Broken Orbit | ONC

Jackpot

              The basement ending up being the jackpot. There was years' worth of food within it, stacked on the shelves and boxed in the corner. That person could have likely lived another five years, considering how they had been rationing their food. For once, being a prepper had paid off.

    The ironic part? I was only so desperate to find food because Chance needed some. He was the cause for my desperation. I could go for a few days without, but he shouldn't. However, even though he was the cause of my worry, if I hadn't chosen to take him with me, I never would have found this basement.

    I found two bags in the corner and began sifting through the food. Meats, fruits, vegetables, and even some preserved cheeses. Wheats, oats, grains. All of it. I mostly took the things that wouldn't go bad, such as the dried meats, fruits, wheats, and ration bars. By the time I'd finished collecting goods, I had two bags filled to the brim with food.

    Chance had circled impatiently around the trapdoor. I climbed out before pausing. It was noticeably warmer in the basement. Half an hour later and I had us sitting in the room. It had been gruesome, but I'd moved the body to one of the rooms in the house. Blood trailed after me. I hadn't been the one to kill them, but I still felt the guilt. Another life that had fallen in my wake. In my desire to survive, life was trying to take my humanity. I wasn't going to let myself far as far as the rest of humanity.

    Chance ate his share and curled up to sleep, content at last. I'd found a deer antler and offered it to him. He promptly took it between his teeth and gnawed on it, soothing his painful gums. The night was uneventful. I slept most of the time and spent the rest of it combing through the shelves for anything else useful.

    My flashlight was broken, so I was forced to wait until sunlight lit up the house to examine my map. The sounds of Chance chewing on the antler could be heard from under my feet at the table. I'd been walking for nearly a month and a half, now. I'd finished more than a third of the trip. By now, I was past the U.S.-Mexican border by several days. Another two months and I ought to be in Quiro. Then I had to pray that the Ark was real, and still had room for me.

    It began to worry me that most of my survival had been because of luck. This stash of food . . . I was just fortunate that no one else had been smart enough to consider the fact that this house was owned by a prepper, or had a dog. Otherwise, it'd be empty and we'd be hungry.

    According to the law of averages, everything would balance out. Considering how much luck I'd had, there had to be an end. When the law of averages caught up, I'd be in trouble. There was a hell of a wave heading for me.

~

    The food lasted us another four weeks. We rationed it slowly. Chance and I got two meals a day. He'd finally gotten too big to be in my jacket. After combing through houses for several days, I had enough cloth to fashion him his own coat. It was ragged and filthy, but it was thick and strewn together by the thread I'd found in a bedroom somewhere. It covered him – around his body, his arms, and a thin layer fell over his face. He wasn't able to wag his tail, because it was trapped near his leg, but I'd hear it thump when he tried. He looked like a weird lump with numbs for legs, but he was warm. I didn't bother with a leash. He trotted on top of the snow near my feet.

    I never saw Tonya again. She'd gotten a head start and her travel was faster, due to the bike. The falling snow covered her tracks. After two weeks, I stopped trying to catch up. She was long gone. Besides, I had enough food for another month at that point.

    The snow had to stop falling at some point, right? The temperature would never rise, but the atmosphere only had so much moisture. Logically, the snow had to end. I knew that once it got cold enough, the atmosphere itself would freeze. The oxygen would freeze and fall to the ground. I'd never live to see that, though. By the time oxygen froze, it would be too cold for anyone to stand the temperature for longer than a second before dying. I would either be in the Ark – if it were real – or I'd be dead.

    By the time I entered the small village, the average daytime temperature had dropped another ten degrees. Daylight was shorter, lasting maybe six hours instead of ten. The sun – when the shape should be seen in a momentary thin patch of clouds – was half its size in the sky.

    This village held my brother's home. He'd moved into Central America when he graduated college, taking on a community service management position. He'd helped in an orphanage. If he wasn't already heading for the Ark, he was somewhere in this town. The trip through his home had added about six days to my already four-month-long trek to the Equator. I'd chosen the detour without hesitation. Doran was my brother and my only remaining close relative.

    I knew his home to be somewhere near the orphanage. It took roughly five hours before I located the old building, halfway covered with snow. A block away sat his home. I recognized the roof from the picture he'd sent me when he bought it. My heart started to race. Finally. Finally, I was going to figure out where my brother was. I prayed he had stayed home. We'd managed to have one phone call before the lines overloaded, and later were torn down and frozen.

    "Do you think Lover's going to hit us?" Doran had asked me.

    "I don't know," I'd said quietly. "Everyone here thinks it is. This place is chaos, Doran. Everyone's out on the street. There's a gunshot every minute. It's anarchy."

    "It's pretty much the same here," he'd admitted. "These kids are terrified. The leaders and I are considering moving them to a safer location because of the crime outside."

    "Doran," I'd started, my voice getting more firm. "I need you to stay where you are. I'll come find you after this. If this star goes past and doesn't kill us all, I'm going to come get you. We're going on a vacation."

    He'd chuckled, his voice strained slightly. "I'd like that."

    Walking a thousand miles to the Equator wasn't a vacation, but he'd understand. I just prayed he'd listened to me and stayed home. After two months, I doubted he had. He would have probably thought I was dead. Two months was a long time to wait in a world apocalypse.

   What if--?

   No.

   I got up to the door. Chance sniffed around the snow a bit as I banged on the wood. "Doran? Are you there?" My voice hadn't been raised in so long. It cracked. I cleared my throat and banged on the door again.

17,110 total words