Lesson 1. Interpersonal Communication. Basics of Housekeeping. Hermit Life. Rebels.

            I was awakened by the creaking of the floorboards. The latch can be quietly lifted and the door will open without a squeak, but the floorboard will definitely creak and give away the uninvited guest.

            I abruptly sat up in bed: silence. I leaned towards the warm side of the stove: could it have been a dream? But no, someone had definitely been walking around the house. Soft, hurried footsteps. There it goes again, the floorboard creaks. Someone is here.

            “Nicholas?” I tried to make my voice sound cheerful, while feverishly recalling: my rifle was left in the room by the entrance. In the early years, when I settled in, I always kept it near the bed, along with my grandfather’s hunting knife, even placing it under the pillow. But then, somehow, I relaxed: there are hardly any people around here anyway.

            “Nicky? Is that you?”

            I knew it wasn’t Nicky. Nicky has a heavy step. Besides, he wouldn’t break into the house, especially not at night. In past years, I used to trade skins for grains and ammo with Nicky. You could get up to two packs of salt for a sack of dried pike, and that’s all I needed. I didn’t even need sugar anymore, since I started beekeeping. But Nicky hasn’t shown up in five winters. Maybe a bear got him.

            The one who had been walking through the house was quiet, and then he came at me in three quick strides. The bedroom door shuddered under the impact of his foot, and a bright light hit me in the eye. But it wasn’t the kind of light that comes from a candle. It was dead-white, directed in an even, narrow strip. I was so startled that I pulled the blanket over me, childishly trying to crawl back into bed. The intruder grinned, seeing my helplessness. A machine gun and fingers on the trigger flashed eloquently in the beam. I thought the nail cuticles were caked with blood. Anyone who has butchered game knows how hard it is to clean the cuticles thoroughly. What kind of game did he butcher? After holding the blinding light on me for a few more seconds, the figure commanded:

            “Hands up!”

            The voice was female. I was startled and reached forward.

            “Up, you fool! Hands up!”,  the guest snorted again. “Anybody else home?”

            “Just me,”  I shrugged.

            “You sure? Don’t lie to me, old man. If I find someone, I’ll shoot them”.

            I noted that the last time a woman had addressed me, I had not been “grandpa” but “guy”.

            She pushed me back against the wall with her gun and quickly threw back the pillow, checking for a knife. This gesture reassured me for some reason: the raider was obviously a rookie — if I wanted to scuffle with her, I could have easily knocked her down with the barrel away from me.

            “Are you here to rob me?” I asked rather affably.

            “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re Friday. What can I take from you? Skinny chickens?”

            “And I’ve refused chickens, by the way,”  I grinned.  “I had some, but half of them died, and half were stolen by foxes. It didn’t work out. My business is hunting. And fishing, of course”.

            The muzzle of the machine gun lowered, the flashlight still glaring in my eyes.

            “Why did you call me Friday, by the way?” I asked.

            “It is the character of the novel “Robinson Crusoe”. That’s what we call the arty-farty crowd who decided to move to the countryside when the virus got really bad. Fridays.Villages used to be settled by knowledgeable people. Villagers. Peasants, farmers. And then these new savages came from the cities. They didn’t know how to make a fire or get drinking water. How long have you been self-isolated?”
            She asked it without any pressure, as if we were already in the middle of a nice conversation.

            “Who can count those winters? There were no gray hairs in my beard back then.”

            “You’re all gray now, old man. At what mortality level did you skip town?”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “It started out at two percent. And then the virus came back and mutated. And the death rate just kept going up.”

            “Oh, that’s what you mean. I don’t really remember. Half, maybe. Half the people who got sick back then died.”

            “Those were the days!” she sighed briefly. “Now it’s 98 percent. If you get sick, you’ll be dead in five weeks. I’m freezing, I’ve been walking all night. Can you make me some tea?”

            “I like this kind of conversation,”  I smiled.

            A boiling aluminum kettle grumbled on the stove. I found it in the attic during the first winter. The new steel kettles were worse. But I decided to light a real candle, which I had been saving for a long time. It’s party time!

