by Angela Scott
What am I doing?
I didn’t have any answers, not to any of it.
Maybe that was my problem — thinking I might find more, thinking I could find answers.
“Well, it’s better than nothing.” My attitude needed fixing. I hadn’t anticipated finding anything, let alone a small town. I needed to change my gloominess and bitterness before I fell into complete despair. “Ladies,” I said as I tugged at Callie’s leash and glanced to the deer, “I guess we need to see what there is and make the best of it.”
Funny how life goals changed. Gone were the days where I truly believed I could shoot for the stars, become anything I wanted to be, accomplish anything in my way, and change the world. Now, I just hoped I could find a can of soup and something to feed my cat.
I turned toward the nearest store on one of the corners, the one with the most possibilities, and pulled on Callie’s leash. “Come on.”
Before I took a step, something crashed in a nearby alleyway, knocking over metal garbage cans that lined the brick walls. A trash can lid rolled into the street, metal on asphalt, and rotated on its axis as it slowed. It fell still a few feet from where I stood.
I removed the knife from my belt loop and held it in front of me — knife in one hand, cat leash in another. My brain and heart sped up, trying to rationalize what caused the garbage cans to tumble over in the near-dead silence and emptiness of the town. Wind? No. Animal? Maybe.
Slowly, a thin framed woman, so tiny and frail, half in the shadows and half revealing herself, peered at me.
I lowered my knife.
Her vacant eyes, the size of disks, didn’t blink. A dark substance smudged her protruding cheeks and lips. What little hair that remained on her head hung in thick, gray clumps. Her clothing draped her skeletal frame like a child playing dress up in her mother’s much larger clothing. Her appearance reminded me of Dylan, the boy I’d met at the mall, who died from whatever the hell was in the air after the meteors destroyed everything.
“Hello?” I took a step toward her.
She didn’t move, not blinking as she reached a trembling wrinkled hand toward me.
“Are you okay?” A stupid question — of course she wasn’t okay. She looked far from okay. I glanced around, looking to see if I missed something else. In my first go at taking in the town, I’d missed her. Nothing. I returned my attention to her and took another step.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. This is so unreal.
Her thin fingers beckoned to me. “Ayudar a mi nieto.” Her spoken words cracked as they passed through her lips, like gravel over sandpaper, barely above a whisper. She stepped fully into the evening light.
Everything was wrong with this woman. Everything.
Dark blood smudged her lips, face, hands, and the front of her shirt. A trickle of goopy red ran from the corners of each eyes.
Dylan. She looked just like Dylan.
I couldn’t move.
I’m on the right side of the fence. The right side. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Mi nieto.” She shuffled toward me.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” I shook my head more out of fear and confusion than anything else. “I know you’re speaking Spanish, but I didn’t do so good in that class. I transferred out mid-semester. I couldn’t hack it in French either, but if you needed me to diagram a sentence, I’m fairly good at that. I got an A in gym once, too.” What the hell was I saying? Words flew out of my mouth before my brain could process them. She was people. Not healthy people, but people, and I didn’t know what to do.
“Ayudar.”
I shook my head again. “I can’t … I don’t….”
I didn’t want to see another person die. I’d watched too many suffer. How could I help her anyway? How? I couldn’t help Dylan. I couldn’t help Marco. I wouldn’t be able to help her. She needed a doctor. She needed a hospital. Even an old bunker in the hill run by a lunatic doomsdayer would be better than me.
“I’m sorry.” I took a step back as she took another toward me. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry. Really, I just … I can’t.”
That adage of, be careful what you wish for came to mind. I wanted people to be here. I wanted people with open arms, welcoming me. This wasn’t quite what I had envisioned.
I could run. I could. I still had enough energy. I could take off. A few blocks from here, and I would never have to see her again. I could put the whole experience behind me. Horrible and wrong, but completely doable.
The old lady raised both hands, almost zombie-like, still unblinking. “Ayuda, por favor.”
