Echoes of a Dying World (Book 3): A Dream of Tomorrow

by Esquibel, Don M.

  I slide onto the floor across from her. “You raised a good girl,” I say. “She has so much love inside her. That’s why she’s so worried: her heart is just so damn big. Even after all she’s been through, she still sees the good in everything. That alone says a lot—that she’s stronger than most. Just be there for her. You do that, and I think she’ll be just fine.”

  She peeks around the corner to where her daughter still sits, tears springing in her eyes that she hastily wipes away.

  “She is a special little girl,” she says with a half-laugh.

  I force a smile. “She gets it from her mother.”

  This time, there’s nothing half about her laugh. “She’s nothing like I was as a kid,” she says. “Thank God. If she was, I doubt you’d love her so much.” She says this jokingly, but I hear the truth underneath her words. We were never close, Jenna and I. Growing up we were constantly arguing and butting heads. Heart to hearts, confiding in each other as we are now, would have been laughable. But people change, no one more so than her.

  I nudge my knee against hers, making her eyes meet mine. “We might not have always gotten along, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you.”

  She smiles. “That’s because you have a heart like my daughter,” she says.

  I laugh. “Yeah. Maybe so.”

  She looks like she’s about to say something else when Trent’s voice shouts from down the hall, announcing that Richard’s back. I stand as the door opens and shuts. I’m not the only one, several people rising as Richard, Vince, and Jerry enter the room.

  “How did it go?” I ask as they reach us.

  It’s Vince who answers, smiling as he reaches into his pocket. “Got em’,” he says, withdrawing a prescription bottle full of pills. Relief floods through me at the sight of it.

  “That’s good news,” I say. “We weren’t so fortunate. The pharmacy we checked was completely looted.”

  “So was ours,” Richard says as Vince and Jerry move past. “We were lucky we found anything at all. The place was completely trashed: shelves broken, display racks toppled over. We found the scripts buried under all of it. With any luck, it’ll be enough.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I say.

  He nods and moves past to where his daughters wait. They stand as he approaches, their relief more due to his return than the medicine he brings. He may have only been gone a matter of hours, but that can feel like forever in the world today. I watch him hug each of them in turn, his relief just as great as theirs is. Beyond them, Julia has Vince wrapped in a tight hug, the prescription bottle clutched tightly in her hand. But what catches my eye is the little girl standing to their left, her face lit with hope.

  Please God, let it be enough.

  To give our sick time to heal, we do not move as we have been since being forced from the cabin. We stay where we are. The place is low-key enough, the few days we’ve been here showing no signs of anyone else in the area. For the most part, the strategy seems to be working. As the days pass, the sick slowly improve, the medicine Richard brought back helping them regain their health. Things are still tense between us. Our rations are still dangerously low. But one by one, people get back on their feet. First my Uncle Will. Then Val. Ben’s has abandoned his crutch, his ankle finally healed. But there is one person who has not improved, whose sickness has only grown worse. Abigail’s friend, Becca.

  “The drugs aren’t working,” Julia says. Her concern is only too easy to notice. It’s in the edge in her voice, in the bags that ring her eyes and the worry lines on her face. Of course, she would be. Even growing up, she always wanted to help others. This is the girl who, as a teenager, led a fundraiser at school to raise money for hurricane relief victims. She chose wisely when she selected nursing as a profession. And though she won’t admit as much, I know she takes Becca’s failing health as a personal failure on her part.

  “I don’t know what else I can do for her,” she says.

  “You’re doing all you can,” my mother says soothingly. “Sometimes it’s just in God’s hands.”

  The thought doesn’t comfort her. It doesn’t comfort me either. My belief in God is still shaky at best. There have been times when I’ve felt...Something. A kind of presence during some of the biggest moments of my life. Meeting Lauren was one of them. Finding Elroy’s farm on the Colorado Trail was another. Even now, I question it. We were starving and desperate, owning hardly more than the clothes on our backs. I remember looking to the sky, praying that God would help us. We found Elroy’s farm the next day. He fed us, helped us, and for no reason other than he could. I’d like to believe that was God, that He came through in our hour of need, but the truth is I just don’t know. Because if God is real, that means he let this whole mess come to pass. Terrorists. EMP’s. Every foul thing that has resulted because of them: rapes and murders and mass starvation, He let it all happen. What kind of God would do such a thing? It’s a question I can’t answer. One that only leaves me frustrated when I try. But though my faith may not be as firm as some, I find myself praying all the same.

  Two days later the prescription runs out, and none of us are foolish enough to believe we will be lucky enough to find more. Even if we were, there is nowhere left to check. Cough syrup and Tylenol become the treatment, both proving to be as ineffective as the prescription was. Meanwhile, Abigail has gone from worried, to depressed. She hardly talks. Hardly eats, only doing so after Jenna nearly forces her paltry ration into her mouth. I’ve tried to take her mind off it. We all have. But nothing seems to work. She just sits in front of the glass window, waiting, watching. Even when she’s not there, she’s constantly sneaking glances toward the room, as if Becca might suddenly be healed and walk out.

  “Just try and sleep,” Jenna says softly.