            The room brightened. My guest, seated by the stove, unbuttoned her sable coat, the hem of which was quite dirty from slush. She put the machine gun next to my rifle: the hatchet is buried, we can communicate without looking at weapons.

            “I’m Rita,” she introduced herself, and I called my name in return.

            Beneath the massive fur was a skinny body. And her face was beautiful, even aristocratic, like Da Vinci’s. Only her gaze was not that of those Renaissance ladies, but attentive, penetrating, as if she had seen more than she should.

            “Who were you before you moved here?” she took a sip of tea, and of course she burned herself, and swore.

            “I taught philosophy at the university.”

            “You? Taught? Philosophy?” she even stopped waving her hand at her burned lips. “You really roughed it!”

            Her stomach, invigorated by tea, signaled hunger. Indeed, she had walked here through the forests for who knows how many days.

            “That’s why I left so long ago and so far away. What’s the point of being a philosophy teacher in a world where the only useful knowledge is how to start a fire in the rainforest and how to procure food in a world without hypermarkets? When I left, it still seemed possible to survive in the city, even though food was no longer sold but rationed.”

            “Surviving in the city is still possible now!” she took a cautious sip.

            “But you yourself say, 98 percent of the infected die!”

            “That’s why zoning is needed. Quarantine. Clusters.”

            “I’ve settled here and will never return to the city.”

            “You’re wrong, old man. A human is only truly human in the city. Out here in the forest, we’re not much different from beasts.”

            “In my opinion, it’s more like you, those who live in cities, who are the beasts. And such beasts as are not even found in the forests.”

            Rita coughed. The cough surged through her in peals of thunder and shook her so violently that she nearly knocked the cup off the table with her elbow.

            “Aren’t you ill?” I frowned.

            “Do you believe coughing is still a symptom of the virus? Like it was 20 years ago? – for some reason, she clasped her hands, burying her nails in fists.”

            “No?”

            “The virus has mutated. Symptoms are different now.” She switched to another topic. “And what are you doing here to keep yourself from going crazy? Reading books, perhaps?”

            “I read my fair share of books in my time,” I smiled. “But I don’t have time for them now.”

            “It must have been tough for you here, I can see.”

            “At first, I thought I’d die for sure. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t fetch water, couldn’t gather firewood. But the cold is a good teacher. By the first thaw, I had mastered chopping wood and stoking the stove. By the way, about the stove!”

            I took the bubbling Dutch oven with stew off the fire and ceremoniously placed it on the table before her.

            “Help yourself, Rita!”

            “Oh wow! It smells amazing!” she was so hungry that she tried to reach into the Dutch oven with her hand, but I cautioned her with a shout and handed her a wooden spoon (I had carved it myself).

            “What’s in the stew, rat meat?” she asked, licking a hot piece from her lips.

            “Why rat?” I chuckled.  “You city folk can savor rats. This is venison. In the forest, there are plenty of deer.”

            “Yeah, I saw them. Their tracks are everywhere.”

            “Exactly, Rita. The forest is my book,” I smiled.  “And this book will be more interesting than any philosophers wrote over three thousand years. Because the forest’s book has no ending. And those books—I’m afraid, they’re finished.”

            I served myself some stew and decided to ask:

            “One thing I don’t understand: how did you find my cabin? There’s not even a village for fifty miles, let alone a road—just endless, untouched white plains.”

            Rita touched the bracelet on her wrist. In front of her, a bright screen lit up and unfolded, displaying a detailed map with a marked route tunnel.

            “I wasn’t heading to you. I’m going to Losno,” Rita said with her mouth full.

            “Losno?”

            “Losno. It’s not far, to the south.”

            “Not far? It’s 20 miles, your remarkable gadget indicates, – I commented on what I saw on the screen. – In all the time I’ve been here, I haven’t heard of anything left in Losno. What’s this?” I nodded towards the screen.

            “Google Maps. Latest version.”

            “And you’re hiking all the way from the capital?”

