what we had discovered that afternoon. We weren't alone anymore. Other people had survived. If someone was in Geneva, maybe more were alive in other locations, too. Maybe not so far either, just not as many as to make interactions and encounters easy and probable.

In the next days, we scanned the horizon more intensely, and frequently compared all the notes Mary and Annah had written down previously. Had anything changed? Were there more visible lights at night? Were there any houses with lit windows? Nothing. For what we could see from our home, everything was as dead as ever. I was tempted to put something visible from afar on the roof. Anything that would grab the attention, like a flag or a banner. At the same time, I was scared. Yes, in a deserted world where everyone around us had been killed, I was afraid to face other people and of what they were capable of. Paranoids do survive.

I didn't visit the nearby mall daily, and we had to presume it was probably the same with "the survivor" in town, as we now referred to the person who'd looted the drugstore and the department store in Eaux Vives. Were we ready to meet other people now, whoever they turned out to be? Those doubts came to me almost unconsciously. I was as surprised as Mary and Annah when I shared them.

"You don't want to?" Mary frowned.

"It's not that I don't want to..." I was afraid of the change.

We had just started to regain some normalcy in our lives. Things to do, things to focus on and hope for. Hope is a good feeling in itself. What if our hopes, about not being the only ones left on the planet, turned out to be ill-fated? Humans proved to be the most dangerous species of all in every century, most efficiently toward each other. The various "what if" implications worried me.

The Facebook ads campaign was now a multi-million page affair and still we had no results. Maybe survivors were not that common. Maybe at the mall it was just a girl, a woman, and that is all there was. Yet maybe she was not alone...maybe there were other people with her: Men. Violent? Desperate? Aggressive?

We had done a lot at home, and we were well organized. We were an enviable target for people looking for quick and easy gains. The world was full of con artists, swindlers ready to exploit our confidence and take advantage of us if we were naive. With no risks of facing any consequences, even murder could be a possible solution to ruthless people in our new world. I felt as if I had just found a stable base for us, and everything was collapsing again with unknown consequences.

Wait a second. This is exactly why we trained, to face dire situations should they come. Annah knew how to shoot, and Mary did, too. She'd managed to handle and fire the Glock just fine, hadn't she? Yes, but against fixed targets, and maybe just to please me. It wasn't going to be the same to shoot at another person. And the one who hesitates usually ends up horizontal. How would they react in front of a dangerous and menacing person? Would they hesitate?

I was torn, and the tension in the muscles around my neck hurt. 'Do you think there will be others of my age?' Annah had asked. It was the first thing she hoped for and thought of at the store. Did I have the right to shut the door on that possibility? Did I have the right to protect my family so much as to become the cause of their ultimate loss?

Mary and I had an agitated conversation, especially after we managed to kiss Annah goodnight. Our daughter made me promise I would find whoever had been at the mall. "You promise, Dad?" It hurt inside and gave me troubles at night.

"Dan, if there's even the slightest hope that Annah won't live her life waiting for us to die..." She did not finish the phrase. She started to cry softly, and I didn't know whether she cried for us or for Annah. She looked straight at me. "Why do you hesitate?"