Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 61(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Thank God I’d managed to talk Caleb out of depicting us both naked.
Both our gazes went to the closed door where we knew the stairs to the roof were situated, hearing the hurried footsteps of someone who was likely glad to be home.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting.
But he was a good-looking guy maybe in his early forties with medium-brown hair, green eyes, and a fit frame under his fancy dark gray suit.
Looking like he’d just come from a business meeting.
“Oh,” he said, coming to a sudden stop at seeing us both standing there side-by-side. “Hey.”
“If we knew we were expecting company, we would have put on our formal wear,” Caleb announced, making me suddenly very aware that he was wearing a graphic tee with a big tabby cat smoking a blunt and holding a mojito. I didn’t even want to think about the fact that he was wearing the man we were looking at’s suit pants that he’d cut off at the knees.
I was slightly less embarrassed in a simple black tee and yoga pants.
It had been so long since I’d seen another human being aside from Caleb that I wasn’t prepared for the rush of self-consciousness that assaulted me, making me wonder what state my hair was in, if my skin was blotchy, all that old nonsense that my brain had been free of for so long.
“You two have been crashing here this whole time?” he asked, and he didn’t sound angry, just curious.
“Well, no. My lady here, Catie with a C and ie,” he said, and I had to fight the urge to laugh, “just joined me nine months ago.”
“Ten,” I corrected.
“Ten,” he said, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “How could I forget that extra, glorious month?” he said, and was immediately forgiven. “You pissed?” he asked, point-blank.
“Nah. Glad it worked,” he admitted. “You prepare and prepare, but still have to have doubts.”
“Nah, man, it’s been lit. You could have had better food stores,” he told him. “Luckily, Catie here had enough pasta to last us a few years.”
“How are you still alive?” I blurted out, too curious to keep it to myself. I mean, maybe there were places in the world that were unaffected still. Maybe we could get somewhat normal lives again. Though, admittedly, that both excited me and made me incredibly sad.
Sure, life post-apocalypse hadn’t been all rainbows and butterflies, but since getting together with Caleb, it had been more than tolerable. It was almost perfect. The food, aside.
“Don’t get too excited,” he said, shrugging. “The virus spread through the whole world. But, well, eventually, they ran out of food.”
“How long ago?” Caleb asked.
“Six weeks. It’s possible there is a rogue few somewhere, but there’s not enough food left for it to keep spreading.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Honey,” he said, shaking his head and giving me a somewhat indulgent smile, like I was a child asking silly questions.
“What he means by that is the elite of the elite had plans backed by more plans and more plans still. And have been watching this shit unfold from their safe places for the past several years.”
“That about sums it up,” he agreed, nodding. “It might sound cold, but trying to save too many people was too risky. Some of us had to survive.”
“How many would you say?”
“That I know of? Five thousand, give or take. And I’m sure that’s not everyone. Clearly, there are thrifty people such as yourselves who managed to survive this. I just heard a story about a couple being saved from some restaurant or something that was built over the water, so they survived and even thrived away from the zombies.”
Five thousand.
And maybe double that, if there were people like us scattered around, waiting for the day to emerge and tell their stories.
It wasn’t a lot of people.
But it didn’t sound like the human race was doomed anymore either.
Hope started to build through my system at the potential of a future that wasn’t spent hiding.
We could travel.
We could have all those adventures we kept talking about.
Without worrying about someone biting us.
“So… are we getting evicted?” Caleb asked.
At that, the man looked around, taking in the changes Caleb had made before me, and the ones we’d made together since.
“Nah,” he said, shrugging. “I just needed to go grab something from the safe,” he said, moving away to do just that, taking the path through the dining room.
Caleb and I shared a worried look but heard a laugh coming from that direction, prompting Caleb to drag me toward it.
“Is this a realistic painting?” he asked.
“Partially. We were actually naked,” Caleb said, getting a hard elbow to the gut for admitting that. “Sorry about your boat, man,” he added, grimacing.
“I don’t give a fuck about the boat,” he said, shrugging, then moving off through the dining room, and up the stairs.