Left Alive 1

by Jeremy Laszlo

  I curl up on the side of the road like my dead friend days before, when the sun completely sinks into the horizon. I keep down in the dried canal and pray that no one stumbles upon me in the dark. There is a shadow hanging over my throbbing head as I lay down to sleep. I am hungry. I am definitely scared. Every sound is a person who will kill me for what I have. There is nothing between me and the hostile world beyond. I have honestly never felt so vulnerable in my life. All I can think of is Lexi and Val in Florida. I have no idea where they are, if they’re safe, or if they’re even alive. I can’t sleep with that hanging over my aching head, until it’s no longer about what I want and sleep claims me by force.

  I barely wake in the morning. I peek one eye open, forcing myself to look at the world around me, and stare directly at the side of the ditch I am sleeping in. The pale gray dirt and rock lining the wall of the canal confuse me for a moment, until I decide to sit up to investigate further and feel pain shooting through my spine as my head begins to spin. It feels as if someone has steeped my head inside of a foggy, burning beverage and as I reach for my forehead, I realize just how much pain my ribs are in. I need a good bed to lie down in, but instead I am given a slab of concrete in the belly of a dried up ditch for comfort. The skin of my face is moist and on fire. I immediately fear an infection and force myself up. I can’t stay here.

  My stomach roars as I pull my aching body out of the ditch. If I concede to the aches and remain here, I am going to die. I limp for miles, searching for any sign of hope. There are no little Doc-in-the-box places for me to break into and raid. I can’t even find a pharmacy that might supply me with antibiotics or bandages. I am too afraid to enter the broken and shattered houses that line the road into Detroit. I keep to Van Dyke Avenue, following it into Warren. When I find an Olive Garden, I slam my shoulder into the door and am certain I have shattered my arm and splintered my ribs with the excruciatingly painful blow. I settle for hurling a rock through the window.

  When the world was falling apart, there wasn’t time to loot. It wasn’t like the TV shows where the world was left open for those left wandering. The starvation happened quickly. Food stopped being delivered. The only thing in abundance was meat. Vegetables and fruits were in high demand—grains were immediately inflated. There was still enough food in surplus to last for months, but people weren’t willing to listen to reason. As they watched the world falling to pieces around them, their minds quickly followed. Hoarders began to take to the streets with their weapons, stealing from those who looked weak. We all knew that food prices were going to skyrocket and that the government was going to step in. Local radicals quickly formed, unwilling to let the Federal Government dictate how and when they were going to get their food. Communism came up in every political conversation.

  As for the Midwest, those evacuated from the infected areas were placing greater strain on surrounding states that were suffering from the refugee influx. There were those, however, who stayed behind. Armed survivors went from house to house, stocking up on food they stole from those who left it behind. When everything started to stabilize, the government tried to move into quarantined states to uproot the lawless societies who immediately fought back. War spread across the Midwest, and soon refugee camps began to rise up as well. Everywhere along the Mississippi River states were seceding from the Union, and the Federal Government had little reason to fight them. If they wanted to live in a wasteland, the President and Congress decided to let them. But when the storms came and the plague spread, most of America was lost. As the East Coast fell, war inevitably followed to take control of resources.

  As for the Olive Garden on Van Dyke Avenue, it was bound to still have some food. There had to be much that had been overlooked in the initial Panic. At least I hope so. I look and almost immediately find a can of diced tomatoes and an old jar of pimiento olives. I make a strange, savory meal of it, taking small swigs of water as I look out the smudged, dirty window at the desolate world waiting for me. I want to find a car, but I begin to question that logic.

