Children of the AFTER: AWAKENING

by Jeremy Laszlo

  “So I guess you whacked that guy bad enough he left us alone, huh?” Will asked as Sam climbed to her feet.

  “I hope so, lil guy, but we don’t know how many of them there are so we have to keep moving.”

  “Let’s go then, slow pokes,” Will said, with a grin that bordered on both sarcasm and cunning.

  Reaching out her hand, Sam helped Jack to his feet before bending to retrieve her own pack. Carefully she wiped the bits of glass and dirt from her backside before grabbing Will’s little hand in her own. Within seconds, Jack too had his pack and taking Will’s other hand they began down the sidewalk once more.

  It was well on into afternoon as they crept among the shadows of the skeletal buildings around them. Though they moved with as much haste as they were able, often their imaginations caused them to pause suddenly and strain their ears for sounds that did not come again. Sam peered around every corner as they crossed intersections, and into the remains of building as they moved like predators amongst the rubble. She didn’t feel like a predator though, instead she felt more like the mouse that tempted the cat.

  For hours they walked until the afternoon became evening and her legs trembled with every step. Whether it was fear or the day’s exertion that led them to waiver beneath her she could not be certain, though supposed it was probably a combination of the pair. No matter how far they went, however, she still found herself thinking of things behind them. Not just the events of the day’s attack, but months ago, back before the event. She had hated things then, yet now she longed for what she had loathed just months before. It was odd how the world could change you just by changing around you. After shaking off her memories, she quickly concluded that she would much rather go back to school and worry about what people were saying about her in the hall, than worry about who else was alive in the world and what they would do to her and her brothers if caught.

  With a shudder at the thought, Sam squeezed Will’s hand slightly, calmed by the reminder that they were all OK so long as they had each other. All they had to do was be careful.

  * * * * *

  Scrambling over a pile of bricks, Will held the hands of both his big sister and brother, feeling their unease with every step. Both Jack and Sam were on edge, their heads jerking to one side and then the other in response to imagined sounds. Will knew they were worried about the man on the horse. But he also knew that the dark played tricks on you, and when you thought there was something to be afraid of, most of the time there really wasn’t. Unless it was a cat. Cats were creepy like that. Getting up in the middle of the night to slink around in the dark, and jump and climb on things for no reason. And they ate frogs. Eww.

  Block after block they traversed the rubble and piles of debris as the evening grew darker and darker around them, until they reached an intersection with several gas stations where just beyond he could see an overpass. Looking out across the intersection from behind a charred carcass of a pickup truck, Will could tell that the road was obviously wider than all they had crossed during the day. He watched as the burned remains of traffic lights swayed in the breeze above them, suspended across the street by melted and twisted wires that appeared they would give way at any moment.

  For long minutes he joined both Jack and Sam looking up and down the street, peering into the shadows searching for any sign that might betray another presence out there somewhere in the growing darkness. After what seemed like an eternity that increased the time between the now and his dinner, Will finally followed Jack’s lead across the road as Sam trailed behind a few steps. Mounting the opposing curb, they stepped into a blackened parking lot belonging to what used to be a fast food restaurant connected to the service station. Though the plastic emblem of the yellow arched “M” on the building had melted away during the event, Will recognized the franchise by its telltale roofline despite the fact that most of the building had collapsed. It seemed Jack recognized it too as he aimed them towards it without a second’s hesitation. Will found it peculiar that Jack had hated working at such a place just a few months prior, yet now he was leading them into one in search of a safe haven to spend the night. Will just hoped they still had chicken nuggets, though he seriously doubted he’d be that lucky. Oh my God, and ketchup, everything was better with ketchup.

  Picking their way through and over portions of collapsed roof and ceiling, they dodged between steel tables that remained fastened to the concrete and tile floor as they approached the bent and twisted stainless steel counter where once a teen like his brother would have stood wearing a stupid hat. Will chuckled. He had to say something.

  “Jack, I’d like a ten piece nugget meal with barbeque sauce and ketchup please.”

