2040

Azrael sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck on the way home. Everything was silent and dark. He knew the way like the back of his hand, so he really didn’t need any light to travel down the paths to the two-story house. It had been a long night of keeping a lookout over the wall of Windham. Pretty uneventful, too. The more years passed, the less new people they came across and the further they had to reach out for new resources. The latter was far more dangerous. If they ran into a group of people like themselves, it could start another war. There had been a few in their recent past, but it seemed none had been as deadly as the united three communities against New Haven. New Haven was long gone, having been blown-up and burned to the ground before he was even born.

He opened the door to his family’s home and softly closed it behind him. The lights were all out except one in the stairwell that had been left on so he could see when he came home. Those footsteps sounded as softly as he could manage with his movement through the kitchen. He put his jacket down on the nearest chair and entered the living room.

A shifting motion sound caused him to pause and look around. He noticed his mother laying on the couch. After a moment of staring, he realized she was asleep and moved in closer. He pulled a convenient blanket off the back of the couch so he could lay it over her, the light just enough for him to see she had gotten her hands bandaged. That reminded him of the piece of paper in his back pocket. He turned and headed up the stairs, pausing by his mother’s office door for a moment before he moved forward. The list was taken out of his pocket and left on his dresser. She didn’t need to worry about this yet. He could easily make a few calls first before needing to involve her. If he solved their problem on his own, well, then maybe it would put his mother at ease.

The next morning Azrael waited until Silurian was well on her way into her daily duties. It would give him the chance he needed at the long-range radio in her office. The connected communities had done really well over the years with gearing up everyone with proper communications and electricity. The sources of gasoline had dwindled and were fairly non existent now, but with the work of windmills they had generators to hold power for those lights and minor machinery for some time.

“This is Azrael from Windham, come in Arcadia.” He waited for the answer to come from the other side. It felt like ages before he finally heard a voice. Looks like the damned thing still worked.

“This is Danny speaking for the Arcadia.”

“Danny Jones?” He wasn’t sure if he recognized the voice correctly or not.

“It’s been awhile Azrael, what’s up in your neck of the woods?”

“We buried Dad yesterday, but other than that…”

“Oh, right, I heard about that. Sorry, man. I know how it feels. It gets better, sort of.”

“That’s what everyone says.” Azrael went silent for a moment as he thought of a personal question. “How did your mom handle it?”

“She’s still off with Rogers roaming the ocean currents as far as I know...what do you think?” Danny rolled his eyes. The annoyance for his mother’s actions in his voice was obvious.

Azrael frowned. If Nicole could run off, then he couldn’t put that past his own mother. Silurian was such a perfectionist, he doubted she could fathom giving up the very thing she spent half of her life organizing and keeping up, but stranger things had happened with that woman. “Anyway, I wanted to know how your food reserves are holding up over there. Our crops aren’t doing too well, and we’re not really sure why. We may need to move our fields, but I wanted to know if the Arcadia could spare any food if we need it come winter.”

“Ah, let me look.” Danny rifled through a few papers so he could find the information Azrael was looking for.

“What’s got you in Arcadia, anyway? Did you ditch the solitary life?”

“Well, ever since Judy moved out to Windham, I got pretty lonely.” Danny laughed into the radio as well. “Needed something to do, and the Arcadia was the closest.”

Azrael smirked and shook his head as he went quiet and waited to see if the man would find the information he was waiting on.

“I got the records here and looks like everything is on track for a surplus this year. I have to run this by Benjamin, but the bounty of the Arcadia is available to you...as long as things hold out. I’d promise it to ya Az, but you know how shit goes around here.”

“Yea, I know. That’s fine, just good to know we still have friends out there.”

“Did you call Seraphim yet?”

“They were my next call if you didn’t work out.” Azrael sighed softly.

“I’d still ask. You don’t want to end up asking them when you’re desperate.”

“Wow, yea thanks for the advice, old man.”

“Hey! I’m younger than you, asshole.”

“By like a week...get over it. Windham out.” Azrael chuckled. He truly didn’t want to contact Seraphim. If he was lucky, it wouldn’t be Beth on the other side, but there was no guarantee in that.