  If I find a car, then that would mean that people would see me. Ash is raining from the cloudy sky all day long. It would go from a blizzard to a soft flurry of puffy white ash at the whim of the winds. All of that ash was settling upon the road and that car I might find would send thick, billowing clouds up behind me as I drive, just as the Jeep had. No telling how long the teens had waited for me to arrive. They could have seen me coming for hours. A new means of transportation would be a dead giveaway to everyone inside of Detroit and there is bound to be some band of survivors that have set up their own little dominion in the city. If I am lucky, there will just be the one band in Detroit, but rumor is that there are multiple factions vying for control over the territory and the food scattered throughout the city. I silently thank the preacher for sharing the information over the airways. I know to keep a low profile, and plan to do just that, but the feeling of security within the confines of a car still beckons me.

  Then there is the issue of navigation. Cities are full of vehicles and everyone didn’t just take their cars home and park them nicely during the Panic. When the collapse happened, people abandoned their cars in traffic jams and immediately started strangling and mauling each other in their desperation to find salvation along the highway, or in the heart of the city, or at the lake, or taking to the skies far beyond the horizon. Ultimately, that meant there was gridlock everywhere. Any attempt to get a car through a city would end up with me driving it straight into a traffic jam that has been abandoned for months only to be swarmed by another pack of desperate teenagers who might not be as kind and forgiving as my previous encounter had been.

  No, deep in the pit of my stomach, I know that the only safe way through is on foot.

  If I want to survive, then I need to avoid drawing attention to myself. That is something I can do. It will be faster to cut straight through Detroit on my own, silently, than to go driving around the outskirts of the city just to avoid choke points and dangers. I can’t stall any longer. I have to get to the girls. I can’t waste another day unconscious in the gutter and I certainly can’t waste time avoiding enormous cities all together. I finish the remnants of my olives and drink the brine. Taking a swig of water to wash down the saltiness, I pull myself up and limp out the front door with a cleaver I found stuffed into my belt. Outside of a pocketknife, it’s the only real weapon I have.

  My headache refuses to abate, regardless of the amount of water I keep drinking. I need sunglasses or caffeine to try and shake the tension, but I begin to suspect something more sinister. I touch the gash on my cheek, feeling the crusted-over wound. I need to clean it and I am way too afraid to use any of the cloth I have on me. If it gets infected, then I’m dead. I need antibiotics.

  Making my way down Van Dyke Avenue, I eventually come across a place that makes me smile out of irony until the pain in my cheek is too much bear. I have found the small Planned Parenthood in Warren. There are four cars in the parking lot and someone had set the GM Tech Center across the street on fire a few days ago. Even now it smolders obnoxiously, releasing random plumes of smoke and crackles that have the hair on my neck standing. Everything around me points to signs that people are actively moving in the area. It has the looks of a stopping point on a mass exodus. I haven’t felt safe since the moment I stepped into Warren. I try the doors, but nothing will budge. I feel weaker with each passing hour. I need to stop. I need to take some time to rest and clean up this gash on my face. Grabbing my tool kit, I hurl it at the large central window in the side door. It smacks against the window, instantly forming a spider web of fractures. I stand motionless, paralyzed with fear, listening to the echo of the crash moving across the empty streets and parking lots. I listen, waiting for any signs that there are others near. The breath in my lungs grows stale and fights for release.

  When there are no signs or sounds of activity, I pick up the tool kit again and hurl it at the window again. The fractures multiply, but still the w
indow doesn’t burst. For a third time, I pick up the kit and hurl it with all my strength. It slams into the window and rattles loose out half a dozen tiny pieces of glass. I drop to my knees in the grassless lawn and stare at the window, my chest heaving as I try to catch my ragged breath. Behind the Planned Parenthood sits the back of the Tech Plaza Shopping Center. I look at the long building and wonder if anyone has set up camp inside of those shops and tiny stores. They are prime looting locations. It is strange that this has become my life. Instead of businesses, I now see treasure chests ripe for the plundering. Down the road running along the Planned Parenthood is a street of burned out houses. They have been long abandoned. Dead trees line the streets like skeletal fingers reaching up from the grave.

