The Fifth Day by Gordon Bonnet

Author:Gordon Bonnet [Bonnet, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oghma Creative Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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OVER LUNCH, MIKIKO told her story. They sat around the dinner table, eating fruit and cheese while Olivia’s biscuits cooked in a cast-iron skillet over the camp stove, filling the room with the warm fragrance of baking bread.

Mikiko’s tale was substantially like the others. She’d led a fairly normal life—until a few days ago.

“I lived in a house about five miles up Highway One. My parents came from Japan with me when I was a baby. I was born in Shiroishi, in Miyagi Prefecture, but I don’t remember it at all. My dad was a professor of Asian history at the University of San Francisco, but he’s been on a sabbatical for the past year. My mother was an artist. They were gone all the time. I’ve been left alone for days at a time since I was twelve or so. So it wasn’t strange to wake up to an empty house. When I woke up and realized that they were gone, I called around, and I figured out pretty quickly that it wasn’t only them, that everyone was gone. So I started walking. I spent the night in a house on the north end of town.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” Zolzaya asked.

“I’m used to being alone. Like I said, my parents were gone a lot.”

“No siblings? Significant others?” Lissa asked.

“Nope,” Mikiko answered cheerfully. “Only me. All alone.”

“Until now,” Gary said.

“Yup. It’s nice to have new friends.” She grinned. “Hey, I bet the biscuits are ready. I’m starving.”

“It’s all fine to sit around chatting,” Jackson said, his voice impatient, as Olivia brought the pan of biscuits to the table and set it on a trivet. “But we should come up with a game plan.”

“Why?” Mikiko lifted a biscuit out of the skillet and set it on her plate.

“We’re not accomplishing anything sitting around here doing nothing.”

“What is there to accomplish?”

“She’s got a point,” Gary said.

Jackson looked around at the others, as if they were new inductees having their first day of boot camp. “How long do you intend to wait?”

“Wait?” Zolzaya snorted. “We’re not waiting. The last few days, we’ve been focusing on doing what it takes to survive.”

“And wait for what?” Lissa said.

“One of your group gets put into a coma by something, we’ve now seen three different things stalking around the place, and you’ve got no other plans than to eat, sleep and trade stories about the way things used to be?” He stuffed half a biscuit slathered with raspberry preserves into his mouth. “Not much of a strategy. Let’s find out what we’re up against, before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Okay,” Zolzaya said. “I’m not saying that’s a bad idea. How do you propose to do it?”

“We should see if there’s a clinic or doctor’s office nearby first. Get some supplies for your friend. You can’t keep feeding her drops of water around the clock, indefinitely. She needs more fluids than that, and some nutrients, too, or she’ll starve. I don’t know how to give an IV, but I can learn as well as the next guy.

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