I bound down the rest of the stairs to find the other two clustered around Calico J in the living room. He's furiously texting someone. I elbow my way between Ditzy and Patrick to get a look at the phone. "Let me see. J? Who replied?"
He's grinning like an idiot. Ditzy has her distant, polite smile on still, and Patrick looks nervous, which is nothing new. Calico J tilts the phone for me to see.
Are you legit? reads the first text on the screen. Because I've been getting scam calls for the last six weeks, and if this is one more telemarketer in the middle of the apocalypse, I swear to god I will hunt you down and feed you to the devil myself.
"Good thing only my dad believes in the devil," says Calico J cheerfully.
I read the text again with a feeling somewhere between skepticism and revulsion. "There are still telemarketers out and about?"
"Probably just bots," says Calico J. He finishes his text and sends it off with a flourish. "I told them we're legit."
"They sound..."
"Aggressive?" volunteers Patrick when I can't find a way to phrase it diplomatically.
"That's one way of putting it." I reach around Calico J's shoulder and scroll back up to the original texts to read them again. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, jeez. I mean, I get being angry if you've been getting scam-called when everyone's desperate to hear from friends and family, but still. Feeding us to the devil is a little extreme."
"On the flipside, they've survived this long." Calico J stares at the screen for a long moment, but there's no indication yet that the other person is replying. "Their area code is local, too. Just the next region over."
"You know this how?"
He points to Patrick. That makes marginally more sense. Calico J and I met on the university campus in the second week after Red Thursday, and I know we're both from out of town. Patrick and Ditzy are locals. Well, Ditzy is. There are a lot of things we still don't know about Patrick.
"Do they know we're here, too?" I say. "Your area code is still from Haliware, isn't it?"
Calico J scrolls down and shows me what he wrote back. He told them already. One step ahead of me, as per usual.
The phone bings as a new text pops up. Wow. For real? We haven't found any new ones in weeks. Where are you guys?
Calico J replies again. Chesnet. Just south of Cape Morgan. You?
Plyster-Anport county
"Just north of the Cape," says Ditzy when Calico J looks to Patrick helplessly.
He nods and goes back to the phone. How many of you are there?
About sixteen now. Are you alone?
I catch Calico J before he texts back. "Do we want to trust them?" I whisper, as though the person on the other end can hear.
"They're survivors, Meg. People."
"Exactly. That's the problem." I clench my jaw as I try to put words to my feelings without sounding like an asshole. "And there are a lot more of them than us. Are we comfortable meeting them? I mean, I get that more survivors equals more information at this point, but how do we weigh that against the risks?" I glance around at each of us. "Like, I know we've gotten lucky for the most part, but Ditzy at least has had bad experiences. And I don't know about you guys, but I really don't want to get tangled up in whatever post-apocalyptic dystopian nonsense people spiral into when society falls apart. Personal opinion."
"I didn't peg you as the type to lose faith in humanity," says Calico J with the slip of a smile.
"Look, I've watched first-time campers lose their minds because their canoe came untied and blew away and they were three days out of cell service. People go nuts when their world disintegrates. That's just reality."
I'm alive, and it's not because I went around talking to people immediately after Red Thursday. Nobody here needs to know I didn't talk to people because I was too damn scared to crawl out from under my blankets, but that's not the point. The point is that we're all alive here because we've found a pattern that works, and I'd rather keep it that way. If it's not broken, don't fix it, and all that. I've been working hard not to break it.
"People go nuts?" says Ditzy with a light tug on my braid. "Says the one who I've never seen so much as scream in a Sleeper attack."
The twin inputs of implied flattery and her actual hand touching my actual hair slam into me from opposite sides, and my brain short-circuits. Calico J says something I don't hear. Ditzy tugs my braid again, playfully, then bounces it against my back with a coy smile like she's enjoying the Meg-deactivation switch she's found.
A hand appears at the edge of my vision. Calico J swats Ditzy off my hair. "Ditz, I swear to god, leave her alone. I'm trying to have a productive conversation. Go do something useful if you're bored."
"Sleeper-hunting?" says Ditzy with that smile she knows drives me absolutely mad. She slings her bat over her shoulder, forcing Patrick to duck.
Calico J just narrows his eyes, unamused.
Ditzy makes a show of rolling hers. She spins smartly and flounces off. "I'm going to go check out the shed. First dibs on any weapons I find."
"Be my guest," says Calico J. "Don't kill anyone. Please and thanks."
The back screen door bangs shut.
Calico J drags both hands back over his locs with a groan. Well, one hand and his phone. He checks the phone again. A new text blinks on the screen. You there?
Calico J and I look at each other. I don't like this. I can't explain the bad feeling I get from the person on the other end of the phone when we haven't even met them yet, but it's there. Or maybe I'm just getting overly attached to my comfort zone.
"More people means information," says Calico J. "They might have found a cure, if they've got so many people."
That logic makes significantly less sense than most things I hear Calico J say. I give him an incredulous look, and he admits to it.
"Okay fine. Maybe not a cure. But we don't know how much longer cell service is going to stay up, if the electricity goes kaput for good one of these days. If we actually want to meet other people, this is our chance. It's possible they're better-established than we are. Maybe they've found out more? Like the group in the cafeteria did." Before I can remind him what happened to that group, he soldiers on. "They might have more resources than us, too. Like a doctor or something. I know you're good at first-aid stuff, but they could have... I don't know. Someone who could study the Redding properly, or connect back to the internet, if it's still up somewhere. We won't know until we talk to them."