  I take a drink of water and rise with one last determined chance. Scooping up the tool kit, I hurl it with my last vestiges of strength and watch the door’s window shatter in a waterfall of glass. I step through the glass and look at the forgotten counters. Most of the doors inside are locked, but I find a mirror and I currently have enough water to clean the gash on my cheek. Locating a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in one of the cabinets, I meticulously clean the wound with my teeth grinding against each other, biting back the pain and the urge to scream. How did this never become something I could take? I wince as much now as I did when I was a little boy. I endure the pain, cleaning until I am sufficiently pleased and quickly wrap a scavenged bandage over my cheek. I know that I should sew it up, but that isn’t something I think I can physically do. I decided to break into the next grocery store or gas station I come across. I will search for super glue. That will do the trick. I stuff more gauze and bandages in my pack, along with the peroxide, before I roll out my sleeping bag behind the counter. There is enough room under the counter to curl up and spend the night hidden, even if someone decides to randomly break into a Planned Parenthood for some reason. I wonder if this plague is the world’s attempt to abort us—its unwanted children. The irony is both amusing and sickening.

  Sometime after midnight, I open my eyes to the sensation of my stomach sending rippling pains of hunger shooting through my body. I quickly realize that my meager meal earlier has worn thin and that it is time to start hunting for food again. I check my watch and upon realizing the hour, I quickly question whether it would be smarter to tough it out until dawn or take the risk and make a nocturnal move. I lie on my sleeping bag for a few minutes, listening to my rumbling stomach and trying to weather the small cramps before making a judgment. I listen to the world outside. There is a mild, constant breeze making the brittle branches of the rotting trees rattle like bones. I lean forward and look out the smeared windows and watch the drifts of dust and ash. There isn’t a mouse stirring out there. I figure it is late enough that everyone is either asleep or hunkering down for the night. Pulling myself up, I pack my stuff and I decide to risk it. After all, I am already up.

  It’s a few blocks before I discover a restaurant that is half caved in from a fire. It was called Happy Pizza at one time, the adjacent businesses it shared the building with had burned down, presumably after a fire spread from the neighboring gas station that now is a blackened pile of rubble with two charred pumps that look like tombstones in the darkness. I climb into the ruins and decide to take a look around. The pizza place has been hit pretty heavily. I find nothing among the charred ruins and as I claw my way through the gloomy darkness, I can’t help but curse myself for losing my flashlight in the brawl, but even without light something catches my eye. From the opposite direction I had come from, someone is making their way down the street, staggering from weakness or starvation. I freeze instantly where I am, certain that the newcomer hasn’t spotted me. I watch him for a few moments as he ponders the liquor store across the road. Personally, I am pissed now that I hadn’t stopped there first. Actually, as I think about it, I’m lucky I didn’t. He would have found me for sure. I’m in no shape for a fight.

  The young man turns and surveys the surrounding area. The pale moonlight illuminates his face and I see that he is not much older than my attackers on the road were. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is one of them, but I’m fairly certain he isn’t. This Kid has the look of a straggler, barely getting by. I watch him enter the liquor store. The doors had been left unlocked during the Panic. I find that odd. I grip my cleaver and watch the store for a moment. I feel like an owl watching a mouse in the darkness. Almost instantly I see a flashlight turn on. Envy swirls inside my mind as I watch him work.

  Suddenly, his light is moving frantically. I watch the darting light beam shining all over the interior of the shop before the doors burst open and the Kid stumbles out onto the sidewalk in a whirlwind of panic to regain his footing. I stand as still as a statue, as silent as a ghost, and as wide eyed as that owl I had been picturing myself as. I watch as three figures emerge from the liquor shop. The one in the lead has a machete leaning casually on his shoulder as he strolls toward the Kid. The Kid produces a knife and brandishes it, trembling, trying to act bravely, calling for them to leave him alone. Their voices are deafened by the rubble surrounding me and the plate glass on the front of the pizza place, but they’re too calm for me to feel comfortable. I can sense that they’re playing with him. I swallow hard and listen to my pounding heart as I watch the other two men, one with a pipe in his hands and the other with some other sort of short rod, flank the Kid.

