First Light

by Kody Boye

  Shit, she thought.

  The creature lunged.

  Rose flung herself forward.

  The grisly clap of the broom handle hitting the creature’s neck registered only for a second before Rose grabbed the shelf and pulled it away from the wall.

  The moment the she hit the creature and sent it to the ground, Rose ripped the display case of Boy Scout badges from the wall and brought it down on the creature’s head.

  By the time it was done, it looked like a tornado had gone through the room.

  Defeated, Rose collapsed, desperate to regain her lost breath.

  The only thing she could look at was the woman’s one remaining eye.

  Blood coated its cornea.

  Even in death it seemed so futile.

  For a while after the confrontation, she just sat there—seething, breathing, staring at the thing that had almost taken her life. There appeared to be no rush to move in a world where time was measured in the span of a breath and not in the way of presence, in the pass of the sun and not the things that walked beneath it. In that regard, she gave little thought to the corpse within her presence.

  The woman was dead.

  Her eyes were diamonds.

  There was no soul to judge.

  That, combined with the mortal weight upon her body, gave her permission to sleep.

  When her eyes began to droop, she let them.

  There was no use in fighting it.

  At least here she was safe.

  Several hours later, she woke to a darkened home and an aching body.

  She would’ve screamed, had she not remembered that the creature across from her was dead.

  It’s all right, Rose thought as her eyes began to adjust to the light, the faint illumination streaming in from the hall revealing in detail the state of the creature’s condition. It’s dead. You killed it. It can’t hurt you anymore.

  Physically, at least.

  In death—true death, she wanted to keep reminding herself—its body posed a risk that was just as great, if not greater than an actual attack. The rot, the decay, the communion of blowflies, of mosquitoes, wild animals—she’d not the slightest idea where she was or just what she’d have to deal with. Were there bears? Big cats? Wolves? Dogs crazed from forced introduction to the wild?

  Whatever the case, she couldn’t stay here.

  Pushing herself to her feet, she gritted her teeth as a new series of pains assaulted her and waited until she felt herself capable before going about the room.

  Her first inclination was to continue her search for something practical, but darkness forced her to think of short-term survival and instead led her to grab the comforter. As insignificant as it might have been in the past, its weight held testament to her future, of surviving past a night where she could see the frost on her breath and feel the ache in her bones.

  She had only one other problem.

  She was hungry.

  Her venture into the hallway and the trepidation that followed would’ve normally sent her reeling back into the room. Here it was impossible to think she couldn’t be seen. Such vulnerability was bound to give cause for alarm, but when she was so wounded, and at her very lowest?

  Rose looked out into the darkened landscape of the room.

  What little moonlight there had been had ceased to exist.

  If she was going to scrounge, it had to be now.

  She took note of the final bedroom on her right and allowed the comforter to fall from her grasp as she stepped into the living room. The plush carpet felt alien, the stagnant air cold and somewhat suffocating.

  The shift in lighting forced her to pause to adjust, and in that moment, the panic once again returned. The windows—spread so fully across the front wall—offered a succinct view into the street below. Altitude and shadow would have provided her some cover, but high trees and dead branches would do nothing to shield her, should anything look up.

  The glimmer of stainless steel was a godsend.

  In the kitchen, she hefted a wayward laundry basket onto the counter and began filling it with food.

  Her true find was the pack of bottled water beneath the sink.

  Fuck.

  She leaned forward, braced her hands on her knees, exhaled, and allowed fortune’s good grace to sink in.

  Once she was sure she’d scavenged everything she could, she tugged the basket across the linoleum tile and through the living room.

  A blur of movement in the distance made her freeze.

  Three other shapes—moving far too fast to be casual—darted past before disappearing from view.

  She didn’t question the implications.

  She merely settled into the other bedroom.

  A meal of refried beans, stale pretzels and chips so potent she felt even the dead would smell them ended what could’ve otherwise been a tragic day.

  In the attached bathroom, she tended to wounds that seemed mocking in hindsight.

  I should be dead.

  She couldn’t question her good fortune. Her luck was inconceivable. To have fallen from the sky into post-apocalyptic America, where almost no one and no thing existed, and survived a crash that had killed two other perfectly capable and reasonable people—that was unheard of.

  That…

  Rose swallowed, trying desperately not to look at her reflection in the mirror.

  No matter how much she wanted to deny it, to swear up and down that it could’ve never plausibly, reasonably happened—she could not refute the truth.

  Dumb luck had saved her.

  Lady Liberty had allowed her a second chance at life.

  She secured the wrap on her knee and tested its resolve before finally allowing herself a glance in the mirror.

  The sunken cheekbones, the dirt-spattered skin, the unrelenting ghost in her eyes—

  She shivered.

  While the night was cold, the realization was far worse.

