Among These Bones (Book 2): When It's No Longer Night by Luzzader Amanda

Author:Luzzader, Amanda [Luzzader, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian
Publisher: Knowledge Forest Press
Published: 2019-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The day had gotten warmer, and I had to admit a part of me wanted to stay at Ruby’s mountain sanctuary for a week or so just to take the place in. The air was cheery with laughter and talk and birdsong. Someone was cooking meat somewhere, and its tantalizing odor made my mouth water.

Chase took me back to his tent where he grabbed a small backpack. Into it he stuffed a water bottle and a sweater and some other items.

There was a dark blue hooded jacket hanging from a hook on one wall of the tent. Chase took it from the hook and held it up.

“This is yours,” he said, with a smile. “From before. I’ll bring it along. It’ll be chilly before we’re back. Just let me know if you get cold.” He rolled it up and stuffed it into the pack.

“How long have you been living here?” I asked as Chase fastened up the backpack and slipped into the harness.

“About a year,” he said. “There’d been a smaller group of survivors up here since year one, but they were barely hanging on. We joined with them and things got better—for both groups. We’ve been bringing more people here every month.”

We left the tent and went back through the camp. Chase waved and greeted people as we passed by them.

“And this is better than living in a real community? Living in the dirt? Eating nuts and berries?”

“Hey, you ever had fresh buffalo berries?” he asked.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Chase stopped on the trail and faced me. “They’re tiny,” he said, indicating the size with his fingers. “Maybe half the size of a green pea. Some of them are the size of BBs. Bright red and delicious. But buffalo berry bushes have thorns on them about an inch long. Sharp as needles. You kind of have to get the hang of getting at ‘em without getting too punctured up. A quart of them could keep you alive for a week. We make wine with them.”

“You make wine up here?”

“We make all kinds of things.”

We made our way through the camp. At the tree-line, there was a fork in the trail. Chase stopped again and gestured to the spread of tents and people and fire pits.

“Look around, Al. This isn’t just some refugee camp,” said Chase. “It’s a community. We have a schedule of duties. We cooperate to gather in food, to maintain security, to build and maintain our shelter. We stay busy, but it’s a good place. We eat well. We’re healthy. We have some livestock down in the valleys, and we make runs down into the real world to scavenge the things we can’t make or grow or raise. We’re getting a band together—do you play an instrument?”

“You can’t just live up here like cavemen.”

“Oh, I think I might could do. And sure, there are those who want to go back to the way it was in the back before, with cars and houses and offices.

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