by Tracey Ward
A silence falls between them. I can see Ryan’s hand clenching his knife tightly.
“But you gotta come in now,” Bray tells him, breaking the silence. “Everyone needs to. Trent’s in the crow’s nest with the specs and he spotted bad news.”
“What’s up?”
“Risen. The dead, man, they’re back in force.”
“What? How?”
“Don’t know, but we have theories. Trent has spotted at least fifty, probably more. And they’re fresh.”
Ryan curses under his breath. “Women and children in the mix?”
“Yep. You get the idea of what’s happened, right?”
A Colony has fallen.
“Colony,” Ryan says darkly.
“That’s what we think,” Bray agrees. “It can’t have been more than one and it can’t have been one of the stadiums. The numbers would be higher. That means there’s more of them out there than we know about.”
“Unless the Risen are spread out. There might be more than Trent can see.”
“We think there are. We’re pretty sure it’s just one section that’s gone down though. A smaller one. We’re hoping anyway. If all of the Colonies in the area get infected…”
“It’ll be like the start of it all over again.”
“Yeah. As it is it’s dangerous to be out right now. We’re going on lockdown until we get a better idea of how big this thing is going to get.”
“Alright,” Ryan says warily. “Let’s get back.”
Ryan flexes his hand and drops his knife into the soft grass beside me. I glance at it, then back up at him, wondering what the hell he’s doing but he’s already walking away. I watch and listen as their footsteps recede and he disappears from sight. I start counting, waiting it out, wondering how long I should give them to be out of sight entirely.
“What are you doing?!” I hear Bray call from far off.
“My knife!” Ryan calls back. He’s close and getting closer. “I dropped it. Wait there, give me a minute!”
“Hurry up!”
Ryan runs back and drops down on his knees in front of me. His face is pinched in concern.
“You heard Bray?” he whispers.
I nod, my mouth pulled in a grim line.
“I should walk you back. It’s not good to be out alone right now.”
“You’ll never shake this guy. Besides, I can make it. I’ve survived worse with less experience.”
“I feel like a jerk just leaving you.”
“You’re not a jerk.”
He grins. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
His face falls serious, his eyes searching mine.
“I’m gonna find you again,” he says softly.
I smirk. “You can try.”
I hope he understands. That he takes that statement for what it is. Permission, or at least as much as I can give. I want him to find me and, foolish as it may be, I know I’m going to make it easy.
“Ryan!” Bray shouts, sounding closer than before.
“Screw it,” Ryan murmurs.
He crushes his lips to mine. A surprised whimper escapes the back of my throat, urging him on and suddenly his hands are on my face and in my hair. I grab his shoulders for support as he pulls me forward and off balance but then I’m pulling him to me. His chest presses against me as his lips soften and move slowly over mine. This is dangerous. His friend is close by, zombies are in high numbers again but I can’t begin to care. It’s my first kiss, quite possibly the only one I’ll ever have so I let myself melt into him. I give up, I give in. I hold on and I enjoy the moment as the comet crash lands onto the earth and razes the entire world.
When he pulls away, his hands still in my hair and on my skin, his breathing is ragged. I, on the other hand, have stopped breathing entirely.
“Watch for me,” he says roughly.
“What?”
He holds my face firmly in front of his, so close I can feel his breath on my skin. He locks eyes with me and repeats, “Watch for me. Keep your eyes open.”
“I will,” I whisper.
“Good.” He lets go of my face and squeezes my hand briefly. “Be safe.”
“You too.”
He smiles at me one last time before he goes.
Then I’m alone again.
Chapter Seven
“Crenshaw!” I whisper loudly into the wilderness.
I’m standing in the thickest section of trees in the park turned forest, scanning the brush. I have to be careful because Crenshaw is a shifty old man who loves setting traps. Traps for food, traps for zombies, traps for people. I think the people traps are his favorite. Yep, there’s a makeshift rope running up the inside of a tree. I’d bet my last sip of water that it’s connected to a loop in the underbrush. I am not taking another step.
“Crenshaw!”
“I’m here,” a disembodied voice calls from within the trees. He emerges from the shadows looking like Merlin if he’d fallen on hard times and got really into pot. He even has a staff for God’s sake. “What do you need of me, Athena?”
Yeah, he calls me Athena, like the goddess of war. Years ago he said Joss was too mousey, that I was a survivor and deserved a survivor’s name. He toyed with calling me Xena for a bit but I refused to respond to it. By the time we got to Athena, I just didn’t care anymore.
“Nothing, I’m fine. I came to warn you that there’s been an outbreak in the Colonies. I’ve seen a lot more wraiths recently.”
Wraiths, yes. That’s what I said. I’ve entered into Mordor here.
“Ah, it was inevitable,” he rasps. “The gates of Hell were bound to spring open again eventually. How many have escaped so far?”
“I’m not sure. I overhead some men talking and they’ve spotted at least fifty in the area. Probably more.”
“You were in the company of men?”
“No, not really. I was in the park and I overheard them.”
“And they didn’t see you?” he asks skeptically. He’s a crazy old bird but he’s sharp. Irritatingly so.
