Epilogue

Author’s note: It seems that Norm’s story ended a bit too abruptly for many readers, so here’s an update from Norm in his later years. Hopefully, it will answer some questions and provide a gentler end to his tale.

First, I want to say that this is all my great-granddaughter’s fault. She wants me to make a speech at my fiftieth anniversary dinner, so that everyone can hear the story of the contagion and what happened afterward first-hand. I’m eighty-nine years old since this last spring, and I still remember things, and I can still drive and work some, so maybe I can pull this off, too.

One thing I will say about this new world is that getting older is better than it was before. We’ve lost two of our original members, and they were all close to a hundred years old. Gerrard Bowman will turn one hundred this summer, and he is still able to care for himself. He complains about being tired a lot, though, so I don’t know how much longer he will last, to be honest. I think he misses Stephany more and more, and it’s wearing on him.

So, let’s see what else there is to talk about. People, that’s always a hot topic. Our population is about four hundred and fifty now, even counting the folks who’ve passed. Across the nation, we’re at about three thousand people. I’ve heard that the world population is about sixty to eighty thousand, but that’s more guesswork than verified fact, I think.

We older people remember when there were police, criminals, and all of that. There’s none of that these days. We’re all too busy trying to live to worry much about anything else. I think they had one guy in Chicago who beat up his brother over a girl they both liked. I don’t really know what his punishment was, but I never heard anything else about it. Maybe we’ve learned some things to go along with our better bodies and more acute minds, but that’s probably wishful thinking from an old man.

Speaking of bodies and minds, whatever happened to us survivors has made us, well, improved, I suppose you could say. Our descendants also share those traits, which has been a huge reason we’re as far along today. I’m not a doctor, but I do know that people rarely get sick, and I’ve even seen two people bitten by rattlesnakes just get something like a cold for a couple of days, and then they were fine.

What was the contagion? Well, we still don’t really know. Some people think it was rogue nanotechnology, a strange virus, or some interaction with extra-terrestrials. I’ve seen it all on the Internet (yeah, we still call it that) but there’s no one with the relevant expertise to really investigate for a cause. Maybe, one of these years, someone will find an answer.

I will never forget the people who died in those terrible weeks. Most of them faced their deaths with courage and dignity. My wife did her best to care for me, even though she was terribly weak. I remember the children, and I remember those who lost hope. I was one of those, until Abby came to me. She risked her own life, and Chanelle’s, to reach out to me. They became my hope, and I have worked all my life to be theirs.

What else? Nearly everyone still lives in the cities where the groups gathered, although it is possible to travel between them. These days, we use large motorhomes for that, since we have to carry everything with us for the trip. There are fuel depots set up along the routes, but no one lives near them. The highways are deteriorating, and a few bridges have collapsed along major rivers, especially the Mississippi with its annual floods. Speaking of weather, the Gulf coastal cities have been ruined by eight major hurricanes over the past decades, and many Midwestern cities have been devastated by tornadoes and flooding. The Miami group finally abandoned the city ten years ago after riding out their second hurricane. Some of them went to New York by boat, and the rest went to Atlanta by road.

The California group developed an electric plane, and they’ve delivered several as kits to the rest of the groups. Although they have other planes, including airliners, none of the major airports are usable anymore. We all train pilots in the small planes to keep the skill alive, just as the groups with harbors, ships, and boats still teach those skills. Navigation is tricky, since the GPS satellites stopped working years ago. I think that’s one reason no one has tried to cross an ocean, yet.