Safety in numbers.

You decide that it would better if you had someone to watch your back and ask if you could travel with her.

Carol looks up and down. “You’re not a part of any of the ‘new nations’ are you?”

You shake your head. “I’m just me.”

She seems to think for a moment and then nods her head. “Okay. But if you fall behind, I’m not going to risk my life to save you.”

“Same to you.” You respond.

A mirthless smile comes over her face, “All right. Just so we understand each other Alex.” She throws you a helmet. “Ever ride a bike before?”

“I once had a boyfriend who would take me out for the occasional spin.”

She gets on the bike. “Good. Hop on and hold on tight.”

You pull the helmet over your head and climb behind her. She starts the engine and asks if you’re ready. You give her thumbs up and she peels down the highway toward the city.

It’s almost dark when you come on a gas station. All the glass has been broken and the place looks like its been looted several times. Carol parks the bike and takes out her shotgun. “Watch my back,” she says. With your heads down, the two of you quietly make you way into the store. After a sweep of the area, you find that no one is there and Carol wheels the bike out of sight of the road. Carol bashes open a locked door in the back with the shotgun and you find a small storeroom that looters haven’t bothered with yet. You gather some food, mostly beef jerky, candy, and other things with a long shelf life. Carol picks a spot that makes it easy to see out of the building but hard to see the two of you inside. She lays out a sleeping bag for the two of you to sit on.

She hands you a rice cake and asks “Well Alex what did you do before the world ended?”

You reply, “I worked in a tire yard.”

She looks surprised, “Really? I wouldn’t have thought that by looking at you.”

“I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover. What did you do?”

“I was a optometrist.”

You almost laugh. “I would have never guessed that in a million years.” You sigh, “Not much use for either of us right now.”

Carol washes down her rice cake with some bottled water. “Not professionally.”

You feel the need to know more and ask, “What about this Colonel? Are there a lot like him?”

Carol frowns, “I hope not, but let’s face it, there isn’t a lot of anybody anymore, good, bad or otherwise.” She looks up and down your body. “I hope you never meet him. You’re too beautiful. He’d make you one of his breeding whores in a second.”

You shudder, “Is that what he did to you?”

“He tried. I had to kill five men and a woman to get out of there.” She shakes her head, “A woman…we can’t afford to lose anymore people, especially women. Not if we want the human race to survive…hell…maybe it’s what we all deserve. Maybe God or nature or whoever is running the show is giving us one last chance to prove that we deserve to keep on living. Maybe all off this is the way it is meant to be.”

You sit quietly without a response. She suddenly laughs, “You know, it’s funny…before all this I didn’t care one whit about men. Now, I just want to find one who won’t try to enslave me or rape me.”

You look at her questioningly, “What do you mean, you didn’t care about men?”

Carol says, “I was a card carrying, board certified, man-hating dyke. As far as I was concerned men could go to hell or heaven, I didn’t care as long as they left me alone.”

Despite your shock over her revelation, you say, “You don’t sound like you’re a fan of men now, either.”

“I’m not,” she replies, “But now I realize that women aren’t any better. The Colonel had a group working with him to trap others. It was because of one of them that I got caught in the first place.”

“Was she the one you killed?”

Carol looks down at the floor and says softly, “Yeah…she was the one I killed.”

You ask, “Wait, if you still don’t like men, why do you want to meet one?”

A hard look comes over her face, “Because I want to have a baby and help rebuild the world, and I will be damned before I let some fucking rapist knock me up.”

You say, “You’re a kind of paradox. You don’t seem to have any faith in manki…” you stop and smile, “…humankind, but you still want to help save it.”

She puts her head down on the sleeping bag. “What can I say? I’m a complicated woman.” She hands you her watch. “Wake me in two hours to take a turn at guard.”

She is soon asleep and you are awake and alone with your pistol on your lap looking out into the dark. Suddenly, you hear a faint scrape from the storeroom. It was very quiet, but you know it was there. Carol is still asleep. Should you wake her or go investigate the noise yourself? It might have been nothing; perhaps you should just let it go.