by Greene, Dane
The footsteps I heard moments ago return, and they’re much closer and moving with more haste. Whatever’s responsible for the footsteps will be here soon, so I decide silence is no longer a concern.
“Don’t worry about the noise,” I say. “Something was heading our way anyway. After it’s visible, I’ll shoot it and then we run back to base. Does the plan sound good to you?”
Melany nods, and I turn my attention back to the door, preparing myself. A few seconds later, a Paleman peeks through the door. In such close proximity, the shot to his head is an easy one. He’s dead before the echo of the gunfire ends.
Whatever was keeping the Palemen calm breaks, and I hear slamming on the outside walls. Melany and I start running. We both sense how important it is to get back immediately.
As we run through the recently silent halls, I look at the windows. Every one we pass is smashed open, and a multitude of hands and bodies are struggling to come through. The halls are wide, and we manage to go past them unscathed.
We turn down the last hallway and are greeted with a worrying sight. The hallway is much narrower than the others. Besides, there are two windows on either side. Like all the windows, these are broken and hands are reaching through. Unlike the other windows, though, there’s no way around these ones.
Surely I can divert the Palemen’s attention long enough for Melany to get through. After that, I might be able to slip underneath the horde’s grasp. I hear footsteps approaching from behind us, and I know that we don’t have much time. I explain the plan to Melany, and we ready ourselves.
Motioning for Melany to go, I start firing into the window. My tactic works, and the hands retract enough for Melany to run and slip under their grasp. She turns around and looks at me. The shower room door behind her opens, and Brian appears. Looking at the arms, I know I can’t fire and run without drawing attention to myself.
If I crawl, I can make it through the hallway unscathed, but not with this bag on my back. The footsteps from behind me are getting closer, and I know I’ve run out of time. With only seconds to think, I decide that a brute-force run might be enough to break through the sea of arms. The Palemen have no way of expecting it, so it might work.
I drop my gun to the floor and kick it to Brian. Taking a deep breath, I run toward the arms with all my strength. Memories of the childhood game of red rover come to mind as I run past the multitude of arms. Déjà vu hits me when my body is slammed to a stop.
My shoulders scream out with pain, and I realize that one of the Palemen must have grabbed my backpack. Before I have time to panic, though, someone from the other side of the horde grabs my arm and pulls. I slip off one strap of the backpack, and luckily, the other rips.
As soon as I’m free of their grasp, all three of us dash into the showering room. We shut, lock, and barricade the door behind us before taking a second to breathe.
Pain radiates from my shoulders, but I’m glad to have escaped unscathed and alive. It’s too bad we lost the things we found and the bag, but at least I’m still breathing.
Smiling, I look at Brian, expecting to see some relief, but when our gazes meet, all I see is anger. I’m confused by his reaction. We did nothing wrong. If we hadn’t had such bad luck, we would have made it back here with more supplies, as well as a good understanding of our situation and surroundings. Only when he speaks do I realize why he’s angry.
“Did you idiots even check the bag before taking it? The one you took had all our food in it.”
His statement is so shocking that I don’t know what to say. I didn’t check the bag before leaving. I figured it would be the best one to grab since it wasn’t that full.
Now, because I failed to check the bag, I threw away our chances for survival. Without food, we have no more than two days before we’re too weak to travel to Garden Island.
“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I didn’t know I had it. Brian, I’m sorry.”
Brian looks at me, and I see him calm a little. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. It doesn’t change our fate much. I’m glad you two got back in one piece. Were you bitten anywhere?”
His sudden reversal of mood confuses me, but I nod no to him. Not satisfied, he checks over me himself.
“Well, at least you’re infection-free. Now that you two are back, I need to show you something.”
Without another word, Brian turns around and walks to the other side of the room. Once there, he points to the skylight in the ceiling. “What you need to see is on the roof,” he says. “I’ll boost you and Melany up there.”
Brian helps me get up through the skylight and onto the roof. While I’m climbing up, I wish I’d thought of this before we went on our adventure. When I make it up, I immediately turn around to help lift Melany.
Once I get Melany on the roof, we stand up together. Based on what I saw through the windows, I figured we were surrounded, but what I’m seeing now seems impossible.
All around us are hundreds—even thousands—of Palemen. There’s no path through them or any way I can see of avoiding them. The mass of bodies is staggering. Their movement seems like that of a unified body. The view reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of rock concerts: walls of people moving back and forth to the beat of the music.
Now I see why Brian wasn’t mad for very long. True, I lost the food, but all that did was shorten our lives by a week or so. As I look into this sea of Palemen, the realization of our defeat strikes me. There’s no escaping this horde. Our fate and our deaths have been sealed.
Words escape me, and unsure of what to do, I sit down and stare at the masses. Melany sits by my side and lays her head on my shoulder. She’s never shown any affection toward me, but I can understand her actions.
Right now, I’m so hopeless that I wish I had someone to hold me. Wanting to feel close to someone right now, I put my arm around her, knowing that if I were in her place, it’s what I’d want. Meanwhile, I’m wondering who’s supposed to comfort me.
