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Chapter forty-one

Nora

Nora stretched in Simon’s arms. Not only did she enjoy the companionship, she also was no longer hungry. It is . . . well . . . fantastic.

They got up together, as a team, tackling the morning chores. Several weeks had passed as a routine was established in terms of sourcing supplies and stockpiling goods, along with several more runs between the mall and the town. The feeling of security Nora had, seeing those supplies, grew alongside the material goods.

It was not only physical items like food. The money from Max was also piling up, and with it so were Nora’s hopes. The nightstand drawer was fuller than it had ever been. But it still wasn’t yet enough for them to make any moves to explore elsewhere.

Nora wasn’t as enthused as Simon was about leaving everything. This was all she had ever known. After the chores were done, she handled the items with near reverence as she restacked some dried meat on the counter. But damn, it feels good to see us have so much extra to help us survive. Since when have I ever had extra like this? Simon was interested in stockpiling to move, but Nora was more focused on how good it felt to just have reserves.

She ate that morning, still unable to leave anything on the plate, while Simon repaired a few gears that were broken on the big hover. Taking a break from eating, her eyes were drawn to the window. “Is the same place good to go to? The mall?”

Simon nodded. “Yes, in the area, but I would like to explore some. I know where a few other large department stores once stood. A variety of items would probably get us more money.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” Nora shoveled the last bit of egg into her mouth, her stomach protesting. The last few bites didn’t really taste good with how stuffed she was. She moved over and finished getting the crumbs off of Tilly’s plate as she responded, “Wherever you think. We will need a resting day though after this, been scavenging and trading so much. Tilly must be tired.”

Tilly’s eyes were bright as she shook her head at Nora’s words and colored on her chalkboard next to her on the table. “Nuh uh. I’ll go out every day if we can have more cakes.”

Nora frowned, finishing Tilly’s crumbs, and then leaned back in the chair. “Well shit, I’m tired then.”

“Bad word!” Tilly pointed at her with the chalk.

“You’re right, you’re right.”

Simon didn’t say anything, but she caught his grin at the counter. Nora rubbed her stomach, gaze lingering on him clearing the dishes. More than just the daytime activities that are making me tired . . .

Tilly was in a high energy mood. She was practically jumping instead of walking everywhere that morning, her injured foot not holding her back at all. She had already challenged both of them that morning to a staring contest, which Simon had the decency to pretend to lose. Nora watched her dance, feeling sluggish in comparison. Probably got that extra energy from those cakes .

The plates were put in a bucket to wash while Tilly went in back to get changed to leave. Nora rubbed her midsection. Feels uncomfortable . She started scrubbing the dishes next to Simon. “Make less food tomorrow, okay? My stomach hurts.”

Simon stood from where he was tinkering with the engine part and took the dishes as she dried, storing them to the side. “You’ll adapt. Your frame already appears better now.”

Nora snorted and shook her head, side-eyeing him. “You would know.”

Simon nodded, coming up and wrapping his arms around her, making her body warm. “I do know.”

Nora snorted again to cover her blush as Simon's hands reached down to grope her rear. “Even filling out here.”

She wiggled out of his arms. “You’re fresh this morning.”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead before letting go. Nora walked back to the table while Simon packed even more snacks for them to eat along the way.

She picked up the gears Simon had fixed, hefting them in her hands. “I’ll get these put back in the hover and check the gas. Meet me out there once Tilly is ready.”

“Yes,” Simon said, finishing the dishes.

After putting on her shoes, Nora walked outside. The drone was there, waiting.

“Good morning,” Nora said to the drone as she listened to Tilly tell jokes to Simon inside. The sound faded as she crossed the threshold into the dirt yard. She shaded her eyes to see the drone’s dusty green metal that was at just the right angle to reflect the sun. “Got any good places you can share with Simon for us to check out? Somewhere other than that mall? Mall is fine still if not.”

The drone, like always, didn’t respond, but Nora knew they listened. It kept following her as she walked the path to the garage, almost side by side. “I think the last atmosphere sweep you did really did something.” She waved around her arm in emphasis. “I’m not getting a bad air alert on the filter as much and we haven’t had to wear the masks the last few times we went out.”

Again, nothing from the drone. Nora was silent after that, her cheeks heated as her thoughts went in a different direction. That night of the atmosphere sweep sure as hell did something for me too.

She entered the garage and began installing the gears and checking the fuel. Simon and Tilly came in a second later. Another piece of fried cake was in Tilly’s hand as she jumped into the back of the hover and put on her seatbelt.

Nora’s eyes lingered on Simon as he climbed in. She knew he took note of her gaze as he leaned over and patted her hand, wearing his mischievous smile. “Yes, let’s rest tomorrow, Nora. We will do lots of resting.”

Nora’s cheeks flamed. “Dammit, Simon.” Luckily she said that low enough that Tilly didn’t overhear her swearing. Simon just laughed as he braced the container on the hover’s floor more solidly.

The drone kept pace as they traveled, but hovered lower than usual. After a few miles it seemed to dance right ahead of them, veering away and back, almost as if it were leading them. Nora drummed her fingers on the steering wheel while watching. “I asked earlier for a good spot.”

