by Amy Cross
Several minutes pass, and there's still no sign of the intruder. I want to believe that the panic is over, that maybe it just kept on going and didn't bother to come toward us, but deep down I know that's unlikely. Still, how long are we going to stand like this, waiting for it to make an appearance? If we keep this up for much longer, I swear to God, my heart's going to leap out of my chest. Besides, I can't shake the fear that there might be more and more of these things on their way.
"We should check the traps," Bridger calls out eventually.
"You think that's what happened to it?" Thor asks.
"Not yet," Patricia says firmly. "It might still be coming."
"It'd be here by now," Thor replies.
"Just wait a little longer!" Patricia insists. "We can't risk that thing coming up from behind and surprising us."
For a few more minutes, we maintain our positions. I've got my rifle aimed at the trees, with my finger on the trigger in case I spot anything. By this point, my mind is starting to play tricks on me and I keep thinking the shadows are twitching; telling myself to stay calm and not act like a panicky little idiot, I move my finger away from the trigger. The others seem so calm and controlled, and I know I haven't won their respect yet.
"Elizabeth!" Patricia calls out. "Anything?"
"Nothing on this side," I reply.
"Fuck," she mutters. "Where the hell is it?"
"It's out there somewhere," Bridger says firmly. "I know what I saw. It was as clear as hell. You know the way they walk, like they've got a slight limp? I saw the damn thing. I should've just gone after it myself instead of coming to get the rest of you. I should've maintained a visual fucking lock on it."
"You did the right thing," Patricia tells him.
"You think? Now we don't know where the damn thing is, but do you really think it just glanced in this direction, saw us, and decided not to pop in and say hi?" He pauses. "It's watching us. It must be planning something. Jesus Christ, maybe these things are smarter than we realized."
"I'm going to check the traps," Patricia calls out. "Everyone stay in position. I'll see if it maybe stumbled into one of the pits that Toad dug."
For the next few minutes, we remain in position while Patricia goes into the forest, looking for any sign that the creature might have been disabled. Every second seems to last for an eternity while we wait for her to come back, and I'm convinced that at any moment we might hear a gunshot or, worse, a scream. I want to call out to her, to ask if she's found anything yet, but again, I don't want to seem like the scared, naive member of the group. Forcing myself to stay calm, I keep my eyes focused on the forest. I've met these creatures before, and I know they're smart. If this thing hasn't shown itself yet, it's because it knows there's no point getting itself blown to pieces. I think Bridger's right: I think it's smart enough to be planning something, and it -
Suddenly there's a gunshot in the distance, ringing out through the forest.
"What the hell happened?" Bridger calls out.
"Patricia?" Thor shouts.
Silence.
"Stay where you are!" Bridger shouts. "Nobody move! We have to -"
"Stand down!" Patricia calls out suddenly. "It's over!"
"What do you mean?" Bridger asks as we all make our way around to the front of the farmhouse, just in time to see her walking out of the forest with her rifle slung over her shoulder.
"I found it," she says as she reaches us. "It was hiding behind a tree, watching me. When I saw it, it turned to run and I blew its goddamn head off. I tossed the corpse into one of the traps and left it to rot."
"Jesus," Bridger says, turning to Thor. "I told you."
"Are we sure there was only one?" Thor replies.
"Only one that I saw," Bridger continues, "but I've got a couple of hours left on duty. The rest of you can get back to sleep. I want to have a planning meeting later. Toad's defenses are good, but I'm not sure they're still adequate."
"I agree," Patricia says. "The sentry system's too unreliable. No-one can be expected to keep a proper eye on the whole place. We need something better."
"You think His Lordship's gonna listen to reason?" Thor asks. "Toad's not exactly the cooperative type. It's his farm, remember."
"He'll listen to reason," Patricia says.
"It's not like he can stop us," Bridger adds. "The guy can't even get out of bed right now. We're effectively a man down."
