Rich
We sat down and shared our names. Our two new guests were Rich and Tina. Rich had shoulder length blond hair and a beard. It was curly but short and trim, only a few months growth at most, so he must have shaved occasionally. I must have been shaving more frequently. At least when I woke up I had only a week’s growth. Tina’s hair was bright red and she had the same stature and build as Mary, strikingly so, and a very lovely face, freckles, reminding me uncomfortably of the conversation I had with Mary that morning. Her hair too was mid-length and straight and only a few tangles. I wondered if we cut each others hair in our near-waking state and manicured each other. Their fingernails were dirty and long but not terrible. They were pale like us, like anyone that hadn’t seen sunshine in years, and they seemed fragile and even tired, but as we ate we exchanged a few civilities and small talk, Tina complementing Mary’s blouse, almost like two couples at a dinner get together.
When we finished eating we got down to business. Rich asked me how long this was going to last and I knew from his relaxed tone that the answer he expected to hear was ‘several hours’.
This is when I pulled up the bottle of Scotch and the notebook at my feet, set them on the table and asked if anybody would like a sip adding, “You might need one”.
This put a very uncomfortable and puzzled look on both their faces. The dinner party pleasantries were over. No one touched the bottle so I opened it and took a swig, setting it in front of Rich saying, “a long time”.
Rich did take the bottle, a full swig and passed it to Tina who took a smaller one. Mary demurred.
Then I began, “I think you can see from all of our conditions that we are not doing too well in the real world, and that this can’t go on much longer. We woke you to save your lives. There are dead people in this building and many empty units”. As I said this Tina gasped.
“Also I found this note”. I passed it around for all to read, explaining that I had a scientist friend who visited here and told me the secret of erasing the chip in my head and that I had to do it to survive. I explained that I then revived Mary and when we found them we decided to wake them too.
Rich stood up, I couldn’t tell if it was in anger or shock.
“I’d like to see these dead people”.
“Follow me” I said standing up. I took him to the room two doors down, where he gazed in disbelief for a long minute. Since I had a partner now, or at least company, I decided we would open every door and know the status of the building. He complied, a bit in a state of confusion. We looked briefly into each unit, not crossing the thresholds. The lights were on and we could see clearly what was inside. We found six more sets of corpses in various stages of decomposition. Not all were lying peacefully side by side. In three units some of the bodies were on the floor. In one a dead man was sitting at his table, his head bowed down to it.
Four other units were empty and looking into the last we had another surprise. There was an older couple lying there in bed and they didn’t seem dead. We entered the tidy room and sure enough both were sleeping peacefully in the dim light.
Coming back to my unit we found the two women sitting shoulder to shoulder, examining my notebook.
They looked up at us and Rich simply said, “he’s right”.
Then Mary spoke, “Tina had a clever insight and we’ve found something. In the middle of your book there’s an address, and it’s written in the same blue handwriting as the other note”.
It said 'Klamath, Requa, 75 Gensaw road.'
Another mystery, an address without an explanation. I thanked Tina for discovering it and wondered why John would place it in the middle and not both notes on the front page where I’d see them. My only conjecture at this point was that he might have visited our den many times and saw the slow progress of my journal and placed them apart for approximately when he wanted me to find them, like some sort of time delay. As to any reason for this, I was entirely in the dark, as with everything else.
I said all this aloud then turned to the others and said, “one of the reasons I’ve awoken you is because two heads are better than one and four are better than two and I want all of you to ponder these clues to help me decipher them and the puzzle of the dead people and vacant rooms. Tomorrow with your help I’d like to search all the units thoroughly, for more clues. For tonight let’s just sit and talk. I’d like to hear your backgrounds and we’ll tell you ours. Perhaps that in itself held the secret of why we were the only ones left.
