Evelyn Earth Part 6

He had sandy peppered coloured hair and almost translucent blue eyes, but there was a certain wariness in them that made me uneasy.

                “Yes” I replied even though I knew he didn’t need my affirmation. All of a sudden I felt like a wayward school girl being chastised in front of a principal.

                “You led our boys a merry chase” he said and I quickly glanced in the direction of yellow eyes.

                “I’ve been told I like to run around”

                “Hmm, it’s not every day that they come across young girls like yourself…” he trailed off. It was an odd thing to say and I found myself eyeing the man with even more wariness. Did they wish that more young girls would cross their path, for what purpose? I thought maybe yellow eyes noticed my shift in mood because he stepped out in front of the older man and offered me his hand.

                “My name is Owen” he said in a stronger more authoritative voice than the one I had heard earlier, “What Old Mal is trying to say is that it’s dangerous out there for girls. You’re lucky we found you before any of those mobs did. You’re safe here.” He smiled a full toothed grin.

                Looking at the other two women I couldn’t judge if they were included in the ‘safe’ category since they weren’t girls.

                “Do you keep all the girls locked away in shipping containers then?” I asked sarcastically. Neither Owen nor Old Mal took that very well, but before they could get in a retort one of the women stepped forward and pulled my gun out from one of her pants pockets. They were ugly beige slacks with deep draped pockets, but one thing they did do well was conceal a weapon.

               
“Where did you get this?” she asked in a cool tone, “It’s true that it’s not every day that the boys run into young pretty things like you, but they’ve never run into anyone carrying a revolver.”

                It’s her I should be wary of I realised, not the old man. The bitch had my gun.

                “Believe it or not I got that at Costco”

                She looked at me long and hard as her thumb glided up and down the barrel of the gun. I wished she would turn it on herself and pull the trigger. I had to kill someone to get it and all she did was steal it from me while I was asleep, was I asleep?

                “I wasn’t aware that Costco stocked fire arms”

                “They don’t” I returned her cold stare. These people were either not the friendly type of just overly suspicious. They had my gun now, why did they need to know the exact details of its obtainment? As if reading my mind she said “It doesn’t matter anyways. Finders keepers” the grin she gave me was wolfish.

                I tried to feign nonchalance, but my shrug came across more like an irritated twitch.

                “Don’t intimidate the poor girl too much Marla” said the other woman as she placed a gentle hand on Marla’s shoulder. She was a bright strawberry blonde with a doughy face. She looked like the chubbier, friendly version of Marla. Guessing from their familiarity and appearance they were sisters. The younger boy by this time had wandered off from the group seemingly bored by the interrogation. Owen kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other while Old Mal continued to stare. Suddenly he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away.

                “I’m going to show Evelyn around!” he yelled back at the group. The remaining two men had kept silent throughout the whole exchange, but as I was being dragged away I could see them turn to each other and mutter something. The looks they threw in my direction heightened my anxiety.

                “Who were those two other men?” I asked Owen.

                “Oh them” he hesitated before answering; “They say their names are Tod and Jack, but I doubt it. I’m pretty sure I’ve overheard one of them call the other Jerry. They’ve only been in our camp for ten days and Old Mal says they’ll be moving on before the weeks up. Why?”

                “Oh no reason” I lied. Owen had let go of my arm by now and I was just following behind his broad back. The shipping containers either lay sprawled out before us or rose up high into sky. I tried to orientate myself, but it was like a maze. I caught glimpses of some of the huge square cranes on my right and realised we were walking further away from my building. I craned my neck backward trying to make out the outline of it, but all I got was a face full of containers and black hair as the wind changed.

                “Our camps divided up between all of us so that no one can easily steal from their neighbour” explained Owen on the way. “I’m leading you to my bit, but I’m 80% sure Marla’s and Toya’s place is just over there” he nodded his head off to the left.

                “Do you all meet up where we were before?”

                “Yeah, whenever we need to find each other we go to that particular stack of containers. If you look from the top of any of them it’s the highest point.”

                It made a lot of sense. Their camp seemed well organised and fairly secretive. Even though Owen was giving away minor details, alone I would never be able to find anyone’s camp, just their meeting place.

                “Were you squatting in that townhouse?” He asked me.

                “No, I was just raiding for supplies” I answered before I realised why he asked.

