"Home, it's where the heart is, do just let me breathe again, make me young again... and we'll go where we are free again, this is not the end, we'll be young again" Hurts "Exile" (this song has been a bit of an inspiration for this story!)
Chapter Twenty-Five: Restless Thoughts
For a time, I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that we stood there alone: the last homosapiens alive. At the top of Hollywood Boulevard, we came upon a skeleton with the arms dislocated and removed, lying several yards away from the rest of the body. As we proceeded, I became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, save for stragglers such as ourselves, already accomplished in this part of the world. The invaders, I thought, had gone on and left the country desolated, seeking food elsewhere. Perhaps now they were destroying London or Paris, or it might be that they had gone northwards into Canada.
We spent that night in an old saloon which stands on the top of Hollywood Boulevard, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since the evacuation of Pasadena. I will not tell you of the needless trouble that we had trying to break into that inn, only for Penny to find the front door was on the latch. We ransacked the whole place for any traces of food that we could scavenge. Along with the scraps that the girls had managed to find, we had the most random assortment of ingredients. In the bar afterwards, Leonard also found some biscuits and sandwiches: the latter I could not eat as they were too rotten, but the former not only stayed my hunger but also filled my pockets. In the meantime, Raj had been busy gathering the random foodstuffs which we had collectively harvested and was pondering which he would be able to cook. The inn had a gas oven which was seemingly unaffected by the EMP, so he was busying himself in the kitchen whilst Amy was comforting Bernadette and attempting to calm her down with a warm beverage.
The food that Raj had managed to throw together for the six of us was surprisingly delicious. It was, in fact, the first hot meal that any of us had eaten in weeks, and it was certainly welcomed by my digestive system which was not accustomed to surviving off scraps and wild mushrooms. I had always mocked Raj for his culinary skills, but this meal was quite an achievement given the restraints of what was available to us at the time.
We lit no lamps, fearing that an invader might be beating that part of California looking for food in the night. Before I went to bed, I had an interval of restlessness and prowled from window to window, peering out for some sign of Howard. Penny came to comfort me, but I found that I slept very little. As I lay in my bed, I found myself thinking consecutively, a thing that I had not done since my argument with Zack. During all the intervening time, my mental condition had been a hurrying succession of vague emotional states. But in the night, my brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the food I had eaten, grew clear again and I thought.
Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of Zack, the whereabouts of the invaders and the possible fate of Howard. I was haunted by the look of terror on Raj's face when Howard had dropped his bag and shouted at us to run. What had become of our acquaintance? Was he alive? Was he deceased? Even Raj seemed sketchy on the details. I desperately wanted to reassure Bernadette that her husband was alive and well, but, in all honesty, none of us knew. Penny and Amy were doing their best to pacify her, but nothing seemed to take her mind away from the thoughts of Howard. She began muttering, concocting a plan of how she would "get back at those alien bastards" for what they had done to her "Howie".
The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall: after all, it was Bernadette who had ended his life, and I saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse. I saw myself then as I see myself now, driven step by step towards driving that kitchen knife into his heart. That is precisely what I had intended to do and what I would have inevitably done, had Bernadette not stepped in with the shovel. I felt no condemnation, yet the memory, static and unprogressive, haunted me. In the silence of the night, Penny must have detected my restlessness, as she came rushing over towards me: she lay down alongside me and placed her comforting arms around my middle. Still, I retraced every step of the last conversation that I had with Zack, from the moment when I had found him crouching beside me, pointing to the fire and the smoke that steamed up from the ruins. He had been incapable of co-operation with the rest of us. Had I foreseen this, I should have left him in Pasadena. But I did not foresee, and crime is crime; there were no witnesses so the reader of this tale must judge our actions as they will...
And when, by an effort, I had set aside that image of Zack's body, I faced the problem of the invaders and the fate of Howard Wolowitz. For the former, I had no data: I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappily, I could for the latter, and suddenly, despite Penny's best intentions, that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. If my mother were here, she would be suggesting I pray, but I refuse to talk to a deity whose existence I strongly doubt: if they did exist, I doubt they would have allowed this calamity to happen in the first place.
If nothing else, this war has taught us pity - pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominance...