Omaha had been cleaned out much more thoroughly than Gary had, and the first two stores the group stopped at didn't have anything of substance. The car was running low on gas and their bottled water supply was down quite a bit. Dom had pulled over in a McDonald's parking lot to save gas while they decided on where to search next when Matthew had the idea to go inside.
"Think about it. They probably still have a ton of frozen stuff in there. Electricity is still on in this area, and even if it wasn't I guarantee they have a generator. We can raid the freezers and make a smorgasbord of stuff. French fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, whatever we want."
"I'm in" said Tori, putting a hand over her growling stomach. "I could use a double quarter pounder right now."
"Yeah, like you could finish one of those" said Diana.
"You obviously haven't known Tori very long. She ate two back to back at my house one night, I thought I was gonna throw up but she held it like a champ." Marie laughed at the memory and Tori shook her head appreciatively.
They all got out of the car and headed inside, trying to keep a low profile in the open parking lot. Some people were still around in the bigger cities and they didn't want to draw attention to themselves. The door was unlocked so Matthew pulled it open and held it for everyone, turning to survey the inside of the store to make sure it was empty. He and Dom checked all of the bathrooms and the play area, including the ball pit and the tubes, but didn't find anyone. The mid-evening sun was blaring through the windows at eye level, casting long shadows inside the store since the lights were off. Everyone headed behind the counter into the kitchen to start looking for things to make.
Marie had a job at Wendy's when she was fifteen, the first job she ever got with her work permit, so she knew how to run the fryers and everything. Marie got the fryers and grills going to warm up while everyone else checked the smaller freezers and the big walk-in freezer in the back, grabbing burger patties and mounds of chicken nuggets. When they had around a couple dozen of everything in the store they hauled it up to the front, dropping baskets of fries and nuggets before putting chicken and hamburger patties on the grill. Dom finished up with what he had before heading to the drive-thru window to fill up a drink, sipping on it while he addressed the group.
"We've all been pretty scant with food over the past week, so be careful pigging out on this stuff. Not only is it not good for you but your stomachs have shrunk a little, so you won't be able to handle as much as you could before."
"He means you Tori" said Marie, grabbing a drink of her own. "Only one double for you today."
"Well I'll start with one and we'll wing it from there." Tori stuck her tongue out and grabbed an oatmeal raisin cookie from the stand on the counter. "These are probably stale but oh well."
Tori, Diana and Matthew hung out in the play place while they waited for the food to cook and cool down enough to eat. Matthew did a little front flip into the ball pit and Diana cheered him on from one of the tubes up above. Tori sat on top of the mouth of the slide with her legs on either side, sipping her drink and looking out the window. She wasn't paying attention to what was happening inside and when Matthew noticed he made to scare her, climbing from the ball pit to the strap tunnel near the slide. He got into position quietly as Tori sat completely oblivious, and when she went to take another drink he yelled out right next to her, making her jump and drop her drink down on the slide. The top popped off and the water went everywhere with just perfect enough timing that Diana slid through it coming down the side. Diana yelped out when the cold water soaked through her jeans and Matthew laughed with a fervor unmatched.
Dom and Marie came running into the play place at full speed, looks of terror on their faces at the two high pitched screams that had rang through the store.
"What's going on?" asked Dom.
"Your brother scared the shit out of me and I dropped my drink, then Diana slid through it."
Matthew lay on his back in the tunnel with his hand on his stomach, unable to stop laughing. "It was so great dude, you should have seen Tori's face."
"Well try to keep the blood-curdling screams down next time, yeah?" asked Dom, turning back for the kitchen with a smile on his face.
"I'm gonna go try to dry off a bit" said Diana.
Matthew and Tori headed into the kitchen as Diana went towards the bathroom by the side entrance. The chicken nuggets had come out and were lying in a giant pile on a tray, surrounded with handfuls of dipping sauce. The smell of cooked food was one of welcome; the group hadn't had more than a mouthful of warm, fresh food in a whole week. They'd been living mostly on canned beans and dry stuff like crackers and bread, but though it'll keep you full you get tired of it really quick. Luckily no one in the group seemed to get cranky without eating well, at least not yet.
"I'm gonna hit the bathroom and wash up before we eat" said Tori, setting her empty cup at the booth nearest the kitchen. She walked around the corner and entered the same bathroom Diana had gone in a couple minutes prior, stopping in her tracks as soon as she laid eyes on her friend.
Diana stood in the middle of the bathroom floor in her underwear, her jeans pressed flat up against the wall with nothing holding them up. She had both of her hands up in front of her, palms out, with pulses of what Tori could only guess were heat waves coming out of them. The wet spots on Diana's jeans were almost completely gone but when she noticed Tori she jumped, losing her concentration so her jeans fell to the floor. She ran over and grabbed them as quick as she could, jumping into them and shimmying them up past her hips. Tori stood unmoving near the door, not sure of what she'd just seen.
"How did that...I mean was there something..."
"I can explain, I swear" said Diana, looking incredibly guilty and scared at the same time.
"You were just floating your pants...and drying them off...with your hands?" The end of Tori's statement came out as a sort of question as her mind was having trouble wrapping around the concept of something so fantastical.
"I...There's things about me that you don't know, at least not yet."
"Apparently. I'm assuming it's something that's not really a topic for the dinner table so we'll keep it under wraps and talk about it later. As long as it's nothing dangerous or anything that I, we, should worry about. Because if so-"
"Tori, it's fine," Diana interrupted, heading towards the door, "I promise I'm not going to kill you with demonic spells or anything. Let's go eat."
Tori could barely concentrate enough to breathe much less eat. Everyone ate and drank and joked around her, even Diana, but she just couldn't tear her mind away from what she'd seen. Obviously Diana must be really comfortable with obscuring who she really was with the way she was laughing and carrying on with the group, like the whole scene in the bathroom didn't even happen. Tori wondered if she really had seen what she thought she saw, and if she did, what else could Diana do? Could she do all of the scary things people talk about in stories? Read minds, control people's actions? She wasn't sure what the extent of it would be since she wasn't aware of any precedent for fiction leaking into real life.
The sun was most of the way down now and the store was getting dark. They didn't want to turn the lights on since the store would become a beacon in the night for anyone in the area, and they were trying to be security conscious. Tori turned sideways and leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, trying to absorb the enormity of everything. They were in the middle of a nationwide crisis, surviving together with what little they had, trying to avoid riots and bombings and fires, and at the same time finding out magic is apparently real, and one of the members of their group can do it. Just a typical day. Dom still had a watchful eye on Tori and he wasn't sure what to make of her behavior.
"You feelin' OK, Tor? You didn't really eat much and you seem like you've kinda been off on another planet or something."
"Yeah Dom I'm good, just checking on myself internally to make sure I'm coping with everything and not pushing it to the back without noticing." Tori didn't make eye contact out of fear she would give herself away.
"Well that's good, that's something we all should be doing" said Dom, getting up to dump the trash off the tray. "We need to be careful of our mental health just as much, if not even more, than our physical health."
"Well now that we're all fed, what's the plan?" asked Matthew. "It's dark and we're almost out of gas again."
Dom sat back down and leaned forward with his elbows on the table, both fists on either side of his chin. On one hand they needed to keep moving, but on the other hand they were short on gas and driving around in the dark to find some wasn't the best idea. He figured most people that were still around were looking to loot stores for electronics or DVDs or whatever else they wanted, forgetting the fact that when everything broke down there would be no power, that the McDonald's they were in would be a safe place to camp for the night.
"I guess we'll stay here. We can get some rest and then head out again at first light to try to find some gas and get moving again."
"You had to say it didn't you, Dom?" asked Marie.
"Say what?"
"That we could run out of gas and have to walk."
Dom and the others all laughed, but Marie didn't find what she had said to be particularly funny.
Tori cracked her neck and stood up, angling herself towards the play place. "I'm gonna go clear out the ball pit since it has a padded bottom. If we get all of the balls out there's enough room for us all to sleep on something that's not the ground for once."
"I'll help" said Diana, getting up to follow her.
The group dispersed, going different directions to accomplish different tasks. Tori and Diana were in the play place alone but the air was thick with tension, making it equally as uncomfortable as if they were being watched by a large crowd. Tori crawled into the ball pit and sat on her knees, clearing the pit out one by one. Diana came in from the other side, making short eye contact with an apologetic look. She started tossing the pit balls in the same direction as Tori, her head down and mouth closed.
"So...what are you?" asked Tori.
"Heh, good question. Back in my old life in Seattle, the group of friends I told you about, our circle of friends wasn't just people hanging out, it was a circle of magic. All of our families had some magical history and we didn't even know it at first, until I found my family's book of shadows."
"What's that?"
"It's a kind of spell book, but also just a general information thing. Families that practiced wrote their experiences in there, new spells, information on bad people, you know, your typical after school TV show."
"What happened with you guys? How did you all come together, find out you were alike?" Tori was still clearing out the pit but a lot more slowly now, her mind taken off the task by something far more interesting and in-depth.
"Well we all have individual magic, like we can do some small things by ourselves, and of course we all abused it a little bit. Whenever we'd do something in public there would be the guilty look to see if anyone caught you, and we just noticed it in each other over time. It became a little more apparent when we realized that we'd all lost a parent in the same year, and some investigation proved to us that all of our parents had been friends. I started hanging out with Adam-"
"Your ex Adam? He was magical too?"
"Yes. We started hanging out and then everyone else just fell into place over time. But, uh, things got complicated and, well, our circle ended up broken."
Diana looked down at the ball pit and rolled one of them around in her hands, biting her lip a little like she wasn't sure what to say. Tori felt a little ball of pain in her gut that she worked out to be a sadness, mixed with a little resentment. She clenched at her belly button to ease the tension of the pit of her stomach but it didn't seem to work very well.
"Some people died, some people went dark. I found out I had a sister and that our dad's side of the family was based in black magic, and when things started getting scary and dangerous I wanted out. After my adoptive dad and my real dad both died, my new sister was on the brink of losing herself and my boyfriend went over the edge, I knew I had to get out of there."
"So this was all just recently then, yeah?"
"Sort of. I got out of town pretty much immediately and went down to California, spent some time near the beach. I just needed to clear my head and get away from it all. I had money in the bank from my parents so I was covered and just got a hotel room for a few months."
"And then you came here from there?"
"Yep. I've been trying to leave it all behind me and even not practice, but it's hard knowing I can do things others can't, things that can make life a lot easier sometimes."
"Like drying your pants off."
"Right."
"Well I mean if I could do stuff like that I would too. But I guess my question is, what's the extent of your ability? Can you do some really crazy X-Men stuff?"
Diana laughed and threw a ball at Tori. "No, it's not like that. I can't throw cars with my mind or morph into anything. I can't read minds or any of that either, so you can squash that one. Basically I can unlock locks, open doors without using my hands, pin stuff up against walls, and maybe manipulate the air a little bit."
"Seems kind of anti-climactic from what you see in the movies, huh?"
"Yeah well, when our circle was bound we were a lot stronger. We could bring buildings down if we wanted to. And me, having a dark side, I can do quite a bit more but I don't let myself. Dark magic is a bad road and it consumes you, turns you into something, someone, you aren't."
"I guess it's a good thing you have self control then."
"I guess. Alright, let's get this cleaned out so we can set up."
The two women cleared out the ball pit and headed out to the car to bring in the sleeping bags. They dragged everything into the play place and set up the sleeping quarters while Matthew and Marie kept cooking in the kitchen, making a bunch of burgers and chicken sandwiches that they could take on the road with them. Dom, as usual, was poured over the maps with the laptop open, trying to find any decent sized towns along 90. He made a mark at Helena, Montana, even though it was a little ways off the highway. They'd need to stop anywhere they could for supplies if the smaller towns were cleaned out.
A rumbling down the street caught Dom's ear and he got up from the booth, crouching low by the door so he could see out across the parking lot. Two large trucks passed by with men in the back and spotlights mounted to the top. The light raked over the parking lot and Dom shouted "get down!" just before it swept through the store. No one moved or made a sound and the trucks continued to roll by slowly, shining their lights everywhere they would reach. Soon the rumbling was gone and Dom stood back up, heading around to the play place.
"It's fine, probably some bandits looking for people to rob. They passed."
"Sucks that they might actually find someone" said Tori.
"Welcome to the new America."
The night wound down and people started going to sleep one by one. Dom crashed first since he volunteered to drive again. Matthew and Marie were still in the kitchen, amusing themselves with soda sprayers and whatever else they could find back there, and Diana and Tori hung out in the play place. The wind had picked up outside and it whistled through the windows all around them, playing an eerie chorus of howls in the large open area. Tori climbed all the way up to the highest bubble in the structure and laid back, closing her eyes to help her think a little bit.
They'd been out in the new world as it were for just three days. It was a week since the whole thing started rolling, but the past three days marked the escalation point. It seemed the country had gone from OK-well, what people accepted as OK-to simply nothing. The country didn't seem to even exist anymore. They'd seen a few people here and there and on the packed highway, not to mention all of the bodies on the bridge, but it still felt like everywhere they went was empty. Tori never felt particularly Patriotic but the way the nation was crumbling in on itself had a very lonely feeling attached. She expected to see a lot more looting and rioting but they'd hardly ran into any. A few buildings had been burned down that they could see from the highway but the majority of the damage was most likely in town, places that they didn't normally travel to.
Matthew came into the play place area and nodded his head with a small wave, signaling that he was headed to bed himself. Diana waved back from inside the mouth of the slide. She felt like a sort of rift had opened up between her and Tori from her unexpected learning of Diana's 'witchy' side. She'd tried to keep it tightly under wraps ever since she'd left the city, hoping that if she used her magic less and never talked about it or anything that she would be able to leave that part of her life behind and start somewhere fresh. Her second nature won in the end, though, since her magic was a part of her. It wasn't something that was easily thrown away. She liked to think of it as a skill, like throwing a spiral or parallel parking. Once you learn how to do it you never forget and it just becomes a part of who you are, and you use those skills without even thinking about it. Of course that train of thought was dangerous, seeing as how someone spotting her throwing a football was entirely different than the same person spotting her starting fires with her hands.
Marie made her way into the room a little after Matthew, finishing the last bits of a chicken sandwich as she scanned their sleeping quarters. She kicked her shoes off and slid them into one of the little cubby holes that little kids are supposed to put their shoes in when they go to play in the play place, a gesture that Diana found funny. She watched Marie grab Dom's laptop and open it up in a booth by the pop fountain when she was suddenly hit in the back with a thud.
"What the-"
"Well I needed to get down and this was the quickest way" said Tori, smiling wickedly with Diana settled in between her legs.
"You could have warned me."
"Yeah but what fun would that be? I'd miss this look on your face."
Diana laughed and got up so Tori could move the rest of the way through. Tori made her way towards the drinks so she could grab some water after being lodged up that dusty bubble for so long while Diana settled back into her spot.
"I'm gonna get some sleep so I can try to be a useful navigator in the morning when Dom drives." Tori finished her water and threw the cup in the trash. "I think we should all be learning how to do everything in case one of us-"
"I think I get it," said Diana, "go get some rest."
She watched Tori climb into the ball pit and then laid back once more, closing her eyes inside the tube slide. The thought of losing one of the members of their group was rough, but it was a definite possibility in their new world. She thought of how the dynamic would change if each different person left. Tori's charm and good nature, Dom's know-how and headstrong leadership, Matthew's kindness and willingness to do whatever it takes, Marie's snarky humor and blunt honesty. Diana knew she had the capability to be a strong leader but Dom was so in his element at the front of the pack that she didn't want to encroach; it seemed to be where he was most comfortable and lately being comfortable was a luxury one didn't enjoy often.
The other thought was of what would happen when she eventually had to tell the group that she didn't have any family there and that her parents were dead. She would tell Tori first and see how she reacted and use that as a basis for how the others might perceive the news. Truth be told, Tori was the first new friend she'd made in years, and the first person she'd been any bit close to in the last six months. There were definitely some feelings there but she wasn't sure if it was just because she was happy to be around someone again or if there was something else. It would be dangerous to move on something without being sure it was actually real. She hoped that Tori wouldn't be too upset about her lie and that maybe if the others were she could help calm them down. They needed to get out of the city anyway, so what would be the big deal?
Diana's fear of being ostracized and just the general stress of everything lately had started to wash over her and it was heavy. She got up from the slide and walked towards the ball pit, waving to Marie when she looked up from the laptop. Marie waved back and continued what she was doing, which Diana noticed on the way by was trying to conquer the tenth level of Tetris. Funny how even in the midst of a nationwide crisis you can still find time to play video games. Diana crawled into the ball pit and found her sleeping bag next to Tori's, who seemed to be sound asleep, curled up in a little ball. The sound of Matthew and Dom's breathing was almost sing-song as they were opposite; one person in, one person out.
Diana got into her sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable, knowing she wouldn't get much sleep with her big news on her mind. Tori, who wasn't as asleep as she looked, kicked back to life when she felt Diana lay down near her. She went from resting peacefully to feeling like she was running a mile a minute, her heart slamming in her chest but eventually calming down when she regained control of it. She was concerned about what would cause that, wondering if maybe she was getting sick or just overreacting. She rolled over in her spot and made eye contact with Diana, who smiled her brilliant white smile that Tori could see pretty clearly even in the dark. All of a sudden the feeling in her chest switched from fear to excitement, with a little bit of panic still lurking around the edges. Diana's light brown eyes mimicked her own, as did a lot of her figure Tori noticed. They were about the same height, same weight, with the same color hair and eyes. They looked each other over for a second before Diana tore her gaze away, a sense of guilt emanating between them.
"Are you OK?" Tori asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Yeah, I'm just thinking. With everything that's going on now thinking can kind of get you in trouble."
"I suppose you're right. I try not to live in my head too much and concentrate on achieving some kind of goal." Tori shifted her sleeping bag over to the right about two feet, putting her squarely next to Diana so they could talk quietly. "If things slow down for a long time I end up thinking about my parents and my sister and I worry about where they are, if they're OK. I left L.A in kind of a hurry."
Diana cringed a little at the mention of parents, her palms starting to sweat. "Yeah I can imagine that gets rough."
"I'm sure you worry about your family too. Don't you?"
"Tori...I, uh, I wasn't completely honest with you guys from the start." Diana looked up to see if she could see Marie, and when she found her she noticed that Marie was still intent on winning her game and wasn't paying attention to their conversation. "When I told you about my parents and how they were in Seattle and went to Alaska, how they'd gotten me the apartment for school and all of that, that wasn't true."
Tori looked sort of confused and wondered why Diana would lie about something like that. The rapid heartbeat started to come back and she put a hand over her chest. "Well, what's the truth of it then?" she asked.
"Well, you know that...thing we talked about? From the bathroom?"
Realization struck Tori and she began to understand more by the second. "Yeah I do."
"I lost my mom when I was a little kid, she was the one that died that day in the shipyard I told you about. I lived with my adoptive dad up until I left Seattle. When I told you how everything started getting bad, when I met my real father and all of that, they both ended up dying in the end. I don't have any parents left."
Diana's eyes stung with tears and she wiped their edges with her sleeve before they could fall, trying to suck them back in and be strong about it. Tori felt her heart break into a million pieces, something she hadn't felt since her encounter with Jade another lifetime ago. Diana's eyes shimmered with wetness in the dark and the reflection from the moon made them sparkle. Tori couldn't even begin to sort out her feelings. Sadness, love, regret, fear, relief. The one thing she could decipher, though, was the overwhelming urge to kiss Diana and make her feel better; and that's exactly what she did.
Tori leaned over and pressed her lips to Diana's. She reached over and laid her hand on Diana's face, sliding it softly down to her neck and she pecked her lips once, twice, and then froze. The most gentle, emotional kiss she'd ever given was with a girl she knew to be ninety nine percent straight and in a broken emotional state. Tori backed up and covered her face with her hands, her breathing erratic and her heart threatening to jump out of her chest.
"Oh god I am so sorry Diana. I just, I've been feeling all of these feelings lately and I don't know where they're coming from and I don't know how to deal with it all at once. It's like I'm just fine one minute and then all of a sudden I'm really anxious or really happy and nothing even has to happen. It's really making me feel like I'm going crazy. I was looking into your eyes and I saw how hurt you were and how heartbreakingly beautiful you are when you're sad and I guess I just boiled over. I really didn't mean to-"
"Tori it's OK" said Diana, wiping more tears from the corners of her eyes. "You don't have to be embarrassed. To be honest, I've been wondering what it would be like to kiss you ever since you first told me you were gay. I've never had any gay friends so I've never had the chance to experiment with a kiss before or anything like that."
Tori covered her face with her sleeping bag and laughed. One of those hearty belly laughs that makes you feel good inside afterward. Diana couldn't help but get sucked in as well, laughing along with her. By the time they could force themselves to only stifled giggles Matthew and woken up and was sitting up in his spot.
"What's so damn funny?"
"Oh, nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about" said Tori. "Go back to sleep."
Matthew shook his head and yawned wide. "OK, if you say so."
