Seasons After Fall

by Reginald Linsao

  Andrew popped the door open and slowly made his way downstairs, followed closely behind by Rowan and Lorena. It was quiet, and the mild warmth of the early morning daylight shined through the shattered kitchen window. There was nothing around, save for the woman’s dead body and Rowan’s crowbar. As Rowan picked up his weapon, he looked at the corpse and frowned—wherever she was now, it had to be a better place than this.

  Andrew grabbed two backpacks stashed underneath the living room couch and threw one over to Rowan while handing the other one over to his daughter. He pulled another one out from behind a few coats in a closet and made his way over to the kitchen, opening the cabinets in search of food. They were all empty.

  “Are you serious?”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Rowan.

  Lorena had a sickly look on her face. “There was food in our pantry. And water. But it’s all gone.”

  “Some fuckers must’ve taken it,” said Andrew, slamming his fist onto the kitchen counter. “They have to be nearby. They couldn’t have taken our food last night with all of those infected people wandering around in the house.”

  “How long should we wait until those people are far away?” asked Lorena.

  “Wait?” Andrew peered out through the broken window, lowering his voice. “We have no time to wait. They have our food. We need to find them and get our damn supplies back.”

  Andrew opened the front door, but he was disrupted by Rowan’s protesting. “Don’t you realize how dangerous that is? We don’t know if they’re armed. We can find food as we move up north. I’m sure there’s plenty to take. That way, we can avoid any conflict.”

  “Rowan’s right, dad,” said Lorena. “We can just find food elsewhere.”

  “No,” said Andrew. “How do we know we’ll find food as we travel north?”

  “How do we know we’ll find those scavengers?”

  Andrew stayed at the door, looking frustrated as he gazed around the neighborhood. Rowan couldn’t read his reaction, as Andrew didn’t seem to respond well to rationality. He was fully controlled by the volatility of his emotions.

  Eventually, Andrew relented. “Fine. Let’s go. We’ll live without food and water for now.”

  Rowan refused to say anything more to him, as he feared that he might provoke him to retract his decision. Andrew then exited out the front door with his daughter, who placed her knife back into its sheath. Rowan followed them, but he decided to take one last look at the woman’s body before leaving. They were going to run into more people like her—and he was going to need to kill them.

  He stepped outside. The beginning of a new day did not erase the gloom of the previous night. As the winter morning sunshine shone weakly through the clouds, a rush of desperate shadows appeared, each clinging on to a broken object in the neighborhood. Cars, lamp posts, signs, and bodies each had their own distinct shape given to them by the murky sun.

  The three displaced travelers walked for miles. As they trudged forward, Lorena kept an attentive eye on her father, who had slowed down considerably despite his initial eagerness to get moving. He repeatedly rubbed his arms and neck, and although he knew that there was nothing actually there, he could not stop the urge to scratch himself. He had already torn off most of his bandages.

  Rowan turned around, noticing Andrew’s sluggish behavior. “Are you all right? Do we need to stop or something?”

  “It’s nothing,” muttered Andrew. “Just keep going. I’m fine. We’ve got no time to lose when we haven’t found any damn supplies.”

  Rowan and Lorena stayed ahead, feeling it necessary to not disobey Andrew. The day was still silent, and it felt calm for once. They hadn’t run into any trouble since the previous night, and Rowan was beginning to believe that it wasn’t going to be difficult getting back home after all. Maybe people were sick, but he sure as hell didn’t see a lot of them.

  He leaned toward Lorena and whispered in her ear. “Hey, just curious, but has your dad always been this way?”

  Lorena made no effort to turn her head. “Been like what?”

  “You know. Being such a hard ass.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while, but she decided to answer Rowan’s question. “No. My dad had a nasty divorce with my mom a few years ago. Then, all that stuff about the wars kept coming on the news. And, well, sometimes I give him a hard time. I hate it, but I get why he’s like that.”

  “I get you.” Rowan thought about his own parents and whether or not they were okay. Would they argue at a time like this? Stress always brought out the worst in them. “I can see why your dad is the way he is.”

  “Yeah. I still love him, though. So I’d like it if you didn’t get angry at him or insult him. He’s still my dad.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” said Lorena. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not mad or anything.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  There was a soft thud behind them. Andrew had barely caught himself on the floor, and the palm of his right hand was now covered with blood that slowly trickled down his forearm.

  Lorena screamed as she scrambled over to him. “Dad, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he grumbled. “I just tripped. There’s no worry. Let’s keep moving.”

  “You look like a ghost,” said Rowan. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Andrew stood up with the help of his daughter. “We have to keep moving. It’s not a good idea to stop here.”

  “There’s a liquor store nearby,” said Lorena. She took out a bandage from her backpack, but Andrew waved it away. “Come on, we need to rest.”

  “No. We shouldn’t do that. If we don’t keep going, none of us will have even eaten today, and none of us even had much to eat yesterday in the first place.”

  “It’s just for today,” said Rowan. “Maybe there’s food and water in the liquor store. Let’s just check it out, all right?”