  “Shh,” Jack warned, fighting a smile as Sam snorted, trying to suppress a laugh of her own.

  Rounding the corner of the mangled counter they pressed further into the dilapidated building past scorched metal cooking implements that were as alien as flight controls to Will, though he had little time to ponder what it was the items were once used for. Weaving first one way and then back the other they moved among the wreckage until Jack brought them to a sudden stop. There before them was a large metal door, not unlike the cooler they had slept in the night prior, just bigger. Testing the handle, Jack pulled it open to be met by something totally unexpected.

  Like something from within had been pushing on the airtight door, it burst open causing Jack to jump and Sam to scream in surprise as a foul smell filled the air. Pulling his bag over his shoulder, Will yanked his police light out and began shaking it before aiming into the smelly darkness beyond. Flipping the plastic switch, he watched as the metal room filled with storage racks and cardboard was illuminated. Yet still the source of the smell could not readily be discovered. Pinching her nose, Sam was the first to step into the metal confines, and rifling through the few boxes that had not been already broken down and flattened, she deemed the cooler empty of anything putrid, disgusting, or foul. Then, lifting one of the empty boxes to her nose she quickly changed her mind. The smell was from the empty containers that once held food products.

  “We could toss them outside,” Sam offered.

  “No,” Jack replied, “If we can smell them, so can anyone else who might come this way.

  “We can find a place that doesn’t stink,” Will suggested.

  “It’s not safe, buddy,” Jack answered, “It’s getting too dark and we don’t want to be out shining around your light. Someone could see us.”

  Figuring that their decision was finalized, Will removed his backpack again and dropped it upon the floor. Stink or not, he was hungry.

  “If we’re staying, can we eat now?”

  “Sure can,” Sam smiled, dropping her own pack before bending to clear a space for them to eat.

  Within minutes the floor was cleared as discarded cardboard was piled into stacks in the back of the cooler, and they all sat down to enjoy a meal of the spoils they had found in the morning and previous night. It wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t the healthy foods any adult would suggest they eat, but they ate anyway, and each enjoyed it without complaint.

  It wasn’t until after their meal that Will and Sam were both enlisted to help Jack rig the door closed using pieces of the shelving in the cooler and a bit of wire scavenged from just outside the door. Pulling the door closed as tightly as he was able, it was when he pressed his shoulder into the shelf, wedged there by Jack, that his head rested against the outer wall of the cooler beside the door as it was sealed closed for the night, when he thought he heard a sound outside. It sounded very much like the shuffling and crunching of broken glass accompanied by a clip clop, clip clop that caused the hair on his neck to stand up. The darkness was finally playing tricks on him too.

  Jack secured the last metal unit into place, allowing Will to stand clear of the door and wall. The room was sealed and the sound vanished into the darkness outside.

  Chapter Nine

  His eyes popping open, Jack reached out i
nstinctively to his side where the night before he had placed Will’s light. Brushing the floor with his fingers he fought through a second of panic, skimming the concrete surface of the cooler’s floor until he felt the cold hard plastic of the light. Snatching it up, he gave the light a shake and waved it around, brandishing it like a torch into the darkness. Rising, he felt as his muscles tensed, his shoulders and legs threatening to cramp if he pushed them too hard. He was dehydrated and malnourished. He couldn’t expect his body to handle the abuse he had put it through the previous day without it reminding him of his limitations. Cautiously, he rose to a kneeling position and shined the already dimming light into every corner of the room, noting both Sam and Will still asleep as he sought the source of the sound that woke him. Could it have been a dream?

  Nothing found, he sighed loudly and allowed the light to fade again into darkness as he sat silently still, a perfect mimicry of death. With naught but darkness he focused his hearing on the breathing forms of his siblings, and smiled to himself as he noted Sam’s low snoring. He wished he could record it to play back to her at a later time as proof, knowing she would deny it if accused. Before long, Will began to thrash about a bit before rolling to his side, a sign that he would soon be waking up. Jack was surprised how loud their small sounds were inside the confines of the cooler, that is, until his attention was drawn elsewhere.

