After The End

by Jamie Campbell

  I don’t want to alarm Sarah but we need to return to the others as quickly as we can to warn them. “Have you got everything you need now?”

  “Almost.” She picks a leaf from what looks like a weed. “Now I do. This should be everything. I just need to crush it up and make it into a paste.”

  “Okay, great, let’s go.” I practically push her back to our camp. If she thinks my pace is too fast, she doesn’t mention it. I keep my arm around her shoulders the whole way, making sure she doesn’t get distracted and wander off.

  It’s a relief to see everyone still safe back at camp. Rhys has his eyes closed but he’s breathing steadily. Sarah gets straight to work on her poultice.

  I catch Garlind’s eye and gesture for him to come quickly. He raises to his feet and joins me a moment later. “I saw someone in the forest. It was just for a few seconds but I’m sure about it.”

  Concern wrinkles his brow. “Did they look friendly? Have any weapons?”

  “I’m not sure. It was so quick that I didn’t get a good look.”

  “Did they see you?”

  The image replays in my head over and over again. I wish I could be more sure of exactly what I saw. “I don’t know. But I think we need to be on the safe side.”

  Garlind’s lips pout as he thinks. I’m hoping he’ll have a clue about what we need to do. I’m about all out of ideas. “I’ll speak to Lincoln and Tabitha. The three of us will scout around and see if we can find them. You stay here with Sarah and Rhys.”

  “I can’t let you guys go out there. I can go,” I insist. The panic of losing Garlind again is still very fresh in my mind. I hate being separated from him. For any reason.

  “Someone needs to stay and protect the camp. It’s just as dangerous here as out there.”

  He makes sense, but I still don’t like the idea. Every alternative is equally as dangerous. “Fine. But be quick and be safe. Don’t take any risks you don’t have to.”

  “That goes for you too,” he replies.

  “Deal.”

  We return to the others and Garlind has a quiet word with Lincoln and Tabitha. They slink away shortly afterwards. I constantly scan our surroundings while they’re gone. Rhys continues his nap while Sarah grinds up the ingredients we gathered.

  I hate the wait.

  All I have to do is watch so I do the best job I can of picking up movement in the forest surrounding us. I see several birds and a few bugs flying around. They all create movement but don’t pose a danger.

  At any moment, I expect to hear the screams of a struggle or the crack of a gun. But everything is eerily quiet. All that fills the air is the sound of Sarah grinding her ingredients together with a stick.

  I’ve been out of the bunker long enough to know silence doesn’t guarantee safety. There are plenty of animals and people that can be deadly with their stealth. I’m not going to relax until the others return with nothing to report.

  Sarah finishes with her concoction and shows me the paste she made. It’s brown and lumpy. I’m not going to lie, I’m hesitant about putting it on Rhys’s infected wound. I don’t want to be adding more bacteria to the mix.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” I ask.

  She looks at me with her big, innocent eyes. “My momma would always use it on me. I healed right up. No problems.”

  At this stage, we probably can’t do any more damage. I’ll have some faith in Sarah’s legendary momma. “Okay. Let me help apply it.”

  Rhys wakes when I push his shirt up his chest to expose his belly. He doesn’t argue, just closes his eyes again. It would probably be better if he did ask a million questions. He either really trusts us, or he’s too weak to care.

  I peel back the gauze and hold it open while Sarah smears on her poultice. She uses her fingers but is very cautious about not touching the wound herself. She dabs on the paste generously and I close the gauze again.

  “It should work within twenty-four hours,” she states like a pro. She immediately starts to tidy up her mess and wash her plastic bowl.

  I keep an eye on Rhys while worrying about the others. It feels like we are being watched but I can’t see anyone amongst the thick trees surrounding us.

  Nor can I hear anything.

  Garlind has been gone for too long. It has to be at least an hour since they went to scout the area around us. They shouldn’t need that long to check for any intruders. I consider going looking for them but then Rhys and Sarah will be left unguarded. I’m not really a fighter but I know I’ll do all I can to protect them.