  Andrew winced in pain as Lorena forcefully poured rubbing alcohol over his new wound. “Fine. But we won’t be staying for long. The latest we’ll stay is until the early morning when the sun rises, but no longer than that. We don’t have the luxury of time.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Rowan. “Lorena?”

  “We’ll stay until my dad feels strong enough to keep going,” she said, placing a large bandage onto her father’s palm. “And I don’t care what he says.”

  “Lorena—”

  “No, dad. You need to get better. You don’t look so good.”

  Andrew sighed, lightly pressing the adhesive on his palm. “Fine then. We’ll see what happens by tomorrow.”

  The trio shuffled over to the liquor store, with both Rowan and Lorena assisting Andrew against his will. Lorena helped her father sit down against the counter by the front entrance while Rowan took a quick look around the ransacked store.

  “Doesn’t look like there’s anything here,” he yelled from the back of the shop. He ran his hands along the empty shelves.

  “Be quiet,” said Andrew. “Too much noise will attract people over here.”

  “Right.” Rowan seated himself on the counter above Andrew. “Sorry. It’s still a hard thing for me to process right now.”

  Lorena placed her hand on her father’s forehead. “Dad… are you feeling any other symptoms?”

  “I’ve got more sores. They’re on my feet and on my face now.”

  “Are you cold? I can—”

  “No. You two should go look for food and water right now while it’s still bright outside. I’ll stay here. We can’t waste—”

  Lorena tossed her backpack on the floor. “We’re not leaving you!”

  Rowan had actually thought that it was a good idea to go out and find some supplies, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. For one, he still didn’t know exactly what to expect from the people out there. He also didn’t want to leave Lorena alone with her father, as it sounded like she really wanted Rowan there to help her. If Rowan really wanted to, he could just leave a
nd start walking toward San Jose, but there was something within him that compelled him to stay. It could have been moral obligation—but he really wasn’t quite sure.

  “We’re staying,” said Rowan. “Once you feel better, we’re out of here.”

  7

  “What time do you think it is?” asked Lorena. She was watching her father, whose breaths were quick and shallow even in his sleep.

  “I’m not sure,” said Rowan. “Nearly nine, maybe?”

  “If you’re right, then it’s still really early.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m not so tired. My sleeping schedule is all sorts of fucked up because of school. I would usually only get an hour or two of rest before I had to wake up in the morning.”

  Lorena turned to Rowan, who was staring at the parking lot directly outside of the front door. “Why’d you always sleep so late?”

  “Too much homework,” he muttered. “Too much fucking homework.”

  “Homework gets that bad in high school?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. I just took too many advanced classes, you know? Everyone pressures you to do that sort of thing if you want to get into a good college.”

  Lorena pulled a blanket out from her backpack and placed it next to her father’s head. “Do you think it was all worth it?”

  “I guess. I mean, it got me into Harvard. But… whatever. That doesn’t matter. I doubt college is going to exist anymore in our lifetime. So I guess it really wasn’t worth it.”

  Rowan rubbed a penny that he had found on the counter. When he was seven, he caught his mother crying and praying about the bills one night, and from that point forward, he developed a habit of picking up loose change. He didn’t make very many friends in elementary school other than Caitlyn because he spent most of his recesses looking for lost coins on the floor in order to help his family out as best as he could. Sometimes, the quarters and dimes he found would really make a difference. Maybe it meant an extra load of laundry, or maybe it meant a small snack that would get him through the week, but most of all, it lifted a little bit of the burden off of his parents’ shoulders, and that’s what made every last cent important.

  “I think those advanced classes were worth it,” said Lorena. “It’s always a good thing to be smart, right? And to know a lot of things.”

  Rowan stopped peering out of the front door to take a quick look at her. The moonlight allowed him to see her dreary expression. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. It’s easy to forget that those classes weren’t just for an application, even though I treated them that way.”

  “Is it weird that I keep asking you about high school?”

  “No. It’s normal to be curious.”

  “I feel bad. You said that high school really stressed you out, so I don’t know if I’m stressing you out more by making you talk about it.”

  “It’s fine, actually.” Rowan tossed the penny he was holding. “I was once told that talking about my problems and what stresses me out are supposed to help me feel better.”

  “Does it actually help?”

  “I’m not sure. I suppose I haven’t talked about them enough.”

  Lorena was quiet for a moment, but she continued. “Then can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever since my dad got sick, I always get this slight hesitation to touch him. To hug him. To help him out. I get scared that I’m gonna catch whatever it is that he has, or that he might do something crazy. I’ve seen other sick people and I’ve heard about other sick people and nothing about them sounds good.”

  “I’m sure that’s a natural feeling, isn’t it? Anyone would feel that way.”

  Lorena looked down at her father. “I guess so. But that’s the worst part about this sickness. It makes you scared about the people you love, because what if something is really, really wrong with them? Can you really treat them the same after you find that out?”

  “I think it’s possible,” said Rowan. “You seem like someone who could see past this illness and still see your father.”

  “What if I’m not like that?”

  “You really seem like you are.”

  Andrew groaned and turned over. Lorena hastily unraveled the blanket she had taken out earlier and placed it over him, wary of positioning it over the sores he had pointed out to her over the course of the last week. She had memorized where all of them were at this point. It seemed silly to be cautious of her father’s delusions, but she knew that to him, these sores were very real. He would have done the same for her.

