by Samie Sands
“Thank you for doing this,” Diana grins at me and pats my arms. “I appreciate you trying to make my dream grow.”
“This is going to be amazing. You’ve done your part, now it’s time for me to do mine. I might be a little longer this time, so don’t worry about that, because I’m going to go further out. I figure if people aren’t following your signs then it’s ‘coz they haven’t seen them. What I’m going to do is find a vehicle and see how far I can get.”
“Right.” She’s struggling, I can tell, but there isn’t too much I can do about that. All I can do is give her my most reassuring smile, and I’ll be back soon enough to put her out of her misery. “Okay, well good luck.”
It isn’t long until I find my first mode of transportation; a motorbike, which by some miracle still goes. Now I’m by no means an expert at riding a bike, but I’ve done it a couple of times, enough to know how to get the thing moving. At first, I absolutely hate how noisy it is, this world is so quiet now, it’s a massive intrusion on my brain, but as I get it rapidly moving I realize it doesn’t totally matter. I can outrun any of those beasts easily with this...as long as it keeps on going.
I automatically head a little nearer to my hometown, autopilot completely taking over. I haven’t been in this direction ever since I lost everyone I’ve ever loved, but now here I am going back in. If I’m totally honest with myself, I don’t totally expect to see anyone. However much I have this dream in my head, it’s still just a dream. Reality is so much harsher, and by this point, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that me and Diana are the only ones left. At least in Oregon, the rest of the world could be much more organized now. I know the virus hit pretty much everywhere, that was reported widely in the beginning, but now anything could’ve happened.
Which is why I’m so shocked to not only see someone, but someone I know too. Not well, I couldn’t ever expect to get that lucky, but I recognize his face from the local supermarket. As I pull the bike over to a stop—far from gracefully, I might add—my heart hammers in my throat making it very difficult to breathe. His eyes are all over me, a slight spark of recognition behind his gaze too, which makes the anxiety almost impossible to comprehend.
“He...hello.” Not my best introduction, but it’ll have to do. “I’m Lauren. Erm, Lauren Long. I think we might sort of know each other.” He doesn’t say anything, he just continues to stare at me, forcing me to continue. I wasn’t too good at communicating myself at first, so I’m in no position to judge. “So, I don’t know what’s been going on with you during all of this.” I pointlessly wave my arms around my head, basically indicating towards the world. “But I have a camp. Well, it isn’t mine but I live there and we’re trying to find others who’d like to join us.”
“Food?” His voice is so gruff, it clearly hasn’t been used for a while.
“Oh sure, we have food, herbal medical supplies, water, homes...it’s amazing. If you want to come with me I can show it to you.”
“Who’s there?”
He moves his body out of the shadows, reminding me just how big he is. I try to see that as a good thing, the more variation of people we have at the camp, the better our chance of survival. Maybe this vaguely familiar stranger wouldn’t be my first choice to bring in, but I’m not going to turn him away solely because of that. The fact that I sort of know him makes this choice that much easier to make.
“Just me and Diana. It’s her camp.”
“Take me there.”
“Right, okay.”
A bad feeling settles over my chest as I hop back onto my bike, but I do my best to push it to one side. I didn’t feel great last time I was out either, and this time I’m about to change my home too. The dynamic is perfect at the moment, and one other person might upset the balance, but it’s a risk I’m going to have to take. Constant risks is the only way Camp Numanu is going to live up to it’s potential.
But then my fear is confirmed as people pop up from everywhere, jumping from around corners, snaking out of the shadows, stretching out as far as the eye can see.
Okay, that might be something of an exaggeration, maybe there’s more like four or five people, but they’re all very bulky men, the sort I don’t want to be surrounded by. Yet here I am, suffering just that.
“What...what’s going on?”
I try to keep my wits about me—I have my bike as an escape if needs be, all I need to do is find a way out—but fear cascades through my body regardless, actually causing me to visibly shake. I already don’t stand a chance in hell among these guys, but if they know I’m scared that’ll be even worse.
“We just want to know where your camp is, Lauren Long.”
The guy who I mostly only spoke to because I knew him now sneers at me, making me acutely aware of my stupidity. Guilt floods my body as I realize that I’m about to screw everything up for Diana. She’s worked so hard, now I’m about to wreck that at my first attempt at making it better. She’s done a great job, and I’ve already failed.
Unless I take them on a wild goose chase, far away from Diana and her hard work. I’ll have to sacrifice myself of course, there’s no way a crew like this will let me live after leading them off to somewhere random, but if it saves the camp, then it’ll be worth it.
But knowing the right thing to do, and actually following that through are two very different things.
“I’m gonna warn you now,” he continues, seemingly sensing my inner turmoil. “That we will not kill you if you take us in the wrong direction.”
Right...okay...maybe I’m judging a book by its cover. Maybe these guys aren’t what they look, they’re just trying to protect themselves...
“What we’ll do to you will be so much worse.”
Oh, maybe not.
“We don’t want any trouble.” I try to sound strong, but it gets me absolutely nowhere. These guys know I can be crushed like a bug.
“No, nor do we. Now come on.”
