didn't stop until dawn.
In the morning, the snow was gone. Everyone tumbled through the door and stared at the newly black ground, grinning and pounding each other on the back. "We can leave. We can get out of here."
"Tomorrow," Kyle said. "We'll leave in the morning."
Karen rocked her son as she came to join the others on the edge of the porch. "I'll miss you all."
The smiles died. Kyle said roughly, "You won't survive long enough to miss us."
"You'll be shot the moment you're spotted coming down the mountain." She shook her head fiercely. "And if they don't know who you are and let you come into town, why then you'll be just like them. You'll be killers. The only difference will be that you won't use bullets, you'll get them sick and they'll die." She stared at her son, rocking him and holding him close. "Old people, children, everyone. They don't deserve to die."
"Neither do we."
No one slept that night. As soon as the sun broke over the mountains they all rose and ate quickly, then donned their ash-darkened clothes and the coats made from blankets. Then they took up their homemade backpacks and left reluctantly, feet shuffling as they slowly crossed the cabin floor, then the porch, until Karen and the baby were alone in the cabin.
She went to a window to watch. The mountain rose beyond the small procession, high, white and impersonal.
The fire flickered. She moved to add another piece of wood. The movement woke her son. He gave out a lusty cry and kicked hard against her, then impatiently, he cried again, wanting food and attention and more.
Much, much more. He deserved more.
She moved. She ran to the yard where the rest of the group stood in their blanket coats and ask-darkened clothes waiting for a word from Kyle to start their journey. She stared at them critically. They didn't look like escaped convicts. They looked like mountain people on their way to town. Just ordinary people coming down from the mountain now that the snow was gone.
"Wait for me!"
They stopped. Turned. Kyle, hands on hips, called across the bare yard. "You didn't want to come."
"I do now."
"We're going to town."
"I know."
"When we get there, we're going about our lives the way we used to do before we got the flu. That's what we're going to do. Nothing more, nothing less."
"I know that too."
"And, God willing, we'll live. And everyone else will get the flu because they won't know we're carriers because we're not going to tell them. And they'll die."
"You said we'll live." Her son kicked against the unaccustomed tightness of the infant carrier the women had made. "That's the important thing." She joined them, pulling on a coat made from a blanket.
He stared at her through slitted eyes, then relaxed and let his gaze soften. "It'll take a while for the flu to run its course. When it has, we'll be alive, the only ones left."
She settled her son more comfortably in his carrier. "Then it'll be our world, won't it? A nice world, I think. Nice for us, anyway.
"If it works. If we get down the mountain."
"You got us this far. You'll get us down the mountain." She joined the group. They formed a ragged line and started walking, slowly, steadily, away from the cabin.
They didn't stop until they were all the way down the mountain and near the edge of a town that nestled there, the town that had seen them sent up the mountain all that time ago in the back of trucks, surrounded by guard. The people from the town hadn't sent them up the mountain but they hadn't stopped the guards either.
Some people saw them, two families out for a walk, fathers, mothers, and a half dozen children running ahead. Seeing the strangers the parents called the children back. The two groups stared at one another across a short distance.
Kyle came forward, pulling Karen and her child with him. "We're from the mountain." They didn't go too close. Strangers kept their distance since the flu appeared. "We were stranded by a blizzard. We were lucky to find a cabin." The people came closer cautiously. "My son was born in that cabin." He put an arm around Karen.
They stood, father, mother and son, or so it appeared, as both groups held their breath. Then Karen's son cried imperiously, loudly and she lifted him from his carrier, cuddling and shushing him.
The women from town peered at the baby. "They can't have the flu, the baby wouldn't have survived. They're just a group of people who got stranded on the mountain."
Pushed by their wives, the men approached slowly, examining the baby and looking at each other uncertainly. Then they shrugged and nodded to their wives who came too, followed by the children. Soon everyone was discussing Karen's baby as if they were old friends.
Karen looked at Kyle in wonder. "It's going to be all right."
One of the women from town heard. "Of course it's all right. You're down from that awful mountain and you're safe now."
Kyle gave Karen a half smile, then called to the rest of their group, who joined them and mingled with the families from town, teasing the children and discussing the weather with their parents until at last, gratefully accepting offers of help with their backpacks, the townspeople and the group from the mountain walked together into town.
THE END
If you liked this story, you can find more short stories, novellas and novels by Florence Witkop through her web site https://FlorenceWitkop.com
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