In Between Seasons

Chapter 27

"I thought you might be here," Hunter said as he opened the door and slipped in before closing it behind him. "Hiding in the library again?"

"The company isn't always that great when you're not around," I replied, looking up from the book I was reading and giving him the faintest smile.

"So what are you reading?" Hunter came forward and sat beside me on the plush carpet, digging his bare toes into the fibers.

"All kinds of things," I replied, putting my head on my knees as I tilted it to look at him. "There's a lot of stuff about the end of the world happening in 2012."

Hunter gave a stiff nod before leaning his head back against the shelf and looking over at me from the corner of his eyes. "My father was obsessed with that shit. Apparently, the Mayan calendar was supposed to end in 2012, and there was a prophet who was interpreted to believe the same thing."

"Nostradamus."

"That'd be him...too bad they didn't account for the leap years. The Mayan calendar would actually have ended several years before 2012," Hunter explained, rolling his eyes as he leaned forward to take the book I was reading out of my hands.

"I guess they were kind of right...this all started in 2012, right?"

Hunter nodded again, his eyes racing over the pages as he flipped them too quickly to read. He slapped the cover shut before looking up and asking, "What do you know about The Fall?"

"I wasn't even born yet...were you?"

"Yes," Hunter replied, his lips in a stoic line as he faced forward, and the book dropped between his legs to the carpet. "I was six when we went into martial law. It was the year after my mom died."

I opened my mouth to push for more information, but as I looked at his tense body, my mouth closed. He looked like he was being transported back to that time, and I wondered if it was something I wanted to know, let alone should know. I bit my cheek as I looked away from him, finally giving in to ask, "Do you remember any of it?"

"It's hard for me to forget." His head went in between his arms and his hands stretched up into his head. His voice was muffled when he finally continued, "We didn't leave until The Fall actually happened, and even then, my father stayed behind. I was left with people I didn't know as we rushed to get out alive and not everyone made it. I don't know how my father managed to survive out there another four years after the collapse. I think he wanted us to see what was happening to the world...that way we'd never want to go back to it. That way we'd be too molded in fear to not believe what he told us."

Hunter's eyes were sad, and I found myself swallowing and looking away. I couldn't stand to see him upset, and part of me wanted to tell him to stop reliving it while the other wanted to beg him to go on.

"This place must've cost a lot of money...back when there was such a thing as money," I finally said, letting my gaze settle on his.

Hunter's nostrils flared before he answered, "My father started building this place up a few months after my mom died. He invested everything he had in getting things here and building this location to be ready when he decided it was time to leave. From what I know your family left before The Fall, but we were all fighting over the same things once it happened—other people that knew how to hunt, blacksmiths to forge bullets, gardeners, those that could make clothes and then the physical supplies—things to keep this way of life we've been living for twenty plus years going. Imagine how much stuff they had to pillage to keep us this sedated. I still can't fathom how they got everything here, especially after the riots started...but stuff kept coming in once we got here."