The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [20]
It doesn’t feel very safe here.
Lord of the Flies doesn’t do a great job of taking my mind off the situation. The boys in the book are on an island, shipwrecked and on their own. So far, they’ve set up their own society, and it isn’t one I’d want to be in—they’re fighting each other for power right from the start, and the bad guys seem to be the ones who take over.
I keep the television on all the time now, even though the light glowing from it makes me nervous. I don’t want it too obvious that anyone is in the house, but I don’t want to miss any information either, and it’s hard to know when the rare broadcast will happen. When it does, now the news is grim. The darkness is showing no signs of letting up. Thankfully, some of the sun’s warmth does penetrate the haze covering it. According to the reports, if it didn’t we would all be dead in a week or so, because the temperature would plummet so far that we would freeze. As it is, it’s about 20 degrees colder than it should be, and they say we’ll lose a degree or two a day because it isn’t warming back up in the daytime from the cooler night temperatures.
Right now, if things were normal, Charlie and I would probably be out looking for trouble in the neighborhood, roaming around in our cutoff jeans and tank tops, longboards under our arms, pulling stupid shit. We’d be feeling great, knowing that two full months separate us from school, and we have all summer to play.
As it is, I’m already wearing two pairs of pants and two shirts in the house. So far the heat still works, but the Holzers’ house is heated with oil, and I’m afraid to keep it really comfortable because I don’t know how much is left in their tank. I guess I’m lucky that they do use oil heat, because I saw one news flash about power grids going down. Here, at least so far, the lights and heat work, and water still comes out of the faucets. When that changes I’ll have to think about where to go. I can’t think too much about the future right now—it makes my head hurt. For now, I’m in a familiar place, and that will just have to be good enough.
On the morning of day seven at the Holzers’, I run out of milk. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’ve spent the last week watching snippets of news coverage that include updates on how so many store shelves are now completely empty, and how freeways clogged with abandoned vehicles and fields of crops dying from lack of sunshine are causing supply problems the government isn’t sure how to solve. Mrs. Holzer had two gallons of milk in the fridge. When I finished the first, I didn’t give it much thought. When I upended the second on my bowl of cereal this morning and nothing but a dribble came out, I felt a moment of pure panic.
It finally hits me that I can’t stay here forever. There’s still food, but it won’t last, and the wanderers are getting scary. There are more of them now—it seems like every time I peek out the front window I see one or two people who obviously don’t live on the street. Sometimes there’s a group. Twice now somebody has pounded on the front door. I can’t decide if it’s Tank’s huge bark that has kept anyone from trying to kick down the door, or if they’re just not that desperate yet. Either way, I think it’s time for us to hit the road.
I’m going to pack up the car and figure out where to head. I’m leaning toward going on to the city. I know that most people have been trying to get out of it, but in a way, that makes it seem more attractive—maybe there will be less chance of running into trouble with most people going the opposite direction from me. And in the back of my mind, I keep thinking of Lara. Maybe she