She ran perhaps fifty yards, and then crouched behind another car to scout ahead and look to her sides. She did not want to be surprised. She did not pause long—only moments. This was not a good place to be. Seeing nothing near her, she sprinted a ways, crouching behind another car. She repeated this maybe four times before she reached the edge of the parking lot.
Finally at the edge of the parking lot, she was sprinting for the gates to the school when she heard a familiar voice calling her.
“Wait, wait!”
She paused at the open gate, one hand on the fence.
It was the same girl again, the one that had crouched behind the car with her. Now she was running, too, looking like she was trying to catch up. Suddenly, as if their eyes were pulled at the same time, they both looked to her left. A huge, black shape loomed out of the mist, moving at impossible speed. She had a blurred impression of a dark, flowing mass, like oil that had learned to run.
The mass crashed into the girl, enveloping her, choking off the beginning of the girl’s scream. The dark mud spattered out, hitting her own clothes now, showing her how the others had gotten it on them—showing her what that grime-covered boy had seen that had been too much for him. The only sounds were a brief gurgle, and a crunch, as the blackness flowed over the other girl. The shape did not pause, did not lose any speed, and was quickly lost in the mist.
---
“After that, the story stays much the same. There was running, hiding, and a lot of walking. The details are not important, just that now she is here.”
The group was staring at her. Nobody spoke. She looked at them, one by one, as if daring them to contradict her. None did.
After a few moments of silence, it was Owen who, again, spoke up.
“Hey, well, no details lost in that telling, huh?” He looked uncomfortable, as if he was inviting her to explain further, but she felt no need to.
After that, there were a few other half-hearted attempts at starting up the conversation again, but all those attempts fell flat. Soon, one by one, they all announced their intentions to turn in for the night. Tom and his wife had the grace to share some of the blankets they had with the girl and Owen, who only had the barest minimum of supplies. They showed them to a stack of carpet samples that, when piled atop each other, made a surprisingly comfortable bed.
The teenage boy, whose name she had already forgotten, pulled a sleeping bag out of his own backpack—a larger, older-looking model that looked like it might be military surplus. The dog settled itself into a pile of packing materials, in a corner where it could easily see all the people as they slept.
She dreamed that night. They probably all dreamed. But nobody spoke of their dreams in the morning.
---
When morning came, she was awakened to the sounds of people stirring about the warehouse. Tom’s wife had a large pot of what she called Farina boiling over the camp-fire, and offered to share. Everyone accepted the offer.
That morning she learned that Farina was a sort of mush, made of fine little grains that must have started off as some kind of plant. It was bland, but filling. Before the Fall, she would have turned her nose up at it, preferring some pancakes or maybe a pop-tart. Now she ate all she was offered. She had learned to take what she found.
After finishing her meal, she mumbled her thanks to Shawna, and walked over to where she had laid her backpack and jacket the night before, cinching straps and putting them on.
“Hey, what’r ya doin?” It was Owen, unsurprisingly, standing behind her.
“She is preparing to leave.”
Owen seemed surprised. “Why not stay? There’s food, shelter, warmth…”
“This is not where she is going,” she replied. Then she stopped her packing, looking up at Owen.
“And,” she added, looking towards the unshuttered windows in the front of the store, and then the flimsy plywood door at the back of the warehouse, “this is not safe.”
“Well, where are you going?” asked Owen.
“She isn’t sure. Not here. Perhaps someplace with fewer people and stronger walls. Perhaps she will just keep moving.”
Her bag was packed, and her jacket was on. Only one more thing to do before she left. Tom and his wife had sheltered her, so she owed it to them to try, even though she doubted it would work.
Slinging her bag over one shoulder and her rifle over the other, she approached the fire where the others were cleaning up after breakfast. As she walked over, Tom, Shawna, and the teenage boy stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She looked at them all.
“You should leave,” she said.
To one degree or another, they all looked startled.
“Leave?” asked Tom, “Why?”
“It is not safe here. You are not safe,” she replied.
“Not safe? I’ve got a roof over my head, I’ve got food, and I’ve got four walls around me. Considering the alternatives, that’s good enough for now. Shawna and I are planning to wait right here until all this blows over.” Tom looked to Shawna for support, and Shawna nodded her head.
She raised her eyebrows. “You cannot hide here forever.”
“We’re waiting here until things sort themselves out,” repeated Tom.
She had known it would be this way. “Soon enough, something will happen. Something will find you. You can do as you wish, everyone can. But here, you’re only waiting to die.”
She turned away, slinging her backpack over both shoulders then re-slinging the rifle, and headed out the door. She saw that the dog was following on her heels.
She left the warehouse, crossing the parking lot and turning downhill on the main road, headed again for the rural highway she had been headed for yesterday. After only twenty steps or so, she heard a door bang open behind her. Even though it did not please her, she had expected it. She turned to see the man she had saved from the crab-things yesterday coming out the door, still pulling his hastily packed bag onto his shoulders. What she did not expect was the soft bulk of the teenage boy following him, his own larger backpack over his shoulders. She stopped, looking at them.