"I think I'll stay up with you," Patricia replies. "Just in case. We might need to start doubling up on the sentry duty from now on. There's no reason to assume that they can't show up in pairs, or from different directions. We need to assume that they're smart. They're definitely not dumb animals blundering toward us. They're capable of planning, and they can be stealthy. It's more than possible that one of them could come up with a plan and try to sneak through the door. I'd rather be over-prepared than get caught out."
Turning and heading to the house, Thor mutters something that the rest of us don't hear. Bridger walks back up onto the porch and rests his rifle against the wall, while Patricia stays next to me, clearly on the alert.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Of course," she replies, a little defensively. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"That was quick out there," I continue, starting to wonder if she's being entirely honest. "You were only gone a couple of minutes, but you managed to find the creature, kill it and get rid of its body."
"I was lucky," she replies. "Even in this crapped-up world, we get a little luck now and again."
I smile politely, even though I'm not entirely sure that I can believe her.
"Get some rest," she continues. "You're on sentry duty later. Believe me, most of the time it's dull, soul-sapping work."
"I'm hungry," I reply. "You want me to make something for you while I'm getting breakfast?"
"I'll eat later," she says. "Right now, I think I might go and double-check that all the traps are still in place. We're going to need to set some more soon. We need a whole perimeter warning system in place." With that, she turns and wanders around to the other side of the house.
Although there's a part of me that wants to go with her, I figure I need to forget about my suspicions and focus on getting something to eat. The important thing is that the creature didn't get to the house, and although Patricia's encounter seems to have been conveniently clinical and neat, I guess I just have to accept that she was lucky. After all, she's got no reason to lie.
Elizabeth
Pennsylvania
"What the hell was that racket?" Eriksen asks as he stumbles into the kitchen. "Was someone firing a fucking gun or something?"
"There was a creature," I reply, cutting a slice from the loaf that Bridger made last night. "We had to deal with it."
"What kind of creature?" he asks.
Sighing, I realize that the guy is completely clueless.
"Oh, right," he mutters. "Fuck, why do I always miss the fun stuff?"
"It wasn't exactly fun," I reply. "Patricia found it and killed it."
"My fucking head is ringing," he mutters, grabbing the rest of the loaf and taking a big bite. "Isn't there any fucking jam?" he asks as he chews, dropping chunks of bread onto the floor.
"Careful!" I say, taking the loaf away from him. "You're wasting half of it!"
"Who made you mother?" he asks with a smile, before smiling. "Fuck it, look at us, arguing over jam. It's pathetic, isn't it?"
Ignoring him, I put the loaf back on the counter. It's crazy, but two weeks ago I was exactly like him: I just assumed that all the food and water was gonna keep on coming, and I never worried about wasting stuff. Now, I'm the complete opposite, and I've come to realize that if we don't keep an eye on our supplies, we could end up starving to death.
"Sure," he mutters, scratching the back of his neck. "Gotta preserve food and all that." He wanders over to the pitcher of water and takes a swig, although I can't help but notice that crumbs of bread from his mouth end up floating in the wa
ter. Eriksen clearly isn't very good at sharing. "I need a favor," he says after a moment. "I drank a little too much of Toad's home-brew last night, so if anyone asks, can you say you had some too? Just so I don't look like a fucking alcoholic."
"You're getting bread in the water," I say, watching as he takes another swig.
"Huh?" He looks into the pitcher for a moment. "Shit. Sorry. Don't tell anyone."
"How's Shauna?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure he's too drunk to give a damn about his heavily pregnant girlfriend.
"She's cool," he replies. "Probably. I mean, all she has to do is stay in bed and wait. It's not like she's got the hardest fucking job in the world. A little waiting, a little pushing, and then pop! Out comes a whole new generation of the Eriksen family." He laughs. "Nah, I'm sure there's a bit more to it. But still, she's cool."
