Asunder

by Tonnie Johnson

  "We can go ourselves."

  "Those people got infected because of me. If I go it sure as hell won’t be called Camp Hope anymore."

  "So, is this how a girl gets dumped in the apocalypse?" She tossed down her bag.

  He grabbed her hands, pulling her close. "I am not dumping you. I don’t want this as a life for you. Constantly running around with no direction, nowhere to go. You haven’t seen your brother for months."

  "All of those are my problems. And I’m willing to have them if it means we can stay together."

  "Where could I go? The more I think about this the more it makes sense. Canada was infected when we were there. Vegas was safe and then we got there, almost everyone at that hotel had turned into something. What if that was all my fault? I won’t be a walking bringer of death to people."

  "If you are infecting everyone, it’s not your fault. What are you going to do? How is separating from me going to help?"

  "I don’t know. Maybe, maybe I have to stop breathing then." He shrugged. He watched her allowing his words to sink in.

  "No."

  "Maybe this is better for everyone. Riddick is still out there in the world looking for me. I’m sure that PHA is after Erulians. Maybe one of them would get me and maybe that’s fair."

  "Fair? You playing at being some martyr is fair? To who exactly? I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet Varick, but the world isn’t fair. People aren’t asking to be eaten alive by blood thirsty creatures."

  "And I can minimize that damage with my death."

  "You know Luc worked for years trying to get rid of Ragweed and the people responsible for taking his wife away from him, and now he’s known all over the world as their leader. That’s not fair. Riddick was a fucking criminal, a gangbanger who sold drugs to children. He had his little brother inside of a well-known gang hang hideout. Because he was teaching him to be just like him. If it hadn’t been the Nazis that stormed that fucking place it would have been another gang, or even the police. I’m not saying that killing the kid was right but offering up your life so some revenge filled former drug dealer can feel good about his rotten life choices isn’t right either. You know what? I’m pregnant! I don’t give a fuck about Riddick or anyone else! What am I supposed to tell this baby? That their father is gone from this world because he allowed himself to get killed to repent to some drug dealing gangbanger? Or he allowed some Pro Human Organization led by a jilted lover to kill him instead of being here to protect you. Reiniger was right." She ranted wiping her tears. "We don’t belong here! Am I wrong for saying that I don’t care about humanity? That I say too bad for Riddick that he can’t kill you! Let him try again in another life? You don’t have to be with me if you think leaving will help then do it. But don’t go out there and get yourself killed and don't expect me to stay put in some little life you think is best for me. I know what's best for me!"

  Varick pulled Hazel close, pressing his head against her belly. "You’re pregnant?" He smiled. "Really?"

  "Yeah. So, you have to remember that it’s not just your own life you’re throwing away. The next time that bastard shows up, put him out of his misery and move on."

  "I promise. I won’t die." He sighed full of hope and vigor. "But I still think going to that camp is best for you. Even more so now. This is not an easy choice to make. You have no idea how hard it is to make it."

  "We'll see."

  Varick sat on his motorcycle, a vehicle he had found last month during a hunt, he watched the last truck in the caravan pull out the motel lot and follow down the road. Hazel stopped for a long moment after she closed the door to the motel room they shared, watching Varick who stay at the intersection several feet ahead. She breathed deep fearful of what he would think of her. Was she doing this because she didn’t wish to be parted from him? Was it for her child? Was she just desperate? She hated it and she wondered if she made the right choice. She walked with a steady pace toward him hating the possible confrontation, looking behind her, the caravan wobbled in the sun.

  "You sure about this? Trouble will follow me now more than ever."

  "I want to say I’ve spent most of my life living for others, so much so that I had become fearful of desiring anything for myself. But I do want things, I want a lot of things. I want you to be my man. I want to live with you and go on vacation, and wake up in the morning next to you, where ever we are it doesn’t matter, even now I’say these things as though I’m not supposed to want them but I can’t help it. I’m being selfish in that I don’t care if humanity falls because of us. I can’t make this choice alone, you still have a choice as well, you can still turn me away… in which case I’ve fucked myself out of a ride." She shrugged and watched the departing caravan wiggle in the horizon.

  Varick smiled. This was his girl. Irrational, beautiful, weird, brilliant, the mother of his child, and the woman he loved. "Get on."

  Hazel hopped on the back and held on tight as he revved up his engine and the rode off together, the three of them, into the sun.

  Luc

  The wind was whipping the trees violently in the November rain. His umbrella was the only thing keeping them from being soaked although it didn’t save him and the auburn-haired woman entirely. They snuggled close on the park bench watching the nine-year-old boy, who for so long called himself Steven, sit alone with his toy truck smashing it to his robot. The tall bald dark-skinned man stood in front of them dressed in a poncho over his fashionable tan three-piece suit.

  "You don't seem to care that I can guarantee her safety and that of your family?"

  "No. I don't. She's where none of you can find her and I prefer it that way."

  "And you Jona? You prefer it that way?" Xeres turned his attentions to her.

  "Don't try to use me against my husband." Jona shot back. "You wanted a meeting to ask Luc to join your summit and we're here for that, not to give you Hazel."

  "Touché." Xeres let up. "Let's focus on the Summit. I need you there to give your account of your ordeal from a .... human perspective and your accounts of Subject Zero. Reiniger can be tried under our new laws--"

  "Reiniger." Luc sighed. He wished he had cut off his head. "And Michael and his son will be hunted down and killed or worse. Put back in a lab to make millions for you. Why would I help you?"

  "Because who knows how many people that kid has killed since escaping the lab, or how many of your kind are out there who may be dangerous without the cure to keep their urges in check." Xeres looked down on Luc in more ways than one, a slight sneer on his face. "You threaten the very peace I tried to killed my dear friend for, showing them that you are capable of living in this new world as a law-abiding citizen is paramount to helping your friend and his son. Or would you rather I take you from your family and drag your ass to the nearest pod and have you frozen until the heavens are finally done with this rotten stinking world?"

  Luc sighed. "Then I can't possibly say no."

  "No, you can't."

  The couple watched the regal man walk away with several guards in tow.

  They watched the rain for a moment. The thunder picked up more consistently than before. Every five minutes now. Number Six in the flesh was at the wheel of the black sedan that waited for them, eager to leave. None of them knowing when their small moment of peace would be destroyed. He didn’t want to keep them waiting. He stood taking his son by the hand and his wife in his arm, they headed to the car.

  Michael

  Michael looked out the window of the once thriving bar in some newly formed wasteland of Eastern Europe. The dim neon lights of the naked woman swinging on the pole suggested that at one point this place with its blood red dusty tattered curtains and stage with the sunken floor was once a strip club.

  The night was cool but not enough for him to need a thick coat. His uniform was enough. Besides, he had no idea when the next wave would hit and he would be left knee deep in the entrails of another horror born in this new world. He stroked the small patch on his uni
form. PHA, the Pro Human Alliance. He thought of everything he had lost since this never-ending nightmare began. But it also served as his fuel, to keep fighting so that no one ever lost a loved one again, he slapped the change on the counter and marched to a brand-new day. Unbeknownst to him, that a pair of familiar and intimate eyes watched him from afar.

  The End

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