From:MCCOSKEY, SCOTT
Sent:Friday, December 08, 2006 1:08 PM
To:MCCOSKEY, SCOTT; 6
Tuesday, March 24th 1998 Sunrise
Aztec, New Mexico
7 days after Change
Katherine looked at the stretch of road ahead and gripped her bow tightly. She stood on the roof of the high school cafeteria waiting for some sort of sign. This was the first night she had drawn watch, she was not alone but in the near dark she felt alone. This week was spring break and her senior year. She wasn't supposed to be here, she was supposed to go to Florida. Now she was alive, standing watch, with a bow and arrow on top of a roof. She did not pose the most fearsome visage being built like a sprinter and just a hair less than five foot seven.
Seven days ago she stayed late to watch the football team play a game on the practice field. All the jocks were there from cheerleaders to baseball players to her soccer team. Then the lights went out. Looking back the slight panic that settled was almost comical, now it wasn't. Those that lived nearby went home and came back with their families and had setup a place to stay in the school, being that it was a good meeting place with plenty of room. The first attack wasn't expected, no one was thinking and a lot of people died. After that they broke into the gym and found the maintenance supplies, the next attack still some died but not as much. Now they were armed with baseball bats, bows, and shovels. A few of the adults were in the welding and carpentry rooms trying to make better weapons and armor. The cars were lined up around the area as the making of a wall. Then the surviving townspeople started streaming in with stories just like theirs and the remaining police force as an escort. Weapons were made, patrols and watches were setup, and the grounds were fortified as best as they could. People brought what they had and the houses in the area were stripped of anything of use. Each class room was now a family residence and it was a blessing that the water still worked, it had something to do with flow plumbing or sounded like that, she didn't care.
The night had been quiet and she wasn't sure that was a good thing. They were out there somewhere. She tried not to think about the attacks but the three people she killed were fresh in her mind. It was like all the scum in the area had banded together and decided they wanted whatever was here. What really shocked her were not that they were attacked but by the size of the force. She expected some of the local gangs to come by and maybe some of the bad apples in the town but not all at once like some sort of army. It seemed that in the face of starvation and the collapse of the world as they knew it was reason enough for them to band together. It was by sheer luck that they had survived the first attack.
She knew she was lucky to be alive and to be here. There were stories of those not so lucky, the ones on the outskirts of town and those traveling. People who lived outside the town and who went to check on their families rarely came back with them if at all. It had only been a week and the world had changed so much.
Shaking the thoughts from her head she scanned the area again, knowing that such escapes into her mind could cost people their lives. The area was clear and there was no sign of anyone or anything approaching. When she thought about it the situation made sense. The grounds were fortified and plenty of able bodied people were inside, even if there was attack it would be too costly now to attack. They would come back eventually, she wasn't going to lie to herself, but when they did it would be a fight with heavy losses on both sides.
Heat began to seep into her bones as the sun crested the hills. Behind her she could hear one of the other sentries sigh.
"Should be here any time now," a voice she recognized as Kenneth Alter said from behind her.
Kenneth was the father of Pam, one of the freshmen cheerleaders, and he was a police officer. He was built like a bear and was working on a beard to match. The bow he held and the bow she was using were his, one of his hobbies being bow hunting. He had been at the school since the first day and she had seen him in the attacks, both times he was carrying a fire axe and left a trail of dead in his path. Looking at him now she would have never guessed he was capable of such things, but then she never would have thought she could kill three people either.
"What do you think is for breakfast?" He asked seeing her turn around.
Those who patrolled and stood watch were among the first to be fed. They had setup a meeting hall and eating area in the cafeteria which wasn't hard considering that was what it was usually used for. Most of the kitchen no longer worked but the freezers were still being used, large stacks of ice helped cool things and made fresh water when they melted. All in all it wasn't a bad setup it just took some getting used to.
"I can't believe all the food that was wasted." He turned back to his post. "That first day people just tore about the grocery store."
"I know," Kat turned back to her post. "I was one of them."
"Is that how you got your shiner?"
She was glad he couldn't see her blush. "Yes, but not how you think. I slipped on some spilled ice and knocked my head."
"Finally," he heard him say. "What took you so long?"
Kat turned to see the five person team who would replace them. They traded theirs bows for hand weapons and headed down the ladder leading into the eating hall. The smell of bacon and eggs roused a hunger in her that the cold had killed. There was already a line for food and it was a strict ration per person but that did not stop the smell. As she stood in line she could see the changes in the kitchen where the old appliances had been taken out and replaced by older models or new versions of older models. Gas still burned but just never got hot enough. A group of quick thinkers picked the Pioneer Village clean of anything useful. Most of the stuff was still in the welding and carpentry rooms being copied and thought out.
She took the breakfast tray handed to her and sat down. The place wasn't too full but about an hour it would be. Today was going to be a full day for her, after she went back to the room she shared with four other girls she was going to help built a wall that would encompass the entire campus and the parking lots for a while, she would then work on her self defense skills that the police were teaching everyone, and finally she was going to find somewhere to else to sleep. She was already tired of listening to the three girls she lived with whine about how things had changed. It wasn't that she liked how things were now it was just that she would rather be doing something to make things better than bitching about it. Maybe it was the fact that none of the girls had actually fought during the attacks but when she looked at them she just saw three little girls bickering about life and she knew that if things were still normal they would be doing the exact same thing.
Kat finished her meal in silence and returned the tray to the kitchen. She smiled when she saw two of her roommates washing the trays. She walked back to her room and settled down into her bedroll and fell asleep, still smiling.