Sarah was sitting on the side of the bed when they walked in the room. She smiled and thanked Pat for holding her during the night.
Sarah looked at Pauline, "My god you two are loud."
They all had a good laugh and they went down to start some breakfast for the girls. Pat found the makings for the coffee and he started the coffee while Sarah and Pauline began to fix breakfast. The kitchen had a warming table so they could keep the food warm and let the girls eat whenever they woke up.
Pat talked to them while they worked, "There's a truck stop a short way down the highway. I'm going to stop there and fill up the bus with diesel. I want to look for a couple of other buses so that we can split up if we want to explore some place. Both of you are going to have to learn how to drive a bus. It's not as hard as it looks. Just keep a safe distance between the buses and don't drive too fast. These buses are huge and it takes a while to get them stopped. Later on we'll get some SUVs and a pickup truck or two."
Both women said that they couldn't drive a bus but they knew that it was senseless arguing with Pat. The girls started trickling into the kitchen and Pauline and Sarah made sure that each girl ate their fill. Anna sat by herself and ate her breakfast.
As the women were finishing up feeding the girls they heard a scream from outside the motel. Pat ran to the front door and looked for the source of the scream. He saw Brenda at one end of the parking lot and a very large German Sheppard was slowly advancing toward the girl with his teeth bared. Brenda was so terrified that she was frozen in place. Pat pulled out his pistol and shot the dog before it had a chance to attack.
Pat walked over to the dog with his gun drawn in case the dog wasn't dead. He inspected the collar and saw that it was a police K-9 dog. Brenda ran back to the motel.
Pauline walked up next to Pat, "What caused the dog to stalk Brenda?"
Pat pointed at the collar, "It's a K-9 dog. He's been trained to attack humans and he knows that he can get the better of a human. I would guess that he was getting hungry and he figured that Brenda was an easy target."
"I guess it's starting," Pauline said, "I didn't think that it would start this soon. We'll have to keep an eye on all of the girls from now on until we train them on the use of firearms."
"Remember to carry your gun at all times. If I hadn't had my gun on me this could have turned out a lot different."
They turned to walk back to the motel and Pat said, "It's time to talk to the girls. I've been dreading this but it's got to be done."
Pat had Pauline and Sarah get all of the girls together in front of the motel. He made sure that each of the women had their pistol with them. He stood in front of the girls and waited for them to stop talking.
When they were quiet he began, "Ladies, you all know what happened to Brenda a short while ago. I hate to say this but this is going to happen more and more often. The animals, including the domestic animals that we've all relied on for our food are going to return to their wild state. I knew this was coming so I raided a gun shop and each adult has a pistol. If any of you go outside or anywhere that a wild animal might get to you make sure that you go with an adult and make sure that that adult has their gun with them. Later we'll train each of you in the use of firearms. I want each of you to remember that guns kill. Never even touch your gun unless you're ready to use it."
One of the girls raised her hand, "We haven't seen anyone since that black hole thing happened. Is there anyone other than us alive on the earth?"
Pat looked at the girl, "I can't answer that. I do know that the government has secure bunkers that are supposed to withstand a nuclear blast so there might be people left somewhere."
Another girl raised her hand, "Are we going to try to go back home and see if our parents are alive?"
"You girls have been trying to raise your parents on the cell phones but no one has been able to reach anyone. When we stop at night I've been trying to call all over the world and I haven't been able to get anyone. We have to be on our guard at all times. If there are people left in the world we don't know if they're good of if they're evil. We have to be very careful."
A girl with tears running down her cheeks said, "It doesn't make sense that only us survived. What happened to everyone else; where are the bodies if they're all dead?"
"I can't answer that," Pat said.
"How are we going to live?" another girl shouted.
"We'll live very well," Pat said, "We'll have everything that we need and then some. The black hole seems to have no effect on material things. We can live off of what has been left behind. There's a lot of food that will still be good for a long time. Some canned food has a fairly long shelf life. We'll have to decide on what we want our lives to be like in the future. In the short term I'm going to still look for other humans that have survived. I'm going to pick up a couple of other buses and we can be a little more comfortable while we look. I'd like for us to stay together for a while for safety's sake."
"For a while?" one of the girls said excitedly, "You'd better stay around. We wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to survive."
Pat didn't like where the conversation was going, "I only called you together for you to talk about the dangers that we might start facing from animals. Let's all get ready and we'll start out and look for other people. I feel that there has to be others that survived. When we get to the major cities we're bound to find others. Now let's get moving and let's get on the road."
Pauline was standing next to Pat, "Do you really think we'll find others?"
Pat waited until the girls were moving away from them, "I really don't know. I'm beginning to lose hope. We haven't seen any sign yet that anyone except us survived. I don't see how a city would make any difference."
One of the girls came back and walked toward Pat and Pauline, "Could I ask you something."
"Sure," Pat said.
The girl looked at Pauline but didn't say anything. Pauline suddenly realized that the girl wanted to talk to Pat alone and she turned and walked to the motel.
"My name is Ruth," she started, "If we never find anyone else left alive does this mean that this is the end of humans on earth?"
"I'm still hoping that we'll find others when we get to the city," Pat tried to reassure her.
Ruth shuffled her feet, "If we never find anybody else ... well ... if you are the only man left on earth. Are you going to marry all of us?"
Pat was so shocked that he couldn't answer her for a minute, "We'll find other people; count on it. That "other" is not even something that I want to think about. Now go get ready to get on the bus."
Ruth started for the motel and then turned when she was a few feet away, "I'm not a virgin."
She turned and started running to the motel. Pat was dumbfounded. When he was sixteen girls didn't talk like that. A thought came to his head that he'd have to watch this girl.
Just as the girls were leaving the motel the power went off and several of the girls started screaming. The motel was eerily quiet. Pat and Pauline hurried the girls on the bus. After taking a head count Pat climbed in the seat and started the bus.
While he was waiting for the bus to warm up Pauline leaned over to him and asked in a low voice, "I guess that's the start of the power outages right?"
"We're probably in an area fed by a coal fired power plant and coal fired power plants will go down pretty fast," he answered, "Nuclear plants can operate one to two years on one loading of nuclear fuel. Hopefully the software that shuts down the nuclear plants will work or we're going to be in deep trouble since none of us are nuclear engineers."
Pauline looked like she was deep in thought, "When we see a hydro electric dam, couldn't we just open the flood gates to the turbines? That would ensure that the power was on forever."
"Sorry Pauline, it doesn't work that way. There's a delicate balance between the amount of water that's available and the amount of electricity that you can generate. The amount of water that you have available varies with the rainfall, in feeds from other streams or rivers and the runoff from the surrounding land. If you'd open all of the gates to the turbines the water level might drop so low that it would never be able to recover enough to be able to generate electricity again and the mechanical equipment would rapidly deteriorate. A lot of it is computer controlled these days so if the power comes from somewhere else the hydro-electric unit will go down whether there's plenty of water or not."
Pat put the bus in gear and began the trip to try and find other humans left in the world.