“One of them might have known I was there,” I admit grudgingly.
“Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Be doubly careful,” he says, striking his staff on the ground twice for emphasis.
“Ok, yes. I’ll be triple careful.”
“You’re sure you don’t need anything of me? Tea? Food?” I shake my head, smiling at his generosity. “Water?”
Suddenly I’m reminded of Ryan’s warning.
“Don’t go to the watering holes,” I blurt out.
He scowls at me, looking offended by the idea. “I never do. Why would I?”
“I don’t know, but don’t go there. The men also said that the holes are dangerous. That the Colonies are doing a lot of roundups there.”
He watches me in silence for an uncomfortably long time, his face entirely devoid of emotion.
“These men,” he finally says slowly, “they said an awful lot, didn’t they?”
I shrug, trying to look unconcerned. “They were chatty.”
“All of this while you were in earshot.”
“Chatty and stupid.”
“No one alive today is stupid, Athena.”
I roll my eyes, getting tired of the interrogation or accusation. Whatever this is it’s wearing on me. People in general are wearing on me and I think I’ve had way too much interaction recently. I need to detox.
“What do you want me to say? What do you want from me?” I ask, letting my frustration show.
“I want you to be careful.”
“And I said I would. I will be. I always am.”
“What is more dangerous than the wraiths?” He asks it like a condescending school teacher and I have to suppress a groan. I’ve heard this lecture a million times.
“Snakes?”
“Athena.”
“People. Living, breathing, t
hieving people.”
“Remember it well,” he warns. Then he steps back, blending into the shadows. It’s very theatrical and I wonder if he practices when I’m not around.
“You try and watch out for people,” I grumble, heading for the exit. I’m wondering how giving him a heads up ended with me being scolded. I want out of the woods, out of the park, out of the whole city. Out of this mess entirely.
I’m debating what to do about dinner tonight and which water supply to tap when it happens. An early warning system goes off. From a tree about a block and a half down a massive flock of birds takes to the sky. Aside from the beating of their wings they don’t make a sound. No cawing. No screeching. They’re not freaking out over the dead so what are they running from? It’s something human or another animal. If it’s an animal it’s big. Threatening. If it’s human they’re not used to treading softly and only one type of person nowadays hasn’t finely honed their creeping skills. They don’t have to. They live behind fences and walls and sleep on mattresses and sheets and wash their hair with real soap, not with some beige bar made in Merlin’s Magical Shop of Wonders in the woods.
Colonists.
I hide myself deep in the bushes, close to where I was hiding with Ryan. As my breathes come in short and painful I feel so far removed from Crenshaw’s Athena or Ryan’s jerk Joss. Now I’m Jocelyn, eight years old and terrified, hiding behind a tree while evil closes in on me. I can pretend to be as tough as I want but the person who knows the truth is the only one who matters; me. I know every single day how scared I really am. How tired, how angry, how lonely. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or if I work my butt off to make sure there is no ‘anyone else’ around to see it. It’s still true. I’m still scared.
I don’t have to wait long for the silent, silver electric car to come rolling by at a ridiculously slow speed. Most roads are cracked, sprouting weeds and grass or filled with stripped out cars and debris but there’s a trail cleared that winds through the area. It’s something some of the gangs have done or maybe the Colonists did it? I’m not sure. Either way, areas on this trail are the marketplace for the crews who are willing to barter with one another. The morning after a new moon you can find them gathering at random locations along this road to trade goods and act like morons together. I’ve obviously never attended but I’ve watched from the roof before and, if I’m being honest, I’ve watched with a little envy. Most of the Lost Boys get along, laughing and shouting together. Like friends.
But now the roads are empty and silent, barely a sound coming from the ridiculously small, shiny car gliding through this derelict world. It doesn’t belong here. They don’t belong here. The sight of a car, something that was once so common place and now so nauseatingly strange, sends chills down my spine. I feel cold sweat break out over my clammy skin and I remind myself to breath evenly.
They can’t hear me. They can’t see me. They don’t know I’m here. They will not take me.
I try to tell myself to calm down. I doubt they’re doing a roundup right now, not without their vans with the doors that lock from the outside. It’s not really a good time anyway, not for anybody. All of us in the wild, those with any sense at least, are holed up in our homes waiting to see just how bad this latest outbreak is going to get. If any sense of responsibility still existed in the world the Colonists would be out here to kill these things off once and for all. Clean up their mess. But there isn’t and that’s not why they’re here. They’re here to make a point. To let us know that not all of them have fallen, not everyone in their golden city is infected. To warn us not to come looting.
You better believe that if they ever did fail entirely those of us in the wild would descend upon their stocks like vultures. I dream about it at night when I’m not having nightmares about crawlers eating my legs. I don’t wish them ill, I’m not hoping they all die, I just want to take their stuff. Is that bad? I don’t even know anymore. This type of moral questioning wasn’t covered in The Breakfast Club. I fear the structure of my upbringing is noticeably lacking.