  My eyes keep flicking to my watch as the seconds drag by. I’m hyper aware of any noise and movement. Several times I think I see something, only for them to disappear when I look closer. I’m going to lose my mind if they don’t return soon.

  Another twenty-seven minutes pass. Finally, I see a person I recognize emerging from the trees. Lincoln returns first. “Couldn’t find anything. You sure you saw someone?”

  “Very sure,” I reply.

  He shrugs and sits down, taking out his water bottle which he sips from. Tabitha and Garlind return at the same time with the same news. Neither have found any signs of life in the area.

  Maybe I’ve already lost my mind and I’m seeing things.

  “How’s Rhys doing?” Lincoln asks, directing the question toward me.

  “He needs to rest. I think his wound is infected. He needs sleep to fight the bugs.”

  “We need to keep going.”

  “Tomorrow,” I shoot back. I’m not budging on this. I’m not going to kill our friend because of Lincoln’s impatience. They didn’t find any sign of the other people being near so there is no reason why we can’t stay here until the new day breaks.

  Garlind interrupts before things can get too heated. “We can leave at first light. We wouldn’t get very far today anyway before it gets too dark to see anything.”

  Lincoln’s nostrils flare. His jaw ticks. He’s a bomb waiting to explode.

  “Maybe we should rest a while,” Tabitha says. Perhaps the boy will listen to his sister. I certainly hope so.

  He doesn’t relax his posture as he forces out the words he doesn’t want to speak. “Fine. Tomorrow. Dawn.”

  I let out the breath I was holding. I’ve bought Rhys a night to rest. I hope it’s long enough. Lincoln’s not going to spend tomorrow in this clearing too. I have no doubt we’ll be forced to leave at dawn, no matter Rhys’s condition.

  Everyone scatters after that. I stick close to Rhys while the others find their own place and things to do. Garlind rearranges his pack and does a stock take of his supplies. Lincoln and Tabitha play a card game. Sarah sees what Garlind is doing and does the same with her backpack.

  The afternoon crawls past. I’m sick of worrying about everything but there doesn’t seem an end in sight. Until Rhys recovers, until we get to Washington and find the man sending out the radio signals, until the aliens leave our planet, I will worry. It’s exhausting.

  Twilight turns our camp into a dark blue bubble. We eat what little food we have and Sarah builds a small fire for light. It’s then that Tabitha sits down beside me.

  “Hey,” she says.

  She doesn’t often come and talk to me so I’m instantly suspicious. If she’s going to talk me into leaving and doing her brother’s bidding, I don’t want to hear it. “Hey,” I reply, giving nothing of my apprehension away.

  “What’s going to happen to…” She nods toward Rhys.

  “I don’t know. If he can fight the infection, I think he will get better. The wound should heal and he’ll be okay.”

  “And if he can’t fight it?”

  “Then, you know, he won’t last.” I don’t want to say the word ‘die’ out loud. It will make it too real. If I don’t say it, then it can’t come true.

  “Has anyone told you how we met Rhys?”

  “No.” Although, now she mentions it, my curiosity is piqued.

  She traces circles in the dirt as she talks. “Linc an
d I were hiding from some aliens. They had invaded the town we were staying in overnight. We woke up and they were everywhere. I thought we were dead for sure.”

  She pauses and seems lost in her memory. “And…” I prompt.

  “We heard someone else in the house, on the second floor. We thought it was the aliens and knew we would be trapped there with them all around us.

  “The footsteps got closer and they came downstairs. And then we were face to face with Rhys. He was covered in dirt and as skinny as a rake. But he didn’t question us or throw any threats our way. He just waved at us to follow him. We went upstairs and hid together. The aliens never found us because of his genius hiding place.”

  “He’s a smart guy,” I say. Rhys’s mind is brilliant and his kindness is difficult to rival. Out of all of us, he least deserved to be shot yesterday.

