After the Living Have Lost

by Rick Wood

  “What?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? That’s where the creatures came from. Hell.”

  “How could you possibly know that? There’s no such thing as Hell.”

  Hades grinned. “Tell that to the monsters.”

  He peered into the classroom Cia had just been peering into.

  “I see you’re admiring our education system. This used to be a church hall. Doesn’t seem like many people want to pray anymore, so we converted it. Those that want to pray use the one on Church Street.”

  Yet another thing Cia found bizarre. Praying. As if a god would do this to the world then answer someone’s prayer.

  Cia turned to check on Boy. He sat on a bench stroking a puppy who was eager to see him, giggling as he did.

  “You have pets here?” Cia said.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “This place, it just…”

  “Seems too good to be true?”

  She looked Hades up and down. Good looking, yes. Charming, absolutely. But falsely so. He had clearly spent his entire life living in fake security.

  This place was too good to be true.

  And he didn’t seem to realise it.

  “It just seems… I don’t know…”

  “I get it. You’ve been out there a while. You must have seen and done terrible things to survive. But this place is safe. No one will hurt you.”

  “Nothing like this can last. Not in this world.”

  “Oh, but Cia. I beg to differ. We’ve been standing strong since this happened.”

  “Exactly. No one here seems to have experienced the reality of what the world has become.”

  Hades smiled a sweet, sincere smile.

  “Then why pity them, when you can envy them?”

  She held his stare. Tried to figure him out. Tried to decide whether he was right or wrong, or whether he was neither and these were just words that meant nothing.

  “I have to get back to work,” Hades declared.

  “What do you do?”

  “I patrol,” Hades said. “I keep the peace.”

  “Like… a policeman?”

  “More like a casual security guard. It was nice meeting you, Cia.”

  He turned and continued to mosey up the street, smiling and saying hello to people he passed. They all seemed to know him, and he seemed to know them. A perfect world of hard workers and unmistakable safety.

  She looked to Boy, throwing a ball that the puppy ran after and brought back to him.

  Maybe Boy could be happy here.

  Maybe they both could.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sun had momentarily hidden behind the clouds as Cia and Boy returned to their new home.

  Cia was shattered. She hadn’t had a particularly strenuous day, but it was as if all the tension her muscles had been carrying, all the running and walking they had endured, every moment of sweat and blood and anxiety, had all accumulated and attacked her the at the first moment she’d had a day’s rest. The many years of sleeping on bumps, waiting for the next attack, watching Boy’s every move, had built and built and finally released itself in a burst of anguish upon her body.

  “You look tired,” came a voice from the house next to hers.

  A man, elderly but not frail, old but not suffering, sat in a chair that he rocked ever so slightly back and forth. His face was kind and his smile was genuine.

  “I am,” Cia admitted. “I really am.”

  “Come and sit,” the man said.

  “I really must get back.”

  “I really do insist. We are going to be neighbours.”

  Cia paused. She looked at Boy, recognising the fatigue in him too.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” the man continued. “I can’t imagine what it’s like out there, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to adjust to life in here. Must be quite a difference.”

  Cia snorted an ironic snort. “You could say that.”

  “I wasn’t here when it all first happened. I spent a year out there with my wife before they found me.”

  Cia was intrigued. Finally, someone who may relate to what she was trying to deal with. Not someone with this sense of perfection about them, but someone who knew what it was like to live out there then adjust to life in here.

  “Rosy,” Boy moaned. “I’m tired.”

  “Let him go to bed,” the man said. “He’ll be safe. I promise.”

  Cia was reluctant, but this man’s word seemed comforting.

  “Why don’t you go get yourself ready for bed,” Cia said. “And I’ll be in soon.”

  “I don’t want to go in alone.”

  Cia took his hand and squeezed it. “I won’t be long.”

  “It’ll be fine, son,” the man said. “I won’t keep her long.”

  Boy seemed to find this reassuring. He smiled at Cia and scuttled into the house.

  It was tough to watch him to go and not follow. Was she being too trusting too soon?

  “I’d offer you a glass of wine,” the man said, “as the winemaker here is wonderful. But I imagine you’ve never had wine before, and I wouldn’t want you to be dizzy, so there is fresh orange juice if you wish.”

  Fresh orange juice… Cia had forgotten such a thing existed…

  “That would be perfect,” she said.

  She walked over and sat beside him. The seat rocked gently, and she enjoyed the motion, allowing it to relax her as much as it could.

  “My name is Graham,” he said.

  “Cia,” she answered. “Is your wife inside?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You said you and your wife…”

  He smiled. “My wife was gone before they brought me here.”

  “Oh.” Cia looked down. What a stupid question.

  He poured her an orange juice and handed it to her. She took a sip. It was heavenly.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I miss her. But, in a way, I’m glad she didn’t have to experience what I experienced out there. I was pleased she was saved from it.”

