The Last Boys in Clinton - 4. More People, Finally

Meanwhile, back at the B&B, Marie-Louise finished her breakfast, packed her things back in her bag, took a bunch of food from the pantry, and headed out to her car. She hadn't gone ten feet before she realized something was wrong. She stopped the car, got out, and walked around to the passenger side.

She saw the two flat tires, "Those little bastards!"

She went back inside and looked around for car keys. There was an old Chevy truck, and a newer Nissan Altima parked outside. She found the Chevy keys, but continued to look around, hoping to find the Nissan's keys. No luck there. She moved her things from her dad's Camry into the truck and headed south on 202. She'd driven twenty-five minutes and still hadn't seen the little bastards. When she hit 309, she turned south, no longer having any hope that she'd find them now.

'They were heading south. Maybe I'll get some clue where they went.'

She took 309 south until it hit 611. Once again, she kept going south. Just before 611 got to route 1, there was a sign.

"1 South to Best Western Concordville. Lobby, 6:00 PM Thursday, May 9. Ryan Becker, Jenkintown, PA."

She programmed the hotel into her GPS.

'Fuck those two. I'll just hook up with this Becker guy.'

It was around noon when she pulled into the hotel's parking lot. George and Lionel had just sat down to eat their lunch. Little did they know they were on a collision course with Marie-Louise once again.

Marie-Louise walked into the hotel, "Hello! Anybody here?"

A cute young man, probably only a little older than Marie-Louise herself, walked out from a room behind the front desk.

"Help you?"

"I saw a sign about being here at six. I guess I'm a little early."

"Early is good. I can get you a better room for tonight."

"You work here?"

"I sort of did, before I moved to Jenkintown for college."

"Sort of?"

"I helped out sometimes. My dad was the manager, until yesterday, I suppose."

"What happened yesterday?"

"I found a bunch of people dead in my apartment complex, called dad and mom, got no answer, headed here after putting up a bunch of signs, hoping someone would see them. Found dad lying behind the front desk."

"Oh. Did anyone else see the signs?"

"Nobody else has shown up. I hope maybe they'll just start getting here later."

"Well, I'm here."

"Yes, you are. High floor or low?"

"High. That way I won't hear kids running up and down the hallway above me."

"Unfortunately, you don't need to be afraid of that anymore."

"I suppose."

Ryan gave Marie-Louise a card key, "Room 501. We'll get better acquainted later. Feel free to use the facilities, we have a pretty nice exercise room, if that's your thing. The pantry is just to your left, help yourself to anything. Indoor heated pool, clothing no longer required. No worries, I won't peek at you."

"Maybe I might want you to."

"Um. Yeah. No, thanks."

"Fag, huh?"

Ryan turned away, shaking his head, "Enjoy your stay."

Marie-Louise headed up to her room and laid down on the king-sized bed for a while, coming back down about an hour later to scrounge in the pantry for some food.

Over the course of the day, a few more people trickled in. Ryan had checked in four others before George and Lionel arrived a little after 5:40. It was a pretty long trek for them, so they took a lot of breaks. Ryan was already at the desk, since it was getting close to the time he’d announced.

"Hi, guys. Wow. I really didn't expect any younger people. I'm quite happy to see you. I'll set you up with a room, but you can stay here in the lobby until I start the meeting if you want."

"You must be Mr. Becker."

"I must, but you can call me Ryan. I'm sure everyone else will by the time the night is over."

"I'm George, this is Lionel."

"You aren't brothers, are you?"

"No. Just live in the same neighborhood."

"OK. Brothers surviving this would have been pretty freaky."

"Do you know what 'this' is?"

"All in good time. I'll share what I know at six."

“OK.”

"I have you right down the hall in 105. Two queen beds. Across from the pool. Feel free to use it later."

Lionel shuddered, "We don't have bathing suits."

"Well, there are only eight of us, I think we can dispense with a lot of rules. But no problem. I have some food prepared for during the meeting. Come back to the lobby at six and we'll all eat and chat."

"OK. I think I want to get a shower; we've been on our bikes all day."

"Really? I'm looking forward to hearing your story, then. Ah. I see we have a number nine. I'll see you boys in a while then."

Ryan checked in the next arrival, put up a sign saying he'd be back in five minutes and went to go check on the food. Nothing special, just a big pot of spaghetti, meatballs, and corn.

He had one more arrival just before six. At six, everyone was gathered in the lobby.

"Thanks for coming everybody. I figured since I had access to the hotel, I would try to gather people together here. Let's head to the breakfast area, I have spaghetti and meatballs for everybody, and a variety of drinks. We'll all have a bite to eat then get a little better acquainted to start this next phase of our lives."

Everybody appreciated the food. George and Lionel didn't appreciate seeing Marie-Louise again, especially when she tried to sit with them in the breakfast room.

"Go sit somewhere else. We don't want you here."

"Georgie, is that any way to treat your second-best friend?"

"You're not a friend and stop calling me Georgie."

Ryan heard the commotion, "Is there a problem here?"

"Yeah. She won't go sit somewhere else."

"I take it you know each other."

"Yeah, she's the first live person we saw after things went bad. She’s not very nice. We ditched her twice, but she keeps showing up."

