Chapter 16 (Joshua’s?POV)

  The faucet’s clear ribbon splashed into the dented enamel sink, a sound so gentle I wanted to believe it belonged to another world entirely. Ten… fifteen… twenty seconds—still running cold and pure. I let out the breath I’d been holding and rested both palms on the counter.

  “Whoever you’re thanking,” Anna said behind me, “add my name to the list.”

  Her voice was rough from two weeks of eating dust, but there was a note in it now—something lighter, almost disbelieving.

  I twisted the handle shut and felt the copper lines under the counter sigh as pressure settled. “Deep?well feed,” I said. “I mapped it in my timeline. The casing drops about a hundred and forty feet—far below the sewer table. I ran a one?horse solar pump on the other side and patched new PEX lines. Looks like the bleed?through works.”

  I walked outside and motioned for Anna to follow me, around the backside of the cottage on the roof there sat the Solar cell that I had installed. I grinned.

  “If we can make enough money it seems that I will be able to alter the cottage on my side and have its effects bleed through on this side.”

  Anna Blinked at the idea,”you mean if we get enough old world money and gold and what not you could basically turn this place into a castle?”

  I grunted “well I mean with the proper permits then yes, but to do that we would be talking several million dollars.”

  Anna looked back at the solar cell and motioned at it.

  “How much can we pull before it burns out?” she asked, wiping a fleck of water from her cheek.

  We returned back inside.

  “On a clear day?” I tapped mental math onto the countertop. “A standard one?horse array pushes maybe 4?gallons per minute—call it 240?gallons an hour—as long as the sun hits the panels. Cloudy days dip to half that. It’s not a municipal main, but it’ll fill barrels, run wash water, maybe even trickle a showerhead if I rig a tank.”

  Anna leaned against the doorjamb, soap crate forgotten at her feet. “A shower,” she echoed, as though testing a word that had lost its meaning. “I grinned well the shower should work now it just wont be warm.”

  She nodded and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The gesture felt strangely intimate, not because it was flirtatious but because it was unnecessary in battle; it belonged to the forgotten kingdom of personal comfort. The moment flickered, vulnerable and fragile.

  I jerked my head toward the Large pile of gear still piled on the cart. “Let’s get the rest of the cart unloaded, then sit. I need to do inventory before the adrenaline wears off.”

  We hauled carton after carton onto the living room floor until my arms trembled and Anna’s breath hissed through her teeth. When the cart finally stood empty, its steel deck groaned relief, and my brain kicked into logistics mode.

  I flicked on the LED lantern overhead; its bluish glow etched the room into sharper lines. Plywood sheets leaned against one wall, new 2?×?4 studs stacked like timbers near a borrowed cordless driver. The food column rose ceiling?high, bulwarked by four flats of SPAM and twelve shrink?wrapped peanut?butter towers. Coffee cans, sugar bricks, rice bags, electrolyte tubs, tampons, soap, antibiotics, barbed wire coils, screw boxes, framing nails, a 22?ounce Estwing hammer, a 30?inch pry bar, bolt cutters, four roll?up foam mattresses, and the glossy two?person sleeping bags—each with its own compression sack—waited like drafted troops.

  Anna watched me pace with my notebook. “Any chance your world’s spreadsheet is leaking through, too? My math brain’s toast.”

  “Paper still beats cosmic DRM,” I said, flipping to my latest accounting sheet.

  Outbound?Cargo—Cycle 3

  – Food bucket: $271 (net weight?72?lb)

  – Hardware & tools: $213 (46?lb)

  – Med kit: $304 (9?lb)

  – Hygiene & comfort: $35 (12?lb)

  – Coffee, sugar, rice: $195.61 (60?lb)

  – Sleeping & shelter: $633.80 (30?lb)

  TOTAL cargo value: $1,652.41

  Gate toll paid (10?%): $490.95

  “Leaves me roughly four grand back home,” I finished. “Enough to rent the U?Haul again, grab plywood, and maybe start stockpiling solar panels.”

  She perched on a plywood sheet, boots dangling. “That sounds like numbers I can’t fathom. What’s it actually mean?”

  “It means,” I said, rubbing sweat from my temples, “that for the first time since I tripped into your side of reality, we’re solvent. Or… half?solvent. We have clean water, calorie reserves, antibiotics, and enough lumber to bank windows.”

  She exhaled a slow laugh. “Solvent. Nobody’s used that word here since the infection hit.”

  I slid down the wall opposite her, feeling my back protest. “Which reminds me—there was something I wanted to ask, and now seems like a good time.” I flipped to an older page headed QUESTIONS—a list I’d kept since my first return:

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Why are roamers still animated after 7?years with no obvious intake?

  Where did the rest of the population go? Bodies missing? Devoured? Something else?

  Why do ferals mutate differently in clusters?

  What exactly are pearls?

  I tapped the first line. “Seven years is a long time to shamble without water. Any theories on the science, or is it just apocalypse magic?”

  Anna leaned back, shoulders against the stone. “I’m no CDC scholar, but scavenger rumors say the virus cannibalizes the host’s muscle for fuel. Think souped?up prion disease. Bodies dry out, but the brainstem keeps firing as long as there’s any tissue left to metabolize. That’s why older roamers look like jerky. Eventually they collapse when leg muscles give out, but the brainstem still twitches.”

  “That implies some energy loop,” I mused. “Bioelectric maybe. But they’d need nitrogen, minerals—”

  “—which they steal when they tear into living things…Or each other,” she interrupted. “Fresh meat is fertilizer, and old meat is raw protien.”

  I grimaced, imagining the roamer I’d clubbed to mush outside Central Park. “Grimly eloquent.”

