The sun was streaming through a break in the curtains when I woke. I had a moment of disorientation and panic, wondering if I was late for school. Then I remembered I hadn't gone to school in a long time, and all my teachers and classmates were dead.
Uncle Peter was laying next to me, snoring like a warthog with apnea. An ugly bruise flowered on his cheekbone. We were both fully clothed except for our shoes. Uncle Peter had not bathed in a long time, and he stunk. It was not his fault, of course, but it made me realize how sanitary and sweet-smelling my world was before the agoraphobia apocalypse. Potpourri, air fresheners, perfume, deodorant, body wash, detergent, mouthwash, scented candles. They had helped create my childhood's pleasant-smelling atmosphere.
After the peak, all that changed. Everything stank. Body odor, human feces, bad breath, animal dung, garbage, hog slop, chicken droppings. These were the "normal" smells I encountered on the farm every day. Then there were the smells I encountered while scavenging... Mold, decay, rot. And, of course, the abominable stench of human corpses at every possible nauseating stage of decomposition. Not to mention the tinny and sickly-sweet odor of gushing human blood. I hated all those smells. As I laid there, I reflected grimly how badly my life stank.
I looked over at Uncle Peter, his gun protruding from under his jacket. I imagined how simple it would be to slip his gun out, shove the barrel into my mouth, and pull the trigger. I'd never have to smell another corpse or push another wheelbarrow of feces. My anxiety, my hopelessness, my fear, the totality of my pathetic existence... would all be snuffed out instantly.
Then Uncle Peter farted. The fart was so big, it lifted him off the bed slightly. And it was so loud, Uncle Peter woke up with a start. "Are we under attack?!" he asked, still half asleep.
"No, you just farted," I giggled.
"What?!"
"You farted! You farted so loud, you woke yourself up."
"I did not!"
"Oh, yes you did! I was here." The awful fart smell hit me. "Wow! That's strong! What did you eat yesterday?"
"What are you yapping about?" growled Uncle Peter, still cranky and disorientated. "I don't smell anyth—" Suddenly he shook his head and covered his nose with both hands.
"SEE! Wow..." I jumped out of bed and made a big show of waving my hands. "Did something crawl up inside of you and die?!" I then had a good, hard laugh at my uncle's expense.
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After a light breakfast, we left the residence with a sack lunch. A twenty mile hike to Elwood's lay before us, and we were reluctantly resigned to it.
That's when we stumbled upon an odd trail leading away from a duplex's front door. It was a trail of food wrappers, empty water bottles, remnants of human feces, crushed soda cans, empty spam tins, etc... It was as if someone drank some water, moved a couple feet, ate some food, moved a couple feet, pooped, moved a couple feet, and then did it over and over again. Our curiosity peaked, and we let ourselves into the duplex. The trail ended (or rather began) in the duplex's bedroom.
"These droppings were left behind by a snail-agoraphobic," reasoned Uncle Peter. "According to the articles I've read, snail-agoraphobics are extremely rare."
"Why are they called SNAIL-agoraphobics?"
"Because they're able to move anyplace, but only at a 'snail's pace' of a foot or two at a time. Between moves, they must rest and acclimate before they can move again."
"That would explain the poop."
"Apparently, this victim was in bed when he turned agoraphobic." decided Uncle Peter as we followed the trail out of the bedroom. "The first thing he did was move to the kitchen. Next, he went to his back door. Then he went back to his kitchen. Finally, he went out his front door. I see six poops. So that's about six days it took for him just to move about the house."
"Six poops equal six days?" I questioned. "You only poop once a day?"
"About. Don't you?"
"I'm a two-a-day pooper myself."
"Hmmmm. Then let's assume the average is one and a half poops a day. That would mean it took him four days to leave the house. Give or take a day."
"You keep saying 'him'. It could've been a woman."
"The poops look manly. My guess is it's a guy."
"What?! How can a poop look 'manly'?"
"The poops are big. Men poop bigger."
"The poops don't look big to me."
"That's because they're dried out. They were larger when fresh. I'm quite sure he was a man."
"I'm going to disagree. I saw a bra in the bedroom."
Uncle Peter shrugged dismissively. "Probably left here by his girlfriend."