I take a bite of the thin slice of bread I cut off a moment ago. I feel as if, while everyone else is being careful with food and water, Eriksen takes what he wants and expects the rest of us to work around him. I hate feeling like some kind of sanctimonious know-it-all, but Eriksen's really starting to bug me. He's usually too drunk to help out around the place, and he doesn't seem to respect anyone. If I was Shauna, I'm not sure I'd want such a complete asshole to be the father of my child.
"So you're good on the whole beer thing, right?" he continues. "I don't want to get a bad reputation, and Toad can be a little highly-strung from time to time."
"I don't want to get a bad reputation either," I tell him. "Anyway, I think you might have missed that boat."
"But we've gotta work together," he adds. "I mean, these people, they're pretty tight. You came with us, so you're not really one of them, are you? We've gotta think as a team. You, me and Shauna. I told you we weren't gonna stay here forever, and I meant it. Onwards and upwards, so to speak."
I smile politely, even though I'm starting to reconsider my decision to leave with them.
"So we're thinking of moving out tomorrow," he says after a moment. "Me and Shauna, anyway. Or the day after. Not sure, really, but soon. Gotta keep thinking and moving, yeah? Ducking and diving and all that jazz. Like a shark. If a shark stops swimming, it dies. It's the same with us. I mean, this place is cool, but it's just fucking stasis, isn't it? Toad did a good job, but as preppers go, I don't think he's quite up there with the best."
"Where are you going to go?" I ask cautiously.
"West," he continues with a sniff. "Just west. Gotta be something out there, right? Sure beats sitting around here, waiting for a bunch of fucking zombies to come and pick us off." He pauses. "It's an American tradition, isn't it? When the shit hits the fan, you head west and keep going until you find a patch of dirt you can call your own. I've always fancied the cowboy lifestyle. Just a man out there in the wilderness with his wife and kids, living off the land. I think I'd be good at that kinda thing. I could even put up a little fence to keep the land neat."
"Sounds like a fantasy," I reply, convinced that this Eriksen guy wouldn't last five minutes in the wild. Seriously, the guy might fancy himself as a cowboy, but there's no way he'd make it. He'd probably end up starving to death, his bones picked clean by vultures and left to get bleached by the sun.
"The thing is..." He pauses, and it's clear that he's eying me up with suspicion. "The thing is," he continues after a moment, "I've gotta wonder how much I can trust you, and how much you wanna come with us. 'Cause we're not into dead weight, if you know what I mean. If you wanna come in our van, you need to be able to offer something. Like, everyone's got a unique selling point about themselves, right? One person's good at gathering food, another person's good at building, someone else is good at popping out babies." He pauses, and it's clear that he's got something in mind. "What about you, Miss Elizabeth? You must have a unique selling point. Something you're really, really good at."
"Like what?" I ask, starting to worry about his intentions.
"Maybe you should try to think of something," he continues. "You know, Shauna's due soon. She'll be popping that kid in a month or so, but until then, she's not much good for anything. It might be that you could take her place, in a way, and do the things she did before she got too fat. In fact..." He pauses again. "The van can take three people. It really can. Two would be ideal, though. Well, two and a baby. Gotta have a baby. That's the future, isn't it?" He grins nervously. "What I'm saying is that, when I drive outta this place in a few days' time, the person sitting next to me in the van... It doesn't have to be Shauna."
I stare at him for a moment, barely able to believe what he's saying. "She's carrying your child," I point out.
"You think that child's got much of a chance?"
"You have to try."
"And put it through misery before it inevitably dies? What kind of life could a kid have, anyway? Maybe it'd be fairer, and kinder, to not drag a new person into the world. I mean, what am I gonna say to the damn kid, even if it gets older? I can't tell it that the world's a decent place. It's just gonna be zombie-fodder. That's no life. I mean, it's just torture."