  “Rowan, I think we should go to sleep.”

  “You don’t want to stay up a bit longer?”

  “The earlier we get up, the better. Plus, we might be tired in the morning.”

  “Okay, then,” said Rowan. “Get some rest. I might stay up for a while.”

  Lorena lied down next to her father. The boy didn’t want to sleep, as he felt that his last day on Earth was coming soon. What would be his last thought? Would it be of fear, cowering in an empty liquor store in a place he had never been before? Or would it be of sadness, with him being unable to find his family? Or even worse—would it be of anger and anguish, seeing the corpses of the people that he loved? No matter what Rowan did, he couldn’t imagine a bright ending for himself. It just didn’t seem likely.

  Hours later, Rowan jolted awake to the sound of Andrew’s harsh whispers, which he could not understand. Rowan’s neck was stiff and tender, and the pain was only exacerbated by Lorena’s vicious tugging on his arm.

  “Rowan, wake up,” she said.

  “What happened?” he asked while crawling his way over to the shelf beside her.

  “My dad,” she cried. “I—I don’t know what he wants. I think he needs help.”

  Rowan rubbed his eyes. “Andrew, what’s going on?”

  “Ellie,” he groaned. “Tell her to get over here.”

  “Who’s Ellie?”

  “That’s my mom,” said Lorena. “He’s calling for my mom.”

  “Ellie!”

  “Dad, she isn’t here!”

  “Relax, Andrew.” said Rowan. “You’re sick. Ellie isn’t here.”

  “You can’t see her?” he asked. “But she’s right there!”

  Lorena tried to block her father’s vision by leaning over him, but he pushed her out of the way. Despite getting up, he collapsed back down to the ground and began writhing on the floor, holding both of his arms as tightly as he could.

  “Dad!”

  “I can’t move,” he whimpered. “I—I don’t feel so well.”

  Lorena began to desperately bandage her father’s arms. The bandages had worked well once before, but now, it appeared as if nothing could relieve him from the excruciating pain that only he could see and feel. Rowan once again searched the liquor store for anything that might help—medicine, food, water—but there was absolutely nothing around. Andrew continued to scream out for Ellie, and though he was once aware of his sickness, it seemed that this was no longer the case. He could only scream now.

  “You’ve got to snap out of it,” said Lorena, holding her father back. “You’re sick—sick, okay? You can’t get better unless you let us help you.”

  Andrew was reaching out to a figure near the doorway. “She can’t hear me!”

  “She’s not there,” said Rowan. “Andrew, you need to control yourself. Lorena is here right now and she needs you to calm down.”

  “You don’t understand,” cried Andrew. “I can’t stop!”

  Lorena placed her hand over her father’s, but he tore away and grabbed his shotgun off of the counter. Before Rowan could stop him, Andrew aimed his weapon at the same spot that he had been staring at and fired. He screamed in agony and rushed over to the broken glass, leaning over the shards with a harrowing wail that deafened Rowan and Lorena more than the shotgun blast did. His hands were now caked with dust and blood.

  “You said she wasn’t there!” he sobbed. “I—You made me kill her!”

  �
�You’re still seeing things,” cried Lorena. “Dad, you need to believe us!”

  “What have I done?” Andrew pointed his shotgun at himself. “How could I have done this? How could you have made me do this?”

  Rowan reached out to Andrew in an attempt to calm him, but the man abruptly pointed his gun right at the boy who began to plead with him. “Andrew—relax. Please, you’ve got to relax. Think about yesterday. Think logically. How could Ellie have gotten here?”

  “She couldn’t have,” he said. “I know she couldn’t have—but she’s here anyway.”

  “Then you know she isn’t real.”

  “But she is! She’s real to me! Everything—everything I see is real to me.”

  Lorena took a small step forward, trying to get as close to her father as she could. “Dad, put the gun down.”

  “Lorena, you know I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean to—”

  “Dad, it’s okay. Just—just put the gun down. It’s okay, all right?”

  Andrew pointed the shotgun at himself again. “It’s not okay! Your mom is gone and it was all my fault!”

  “No!”

  “Don’t do this to yourself,” said Rowan. “Can’t you see that you’re hurting Lorena?”

  “You need to leave.” Andrew stepped backwards and placed the gun right against his chin. “Both of you need to leave.”

  “Please stop,” said Lorena. “Please—why are you doing this? Why?”

  Andrew began crying uncontrollably. “I can’t stop myself. I can’t fucking stop myself.”

  “But we can stop—”

  “Rowan,” said Andrew. “You have to take my daughter out of here.”

  “What?”

  “She won’t leave unless you force her, and I don’t want her to see this.”

  “Rowan, please don’t!” Lorena latched onto Rowan’s forearm. “We need to help him. We can’t just leave!”

  “I know,” he said, inching closer to her father. “Andrew, we’re not going to let you do this, all right? You shouldn’t—”

  Andrew fired a shot at the ground, causing the two children to back up into a shelf. “I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t leave right now. I need you to leave! Both of you!”