  They break his arms with the first blows, each audibly snapping as his knife clatters onto the street and screams fill the night air. The two men beat him to death with their pipe and what I think is a length of rebar, the sounds of their sickening blows passing through the walls and filling my ears with their horrid noise. There is a second, no longer than that, where I consider trying to help the Kid. It is a flash, like a dying lighter sparking in the darkness. It is as gone as quickly as it had appeared and I stand motionless, watching as the bastards beat him until his squirming ceases and he becomes completely motionless while his blood is snaking into the ashy film along the sidewalk. The Kid lays curled into a ball, a sad attempt to try and protect himself, but he is little more than ruined meat and bones now. I watch the man with the machete grab the Kid by the boot and drag him back into the liquor store. I watch those doors close and the flashlight remain on in the middle of the sidewalk, shining down the road, straight along my path. I watch those doors for hours. I grip my cleaver, certain that they will come for me. Every sound makes me flinch, my head swiveling in terror.

  I will not try and justify my inaction. It’s distasteful, disturbing, and it haunts me; but I cannot risk sticking my neck out for anyone. That boy might have been anyone. He might have been a psychopath himself. All I can think about are my girls and how far away they are. There is nothing I will not do to see them again, and sometimes, I’m forced to do nothing. Sometimes I am forced to watch others beat a Kid to death. In another life, who knows what that boy might have grown to do, but I’ll leave that to others to ponder. All I have is the now. All I have is the drive to see my girls again. The breeze howls through the collapsed beams of the building and I am left alone, watching the flashlight, my eyes darting to the doors that held those evils within. I cannot move. I can hardly breathe as I watch those doors. This was the world I now live in. How many times did I need to be reminded of that?

  Chapter Four

  I don’t think they stayed in the liquor store through the rest of the night. There wasn’t a single movement beyond those dusty windows as I kept my frozen vigil. My knees were stiff and aching, but I didn’t dare look away. At dawn, a gusting wind began to pick up and the ash rose with it, drawing a curtain between me and everything else. This is my chance. I know it. I pull out a roll of wrapping that I’d taken from the Planned Parenthood and wind it around my head, offering my eyes a mild filter from the ash and dust. It is my one chance to escape, just in case they had remained nearby. I clamber out of the hole in the wall, as the dust and ash really start to pick up, into the adjacent, burned out ruins of the
next store and rush out into the growing storm.

  My plan to keep my eyes protected proves to be useless as I make my way along Van Dyke Avenue. I know that if I stick to the road, I will inevitably make it to Detroit. I feel my feet stumbling along the asphalt and keep walking with my arm over my face, looking at the ground and praying that the wind won’t pick up any more than it has. I bear the journey with as much grace and gratitude as my limping body can offer. When the wind picks a different direction to slash at the world with, I find it against my back, as if the wind is trying to push me along the road, encouraging me to continue. For a moment I am grateful, taking it as a sign that I am in luck or being graced by the will of some divine being. But then my thoughts sour and I blame my sudden willingness to adopt mystical beliefs on my starvation. There is no God. No fate. No universe anymore. There is only death.

  I barely find a gas station and crawl in through one of the shattered windows as the howling wind pursues me, sending tendrils of ash and dust into the building on my heels. I rip the bandage wraps from my face and look around. Pretty much everything in this gas station has been covered with a layer dust and ash from a dozen—maybe hundreds—of other storms. It doesn’t matter. I find nothing but empty shelves where the food once was, but I’m not looking for food just yet. I find what I am looking for on a rack that lay toppled onto the floor. I never thought I’d be happy to find bandanas for bikers and sunglasses for those just making a pit stop on the way to their destinations. I wrap the bandana around my face and slip on the sunglasses, making sure they hug my face tightly. I need to keep my sight out there.