Spare Parts
Part Eleven
The bunker would need tending, and someone to follow the instructions on the screens. Someone who could read, someone who could get around up and down stairs with ease. Garrett felt pity for the palsied girl, she deserved a better life than what was given her. Most everyone he had ever met, even the tacit and hypocritical people of his home village, had deserved more life and a far better quality of it than they received.
Winnie and her people, his people, the only tribe he had ever felt at home with, they all deserved more life. He only had that to consider since finding them at their prairie by the painted rocks, the last miserable stand of yet another people, erased from the earth. Just like when he had prepared himself for one final journey then, one last roam before retiring to be with his people permanently, he felt himself being pulled in another direction by the needs of others.
The last time had been a mistake. He was glad, in the end, to have known Gris, and he had learned to love Melissa like a daughter he never had and certainly didn’t deserve, but that long jaunt cost him his people. He could have died with them, fighting beside the rest of the braves.
This time?
There was no mistake to make. A few more weeks, a few more months, a few years, what was the difference now? The raiders with their harsh barking language and their woven shields were going nowhere. The miserable filth that had erased his people from the face of the earth were still going to be massed by the coast, and he would still wade into them and murder as many of them as time and strength would allow before they erased him too. Hell, maybe they would find this place eventually and save him some of the marching.
Garrett walked out of the control room, knowing that the first hurdle would be waiting for the power plant to cool down enough to be habitable. The palsied girl was still out in the hallway but her entire attention was focused on the dim bulbs above. She was so wrapped up that she let the torch slacken, the fire was busy working its way up the handle. The thing wasn’t needed anymore but the girl was about to get a nasty burn. He reached down and took it and extinguished the flame and still she just stared up at the lights.
Garrett couldn’t help but smile, “Just wait until you see what the kitchen in this place can do.”