“Hey, Jason,” she says. “I’m wondering, what were you going to do if we made it to Garden Island?”
I don’t know why Melany is asking, but I decide there’s no harm in telling her now. “Well, I wanted to start a school. I wanted to teach kids and other people about how the world is now and how it used to be.”
When I pause to remember my motivation, I remember what happened after the blackout. The vivid memory of the girl’s death comes back to me, and I watch her murder in my mind for the millionth time.
Normally, I would push the grief away, but now that I know I’ll be dead soon, I find no reason to. I decide to talk to Melany about it. After I tell her about the pain and grief that event has caused me, I begin to feel some relief. Like a dam breaking, I tell her all about my worries and pain throughout this journey. Even though I thought I was the one comforting Melany, it turns out she’s ended up comforting me.
Melany listens throughout and only interrupts me to ask an occasional question. After I’ve finished, she’s silent for several minutes, then says, “You know, Jason, I would have helped you. It’s funny: I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do until you talked to me. If I’d made it to the island, I would have taken all my photos and put them together. After that, I would have written stories for each one, forming a book of our journey and everything we know about the Palemen. With the book I created, I’d show people what happened to the world. If we had made it, I bet we would have ended up working together.”
She’s right; if we made it to the island, we would have ended up working together. For some reason, this thought makes me a little happy, even though I know it could never come true now.
When I take a moment to think about how much a book like the one Melany wanted to create could educate others, I realize that students would have tangible proof of how the world fell. Someday, this infection will die out, and there will be a need for stories. People will need to remember how horrifying this epidemic was. If they don’t, there’s no hope of avoiding ano
ther one.
History was never a favorite subject in school for me, but now I realize how important it was. What Melany would be creating is a history book. When I tell her about my realization, she surprises me by laughing.
“I always hated history,” she says. “All I can imagine is some kid like me sitting in a class, trying not to fall asleep while being forced to study my book.” The picture she paints makes me laugh. It feels good to laugh, and I forget for a minute that we’re in a helpless situation.
We spend minutes laughing and only stop when our sides are aching and we’re out of breath. It’s been more than a year since I laughed like this. Thinking back to the last time, I realize it was before the world changed. Smiling, I’m glad that I shared some joy with someone before the end. We stare back out to the horde, and my mind slips back to history.
All throughout history are instances of some great event that changed mankind. It was foolish to ever believe that our generation would be an exception to the pattern. The best man can hope for is that it avoids causing the same tragedy twice.
Mankind was due for a great change. These Palemen might as well be the soldiers attacking Troy or the barbarians sacking Rome. The world will be forever changed by this disease, and no one is to blame but humanity.
Who knows if the epidemic is worldwide or only in America? All I know is, if we don’t die here, I’ll teach anyone I can about this war and all the others. That way we can move forward and on to man’s next stage. As I look over to Melany, I say, “Are you ready to go down yet?”
“Yeah, might as well. I suppose the others will want to talk about what to do.”
We make our way down. I go first, then help Melany. Once we’re both inside the building again, I take a quick look around the room. Little has changed. Brian’s by an unconscious Aaron, and Sophia has Evelyn in her lap. I decide that I’ll break the silence and speak up.
“I’m sorry I lost the food, everyone. It’s robbed us of a few weeks of living and a way to escape. I wish I could find a way to repay everyone, but I know I can’t. We need to move on, though, and figure out what we want to do. Aaron’s collapsed and sick. He might not recover. We have a week of strength left before we’re hopeless. It would be best if we decide how we want to die now, while we still have a say.”
I stand, waiting for someone to speak up. After a few moments, Sophia stands.
“I don’t see a way out of any of this. I don’t have enough medicine to kill us all. In fact, I gave the only medicine I had to Evelyn, and that was only a sleeping pill.”
Before Sophia spoke, I hadn’t realized that suicide was an option. At first, I’m appalled, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how much better it would be than mauling or starvation. Before I can pursue my thoughts further, Sophia continues. “Whatever we decide on, it should be done before Evelyn wakes up. I don’t want her to suffer a bloody death or die of starvation. It would be best to kill her now, regardless of what we choose.”
Brian looks over at her, and I can see disdain. “So that’s our only option, then? To kill ourselves? Why would we want to do that? I say we go out and kill as many of those bastards as we can. We could kill enough that the next group to come along won’t end up in the same place we did.”
Brian and Sophia stare at each other with disgust. Fearing an argument, I walk between the two. “So our options are to wait and starve, to kill ourselves, or to die fighting? The easiest way to decide is by vote. Can everyone agree to follow a majority?”
Looking at Brian, I can tell that he’s angry. When he nods his agreement, I’m a bit surprised. Next, I look over to Sophia, and she nods as well. Finally, I look at Melany, and she nods.
I take charge and go through each option, telling people to raise their hands for the option they choose. The vote wins three to one for us to kill ourselves. Brian’s the only one who wants to fight.
There was a second when I almost voted with him, but then I realized how tired of fighting I was. After all the pain caused by this journey, I decided I wanted a simple ending. The idea of a calm and painless end sounded better than more fighting.