  With a loud clatter, a series of crashing sounds erupted outside as the tinkling of glass shards raining down upon the ground followed, sounding like wind chimes in a storm. A moaning sound then chased the crashes and the musical glass sounds fell to silence, when just as soon as the sounds came they were just as suddenly gone. So too were the sounds of his sibling’s breathing. Shaking the light in his hand slightly he allowed it to light ever so dimly as he pressed a finger to his lips, noting that both Will and Sam were now sitting and facing him with fear clearly etched upon their faces.

  Taking his cue they remained silent, turning their attention to the door, all of them straining to hear any further sounds beyond those of their own hearts pounding in their chests. Jack listened for what felt like forever, and when he was certain no more sounds were coming, he continued to listen further, without moving, afraid to give away their hiding spot to anything or anyone who might be lurking outside. After what must have been more than two hours, poor little Will could take it no more and finally broke the silence.

  “Guys?”

  “Yes, baby?” Sam asked him in a hushed tone.

  “I really gotta pee,” he admitted.

  “Let’s get the door open and peek outside,” Jack replied after a moment’s thought, not wanting to linger in the city any longer than they had to.

  “Can we eat after I pee?”

  “Yes, Will,” Sam answered their little brother. “But we’ll have to hurry,” she added, turning her pleading eyes up to Jack. She was asking for his agreement. This took no thought, and with a single nod of his head, he gave it.

  Jack found it odd and yet comforting how Sam had so easily taken on the role as a mom for Will. She was a natural with him, but then again, she kind of always had been. Even when Will had been a baby she had always volunteered to hold him, or feed him. It was almost as if she had been training for years for all of this to happen. It was kind of creepy thinking about it like that, but he was glad to hear her sound so grown up and mature. Will needed her to fill in for Mom, and she was doing a great job.

  “OK, Sam. I’m gonna untie the wire and pull this shelf back a little. You hold the other one up when I lean it back, and ill poke my head outside and see what’s what.”

  “You got it,” she said rising to join him.

  Watching as Will shuffled out of their way, Jack carefully untied the wire binding the two shelves together, shifting the first one back several inches as he strained to prevent it from making noise as he returned it to a vertical position. Sam, seeing his intentions, grabbed hold of the opposite end and helped him, both of them being more careful to remain silent than ever before in their lives. Once the first shelf was removed, Jack leaned the second one back precariously, allowing Sam to take the weight of the shelving unit and turned back to the door.

  Grasping the stainless handle, he slowly and carefully pulled it upwards, feeling the pull of its inner spring mechanism tighten until it came to a stop. Wrapping his other hand around the base of the metal to muffle any sound it might make, he pulled up on the handle once more as he felt, more than heard, the final click that signaled its release, and cautiously he pressed his shoulder into the door feeling as the air seal broke and the door inched open with a metallic groan. Again he froze, as did both of his siblings.

  With his ear to the small opening in the doorway, he strained his senses, hearing nothing more than a low breeze singing through the wreckage and ruins of the city, like a mourner of the dead. Reassured, he pressed again against the steel of the door and as it opened wider he leaned out carefully, looking out into the morning, searching every shadow. Here and there things like torn canopies of buildings or shredded insulation still clinging to the ruined framing of walls fluttered in the hollow breeze, causing his eyes to dart one way and then another, but no sign of danger showed itself. The view seeming clear, Jack pushed the door the rest of the way open and motioned for Will to join him.

  Darting out of the cooler like a caged animal offered freedom, Will vanished around the corner, the sounds of his movement coming to an abrupt stop as he sighed loudly from out of Jack’s sight, obviously relieved of the pressure threatening within him. Smiling at Will’s audible relief, Jack turned back to Sam.

  “Let’s get him fed and get out of here. I don’t want to stay in the city.”