  “After that night, he never questioned us or was fearful. He just said humans needed to stick together.” She looks up at the sky as her fingers still absentmindedly swirl in the dirt. “He’s always been too good and trusting for his own good.”

  “He didn’t really think those people would shoot him,” I agree. That’s why he was out there when the rest of us were hiding. He didn’t think they’d really shoot at him. He thought they were just warning us.

  She moves to get up. “Look after him really well, okay?”

  “I am.”

  Tabitha nods and wanders back to her brother, leaving me to wonder what on earth that whole conversation was for. I shake my head. She was probably just worried about her friend. We all are.

  We set up a roster for keeping watch throughout the night and start to take turns sleeping. Sarah takes the first shift so she can get a full, unbroken sleep later on.

  I curl up against Garlind as he drapes his arm over my waist. I’m reminded of the conversation I had with Sarah earlier on and her probing questions. We definitely are not boyfriend-girlfriend. But we have to be something more than friends. My feelings toward him are definitely more than friendly.

  For now, I just accept what we have as something good and drift off to sleep for as long as I can.

  My dreams are powerful and full of guns. In the particularly strong one, we’re all running for our lives. Not from human guns, but from those wielded by aliens. Their weapons are far more superior than ours—both in my nightmare and in reality.

  I’m woken for my shift and mercifully pulled out of the pursuit. I watch over Rhys and the camp for two hours before Lincoln relieves me. I go back to sleep but not to that dream.

  Sunlight shining in my eyes wake me in the morning. The ball of fire is already on its way high into the sky. Why didn’t Lincoln wake us at dawn?

  I’m wipe the sleep from my eyes and look around at our camp. Garlind is still sleeping, so is Sarah.

  But Lincoln, Tabitha, and all their belongings are gone.

  Chapter 6

  “Garlind, wake up,” I urge, giving him a shake. “Lincoln and Tabitha are gone.”

  I have to repeat myself several times before he awakens enough to comprehend what I’m saying. He sits up quickly as his gaze scans our surroundings.

  “They can’t be gone,” he says.

  All I see are Sarah and Rhys, and they are both sound asleep. There is absolutely no sign of the siblings. “Well, they aren’t here.”

  “Maybe they’ve just gone to relieve themselves.”

  “Together?”

  “Tabitha doesn’t like going alone.” For some reason, it irks me that Garlind knows that about her.

  “Why is all their stuff gone then? They don’t need that for the bathroom,” I point out.

  Garlind stands and does a perimeter check. I do the same, searching for any sign of the pair. All is silent and still. It’s like they just vanished into thin air.

  I give up and open my backpack to get some water for my dry mouth. My pack is half empty. A terrible dread wrings my stomach in two. “Most of my supplies are gone.”

  Garlind rushes to his backpack and checks it. He holds it open for me to see inside—empty. “Dammit.” He checks Rhys’s. “His are gone too. They’ve taken everything.”

  Panic sets in. Lincoln and Tabitha have disappeared and stolen everything we need to stay alive. We’re in the middle of a dense forest on the side of a mountain range, with an injured person, and now we don’t have any food.

  They’ve royally screwed us over.

  I plonk on the ground and try to think of something helpful. If only I could get the voice inside my head to stop screaming about how much trouble we’re in.

  Sarah stirs. “What’s going on?” she asks groggily. Her hair needs a brush. Have they even left her with one?

  “Lincoln and Tabitha have gone. Check your backpack,” I order. “They’ve taken our food.”

  Confusion crosses her features before she pulls over her pack and looks inside. Her little pink mouth forms a perfect circle. “It’s empty. Why did they take our food?”

  “Because they are horrible people,” I reply. I’ve had my suspicions about them for a while but I never thought they’d rob us while we slept and leave us for dead.

  The conversation I’d had with Tabitha about Rhys comes to the forefront of my mind. She was making sure I’d take care of Rhys even after they disappeared. They must have been planning to leave all afternoon.

  How could they do that to us?