"Fine. Let's follow the trail to the end and see which one of us is right."
We followed the trail out the front door, across the street, and down the sidewalk to an office building door. We counted ten poops. So it took approximately seven days to cross the street and enter the office building.
It should be noted, while the poops we found indoors were well preserved, the poops we found outdoors had decomposed to almost nothing. In most cases, all that remained was a "burn" mark.
Inside, the trail led to a busted, emptied soda vending machine, then to a side entrance. Four poops inside. So it took approximately three more days to enter and exit the building.
We followed the trail out the side door, across a patch of hardened foundation soil and to a sidewalk. "He was pushing a wheelbarrow," deduced Uncle Peter, pointing to the ground. "See, a deep tire track in the soil and pairs of leg support marks every two feet or so." He looked at me and raised an eyebrow to make sure I appreciated how clever he was.
"Very astute observation, my dear Watson!" I declared.
"What?! I'm not the Watson! You're the Watson. I'm the Sherlock."
I rolled my eyes.
We followed the trail down the sidewalk to the front of a commissary (military grocery store). Outside, near the entrance, there was the corpse dressed in an MP (military police) uniform.
We counted an additional twelve poops, indicating nine more days of travel. Altogether, it had taken approximately twenty-three days for the snail-agoraphobic to make it from the bed to the commissary's front.
"It would appear we have found our snail-agoraphobic," declared Uncle Peter, grinning down at the dead MP. "And look! The ID pinned to his chest reads 'Eric Caseboltt'. I was right. He WAS a man after all. Hah!" This triggered a particularly obnoxious, impromptu victory-dance.
I waited for him to finish. "You're wrong," I reported at last.
"What do you mean 'wrong'?"
"I mean WRONG, you conceited oaf! This is NOT the body of the snail-agoraphobic we've been following."
"How can you be so sure?" smirked Uncle Peter.
"I can sum it up in ONE word... wheelbarrow." Uncle Peter's smirk disappeared as he looked around for any sign of the wheelbarrow. "Besides," I pointed out. "The trail continues on into the store." Uncle Peter realized he was, indeed, wrong. I smiled. "You're SO the Watson."
We entered the commissary. The inside was well-lit by skylights. The trail meandered through the small grocery store. All consumables of real nutritional value were gone. All that remained were things like liquor and gum.
Uncle Peter scratched at his five o'clock shadow. "I don't think this store was fully stocked when the snail-agoraphobic arrived. There are a lot more empty spaces on the shelves than empty containers on the ground." We followed the trail though the store, counting poops as we went.
While we were in the pharmaceutical section, Uncle Peter stopped short and sighed. He was staring grimly at three small objects on a shelf.
"What?" I asked, looking blankly up at Uncle Peter for an explanation.
"It looks like you were right. The snail-agoraphobic was definitely a woman. And I don't think we are going to have a happy ending at the end of this trail."
I took a closer look at the three small objects. They were white, six inches long, plastic, and shaped like tongue depressors. In the middle of each one, there was a little window containing "+" symbols. I hadn't a clue what they were, and I looked up at Uncle Peter, eyebrows raised in silent question.
"They are pregnancy test sticks," he explained. "All three are positive."
"So there were THREE women?"
"No, just the one," answered Peter grimly. "She just took the pregnancy test three times."
"Perhaps it was a man after all. Maybe he was just bored and took the tests on a goof. Sounds like something YOU would do."
"If a man had taken the tests, they would have come back negative."
"Oh," My breakfast slid in my stomach.
The trail continued to meander through the store. The path was not random. It was methodical, so that every shelf in the store was reached. We found the wheelbarrow abandoned in a shopping cart corral. Our supposition was the snail-agoraphobe switched her wheelbarrow for carts that could hold more.
The poops became difficult to count. She had obviously been inside the store for a long time. We guessed sixty days. (For a total of eighty-three days from the bed.) The trail led to an "Employees Only" storeroom and out a back loading bay.
We followed the trail into a street and spotted a spent flair gun. The trail led to the side of a building. A gutter's downspout had been wrenched from the ground. There were two plastic objects nearby. "Are those condoms?" I asked.
"Yes," confirmed Uncle Peter. "While it was raining, she filled condoms with water from the downspout. Two of them must have broke while she was filling them."
