by Amy Cross
"But you don't know that Mallory is dangerous," I point out. "You don't know that she was here to get information about us. She might just be on her own. She might actually have been someone who could have helped us".
"I highly doubt that," he replies, heading to the door. "Get some sleep. In the morning, we'll all talk about this, and we'll work out what to do next". With that, he heads out into the corridor, leaving me standing alone in the hallway, trying not to panic. The thought of leaving the building and finding somewhere else to live is terrifying, but the thought of staying with Bob might actually be worse.
THOMAS
Oklahoma
Sitting by the side of the road, watching as the sun slowly starts to light the morning sky behind a distant row of trees, I realize I can hear movement in the truck behind me. I guess my brother Joe is waking up from his long, hungover sleep. We've driven all night along the lonely roads that lead to Scottsville, and Joe slept the whole way. I was kinda hoping he wouldn't wake up for a few more hours, but I can hear the door of the truck opening, and now there are footsteps heading slowly toward me over the damp grass.
"What are we doing here?" he asks, sounding groggy.
"Just taking a break," I say.
"Why?"
"Because I've been driving almost twelve hours without stopping".
"Yeah, well..." He wanders over to a nearby tree and starts taking a leak. "I can take over from here, if you like".
"Are you sober?" I ask.
"Sober as a rock," he replies, zipping up and coming back over to me. "Might as well make use of me while you can". He pauses for a moment, apparently waiting to see if I might laugh. "It's a joke, kid. Come on, lighten up".
Taking a deep breath, I continue to just stare at the horizon. I can't stop thinking about the house we left behind, and whether or not it's still burning. All those familiar rooms, with flames ripping through all our possessions, while our mother's dead body was sitting at the kitchen table. For some reason, I keep fixating on her head, and imagining her hair burning away as the flames consumed her body. There's also the fact that I think I saw someone standing in the flames as we drove away. I want to believe I just imagined the whole thing, but there's a part of me that thinks there's maybe a connection between the figure and the dead cop.
"Seen anyone else on the road?" he asks.
I shake my head.
"Figured. Seen any sign of life at all? Planes, helicopters?"
Again, I shake my head.
"Fuck," he mutters. "They're really leaving us alone to get on with things, aren't they?"
"It doesn't look good," I reply. There's an awkward pause. "Mom said -"
"Let's not talk about Mom," Joe replies, with a firmness in his voice that makes me realize he's determined to block out all mention of what happened yesterday. "We got enough gas?"
"Yes," I say through gritted teeth. "I took care of that. I also made sure we have enough food and water to last a week. We're pretty well stocked up".
He nods. "Good job, boy. I guess I can rely on you after all".
"It's not as if I could leave it to you," I point out.
"So how much longer do you think it's gonna be before we get to Scottsville?" he asks. Typical Joe, always evading the difficult part of the conversation.
"You think we can just get up and get on with things?" I ask, finding it hard to believe how easily he's able to act like nothing's wrong.
"You know," he continues, "there's a good chance we're gonna find help when we get to Scottsville. There's gonna be people there. Scottsville's not big, but it's bigger than our farm, so there's probably some kind of rescue operation going on and there'll be people there. Like, from the government. There'll be information. This isn't the end of the world".
"You don't know that for sure," I say.
"Then there's only one way to find out," he replies, getting to his feet. "Seriously, I can drive for a bit. You need to get some rest". He pats my shoulder. I guess this is his way of being nice.
ELIZABETH
Manhattan
"It was you," Henry says, standing in the doorway.
Rolling over in bed, I see that he's staring at me with a dark, pained expression. The first rays of sunlight are starting to come through the window, and a constant breeze is blowing through the apartment thanks to the broken window in the front room.
"What was me?" I ask, my heart racing. I know exactly what he's talking about, but I have to maintain a facade of innocence.
"I know I locked the doors," he continues, "and I know I locked the windows. I know for a fact that I didn't fuck up, so there's only one way they could have been opened. Someone did it on purpose. Someone helped her. Someone betrayed the rest of us. You must have got the key somehow and helped the girl to escape".
I stare at him. I want to tell him the truth, to tell him that we need to stick together and avoid the excesses of Bob's paranoia, but there's something about Henry that worries me. Over the past few days, he's been drawn closer and closer to Bob, and now he seems to be increasingly unstable. It's a hard thing to admit to myself, but I really don't trust my brother anymore.
"Don't even bother to lie," he says. "I've spent the whole night trying to work it out, and there's no other explanation that comes close to making as much sense. I know what you're like, Elizabeth. You care about people. You don't understand the hard choices that have to be made, and you've got this bleeding heart desire to help everyone". He stares at me, with a look on his face that makes it clear that he finds me to be pitiful. "You probably saw her and felt sorry for her. You probably untied the ropes and helped her out the back door. You probably even gave her some of our food, and some of our water".
"No," I say, even though he's pretty much spot-on. That's exactly what I did.
"So if I go down to our supplies and check," he continues, "I won't find anything missing?"