Please.
The old lady said please. That I recognized.
I really didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t, but I stopped. I didn’t know her, and I didn’t plan on trying to know here either. She didn’t have much time left, and I was determined not to open my heart to her. Not this time. If she died, she died. Sad, but not devastating.
“Do you need some agua? Agua?” I made the motion of drinking. Surely, one of the stores or buildings around here had to have water. Water would be a start.
She gave a slow shake of her head. She blinked, and the trail of blood down her cheek increased.
Jeez.
“Are you hungry?” I pantomimed eating.
Another shake of the head. She stepped closer.
My brain kept ticking off things that maybe, just maybe, could help the old lady in her condition. Even as I thought them, I didn’t say them. Nothing would help. Not cleaning her up. Not water. Not food. Not rest.
How she could stand seemed beyond belief.
She rested her blood-encrusted trembling hand on my arm. The coldness of her hand seeped through the sleeve of my jacket.
Zombie.
Yes, she spoke, she spoke Spanish, but everything else about her — her appearance, her shuffling, the intense coldness that radiated from her, the blood — screamed, I’m going to eat you.
I gripped the knife a little tighter.
“Mi nieto. Él necesita ayuda, por favor. Lo lleve.” She tugged on my arm.
“You’re being polite, but I don’t know anything else you’re saying. No … no speaka the Española.”
She tugged my arm again.
“You want me to come with you?” I didn’t understand a word beyond please, and she couldn’t understand me. I kept on talking as though that didn’t even matter. “Do you need me to get something for you?”
“Venga a ver, por favor. Lo lleve. Mantenerlo seguro.” More tugging.
“Okay,” I turned to the deer. “Stay here.”
The deer didn’t appear as though she had planned to come with me anyway. She went back to eating the bush.
I held up a finger to the lady. “Just a second, por favor. Just one second.”
I didn’t want to take Callie with me. If something happened, if I was eaten or worse things occurred, I wanted the deer and my cat to have a decent chance of survival. I slipped away from the lady. She kept speaking to me, a little more high-pitched and agitated, so I tried to hurry.
I looped the handle of my homemade leash over the top of a short pole on the side of the road. Not too low that she could get away, but not too high that she would be stuck there forever.
Callie stared up at me and meowed.
“I know.” I gave her head a quick pat. “I’ll be back. Well, I hope I will be back.” I turned to the deer. “Take care of each other if I don’t return.”
The deer didn’t acknowledge me at all.
“Okay.” I returned to where the very ill, very nervous, Spanish-speaking woman stood. “Show me what you’ve got.”
She grabbed hold of my arm again. The cold stunned me as she pulled me down the alley where the tumbled cans lay scattered. She held onto me as if afraid I might take off.
I didn’t want to go with her, but she was a human being. The first human I’d seen in a long time, no matter how terrifying she looked. The desperation in he
r eyes helped me to see past her current state, but I still carried my knife and would use it if necessary. So far, she hadn’t tried to gnaw on me. A win-win for both of us.
She didn’t move fast. We shambled along, her bare feet scraping against the ground as she walked, leaving a dark trail behind her. She was in such bad shape that I had no idea where to even begin with her.
We moved past the turned over cans, stepping in the rotten contents. She slid right through it, not bothered at all that she dragged spoiled vegetables and dank papers under her heels.
The farther we made our way down the alley, the more dread I felt. Nothing good could come from this. I made sure to look around, plan my escape, just in case.
She kept her hand on my arm. I could have easily shaken her off, pushed her away if I needed to, but I allowed her to lead me past the brick walls of the buildings, garbage cans, wooden pallets, some graffiti, and a couple of dumpsters in a typical alleyway.
Suddenly, she stopped. She let go of my arm and pointed. “Allí! Ver! Le ayuda. Ayudar a mi nieto. Llévalo contigo. Encontrar la seguridad, por favor. Yo’he visto a nadie excepto usted. Ustedes son una respuesta a mis oraciones. Un ángel.”
