I cry louder, "Will, goddammed don’t leave me." I breathe into his lips again but nothing happens. I feel his arms for the plastic lines of the I.V. I saw before.
I need light. I feel around for the counters I saw. When I open a drawer I can't tell what anything is. I drop to my knees again, pulling more drawers open, but I still don’t recognize anything. Everything I touch is a foreign object.
My hands shake, blood makes them sticky, but I still search each drawer, not knowing what I'm looking for.
I pass over things, as if any of it is going to help. There is a driving need to touch every drawer and every item, as if one might tell me it's the thing I need.
I reach the bottom drawer and still no answers. The plan I had, depended on light still being in the room or Bernie being with me… or both. I close my eyes, not that it makes a difference, and take a breath. I am defeated.
I crawl along the floor to his bedside. I drag my hands up the frame of the bed, clutching to the bedding and then to him. I lean my head against the cold railing and sob. I don’t have anything else. I have no Leo, Anna, Meg, Star, Bernie, or anyone to make a difference. Don’t even have Jake to just be there. It's just like before. I'm ten years old and totally alone in the dark.
I grip to his arm, holding tight. If I let go, he's gone forever. I press my lips against his hand and let the tears wash over me.
Chapter Seven
My footsteps are clumsy on the stairs. My hand squeals along the metal railing as I slip a little. I'm out of bullets and I don’t know if the door at the bottom is open or not. I just walk down the stairs. Something gleams off of the railing when I round a corner. There is light at the bottom of the stairs somewhere.
"Hello?" a small voice shouts up into the stairwell.
I can see the stairs ever so slightly in the light that seems as if it's fading in and out. I round the corner to see the door open at the bottom of the stairs. A woman holding a torch smiles at me, "Are you hurt?"
I want to cry and tell her I am dead inside, but I don’t. I shake my head and stumble down the last couple steps. She backs away so I can leave the stairwell. A man's leg sticks out the bottom, keeping the door ajar.
She points behind her, "I can't seem to get the main door open." Her words are desperate and edgy. I look at the main door in the torchlight and shake my head, "You won't get that one open. We need a window."
She swallows and nods, "Okay. I know where a window is. What section did you come from?"
I point upward.
She sniffles, "I don’t understand what's happened. Even the emergency lights have shut off."
"Where is the window?"
She shakes the torch and points to the right.
"You lead the way and I'll break the window." I need to get to Anna. She must be freaking out by now.
We walk through a dark, wide hallway, I can tell we are in the nicer part of the labs, where the general public gets to see everything. God knows what's in the black lab, besides my dead friend and my trapped father.
I can't think about it all, I just can't. The coward in me is strong. She was trained well. She pushes me on, to get me out.
The lady opens a door with no scanners and light floods us both. I see her better now. She's Michael's age and fragile. Her bones would break faster than a chicken's. She has dark hair and dark eyes with a worried look.
The window looks over an alleyway between the buildings at ground level. It’s tinted to make it hard to see in. The light of the rising sun is just hitting the buildings.
I walk to the window, examining it. There is no latch to open it. I look at the huge chair to the right. It's an office of sorts. There are metal cabinets and glass desktops with maps underneath. I grab the huge chair and drag it to the window. I lift it up and swing as hard as I can. The window bends almost and then cracks slightly. I swing the chair again, this time I use everything that's left. The window cracks but doesn’t fall out. I drag the chair back, pick it up and run at the window with it. The chair almost pushes me back, but the window buckles and the glass falls out, taking the chair with it.
I stand there and breathe as the fresh air hits me.
I don’t want the freedom that is there in the fresh air.
I want the man that's dead upstairs and the other one in the basement. I can't face her without them.
The woman has dropped the torch, leaving it to burn the carpet. I almost put it out, but then I remember where I am and what's left.
I follow her out the window, not looking back.
The streets are filled with people. Scared people, who have never lived with the nothingness the rest of us faced. Their city is worthless. It's now no different than any other corner of this world.
I don’t know that we made the right choice but I know we made the only one we had. The breeder farms are done, the work camps are for nothing, and the rebellion doesn’t matter anymore.
My feet almost slap against the street as I make my way to the apartment we left Anna at. I almost don’t recognize the building when I get close to it. In the light it looks magical and not old at all, but she's there on the steps. She's sitting, waiting for me… us.
She sees me, sees the truth instantly. She doesn’t jump up. She stays seated on the front steps, avoiding the truth I bring with me.
Her eyes are bright blue, wide and glistening when I get close enough to see them.
I stop, I can't do it. I drop to my knees, in the crowded street with the lost strangers surrounding us both, and sob.
Her slim fingers lift to her face, covering her mouth. We stare at one another, tears streaming our faces. I shake my head subtly. It's the only time I will ever tell her this.
She cries harder.
I look down and let the shame of my failure cloak me in guilt, so heavy I will never be free of it.
I close my eyes and wait for my father to show up, or the infected, or something worse—God only knows what that could be. Instead, her skinny arms wrap around me and hold me. I am not worthy of her love and forgiveness, but I am grateful she is there.
She takes my hand and we start the long walk out of the city. The people we pass are starting to panic; no one has answers. They fear war and starvation. They huddle and fight, and feel all of the things we all felt a decade ago. All of the things they got to avoid because they were apart of the chosen ones. The ones who got to live in the city and be safe.
Anna grips my fingers, almost pulling me along. When we get to the gate, there is no one. We walk along the bridge over the river to the borderlands, not speaking.
"EMMA!"