“I’m with you,” said the man as he approached. “Told you that yesterday.”
“Why?” she asked. She was honestly curious.
“It’s like you said. They’re gonna die in there, man. Something’s gonna catch up with them sometime, and they’re gonna die. That’s what they don’t know, man. Or maybe they don’t wanna know. They’re hunkered down, waiting for all this to blow over, right? But well, who says this is gonna end?”
Next, she looked at the teenager, who looked rather sheepish as he approached and stood in front of her, his head bowed and his dark hair falling over his eyes. He looked like he might be waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t.
Soon he spoke. “You see,” he began, “What you said back there, about them just waiting to die? It’s kind of what I’ve been thinking myself. And, well, I don’t want to wait to die, but I don’t really have a better plan, so…” He shrugged. “I figured I’d come along with you guys.”
“Always good to have an extra hand, right?” piped up the man. She frowned at him.
“You should not follow,” she said to the boy. “There is no plan here, either,” and after a brief pause, “and you will most likely die.”
The boy looked up from beneath his bangs, a stubborn glint in his eyes. “Well then at least I’ll see a little more of the world before I do, yeah? And maybe make some friends on the way.”
She turned away, beginning to walk down the road again. This was not what she wanted. She could not influence what he decided, but she wanted no friends.
“She will never be anything to you,” she said over her shoulder. But soon enough she heard his plodding footsteps joining the clicking of the dog’s claws and the man’s lighter, quicker steps behind her.
---
From the diary of the Mule:
I left the warehouse today. It was a good place to rest, but I
couldn’t see my future there. Hell, I don’t know if I can see my future anywhere, but definitely not rotting away in that warehouse. This girl and guy came by, travelling together. They had a dog along, too. There was something about them… I don’t know. Something. Something that looked better than what I see in Tom and Shawna. Tom and Shawna are nice enough people, but they don’t seem to have much idea what to do next. I mean, they’ve got this old warehouse to hide in, but what’s next? I think they’re still hoping this will all end. Or maybe they know it isn’t going to end, but they aren’t ready to talk about it.
I’ve got as little idea of what’s really happening in the world as anyone else. I mean, is the whole world like this? Is everything messed up? Or if I just walk to the next town over, will I find normal life?
Hell, I don’t know. One day I’m living my life, sucky as it was, and the next day nothing electric works, most people have just disappeared somewhere, and there seem to be a million new ways to die. I remember meeting a few panicked survivors, just like me, in those first days. It was all endless speculation. Was it demons? Aliens? The Rapture? Hell, there was even one guy that was convinced all this was caused by what he called a “polar shift.” I never could get a straight explanation out of him as to what exactly a polar shift was, and how it could unleash hordes of monsters upon the world.
But at least I’m trying to deal with what I see. I bet there are a lot of people like Tom and Shawna, just kind of hoping that they can get along for a while “until it all blows over.” I swear I heard Tom say that at least a dozen times in the two days I shared their roof.
The guy and the girl, though, they seem different. I don’t know if they really know what they’re doing, or they’re just as delusional as the rest of us, but at least they’re moving—doing something. It’s better than sitting here.
The guy seems to do all the talking. He’s a skinny guy, all quick twitches and never still. Even when he’s sitting down to a meal he’s moving and fiddling around. His mouth’s the same—always moving. Seems like a nice enough guy though, even if he’s a bit rough around the edges.
The girl and the dog seem like a matched pair. I don’t know how long they’ve been together, if the dog was with her before the Fall, or if they met sometime after, but they go well together. The girl talks just about as much as the dog, and neither one seems like they would be much fun at a party. They’ve got a dangerous air about them though. Not like they might turn on you or knife you in your sleep. But the “I may suddenly kill you if you cross me” kind of danger. I’d hate to be the bully that tried to take her lunch money, or the guy that tried to take that dog’s bone.
With her odd way of talking and her anti-social nature, the girl’s the kind of person my friends and I would have quietly made fun of in the cafeteria at school. Now, though... It seems like that’s all past. Now I’m volunteering to go where she’s going just on the hunch that she’s got what it takes to live in this fucked-up world.
I hope I’m right.
4
They set off walking. Close by the warehouse they had spent the night in, they stepped into a country store at the edge of the road. It was pretty well picked over, but they split up to search the store anyhow. She did find some bulk oatmeal and a shelf almost entirely full of canned vegetables. Once she opened the lid of the barrel for it, the dog seemed to enjoy the oatmeal, so she let it eat its fill. She then scooped some more into plastic bags and put them in her pack. She took four cans of vegetables and added them to her pack as well.
The man and the teenage boy wandered over and started grabbing some of the canned vegetables as well.
“Here you go,” said the man, tossing one can to the teenager.
He caught it, then looked at it in horror. “Oh, god! Beans!” He actually skipped back from the offending can and gave a little shudder, causing the already giggling man to double over with laughter. Even she smiled, before she turned back to the shelf to select what she wanted. She heard the man walk away to explore other aisles, while the teenage boy stayed, carefully selecting canned vegetables that looked nothing like beans.
