by Justin Clay
“Mikael?” I say and I feel stupid for saying it. Of course his name is Mikael, but I didn’t know what else to say.
He nods as well. “Good that we got our names established.”
I smile, and so does he. I look down to his arms; the wounded one is as it has been since the attack, tucked underneath his other. “Your arm, does it still hurt?”
Mikael seems a bit despondent, and he shrugs. “Yeah, but it comes and goes…I think it’s getting worse; the wound needs more than what we have.”
“We’re headed to a city, so I’m sure we’ll get you what you need.”
“I hope so,” he says quietly. I look away, genuinely sad for him. If the amputation doesn’t get the right amount of medication, he could very well die, but I think it better not to bring up that possibility up.
“Crazy thing is,” he goes on, as I’m staring into the fire, thinking of other times, “I can still feel my hand…being there, like I can move it but of course nothing happens…It’s like there’s a ghost left behind.”
“That’s interesting,” I say, and turn to face him again. He looks down at ground beneath him, and I look away. My eyes are becoming heavy; sleepiness is settling.
Some time has passed before Mikael speaks again.
“Rian.”
“Yeah, Mikael?”
“What was your life like…You know before all of this?”
“So much better,” I say, and we both laugh quietly. We’re both becoming weary; the laughter is proving it. No one laughs anymore.
“But what was it like? Where did you live?”
So I tell him about our quaint yellow two-story house nestled in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Atlanta. Life for me was a breeze compared to now. Our parents were both doctors: my mother, a pediatrician, my father a cardiac surgeon. We didn’t have to worry about money or when or what our next meal would be. Our lives were simple and filled with luxuries that are only memories now: Private schools, playing soccer and taking archery lessons; afternoon snacks, going to water parks in the summer, long car rides in the Mercedes. Expensive Christmas gifts. A library full of wonderful books. Sunny and blue Saturdays spent out on the fluorescent green lawn reading until I fell asleep, the cool Georgia breeze drifting through my hair.
Deciding what I wanted to get at the supermarket when we went grocery shopping, what T.V. show to watch, completing homework, and a whole bunch of other petty things filled our times, like the rest of America.
But now things are completely different. Everything has changed, and there is no more room for petty things.
Perhaps, some things are better because of it. I know that sounds like blasphemy. But you have to look for the specks of good left, right? Like my better grip on reality, or the lack thereof now with so much craziness happening. But there is so much that isn’t. It’s finding the small nuggets of good stuff that’s the difficult part. But I guess they’re still there, buried deeply beneath us. With a lot of other things.
“Sounds like you had a nice life,” he tells me after a moment of quiet.
I shrug. “Something like that…But what about you?”
He smirks. “Nothing like yours, really…Well, it wasn’t as if our family was poor…Our dad had been a building contractor, our mom a real estate agent…Since…It happened, they’ve both really changed.”
I frown. “Yeah, I think that’s happened to everyone a little bit.”
“They didn’t change for the worse really,” he goes on, whispering now. “Just different; they’re just seem like different people now…They still love us, of course, and would do anything for me or my sister, I know but now…There’s a tenseness…I’m not sure how to describe it…Watching my dad kill people who are Infected…It really terrifies me…I — I haven’t be able to kill like that…To be honest, I don’t think I have it in me…”
It takes a great deal to admit something like what he just said. Not many would. “I know what you mean,” I tell him. “At first, I was the same way…I couldn’t…But things got worse and I was forced to…To protect my sister I had to — I had no other choice…She’s all the family I have left…I can’t lose her.” Tears are already coming to my eyes.
“You’re really brave then.”
I thumb my tears away and shake my head with a snort. “I just do what I have to.”
“So you’re not related then to Eli or…”
“Lena?” I finish for him and Mikael nods. I shake my head. “No, I’m not…June and I have only been with for a little while.”
“How did you meet them?”
“They saved us…We had become surrounded by Infected, my sister and I and — I thought everything was over at that point…But…we’re still here because of them.”
“Wow,” he says, a bit stunned. I, too, was a bit stunned at that time, to say the least. “So, something I don’t get is that you say you’re from Georgia and yet you’ve ended all the way out here — well, I know we did too…But were you with anyone else?”
“No,” I tell. “It was just my sister and I for a long time; there was a guy that gave us a ride to Colorado but other than that, no…We had been with people before, but mostly it’s just been us.”
His eyes widen, astonished. “That’s incredible…I don’t know how you did it.”
“Me either, sometimes,” I say. “I think it’s mostly luck though…We’ve been extremely and unrealistically lucky, a lot…Actually…When I think about how many times June and I have cheated death…I always come back to the idea that maybe we’re meant to be here after all…Maybe our purpose here isn’t finished yet.”
Mikael smiles warmly. “Rian, I think you’re right.”
8
HAUNTING SECRETS
FOUR DAYS HAVE PAST passed since the night Mikael and I talked. We are leaving the Rockies for less undulating, rocky lands. Lands that are so vast, so sweeping in sheer existence, they just seem to swallow you completely. We try to stay in the cover of the forested hills and avoid the plains as much as possible. It is true that the ever-existing horizon allows for the optical illusion of seeing for miles and miles with no visible end, but it’s too much exposure. Especially travelling with this many people. The risk is too high.
We’re approaching a city that will hopefully still have what supplies we so desperately need. We were able to find a few picked-over emergency medical packs in a run-down pharmacy back in an abandoned town we departed from a couple days ago. It sustained Mikael for awhile a while, but he needs more. That much is clearly evident in his loping, pained movements and his drawn up, squinting expression. He’s losing color, and fast. It’s scary. Everyone is noticing it.
But no one has uttered a single word about it. No doubt he is afraid, and talking about it might just make things worse rather than better. Eli says we’ll reach Rocky Springs tomorrow by noon at least. It’s supposed to be one of the few remaining quarantine zones left in Wyoming. So many have been overrun by mindless Infected or rebellious civilians and, since then, forsaken. They have to still be there. And they’ll have to have medication for Mikael. And food for June. We’re running low, and the wildlife in these parts have seemed seem to have moved on elsewhere. The quietness is strange, cold, unsettling more than it should be. June’s face is becoming gaunt and I blame myself. I know that’s silly, but I do. I’m responsible for her no matter what.
“You really love her,” Lena says to me that night in the temporary camp we have made. There will be no fire tonight; it’s too dangerous with how sparse the trees are here. But the moonlight flooding through the branches above makes up for it. The light is ethereal, and glints along my sister’s long blonde hair. Her head is cradled in my lap, and her body is curled up around my legs. I’m stroking her hair softly, and in this way she falls fast asleep. She would ask me to do this and sing softly the song our mother used to sing to us to help us sleep whenever June was restless. Something has been bothering her, but she hasn’t told me what.
She wi
ll. I give her time and she always does.
Lena is sitting across me, her back against a tree; she is looking at me in a way she hasn’t ever looked at me before. Her face is emotionally broken — well, not so much her face. It’s her eyes. There’s a deeply welled emotion there, that’s suddenly escaping. Is she crying? I can’t tell. She’s silent about it if she is.
I nod. “She’s all I have. She is everything to me.”
“It’s good you still have that, Rian,” she tells me softly. What’s she hinting at? “I’m glad you’re cherishing her as you should.”
My brow furrows. “Lena, can I ask you something?”
Most of everyone is asleep, in repose on the ground — even Eli, oddly enough — either snoring or lost in their own worlds far away from this one…So I feel safe in talking about as something as intimate as this.
“Did you ever have children?”
Lena is quiet for a long time. Such a long time, I’m afraid she won’t answer, but she does. “Yes,” she whispers, looking away. “I did once…But only one child…Her name was Lilly…There hasn’t been a day that I don’t think of her...”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I try to forget,” Lena tells me, and I regret even asking. “But tell you what…I will talk about her…I rarely do, but when I do, I can feel her spirit with me…So, I will tell you what happened, but you will have to tell me yours.”
“My past?”
Lena inclines her head. “Yes.”
“I think that’s fair.”
Lena hasn’t known Eli all of her life. In fact, he’s only been present for the last ten years of it. They met by tragic circumstances. Lena had moved to a new quarantine zone near Phoenix, Arizona with her five-year-old daughter, Lilly. Her husband had been killed in one of the bombing raids to wipe out Infected. In the wrong place, at the wrong time. She doesn’t tell me his name. She’s in her early twenties by this point. Her daughter is nine years old like June is now.
The quarantine zone grows increasingly hostile. She had become friends with those who ran the black market, and was able to be smuggled out of the zone with her daughter. During their escape at one point, she is separated from Lilly; she doesn’t say how or why. In fact, Lena doesn’t go into much detail at all about it; she can barely even find words to express what happened. I could feel the tears sting my eyes just then, and I clench my hands into fists, thinking about how horrible that must have been.
They were spotted and ambushed. That’s all she lets me know, which I suppose is enough, giving the circumstances. Her daughter was lost to her that night. The last time she saw her was with her friend, Derik, who had been helping them escape while they were crossing into the underground sewer, which would have led them to safety if they weren’t attacked by Infected. They take Lena, who was left behind, into custody, and she is interrogated on the ride back; the rest of her party is shot in the head; she for some reason is kept alive, for questioning, she guesses and for the fact she looked good enough for them to be alive. By their perverted comments.
That part alone makes me sick.
As they transported her back to the city, a herd of Infected overwhelms them. Lena managed to escape. She headed for the sewers and found Lilly’s red ribbon floating in a pool of water. She continued her journey to find Derik and Lilly, but she never did find them.