  To Rhys?

  “What are we going to do?” Sarah asks with a quiver in her voice. I hadn’t meant to scare her.

  Garlind replies, “We’ll find more supplies. There has got to be something edible in this forest. We’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”

  He sounds so certain that I really want to believe him. But unfound optimism is Garlind’s specialty. He can’t fix absolutely every situation. This time, we might really starve to death.

  He lowers his voice as he talks to me. “We’ll need to work out how soon Rhys can move.”

  I nod. That is something I can do. I crouch down next to the patient and check his wound. I have to wipe aside the poultice to be able to see the jagged line of stitches I gave him.

  The redness and swelling have improved significantly. He wakes up when I smear the paste back over the wound and close the gauze.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “A lot better. How’s it look?” Even his voice sounds stronger. I could kiss Sarah for her magic poultice. Next time, I’m not going to doubt her.

  “Good. You should try sitting up when you can, see how you go.”

  Rhys looks around at each of us in turn. The three of us are staring at him, expecting a miracle. Or perhaps we look guilty that we let the siblings get away with all our stuff.

  Whatever it is, he’s suspicious. “What’s going on?”

  I don’t want to stress him out, but I can’t hide the fact we don’t have any food either. I explain the situation and try to reassure him that we’ll find supplies and everything will be okay. I wish I could sound more convincing.

  “We should go,” Rhys says when I’m done.

  “We need to make sure you’re strong enough first,” I point out.

  He props himself up on his elbows, wincing at the strain of his injury. “I can do this. I can walk.”

  I can’t argue with him too much. We really do need to get going. He can try to move. If he can’t do it, then I’ll insist he rest for another day. We don’t have the luxury of not trying—Tabitha and Lincoln made sure of that.

  We pack up what few belongings we still have and set off. Garlind leads the way now, using the sun as our compass. We’ve almost lost a good half day by oversleeping. If we want to eat, we’re going to have to find it first.

  Rhys tries his absolute best to keep up but as the day progresses, he gets slower and slower. Sweat beads on his forehead and his shirt has dark moons under his armpits. Still, he doesn’t complain. Garlind is careful to alter his pace accordingly.

  We don’t find any food.

&nb
sp; The forest is thick with trees and shrubs. To me, it all looks green and juicy but our expert Sarah assures us they aren’t edible. “Would they kill us?” I ask.

  “Probably not. But they won’t taste good,” she replies with a twisted grimace on her face.

  So we don’t eat the foliage.

  Sarah assures us she’s looking out for anything that could pass as edible. After all, she’s just as hungry as we are. We’re all frantically rowing in the same sinking boat here.

  We stop at dusk and go to sleep hungry.

  The next three days are all the same.

  I’m not even entirely sure it was only three days since we were royally betrayed by Lincoln and Tabitha. All the days run into each other and a lack of food might be making me imagine things. Several times I think I see juicy red berries hanging on bushes, only to blink and have them disappear.

  Water is our only salvation. If I drink enough, it takes the edge off the hunger for a little while. I think I have to keep walking so we’re closer to finding a town that might have some food, but it’s really difficult sometimes.

  Our pace is slow and I have to keep a close eye on Rhys. His infection settles down and so does his fever. His body is weak though, he needs rest and nourishment. Two things I am unable to offer him at the moment.

  It could be the fourth or fifth day when we finally reach a town. It’s like an illusion in the distance at first. It grows larger as we walk and doesn’t disappear when we enter the outskirts. Only when I place a hand on the brick building, do I believe it really is real.

  We’ve entered the town straight from the forest and not the road. We’re faced with backyards at first and have to weave our way through the houses to reach the main road.

  Gas stations sit on either side of the street with a few more shops and restaurants scattered along the way. We start with the closest one and climb in through the broken windows.

  This was a gas station once. The bowsers are covered in creeping vines so thick that none of the metal lying underneath can be seen. The store is in better condition but it has been ransacked—on a number of occasions, I suspect.