Lots of words. It took a lot of her energy to speak so much. “I don’t know what you want.” I stared at a grocery cart filled with blankets. The bottom rack was filled with random items and boxes. Maybe she was a homeless person, and these were her things. Even as I thought it, it didn’t make much sense. She had her pick of the houses, apartments, or store buildings in the area. No one was here. She could’ve had all of it, way more than a shopping cart. Since I had no idea what she rambled on about, I figured the cart was important to her.
“Do you want me to get your things? I can push your cart for you. I think we should find a nice place for you to lay down, so you can rest. Umm … maybe get some food for you and me and my animals? Is that bueno?”
She shoved me toward the cart. Not a real shove, but I got the picture.
“Okay, sure. Let me grab it for you.”
When I had the chance to get her somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable, I would get everyone water and food, and then I planned to clean her up the best I could. The seeping blood was getting to me.
I slipped my knife back through my belt loop, almost certain she had no plans to eat me and even more certain I could take her with my bare hands if it came to that. I reached for the cart and pulled it toward me, away from the wall, and out from between a set of dumpsters.
“I think we’re set.” I whipped the cart around. “Is that everything? Are we good to go?”
She stepped to the side of the cart, placed her hand on the metal side, stopping me, and peered down. With her free hand, she wiped the blood on her cheeks, smearing it before she looked up at me again. “Cuide bien de él. Dígale a su madre y su abuela le amó mucho. Eres un ángel, una bendición. Esta era la intención. Por favor, tenga cuidado de él donde puedo’t.” She glanced at the blankets and then at me once more. She nodded.
That was when the baby started to cry.
Chapter 22
I had so many questions. So many questions.
I wanted to shake the old lady and force answers from her mouth. What happened here? Where did everyone go? Why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave? Do you know about the giant fence? Is anywhere safe? What’s with this baby in the grocery cart? Is that your blood on the kid or is it the kid’s blood?
And most importantly, what do I do now?
I gripped the handle of the cart with both hands as I glanced around the alleyway, hoping for answers that the old lady couldn’t give me. Our language barrier made any exchange of knowledge impossible.
Come on, Buddha, Jesus, Mother Mary, Mohammad, Zeus, give me something to go by here. A sign. Something.
The baby’s cries echoed off the brick walls, the only sound in the eerily quiet town. The kid’s agitation grew more intense the longer I stood frozen, doing nothing as I tried to digest what in the hell was going on.
The old lady gave the cart a gentle shove toward me. “Ir ahora.”
I shook my head. “I can’t … I don’t … This is not….”
I had to take the kid. I looked at her and then looked at the baby with blood smeared on its head, snot running from its nose, its dark hair matted, and its clothes covered in dried food. The kid smelled like a mixture of poop and vomit. I shook my head as I looked down, seeing the baby surrounded by empty disposable formula bottles and plastic containers of baby food.
I already had a mean cat and magical deer. That was enough pressure for a seventeen-year-old.
But a baby? A real baby?
No, I couldn’t.
I didn’t know anything about babies. I wasn’t one of those girls that babysat to earn extra money. Watching little humans, trying to keep them alive all while earning a buck or two an hour, never appealed to me. No, thanks. I was the youngest child and didn’t have any younger cousins. I couldn’t remember the last time I had even held a baby. I mean, I’d seen babies and kids. They were everywhere — well, they used to be everywhere — but I didn’t really give them much attention unless they annoyed me with their screaming and crying.
Like this kid.
I stared up at the windows of the buildings above us. “Hello? Is anyone there? Anyone else? Anyone at all?”
Please, Lord of the universe, don’t put this on my shoulders.
The lady pushed the cart toward me again. It bumped into my stomach. “Por favor.”
Please.
It was a battle of prayers. Would hers be answered or would mine?
Besides the baby’s frantic bawling, there were no other sounds. No footsteps running to us. No doors or windows opening to find out what the commotion was about. No heroes to save the day.
