Part 1: The Runaway
Chapter 2: Her Father’s Eyes
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“Darla?” Vick was squinting a bit, as if she were hard of sight.
“DD.” She replied, having done it many times before, to a point where it was annoying.
“It is you!” Vick moved slowly but surely to her daughter, and gave her a huge hug. DD slowly embraced the hug, she was slightly taller than her shrinking mother now.
“You’re not mad about me taking this long to come home?”
“I’m so happy you’re still alive!” Vick was suddenly sobbing into DD’s tank top. Seeing this, Tess gestured to the two girls who were hanging out to leave the store.
“I’m sorry I spent so much time away.”
“Sweetie I get it, you were helping people.” DD suddenly had a guilty look on her face, looking away from her mom and grabbing her neck.
“I don’t know about that, mom.”
“I’m sure you were. You were always so smart, so kind.”
“I’m a failure mom.” Now mother and daughter were both crying.
“What do you mean?”
“I never accomplished anything! I was a loser in Reno! I was a loser all the way to Seattle and back here!”
“You made it all the way to Seattle after Reno? I think that’s impressive.”
“I agree.” Tess added. “I barely made it here from Vegas.”
“So what if things didn’t work out. The world isn’t that welcoming anymore.” Vick had made a fair point, humans weren’t at the top of the food chain anymore, and there were far less of them.
“Sounds like an excuse to me.” DD sniffled.
“Lots of people burn out hun.” Tess smiled. DD finally seemed to be calming down.
“What happened in Reno anyway, how are you alive?” Vick asked.
“I don’t want to talk about Reno!” DD yelled, before covering her mouth, she hadn’t intended to yell.
“Okay okay. What about after?”
“I got a car in Reno, a little SUV that had been outfitted with Solar, she’s old as sin though. None of the gauges worked, but the radio sure did. I drove all the way to Seattle from there. Everyone always talked as if Seattle was a utopia.”
“It’s not?” Tess asked.
“No it is, there’s water, power, internet. That stuff comes at a price though. You are expected to work, and what you receive is based on your output. I spent six years changing hard drives like a slave for next to no reimbursement.”
“You lost me at internet.” Vick perplexed.
“You lost me at hard drive.” Tess added. “Sounds like Vegas though.”
“Computer stuff. I never got enough food or supplies and I couldn’t escape the grunt work.”
“Yuck.” Tess complained.
“I had friends, kind of. But I was always miserable. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be alive.”
“You’re always welcome here.” Vick noted softly.
“There’s even less here now.” DD said.
“You’ve been gone eleven years. Many people who were here have died or left. At least half of whom we had prior.”
“I noticed, many more things are gone or sealed.”
“Tonopah is empty now, there are still people in Goldfield though.”
“So they finally gave up on the big solar plant huh?” DD hadn’t thought about that in a while. The place supposedly could keep all the lights in Nevada on.
“The damn Trawlers ruined it. They are moving further and further south. Don’t know how long before they show up here really.”
“Suppose I’m lucky then, I came down here that way.” DD noted, the solar plant was like a star in the daytime, brighter than the sun maybe.
“Oh my god yes, those things are dangerous!” Vick put her hand over her heart. DD had already had a run in with Trawlers, they didn’t come close to Reno though, it was theorized they feared water from the river or perhaps, simply the sheer number of people who’d lived there. They leveled many other towns with no flowing rivers as opposed to ones with rivers though.
“Maybe you all should leave Winchester before they show up?”
“And go where, we have one car total, you think we're going to walk through the Nevada desert?” Vick scoffed at the idea.
“Are you saying you’d rather die in Winchester?”
“Well, personally, yes.” Vick put her foot down.
“Not me!” Tess protested.
“You young ones would be better off leaving yourselves, if anyone is going to leave.” DD wasn’t sure what to do with that. Not in the slightest. She didn’t get much time before her mother found a new distraction though.
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“Oh I love this song!” DD was still tuning the radio out, but listened now, she knew the song was by Lenny Kravitz, whom her mother loved.
“Trent and Scott know what good music is.” Her mother was doing a small shake to the beat of the song in her chair. DD’s heart skipped a beat again at hearing Trent’s name. And Scott is still here too? She dated him briefly, but it didn’t work out between them, and DD had left shortly after the breakup.
“I saw that look in your eye.” Vick was pointing at her daughter.
“What!?” DD was pulled out of thought again
“Right when I mentioned Trent. You still have a crush on him, a decade later?” DD could feel herself blushing, heat flowing to her cheeks.
“Oh no way!” Tess was giggling a little.
“Shut up!” DD pouted at the mockery.
“Now that the tenseness of that conversation is broken, can I ask a question?” Tess raised her hand like she was in school.
“Please, anything to change the subject.” DD begged.
“Are you really her daughter, like in a biological sense? You two look nothing alike, Vicks’ skin is darker, her hair and eyes are brown, but yours are blonde and green.
“She has her father’s hair, her father’s eyes, even his skin. His disposition for leaving as well.” Vick slapped her hand on the table.