  Cia nodded. She understood what he meant.

  “What’s the name of the lad with you?”

  “Erm… I don’t know. I call him Boy. I’ve never needed a name.”

  “Boy,” he echoed. “How sweet.”

  “He is.”

  “If you ever need someone to talk to, or take care of him, I’m here. I know it’s tough to trust someone after the kind of people you may have met out there, but hopefully you can learn to trust me. It gets pretty lonely up here. That house has been vacant for months.”

  “Months? Who was in it before then?”

  He looked at her and she looked back. There was something behind his eyes, something he wanted to hide, something she knew she shouldn’t have asked about.

  “Not everyone can cope with this life after being out there,” he said. “Sometimes it gets the better of them.”

  He sighed a big sigh and readjusted his position.

  “But I am sure such a thing will not happen with you,” he continued. “You seem strong. And you have Boy, which gives you the most important thing you need to keep living in this world.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A purpose. Imagine trying to survive out there without one.”

  Cia looked down at her orange juice. She drank the rest in one go.

  “I should check on Boy,” she said. “I don’t want to leave him alone for too long.”

  “I understand. It was lovely to meet you, Cia.”

  She stood.

  He held out his hand.

  She shook it, and as she did, they shared a smile.

  “Bye,” she said, wishing she could find something more profound to depart with.

  “Sleep well,” he said.

  She returned to the house to find Boy already asleep on the sofa. She woke him up, guided him to bed, then returned to her bedroom. Once she had checked the knife was still beneath her pillow, she fell asleep straight away.

  Chapter
Eighteen

  The peaceful silence was still uncomfortable.

  Cia lay there, on the mattress with no broken springs, listening.

  Where were the growls? The screeches, the screams, the shouts?

  Where was the snoring of Boy next to her?

  Night time was a time for sleeping in readiness to awake at any moment. It was a time she tuned into all the sounds, from the birds in the trees to the rumbles in the distance. The passive silence unnerved her; it kept her cautious—it was odd how a group of survivors clustered into such a small area could somehow repel attacks.

  A knock on the front door made her jump.

  She hated that it made her jump.

  It meant she was already starting to relax, to lose her alertness.

  She readied her knife behind her back and made her way slowly down the stairs. She shifted the curtain of the living room and peered out.

  It was that man from earlier. Hades. The god of the underworld, as he had proclaimed.

  She put her knife into the back of her belt and made her way to the front door. She opened it to find him standing there, a bunch of flowers in his hand.

  “Hi,” he said, smiling that dashing smile again.

  “Hi,” Cia responded unnervingly.

  “I know it’s late, and I hope I didn’t wake you. Is it too late?”

  Cia shrugged. Too late? Another strange concept.

  “Look, I am here for two things; if you want to go back to whatever you were doing, then, you know, I won’t bother you. Okay?”

  Cia shrugged again.

  Hades presented the flowers toward her. She wasn’t sure what kind they were, but she was positive Boy would know. Some of them were red, and some were yellow.

  “I figured that, seeing as you have never really had the chance to date, at least I assume not, that no guy has ever brought you flowers. So I wanted to be the first.”

  Cia stared at them. Was she supposed to take them? He was holding them out expectantly, but she didn’t know what to do.

  Eventually, she took them, looked at them, and put them on the floor by her shoes.

  Hades looked a little put out, but only temporarily.

  “I think they left the vars in one of the kitchen cupboards.”

  Cia had no idea what he meant but nodded along.

  “The second thing—there is a dance. For strictly eighteen to twenty-five-year-olds. Seeing as that is in our age category, and you could do with meeting people, I wondered if you would like to go with me?”

  A dance?

  Now this was surreal.

  “It’s tonight,” Hades added, appearing discomforted by her lack of answer. “As in, now. But I’m sure you can find something to change into, there must be a load of dresses or something left in the wardrobe.”

  A dress?

  Cia wasn’t sure she’d ever worn a dress.

  She looked up the stairs. As inviting as the thought of a dance was, she couldn’t leave Boy for that long.

  Besides, this guy had no idea what he’d be getting himself in to.

  The last guy she kissed, she killed.

  The only guy she had sex with, she murdered as he climaxed.

  She dreaded to think what she would do to him. Romance wasn’t really something she felt she could afford herself, or felt she deserved.

  “I don’t think so,” she finally responded.

  “Really?” he said, put out. “Because I hear they play some great music. How long’s it been since you heard music?”

  Cia shrugged another shrug. It was something she hadn’t thought about.

  “You don’t have to dance, either,” he persisted. “I mean, I will, and I will look like a prat doing it. You can just sit at the side and laugh if you wish.”

  “No. I really shouldn’t.”

  “Shouldn’t?”

  Cia looked upstairs.

  “He’ll be fine,” Hades insisted.

  Cia shook her head. “Thanks for the offer.”

