The Last Tribe by Brad Manuel

the girl who kept a
spotless house and tissues in her pocket, was no teeny bopper.  This new girl
acted like an adult trapped in a teen’s body.
    Rebecca approached a side door with
a slide bolt lock at the bottom.  A latch door handle, a long piece of metal
slipped into a notch, kept the door shut.  Rebecca undid the bottom bolts,
opened the door, and went inside.  A second later her head popped back out the
door.  “Are you coming or what?”
    It smelled like rotting hay
inside.  Greg did not like it, but he followed Rebecca over to a set of lockers
next to the horse stalls.
    “I let the horses go two weeks
after the town got sick.  No one could feed or tend to them.  I thought they
might be better out in the wild.  I don’t know if that’s true, but if they
stayed here, well, they were going to starve.”  She opened one of the locker
doors.  It was empty.  She continued opening lockers until she found blankets. 
“Here we go.”  She grabbed an armful, “well, come on, let’s get back before it
starts to rain again.  These smell fine now, but wet wool blankets?  I won’t
hang those in the house.”
    “So if you can drive,” Greg started
“why didn’t we bring the truck over here?  Why did I have to ride a bike in the
cold and now balance blankets on my handle bars?”  Greg questioned some of the
girl’s story.
    “I have no idea how long gas stays
viable, and as far as I can tell, we have a finite amount of it.  I am not
wasting gas when we can ride to get blankets.  Keeping yourself fit, making
sure you don’t just lay around the house, getting out into the fresh air?  It’s
important.   Plus” she looked at him as they got back on their bikes “I wanted
to go on a bike ride with a cute boy.  It’s been a long time since I have done
that.”  She started back to the house, quicker than she rode over. 
    ‘Greg and Rebecca’ he thought to
himself.  ‘I like it.’  She was getting ahead of him.  Greg jumped on his bike
and pedaled hard to catch up.

15
     
    Paul and Hank Dixon left Dayton,
Ohio the day after Paul arrived.  They headed East, travelling as far as
possible during the freakishly warm December.  Hank’s neighbor had two Honda
Goldwing motorcycles with large saddle compartments.  The brothers, despite
their questionable motorcycle capabilities, rode the bikes out of town early
that next morning.  They knew motorcycle riding was more dangerous and colder
than using a car, but taking two bikes meant one could breakdown without
stranding them.  Motorcycles were easier to navigate through potential road
blocks, accidents, and traffic jams. 
    They stayed on large four-lane
highways, riding along US 70 the first day.  The roads were clear, and they
kept their speed at a constant 75 miles per hour.  Paul did not have the
confidence to ride faster.  They stopped briefly for lunch and to siphon gas
from abandoned cars.  They finished their day on the north side of Harrisburg,
PA.  The first four houses they searched had the odor of death.  The fifth
smelled clear.  Exhausted, they ate cold beef and noodle soup from cans before
climbing into their sleeping bags just after the sun went down.  Paul and Hank
exchanged no more than 100 words the entire day.
    The next morning they turned north towards
Albany, NY.  The clouds rolled in and a light snow began to fall before noon.  They
avoided New York City, and moved into the snow belt of New England.  They adjusted
their speed to safely navigate the dusting of powder and rolled into Rutland,
Vt, in the afternoon.  They were only an hour or so away from Hanover, but on
the wrong side of several large mountains. 
    It was the shortest day of the
year, the sun was almost gone, and it was snowing.
    The snow melted as it hit the ground
in New York, but Vermont’s streets disappeared under a blanket of white. 
Riding motorcycles, dangerous before because of their novice abilities, was
quickly becoming too great