  Lyra.

  This could’ve all been avoided, if only she hadn’t been so scared.

  She didn’t bother to look back as she walked out of the bathroom.

  Instead, she closed the door.

  The torpid wasteland of her personal suffering was made no better by the onslaught of cold air that assaulted her in the twilight hours of the morning. Warping about her being, pressing into the fine and fleshy matters of her person—she burrowed into the comforter stolen from the young boy’s room and the blankets that had already been present here like some stubborn rodent set on finding the center of the Earth, but to no avail.

  Eventually, the temperature fell so much that, at one point, she opened her eyes to see her breath in the air.

  That was when she knew she wasn’t going to get any more sleep.

  With a sigh of frustration, she hauled herself from bed, slipped into a baby-blue bathrobe, and wandered into the hallway.

  Even at what she guessed was early morning, the sky was still dark.

  No one would see her—not now.

  She paced her way across the living room in an attempt to better orient herself with her surroundings and to try to determine where exactly she was. Not familiar with Midwestern landmarks, she’d been unable to pinpoint anything that might give her any clues. It also didn’t help that she’d slept through much of the flight.

  If it can even be called that.

  Rose sighed.

  In the gloom of the early morning, she struggled to keep herself from being reduced to complete and utter apathy.

  Come on, she thought.

  There had to be something that could tell her where she was—something that could clearly and boldly state…

  Wait.

  That was it.

  Why hadn’t she thought of it before? It was borderline genius.

  A piece of mail could tell her where she was.

  Bills, magazines, newspaper subscriptions—the only thing she had to do now was find out where they were kept.

  If I were living in a house like thi
s, she thought, with not a whole lot of room, and not an office to speak of, where would I keep the—

  “Mail,” she whispered.

  She ground to a halt.

  Her eyes centered on the kitchen cabinets.

  Of course.

  How could she have been so dense?

  She peered out the windows to ensure she wasn’t being watched before making her way forward.

  It was only a matter of minutes before she found the envelope.

  “Cedar Rapids, Iowa,” Rose read, having to repeat it several times in her head for it to sink in.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  She’d flown almost halfway across the country.

  After sailing across the ocean, she thought. After crash-landing… After ending up on shore… then running… then ending up in a plane…

  Breathless, she lost feeling in her legs and stumbled back against the refrigerator.

  Given her lack of calories, she could’ve easily passed out.

  “Fuck,” she laughed, holding the envelope up before her. “Just… fuck.”

  A wave of disorientation followed by the pangs of nausea hit her faster than she could’ve ever anticipated.

  It took everything she had to throw herself forward and vomit in the sink.

  Standing there, hands braced along the stainless steel, hair dangling in her face, she purged what felt like a lifetime of regret.

  Tears dripped from her eyes.

  Jagged breaths followed serrated exhales.

  After so much grief, one would’ve thought answers bittersweet.

  Instead, the envelope served to do nothing more than mock her.

  For all the promises she’d made, for all the things that had been done, for all the screams, promises, blood, cries, sweat and tears that’d fallen or passed between them—all of it, but for what?

  Rose wailed as reality set in.

  They were too far apart.

  She’d never make it back to Fort Hope.

  Lyra—

  She’d never see her best friend again.

  Defeat was the friend all fractured men fell to when pushed to the brink of their being. Trembling uncontrollably, as if stranded in the great beyond, her mind in shambles, her body of peace—this time when her limbs went weak, she slipped to the floor and cried.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there.

  Subtle shifts in lighting implied she could’ve lain there for hours.

  However, the sky did not lighten, and when the sun did not come out, she could only think of one thing.

  This was Hell—

  —Purgatory—

  And beneath the sunless sky she walked.

  There was no question here.

  The life she knew was over.

  From here on out…

  It’d only just begun.

  Chapter 11

  There wasn’t time to wallow.

  In the oceans of despair, there was but one beacon that could lead you to shore.

  Hope.

  If the whispered implications were true, the areas beyond the Rocky Mountains might be safe.

  Safer, she was quick to correct herself.

  Getting jaded at this point would only get her killed.

  With that in mind, she holed herself up in the only bedroom free of carnage and waited for inspiration to strike.

  It could take days.

  Then again, that didn’t matter.

  She had to heal.

  That might not happen quickly.

  It took three days of lying in bed and only occasionally leaving to relieve herself before she determined her leg capable enough to walk on. During that time, she thought long and hard about many things: the potential hazards, the number of undead, her methods of transportation, if people crazed, mentally ill, or reduced to cruel and relentless savagery crossed her path—her undertaking was not one she’d wish upon someone else. Stumbling across Bobby and Martha had been dumb luck.

  If the cat was any indication, she didn’t have many lives left.

  She couldn’t afford to squander them on false hope.