"Things are going to get better," I tell him. "By the time your child grows up -"
"What?" he asks, interrupting me. "You think the old world is gonna rise again, like some kind of phoenix? You think someone's gonna fix it? There's no-one who can fix this mess. It's gone way beyond fixing." He pauses. "We've gotta make do. All of us. We've gotta accept the situation and focus on ourselves. It's every man for himself right now. Things have fallen apart, and the best thing to do is to just grab a scrap and hope it's enough. The most any of us can hope for, and I really mean the absolute most, is that we can fucking struggle through until we reach the natural end of our lifespan. That's it. There's nothing better on the horizon. The future's just been taken away from us."
"One day, things will start going back to normal," I reply, even though I'm not sure I believe the words as they leave my mouth. "Everything has to get better eventually."
"No," he says calmly, "it doesn't. It really doesn't. What are you, a fucking Christian?"
"You can't give up hope," I reply, "and you can't abandon your child. You have to keep going and you have to assume that some day, something's going to start putting things right."
"Were you always so moral?" he asks. "Or did you become so fucking upright and responsible in the past few days? What were you like before disaster hit, huh? Just another fucking stupid New York brat?"
"I guess things have changed," I reply, not wanting to admit that he's right. It's hard to believe how much I've changed in just a few days. I barely even recognize myself.
"You seem like you're better cut out for that kind of life," he continues. "Shauna, she's not really very adaptable. I think she'd be miserable out there. Of course, the poor bitch loves me. I mean, she really loves me, and I love her too, but sometimes when you love someone, you have to set them free. So I was thinking of maybe making the decision for her and leaving her here. She'd have a better life anyway, and you and I could head out west and find somewhere to start afresh." He steps closer, and it's clear that he thinks he's offering a pretty good deal. "What do you say, Miss Elizabeth?" he continues, lowering his voice. "You look like you've got good hips for birthing, after all."
"You want to abandon your girlfriend and child?" I ask. "Seriously?"
"I don't want to," he says quietly. "I just think it'd be better for them, that's all. It makes sense. Something that was convenient and right in the old world suddenly doesn't make much sense anymore, does it?"
I open my mouth to reply to him, but the truth is, I'm disgusted.
"We have to adapt to the ever-changing world around us," he continues. "We have to recognize that all the stuff we used to do in the old days isn't necessarily relevant anymore."
"It's not like that," I say, even though I know that he might be right.
"Come on," he says, putting his hands on my waist.
"Get the fuck off me," I reply, pushing him away. Damn it, first Thor, now Er
iksen. Are the men in this place completely sex-obsessed?
"Think about it," he continues with a leery grin. "Just take some time and think about it. Don't take too long, though. We haven't exactly got the luxury of time, not with a load of fucking zombies heading this way."
"I don't need to think about it," I say, trying to stay calm. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Forget it. Go fuck yourself. Even better, why don't you go and see if Shauna needs you?"
"Is that any way to talk to a guy who saved your life?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"When the hell did you save my life?" I ask.
"Back on the road," he continues. "When you were wandering along with that brain-dead little bitch." He pauses. "What, do you think you'd have managed to walk to wherever you were going? If we hadn't picked you up, you'd be dead by now. Look at you. You ain't got the means to take care of yourself. Let me tell you what would've happened. After a few days, you'd have run out of food and water, and your shoes'd be wearing thin. Pretty soon, you'd have been walking on bloody stumps, and you'd be wasting away. Right now, without me, you'd be rotting on some highway." He steps closer. "That's a fact, Miss Elizabeth, and I think you should consider the debt you owe to me. You'd be being picked apart by rats right now if we hadn't given you a ride."
Staring back at him, I realize that he might be right about one thing: I probably would be dead if he and Shauna hadn't picked me up. I was hopelessly naive when I set out from New York. It's crazy to think that in just a few days, I've learned so much about the world. I honestly don't think that I'm the same person. The old Elizabeth Marter, the girl who spent her days hanging out with friends and chatting to people online, is dead and buried. Just like Henry.