Free ISS by Laurie Mains, L Valder Mains

with music, I don’t know why but it doesn’t do much for me, it just doesn’t.” he said.
    He could see by her face that his answer was not good enough. He watched her mind working as she dealt with the foreign concept of someone not liking music. This was something that was clearly not feasible in her world.
    “Didn’t you dance in music class? They made us dance.”
    “No.”
    She regarded him sceptically because she knew that everybody had to dance in music class.
    “How did you get out of it?”
    “I never went.”
    “To music class?”
    “To school,” he said and turned away.
    Sara regarded his back and wondered what that meant. Everyone went to school. It was the law.
     
    Jack got on the radio after dinner and asked Steve what they needed to resupply the space station. He was happy that they were no longer trying to talk him out of it instead he gave him a long detailed list of items. The extensive shopping list meant they would need to travel to Phoenix to acquire some of the requested items. He figured the city would be a good place to collect the virus sample they needed but the prospect of what had to be done to harvest the sample chilled him.
    They left the next day and the drive was uneventful but he noticed that Sara became quieter as they neared the city. Normally she talked a lot but approaching the city quietened her. It was where she lost her dad and when he saw her tears in her eyes he knew she was thinking about him. They searched the city for the items requested by Steve, and Jack kept an eye out for a suitable corpse from which to harvest the sample. He had a sealable plastic container and an axe and serrated knife with which to harvest the part needed. He had been shocked when Steve told him they wanted a complete human head from a virus victim. Jack thought about it all the way to Phoenix, he wasn’t sure he could go through with cutting off someone’s head, even if they were dead. It took a long time to find everything on the list and the car was full and sagging under the weight. When they were ready to leave for New Mexico Sara asked him to drive her to the motel where she and her dad were staying when the plague hit.
    She wanted to get her clothes. She asked him not to come inside with her when she got her things. He was worried about what she might find but she had tears in her eyes and he let her go by herself. She was crying hard when she came back with her things. While she was occupied inside the motel Jack took the axe and put on a pair of rubber gloves. He’d spotted the bloated carcass of a woman beside the swimming pool when they pulled up. He closed his eyes as he hacked at her neck with the axe because the visuals were just too grizzly and he felt like he was going to vomit. On the third blind swing the axe hit the concrete beneath her and he opened his eyes in time to see the head roll away into the empty swimming pool. His hands were shaking when he climbed down into the pool to get it. When he grabbed the severed head by the hair the mouth opened and a cloud of tiny black insects flew out. It was sickening. He did not mention it to Sara because she was already feeling bad.
    At four pm on Saturday November 21, 2023 they set off on their journey to Clayton New Mexico. They were four miles from the Phoenix city limits when Jack pulled to a stop and opened his door and puked his lunch onto the pavement. It was less than ten miles after that they ran out of gas.
    “Jesus Jack, you got all that gas but you didn’t fill the tank? “
    She was smiling, the look on her face was not serious, and he knew that she was ‘giving him the gears’ but his face turned red anyway.
    “I forgot, okay,” he said and she laughed.
    He climbed out and went to the back of the car and unstrapped a five gallon jug and poured it into the tank feeling embarrassed as the fuel glub-glubed into the empty tank. He was happy that she was feeling better. It took three jugs to completely fill it. It