One of the heftier guys jumps on the bike with me, ensuring I can’t do a runner. I do consider my chances against this one man, before shutting that plan down rapidly. He might also be on my bike with me specifically because of his weight. He’ll slow me down no trouble. The others will find us, the rest of my life will be lived out in utter misery and pain. I don’t even want to think about what these men have planned for me, a fate worse than death.
I’m so sorry, Diana, my brain tries to send a telepathic message as I start up the engine. I’m taking the coward’s way out, I’m bringing these horrible crew with me. The last thing I want to is wreck the camp, but I’m scared of what’ll happen to me if I don’t.
And then I feel the unmistakable sensation of the metallic barrel of a gun pressed up against my back, and I know for sure that I’m sentencing the both of us to death.
***
“Please, just let me go in first.” I clasp my hands together, just to be shoved to one side. “Let me see Diana first.” I want to tell her what I’ve done, I want to explain why, I want to make sure she won’t hate me forever, but it seems that I’m not about to get that lucky. The guys storm in without me, their guns held high.
“We’re here now,” one of the yells top note, sending the fear of God racing right through me. “It’s time to hand everything over.”
Murmurs bubble up, and I strain my ears desperately trying to work out if Diana’s made her appearance yet. I can’t hear her, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t out there already, hating my guts. I should’ve kept it at just the two of us, I was idiotic to dream about anything in such an awful world. I should’ve been happy with what I had.
“Come on.” My ‘friend’ grabs my shoulder and shoves me forwards, and there I see her, the one person I actually care about anymore, staring at me like I’m a total stranger to her. I mouth the word ‘sorry’ to her, but I don’t get anything back. Then again, why would I? “Right, now I know you don’t want people like us taking over something like this, it’s a sweet deal and you’ve worke
d hard for it, but the world isn’t what it once was. There are no rules, and it’s people like us who control things now. We need this.”
The gun presses up against my temple once more, which makes my heart sink. This will be Diana’s Achilles’ heel. If they threatened to hurt her, she would stand defiant, but the fact that my life is in danger will kill her.
‘Don’t do anything,’ I say silently. ‘We can escape.’
“Don’t do this,” her voice wobbles as she pleads. “Don’t hurt Lauren. You can...you can have the camp.”
I hate myself. I’ve never really despised myself before, but right now I do. This situation is absolutely awful, there isn’t any way out at all. However you look at it, me and Diana are going to die. What I should’ve done is stuck with my initial instinct, I never should’ve allowed the coward within me to take over. I should have saved Diana and gone somewhere else, and just let whatever was going to happen to me, to happen.
Maybe it’ll happen anyway.
“Hey, I know you!” someone calls out from behind me. I instinctively want to turn, to see who it is, but my head’s firmly fixed in one place. “You’re the witch.”
Oh...it doesn’t matter, they don’t mean me anyway.
“Y...yeah, that’s me.” Diana holds her head high and I have to admire her for that. She’s true to herself until the bitter end. I wish I could be more that way. “Who are you?”
“You were friends with my mom.”
He sounds nervous, so for a split second I allow myself to believe that everything might be alright, that Diana’s link to these men might be the thing to save us both. But then almost as if in slow motion I watch Diana reach behind her back and pull out a glinting, metallic weapon of her own.
I didn’t even know she had a gun here! This is very unexpected.
“Let Lauren go,” she commands with absolute calmness. “Let her go, and none of you have to die.”
“Us? We have lots more guns than you. Are you insane?”
“I’m not insane, I know I can take all of you down.”
She sounds like such a badass, for a second even I’m inclined to believe her. Maybe she really can do this!
Diana holds something above her head and stares straight at me. ‘Duck’, she mouths. I don’t have a clue what’s going on, but I force my body to hit the ground with great force, just as a deafening whooshing sound flies through the air. I glance upwards, to see arrows zooming through the air from every single angle.
“I thought it was just two of you,” someone screams, and I’m inclined to agree. I thought it was only two of us too. What else has Diana been hiding from me?
A pounding races through my head as a racket of bangs infiltrate my brain, coming at me from everywhere; behind and in front of me. My ears are ringing, my vision is blurred, I haven’t a single clue what’s going on...
***
“Lauren? Lauren?” The hissing voice bursts through my dreams, as does the shaking which makes me feel like all my bones are rattling in my body.
“Huh? What?” I blink, letting some of the light in, but it’s so bright I can barely make anything out. It’s as if I’ve never seen direct sunlight and my brain can’t cope with it. “What’s going on?”
“It’s me, Diana. We still have it, we saved the camp!”
“Huh?” I already know that I did nothing, so if anyone saved this place it’s her. “What?” I force myself into a sitting position and scan my eyes over the sea of dead bodies that lies by my side. “How did this happen? How did you manage that? What…what happened to me?” One moment I was in utter shock, the next everything seems to have gone black, like there’s a massive chunk of my memory missing.
“You passed out, probably from shock and fear.” Diana’s face is flushed with happiness, her smile is so wide it’s almost contagious. “But it doesn’t matter, I didn’t need you.”