***
The next week is a bear. My life, already more than a little stressful, gets way worse. The biggest, most notable source of my anxiety is the fact that I haven’t moved. I can’t. The zombie threat is back and bigger than it has been in years leaving me thinking that the numbers Ryan’s friend quoted were conservative. There are definitely more than fifty dead bloating the ranks out there. In the middle of the night I can hear the groaning outside breaking the silence I hadn’t realized I’d grown accustomed to. This is the old days, the early days. The bad days.
My other problem is the Colonists. They’re everywhere. The trucks and vans are out patrolling the streets and blaring over the loudspeakers again, something they haven’t done in a long time. They play up the threat of the dead, telling us the only place to be safe from this latest outbreak is in their compounds. Are we idiots out here? They must think so because we all know where the fresh dead came from and the idea that we’d be safer where the infection found footing again is laughable. It’s also infuriating.
“Go to Hell!”
I freeze, shocked by the unfamiliar sound of human life outside my windows. I can feel pins and needles prickling under my skin as I run to the window, sticking to the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun. From this height I can see the street a block over, looking down over the lower buildings to the east. The Colonist trucks are there. Three of them.
I watch as Lost Boys run at the vehicles, weapons raised. There are at least ten of them, a decent gathering, but I worry. Word is, if Crenshaw’s sources are good, that the Colonists still have guns, though I’ve never seen or heard them used. The Lost Boys attack, swinging weapons that look long, dark and deadly. I hear indiscernible shouts, words lost in the wind or the distance. Or in rage. Maybe they never meant anything other than anger.
The Colonists are spilling out of the vehicles to defend themselves and I wonder if they have anyone locked inside. They collide with the gang and the shouts intensify. The clang of metal against metal, screams of pain and more curses carry over otherwise silent streets and up to my fractured window. I watch carefully, trying to make out the shape of the men. The color of their hair. I’m holding the softened, rotted wood of the window frame with white knuckles and I’m wondering, worrying, if Ryan is with them.
There’s a flash of orange light. Fire. The Lost Boys have lit a torch. Or I think it’s a torch until it flies through the air and lands at the rear tire of the trail vehicle. It explodes into an inferno, crawling up the side of the van like a spider, spinning a web of heat and smoke behind it. More cries ring out from both sides and the men disentangle themselves from each other as the fire becomes the true threat to everyone. The gang retreats, quickly gathering a fallen member from the ground and dragging him away. A trail of red mars the ground behind him, appearing especially bright and red over a patch of yellow, dry grass.
The fire is coming for it. It consumes everything, devouring the van and burning brightly over nearly the entire surface. The Colonists pile into their remaining two vehicles and quickly pull away, leaving the fallen van to burn itself out. Within the space of three minutes the confrontation is over. The only signs it ever took place are fire and red grass, both of which are burning away, flaming out. They leave behind only a pillar of dark smoke in the sky and a black stain on the ground. And I wonder again, as I watch it all burn, if they had anyone locked inside.
Chapter Eight
The fight has me freaked. I wait it out another two days after that but eventually I absolutely have to leave the building for more food and water. It hasn’t rained in days meaning my emergency bucket is dry. I’m also a little worried about Crenshaw being down at ground level with all of this going on. He’s much more at risk than I am and I know I need to make a kill or go fishing in the bay. I have to bring him some meat soon because he won’t do it himself.
Gathering an empty jug for water, my knife and ASP, I cu
rse myself for never learning to use a bow and arrow. It’d be nice to shoot a meal instead of chasing it down, tackling it and slitting its throat. Have you ever chased a wild rabbit? How ‘bout a squirrel? No, you haven’t because it’s exhausting and nearly futile. But it’s also necessary. I’ve been trapped in this apartment with nothing but carrots, potatoes and tomatoes for over a week and I’m not a vegetarian. Not at heart.
When I step outside into the unseasonably warm winter sun my hands are slick with sweat. I’m nervous. This is dangerous, more so than it has been for years. I wonder if I’ve still got the skills to survive this world. What if I’ve gone soft? What if I can’t handle as many dead as I used to? How fast can I run these days?
My thoughts and doubts are stopped in their tracks along with my feet when I round the corner. I’m shocked. Stunned. Afraid. Excited.
There across the street on the side of a building just a block and a half from my home is writing on a wall.
Welcome to the apocalypse.
My shoulders fall, relief coursing through me. Surprising me. It’s Ryan, it has to be. I wonder if he knows I didn’t move or if it was wishful thinking. A shot in the dark to see if he gets a reaction. To see if I forgive him and trust him enough to stay. I didn’t think I knew the answer to either of those questions but the fact that I’m still here is answer enough. It’d be dangerous for me to move right now with the rise in the number of dead. With the Colonists out going door to door like they’re selling religion. It’d suck but if I really felt threatened I’d have done it. Yet I haven’t.
What’s really important here, what makes me heave a shaky sigh of relief, is that he’s alive. He’s unhurt.
Or is he?
I’ve been in my home for over a week. I have no way of knowing when this message was written. Was it before or after the confrontation I saw two days ago? I can’t know, not with certainty. So it means nothing. And it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t mean anything anyway. He’s not my concern. What I need to worry about right now is not some vague message scrawled out in brick dust, something that will wash away with the first heavy rain. My worries are more substantial and far more urgent.