Rachel's Rapture, Chapter 2:
Although she really couldn't be sure any longer, Rachel thought that it was probably August by now. It might already be September, but she thought that it felt more like August, as it was still awfully hot in this world without air conditioners. She had not seen any signs of a working power grid in several months, and along the way, she'd decided that keeping track of individual dates was pretty meaningless.
"No," she thought absently, "I won't dwell upon meaninglessness; that would hit far too close to home...not that I have a home any longer."
Rachel had wandered through dozens of cities since that day when she had left her home in Bakersfield, but none of them ever felt quite right. She knew that she'd have to pick a permanent base some day, but without any people to share her home with, picking a particular location certainly didn't seem like it was a pressing problem.
She had not given up on finding other survivors though, so still she wandered; not that this was a bad thing, she had learned a great deal during her journey. Rachel had learned that it was the family of mammals that had disappeared from the face of God's Earth. She'd strongly suspected this before she'd visited San Diego, but after spending a couple of days exploring the now deserted zoo, she was positive that she was right.
There hadn't been a single mammal carcass in any of the enclosures; unfortunately this had not been as true for the other animals. Most of the non-mammals had still been in their cages; they just hadn't been alive any longer. They'd mostly starved to death by the time she'd arrived at the zoo. The sight and the smell of all of the rot and decay had been shattering for Rachel. She'd done her best to release the few survivors that she had come across, (mostly birds in the aviary), but there had not been many of them, and the experience had been quite depressing for her.
Seeing all of the death had been quite a blow for Rachel, but in a strange way; it had been reassuring for her as well. As all of the mammals had clearly gone...somewhere, she was ever more positive that this meant that whatever had happened, it must not have had anything to do with God's actions...right? There had to be something else going on!
But she still had the same basic problem; there was no one with her to share her thoughts, not a single soul to argue with her; no one to tell her what was right. For Rachel, there was no one left but God himself, and while Rachel still spoke to God nearly every day, his answers were as elusive as ever. Her faith had been rocked, but it had not been destroyed. In her lighter moments, she pondered whether she might be this Earth's newest Eve. Maybe God was starting over yet again. But that always made her wonder about the missing Adam... and just exactly where was he hiding anyway? She'd been looking for him everywhere.
Today, Rachel was driving through Phoenix again. She'd already crisscrossed this part of Arizona several times, and by now, she knew that Phoenix was like every other city, town, and village that she had visited throughout her travels, it was bereft of human life.
The auxiliary tanks in her truck were mostly empty now though, and she knew she would need to visit her fuel stockpile before she left the area. All of her stockpiles here in Arizona had been carefully treated with the fuel stabilizer, and though she knew that the stabilizer would extend the fuel's usefulness, she was increasingly worried about the decayed fuel stocks that she was finding along the way. Less and less of the untreated gasoline was still effective; and even though there were thousands and thousands of gallons buried in tanks underground, most of it was now good only for solvent.
Back when the world had made sense, Rachel's chemistry teacher had taught her class that gasoline had an actual shelf life, but like most of the class, Rachel hadn't really memorized any of that information. She knew that her time of walking would be coming eventually, but she was unsure of how soon it would arrive.
Her mind was awhirl with questions. Would the diesel fuels last any longer than gasoline would? Could she find electric vehicles to replace her gasoline powered ones? And if she could, how would she charge them? She hadn't found an operational power source.
She was worried; it seemed as if walking from city to city would not only be difficult, but dangerous as well. In pre-industrial times, the explorers had used horses or mules to carry them about, but now, all the mounts were gone. She briefly wondered if there might be a non-mammal large enough for her to ride, but this just made her grin and remember the anti-evolution theme park in Kentucky... and all of its exhibits showing human beings interacting with dinosaurs.
A grin spread across her face as she thought, "Maybe instead of looking for Adam, I should look for Fred Flintstone. He'd certainly know how to live without technology." Still heavily weighted down with all of these questions, she headed for what she thought of as her safe place when she was feeling down; she headed for Phoenix's largest library.