            “It’s my seventh night today. I travel at night to avoid patrols. I rest during the day. I search for remnants of settlements along the way, go into houses. Sometimes I’m lucky, sometimes I’m not. The day before yesterday, I slept in a stone cottage with a real fireplace. There was even cognac in the bar. But three days ago, I went to Gutovo, made a detour of three miles, and everything was burned down. Looks like the disinfectors did their job. I had to dig up such a den near the tree roots and sleep there. Well, “sleep”. You probably know what it’s like to sleep in the frost.”

            “I do. You might not wake up.”

            “I’m not allowed to die. But I think I’ve caught a bad cold,” she allowed herself to cough.

            “Google Maps,” I tasted the phrase from the lost world. “Google Maps. Can you believe it! And do you mean to say there’s still electricity in the cities?”

            “Not in the cities, but in the City,” she corrected.  “There’s only one City for now. Everyone who wants to live in a city-like manner converges there. And there’s a six-meter wall and rationing based on a person’s usefulness.”

            “And what about you? Living in a city-like manner?”

            “I’m an IT worker. My job is coding and testing. But I’m only at level three, which means no access to government contracts. No insurance or other perks either.”

            Rita leaned back in her chair and looked at me challengingly.

            “Yes, yes, I’m just as much a prole as you are. Only I eat rats, not venison.”

            I took out a jar of honey, removed the paper covering it, and scooped a spoonful into my tea. I nodded for her to help herself.

            “So why not stay here, Rita? There’s enough work and food. I have a garden. Fish. Game in the woods. The ammo will run out soon, but I’ve learned to set traps for birds,” my voice faltered. I realized I must look comical; her lips did spread into a mocking smile.

            “Are you proposing to me, old man? Maybe if you shaved your face, combed out the fleas from your hair, you might still be something. You could hunt and that’s not bad,”  she said unexpectedly warmly. “But I can’t get stuck here. I need to go to Losno.”

            “Well, that’s fine,” I said after a pause. Dawn was breaking through the window. “Lie down and rest, I’ll heat up the bath for you in the evening, you can stay here a couple of days and then go to your Losno.”

            In the pine grove under the house, I quickly caught a hare. I spiced it up with the remnants of rosemary, and went to the cellar for potatoes. Half of them were already frozen and wrinkled, but among them I managed to find three handfuls of edible ones. I opened a jar of tomato paste, added it as a garnish to the rabbit meat, seasoned it with tomato sauce, and put it in the oven to cook slowly.

            Oh, it will be delicious!

            Then I gathered a armful of birchwood in the log pile, stoked the stove to a red-hot stone, splashed my signature brew on it until I heard a clap instead of a hiss, and knew: the sauna was ready! I climbed to the top shelf, stayed there until the seventh sweat, then rolled in the snow, rinsed off with clean spring water. I took my old rough metal scissors, sharpened them with a stone and shaved as best I could. Then rubbed my cheeks with snow and didn’t recognize myself in the shard of mirror. Then I fed more birch to the stove to keep the sauna hot for Rita.

            The sun touched the fir trees, then got stuck between the pine trunks, flooding the cabin windows with the glow of sunset, but my guest still didn’t stir. I banged on the door, stomped around, even fetched a hare stew from the stove, thinking maybe the appetizing smell would wake her. When it got dark, I entered the small bedroom, touched her shoulder and immediately pulled back. She opened her eyes with difficulty.

            “You’re feverish, Rita,” I said.  “Looks like you’re pretty chilled. Hope it’s not pneumonia. I don’t have antibiotics.”

            “I’m fine,” she said, sliding her legs off the mattress and coughing. “Who are you anyway? Yesterday, some old man was living here.”

            “I’m the beardless version of him,” I smiled at her. Then I noticed, “You have blood on your fingers. Did you hurt yourself?”

            “I’m fine,”  she nonchalantly wiped her hand on her jeans. “I’ll feel better soon. Just caught a cold. It was the same yesterday. Hard to get up at first, then somehow the energy comes.”

            I expected her to exclaim in delight at the sight of the hare, but she just sat heavily on a chair and stared emotionlessly at the food.

            “Today we have lapin rôti au four sauce tomate et garniture de pommes de terre!” I tried to cheer her up.

            She touched her bracelet again, the screen lit up: 38.2°C in the top left corner, and in red at the center: (ESTIMATE) DAYS: 8.