“Asked them?”

“Yeah, they didn’t respond, but look how it’s moving. I’m gonna follow it.”

She watched Simon’s mood change from joking to scowling up at the sky, but he didn’t argue as Nora took the path the drone indicated, on a road she hadn’t gone down before.

He huffed and glanced away. “They would know. They spy on everything enough.”

They do, but . . . Nora bit her lip as she gazed upward. She meant what she had said to them before, about being grateful. “Well, hopefully they do.”

There was a moment of regret initially as the road she followed the drone on became more difficult, the ride unsteady. There, though. A sigh went through her as the path cleared out after a moment and Nora saw a building loom ahead, just as large as the mall she had been to many times before.

“That rough road must have hid this,” Nora whispered. The structure still stood high, metal twisting toward the heavens. Whenever she came upon a new place where the building stood tall like this instead of complete rubble, she always felt a bit hushed. Like she was traveling through a graveyard. “Simon, do you know what this is?”

Simon frowned, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yes. My GPS is helping. This was . . . this was a movie theater, in part. And there were also more department stores attached to it.” He pointed to the very large structure still mostly standing. “That was the movie theater part.”

“Movie theater?” Nora wracked her brain. “Like the Mars feeds they play at the drop?”

“Yes, exactly like that. Only entertaining instead of just nature. It was like the radio stories only in moving picture format. This place should have some interesting things. If Max liked the magazines, there should be other . . . nostalgia . . . here to gather.”

Nora pulled up, idling the hover right outside the large, crumbling walls. “It was just pictures inside?”

Simon's voice took on a faraway quality. “Yes. With words. When you watched them, it felt like you were in a different world.”

They climbed out of the hover and Simon led them to a flat spot, hidden and shaded by the wall. “Wait here. If it is safe to walk in some I will let you know.”

“Okay.”

Tilly’s head darted side to side, her eyes wide. “This is so big!”

Nora held her against her chest while they waited. “Sure is.”

They watched as Simon walked away from them, soon eaten up by the opening as he went inside the ruins. Nora was happy to let him take the lead now, knowing he was so much surer footed than she was. But still, she craned her neck, looking everywhere. It’s so dang big, huh. This building, more than the others, seemed so intact that she really wanted to see what it was like inside.

Simon poked his head out a minute later, carrying a piece of signage. The sign was made of a weathered plastic. He brought it to where they stood, turning it over in his hands. He dropped the sign by her feet. “The building is relatively stable. Safer than the mall was.”

Tilly’s eyes grew large on the dust-covered sign. “There’s lots of that stuff inside?”

“Yes.”

Simon rubbed his hand on the signage, and both him and Nora watched the thick dust come off to reveal more of the picture underneath. He took the fabric of his shirt sleeve and rubbed harder. “I would still prefer to do most of the scavenging though. There is a lot of rubble.”

Nora's brow puckered. “Alright. What is that?”

“A sign for popcorn.”

Nora watched, entranced, as the dust peeled off and revealed a picture of a small yellow food item. After it was mostly cleaned off, Simon rotated it in the light, holding it out to her.

“Tilly, look.” Nora pointed, away from the sign. Immediately, she broke into a sweat as her head whipped around in every direction, scanning the broken concrete horizon. Fear, sharp and precise, slipped down her spine.

Tilly wasn’t there.

“Wait, where’s Tilly?” She shouted a second later, unease in her stomach, “Tilly?”

Simon echoed her call, walking back toward the ruined structure.

Nora heard a return answer a moment later from within a spot that the roof had collapsed over. “It’s neat in here, Mama. You need to come see.”

Uh . . . Nora and Simon exchanged a worried glance and hurried into the building, right where Simon exited a minute ago. Nora climbed down gingerly over the exposed rebar, her voice cracking. “Tilly, you just can’t go ahead like that.”

“Simon said it was safe. I heard him!”

Fear coated her body in sweat as Nora walked down fast, scraping one of her hands in the process. “No he didn’t! You got a bad foot, Tilly. You can’t just . . . where are you?”

Nora’s heart pounded as she ran ahead until she saw her, inside the main structure, transfixed by the large partitioned rooms ahead. Simon had already gotten to her side, much faster than Nora was.

Relief flooded her seeing Tilly unharmed, and she joined her daughter and Simon before finally calming enough to explore. The walls had crumbled, showing a line of seats facing forward and remnants of a screen ahead.

Nora spun in a circle, awed by the scene. “Woah.”

Tilly tugged on her sleeve. “It’s so cool!”

The roof here had fallen in on spots and the seats sat, mostly decomposed, from the sun and elements. That was all Nora could absorb for a moment, as she took it in and imagined what the building was like completely intact.

Ahead, the large screen looked like the Mars board. There were a lot of half torn down bulletin boards, all in a line but separated by broken down walls. In front of them there were chairs lined up, facing forward. Nora examined the chairs and moved some rubble off one. The stone covering had kept the synthetic leather seat mostly intact from the outside elements.

Simon watched her speculatively as she sat down on it and faced forward to the half-destroyed screen.