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Abigail says. “I want to talk to Becca.”

  “You know you can’t, love,” Jenna says. “We can’t risk you getting sick like she is.”

  “Please?”

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to wait until she’s better.”

  Abigail grows quiet. When she speaks again I can hear the tears in her voice. “She’s not going to get better,” she says. “I just want to say goodbye.”

  I want to say something, anything that might be a comfort to either of them. But the pain in her voice is too much for me to hear. Instead, I retreat down the hall, arriving early for my watch duty. Thankfully, the night is uneventful, the parking lot outside and the road beyond remaining quiet and still. If only my mind could be so lucky. Abigail’s words repeat over and over in my head despite my attempt to block it.

  She’s not going to get better...I just want to say goodbye.

  I don’t know what’s worse, the words themselves or the cold certainty with which she spoke them. I remember how hopeful she was when Richard returned with medicine. That hope has long since faded, and what really hits me, is that I can’t blame her. As optimistic as I try and be, the reality is that it just does not look good right now.

  Jerry relieves me near midnight, and I make my way to the main office where nearly everyone sleeps. But not everyone I notice.

  “Any improvement?” I whisper, setting myself down on the countertop across from her.

  Julia slowly shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No improvement.”

  A heavy silence settles between us, the weight of the situation somehow heavier now that the girl is in my sight. She’s so thin. So pale. If it weren’t for the small rise and fall of her chest, one might mistake her for a corpse.

  “I was so sure I wanted to be a nurse,” Julia says. “I worked so hard, I was so happy to finish school and get my certification. I just wanted to help people—wanted to feel the rush of knowing that I helped save someone’s life...But I never gave much thought about what it would be like if things went wrong—what it would be like to watch someone die and know that despite all your training, there’s nothing you can do to save them.”

  Her voice brea
ks, and I wordlessly wrap my arm around her shoulders. Tears sting my eyes as hers fall onto my chest. I know what she speaks of all too well. I’ll never forget that sick, helpless feeling I felt as I watched Maya bleed out before my eyes. I remember every detail of that night: every word she said; the feeling of her hand going slack in mine; looking into her eyes, still so bright and full of life until the moment the light left them. That night changed me forever, the pain I felt still a part of me. It breaks my heart to think of Julia going through the same thing.

  “I wish I could say something that would make this easier to bear,” I say. “But the truth is, some burdens are unavoidable. I’m here for you though. I’ll help you carry it as much as I can.”

  She sniffs and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” she says. “Let’s just pray it doesn’t come to that.”

  We both leave the room sometime later, how long I cannot be sure. I crawl into my sleeping bag beside Lauren and Julia does the same some twenty feet away. Sleep comes slowly for me, my mind restless. When I finally do drift off, it’s to find myself in the same room I now sleep in.

  It’s day time, the sun streaming through the windows doing little to dispel the deep cold that has settled into the room. I spin around, aware for the first time that I’m alone. No, I realize. Not alone.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask. “Where’s my family?”

  Barr leers at me from across the desk he sits. “Family is it?” he asks. “Do you really consider all of them as such? Even the ones who were once my family?”

  “They were never your family,” I say. “Just pawns for you to use and torment.”

  He laughs. “Maybe so,” he says. “But at least I provided for them. Kept them safe. No little runts got sick and died on my watch.”

  His taunt hits like a kick to the chest. “She hasn’t died,” I say, voice weaker than I would like.

  “Only a matter of time,” he says.

  Anger comes to my aide now. “And whose fault is that?” I ask

  He smiles. “You can blame me all you like,” he says. “But you can’t hide from your own guilt. Can you?” I don’t respond. I can’t because even as I fight it, I do feel that guilt. He laughs again. “It’s probably better this way, you know. Better to go out like this than to starve to death. She might not even feel it.”

  “You're despicable,” I hiss.

  His leer is twisted as ever. “Then why haven’t you done anything to stop me?” he asks.

  I wake with a start, so disoriented from my dream it’s a minute before I realize what woke me. Then I hear it, the sound so strangled and grief-stricken that it shakes me to my very core. I close my eyes, unable to bring myself to turn around and face the truth. I feel her hand on my shoulder and I squeeze it tight. I give myself one second. Two. On three, I open my eyes and turn, already knowing what I’ll see.

  Most of the room is awake now, roused by the scene playing out inside the room. Wordlessly, Lauren and I rise and make our way forward. Inside is Julia, Jenna, and Abigail. Tears fall from Julia and Jenna’s eyes, but it’s the sight of Abigail that brings tears to mine. She kneels beside the couch, a mask covering most her face as she sobs, her gloved hand squeezing Becca’s. Her friend doesn’t squeeze back, her grip as slack as Maya’s was that night so many months ago. A pang spasms through my heart.

  She never got to say goodbye.

  It’s some time before Jenna finally coaxes Abigail to leave her side. With heavy hearts, we can do nothing but watch as she grieves her friend. Hardly any words are spoken during this time, soft condolences and quiet speculation as to when she passed the only conversation. I take no part in either. When she passed doesn’t matter. What matters is that she is no longer with us—that we couldn’t save her. That’s all that matters.