  She didn’t even reply, choosing instead to acknowledge his words by spinning on her heel to begin rummaging through their packs. If Samantha had become Mom, Jack supposed that he had become their dad, taking on the role of leading their family. Watching as Will reappeared from around the corner, he knew he would do his best to play his role no matter how much he didn’t want it.

  Reentering their shelter, he sat with his siblings as Sam handed both him and Will a pack of Twinkies and a bottle of soda. It wasn’t much. Certainly not a meal. But for now it would have to do. Eating quickly, he waited patiently as the others followed suit and helped them pack up their meager belongings before striking out once more into the city.

  * * * * *

  After having to listen to Will pee against the side of their shelter for like five minutes straight, Sam couldn’t help but wonder how such a small child could possibly hold so much fluid. Though the severity of their circumstances was not lost on her conscious thoughts for even a moment, she couldn’t help but ponder the oddity of what they faced. Yeah, it was gone. Everything was gone. But besides family and friends and those they loved, what was really lost? Commodities? Pleasures? Convenience? Sure she had indulged in her share of modern conveniences and technology, but every advancement they had before the event was really just to replace something that had already existed on a more personal level. Television and newspapers had replaced town meetings and gossip. Phones had made it so you didn’t have to face a person to say things that you wouldn’t have said, had phones not existed. Social media removed real connections and friendships and replaced them with ratings, whining rants, and new ways to bully people. What was odd, was that before the event she had hated the way the world was. She had despised the fakeness of it all. Yet now, here in this world, she found herself missing the simplicities of numb mindlessness and uncaring that had come with the old world. Easy was gone.

  Plunging her half emptied bottle of root beer down the throat of her backpack, she rose to her feet, pausing a moment to allow the effects of her sore muscles to settle before she stretched her legs, rising to her toes, before reaching down to snatch up her pack and shoulder it. With a nod to Jack she watched as he stepped free of their metal walls once more, and reaching down she took Will’s hand. Swift and silent was the ord
er of the day.

  “OK, Will. We have to move fast and be quiet.”

  “Like ninjas?” he asked with wide hopeful eyes.

  “Exactly like ninjas,” Sam said with mock sincerity before smiling in response to his happy nod.

  At least that was easy. Weaving back through the collapsed building and all of its grills and deep fryers, they rounded the counter and dodged the tables to step back through the remains of the front wall of the building and into the parking lot beyond. Here Jack clung to the walls, preferring them to the open streets, and looking about, Sam noted the source of the sound that had alarmed them all earlier in the morning. There had not been a presence out here. Instead, the pole holding up the traffic lights at the intersection had bent over, the lights and wires crashing to the ground sending the glass that littered everything scattering beneath it. The same shards of glass that moved beneath their feet with every swift step.

  For hours Sam moved on in a mindless trance, following and mimicking Jack’s every move as they crept from one devastated building to the next, as strip malls turned into small tightly packed homes in what was once a poor region of the city. Now there was little left but concrete and brick foundations littered with charred bits of broken memories and smeared streaks of blackness. The whole community had been wiped from the earth as if washing it away to start over, removing its filth and depravity to replace it with something new or better. Perhaps that was just her missing the way the old world worked, but Sam could not help but feel that this was not an end. Tragic, yes, but it could not be all. Could it? There had to be more. There had to be some good from all this loss. She hoped against hope they would find a new and better beginning somewhere beyond the city. There had to be something. Working to refocus her train of thought, she looked down upon Will who still crept upon his toes like a ninja, even hours into the morning. He deserved a new beginning.

  Eventually as the day progressed, Sam’s mood lightened, mostly due to watching her little ninja move like a cartoon cat across their obliterated world. At some point they had crossed the threshold of homes that had once been owned by the impoverished into apartment buildings and warehouses, as signs for the interstate began showing up here or there where they had not been completely destroyed or charred beyond recognition. Though she paid scant attention to any of the signs in the past, they gave her hope now. They proved that the edge of the city was nearing, and she no longer felt safe in the city. Just seeing the signs seemed to take a weight off of her chest. She couldn’t wait to get out of this place. It felt like a cemetery.