  She jabbed her thumb toward the notebook. “Second question—missing bodies. The first winter killed as many as the virus. The Empire gang burned whole housing blocks to stem outbreaks. Anarchists strung people from streetlamps. Wild dogs dragged corpses under buildings. Scavengers used some as firewood when supplies ran out, but mainly it is the wildlife from rats to packs of rabid dogs.” Her voice hollowed at the edges. “You can track early evac maps, but after six months nobody kept census.”

  I wrote No central records. Erosion of evidence via animals, weather, burning. The pen hovered over question three. “Ferals mutate differently in clusters. Why does one grow quadruple limbs while another keeps its shape but moves like a cheetah?”

  Anna shrugged. “Pearl strength, I’m told. The core grows with each new pearl consumed-the Roamers and Ferals consume one another for whatever reason this leads to the mutations; the virus rewrites the host, adds mass, speed, aggression. Think RPG leveling but in reverse—experience mutates the monster, not the player.”

  “Which leads to pearls.” I unscrewed one of the marbles we’d harvested, its surface faintly warm. “You said they dissolve into alcohol—potions. That implies a chemical energy store.”

  She nodded. “High?value groups swallow raw pearls hoping for stat boosts. Half die foaming at the mouth.”

  I rolled the sphere between my fingers, feeling a low vibration. “And I’m the only person still alive without the Vaccine, which makes me wonder how.” I pocketed it, suddenly aware of the pulsing blush under its milky shell.

  Anna stood, stretched, winced as her side caught. “Speaking of plywood, let’s test how many windows we can cover before sundown.”

  We climbed to the living room and laid out the first sheet. The cottage interior still smelled of mint and fresh lumber, but every creak of the floorboards told me we needed lateral bracing. I measured twice, sawed once; Anna held the panel while I sank screws with the cordless driver. Each whine of the bit echoed down the lane. Before long, three windows were sealed; shafts of cold gray daylight narrowed to fist?sized gaps in the corners.

  We broke for water at midday. Anna sat on the porch rail, sweating through a borrowed Columbia shell. She sniffed the collar. “Smells like a real store. You forget clothing ever smelled like this.”

  I chuckled, slumped beside her, and downed a gulp from the tap?filled bottle. “Stores still smell like that… over there.”

  “That world,” she said, gaze distant, “didn’t collapse because of a single infection?”

  I shook my head.

  “We almost did but luckily we survived though there are still issues with the illness”

  “why would you consider coming back here if everything is going well in the other world?”

  The question stung in its innocence. “Because there’s always another threat… credit debt, health insurance, layoffs. We still fear scarcity, so we sprint even when our pantries overflow. Nobody trusts the system won’t fail.” I hesitated. “That’s how I ended up in corporate quicksand before the copper door.”

  She peered at me. “You call our world bleak. At least here the threats are honest.”

  I couldn’t argue. The wind rustled dead vines along the porch, and for a moment I preferred the screech of sawtooth claws to corporate performance reviews.

  I stood. “Come on. One more window before dark.”

  Night bled in while we fastened the final plywood sheet. Lantern glow flickered across Anna’s face—sweat?streaked, dirt?speckled, determined. I felt the weight of gratitude press against my ribs.

  She stepped back from the window. “Tomorrow we pirate that safe I found. Might be jewels, might be nothing.”

  “Every diamond counts,” I said. “Cash conversion ratio is best if stones are already cut.”

  Her eyes narrowed in mirth. “Listen to you—our apocalypse economist.”

  I flushed. “If it keeps us flush in antibiotics, call me what you want.”

  We stowed tools, latched the door, and ate quick stew heated on the new gas burner I’d cannibalized from a camp stove. The air smelled of curry seasoning instead of mold; Anna closed her eyes after the second bite, savoring she let out a little moan between bites her emerald eyes tearing up in pleasure.

  When bowls were scraped clean, I poured water, and we sat across the table under the single LED.

  “There’s something else,” I said. “My father left a letter. It spoke of a woman named Mirabelle—apparently his wife—she lived here. Your world.”

  Anna set her cup down gently. “What will you do?”

  “See if I can’t find her. Ask how she crossed in 1970, why she never returned, why Dad wrote be kind, they’ll help you.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “But that’s long?term. Short?term we need power, perimeter alarms, a latrine that doesn’t feed a fly hive”

  “Thats quite the list,” she said.

  I chuckled.

  The faucet dripped once, clear as glass. Outside, a roamer moaned—dull, distant. Anna set her hand atop mine. “Welcome back,” she whispered.

  And for the first time since stumbling through a flickering copper gate, I believed I was exactly where I belonged.

  (Inventory Snapshot – End of Day)

  Food: 9?MREs (Anna stock) + 72?lb trade bucket + 4?flats SPAM + 12?×?PB 40?oz + 50?lb rice + sugar & coffee

  Water: Deep?well pump @ ≈?4?gpm clear; 50?gal barrel reserve

  Medical: Amox?120, Doxy?60, gauze, iodine, ibuprofen, hydrocortisone

  Tools: Estwing, pry bar, bolt cutters, cordless driver (+ spare batteries), hand saw

  Shelter: ?″ plywood (11 sheets), 2?×?4 studs (20), barbed wire 80?ft, galvanized wire 100?ft

  Hygiene: 120+ tampons, 280 pads/liners, 12?soap bars, wipes (2?bricks)

  Pearls: 27 (Josh) + unknown (Anna’s harvest)

  Cash stateside: ≈?$4,000

  Gate unlock: 46 hours

  Tomorrow we would cut open an iron safe, raise more plywood, and—for the first time—run water through pipes that had not seen it since the world went silent. The apocalypse outside could keep its claws; inside these patched walls, a fountain flowed, a forge sparked, and two stubborn survivors planned to outbuild the end of days.