She'd parked her vehicle outside in the otherwise empty parking lot, and gone directly into the dusty stacks to do more research. Before too much time had passed, she had begun to find answers to her questions. "Who knew that there were both summer and winter blends of gasoline," she'd wondered aloud. Then again, it hadn't seemed to matter all that much. Her vehicles were still running, even if it was on last year's winter blend.
She'd already managed to dose several large underground tanks with fuel stabilizer, but the chemistry books made her worry about how the treated gasoline would work once she drove her truck into a high elevation setting. She was going to have to be careful there.
She'd also learned that there were other methods of storing gasoline that would preserve the fuel even longer, but most of them required electrical power in order to circulate the sitting fuel, and that only brought back her need for electrical power. It kept coming back to the same problem; she had to find a better source of power than the deteriorating gasoline.
Intent on her work, and locked deeply in thought, she didn't notice the low buzzing sound immediately. If she had, things certainly would have gone differently for her. As it was, the rumbling had gotten pretty loud before she finally noticed the sound and realized that it was coming from outside the building. Shocked, she ran to the nearest window and tried to look outside.
She didn't see much. In the months since man had disappeared, there hadn't been any window washers to keep things tidy. The window was covered in dust, so she grabbed one of her cleaning rags, and quickly swiped the window. What she saw astounded her. "It's a bi-plane," she gasped out loud.
She immediately ran for the exit, but by the time she got outside and began to scream and wave her arms at the disappearing crop-duster, it was much too late; the pilot had already turned from Phoenix and was now heading eastward.
Rachel slumped as she realized that she'd just missed the best chance that she'd had so far, the pilot would never be able to see her now. If only she'd had a flare...why hadn't she thought to equip herself with a flare gun?
Still kicking herself for her lack of forethought, she reluctantly dragged herself back into the library to finish her research. But she wasn't overcome with despondency any longer; indeed, she was surprised with herself. She realized that even though she had just missed this chance to be found, she wouldn't find herself to be unprepared next time. She'd be ready, but that just meant that now she needed to do more reading.
One thought lingered with her however. The sight of that plane had waked her to an unpleasant reality; she'd realized that she had done a very poor job of advertising that she was still here on Earth. In truth, she hadn't even considered the idea before now.
She didn't let that bother her though; it occurred to her that when she'd missed catching that plane, she hadn't collapsed into a puddle of despair. No, not this time! This time she planned on using this setback as an impetus to plan for a brighter future. Despite all of the bad things that her father and her pastor had said about the sin of pride, she was proud of her new strength. She saw no sin in that at all!
The next two weeks passed quickly as she had immersed herself into learning all she could about solar and wind energy. As she learned more about the subject, she began to formulate a plan for her future. As usual, she found that, the more she learned, the stronger she became.
The first thing she realized was that her chemistry teacher had been correct; gasoline broke down quite quickly and that all of today's gas was well on its way to uselessness. She also found that processing new gasoline would require much more time, effort, and manpower than she would ever have available in this new life. She, and anyone else left on this Earth, would have to switch to renewable sources quite quickly to avoid a new dark age. Oh, she'd be able to burn as much as wood as she liked, and never make a dent in the Earth's forests, but real power would be harder to obtain.
So she studied everything that this library contained that dealt with solar energy, wind, or hydropower, as well as what it would take to contain and harness those power sources. She'd even found a few brief mentions of the fact that some towns that were moving toward being 100% renewable, but unfortunately the books in the library were not up to date, and they gave no clues as to where she should look to find those cities. The internet could have readily provided the answer to this question, but that ship had sailed along with the power grid. Once again, she realized that she had made mistakes in her first few months alone.
Before she left Phoenix, she made a point of stocking up on her supplies, adding some new items with a focus on communication. She'd added a citizens band radio in both of her vehicles, as well as a flare gun and a few boxes of shells to her stores. Rachel had never used either, but she practiced with both before she hit the road, even going as far as adding a holster for the flare gun so she would have it with her at all times; and she had to admit, firing off the flares was a lot of fun.