* * *

“You need to learn these things if you are going to be effective in leading your people one day. Food is a priority. There is no scavenging anything edible anymore.”

This was the other thing Azrael wanted to avoid when talking to Seraphim; the lecture. He felt like banging his head on the desk in front of him as he listened to Audrey nag. “I know Mrs. Clint.” Just because the woman came from an actual farm upbringing didn’t mean she had the right to go off like that. Then again, he supposed it was just a general concern. “We have our best people working on our fields and they have no answer to why our crops aren’t producing as much as they used to. We may need to switch field plots but I just wanted to give the heads up in case we needed some help to get through this winter.” Though if it came to asking Seraphim for help or starving, he figured his mother would pick starving.

“We are always willing to help those in need, Azrael. Including Windham. Come next planting season we should do a seed exchange, it's possible the genetic lines of our seeds might be weakening. Mixing them up will make the next batch of seeds stronger.”

It made sense to him, but then again he wasn’t a farmer. Azrael came from a family of warriors, if one had to put a label on them. This just wasn’t his thing, but he was prepared to lead his people through a hard time if need be. “That sounds like a good plan, thank you.”

“No---”

“Hi Azie!!!” A sharp perky voice interrupted Audrey over the radio.

Azrael groaned before he turned the radio on again. “Hi Beth.” Audrey and Nathan’s daughter. She was like the little sister that would never go away that also had a stupid schoolgirl crush on you. He did his best to put up with her but she really cramped his style. Thankfully, she lived in Seraphim and rarely did they actually ever see each other.

The radio was silent for a few minutes, Audrey probably shooing the teenager away from her business call. “Sorry about that.” Her southern drawl came out more the more irritated she was. “As I was saying. No problem. We’re here to help. Uhm, Beth wanted me to ask about the cookout.” She spoke cautiously, knowing this matter could be especially sensitive.

To help strengthen the ties between their communities, each one had a unique event each year that everyone was invited to. Winter was hard enough for each community that they didn’t bother with making anyone feel guilty on whether they could travel realistically. The Arcadia had a spring festival to bring in the new crop season and celebrate a new year. Seraphim had a rodeo every summer to show off the horses and other animal husbandries they specialized in. The fall had Windham all over it. It had been his father’s favorite ‘holiday’. It was a day to talk shit, cook steaks, burgers anything on a grill would do, and drink. There were a few men that brewed their own liquors, and it became a day of sampling the new batches. All the older people compared it to a massive super bowl party. Azrael had no frame of reference of what a super bowl was really like, but his father had made sure he was familiar with the game.

Azrael snapped out of his thoughts after a long moment to answer the woman. “I will have to talk to mom but I know he wouldn’t want us to cancel it on his account.” Maybe they should even make a bigger gathering of it this year and actually celebrate the man that helped make Windham what it was today.

“Just let us know. We will plan to make it until you say otherwise.” At the very least it would be an excuse for them to pay their respects to the fallen leader. No matter how much she may be unable to forget or completely forgive him. She had her chance to kill him once and so many times she regretted not doing it and so many times she despised herself for even thinking that way. The man was gone now and his sins finally laid to rest.

Audrey sighed as she placed the radio down and looked over at the sparkling expectant eyes of her daughter. “You heard him, now scoot. Have you finished your chores?”

The brunette gave an excited smile before she was reminded of chores. That smile faded in exchange for her groan. “I’m going. Oh! I can ask Priya if she’ll help me make a new dress!” Bethany was out the door as quick as her feet could take her.

The middle-aged woman couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head. How she prayed that her daughter would find someone else to fawn over than the damned Valen boy. It would serve them right perhaps. Life was like a big joke sometimes and her connection to that murderer just kept punching back. His people helped end her first pregnancy, and Valen himself killed her first husband right in front of her. That was only the start.

She rose up to her feet and walked into the bathroom so she could splash water onto her face. The water was refreshing, but as she dabbed the liquid away from her face, her green eyes looked into the mirror to see the most obvious mark Valen left on her. Between the part of her long thick brown hair, on her right cheek there were scars. The summer sun tanned her skin but never those marks. They stuck out in their criss-cross patterns, a constant reminder of the night Valen nearly killed her.