The Decameron 2.0

Day 4.1 Misunderstanding - PLAYING SANTA JesseSprague

An hour ago and the sky had been blue and clear. Heather should have been able to cover another five miles before needing to set up camp. But the storm rolled in like a furious god. The road was now lost to the snow and she was no longer sure if she was still on it or even if she was still heading on her south-easterly bearing.

The wind threw nettles at her face and the ground beneath her was the texture of greasy, loose sand. The last time she had been caught in a blizzard like this, she was picking her way through a suburban street going house to house and shelter was readily at hand. Traveling in the open country she was completely exposed. Even if she could set up a tarp using a couple of the spindly, new-growth ash trees that spotted the plane, it would do little to keep her warm and dry in this vicious wind.

A flicker of light in the distance drew her eye. Doubt told her it was a mirage. But hope whispered it was fire—a flame flickering behind glass. Hope won out and she pushed herself onward toward it. Slowly a building began to emerge from the murk.

Heather was reminded of one of those 80's strip malls her parents took her to as a kid, the kind that had nearly died out when big box stores started destroying neighborhoods. And then, died out completely when everything else died out. She came across one the year before and was able to live off the detritus for a month. Perhaps that flicker of light came from someone who'd set up camp in an old Yankee Candle and was currently being warmed by the comfort of scented votives.

The thought of company hurried her steps as much as the need for warmth. The best odds for survival was to travel alone, but that didn't keep her from missing the sound of another voice. This loneliness had become a universal condition and diffused what might have been violent clashes with other survivors. No matter how desperate a person got, company was always welcome. At least briefly.

As she neared the squat, two storey building, it became clear that it was no strip mall. The bricks and wide windows identified it as a civic building. The flat expanse around her hidden by the swiftly falling snow took on new meaning. It was probably a manicured field once, long ago.

Heather found a fire door with a busted lock and entered a hallway lined with lockers. She followed the light and the sound of voices until she reached a classroom. The light and the storm had brought more than just herself. She hadn't seen so many people in one place in years.

In the center of the floor, Emily sat tending a fire. The smoke flitted through a rotted out hole in the ceiling letting the smell of cooking permeated the air. Steven sat across from her drinking bone broth from a handleless coffee mug. On his left, Chayton sipped from a gleaming tin, the hoodie of her sweatshirt hiding all but her mouth.

A man sat in the teacher's desk by the blackboard. The flames of the cooking fire reflected in David's glasses as he flipped through an old ledger, turning the pages with too much speed to actually be reading it. It was more as though he was searching for something that wasn't there.

At the back of the room where there was almost no light, two men sat playing poker on one of the diminutive desks.

"Too bad this isn't a hotel," Baileigh said, taking a chair by the fire. She stretched her legs out, placing her knee-high leather boots next to the hearth stones. It was a confident thing to do in the company of strangers. Solid footwear like that could make anyone forget the tenets of hospitality.

"I thought this was a hotel," she said. Her South African accent sounding twice as exotic since it was the first voice Heather had heard in weeks. "It would be nice to sleep in a real bed for a change."

"I was hoping this was an insane asylum," a woman said stepping from the deep shadows in the corner. "I was hoping to score one of those gurney type tables. The kind with restraints."