I pause, trying to work out what to say next. I can't admit the truth to him; he'd go to Bob.
"Or are we supposed to believe that she found the supplies herself?" he asks. "Is that what you thought at the time? You thought you could string together a bunch of unlikely events, and somehow Bob and I would believe them? I guess you must think we're pretty dumb".
"I didn't do anything like that," I say. I feel bad for lying, but I have no choice.
"Whatever".
"It's true!" I insist.
"Liar".
Taking a deep breath, I clear a space on the end of the bed for him. "Come and sit down," I say, figuring it's time I laid my cards on the table for him. There's been so much happening, it's difficult to know who I can trust. At the same time, I figure maybe I should go out on a limb and offer Henry a chance to make the right decision.
"I'm okay over here," he says firmly.
"Do you remember what it was like before all of this happened?" I ask, trying to appeal to the old, pre-Bob version of Henry. "One week ago. Do you remember how things were? You were probably sitting around playing video games -"
"Bullshit," he replies. "I didn't just sit around playing video games. I did so much more other stuff, but you didn't notice. I'm not saying it's your fault, but don't stereotype me as some kind of video game junkie, okay?"
"Okay," I say, taken aback by the level of resentment in his voice. "But life was different back then, wasn't it? We didn't worry about things like our food supply or the danger from people attacking our buildings. We didn't argue about girls tied up in the basement. We didn't have to think about people we found in abandoned cars, and you definitely didn't have to use a rifle to kill them". I pause for a moment. "Are you okay about that, Henry? I mean, you shot that guy -"
"He wasn't a guy," he snaps back at me. "He was a monster".
"He was still a guy," I reply, "and -"
"No!" Henry says firmly, almost shouting. "He wasn't a guy! Not in any way! He was a thing, just like a fucking animal or something!" He takes a deep breath. "What I shot wasn't a guy, so stop saying t
hat".
"Okay," I reply, realizing that this is a difficult subject for him. "But the point is, Henry, everything has changed in such a short period of time. You've gone from not knowing Bob to being his best friend in, what, four days? Do you really think he's the best person for us to be with right now? There's something about him that makes me worry, Henry. It's as if he's going deeper and deeper into insanity, and he's gonna drag us there with him. We need to break away from all of this, maybe find some other way to get through things. It's like Bob's going crazier every day".
"He's done a lot for us," Henry replies. "Without Bob, we might not even be here right now. He made us address the seriousness of our situation and take actions to keep our supplies safe".
"That's not entirely true," I point out. "It's not like he's saved our lives".
"Without Bob, we'd just be sitting targets," he insists. "We'd be sitting here defenseless and helpless, just waiting for someone to come along and take all our food. Without Bob, would we have gone out there and taken supplies from local shops, or would we be sitting on a little pile of stuff that's getting smaller and smaller?"
"But it's changing us," I reply.
"That's a good thing," he says. "Bob's making us grow up. He gave us guns, so we can defend ourselves, and he made it so we can recognize the dangers around us. He changed everything, and we have to stick with him. I know he can be kind of tough at times, but that's what the world's like right now. Bob organizes things and he makes sure we don't just become a pair of kids sitting around in an empty building. We might be dead by now without Bob. You know that, right? He might have saved our lives".
"Do you really believe that?" I ask.
"Yes," he says firmly, "and there's something else I believe. I believe you untied that girl and helped her get out of here. I believe you decided you know better than Bob, and you thought he was being too harsh with her".
"He was torturing her!" I reply, exasperated by the way Henry seems determined to defend Bob at every opportunity.
"He was questioning her," he says, "and he was getting somewhere. He had a plan, but you went and decided you knew better. So now she's out there, and now Bob doesn't trust us, and now you have to accept that if something bad happens, Elizabeth, it's your fault. You don't know that the girl isn't off telling her friends about us right now, and then they'll get all their weapons together and they'll come down here, and they'll kill us, and then they'll take all our stuff and that'll be the end of everything".
"You're paranoid," I say.
"No, you're naive!"
"The world isn't like that -" I start to say.
"It is now!" he shouts. "It's exactly like that, and the only person who knows how to deal with it is..." He pauses. "I get that you have your own ideas," he continues eventually, "but you can't go around interfering with things other people are doing. You can't go around undoing Bob's work. If you'd captured that girl, then maybe you could have been the one to decide what to do with her, but Bob captured her, so it was his choice. You basically stole her from him -"
"You can't steal a person," I reply, although I immediately realize that Bob seems to have 'stolen' Henry from me. I feel as if I can't win this argument without admitting that I helped Mallory to get away, but at the same time I don't feel as if I trust Henry enough to let him know the truth. Given that he probably feels the need to prove himself to his master right now, he'd probably go straight to Bob and tell him what happened. I hate the feeling of not being able to trust my own brother, especially now that he might be the only family I've got left.
"You still won't admit it, will you?" he continues. "You helped that girl to get away from us, but you won't admit it because you know, deep down, that you made a mistake. You know that you let your sympathy for her take over and force you to make a bad choice".
I shake my head.