After the vote, we decide that everyone will shoot themselves after Evelyn and Aaron are killed. After a while, Brian agrees to kill Aaron, and Sophia will kill Evelyn. We all prepare and say our final goodbyes.
Brian readies his gun, putting it against Aaron’s head. We all take a final look at Aaron, and Brian starts his countdown. Before he can reach the end, Aaron pops up and looks around.
When I look at Aaron, I see that he’s in absolute terror. Somehow, I know it’s him there, and not something else in control. Aaron didn’t become what Brian feared he would.
A flame ignites within me, and I want to survive. It makes no sense; Aaron being awake changes nothing. We’re still doomed to starve or die. My mind tries to tell me that hope is pointless now, but as I look at Aaron, I know in my heart that this changes everything.
Chapter 20: Aaron
August 25th
When I wake up, all I hear are screams of rage and pain. There’s so much hate that I can see it. It’s like a hot summer day, and waves of anger are vibrating in the air. As I look around, I see my friends staring at me, concern on their faces. After I force myself to focus on them, the screaming around me lessens and the waves seem to dissipate.
“Aaron, are you okay? What’s going on?” Melany, my sister, says, concern plain in her voice. She looks like she’s close to panic, and I know that if anyone panics now, there will be no making it out of this situation. Our only chance of survival right now is to stay calm. The others in the room look panicked as well, so I force myself to calm down and stand up.
“Yeah, I’m fine. A bit tired from the swim, is all.” No one buys my excuse, but they seem to calm down all the same. “How long was I out?”
This time, Jason answers. “About an hour. You would twitch or thrash occasionally, but Sophia told us to leave you be. We checked out the situation as best we could. There’s no way I see of escaping since we’re completely surrounded.”
It doesn’t surprise me to hear that we’re surrounded. The multitude of Palemen screaming in my head is enough to tell me that. Even so, he seems so discouraged and it sounds like he’s given up.
The last thing we need right now is everyone giving up. If we have any chance of making it out of here, we need everyone to be thinking straight. If all you believe is that you’re going to die, then that’s likely what will happen.
“Wait a minute. How do you know we’re surrounded? Did you leave this room?”
“We got onto the roof through a skylight right over there,” Jason says.
Jason points out the skylight, and I see how anyone could go through it with the help of one or two others. After that, you could lower a rope or pull people up one by one. Once you were on the roof, you’d be able to see for quite a distance.
Having nothing else to do, I decide I want to see exactly how many Palemen are out there. Even though I can feel their presence and I have a pretty good idea of how many there are, I want to confirm their numbers with my own eyes. Before I go to the roof, I want to know how bad it is inside.
“Have we been able to go into any other rooms, and do we know if the Palemen have made it inside yet?” My question meets with silence, but after a few seconds, Jason speaks up.
“We checked a few rooms for supplies, but the Palemen got in while we were looking around. Things were going well, but then we were ambushed. No one was hurt, but they got the bag we had for storing the supplies we found. I should’ve checked before, Aaron. If I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I’m so sorry.”
“What do you mean? Why should you have checked the bag?”
“The bag I lost had all the food in it.”
This information is crippling. It means we only have a few days to figure something out. If we can’t figure out a way to escape, we’ll starve to death or become too weak to fight off any Palemen who get inside.
All I can do is wonder if we’ve come all this way only to die in a shack. The voices of anger from the Palemen are growing louder as I start to lose hope. Before my mind can slip more, Sophia speaks up.
“We have water, enough for quite a while, and the showers work in here. So if we find a way out of this building, we could survive for a few days.”
When I look at Sophia, she has a pleading look in her eyes. She’s telling me to pull it together. It’s reassuring to know that at least she hasn’t given up yet.
The screaming is so loud, and my head feels like it might explode into a million pieces. The group may have a few days, but I know I don’t. Whatever plan of action we decide on, we’ll have to carry it out tonight. My composure won’t last for much longer than that.
Without anything else to do, I decide now is a good time to go on the roof. “Alright, I want to look around the roof. Brian, could you come with me?” Brian nods and boosts me onto the roof. With Jason’s help from below, I lift Brian up after me.
When I stand up and look around, what I see confirms what I’ve felt all along. There are over a thousand Palemen surrounding us. Even though I’m confirming what I already knew, it’s still discouraging to see how hopeless we are here. There’s no path or gap between these bodies. All around us, there’s nothing but bodies, dirt, sand, and anger. We aren’t even near any power lines, trees, or other buildings. We’re a tiny island surrounded by Palemen, and we’re stuck without a boat.
The closest object I can see is a boat stand a few hundred feet away on the shore. Not sure of where to turn, I decide to sit down. After a while, Brian sits next to me.
“I’m not sure how we are going to get out of here,” Brian says. “I promised Dawn I would live, but it looks like I’ll be joining her.” Brian sighs and pauses for a second before looking at me. “How are you doing right now? You were out a pretty long time, and I can still see you’re struggling with something.”