"Well, Miss, maybe for the sake of civility, you might want to sit somewhere else. We all need to try to get along."

"Whatever. These two sliced my car's tires the last time I saw them."

"Let's deal with that later, please?"

Marie-Louise moved. Everyone helped themselves to the food. When everyone finished eating, Ryan started things off.

"Well, you all know who I am, Ryan Becker, twenty. You all obviously saw one of my signs. I live, well, lived, in Jenkintown. I was going to school at Salus University until yesterday to become an audiologist. I'm twenty. I suspect my story is similar to all of yours. I woke up yesterday to find out just about everybody was dead. When I couldn't get hold of my dad, who managed this hotel, I decided to try to use this place to start getting people back together. Like all of you, I suspect, I have no idea what happened to put us into this state, nor why any of us survived. I hope maybe with some discussion tonight; we can take a guess at that last. So, why don't you all introduce yourselves, tell us a little bit about yourself. I think we'll need to try to become like family, at least until we find more people. Why don't we go in the order you all arrived. Miss?"

"Hi, I'm Marie-Louise Small. I live in Clinton, New Jersey. Like Ryan, I woke up yesterday to find my family dead. I started driving around, looking for people and ran across the two juvenile delinquents over there..."

Ryan interrupted, "Let's dispense with the name calling, please. We all have to get along."

"Whatever. Anyway, I drove George and Lennie over there around some, looking for people but didn't find no-one. I followed them out of town after they decided they didn't want to be with me anymore, cooked the ingrates..." This got a look from Ryan, "breakfast but they left after slashing my tires. I got another vehicle, a POS truck, and saw the sign."

Ryan prompted for more, "What did you do back in Clinton, and how old are you?"

"Sixteen, I'm a high school junior. I guess mostly I just go to school."

George whispered to Lionel, "I guess they don't teach manners at our high school."

Lionel giggled.

"OK. Thank you, Marie-Louise. OK, you, sir, arrived next."

"Hi everybody. I'm Mathias O'Neill, from Cheltenham. I'll skip the gory details about finding dead people. I'm forty-one, own a coffee shop in town. Like Marie-Louise, I took off, hoping to find other people. Didn't see a soul until I walked in here this afternoon."

In addition to Mathias, the next was Nia Barclay, a twenty-seven-year-old librarian from Norristown, PA. She was followed by Henry Green, a fifty-eight-year-old man from Ridley Park, PA, who worked as an insurance salesman. Next up was Benjamin Fitzgerald, a twenty-three-year-old medical school student at Drexel University, from Germantown, PA. George and Lionel arrived next. After them came Tamika Rios, a thirty-three-year-old waitress from Hatboro, PA. The last to arrive was Emma McDonald, a sixty-seven-year-old housewife from Claymont, just across the state line in Delaware.

"Thanks everybody. George and Lionel, I'm impressed on your journey. I just checked; Clinton is eighty-five miles away by car. You two did that on bicycles. Everyone else, except Marie-Louise and Emma, are basically from a suburb of Philadelphia. OK, the basics out of the way, I think we need to get a little personal for this next piece. I think we should try to figure out why we were spared, when it seems so many others weren't. So, anything unusual about yourself, medical issues, anything really, that you can think of that we might all share. I'm generally healthy, although I do have asthma."

Ryan saw a lot of nodding heads.

"Wow, maybe nailed it on the first thing. Do you all have asthma?"

Everyone but Lionel said they did.

Doctor in training Fitzgerald queried, "Lionel, do you ever have trouble breathing?"

"Yeah. On our way, we stopped at a pharmacy and George got me an inhaler.

"I think that makes it unanimous, Ryan."

"Agreed. It's hard to believe that there aren't more people alive if it's just that though. Does anyone else have any other medical issues?"

Emma spoke up, "I was recently diagnosed with, um, breast cancer. Caught it early, although that might not make a difference now, sadly."

Henry was next, "Testicular cancer here."

Lastly, Nia shared, "Early-stage ovarian cancer."

Benjamin picked up on the early-stage point, "Recently diagnosed, early stage; Henry, where do you stand?"

"Also recently diagnosed."

Benjamin continued, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and postulate that the rest of us have some kind of cancer that hasn't been diagnosed yet. I also have a theory about where this all started."

Mathias was anxious, "Please share."

"Yes. I read recently that a lab in New Jersey was getting close to finding the ultimate cure for cancer. I'll have to dig a little to be sure, but I thought I'd heard of Clinton before, when Marie-Louise mentioned it. I think the lab was there."

"Well, that does seem to make sense, Benjamin. How would you feel about making a road trip to check that place out?"

"I'd say that's a grand idea, Ryan."

Marie-Louise jumped in, "I think I know where that place is. If I'm right, I live just up the street from it."

Benjamin invited Marie-Louise along, and asked George and Lionel if they wanted to come too.

George simply said, "No, thanks."

Lionel was quite a bit blunter, "Not if she's going, no way."

Benjamin asked, "Anyone else?"

The rest declined, Ryan mostly because he had to hold down the fort at the hotel. Little did they know that a new face would be encountered the next day who was able to tie a bow around the whole issue.

Next Up - "Getting To The Bottom Of It"