Wasteland

At first she felt lonely. She'd become accustomed to being around more people more often. When she slept, feeling the mattress under her instead of sand reminded her of him, and she missed his warmth. Later she missed his firm, but gentle touch and his presence within her. When she could't sleep, because of the baby or because she didn't have the security of his body next to her, she fingered the key she'd strung around her neck. Her fear of him did not prevent her from missing him.

She had food, water and shelter from the harsh winds. She only left the shed at what she figured to be noon to explore and to pass water or defecate. As the days became shorter, she'd begun hearing the noises of animals outside the shed at all other hours. She would have attempted an attack on one of them, they didn't sound as if they were very large or lethal, but she was too swollen to put on her boots without a struggle. She hadn't bothered to cry or to worry. Neither of those things would make a difference. If the baby was to come, it would. She could only take it in stride. Food burned in her chest and water seemed to pass right through her. The child rolled around inside her like a mole-rat tumbling down a cliff. It was interesting to watch the flesh of her belly move and change with the actions of the person inside readying themselves to enter the world. Her jacket and tank had taken up residence on the end of the bed long ago when she could no longer fit them. Denims left undone and sagged about her hips, she did what she could to be comfortable on the old mattress. She passed the time thinking about how she would care for the little one in a land so hostile and dangerous. Food and clean water were wonderful, a blessing to have, but she could not keep to the shed forever. The space would soon grow to small for a young child, and she couldn't very well keep them locked up except at noon. Children needed space to play and run and a safe place to call home. She had to go back.

Stretching out the tank to cover as much as she could and slipping her arms through their places in the jacket, she dressed as best she could. Packing what she would fit in the pack, that was now wearing through in the corners, she left as soon as she thought it to be safe. She stopped dead in her tracks at the door when she opened it to find a large creature a few meters off. A mole-rat. Nothing too dangerous. If she slipped quietly by it would likely ignore her. The door closed with a groaning creak of hinges. The hairless beast twitched an ear and glanced in her direction. Revolver at the ready, she kept her back steadies against the shack. The rough surface of the wood planks had been smoothed with time. Her hand felt along the grooves to help guild her feet down the slope as she kept an eye on the mole-rat. Her foot slipped on a loose rock and she skidded, falling to the ground in an undignified heap. The animal only sniffed at her, then continued to dig under a overhanging bolder for moss or mouse to eat. She took many more minor tumbles as she scaled down the rocky mountain side. Tiny stones and pebbled crunched under her heavy boots as she made careful steps toward the roots. Now she hoped the empty vastness was still as empty as it had been when she came. There were only six shots in the gun, and that would hardly be enough to take out more than one mole-rat or anything else that might come across the round meal that she would make.

Following the direction of the sun at dawn, she returned on a different path. She wondered what she might find when she reached the hamlet. If anyone would be left. She wondered if Jack would be happy to see her and forgive her for leaving. Even if she found it empty, there were more provisions there than at the shack, and the walls would protect her and her little one. If the trader still traveled there for commerce, she would have plenty to trade him for anything she might need.

The hard wind blew sand and grit into her hair and stung her face and exposed belly. The lenses of her goggles were scratched so badly it was difficult to see through them. Walking was a slower process than it had been before. She hardly walked at all, but waddled more than anything, leaving behind her a strange trail in the dust. Most nights she lay awake until her lids were to heavy to keep open, looking up at the stars that she had been forced to hide from in the shack on the mountain. The baby seemed most active at night as well, kicking and rolling, keeping her awake with it's wiggling. A name had not yet come to her. She considered Orion, or Caelum. Maybe Jack had a name he wanted to use.

"Jack... Had he really been so bad?" She wondered aloud to the dirt and empty spaces.

He had been kind to her. Given her everything she needed and a little more. Were it not for the war and his vaguely conveyed past, she might have kept her word. Now she was on a journey to return to what was likely ruin and decay.

Days turned to weeks as she moved slowly across the plain. In the distance she could just make out a small oval shape on the ground. It wasn't a hill or a rock. The cooling sun light glinted of the surface as if it were metal. Against her logic, her heart leapt in her chest as if it were the walls of the town. But it was too small to be any town. Keeping it in her sight, she traveled on. She stopped to eat when she was hungry or drink when her mouth was too dry to breath. By the days end she had acquired her target. The cockpit of a crashed plane. The hull was riddled with rust encrusted holes. The single pilot's seat still had the bones, baked white by decades of sun, of the last man to fly it strapped in. His uniform had long turned to dust The name plate the pilot had worn lay on the seat under him where it must have fallen when cloth and flesh rotted away. With her knife she cut the straps free. The bones toppled to the floor where they shattered like glass to power. The uninhibited wind took the remains and scattered them across the planes and hills. She fingered the dull metal and turned it over in her hand to read the name carved into the tin tag. Each letter was packed with grim, and the edges and begun to wear away. But the name was still legible. Cpt. F. James. She didn't know what F. might have been, but Cpt. was captain. The last bit of Captain James caught on the breeze and was lost to the whim of the weather. Leona slept in the captain's chair that night. The torn and cracked leather seat was miles more comfortable than the mattress in the shack or the hard earth. She slept with her hands on her belly and her eyes on the stars through the cracked windshield. It was nice to be able to look at them without the marred lenses of the goggles to distort their light. She smiled in her sleep with the bundle inside her kicked and stretched out it's limbs. But her brow furrowed with worry and fear.