"We need to deal with him too."
Anna points at the beige mass at the bottom of the field and trees.
I squint, "It's a man."
"Great. You get to kill him."
I laugh bitterly and hand over the bow
and arrow to her. She thinks like me and I like it. She never fired once when I
was shooting the arrows. She understands conservation.
She gives me a wide-eyed smile and takes
the bow, "Really? I've never done this before."
"We need to walk closer to him. When
you pull the arrow back control every inch of your arms. It feels hard at first
but you get used to the tension.
We walk to where the hill crests. We are
near one of the fallen infected. I can smell him. I point at a tree further to
the right, "Let's stand over there."
We walk away from the smell of the
rotting sick carcass. At the tree she attempts to pull the arrow back. Her
skinny arms tremble.
She looks frustrated.
I laugh, "I know how you feel right
now. It took me two years. It won't happen on the first try."
She pouts, "Can we make me a bow
maybe?"
I nod excitedly. We haven’t had much to
talk about.
I take the bow and arrow. I pull back and
sight in the dying man. His body trembles slightly. His skin has chew marks.
The infected will eat anything.
"Hold it steady, sight in what you
want to shoot and then take a deep breath." I exhale and release the
arrow. We are close enough that it makes a slicing sound as it enters his
temple. "Always exhale when you release." I grimace as I see the
arrow sticking out of his bleeding head.
"Wow."
I nod, "Yeah it took a lot of
practice."
"Sweet fucking god."
I turn. "What?"
Jake is standing behind us, "You
guys do realize that's a person you just shot. These were all people."
Anna scoffs, "They're infected Jake.
They're not like you or me or even the city people."
I frown, "City people?"
Jake looks down at the grass.
Anna looks at me, "We saw it. We
went close enough to see it."
"Electricity? Running water?"
She nods, "Everything. No cars but a
subway and houses and pretty big buildings. It's on the edge of the
desert."
I feel sickened by asking the question
but I ask anyway, "What about the farms?"
She shivers, "Up and running still.
I think the babies go to the city after they're born."
Jake sighs and runs a hand through his
hair. He appears to be bothered by the conversation.
"He's military."
"What?" I look at Anna who is
pointing at the dead man with the arrow sticking out of his temple.
I look at his boots and shake my head,
"We need to be far away. Now."
We don’t talk. We leave the arrows
sticking out of the faces of the people on the ground. I never take the arrows
from the infected. We walk across the small field and into the forest on the
other side.
I watch Leo the entire walk. It stops me
from watching Jake. Leo is the best warning system. Jake is a distraction.
The farmhouse sits quiet, just like I
hoped it would. I've never come back to it so quickly. It serves our purpose
the best though. It has the longest, most off the beaten track, driveway of the
four and it's the closest to my cabin.
We peel off our soaking wet clothes. My
wound burns from the cold river water and the exertion of wading through the
river for such a long ways.
I have done it before, but it's not my
favorite way to get to the house. I've been followed before. I don’t know if we
were followed today but I can't chance it.
I can't help but steal a glance at Jake
as he pulls his wet shirt off and drops his jeans on the floor. His wound is
bright purple. The brand new scar that's the developing is lumpy and ugly.
"It's bigger than I thought it would
be."
I look up at him smiling at me, staring.
I pull my pants off and notice for the
first time he has drawings of dinner rolls on his boxers.
I raise an eyebrow.
He laughs, "Buttered buns."
"I don’t get it."
"That's because you were nine when
the world went crazy."
I feel my face blushing, realizing it's
obviously something filthy, "You were only eleven." I say out of
spite.
He laughs, "I was but my older
brother was sixteen. So that makes me more like fifteen when it happened."
I stop smiling, but he doesn’t stop
talking.
"Will was a bad kid. Our dad used to
get so mad at him. He had a magazine collection that could shock a whore."
I flinch at the word. I know what it
means and I know how it works but I've never physically heard anyone say it.
The conversation feels wrong suddenly.
"One time he was dating this girl
Angela and he…"
"Jake."
I look back at Anna who is making a
distasteful face, "Dirty Will stories in your underwear is creepy
dude."
I smile. Jake blushes. He looks at me
through his bangs and my heart feels like it's too big for my chest.
"Where is your brother?" I
don’t want to ask but I know I have to.
Anna answers from behind me, "We
hope dead."
I nod. I leave it at that. I know that
feeling.
Jake's face is haunted. I swear I see
guilt but I leave it.
I feel weird being in the house with
other people, not just because it's one of my havens but also because I am
never with other people. Ever.
My leg aches. I know I won't sleep. I
look at Anna, "You guys sleep first. Me and Leo will take first
watch."
Jake frowns, "Why don’t we all just
sleep. There is no way anyone followed us Emma."
I want to slap him, it is irrational, but
his survival skills leave a lot to be desired.
Instead I turn and walk away, Anna has it.
"Dude we will take watch here every
night. It just feels safe here, that doesn’t mean it is."
"Fine. Whatever."
I pull the knife that I stole from the
dead military guy out of my boot and rub it down with the bleach I pulled out
from under the sink. I wipe the blade down and my fingers. I pour water from my
bottle over my fingers and the blade. I hate that I touched something of
someone else's.