“Like this?” She looked back at Simon. “Sit and watch?”

He nodded, his tone hushed. “So odd to see you like that, at the movies as if it wasn’t destroyed.”

Tilly bounced on a seat next to her. “There’s so many seats.”

Nora got out of the seat and crouched down next to it, examining how the rusted-out bolts were attached to the concrete beneath. She motioned Simon over, pointing close. “Maybe we can take one of these out and put it in the hover for a seat for you? Then you don’t need to use the container. A few of these don’t seem that bad.”

He bent down next to her, looking where her finger pointed. “That could work.”

“Oh, what is that?” Tilly jumped out of the chair, impulsively leaping ahead.

Nora reached for her but only caught air as Tilly ran off. “Wait, Tilly! Slow down!”

Simon was faster than Nora as he stood and rushed after Tilly.

But then Nora saw it happen in slow motion. Adrenaline pounded in her veins while she dashed away to follow the pair.

Tilly was pulling on a piece of silicone sheeting to see behind it. She did not notice that her actions were disturbing some of the rubble that had settled way high above that the synthetic fabric was attached to.

Before a few of the rocks fell, Simon was at her side. The rocks were tiny but high enough that they began to hit the ground hard like missiles, falling into other rubble that then started to slide as well. Simon pushed Tilly out of the way, rocks hitting the ground all around them.

A rumble happened and Nora’s heart pounded as Simon moved with Tilly, the rubble lurching underfoot as it shifted from Simon’s running and whatever Tilly had disturbed.

Tilly tripped on her bad foot and crashed to her knees. Simon crouched over her, taking the brunt of the rubble that fell from high above on his back. It fell with a sickening smack to the ground. Nora winced as she saw it happen and heard the loud shriek of pain that came from Tilly. After the rocks stopped falling, Tilly hopped up a minute later, eyes wide in horror.

“Tilly! Simon!” Nora, walking closer as fast and as carefully as she could, hauled Tilly back to look at Simon, who now had a thick layer of rubble on top of him. Tilly stepped back, letting out a whimper, holding her leg to herself that had a shallow cut.

Nora let out a whimper as well. Her heart caught in her throat. “Simon! Oh no.”

He raised his hand, hunched over, as if in answer. “Do not come closer, Nora. It is unstable.” The tinny quality in his voice that had not been present since she first powered him on was back again.

That, more than anything else, made a sharp spike of fear flare inside Nora. She shaded her eyes and willed herself to see clearer through the disturbed concrete dust as she pulled Tilly back even more.

Simon had mostly made it out of where the rock fell, but his back had gotten pierced by the rubble, and he had a dent from a hard blow.

Can he get out? Nora watched as Simon moved the rubble pieces, shifting them out and crawling his damaged body forward. He was still strong, very strong. Nora paced side to side. I need to help. Oh, Simon. She ran forward, despite his cries to stay back, and grabbed him by the arms to pull him the rest of the way.

Simon cleared the rubble off himself as best he could until he’d moved out enough that he could drag his legs out the rest of the way. Then he brushed himself off until he was able to shakily stand. The tinny quality was even more evident as he asked, “Is Tilly all right?”

Nora reached under his arm to prop him up, bracing his weight over her shoulder. “Yes. She’s fine. Just gotta get us out of here. No more is falling now.”

“I’m sorry, Simon.” Tilly had tears running down her face, making two clean lines down her dirty cheeks. “I was bad. I didn’t listen.”

Simon shook his head. “No Tilly. None of that matters. Just as long as you’re not hurt.”

They stumbled together to the edge of the building and sat him down in the spot he had marked for both Nora and Tilly to sit before.

Simon spoke, still calm and measured, but softly. “The building was stable up until the very end. Water had eroded metal that snapped when weight was added, and the bit of rubble falling had a domino effect. This place was so out of the way it had not been tested and compressed before.”

The popcorn sign from earlier lay forgotten on the ruined concrete. Nora had no desire to go back to pick it or any other useful items up.

Instead, she leaned forward and looked at Simon carefully, telling Tilly to back up as she kept trying to give Simon a hug. Nora examined the large gash across his side. “Oh no. Oh no. We need to get you back. You’re leaking . . . I think that’s battery acid. And your arm . . .”

Tilly began to cry harder. “I’m sorry.”

Simon reached a hand out and touched her head. “Everything is fixable, Tilly. And it’s all more easily fixable on me than on you. It’s okay.”

The drone itself hovered near, but Nora saw it as a distraction instead of a help now. She glanced up at it in irritation. What can they do, being so removed?

“C’mon, we need to get back home.” Nora braced Simon again, her body back under his shoulder, reminding her of when he first woke up and rejected her help. Simon didn’t reject her now. He leaned on her heavily as they walked to the hover and Nora put him in the bench seat in the back, next to Tilly, not trusting he would be able to balance on the container next to her.

She took a deep breath as she watched Simon trying to sit straight on the seat, battery acid and fluid pouring out from his midsection where he was pierced. “Let’s get back fast. Just don’t move, Simon. It will be okay.”

His voice was tinny and a bit quiet in return. “Yes, Nora.”