Do or Die 6

6

Timothy Myers was his full name and currently he was traveling across the land to find other survivors and to get the “lay of the land”. He began in his home town of Sweet Water, South Carolina and was working his way north for the spring and summer months -then was going to head west and south for the next winter.

So far, he has found just small families here and there. But he was keeping a notebook in a code that only he knew, so that if it fell into the hands of someone bad, they wouldn’t know who was where. He was also hoping to set trade routes but so far, everyone was too far away from each other. He had been traveling over a week before he came to Trina’s town.

He told Trina about the others he had found, all mostly good people simply trying to survive. Then he told her about the condition of the country. So far he had not seen anyone that was from the government nor heard anything about them. He had bypassed Washington DC since his little radiation detector had gone off when he was over 100 miles away! He figured that it had been royally nuked! As he went north, he followed the “radiation line” and it seemed that the whole east coast from 100 miles south of DC all the way up past New York City was going to be a hot zone for a long time to come.

All of the large cities gave off radiation, so Timothy had stayed to back roads. He had a motorcycle that he was using to travel. Trina lifted an eyebrow at that when he mentioned it since she had not seen a motorcycle.

The park was blooming out nicely this spring and Trina had planted wildflower, herb, and veggie seeds in different places throughout the park. She had plenty of seed and figured, “why not”. She knew she would not be able to pick it all or even eat it all but thought that it might bring some of the wildlife back.

Trina stayed in town for the three days that Timothy stayed. During that time, they talked about many things including whether or not Trina was lonely living here all by herself. Timothy invited her to come along with him but she declined. He asked her if she would mind if people came there and lived. She thought on that for a moment and said “Well, it would depend. If they were people that were good and willing to work hard to survive and make this a prospering town again, I wouldn’t mind sharing it with them. But I don’t think I would like for a LOT of people to show up. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve come across a few places where there were just two or three people and although they were making it, they would do much better getting together with more people working together. Would you mind if I send such like people here to live?” he asked.

“How would I know that you’ve sent them?”

“What about a password? Like Buffalo boots or something?”

Trina laughed out loud and Timothy couldn’t help but like the sound of her laughter. “And I’ll reply with ‘are made for kicking butt!’ so they will know they are in the right spot.”

“Come with me.” Trina said as she led the way out of the park and back towards the tallest building in town -the court house. She walked over to the small courtyard and showed Timothy the large black bell that was mounted in a small tower with a long rope dangling down from it.

“You have to pull the cord rather hard since no one has greased it since before everything happened. But when the wind blows extra hard, I can hear it at my home. So if you do send anyone here, have them come here first and ring the bell every half hour until I show up. If I don’t show up within one day, then I won’t be coming because I’ll be dead or worse.”

“Worse? What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, worse would be like I’m lying somewhere with a broken leg and can’t go anywhere or super sick and can’t get out of bed.”

“When someone does show up, I’ll simply ask for the password and then if it is correct, give them the counter password.”

“Sounds like a plan. Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

“No, this is my home and I’m happy here. Besides someone has to be here to welcome all those you send.“ Trina thought for a moment then added: “you won’t send like thousands here will you?”

“No, I don’t even think I will see a hundred people. And not many of those will even be willing to move here. Don’t worry, I will be very selective and make sure that only honest, hard working people come, ok?”

“Ok.”

Trina waved long after Timothy was out of sight and then went and got her bike and rode it thoughtfully home.