I catch Jake watching me.
I ignore him. I ignore my heart's desire
to flutter every time he glances at me.
I will leave him. It's in my nature.
Instead I look at Leo, who has positioned
himself in front of the back door and curled into a ball.
"So much for helping, hey boy."
He opens one yellow eye and closes it
again.
I take my new knife, my bow and quiver
and my bottle of water to the door. I rub Leo's head once and head out into the
night quietly. I stealth across the gravel silently.
I open the barn door and slip inside. The
darkness of the barn is frightening, but I grip the handle of the blade for
strength. I climb the stairs, feeling like something will grab my feet any
second and drag me down into the hay. I will finally hear my greatest fear, my
own ripping and tearing.
I climb into the hayloft and sit in the
open window. The dark night is silent. I don’t like silence. I like the sounds
of animals telling me I am safe. I open my ears and close my mind against the
sounds that haunt me.
I hear them suddenly.
The night creatures that will warn me of
any intruders fill my ears. There is a cricket, a single cricket out in the
field. I hear a bat off in the woods south of the farm. Something snorts behind
the barn in a way that makes me smile.
Whatever it is, it's rooting. The signs
of life fill me with a mistaken and misguided hope. I know the reality of it all.
I am not fooled by the warm and fuzzy feelings.
I know we are lost, all of humanity is.
I know what we have done to each other.
We are no longer human. Our humanity is lost. The animals have bested us in
behavior and survival.
The door to the house slips open. Anna
crosses the driveway carefully.
A smile crosses my lips, she is a
survivor.
"His leg is infected."
Her whispered words cut me. I know what
we must do but I'm not prepared to do it.
She sees my face in the dull moonlight,
"I know. I feel the same way."
"The medicines are all
expired."
"We have to go for him. His fever
has returned. The red lines have started. My dad warned me about the red
lines."
My eyes leave the deserted yard and fix
on hers. They glisten in the moonlight.
"I will go alone."
The glistening spot in the dark lowered,
"I can't ask that of you."
"He can't travel."
"But I can't ask that of you. He is
my burden."
I laugh softly into the cool night air,
"He really is isn’t he? How is he so clueless?"
Her lips curl into a grim smile the
darkness can't hide from me, "He worshipped our brother. They joked and
laughed while dad tried to teach us how to survive. Dad always called them the
grasshoppers who played all summer."
The reference makes me flinch, as my
granny's face flashes across my mind.
"When dad died Will took care of us,
but he wasn't a survivor. It wasn’t his fault. Dad let them play." I can
hear the tears filling her face, "When Will got taken I was eleven. Jake
has tried but he's, well he's a moron."
I look back out into the yard, "He's
amazing Anna. He's still full of the things we've all lost. He smiles and
laughs and sings. I heard him humming the other day and I almost shot him
myself and then I realized I haven’t hummed since I was nine years old."
My skin shivers when I think about spying on him humming. I couldn’t take my
eyes off of him.
"He's a goof. We will travel
together Em."
I look back harshly, "He will die if
we make him travel. Those red lines are blood poisoning and once they reach his
heart he's dead. I will go and you will stay and keep him safe."
I am risking my life for him. I feel like
I am back at the cabin door and she is knocking. I am going to regret this
decision.
"I'll leave tonight. You will have
to keep Leo with you. He can help you."
Her voice is small, "I can't ask
this of you."
It's my turn to smile bitterly,
"Guess you'll have to trust me."
I stare out into the night, it's peaceful
and quiet. It scares me more than anything suddenly.
I feel my jaw tense, "If I'm not
back in three days you'll have to cut the leg off and clot it. Don't give him
liquor before you cut it off, it thins the blood and he will bleed out.
Clotting is done with a hot iron. You press it against the stump where the leg
bleeds to seal the veins."
I don't look at her. I can't. "The
red lines means he has a week at the most. He will need tons of soup and water
and rest. He can fight it somewhat with those things." I stand, "I'll
leave tonight."
My leg aches at the thought of leaving.
The barn feels less scary with her in it
and I realize my whole life feels that way.
I don't look back. I know he's watching
me. I can't bear to see the look on his face. His eyes will haunt me forever.
I've never left him before. He's always part of whatever I undertake. He waits
in the woods while I raid houses, but he's there. This is the first time I turn
my back on him and I don’t know if I will be back.
I just put one foot in front of the
other.
When the sun rises I am in the middle of
nowhere. I walk and listen to the music of the birds. The sun is above me and
hot. Spring isn’t like it was when I was little. It's warm and muggy now. I
know I'm about halfway. Lost in the trail and thought I hear something I
haven’t heard in a long time, a buzz. I follow the noise to a hive. It's small
and only half built but it makes me hopeful. If the bees aren’t dead like I
feared they would be, maybe there is hope. I haven’t seen a bee since before.
I look at the small hive. Humans could do
that. We could rebuild. If we stopped trying to be on top, we could stand a
chance. I watch the busy bees for a moment and turn back to the trail. It isn’t
a real trail. It's just a direction I walked once before.
The sun sets, making me tired. I've
walked nearly twenty-four hours. I climb a huge tree and lay against the trunk,
in one of the high up branches. I close my eyes for a minute.
Flashes fill my head instantly.