"We can. You're texting right now." Another angle of attack comes to me as I say it. "Even if we assume we're comfortable meeting these people—assuming they're even comfortable meeting us, too—that's another conversation yet. Are we comfortable leaving?"
Patrick looks away.
I see Calico J's eyes drop at the mention. I've almost gotten my hopes up that that's won the argument, but then he shrugs. "If it gives us a chance to talk with more people, I think it's worth it. Even if we have to leave."
That's a change of tune from what he's been saying for the last six weeks. I know it must hurt him far more than he's showing.
"Your family won't be able to find you if cell service goes down and we leave Chesnet," I say. "Are you okay with that?"
He doesn't answer for the longest time. Force of necessity has kept us in Chesnet until now, but I know he would take a car and leave if he could. If survival didn't take all of us working together, and if we hadn't voted three-to-one to stay here as long as we can. I know it tears him up inside to let his family find him—if any of them are still awake—rather than the other way around, but it's one thing we can't compromise on.
"It's not down yet," he says at last. "And we might not need to go far. We can come back after if..." His eyes drift to the back window. Something rattles and crashes in the shed outside. I don't want to know.
"If things go sour," finishes Calico J, then looks at his phone. "Can I reply to them now? It's going to look suspicious if we leave them hanging."
I want to keep arguing. But I don't have any well-articulated backing for my arguments: just a mess of gut feelings and knee-jerk reactions, all of which I'm sure will sound stupid the moment they're exposed to air. I don't agree with all of Calico J's reasons, but at least he has them. He knows what he's talking about. I don't know why he's deferring to me on answering the texts, honestly. He's been doing this all on his own so far, and he's the one who wants to talk. He's right, too. The longer he leaves the other survivors hanging, the worse it will reflect on him.
Something in me dies a little as I wave noncommittally towards the phone.
Calico J texts back, Sorry, got distracted. We're four, and we've scoured the town. We're alone here.
Four?! Oh damn, you actually found a group down in Chesnet? You guys must be crazy tough.
Quiet alarm bells start up in the back of my head. Calico J doesn't seem bothered, though, and Patrick says nothing. I keep my mouth shut.
We've got good people, texts Calico J. Survivor types. Hey, are you open to meeting up?
Yeah, but we're not coming anywhere near Chesnet, no offense. If you guys find your way up here, we can meet you on Highway 6 just north of Wakewater. Bring your own food. Let us know when you're coming. Oh, and we'll have to screen you when you come, just a heads up. Camp rules. But you guys should be fine if you're still alive after all this time
Calico J starts to type something, then glances at me and winces a little. I'll talk to the group and let you know, he texts. Then he turns off the phone. "Okay, fine. Assuming we're not the ones who get kicked out first because Ditzy tries to kill someone, what are you ultimately most worried about if we meet other people?"
I open my mouth, then close it again, my face heating up. I still don't have an answer. Well, I have several answers, but none that quite put a finger on what I'm feeling now. There's all the standard stuff to worry about, of course. Getting tricked and mugged, having all our stuff stolen, being seen as a threat to existing power structures in any other group of survivors. The risk of putting someone like Patrick through more shit than he already has been, which I'd rather avoid if possible.
But there's something more insidious about this particular post-apocalyptic situation. Maybe it's the fact that it'd be so easy for someone to blackmail us or take us out if they got hold of our real names. I know I at least still carry around my ID and bank cards, hidden behind the back panel of my pack in case the world recovers. Maybe it's the fact that the world's been in a holding pattern for the last six weeks, and we don't know how long it will take any survivors to crack under the stress. Maybe it's the many, many questions I've had since last night's rain.
Or maybe it's the fact that to this day, neither Calico J nor I knows what happened to the survivors that pitched camp in our university's cafeteria after Red Thursday.
"It's the things we don't know yet," I say, and sure enough, that sounds a lot dumber than it did in my head. I push on. "How people will react. What the Redding wants with us. What it will do next."
"Do all of those have to do with survivors, though?"
"You tell me."
We both fall silent. Patrick is still here, looking back and forth between us, but he doesn't say anything either.
"Patrick, any thoughts?" says Calico J. He's always been better than me at soliciting the opinions of everyone in the room. I never think to do that.
"I'm with Meg," says Patrick, and relief floods my system. "We don't know what it's going to do next. Or what it wants with us."
"And how do you see that applying to people?"
Patrick shrugs. "Then it's about how people will react."
Those are the three points I made. Patrick agrees with me. His next words, though, snuff out that hope as quickly as it arose. He shuffles his feet and looks away. "Having internet again would be nice, though."
We don't even know if the survivors have internet. We don't know if anyone in the whole world has internet, or if the internet still exists, or if the Redding ruined it when it wiped out the electricity. But Patrick has—intentionally or unintentionally—vindicated Calico J's drive to go fling himself into the presence of strangers on the other side of Cape Morgan. Strangers we know next to nothing about.
I can't get the texted comment about Chesnet out of my mind. Maybe Calico J is right. Maybe these other survivors know more than we do, and can help us that way. They certainly seem to know more about our town than we do. I beat my mind with that, trying unsuccessfully to convince it that this is more valuable than my abundance of caution. After all, there are things in Chesnet that even I want answers to. Like why the Red Rain might be talking to me, even warning me to run before it chases us out of a safe house. Like why this town emptied so fast, when there are so few cars on the road to indicate failed escape attempts.
Like what happened to the survivors in the university cafeteria.
If this other group can answer that, that answer alone might make meeting them worth it. At very least, it can't hurt to try.
I hope.
Like this chapter if you think the person texting them is shady 🕶
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