No, there was no one else.
Just the old lady, the baby, and me.
If anyone else were there, the old lady wouldn’t look at me like she did. Desperation blighted every aspect of the woman’s face. Even behind the dirt and blood on her cheeks and lips, and the red that filled her eyes and marred her wrinkles, I could see it.
She gave the cart another shove in my direction before she staggered backwards a few steps until the brick wall pressed against her back. She nodded at me, as if giving me encouragement, before sliding to the ground in a disheveled heap like a puppet after its master cut the strings. I had been determined not to have any feelings for the old lady, but as she lay there, looking at me with a silent pleading, I knew it was too late.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just a kid, too. I’m not supposed to be doing any of this.” I waved my arm around. “I can’t guarantee anything. I’m totally winging it all. If you think I have a plan, I don’t.” I shook my head, my eyes on hers, hers locked on mine. “I’m surviving, but I’m not really a survivor. I get that I’m the best you’ve got, by default. You’re putting a lot of hope in me, which is a lot of pressure to put on a kid in the middle of an apocalypse. I can barely keep myself, my cat, and a deer alive.” I glanced at the cloudless sky peeking above the top of the buildings for a long moment, processing my predicament, then I looked to her. “But I’ll try. That’s all I can do.”
It was probably all she expected. It was probably all anyone could expect during a time like this.
The baby cried, its sobs mingled with hiccups. As hard as it was to take that first step, because it meant everything from that point would change, I did it.
I gave the old lady a slight nod, knowing I couldn’t offer her anything else, but knowing that was all she wanted. I pushed the cart down the alleyway and kept on pushing it.
The deer pressed its nose near the crisscross bars of the shopping cart, taking in the baby’s presence. It stepped back after a moment of staring and sniffing at it, shaking its head several times as if trying to rid itself of the smell.
“I know, the kid stinks.” And that was saying something. Wild deer don’t have pleasant aromas, at leas
t not the one I hung out with. My own funk caught me off guard every so often, causing me to cringe, but that kid and its odorous stench … incredible. The smell would haunt me forever.
Callie seemed oblivious to the newcomer. She walked at my side on her leash, meowing non-stop. Cats were some of the most selfish beings I’d ever met, and my cat was no different. She was hungry, and she wanted to make sure I knew it. The rotten little ingrate. I tried not to be too impatient with her. After all, she’d been living on dried jerky and MREs for longer than any cat should. Besides, my own belly growled and begged for mercy.
I pushed the cart, not really acknowledging the irritated passenger. If I did, then it meant this whole thing was more real than I wanted it to be. The cart rattled and bumped over the uneven road, squeaking with each turn of the wheel. One wheel wobbled, making it difficult to maneuver. It was that kind of a cart that would be returned to the cart corral in exchange for a better one.
I didn’t have a better one. This was it. Despite the struggle, I kept pushing.
Food, water, shelter.
I kept repeating the mantra in my head. If I could find those three things, then that was all that mattered. I passed by several store fronts — a hardware store, a used book store, a women’s clothing boutique, a deli — but my little entourage needed more. I’d become quite specific in my search. We needed cat food. We needed diapers, formula, and a whole lot of baby wipes.
A gas mask would be nice, too.
The kid’s needs came first. The cat and I could wait.
When the familiar sign of the box store came into view, an audible sound of relief pressed through my lips. It was exactly what I’d been looking for.
Walmarts were everywhere, springing up in every other city from New York to California. Even in a town of this size, I figured Walmart was bound to stake claim here, too. And voila! Walmart — the only place where a person could buy groceries, a bra, a bag of fertilizer, and have their tires rotated all under one roof. It was one stop shopping to the extreme.
I couldn’t have been happier for the Walmart signage and the big yellow smiley face. It was like Disneyland for apocalyptic survivors. The only thing better would’ve been a Sam’s club, but that was pushing it.