            “I heated up the sauna for you,” I announced. “With birch logs. There are pines and firs all around here, you have to walk a mile past the birch. So, enjoy the service!”

            Rita looked at me slowly and squeezed out:

            “You’re handsome, Friday. And still quite young. In another life, maybe I would have played Robinson Crusoe with you. In another life.”

            “If you’re already full, welcome to the sauna!” I said cheerfully to smooth over the awkwardness.

            “What sauna?” she sighed. “I don’t have time. I need to get to Losno. There’s not much time left. Very little time.”

            “What’s in Losno that makes you so eager to run there?”  I couldn’t hold back. She looked at me for a long time, clearly hesitating whether to tell me or not.

            “There’s an epione warehouse in Losno.”

            “A warehouse of what?” I didn’t understand.

            “Epione. There are thousands of gallons of it. Stacks of canisters. The cure was hidden far from the capital to prevent raids and assaults.”

            “What’s epione, once again?”

            “Here’s a man who doesn’t know about epione.” She looked out the window. “It’s like explaining to an adult a hundred years ago what money is. Or air.” Then she turned to me and looked piercingly, straight into my soul.

            “Look, the Spanish flu and World War II led to the development of antibiotics. A cure for infections, for bacteria. Everything except viruses. COVID led people to come up with epione. First isolated from murexes, then they learned to synthesize it. Epione cures viruses. All viruses. What people couldn’t have foreseen when they rejoiced at the advent of epione was that it wouldn’t be for everyone.”

            “Not for everyone?” I repeated in surprise.

            “Not for everyone.” Rita nodded affirmatively, and her lips tightened. “Because there isn’t enough food and resources for everyone. You said that when you were alive, food was no longer sold but distributed through the food stamp program. And then epiona was invented.”

            Rita fell silent and I put some more rapidly solidifying hare meat on her plate.

            “In the world of “wild capital and profit””  she emphasized the irony of the stated idiological cliché with her voice, “epiona was only for the rich. Well, in our latitudes, money never decided everything, it was status that decided everything. Classes. Epiona is available starting with the class Boyar 1C, General 3F, Justiciar 5K. And I’m a prole of the last class. Two weeks ago, the virus was found in our cluster. I have two daughters, Winter and Spring. Winter got sick first. Bloody nails. First symptom. The cluster was locked into isolation. But I got out, I know the loopholes because I’ve built the security systems myself. That’s why I heard about Losno,” she stopped talking and looked at me again with her piercing eyes.

             “Will you come with me? I’m sure you got it from me. The virality of this thing is huge. We’ll take a lot of medicine, and what we don’t use, we’ll leave in the infected area for everyone who needs it.”

            “I don’t shoot people,”  I answered firmly. “If I’m infected, I’d rather die here.”

            “There are no people in Losno, you fool,” she sighed. “The base is guarded by drones to ‘eliminate the human element’. Where we have people, it’s always a mess. You don’t mind shooting drones, do you? Then get ready.”

            As I closed the cabin, I hesitated and turned to Rita.

            “Can I give you a hug? The virus has made me forget what it’s like to hug someone.”

            She opened her arms like a big, soft bird, and I pulled her close. We stood like that, under a canopy of stars, and I wished we could stay like that forever.

            Rita died during the assault on the F24 side entrance to the Losno warehouse from a drone strike. I died stepping on a mine on the south slope of the city wall while trying to deliver epiona to Rita’s daughters, Spring and Winter.

            Due to the uniqueness of my experience, my memory has been preserved in “The Practical Guide to Surviving the Post-Apocalypse”, a textbook for children of the Boyar 3H and General 8X classes.

Self-check questions:

1) Is it worth talking to strangers?

2) Where should one keep one’s weapon while sleeping?

3) What is the proper way to stoke a sauna?

4) Is it acceptable to steal epione and plot rebellion against the power?

Reread the chapter, and write down in your notebook the main character’s poor decisions that led to his death. Suggest your own responses and actions that would preclude his’s death.

Skip to the Сhapter 2. Medicinal and poisonous herbs. Gardening. Fishing.

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