                “You must have a safe place to go, just like us” he looked at me with those yellow eyes and smiled that wide toothed grin again. Who else would have been better to get information out of me? Definitely not the stern Old Mal or intimidating Marla, Toya might have gained my trust, but Jack and Tod didn’t even seem like they were interested in my hide out.  Owen on the other hand had seemed intimidated by me, intimidated and kind—I wouldn’t call it a tackle. It seemed that being a hermit hadn’t dulled my people reading skills after all. I returned his smile and simply replied “Nowhere near as safe or permanent as this. I was staying in a crumbled down apartment a few nights ago. Before that it was an abandoned house.” I shrugged and this time it came across as regretful and sincere.  

                “That sucks, well at least your here now!” He waved his arms out in front of him. Stepping up beside him I looked over his camp which consisted of one blue and one red container stacked on top of each other. There were odd bits and pieces strewn all over the place, but the most notable thing was the hacked side of the red container.

                “Follow me” he gripped onto the side of the block and used the ripped out pieces of metal as footholds. I climbed up after him and found that another container leaned up against the red one on the other side making a T formation. There was no other way into it except over the blue. Ingenious really. Dropping down he held out a hand, but I ignored it. As of recently I held my jumping skills in high esteem. Unfortunately there were no bamboos around to aid my descent and I stumbled. For the second time that day Owens arms wrapped around me and he laughed.

                “You okay?”

                “Yeah thanks” I forced myself to laugh a little bit as well. There was something about Owen that was disarming. A charming quality that had somehow allowed for me to follow him away from all other people into a shipping container hide out. A horror movie flashed before my eyes, one where the heroine is lulled into false security by a witty spunk only to be stabbed to death in bed. Thankfully I didn’t see any beds around.

                Smaller crates were stacked up beside the third container to act as a ladder and I climbed down after Owen making sure each step was sure and secure. I didn’t want to give him any more excuses to touch me.

                “Well this is my humble home” he smiled as he swung open the metal door to the container. The interior was barely visible until he bounded inside and clicked a switch that lit up a hundred fairy lights. They encircled the back end of the rectangular space giving it an ethereal atmosphere. There were blankets and pillows strewn over a makeshift bed (dammit) and a whole wall devoted to dry food goods. I walked in to closer examine his stash and whistled at the selection.

                “You even have canned truffles”

                “Trust me they sound better than they taste”

                As he came up behind me I could feel his hand touch the small of my back. I tensed reflexively and spun around. He looked surprised, but before he could say anything I sidestepped him and darted back outside. I felt much better in the open air and took a deep breathe. I had to get myself under control. This wasn’t where I belonged. I needed to get back to my building, back inside my apartment where there were no smiling men and no gun stealing women. Do you really want to be alone?

                “Hey! I didn’t mean to scare you” he called out from behind me. I stood my ground and made him walk around to face me.

                “Is everything alright?” he looked concerned.

                “Yeah sorry, It’s just I haven’t umm” I trailed off. I was so confused. Was Owen using me to gain information, or was he just genuinely nice? Did he want to show me where he lived to gain my trust or to gain what was in my pants? Like Marla said they hadn’t come across any young girls lately and Owen must have needs.

                “Are we the first people you’ve had contact with since it happened?” he asked quietly. He looked as sincere as anyone could look and I felt beyond foolish in that moment. Being a hermit seemed to have made overly suspicious and jumpy. Not everyone out there was as violent as those scavengers I saw…or as violent as me.

                “Is it that obvious?”

                “I guess it would explain your nuttiness” he laughed. His grin was infectious and before I knew it I was laughing too.

                We spent the rest of the day by his containers talking. Talking about the people we lost and the people that he had found amongst the shipping docks.

                “Me and my brother were hoping to see some sort of military ships coming into port, ones that maybe needed more soldiers. When the first explosions went off Oliver thought that we were being bombed. It was the logical thing to do I guess, but there was no one around.”

                “What happened to Oliver” I asked even though I could tell that he was trying to avoid the topic.

                “The first group we encountered down by the highway had seen us as…a threat” he stopped there and I didn’t pry any further. We both knew how savage people could be. When I told him about Maya and our Costco raid I left out the part about me bludgeoning the police man, saying that he was dead when we found him. I also said that Maya wanted to leave on her own. Not that I forced her to go. Being in Owen’s company made me regret the things I did to the point of tears until I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I cried. It was the first time I cried since it happened, since the world went to shit.