"Face it," he says, turning to go back through to the rest of the apartment, "you couldn't leave Bob to make the decision. You had to jump in and assume you knew best. I just hope you know that if this all goes wrong... if it turns out that the girl comes back with some other people and we end up losing our supplies, I'm gonna blame you. I'm gonna blame you for everything. You're arrogant. You're self-absorbed. You'd make a really fucking bad solider, Elizabeth".
I sit on the bed and listen to him walking away. Did he really just tell me I'm a bad soldier? Did he just call me arrogant? Bob has clearly got right inside his head, filling him with ideas that make little sense. It's as if he's bought completely into Bob's view of the situation as being some kind of military operation. Taking a deep breath, I realize that I'm totally alone now, with no-one to talk to and no-one who can listen to what I have to say. Even worse, I think I've finally started to give up hope that my parents are ever coming back. For the past few days, I've had this constant belief that eventually they're going to walk back through the door, having made their way here from the airport. But now that belief is gone, and I realize it's just me and Henry. And Bob.
And Mallory. I need to go talk to Mallory.
THOMAS
Oklahoma
When I wake up, I realize the truck has stopped moving. Looking over at the driver's side, I see an empty seat, and I spot a familiar sight outside. I sit up and realize that we're back at the gas station where we first picked up Lydia a few days ago. For a moment, I wonder whether I'm dreaming, but then I remember that it's perfectly natural for us to come this route on our way into town. I guess I just don't like being reminded of what happened after we were here before.
"Joe!" I shout as I climb out of the truck. Walking over to Lydia's car, I see that it's exactly how she left it. There's even a small suitcase in the back seat. When we left the other day, the plan was for her to come back and get her stuff the next day, but she never made it. Within twenty-four hours, she was sick; within forty-eight hours, she was dead.
"In here!" Joe calls back from inside the building.
Taking a deep breath, I turn and look out across the valley. The whole world seems so still right now, as if a million distant noises have stopped. It's the kind of thing you don't normally notice; it's the background hum of the world, but suddenly it's gone and I'm left with this feeling of being completely alone. What if this is it? What if everyone else is dead, and all that's left is Joe and me?
"What are you doing?" I ask as I walk through the door of the gas station. The place is exactly how it was when we were here the other day, as if no-one's been here since. With no lights, it's gloomy and kind of creepy, and there's a pretty nasty smell coming from some of the rotting food that was left in various cabinets.
"There's still no gas," Joe says, as he wanders the aisles and drops various items into a shopping basket. "I just figured we should stock up. You never know what we'll be able to get in town".
"We've got food," I say. "What we need to do is get to Scottsville".
"I'll only be a couple of minutes," he replies, grabbing some chocolate bars. "Before you get all preachy on me again, the fresh food is off. Go take a look for yourself. All the sandwiches are covered in fucking mold, so I figure chocolate's better than nothing, right?" He grabs some more bars. "Mom would've fucking freaked out if she could see this, right?"
Heading over to the drinks cabinet, I grab a bottle of water and take a drink. It's kind of warm, since there's no power to the cabinet, but at least it's something. When we left the farm, water was my biggest worry.
Sighing, I grab a basket and fill it with as many bottles of water as possible, and then I follow Joe back out to the truck. From here, it should only take us a few more hours to reach Scottsville, and I can't shake this dark feeling in my gut that maybe we won't like what we find. Lydia said that the place was deserted, but whatever's going on there, it seems to have already swallowed up my father. Climbing into the truck, I realize that Joe has fallen uncharacteristically silent in the past few minutes. I guess he's thinking the same kind of things that I'm thinking, and while we both know that
we have to keep going, we're both scared about what we might find when we reach our destination.
ELIZABETH
Manhattan
Making my way quietly across the delivery yard, I glance over my shoulder to make absolutely certain that no-one's following me, and then I slip into the maintenance shed at the rear of the adjacent building. It's completely quiet down here, with not even the sound of air-conditioning units to disturb the air; all I can hear are my own footsteps as I carry a small bag of food along a deserted corridor, eventually arriving in what used to be the kitchen for a hotel restaurant. All around me, there are bare silver work-spaces, waiting for cooks and chefs who are never going to come back to work.
The place looks completely empty and abandoned.
"Mallory," I hiss. To be honest, there's a part of me that thinks she won't be here. After all, although she accepted my offer of help when I untied her during the night, I wouldn't blame her if she bolted as soon as I left her alone. Her experience with Bob must have made her extremely wary of strangers, and I'm certain that I'd have run if I was in her position. Still, I've got this lingering fear that if she has run, it might mean that Henry and Bob were right; perhaps she's gone to tell someone about us, and perhaps they'll be coming for our supplies.
Just as I'm about to call her name out again, I hear a noise nearby. Turning, I see Mallory emerging from being a doorway. She hurries over to the end of the corridor, as if she's checking that I've come alone.
"I brought you some food," I tell her. "Just like I promised. I'm sorry it took a while, but I had to make sure no-one followed me. It's all a big tense in there right now, but I think it's gonna be okay".