“Yeah, what did you do?” It’s impossible that we won the mini-war against those guys, I can’t wrap my aching brain around it at all.
Diana sighs loudly and takes a seat next to me on the ground. “I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want to freak you out, but I did have another person here once, someone I knew from my old life.” I want to ask who, but it doesn’t feel appropriate. “She showed me that this version of the world has changed people and that they can’t always be trusted. When things…ended with her, I knew that I needed to be smarter next time, so I set up some traps. I have them through the forest on the way here, but of course I didn’t know who you were bringing back or if you’d get hurt. I never wanted to injure you.”
“But it’s my fault they got here…”
“Of course it isn’t.” She waves her hand dismissively at me. “They forced you, I’m not dumb. So anyway, I have arrow firers set up all around the camp which freaked them out, instantly giving me the upper hand. They weren’t expecting it, so even though they only injured a couple of them, it was enough of a distraction to allow me to shoot.”
“Wow.” My head was still throbbing, I wasn’t sure if any of this was making sense, it all seemed very crazy. “And none of their bullets got you?”
“Nope,” she replied with pride. “I know it seems mad now, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my traps before, but you just seemed to like how safe it was here and I didn’t want to freak you out. Once you’ve recovered I’ll show you everything, all the things I have to keep this camp safe.”
“Yeah, wow, okay.”
“And maybe we should stop pushing our luck.” She shrugs her shoulders and smiles at me. “Keep Camp Numanu for us.”
I honestly don’t know if I’m alive, and this is real, or if I’m dead and this is some sort of afterlife...but either way I know one thing for sure, I am never leaving Diana Elizabeth Davis-Rumbold alone again.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I reply with stunned, wide-eyes. I can still see Camp Numanu becoming something wonderful, but that incident has freaked me out. At least now I know we can take care of ourselves, that will have to be enough for the time being. “At least…for now.”
toronto
Dear Diary,
Why did we move to Canada, it’s so cold? I don’t know how I allowed Cheryl and Michael to talk me into this. It wasn’t always the warmest in Independence, but this is off the charts freezing. ‘Carol Hicks, you will love Canada’. Yeah, sure, it’s wonderful...!
Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m stuck in this hole in the ground, without any of the people I care about, heating, or any decent facilities to make me like it any better. Maybe if I was actually in the city, rather than below it, my opinion would be different.
Okay, so maybe it isn’t that bad down here, maybe I’m exaggerating on how dreadful it is, but I still hate it. It’s a real, genuinely designed for this sort of purpose, bunker, with very basic cooking equipment, a bathroom, beds for all of us...but the people I love most aren’t here, and that’s my main issue.
I wish I never got dragged down here, if everything hadn’t been so panicked and messy during the outbreak, I never would’ve allowed Bobby to take me with him. He wanted to help me, he was being nice, and in sheer shock I went with it, and I’ve been stuck ever since. I never even got to see a lot of Toronto, I was only here for a day or so, when the virus wrecked everything.
I can’t connect with the seven other people down here, not really, because they aren’t who I want to be with. I don’t know where they are. Are they in one of these prisons like me? Did they end up suffering the virus in the first wave of infection? Are they out there somewhere looking for me? I keep trying to be let free, but Bobby and the others are so damn afraid of letting me experience the big wide world out there, whether it’s my choice or not. ‘We have supplies for the next three years,’ they keep telling me, ‘until then we stay put’.
Thee years. How the hell can I last for three whole years? Apparently it’s almost been one, but still...I’m going to go crazy. Maybe that’s why I suddenly feel in
clined to document my experience, to prevent myself from going insane.
Carol.
Dear Diary,
Now I’m mad. I’m absolutely off the charts furious. I can’t go out, these people won’t let me out for ‘my own good’ however much I insist that’s what I want, but it’s okay to let someone in. What sort of logic is that? If they’re so scared of what’s going on ‘out there’, then why let it in?
Ross, is his name, and apparently him knocking on the door and begging to be let in before he’s killed, is enough for us to break all the stupid rules. He’s young, maybe nineteen-years-old, and very scruffy, dirty even. I mean, I guess that’s to be expected since he’s been out there living rough in the apocalypse, but still I don’t like him. He’s just...sketchy, and he won’t divulge anything about his life out there.
I want him out.
No, I don’t want him out, I don’t give a monkeys about him. I want to get out myself, to find my family. I need to find a way to get hold of the keys before I really do go mental. I can actually feel murder-y tendencies building up inside of me. Any minute now I might flip out and do some real damage.
Again, an exaggeration, but still...
Maybe I just need to calm down. Nothing ever got achieved with an angry mind. I’ll just take a read of one of my books to see if that helps to calm me down in any way.
Carol
Dear Diary,
I just had a little ‘chat’ with Bobby, which did nothing to make me feel any better. He seems to think he’s some sort of messiah, sent to save us all. He really thinks he’s doing a good thing, letting Ross in here. I can see his point of view, if he wants to believe the best in everyone, but even before the apocalypse hit not everyone was perfect. What’s to say the horror of this hasn’t brought out the worst in this stranger? What’s to say rescue is really what he’s after?