After (Book 2): Requiem by Prescott John

Author:Prescott, John [Prescott, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic
Published: 2020-01-10T22:00:00+00:00

7

“What's up, Mom?” Alex quietly closed the door behind him.

“Well, hello to you too, dear.” Alison smiled gently.

“Hi, Mama.” Alex leaned over and kissed his mother on the forehead. “Sorry. Miss Cunningham...”

“Call her Cindy, dear.”

“Sorry. Cindy made it sound important that I get down here quickly. Is everything okay?”

“Of course it is! You're here now.” Alison continued to smile.

“You're too much, Mom.”

“I'd rather be too much than not enough. Now sit down before you turn into a statue.”

Alex did as he was asked. He studied his mother's eyes. They gave him no answers. They never did. “So why'd you want to see me?”

“Because you're a handsome young man.” Alex looked more annoyed than handsome. “Oh, fine! I wanted to talk about me, for once. If you don't mind...”

“Of course not. What did you want to talk about?”

Alison pushed herself up to a sitting position in her bed. The effort left her winded and red-faced. She waved a hand at Alex as he started forward.

“As long as I can do it myself, I'm fine. Aren't I? Surely...” Uncertainty dripped from her tongue.

“You're great, Mom.”

Alison laughed. “Oh, once long ago, maybe. That's what we're talking about today: Long ago. It's about time I told you what happened to me after the Five Hour War.”

Alex leaned forward. “Well I guess that is kind of important. Why now, though?”

There was the briefest flash of sorrow in his mother's eyes. It passed so quickly that he later questioned if he ever truly saw it. Her peculiarly serene smile swiftly returned.

“I've made my peace about it, I think. And I want you to know before... Well, I'm old, dear.”

She reached to her nightstand and picked up a cooling cup of tea. She sipped gingerly at it and continued. “I suppose I should start with the Cryo-Facility.”

“Did you make it? I mean... I know you didn't make it inside, but...”

Alison set her tea back on the nightstand. “Yes, I made it, dear. The personnel outside said I was about five minutes too late. They knew because they saw the doors close just as they arrived.

“I was devastated. The two most important men in my life were locked away inside. The world was crashing down around me on the outside. I didn't know what to do, so I just waited.”

Alex looked bemused. “Waited. For what?”

“For death? Answers? A miracle? None of those arrived, unfortunately. The latecomers escorted me to a small nearby town in hopes of getting some news about the war. You might have heard of it.”

Alex's face lit up. “Hope!”

Alison smiled, nodding. “It was different back then, I imagine. And it had a different name. Clyde Quarter... Something like that. Anyway, the radio and TV signals were already wiped out by that point.

“They never came back. My military friends found a couple of able-bodied folks to travel south to Encino, New Mexico with them. There was a National Guard base there.

“For whatever reason, and by whatever luck, it had been spared from destruction. They came back and scooped the rest of us up.

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