Chapter 26

To be honest, there wasn’t much happening in Heathsville, just a ghost town due to being far too close to both DC and Lancaster County for most residents’ liking. By now, after six months, all of the population had literally deserted the place. The same proved true of Warsaw, Virginia, and then in turn of Tappahannock in Essex County. Northern Virginia, at least west of Lancaster County, seemed to have become entirely uninhabited so far.

Finally, after a week of this, we managed to arrive in Stanardsville, Virginia, a town that had no right to be a county seat of any county anywhere, but somehow had been the seat of Greene County despite its absurdly small population. We quickly decided to stay at a bed and breakfast too. We had covered surprisingly good ground just one week, at least considering the number of pregnant ladies with us, but this would be a good place to rest for the moment.

“Well, well, that’s not too bad of timing, I think. We got this far, far enough away from Lancaster County to not be pulled into that mess again that easily. At least the folks stuck around here, but then they have less to fear than others closer to the old capital. Some small, curious part of me wants to see the ruins of Washington, but I think that we all know that would be a rather risky move and for what? Curiosity? Not worth it in this case,” I thought aloud while sitting down in my own room at last, which I shared with Xia Delan, Autumn, and Hannah without a single second’s thought.

“What’s today’s date again?” Hannah asked me now, having lost track of days (understandably with so much travel and being pregnant herself).

“January 31st, 2014, babe. You know, I really hope that in the future society, we emulate Europe and put days before months. It’s far more logical. Sorry that you’ll have to spend Valentine’s Day on the road, girls. Not the most romantic way to do it, certainly as even belated honeymoons go. Still, the sooner we get where we need to be, the sooner we’ll be able to ditch the nomad’s life for a more settled and civilized existence,” I observed, winning me kisses from my first three wives in a hurry.

“Oh, honey, you still have a lot more to learn about women, don’t ya?” I heard Leah laughing as she walked into the room with the owner in tow.

“I’m not surprised by that, but I’m a bit confused as to the relevance in this case,” I admitted my bewilderment freely.

“Yep, typical male, but don’t we love them even more for that? They’re so different, so plain and straightforward in many ways. It’s us girls that overthink and complicate things far too much. The upside is that we can pick up on body language and sense feelings a lot better, can read men better than they can read us. A survival skill that makes sense when you have to deal with an entire group that has more brute strength on average than most of you. Certainly more lean muscle mass.

“I honestly miss my late husband. He was far more of a prize than I ever knew until he was gone and I had to repair my own damn sinks and unclog my own damn toilets. Because, of course, he had to get killed on Doomsday in DC, recovering from a rough Independence Day weekend with his buddies. They were to drive home the next morning, that Sunday, the 7th, but by then, the Fireballs had killed them all. I’m Ida Finch, by the way,” the middle-aged hostess introduced herself now.