Tori felt amazing. She'd been fighting an internal battle for the whole week on whether or not she should try and see if Diana would be open to experimentation. She didn't like the thought of trying to 'turn' someone, forcing them to change their life for her benefit. The thing was, being gay wasn't easy. Even in 2013, where everyone is supposed to be so progressive and like-minded, there was still a stigma against same sex couples. Tori had dealt with her fair share of hate, even from her own sister, and she wouldn't want anyone that could go through life and not deal with that to change for her. There was always a little mind battle before she tried to talk to another woman, wondering if she was open to the idea or if she would get her choices thrown back in her face. She was used to most girls being straight and ending up disappointed, but there was always a chance that she would get lucky and find someone worth pursuing. And this time, she felt that maybe Diana wasn't out of her league.
"How did you first know that you were...you know?" asked Tori. "Magical."
"Well I guess it was when I started a fire in the woods behind my grandparents' house on accident. It was really hot out one day and I was thinking about how you could harness sunlight to start fires with like magnifying glasses and stuff. And I was jumping around playing by myself you know, when I decided that it would be a cool superpower to be able to start fires with my hands. So I gathered some sticks and stuff and made a little fire area in the grass at the edge of the woods and then stood there with one arm up, palm facing the sun and one arm down, palm facing the sticks. I thought really hard about the heat going through me and before I knew it five or six trees were fully engulfed in flames."
"Wow, that's intense" said Tori.
"Yeah I kinda freaked out. My dad and grandma knew what to do though and put the fire out, I was just really scared since they hadn't mentioned anything about magic to me before and I had no idea."
Tori was nervous to bring up the subject that had been on her mind for the past few days but she knew she needed to. If anyone would understand, it was Diana. "I've been having these...problems with my emotions. Like whenever someone is feeling something really strongly I think that I...can feel what they're feeling."
Diana smiled and nodded her head gently. "My grandfather was an empath. If it turns out that that's really what you are, I'm sorry to say you got a bit of a long road ahead of you."
"Why's that?"
"Well as I'm sure you've noticed already, emotions can weigh heavy. If you're in a scary situation with someone, you're going to feel your fear and their fear. A lot of doubling up can put you in a manic state, like someone with bipolar or borderline personality."
Tori scrunched her nose and snuggled into her sleeping bag. "That sounds great. I already have a hard enough time dealing with my own emotions, doubling up or facing dueling emotions is probably going to fry my brain."
"I think you're stronger than you think you are" said Diana, reaching over and laying a hand on Tori's hip. "From what I read about empaths in my family's book of shadows and the stories I heard from my grandparents, empaths are really strong, centered people. You wouldn't have been given the gift if you couldn't handle it."
"Well I'm glad you have faith in me" said Tori, closing her eyes to try and get some sleep. "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too" said Diana.
Marie was the last one still awake in the restaurant. She'd been playing the games on the laptop to try to pass the time, something interactive to keep her mind from wandering. It seemed like everyone had a place in the group except for her. Everyone had something they were good at, some kind of trait that made them invaluable to their efforts, but Marie felt like she was expendable. She wasn't great at reading maps, she couldn't handle a weapon, and she wasn't particularly strong or good at fighting. A lot of the time she just sat back and watched the rest of the group do their thing like a well oiled machine, hoping that she wouldn't get in the way. Her feelings stemmed from her childhood of being told she was a liability by her mother. Anything and everything that could have went wrong was her fault, and she was forced to shoulder the blame from a young age. Over time she learned to see herself for less than she was worth; a product of abusive parenting.
The clock high on the wall towards the kitchen area read two AM. She decided that she ought to get some sleep as well, since anything was possible in their new existence and she might have to actually be alert to help out with something. As soon she she closed the laptop she heard the same rumbling they'd heard earlier. The two big trucks full of people were coming back towards the store with their lights on again. Marie kept low in the booth until the trucks passed by, waiting to move until the rumbling was totally out of earshot. The thought of bandits being so close to them made her nervous but there wasn't really anything they could do about it. She got up and crawled into the ball pit, noticing as she crossed over to her sleeping bag that Tori and Diana were spooning. Tori had her arm around Diana's waist and her face was buried in Diana's neck. They both looked peaceful and Marie did her best to step around them without waking them up.
The next morning Dom came inside and woke everyone up, eager to get them near a radio so they could hear what was happening. He tapped Tori and Diana at the same time, calling over to Matthew and Marie.
"Guys, get up. Now."