“I never met him! Don’t blame me for him leaving.” DD returned the table slap with anger.
“Oh sorry, touchy subject.” Tess was now flustered.
A few moments passed. The conversation grew stale.
“Go get your man, you know where the radio station is.” Vick waved her daughter away.
“He’s not… my man.” DD stuttered as she gathered her gear and left the store with it’s trademark two-tone door beep.
“Coward’s eyes.” Vick muttered.
“Hmm?” Tess had already returned to cleaning.
“Her father was a coward. He ran away at the first sign of trouble. He was a computer genius too, hopefully she doesn’t end up exactly like him.”
“Seems like she’s going down that road.”
“I know she’s meant for something greater, the cards have always told me so.”
“I don’t think your tarot cards can be that accurate, Vick.” She was already fiddling with the old deck of cards, she placed one on the table before flipping it, Death.
“Does that mean she will die?” Tess asked.
“No, the meaning of that card is a bit more complex.”
Winchester was dirtier and emptier the more she looked at it. DD was really taking in the mostly vacant town now, she could count the number of people living in houses on this street with two hands. What kind of shape was the school in? Winchester had a small school building, it predated the ‘34 and everything. It also doubled as the city’s library. Last she recalled it still had more books than computers. No one had books in Seattle, barely any in Reno even.
She turned into the parking lot of the old school, covered in dust, but definitely still in use. There was a large tanker truck parked in the lot, this probably was the one car her mother mentioned. The stupid radio tower was still leaning too. She approached the school’s entrance and pushed on the door, immediately running full force into it as it didn’t give way for her. She pushed on the door with more focus and it slowly opened with the sound of metal on metal grinding, she had to repeat the process to close it once inside.
She turned into the main hallway of the school, time withering away the lockers. The first few had no doors and were filled with people’s solar gear. She added hers to the next available cubby and moved down the empty hallway. Only the lights in the hall were on, the classrooms abandoned, no kids in Winchester anymore perhaps. She reached the stairs to go to the second floor, and jumped a bit when she rounded the midway corner of the stairs and saw a middle aged woman, with dark skin and dark hair, and she was talking with an older man-
“Mr. Peters!” DD said as she recognized the man.
“Darla?” He suddenly realized back.
“It’s DD now.” She corrected. Mr. Peters was one of two instructors she’d had as a child.
“It’s been a long time, how did things go after you left?”
“Not, the best...” DD trailed off a bit.
“I’m just happy to see you again, it’s been a long time. Are you on the way to see Scott and Trent?”
“Yes sir.” DD replied.
“Go on then, they are on a long music break right now, so you won’t be interrupting them.”
“Thank you Mr. Peters!” DD waved as she went up the remaining stairs. The first door on the right was the library, which was actually a separate building, connected by a small bridge. She burst through and the room looked the same as it did many years ago. It still smelled like old books too. She walked up to the empty desk and grabbed the e-directory, She searched the tablet for world history books and tapped enter, suddenly some sort of machine whirred to life and the row of books to her left shifted, one shelf closing and disappearing through the floor, and just as quickly replaced by a new shelf on world history books. She didn’t really want to read, just to see the mechanism again. It made good use of the small library, only room for five rows of shelves, but the others that weren’t being used could be stored in the room below, more books, less space. Not to mention the clockwork design of the whole system was beautiful to her.
DD began to wonder if the kids section of her library still existed, in the little room at the end of the rows of books. She walked down the aisle and let her hand run across the book spines before reaching the end of the stuffy room, the door on her left, the kids room, on her right, the radio station. She wasn’t ready for the radio station yet, so she opened the kids room, full of dust, but still intact. Three walls of colorful kids books, one with an old computer, where it had been for years. In the center was a reading area with a pink rug, faded by time. She walked over to the computer before sitting in the little kids chair, her knees were higher than the table the monitor was on. She looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching before turning it on, and after patiently waiting for it to start, booted a game she’d loved in her childhood, KidPix. She reached around her knees for the mouse and began doodling.
“DD!?” A male voice suddenly said, DD jumped up a bit, causing the tiny chair to tumble backwards. She was caught.
“Wait Scott?” She realized, now looking up at the man from the floor.
“You disappear with no word for eleven years, and the first thing you do is come play with the kids' toys?”
“I...”
“It’s good to know you haven’t changed.” He extended a hand to her, and she pulled herself up with it. DD was blushing a bit. Scott was a handsome guy, he was some sort of Asian, even he didn’t know exactly what kind. He had black hair and brown eyes, and wore a lot of red. Also he was so goddamn tall, even taller than the last time DD saw him.
“Are you not mad?” She asked.
“Not really. I know you had big plans, things you couldn’t do in Winchester. And I knew you weren’t dead.”
“How?”
“You’re smart.” He smiled
“Am I? I didn’t get anywhere once I left.”
“Success isn’t a measure of your intelligence”
“It’s nice to see you, Scott.”
“You too DD.”
To Be Continued