  A thin blanket is laid atop her body. She’s so small, I realize. I’m no stranger to death but seeing it come for someone so young makes it so much worse. It doesn’t matter that I hardly knew her, or that we only spoke a handful of times. I grieve all the same, more for the days she should have had ahead of her than anything else. I’m not the only one either.

  Family. Animals. Ranchers. Whether they were close or never said more than two words to her, everyone is affected by her death. I can see it. Feel it. And though none of them say it, I can practically hear the question rattling in the back of their minds: Who’s next? I can hear it even after Abigail has cried herself to sleep. The room grows eerily quiet without her sobs, everyone still reeling from such a harsh wake-up call. Though the body is covered, it’s still the focal point of the room, everyone’s eyes glancing furtively at it every few minutes. Myself included. Try as I might, my gaze flicks back and forth between it and my sleeping cousin, the dream I had playing in the back of my mind.

  “Then why haven’t you done anything to stop me?”

  I think back to the other dreams I’ve had since our home was destroyed. I remember the bodies outside the DoubleTree and Barr taunting me, claiming their deaths were because of me. I remember standing in the ruins of Philip’s ranch and Barr’s cruel laughter, telling me that I knew where to find him if I ever got tired of the blood on my hands. Another memory comes to mind, one that was not a dream.

  “We have to do something,” Lauren said. “There has to be some way to take those bastards down.”

  It was just after Lylette and Ben returned, and discovered what had become of their people.

  “I want to,” I said. “Believe me. But what can we do? Look at how low our supplies are. Look at how many children we have. Half of us have hardly any experience in an actual firefight. Even if that wasn’t the case, we don’t have near enough firepower to take them on. All we’ll be doing is making it easier for them to find us.”

  “There’s always a reason not to act,” she said. “But none of them matter if there is a better reason to act anyway.”

  “And what reason is that?” I asked.

  Something shifted in her eyes then—a look of hardened conviction that was impossible to miss. She stepped forward, closing the distance between us so that I could feel the warmth of her breath as she spoke again.

  “You’ve always talked about building a future for us—one where fear didn’t run our lives and we didn’t have to fight just to survive one more day—a future where we could live in peace. I want that too, Morgan. It’s all I’ve wanted for a really long time...But I don’t see that happening so long as the Animals are in power.”

  I remember hearing the truth in what she said, feeling it deep down inside me. But I also remember the fear that overcame me when I thought of challenging the Animals. Images of my family bleeding and full of bullets, of them captured and forced into service the way so many have been before. I imagined Barr and that twisted leer of his looking over me as my heart beat it’s last, triumph in his eyes, knowing he won. They were images I couldn’t shake, couldn’t see past.

  “If we try and bring them down, most of us will die,” I said. “And those will be the lucky ones. I’m sorry. But I can’t put my family through that. For now, all we can do is live for one more day.”

  Her eyes shifted again, a look of warmth and love and sadness hitting me all at once. She kissed me then, her lips light and soft, barely fluttering against my own before she straightened back up.

  “This isn’t living,” she said, her hand resting against my cheek. “We deserve so much more.”

  I look around me, my eyes soaking in the faces about the room. I watch as people sit huddled and forlorn, taking small bites of the pitiful ration they’ve been given. I watch them shiver under their layers, their breath visible with each exhale because we can’t risk the luxury of a fire for fear of being caught. I watch as their gaze still flicks to the room where Becca’s body lies. There’s sympathy for the girl. Sadness. But there is also fear, a foreboding feeling that grips them as they are forced to stare mortality in the face. The longer I watch the more ingrained the thought becomes in my mind: We d
eserve so much more.

  I rise and slowly walk over to the room. I stop at the entrance, staring at the body of the little girl, feeling each set of eyes land on me the longer I stand. When I’m positive I hold the attention of the room, I turn.

  “Who’s next?” I ask. I pause, giving them a moment to look confusedly at one another as if someone might answer. “It’s what you’re all thinking, isn’t it? Who’s going to be the next one of us to die? I’m here to tell you that it does not matter. It’s not even the right question you should be asking. What you should be asking yourselves, is how do we stop more deaths from happening.”

  I begin to pace, the energy flowing through me making it impossible for me to stand still. “There’s been bad blood between us in the past. No sense in denying it. We all have real reasons to mistrust one another, to hate each other. But we have an even greater reason to put that hate aside: because we need each other. I’m talking about more than merely surviving another day—I’m talking about building a future—about creating a life worth living. Because what we’ve been doing? Running and hiding and constantly looking over our shoulders?” My eyes flick to Lauren’s. “We deserve so much more than that.”

  I turn and point to Becca’s body. “And the truth is that if we don’t look past these bullshit feuds, that is the only future we will have.”

  There’s a long silence, skepticism still filling their eyes as they look from me to those opposite them.

  “I have no problem with starting over,” one of the former Animals says. “I want to start over. I’m tired of all this tension and hostility between us...But how do you suggest we build this future when we can barely feed ourselves? When we can’t even risk being seen in the light of day?”

  “A good point. But let me ask you: why can’t we risk being seen in the light of day?” I ask.