It was more of a command than a suggestion, and his tone worried Tori a bit. She opened her eyes and realized that Diana cuddled into her chest, still sleeping soundly. Her heart instantly melted at the sight of the precious girl in her arms, but the agitated state of Dom shook her out of it. She touched her thumb gently to Diana's face, making small gestures underneath her eye.
"Hey sleepy, we need to get up."
Diana opened her eyes and when she realized how she was position she scooted away quickly, her face turning fire engine red. "Oh, uh, hey. Sorry about that."
"It's OK" said Tori, unzipping her sleeping bag so she could get out of it. "You were actually keeping me pretty warm. It was comfortable."
"Yeah, it was." Diana tried to smile but her face just turned more red so she got to work rolling up her sleeping bag.
Marie and Matthew eventually came to as well, looking around confused as to why they were so rudely awakened. Tori nodded towards them as she fitted the straps around her sleeping bag and crawled out of the ball pit, Matthew following behind her. Marie and Diana were left in the ball pit just the two of them, the silence thick like strong coffee.
"I saw you guys snuggling last night" said Marie, stopped as she passed Diana. "I know it doesn't really matter if I'm fine with it or not, but just to let you know, I am. Thing is, we're in a really different situation these days than we used to be. We are all we have, and if you guys had a thing and it went sour, that would do some damage to the group dynamic."
"Understandable. But you should also think of that yourself, I've seen you nudging close to Matthew on occasion." Diana finished gathering her things and stood up as well.
"Yeah, I'm not really sure what's up with that. I don't know where it's going, or if it's even going. I'm kind of just playing it by ear."
"Well you know anything can happen, this new world proves that. You might not want to wait too long in case you miss your chance."
Marie and Diana made their way out into the dining area to find Matthew, Dom and Tori sitting in a booth with a radio on the table. A man's voice could be heard clearly, mentioning something about the importance of Americans sticking together in this tough time instead of turning on each other and how he was able to help with that. Marie took the seat next to Tori while Diana went and grabbed some water, returning to the table with a chair so she could sit at the end.
"We all know that we can't continue this way. People are starving out on the streets because their houses were robbed and/or burnt to the ground. So many have lost everything they've worked for in their lives, and that only fuels the fire of hatred. Our government has driven this country into the ground. That's fine. It doesn't matter. We, as Americans, can pick this country back up ourselves, and give rise to the greatest nation in the world once again. We've carried this nation on our backs this long already, why can't we continue to do so without the restriction of a government that's out to take everything we own?
"My point is this my friends. If we continue to allow ourselves to fight, kill, steal, we're no better than the men and women that put us in this situation in the first place. We must come together as one, and put all of our efforts towards pulling ourselves back together as humans first, then as Americans. When you see what we could have if we just push past this, you will want nothing more than to turn to your brothers and sisters next to you and join hands. Give it one more shot. The Honovi Tribe welcomes anyone and everyone within reach of this broadcast to come to Cheyenne, Wyoming and join us in rebuilding this great nation. We have open churches with regular service and plenty of food and water to accommodate families as well as individuals."
"I've been listening to this guy for about an hour" said Dom, turning the volume knob down a bit so he could talk. "I wanted to get everyone's opinion on going that way to see what's up. I mean, they must be pretty organized to have a steady radio transmission right now, since all of the other ones have gone off air. I just think it's worth a look. If they're running church services and all of that there must be a pretty solid system in place."
"Or it could be a trap" said Matthew, biting the tip of his thumb with a look of deep thought. "There could just be a few bandits that took control of a radio station by force that have lookouts for people coming into the city."
"Yes that's possible but we can't assume every single thing is a trap without at least checking it out from a distance. If we live our lives in fear we might as well be dead."
Everyone at the table seemed pretty surprised by Dom's last statement; not only because it renewed the fear inside them that they were a lot more likely to die at any moment than they were just a few days previous, but also because he was exactly right. The fact was, if you were afraid of everything and just tried to scrape by in the shadows without looking for something new, you were wasting your life. It was as if the world had reverted thousands of years in the span of a few days. People went from wondering if they could afford one hundred dollar shoes to go with the perfect outfit to worrying about where they would get their next meal, and if they'd have to steal from someone who could possibly be their neighbor to get it.
Diana got up from the chair and headed towards the bathroom. Tori watched her go and waited until the door was closed behind her to speak.
"We might as well try since there's no point in going to Alaska" said Tori.