  “Well, look, if you change your mind, we’re in the village hall. If not, it would still be nice to spend some time with you on another day. It doesn’t have to be dancing.”

  Hades reached for her hand. His thumb stroked her palm, and she flinched her hand away, protecting it against her belly.

  Hades forced a smile, then turned and left.

  Cia shut the door, locked it and bolted it.

  Still, she watched him leave out the window, contemplating what a lovely idea going to a dance with a boy would be.

  NOW

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cia is becoming as used to the sight of bodies as she is to the sight of trees or grass or sky. She steps over the them like it’s a game of Sleeping Lions and they are all just trying to see who could stay still the longest.

  She wonders if she’ll recognise any faces, should they still be recognisable; though not many faces remain. She sees a few mangled features and tries to form a clearer image of what that person may have looked like.

  But it is like trying to decipher a Picasso painting.

  A mixture of bent noses and beaten eye sockets and missing teeth and bodies torn apart and inside out are smeared over the community.

  Cia had always thought of a dead body as a blank canvas, but they aren’t. Each corpse is a damaged canvas, painted with messy, obscure images.

  Is this her fault?

  Did she do this?

  Should she just have let them…

  No.

  It is unthinkable.

  One life for many, yes, she got it—but no.

  Not that life.

  Never that life.

  She thinks about Boy.

  Wonders if he was okay.

  She wishes she could recite the poem to him right now, but she knows the words wouldn’t find her lips. Besides, she would need to be beside him to do that.

  There has been so much damage done.

  She wonders if she should leave or hide.

  But she’s hidden long enough.

  She wants to see this. Wants to see the wreckage.

  She convinces herself it was because she feels responsible, that she wishes to take some of the blame. She even tells herself that it is her punishment to see this, that she caused it, prompted it, provoked it, and this is what she gets in return.

  At one point, she even tells herself that she will cry.

  But she never cries.

  And that is why she really wants to see this—she is trying to feel something, willing the violence to affect her, to have the intrepid strands of guts flailing out of open chests have some lasting impact on her mental health.

  But she is beyond that now.

  She is blissfully numb.

  These were the living, and they lost.

  That is it.

  Final word of their story.

  The end, goodbye.

  None of it means anything to anyone anymore. No one will be knocking on a family’s door to let them know what happened to their loved one.

  Their family was dead.

  All of them dead.

  It’s what they deserved.

  All of them, though?

  Is it what all of them deserved?

  Every one of them.

  Each mother, each father, each son and each daughter?

  Yes.

  She thinks it because she wants to argue with herself; she wants another thought to chime in and tell her she is wrong, that it isn’t right.

  No such thought presents themselves.

  It is like a walking over someone else’s messy, discarded picnic. She doesn’t care that it was now covered in ants.

  THEN

  Chapter Twenty

  It felt good to be outside the walls again. Trying to adjust to the new life in the community gave her such anxiety, and as soon as Ryker had said he and some guys were going hunting, she’d jumped at the opportunity before Ryker had finished asking the question.

  Who’d have known she’d be grateful to be
back in the open, around monsters again?

  Her and a few guys with shotguns slung over their shoulders sauntered through the surrounding forest, looking for animals they could kill for the butcher to sort.

  A few things, however, unsettled her.

  Firstly, there was very little livestock still alive, and she found it unlikely they were to come across any. What’s more, they were already growing livestock in the community—was there still not enough?

  Secondly, these guys were walking around with heavy footsteps and loud conversations. They seemed to know nothing about avoiding the creatures whilst out here.

  Thirdly, why were their guns over their shoulders? Cia’s knife was in her hands, poised and prepared, ready to use as soon as the moment called for it.

  Cia paused as she heard a noise carrying along the air. The rest of the guys just walked past her, amidst conversation about their plans next day or next social gatherings or whatever things they thought about that didn’t matter in this scenario.

  “Wait,” she said.

  Ryker turned over his shoulder.

  “I said wait,” Cia repeated.

  They stopped and turned to her, seemingly annoyed that their idle chatter was forced to cease.

  She didn’t care. She listened. And she heard it again.

  The unmistakable squawks of many, many creatures.

  “There’s a Maskete nest near here,” Cia said.

  A few of the guys scoffed.

  “What’s the matter with you? They could–”

  A battering of air interrupted her. She looked up to see the belly of a Maskete gliding overhead.

  “Get down!” she snapped and rushed to the shelter of a log.

  The others didn’t get down. They just laughed.

  What the hell was wrong with them?

  Did they want to die?

  “She for real?” one of them asked Ryker.

  “Knock it off,” he said.

  Before Cia could confront their stupidity, the thud of a Maskete’s feet shook the log she sheltered beneath.

  It stood.

  Metres away.

  Looking them up and down.

  Cia’s heart raced. Her adrenaline burst through her body. She wiped sweat from her brow.