We followed the trail across a large, empty parking lot. Halfway, we discovered the bones of what was once a wolf or large dog.
"Did she kill it?" I asked.
"Killed and ate it," Uncle Peter decided. "She even broke open the bones and sucked out the marrow. Waste not, want not."
We had counted forty-one poops from the loading dock to the bone pile, equaling twenty-one days of travel for her. The total, we estimated, was 104 days to travel from the bed to the bones. Give or take a month, of course.
Uncle Peter scratched his face as he studied the trail. "As soon as she filled the condoms with water, her path became straight as an arrow. She was heading to someplace in particular."
He was right. Her trail didn't meander. It went straight across the parking lot and over a median decorated with small rocks. The rocks had been rearranged to read: "S.O.S.", with an arrow pointing in the direction she was headed. The trail went under a barricade and passed a large, ominous sign that read: "Restricted Area - Authorized Personnel Only".
"Are we 'authorized'?" I asked.
"Nope."
"Then I guess we can't go in."
"I suppose I could authorize you, and you could authorize me."
"How do we do that?"
"Like this..." Uncle Peter altered his voice to sound like an officiator. "I, Peter Kardon, hereby authorize Samber Valentoni full access to this facility." His voice then returned to normal. "Now you do me."
I altered my voice to sound theatrical. "I, the great and powerful Samber Valentoni, bla, bla, bla... here and by, authorize my silly uncle, Peter Kardon, bla bla bla bla... facility."
"Perfect." chuckled Uncle Peter.
We followed the trail past the ominous sign to a large building's enormous sliding door. Just outside was an arrow drawn with tar. It was pointing toward the open doorway, and above it was the word "HELP".
From the animal bones to the "HELP" arrow, I had counted sixty-nine more poops. So the grand total, from the bed to there, was 139 days.
That's when we briefly heard a baby cry.
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We entered. The storage facility was stacked high with boxes, covered with semi-transparent plastic, marked "HDR" and "MRE". There were also many pallets full of bottled water. The place was fairly well-lit by many large, opaque skylights in the ceiling.
Almost immediately a familiar smell drilled me right between the eyes, stopping me in my tracks. My nostrils curled at the reek of human waste.
"Hello!" called out Uncle Peter into the cavernous structure. "Is anyone in here?!?"
Silence. We could no longer hear the faint cry of a baby.
Uncle Peter took in a deep breath. "ANYYYYONNNNE IIIIIN HEEEERRRRRRRRE!!?!" he howled with impressive volume. We listened with bated breath to the dismal silence that followed.
'over here' came a distant wisp of a reply.
We headed in the voice's general direction.
"Keep yelling, so we can find you!!!"
"over here!" came the female voice more clearly. "thi-this way!"
We followed her voice through the maze of crates. We turned a corner, and there she was, sitting on an overturned bucket.
I was expecting Rambo with boobs. Or at least a grown woman. But she was only sixteen years old. The teenager's face was filthy. Her hair was crusty and tangled. She was wearing a military jumpsuit that was so tattered and dirty it was impossible to tell its original color. The jumpsuit was unzipped to her navel. With her right arm, the teenager was breastfeeding a four-month-old baby swaddled in rags. There was a large pile of trash and feces, about twenty feet away, letting off a terrible stench. A swarm of flies constantly buzzed above it. Nearby were four stuffed shopping carts.
Holding the bulk of my attention was the gun in the teenager's left hand. The gun was pointed at the ground, not at us. Nonetheless, its presence put a knot in my stomach.
"hello," she said, flat-voiced, dull-eyed. She didn't speak again for several beats. Then she uttered something you don't want to hear from someone who's armed... "I... I hope... I hope I'm not hallucinating... not again... am I?"
I glanced at Uncle Peter to find him sharing a terrified look. "Um... no," he assured her. "No, we're quite real."
"th-the only reason I bring it up is because I've hallucinated b-before."
An uncomfortable pause passed.
"Would you like to touch one of us?" I suggested. "So you'll know we're real?"
The teenager considered me for a moment, then nodded.
I strode over to her and held out my hand. She slowly placed the gun on the floor and took my hand firmly into hers. She became emotional at the touch and began to cry. Uncle Peter calmly walked over and snatched up the gun. I was PROFOUNDLY relieved. He discreetly stashed the gun on a shelf. The teenager was too busy crying to notice.