When she had all she needed, she looked over at him. She saw him filling his pack with cans until it bulged. She smirked at him as he lifted it, his eyes bulging at the surprising weight.
“Too much for you?”
She could tell he didn’t want to look weak in front of his new companions. “It’s all right,” he lied. “I can carry a pretty heavy load.”
She looked at him. He was big, but soft. The frame of a football player but the padding of a video game player. She didn’t think he would last.
“Good,” she said, and placed three more cans into an exterior pocket of his already-full pack. “Who knows how often there will be so much food?”
Then she stepped back, looking at him. “Like a mule,” she said, turning away and making her way out of the store. She had meant it as an insult but for some reason the boy smiled.
The others followed her, man, boy, and dog, exiting the store and heading generally east on a winding rural highway. Except for that break, it was steady walking until afternoon. She tended to walk a little in front of the other two, as the dog took turns sometimes walking near the group at the side of the road and sometimes moving off into the fields to carry out its own investigations of the land they passed. Twice that morning the dog stopped in front of her and growled, looking at a house some distance from the road. Both times she detoured off to the other side of the road, tromping through neighboring fields to give a wide berth to whatever the dog sensed before returning to the highway. The others grumbled a bit, but followed. They gave the houses wary looks as they passed by, but nothing ever came of it and it and the houses soon passed from view.
As they moved east, they moved away from downtown Portland, and into more open country. By late morning they had passed through the tiny town of Damascus,[6] whose biggest offerings were a Safeway on one side of the road and a Bi-Mart on the other side.[7] She did not stop. She offered no reason, but neither did her followers ask for one.
As they walked, the man and the boy carried on a conversation. The man did most of the talking. She ignored it. She did not enjoy pointless talk.
In the afternoon, having left Damascus a few miles behind them, the highway passed by farm fields, nurseries, and the occasional cluster of two or three houses. At one point, marked by nothing different than any other, she stopped, setting down her pack and taking a drink from her canteen.
The others, who had been following a few paces behind her as they chatted and walked, approached, looking curious.
“What’s up?” asked the man. “Did we arrive?” He smiled, indicating that he was making a joke.
She looked to the teenage boy. “Mule. Turn around.” He frowned in perplexity for a moment, whether at the command or at his new name she was not sure, but then complied.
“Heh, Mule.” The man’s laughing eyes looked at the younger man. “Can I call you Ass?”
Embarrassed again, the Mule simply looked to the ground.
She reached up to unlace the top of his pack (his meek manner kept making her forget how much taller he was than her) and pulled out six cans at random. Unsurprisingly, none of them were green beans.
“Ah, lunchtime,” said the man, catching on. “Good thing, too.”
She squatted down, digging into her own pack for the can opener she had found a few weeks ago. Finding it, she opened all the cans and set them out on the pavement. The dog had trotted over, sensing food, and she let it investigate the cans. It sniffed at each one, and even gave an experimental lick to a can of peas, but didn’t seem to want any of them. She wondered if dogs ate vegetables at all, and figured it probably would if it got hungry enough.
She then doled out two cans to each of the others. There was some grumbling from the man when he got the peas that the dog had licked at, but it didn’t last. They were all hungry, and anyone who had survived the weeks since the Fall had lea
rned to eat what they found. She ended up eating a can of kidney beans and a can of mixed fruit. The fruit was sweet and syrupy, normally a thing she would have turned her nose up at, but she knew she needed the calories and she pushed it all down her throat.
Stopping for lunch seemed to be the cue for the man to try and get her talking again. It seemed talking was an obsession for him.
“So, where to?”
She simply pointed in the direction they had been walking.
He sighed. “I know we’re headed that way, but what’s the long-term goal? What’s the plan?”
She didn’t feel like sharing her vague theories though, so she simply said.
“Like she told the Mule, earlier. There is no plan and you will both likely die.”
That shut him up for a few moments, at least. She enjoyed finishing off her last can in silence.
Finished eating, she stood, shouldered her pack, and started off again. As before, they all followed. She still wasn’t sure why.
---
As evening fell, they were still walking on the same highway. It had been a peaceful, uneventful afternoon. It was probably the first uneventful afternoon she had experienced since the Fall, and it was making her jumpy. Perhaps this thought was why she decided to seek shelter for the night a little earlier than usual. That, and the coincidence that as soon as she decided to look for shelter the perfect location came into view around a bend in the road.
On the left side of the road, amongst the endless array of farm fields they had been passing, was a gravel drive that led past two greenhouses and a large, red barn. It then continued perhaps another hundred yards to a farmhouse. The farmhouse was unremarkable, like many others they had passed during the day. But it was the barn that peaked her interest. It was a barn out of a storybook: big, red, solidly built, and with a large set of double doors at the front big enough to drive a tractor through. It had no windows or other doors that she could see on the sides, and only one shuttered window over the large doors at the front. She presumed that led to a loft. With only the one set of doors at the front, and perhaps another door at the rear, there were limited ways that anything could get in and get at them during the night. And the loft with its windows (she was guessing there would be another window looking out the back) would provide a good view of the rolling fields that surrounded the barn.
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