  On the morning it became clear this plan was not simply idle fantasy, she drew from the house all the available resources, and began to consider the acquisitions she could gain from others.

  Her biggest concern was water. Having gone through the majority of the house’s pack in three days, she’d forced herself to ration what little she had left in the event that she was unable to find more in the near future.

  Food, however, was different.

  It wasn’t impossible to find if one chose to break into an abandoned house; for that reason, she continued to eat in order to regain her strength. Already the fog imposed upon her mind from malnutrition had begun to lift. The headaches were there, yes, and the stomachaches were many, but the pains they inflicted were nothing compared to those she’d experienced before.

  What she really wanted, and what she knew would most likely be impossible to get, was a car.

  From her place at the spread of windows, where she stood behind deep mahogany curtains looking out into street, she spotted at least three vehicles whose conditions would allow her to travel with moderate safety. Two were SUVs—large, ample, high off the ground, and with back doors that would open wide enough to allow her to haul large cargo without much hassle. The third happened to be a truck.

  While her immediate inclination would have been to pick an SUV--if only for its storage capabilities--her heart skipped, then fluttered at the sight of the larger vehicle.

  It didn’t take much to realize that hope was a dying notion.

  With tires almost as tall as she was, a front bumper that appeared capable of swallowing anything whole and a girth double that of her previous choices, the gas alone would send her scrambling into every town along the way.

  Could she really risk exposing herself like that? And what if she wasn’t able to siphon enough gas?

  It’s not that hard.

  Maybe so, but appearances could be deceiving. Just because someone did it on TV didn’t mean she could replicate it.

  Pulling back, she crossed her arms over her chest and considered her options.

  If she got an SUV, she’d have the extra storage space, but be closer to the ground.

  If she got the truck, she’d technically be safer, but would have to constantly gauge when and where to get gas.

  That’s if you can even get in one of them, she thought, then sighed.

  This decision would impact her survival.

  If she chose one over the other—and if it happened to be the wrong one…

  Closing her eyes, Rose took a breath.

  One thing was for certain.

  She wouldn’t have choices if she first didn’t seek them out.

  The first SUV was hopeless.

  Trapped in the jaws of parking ticket justice, it would not be going anywhere anytime soon.

  So much for that, she thought, reaching up to brush flaking skin off chapped lips.

  Oh well. There wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  One down, two to go.

  Crouched behind an assembly of overgrown hedges, Rose adjusted her hold on her makeshift weapon of a plastic realtor sign and looked out at one of the two homes that could hold the keys to her salvation.

  As she’d expected, there appeared to be no external damage.

  The windows hadn’t even been boarded up.

  “Fuck,” she whispered.

  She’d hoped careful preparation would’ve dissolved any residual paranoia.

  Now, staring at the completely inconspicuous house, she couldn’t help but wonder if her face would be bitten off the moment she stepped through that door.

  Calm down. Everything’s going to be fine.

  She’d taken measures to ensure her safety.

  If things even looked bad…

  She swallowed the ever-growing lump in her throat and started forward before the monster could take hold. Sign in hand, ey
es darting from west window to east window, she mounted the brickwork stairs along the hillside and closed the distance between she and the house with a few simple steps.

  At the door, she hesitated, hand curled into a fist.

  The ghastly tremor began.

  No no no no! she thought, the cords of tension signing within her arm. Stop. Stop!

  She couldn’t deal with this—not now, not when she had to be alert.

  She ground her jaw before forcing herself to knock on the door three times.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  She spun about and slid down the door with the spike-end of the sign facing out.

  Now she just had to listen—wait.

  The blood in her ears raged like a tsunami—starting faintly--calmly--then escalating, building to a fever pitch.

  She wanted to close her eyes and breathe—to drown out the world and tell herself everything was all right—but if she did it for just one second, just one moment, she—

  Stop.

  Everything screeched to a halt.

  The waves stopped rolling, the bells stopped ringing—

  She opened her eyes, realizing for just one panicked moment that she could’ve put herself in danger, and breathed.

  Her lungs expanded.

  Her lungs contracted.

  The lifeblood that was oxygen filtered through her consciousness.

  Repetition proved effective.

  In curbing her distress, she discovered she could once more comprehend the world around her.

  She sighed.

  She knocked three more times.

  She heard no walking.

  She could go in.

  Pushing herself to her feet, she steadied herself along the wall and stared in through the accent window.

  She knocked again.

  Nothing stirred.

  After checking to ensure nothing had stumbled into the immediate area, she braced her hands along the spike, took aim, then slammed it into the glass.

  The window shattered.

  Her heart pounded.

  Even after all this time, she still hadn’t gotten used to such an explosive sound.

  Instinct kicked in.

  She snarled her hand through the break in her glass and craned her arm around until she found the doorknob.