"it's been so long since i t-talked to anyone," she sobbed, letting my hand go.
"What's your name?" asked Uncle Peter.
"stephanie."
"Nice to meet you, Stephanie. My name is Peter. This is my niece, Samber."
"how did you find me?" asked Stephanie, fighting back her tears.
"We followed your poops." I explained.
"How old are you?" inquired Uncle Peter.
"fifteen," answered Stephanie. Suddenly, she looked panicked. "Wait!... What's the date now?"
"May 29th. It's been almost a year since the outbreak peaked."
"A year!?" Stephanie started crying again. "I missed my birthday! I'm sixteen years old, and I've a baby!" She belted out a heart-wrenching wail. "I don't even know how to drive a caaaaaaaarrrrrrr!" Then she started to sob uncontrollably.
I didn't know what to do. I moved closer and hugged her. I immediately regretted it. She smelled AWFUL. Like sweaty, moldy, gym socks dipped in puke. Stephanie slung her free arm around my waist and hugged me back. She crushed her filthy face against my shirt, sobbing even harder.
Peter darted over and put a hand under the baby. (I think he was worried Stephanie might drop her.) The baby, meanwhile, had stopped nursing and was looking with wide-eyed fascination at the two strangers hovering over her. The four of us stayed that way for a full minute before Stephanie released me from the hug, and she was able to compose herself.
"Is your baby a boy or girl?" I asked.
"She's a girl," sniffed Stephanie, wiping her runny nose on her filthy sleeve.
Uncle Peter still had his hand under the baby. "May I please hold her?" he asked.
Stephanie considered that for long moments, then nodded. Uncle Peter carefully lifted the baby and cradled her in his arms.
"Well, hello there," he sang in a sweet, high-pitched, hyperarticulated voice. "You're just so precious." As he spoke, his face became overtly expressive with wide eyes and exaggerated mouth movements. "You're the most precious thing in the whole, wide world. Yes, you are. Yes, you are." Uncle Peter had simply fallen in love with that baby.
"What's your baby's name?" I asked.
"I... I... I don't know." Fresh tears rolled down Stephanie's face. "I didn't give her a name because I was afraid... I was afraid she might die at birth. I hoped that not picking out baby names would make it less horrible if she died. Then... then after she was born... I worried that naming her would make her die."
"So it's a superstition? You're afraid that if you name your baby, she might die?"
Stephanie nodded.
"That's all right," smiled Uncle Peter, speaking through the baby. "A pretty baby like you doesn't need a name. Do you? No, you don't. Whoza pretty baby?" The baby smiled up at him, forming tiny dimples. "You are. Yes, you are."
"If YOU can't name her, Is it okay if I name her?" I suggested. "Because I've a GREAT name for her."
Stephanie looked blankly at me. "What's the name?"
"Abigail. That's the name of a beautiful and brave woman I admired greatly. She died a year ago, protecting me."
"Abigail is a pretty name... All right. You can name her that."
"You have a name now, pretty baby," beamed Uncle Peter. "Your name is Abigail."
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Stephanie drew us a map to the motor pool so we could find a battery from storage and requisition ourselves a vehicle. I volunteered to stay behind with her while Peter went to the motor pool and returned with a truck. He and I loaded it with as many HDRs (Humanitarian daily rations) and MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) as it would hold. Unfortunately Stephanie was crippled with anxiety the instant she was moved to the truck.
Because she had given birth AFTER the peak, Stephanie had hoped her baby wouldn't have suffered from agoraphobia. Unfortunately, the instant Baby Abigail was taken out of the storage facility, she too became crippled with anxiety.
Hours later, when the anxiety finally lifted, Stephanie and Abigail found themselves in a bed in the Main House. They were made to feel welcome, and they flourished in their new home.
"Do you know what I like best about Elwood's?..." Stephanie once told me, "I'm almost never bored. There are nice people to talk to, thousands of books to read, a variety of food to eat, good music to listen to, and an endless supply of legalized marijuana. It boggles my mind when I hear someone complain about life at Elwood's; I guess after spending a year in hell, purgatory seems like heaven."
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