Page 55 of Them

Tim furrowed his brow but did not look away from the goose egg he held.

“Your turn. Why didn’t you shoot me?”

He looked at Lane, then back to the shiny white shell, firelight glinting off the calcium. “It didn’t feel right. That’s all.”

“That’s all? Give yourself some credit.”

“For what?” Tim smirked. “Not gunning down an unarmed old man?”

Lane scoffed. “It is a low bar, but here we are.”

Lane’s eggs were goddamn delicious. Nothing had tasted that good since Tim was still himself, since the time before monsters and evacuations and bunkers. The scramble was seasoned with salt and pepper and even some hot sauce that had only just started congealing. They ate on ornate delicate plates and used fine silver utensils stolen from the presidential dining room. The only thing missing was…

“Fuck,” Tim said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Pour me a glass of OJ and this would be perfect.”

Lane nodded as he chewed the last of his breakfast. “It’s all expired, and a damn shame. We could both really use some vitamin D. Although, I’m more of a cranberry guy.”

One of Tim’s eyebrows rose. “Cranberry juice?”

He shrugged. “What else are we talking about?”

“Nothing. It’s just kind of an old-person drink.”

“A what?”

A sly smile touched his lips. “Y’ever see anyone under the age of sixty-five drinking cranberry juice? I haven’t.”

Lane snickered. “Y’know who drinks orange juice?”

“Who’s that?”

“Little baby toddlers and senators. I rest my case.”

The joke made little sense to Tim, but he didn’t much care. Any reason to have a laugh seemed good enough, and so he did. Lane joined in as he turned off the grill and shut off the propane valve.

“Want one?” Lane asked, producing a pair of shiny red apples from his knapsack. “I grabbed them from an orchard on my way over here. Just outside the city.”

“Thanks.” The first bite brought a wilder, more earthy taste than Tim had expected, but it was a treat all the same. “So, were you a… politician, I take it? Before all of this?”

Lane didn’t answer right away, and after a while, Tim wasn’t sure he would.

“Military,” he eventually said. “Took a desk job right here in Washington once it was all said and done.”

“Vietnam?” Tim asked. His history was rusty, but the age seemed about right.

Lane nodded and took a seat.

Tim eased back down on his same chair from breakfast. “Were you retired? When everything… happened?”

“Nah. I was due—2025. As soon as I turned seventy, but… Look, I hope this doesn’t change your opinion of me. I know what we did. We left people to die. We let people die. Hell, we killed them. Blasted New York into marsh flats. I wouldn’t bla—”

“No, no, it’s not that… I was just wondering how old you were. What year it was. How old I am. That’s all.”

“It’s 2030,” Lane said after a long beat. “The thirtieth of August, by my count. Which makes me seventy-five. What about you?”

Tim did the math. “Twenty-six. I guess I turned twenty-six last month.”

“Christ, you were just a kid when all this started.”