"Why? I thought Diana's family was there" said Matthew.
Tori sucked in a breath to calm herself before she started. "Her parents are gone, like yours. She wanted to go back to Seattle and look for her friends, but she knew I wouldn't want her to go anywhere by herself and that we wouldn't just drop her off without having somewhere safe to go. I think she just hit a stress wall with everything and going through this without her parents and all of that just kind of scared her into making it up."
Matthew and Dom both nodded their heads understandingly but Marie looked upset.
"That's not cool. She knows as well as we do that the further west you go the more dangerous it is, and she had us coming all the way out here to look for her family that doesn't exist? She could have gotten us killed."
"Relax, Marie" said Matthew, reaching across the table to take her hands. "Our situations are different parent-wise. Yours weren't that nice to you and then they took off, ours were happy and we had good relationships with them, so when they died it was a really big loss. I'm sure Diana feels the same way, it would make sense. I've done a lot of stupid things myself from grief and stress."
"But still, we need to be open about stuff like this since keeping things from each other could very likely lose one of us." Marie shrugged her shoulders and sat back in the booth.
Diana came out of the bathroom and stopped in her tracks when everyone looked up at her. She took a couple slow steps forward, keeping her eyes on Tori. Everyone else dropped their stares almost as quickly as she noticed them and went back to chewing their nails or tuning the radio. Tori bumped Marie's side to let her out of the booth, then headed towards the kitchen with a nod of her head at Diana.
"I told them about Seattle" said Tori.
"Oh god, they hate me now don't they?" Diana went from pouty to attention in zero seconds flat. "Wait, what exactly did you tell them?"
"Just that you wanted to find your friends and that you were still grieving from your loss, stress walls, etc."
"OK then. So are we going to Cheyenne?" asked Diana.
"Most likely. We should probably see what's there."
"Alright. We can fire this stuff up again and cook some fresh food to take with us on the road. I also noticed there's a couple cases of bottled water in the back." Diana walked around the counter and headed for the ovens to turn them on.
Once they had a good amount of stuff cooked up and bagged everyone grabbed their sleeping bags and whatever else they'd brought in and repacked the car. Dom wrote a couple lines on a sticky note pad before folding up the maps and stowing them away in his bag. Matthew crossed by as he got up from the booth, nodding towards his brother to make sure they were on course to head out.
"We're all set to go. Are the walkies in the green bag?" asked Dom.
"Yeah, do we need them?"
"Well I just imagine if we're going into a situation that we're not familiar with where there could potentially be thousands of people we're going to want to be able to keep in touch in case we get separated. We don't know anything about the Honovi Tribe or who's in charge so we need to be alert."
"I'll pull 'em out when I pack this stuff in" said Matthew.
With radios in hand they piled into the car, their course changed to Cheyenne. It was actually a welcomed change since they only had a quarter tank of gas left and they had been unsuccessful in finding some in Omaha, and Cheyenne was much closer than Alaska. Dom went to plot their course and realized all they had to do was take 80 south and they would be there in half a day. He hopped into the driver's seat and Tori into the passenger's, while the rest tripled up in the back seat as usual. Tori found some relaxed post-rock on her iPod and started an album for them to drive to. The weather was still getting warmer by the day and since they were further west it was actually pretty nice, driving with the windows down for the first time since they'd left.
It took a little over seven hours total for the drive. They made it to Lincoln on fumes and thankfully found a good amount of gas, filling up the tank and two large gas cans they found in the back, stowing them in the trunk the best they could. Their stuff would smell like gas for a while, but it was a much better alternative than walking. From about ten miles or so away from the Cheyenne line you could tell there was life here. Tori sat up in her seat and looked out the windshield for any definite signs of where to go. Nothing showed up until they actually entered the city, with the main road having a large painted sign instructing new people to go to City Hall, located nine miles from them according to the sign. They were unsure of which way to go but at first turn noticed there were more signs with orange construction ribbon tied to them pointing like a detour, giving them the correct route to their destination.
The closer they got to the building the more they realized the streets were filling up with people. The last four miles or so were packed. Shops were open with people buying produce and talking on corners. Little kids played football on a side street while their parents sat in lawn chairs drinking and smoking cigarettes. It looked like life hadn't changed that much in this area, or at least the people inhabiting made it seem that way. The group looked out their windows and watched as everything seemed normal all the way up to City Hall, until they pulled into the parking lot.