Lena skips to the part where she meets Eli. She laughs. It’s a laugh full of tears as she wipes them away. She met Eli the same way we met him. During an onslaught. He too saved her from being eaten alive. (I have to give it to the man; he has impeccable timing. Or else we’re extremely lucky.) She traveled with Eli on the road all the way to New Mexico, and they lived there until they are forced to move on. The man didn’t speak much, didn’t even tell her where he was going. Just that he was. Just that he had to finish something.
I ask her what that something is, and she tells me that he still hasn’t told her, but she has faith in him. I give her a hesitant look. Something about her answer doesn’t seem truthful, but I ignore my doubts for the time being.
“And here we are,” Lena says quietly, offering a weak smile.
“Do you think Lilly is still alive?” I ask her, and I immediately regret the decision.
Lena doesn’t seem bothered though; she doesn’t seem phased at all, really. I probably am not the first to ask her that very question. “I want to believe that she is,” she says. “But with the ways things are now…Nothing is certain anymore…She would be nearly twenty now…I used to tell myself, yes, she is alive, and we will find each other…But life doesn’t always work out like you would want.”
Clearly, I think.
I sigh. “I guess it’s my turn, now, huh,” I say, and I bite my lip. “Well…Where do I start…well, my sister and I…Our journey has been a very long one…Sometimes…Most times, I just am at a loss to how we have made this far without being killed or bitten…But our journey has been moving from one group of people to the next, becoming attached, loving and losing those you loved…It seems to be an endless cycle…
“My sister and I were from the suburbs of Atlanta,” I tell her, recalling those warm, sunny days lying out on the grass in the front yard, reading a good book about faraway places. A much happier ending. “My family, my sister, my dad, my mom, and myself. We managed to make it to a refugee camp with many others five or four years ago; it’s hard to remember…I think it was five.
“Anyway, we stayed there for a good while, long enough for me to believe that would be the place we would settle down in, make friends, and call it home…Although, I knew it could never be just that…not really, but as close as you could be, I guess. We were clothed, properly fed with rations, of course, and we were healthy for a time…Until hundreds of Infected attacked as a herd…
“Overwhelmed everything,” I go on, “…My parents…My parents died that night...June and I managed to make it out on a bus with some others to another outcamp. Some of them were my parents’ friends…But peace didn’t last there either…That outcamp was attacked by hordes of Scavengers…Many of my friends died…But again, we somehow managed to escape…We took to the mountains, the Blue Ridge…And after that made it to Alabama, where we met a man and woman, brother and sister...We traveled with them until we reached a camp in Arkansas…
“Like before, that camp is overrun by Frothers; there’s just too many of them…They’re everywhere…We travel with the same man we met in Alabama to Missouri, hoping to join relatives of his, but the camp they were supposed to within had been deserted…My sister and I eventually ended up alone, and traveled to Kansas where I really thought we were going to die…I didn’t have it in me to go any further…The exhaustion, lack of food and sleep was becoming too much. I ended up passing out, and when I woke up, my sister and I were traveling in the back of a pick-up truck driven by a farmer named Phil. He apparently had come along just when I fainted. He was headed to Colorado; at this point I was dead-set on finding the Carriers. It was our last hope…
“He dropped us off in a town…I don’t remember which one,” I go on, and Lena seems very attentive, her eyes gleaming in the dark. “And we made it to Boulder, where we happened to meet up with you two…That’s all it’s ever been…Lucky happenstance…Somehow being in the right place at the right time.
“I still don’t know how to really…truly explain it,” I conclude, sighing.
Lena swallows, and says quietly, “You don’t have to Rian…We understand. It’s truly the lucky ones that continue to survive…Even strong people in the wrong place at the wrong time can barely escape such fates, if at all.”
“We’re still here,” I say, not sure if it’s to Lena or to myself, or anyone for that matter. Maybe, I’m just saying it as a reminder. You have to, some times. “And we’re still living.”
9
A SURPRISING FIND
THE CITY OF CHEYENNE, or what is left of it, doesn’t exactly bode well. The faces of the buildings here, from s
maller wooden outlets to massive metal skyscrapers, are awfully worn, charred, and brutalized. Undeniable evidence of fire-bombing. The entire city seems to have been evacuated because of it. There is a strange silence in place of the usual chaotic sounds of city life. Before the bombing, Cheyenne had been one of the few remaining Safe Zones left in the country protected by the United States Armed Forces; the evidence in the distance is clear by the remaining tanks and transport vehicles which are all damaged beyond repair by the bombings. The last time I heard there were thirteen others on the Western side of the United States; thirteen other Safe Zones, but now with Cheyenne bombed, I wonder how many more are as well.
The cold wind whispers through the buildings’ cracks, producing an occasional moan telling us of its violent, unforgiving past, much like the rest of the States. The horizon beyond the town is broken by the mountainous upheaval of a plateau, looming hundreds of feet skyward, enshrouded in darkening clouds. The evening is swiftly approaching; we won’t have long to get what supplies we need, if indeed there are any left here, before we will have to venture back to safety and make camp once more.