We Survivors [Published Version]

3: Safety in Numbers | Jake

A few days before Ben died, he found us a HAM radio and insisted that I start the nightly broadcast seeking other survivors. It was past the most dangerous time; there were so few people left alive that there was no need to fight over resources. Still, I'd resisted. We had enough mouths to feed with the two of us.

"There's safety in numbers," he'd told me. "One day you'll learn that. If anything happens to me... I don't want you to be alone."

I think he'd already known then what he was going to do.

After he was gone, it was over a hundred days of traveling on my own—and over one hundred broadcasts—before I caught proof that I wasn't the last person alive.

Nadia. The name sounded easy, comfortable on my tongue after so many nights talking. I said it once or twice aloud to myself as I trekked along riverbank, the flowing water drowning out other forest sounds. The sun hung barely above the trees to the west, and I wondered if she'd have beaten me to the coordinates I'd given her.

She hadn't wanted to meet up for so long. She must not have shared my brother's beliefs about "safety in numbers". I'd been worried for her, to be honest. But it quickly became evident that she could take care of herself. There was no need to join up with me.

My heart pounded in anticipation as I came within view of the bend in the river where I'd asked to meet. Was there some reason she hadn't wanted to meet me?

We were the same age, assuming she was telling the truth about that. It was so easy to talk with her, unlike with most people, that I'd even wondered whether she was real and not just a coping mechanism my brain had invented to help the crippling loneliness.

I heard a female voice call, "Jake!" through the trees. Shit. Is she hurt? I broke into a run but was slowed by the sandy soil of the riverbank.

"Nadia!" I yelled in return.

I spotted a backpack, tent and sleeping roll strapped to the bottom. A bow and quiver lay next to it, at the base of an oak tree. I circled the tree, looking for movement.

"Up here!" she called.

I glimpsed wavy blonde hair and a flannel shirt through the branches. She scrambled down but fell toward the bottom. Nadia stood quickly, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment as she brushed pine needles off her hands.

"Hey," I said, when other words failed. A better question would have been "Are you alright?", but I didn't want to embarrass her further.

"Hi," she said, flustered. "So you are real. Or, I mean, you're okay. I was worried you'd broken a leg or that bears or wolves..."

"Jake," I said, half-lifting my hand to shake hers but then dropping it back to my side.

"I'm Nadia." She attempted a smile.

I didn't know what to say next. It had been a long time since I'd needed to make small talk, and I'd never been good at it to begin with.

We sized each other up instead. Her tanned skin emphasized her light blue eyes. I had a few inches on her. She wore jeans, leather boots, and a blue plaid shirt that was as sun-faded as the forest green one I wore.

"So I'm not crazy," she said, laughing a breathlessly. "At least not creating-imaginary-people crazy."

I smiled. "I was thinking the same thing. Should we make camp?"

"Sure."

We dug out our supplies, checking out the ways we'd each been surviving. I admired her bow and quiver full of arrows, and she watched as I removed a fold-up fishing pole and a few boxes of ammo for my rifle from my bag. I'd been boiling my water and using purification tablets, but she had a UV bottle and a homemade particulate filter made from a cut up two-liter bottle layered with a bandana, sand, dirt, and rocks.

Pulling a hatchet from my bag, I wandered into the woods to collect wood, cutting fallen branches into one-foot pieces. When I returned, Nadia had set up her tent. She dug through her pack for her flint striker and a light green towel fell out.

I picked it up and gave her a quizzical look.

"A big fluffy towel is one of those little joys in life, you know?" she said, shrugging. "Plus, it's like they say in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

I laughed but didn't get the reference. "What do they say?"

"Something like, 'anyone who can hitch across the Galaxy and still know where their towel is must be a force to be reckoned with'."

"I see. Is all your survival wisdom from sci-fi novels?" I asked, my tone teasing as I cleared a space for a fire on the forest floor. Conversation was starting to feel easy again, the way it had over the airwaves each night.

"Before all of this,"—she tossed a hand out at the woods—"I wasn't exactly a doomsday prepper."

"No survival stories then?"

"Not unless you count reading Hatchet when I was twelve."

"Yeah, same here." I said, piling logs into a teepee shape as she lit the tinder beneath and added a few twigs of kindling at a time. "Maybe we're better hands-on learners anyway." I met her eyes and smirked.

I cooked a fish from the river over the fire in a cast-iron pan, and Nadia offered dried fruit, a can of tuna, and some almost-expired Oreos she'd been saving. She'd finished her last rabbit two days ago but hoped to snare another tomorrow.

We fell into a comfortable silence beneath the stars as we ate our smorgasbord dinner. I didn't know if Ben was right, and there really was safety in numbers, but there was something else. I couldn't put it into words, but I knew that, whatever it was, I'd found it again. And that it had been sorely missed.

The next few days saw us settle into an easy routine. We'd wake in our tents and visit the river to splash our faces and collect water for the day. After a quick breakfast, Nadia would check her snares and gather herbs or berries. I spent the mornings fishing.

In the afternoons I'd set up my hammock and nap in it, or Nadia would curl up in it to read a book or write in her journal. I tied and painted new fishing lures or worked on the bowl I'd been carving out of an old stump.

When twilight began, we'd light a fire and I'd cook us a couple of fish or she'd make a stew. After dinner, I'd do my usual radio broadcast, though I no longer had to count the days since the last person I knew died.

Perhaps because it was already our habit from our HAM radio chats, the late evenings were spent around the campfire talking and laughing.

One night I'd finished our broadcast and set it to scan through the static of amateur radio stations like usual. Nadia had a solar charger that worked with the batteries for both our radios. We enjoyed the white noise while we slept and hoped it kept predators away.

A branch fell in the fire, sending up a spray of sparks, and the wind shifted so the smoke tickled my nose. Then there was another sound: a voice, faint and garbled through the static, coming from my radio.

Nadia's head whipped up.

"You hear it, too?" The radio sat between us and I adjusted the dial, my hand shaking, until we heard a distinctly human voice.

"Hey there world, if there's anybody left, why don't you call us up? It's Zara and Coby here and we'd be glad to, you know, meet some other civilized folks."

Nadiapicked up the microphone to respond, her incredulous expression mirroring myown. Somehow, after months without either of us encountering another soul, we weren't the last people onEarth.

~~~

author's note

I hope you enjoyed this, the first new Jake chapter! Also, I sent off my first signed copies last week and just got a new shipment of author copies. So if you want a signed, discounted paperback of your own, DM me for details!