Chapter 27
Decisions for the Future
[Monday, April 9th, 2040. 7:19 PM.]
I prodded at the fire with my metal stick. The stick was too flimsy to move the blackened, larger logs, but the numerous coals yielded. The flame licked upwards, sometimes spewing a few embers into the air.
I sat in front of Kelly's car in a cloth folding chair. She sat next to me, her gaze occupied by the fire. We were sitting in a forest somewhere between Cranberry and City 31. The trees exaggerated the time of day, casting darkness on us, as the sun approached the hidden horizon. The orange flames became our main source of light.
"This was a good idea." Kelly noted as she stabbed a marshmallow onto her prong.
"Always wanted to try this. Seems like a human thing."
"It's an American thing." She corrected, and then placed her white sugar cylinder over the fire.
Ah, human nationalities. I reached my left arm over to snatch a marshmallow from our shared bags and placed it onto my stick. With careful vigilance, I watched how Kelly roasted her mallow, and placed mine over the fire. My left arm needed some rest, so I let my right arm extend instead.
"You want to put it over the coals. It's a nice even heat." She said.
I watched her mallow. Golden. Evenly colored. She slowly turned it over the coals.
The firelight on her face suddenly intensified. I looked back at my marshmallow to see it had turned into a fireball.
"Son of a bitch!" I recalled my stick and blew out the fire. My hopes died within me as I stared at the blackened, oozy mess.
I gave Kelly an angry glare as she tried to hide her snickers behind her hand. Oh she tried, but I heard.
She revealed a smile. "Don't worry 'bout it. Just throw it into the fire. We have plenty." Then she brought out her marshmallow, perfectly perfect as perfect could be. She pondered over it before giving me a glance.
"Do you want some?"
"Shut up." I stabbed a fresh mallow onto my stick, and her snickering started up again. I tried to hide it, but an escaping smile found its way onto my face.
The paper in my sweater's pocket grew heavier and heavier with each marshmallow I roasted. Its contents tried to push its way into my mind, but I pushed back, focusing on the mallow.
Finally I got something decent. It was a little brown, and uneven, but I liked it.
"Okay. Now what do I do?" I looked at Kelly with intent, safeguarding my mallow by my chest.
"Next part is pretty simple. You break the graham cracker in half…" She held her stick with her knees and snapped the cracker. "Then you take your chocolate…" She placed the crackers on her lap, some weird balancing display as she retrieved the chocolate. "Then you place your marshmallow between each layer and voilà."
The completed structure was this weird looking sandwich with white goo coming out the sides. She took a bite, with half of the graham just turning into crumbs and falling onto her clothes.
"It's so messy." I was a little irked.
"It's part of the fun." She said with a full mouth, dusting off her jacket.
With great effort, I managed to assemble my own s'more. The construction was off-center due to the lopsided placement of the chocolate. I took a bite anyways.
I felt the crumbs cascade onto my sweatshirt as the sweetness hit my tongue. Oh. Damn that's pretty good. Crunchy, but the melted chocolate and mallow blended it together.
"Pretty good?" She asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. When I was at the store, I have to admit I was worried when I actually saw what a s'more was made out of." My free thumb wiped some goo off my lip.
"Thanks for doing that by the way. Work has been… well, let's not talk about work." She relented, and rested into her chair's backrest, her eyes on her own s'more.
The store. The compulsion to tell Kelly about my encounters was somewhat weird.
"Someone came up to me at the store." I took a break from eating.
"Oh? Who?"
"Viper. She was lookin' at me the whole time, once she had her eyes on me. And I thought I recognized her, but I just shrugged it off. Then we were in the same aisle, for chocolate. And I got a closer look and she had these scars on her face. And then she said thank you to me, and turned away."
I let Kelly mull over which viper it could be. "Who was it?"
"One of the vipers we saved at the distillery, I think."
Kelly still had her eyes on her s'more. "First time getting appreciated?"
"Yeah. And it's so strange. I was just doing my job. And she looked awful. Just her posture, her hoodie smelled like cigarettes. I mean I thought she was gonna mug me– Obviously I wasn't worried. It's like once we 'saved' her she was just put back into the world."
"Wouldn't be too far from the truth."
"I still haven't read the reports."
"You don't want to." Kelly's voice was low. She took another bite of her s'more.
I let my eyes watch the fire. The logs have collapsed by now, and the flames weren't as high. Just a bed of coals lapping at air.
"Whisper called me yesterday."
I left the words to hang in the air, as the despondent voice that spoke them was asking for Kelly's attention. It took her a few moments to process.
Her chewing slowed. "How come?"
"Anthony and I asked him about the Mackinacs. Because we still didn't know if Anthony's father was alive. Whisper said he's heard of his name, but couldn't give any specifics. Apparently that annoyed him enough to search through FIDS."
"Anthony never searched the database?"
"He did. He found nothing. Neither did Whisper."
Kelly tapped a finger against herself. "It's bothering you, isn't it?"
I took a deep breath. "It is. And you know, I'm trying to move on… It's hard."
For a while I just stared at the waning fire, my s'more resting against my tail. I wasn't sure for how long, but the fire was somewhat… mesmerizing. I heard Kelly's voice, and she had a sullen look as she stared at the fire with me.
"Do you know where you're headed?" She asked.
The black coals glowed, the intensity and reach depending on the undulations of the forest breeze.
"Not sure yet. I think I'll head west."
"All the way to the coast?"
"Dunno."
"I think you'd like the mountains. Out there, it's the man who makes himself. Completely depopulated, some chryssalids crawling around, sure. But if you have the will and a rifle, you can make a living." She outstretched her hands, gesturing to a great expanse.
"Doing what?"
"Ranching. Farming. It's not for everyone, but…"
Kelly finally took the time to look at my face. She retreated, her arms landing on her stomach.
"Maybe that's just my dream."
"It sounds nice." I tried to soothe her disappointment.
I saw a flicker of a smile on her face.
We put a few more dry branches on the fire, at least when we could find them. Jane even let me use her axe. But most of the time was spent staring at the flames. Eventually darkness took over our small slice of valley forest, letting the firelight in to leave an orange shadow of the world around us. Kelly's car was no exception. The shiny exterior reflected our campfire scene right back at us. We traded small talk about squad mates, their lives, and the things Kelly is encountering at work. I felt comfortable with her.
The fire's second bout was coming to a close, and we would go home afterward. Kelly and I were just staring, waiting for the flames to extinguish.
The weight on my heart grew as time passed by.
I still had something to do, something I needed to do.
I took the paper out of my pocket. The crisp sheet crinkled out of its fold. It was just notebook paper, with blue lines and a red margin. The text was barely visible in the dim orange light. But I knew what it said.
"What've you got there?" Kelly asked.
"A letter." I caressed the edges of it with my fingers. I have to let go.
"To who?"
"Someone I knew a long time ago."
With that final, verbal push, I folded it, and threw it toward the fire.
The paper drifted and was caught by the rising heat. For a second I thought it would just fly away. But it tumbled, caught against the charred remains of a branch, and lit on fire.
The flames burned outward from the catching corner, quickly blackening the entire page before being consumed in brightness. The fuel increased the light tenfold, before it disappeared with the updraft. Just tiny embers floating in the night sky.
