Survivor by James Phelan

subject.
    â€œWhereabouts in Australia are you from?” It was nice to hear her ask a question like this. After the afternoon’s silent chores, I was afraid that maybe she was too shell-shocked by all this destruction to talk much about anything beyond survival.
    â€œMelbourne,” I replied. “It’s way down south—”
    â€œI went there with my family when I was about your age,” she said. She was thoughtful for a moment. “Nice place. Only spent a couple of days in Melbourne, though. We went to Sydney, mostly, and the outback.”
    â€œWhere are you from?”
    â€œAmarillo, Texas, originally. Moved to the West Coast when I was in junior high.”
    I listened to her talk about her old hometown. I asked her about cowboys and oil, she told me about her family and music, and we talked about being away from home and the things we missed. I liked Radiohead and Muse, she liked Kings of Leon and Green Day. We’d both learned some piano, liked to sing in the shower, and wondered why no one ever really became a real-life superhero.
    â€œYeah, like that Kick-Ass character.”
    â€œExactly,” she said, dipping a cracker into her steaming soup and savoring it. “Where’s our Hit Girl and Big Daddy? Hell, where’re our Guardian Angels?”
    â€œWere those the guys who used to go around keeping the peace on New York subways?”
    â€œThey’re still operating in some places apparently,” she said. “Least, they were . . . Don’t you wonder where the military is? Where’s our police, our government?”
    I finished my story from before, filling her in on my past twelve days and concluding with the day’s events on the street, the trucks of soldiers and all that I could remember Starkey telling me.
    â€œAnd these soldiers, did he tell you where they were going?”
    â€œWouldn’t say,” I replied. “But . . . they weren’t like regular soldiers.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThey were more like . . . renegade soldiers, unofficial or something. Older, like our parents’ age. And one of the trucks had a big container in it,” I said, thinking back. “Kind of the size of a big fridge. It had USA-something stenciled on it, and it looked military, too.”
    â€œI guess that makes sense about the roadblocks,” she said. “Maybe they were a small scouting party, an advance unit that’s the vanguard of a bigger relief effort or something.”
    â€œYeah, but the weird thing was, the guy I spoke with said that they found a way around the roadblock.”
    â€œAround?”
    â€œYeah. I remember thinking the way he said it was strange, like they weren’t meant to be here.”
    â€œAnd they didn’t tell you what happened?”
    I shook my head. “I told you everything he told me.”
    Telling her and seeing her reactions was reassuring; it seemed like it all made sense to her, at least a lot more sense than it made for me.
    I tried to eat more slowly, and held back a laugh.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œNot used to eating with company,” I explained. “I—I’ve cooked and eaten pretty well, but guess I’ve grown used to just smashing it down fast.”
    â€œThat’s okay.”
    â€œI just . . . I guess learned to get by as best I could. I kept myself busy—exploring the building, making a sign on the roof, scanning the streets and horizons for hope.”
    â€œIt’s good to keep busy.”
    â€œLike you’ve done here. I think that’s what got me through. That and luck.”
    â€œWe’ve both been lucky,” she said, pouring a couple of mugs of Coke and passing me one. “This was all up in the top floors of the GE Building at 30 Rock?”
    I nodded. “Thanks.” We clinked mugs. Her eyes glowed in the warm light of the fire.
    â€œNo other survivors there?”
    â€œNo one else I