There it is. There is the man who will not die because I won't let him. He deserves to live. I turn back to see him standing there, wild-eyed and savage.
Anna and I stop walking.
Michael storms towards me, out of breath and crazed looking. He points, "YOU LITTLE BITCH! YOU THINK WE CAN'T REBUILD THIS? YOU THINK THIS IS THE END?"
I can tell by the wild look on his face, it is. He can't rebuild, not this. Not without the power.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME? YOU'RE LENNY'S DAUGHTER, THROUGH AND THROUGH! CHICKEN SHIT LENNY!"
I turn away from him, dragging Anna with me. He's trying to get me to kill him and let him off easy.
"DON’T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME!"
But I don’t look back. The world is fair and even, and everyone is the same, including him. I want to kill him but that would spare him the filth and disgusting things I have had to endure to live. I want him to know about the mess he made, the real version. Not the one he's been living.
"EMMAAAAAAA!" His screams become pathetic. He isn’t scary anymore.
I glance at Anna and smile, "I am Lenny's daughter, through and through."
She smiles back through her tears, "Yeah, you are."
Chapter Eight
"I need to know how," she whispers.
I glance at her from my log and sigh, "Why?"
Anna shakes her head, "I just do. We might die out here in the woods, and I don’t want to die and not know how."
I take a bite of rabbit and stare at the campfire. My voice is hollow when I speak, "Will was just had no more life support. The machines didn’t breathe for him, so he didn’t breathe anymore. He just stopped."
I can hear the tears I won't look at, "Did you kiss him goodbye?"
I shake my head, "I couldn’t. I just left." I pick at the meat, "Bernie was a gunshot to the back. He was shot once but still managed to send the missile. Then he got shot again."
She sobs silently, except for the sniffles. Sometimes she makes her wheeze.
I don’t want anymore to eat, but I know I have to. I'm sick, with myself and the whole circumstance.
I look at her, "We're lost, you know that right?"
She nods, wiping away the tears.
Everywhere we've walked I've whistled for him, but he hasn't come. I'm terrified they didn’t make it.
I fall asleep that night next to her on the ground.
I wish I'd dreamt when I wake up; at least then I could have seen his face or listened to him singing that song with the Hey Ho. Instead, I wake to the feel of cool wind on my face. I haven’t felt cool wind in a long time. The hot summer feels like it's never going to end, the same way the cold winter does.
I open an eye and see Anna setting some fruit on a leaf for me. She's used my knife from my boot to cut the apples she has. I grimace. She sneers and whispers harshly, "I washed it."
"It's a cold wind," I mutter as I stand up, stretching my back and picking the ant off of my tank top.
She nods and passes me the broad leaf. I eat an apple slice and savor the flavor. "Where did you find the apples?"
She points. I never noticed in the dark that we're beside a farmhouse. The orchard has been overrun but the fruit trees are covered. My mouth drops, "Wow."
I give her a curious look, "You check out the farmhouse?"
She nods, "Empty." Sometimes she doesn’t even say the words, just mouths them. I'm getting better at reading her lips.
She points at a hill to the left, "That’s where Bernie's house is."
I look over, "You sure?"
She nods and takes a big bite of apple. "Bernie always said he would go to the farm a few miles over and eat apples. He worried they might be radioactive."
I look at my bite in the apple and grimace.
She shrugs and swallows.
I whistle, hoping he can hear me, as I walk to the farmhouse. It's a beautiful property but the house is a mess. The brown siding is rotting off and the inside looks like it's suffered through an earthquake. The stairs are shifted. It's a perfect place for the animals and infected to hide. I close the crooked front door and don’t go in. It's one of the rules I have—don’t go in unless there is no other option. At this point, going in is an option only for curiosity’s sake.
The trees look amazing; they don’t look sick at all. The leaves are bright and green, and the apples are bright and red. They are ready to harvest fast this year.
The dry borderlands are surprisingly good for farming. I pick another apple and walk towards Anna. She's staring off into space, holding her leaf of food, but not moving. Her face is lost in whatever she's remembering. Her eyes drop down as a blush crosses her face but she doesn’t smile. I can imagine what she's remembering.
I can imagine the pain she's in.
I know that pain. It's a dusty, dry, hollow ache in my heart too. It’s the feel of my lips pressed against his hand. He wasn’t normal, or functional, or sane, but he was my match in this crazy world where things don’t make sense anyway.
I nod, "Let's start walking towards the hills and see if it's the right way."
My words pull her from the daydream. She gets up, still forcing herself to eat. Our footsteps are the only sound surrounding us, besides the slight whistle of the warm wind through the orchard. The fruit is almost as good as drinking water. The juice it makes in my mouth as I take small bites, quenches some of my thirst.
We are out of water and ammo, and I am out of care. If I drop dead in the dusty hills in front of us, I don’t care. I want Leo, Sarah, Jake, and even Star, but I want Will more. I even want Bernie more because I want that look in Anna's eyes to come back. Her face isn’t sad; it's the opposite. I can see she's grateful for what she had, even if it was short lived. Her bravery knows no bounds, and I am the only one who is never going to be okay again. She will be. She has been disappointed so much in this life, that even a broken heart can't stop her spirit.
We enter the denser forest, picking up the pace. I have no gun, or bow, or anything. I have my knife.
I don’t know what I thought the world looked like; I never gave it much thought. It was all survival before, but now with him gone, it feels like the world is broken. I think I finally know what it feels like to be normal. Everyone else has lived through this all along, but I haven’t. I've survived and now I'm not sure I want to.