The Ones Who Lived

by Ashley Nemer

  "Sounds like a good idea." Sam responded with.

  The two guys worked silently grabbing clothing from the closet and drawers and placing in the containers. One suitcase held the closet clothing and the other the drawers. Anthony would need to remember to make sure the spare room was cleared out so Sunny had plenty of room for all her items.

  The backpack was filled with the toys that appeared to be played with along with all the stuffed animals on her bed. They also grabbed her two pillows and all her blankets that they could find.

  "I think as much as we could bring to her that is hers will give her comfort and help her during this." Sam said to Anthony.

  "You're right, you should grab a couple of the family pictures maybe even a photo album. That way she can always remember them."

  Anthony watched Sam as he walked into the bathroom where he found another bag. He put Sunny's toiletries and hair products into the bag and then shut the door.

  "Sam I'm so sorry about your family."

  "Nothing we can do, both of us are in the same situation. All we can do is protect the girls."

  Anthony nodded his head and walked the suitcases out to the car leaving Sam in the house.

  Thirty minutes later, from the front door Anthony asked, "Ready to go?" as he walked back into the house.

  Sam walked out of the master bedroom holding a shotgun and pistol in his hand along with two heavy duty knives and what appeared to be an army ranger bag.

  "What's all that?" Anthony asked Sam.

  "My uncle was in the military, I thought his supplies would come in handy. There is a heavy duty first aid kid on the bed too, can you go grab that along with the supplies of flash lights?"

  "Yep will do."

  "In the garage there are supplies of water also, we should load those up as well."

  “Do you have the keys to your uncle’s truck anywhere? We could use the extra space. I think your aunt and uncle will take up most of the room otherwise.”

  “Good idea.” Sam went into his aunt and uncle’s bedroom and came out a few minutes later jingling the keys. “Got em.”

  Anthony nodded at his friend, “Let’s load up.”

  The boys spent some time clearing out the items that they each thought could be useful. The last thing they grabbed before the bodies was a fire pit that was still in the box; Sam had worried about what to do with their trash overflowing in the house with the reality of no garbage men anymore.

  Being physically strong had never been Anthony or Sam's forte but today it became more apparent they needed to work out. Lifting the dead bodies and making room for them in the truck bed hadn't been easy. There had been a lot of discussion on where to place them, or if they needed to stack them. It had disturbed both boys immensely and they had wanted to forget about it.

  By the time they were heading back to Anthony's house it was eleven thirty and they knew that the girls would be arriving home right at noon. The first morning without parents and they had survived, hopefully their days continued being this easy.

  As they pulled into the neighborhood Anthony's cell phone went off and he saw it was his sister calling. "Hey Amy." He sounded happy to talk to his twin.

  "Yeah we are about to be there in a minute, go ahead and open it for us and I will pull in. We picked up another vehicle, can you bring ours out to the street? Thanks."

  Anthony used his cell phone to call Sam, who picked up after the first ring. "She wants us to unload inside the garage said she saw kids earlier and doesn't want anyone knowing we have supplies."

  "Amelia is very smart, you're lucky." Sam said.

  "I think you mean we're lucky because we're in this together."

  "Together, yeah."

  The car backed into the garage and as Sam stepped out of the car he saw Sunny standing there next to Amelia. She had tears in her eyes already before he even said anything. He walked over to her and knelt down on one knee.

  "I am so sorry Sunny."

  Her tears ran down her cheeks, "Did you bring home Mommy and Daddy?"

  Sam nodded his head up and down as he grabbed his cousin in a hug and held her tight.

  Amelia and Anthony unloaded the supplies from the car as the other two grieved together.

  "I promise I won't let anything happen to you, I love you and I'm not letting you go."

  "I love you to Sam, I'm just scared."

  "We're all scared Sunny, but at least we still have each other." Sam's words sounded brave, but his face showed that he was equally as scared as his six-year-old cousin.

  Their existence altered forever, nothing could go backwards. The four of them, even if they survived, all orphans, only had each other. Tough choices were going to have to be made and it wasn't going to be easy. But they would find a way to survive one way or another. They would just have to take it one day at a time.

  That night they had all agreed the tree in the front yard would be their parents last resting place. After the supplies had been unloaded, the guys went to Sam's house and retrieved his mom and dad. Together all four of them dug deep holes, as close to six feet as they could measure. They only made three, husband and wife staying together for all of time.

  Sunny cried through the entire process and Amelia almost right along with her. Sam and Anthony had found ways to remain more stoic, but the ordeal left lasting impressions that never would leave their thoughts.

  As she hugged her mom and then her dad followed by her aunt and uncle, the dark clouds started to form overhead. She wasn’t ashamed to cry

  "Now we will have them with us forever." Sunny said.

  "That's right sweetie, we will." Amelia's arm draped over Sunny and the two girls stood there, looking at the holes that now were their parents. As they grieved they both knew this wasn't the end, it was only the beginning.

  Chapter Three – A Father’s Final Gift

  AMELIA HAD TAKEN IT upon herself to go through her father's gear. While the two of them were on their hunting trips Amelia and her father discussed the possibilities of the apocalypse. He was one of those dad's where you knew, to him what he was saying made total sense, but to anyone else he sounded insane. The joke was on everyone else now because her dad had been right all along. Inside his hunting gear she had found in the side pocket an 'apocalypse bible' as it was labeled.

  When she opened to page one she couldn't believe what she had found. It was a note written from her dad to her and Anthony. She began to read it.

  Anthony & Amelia,

  If you are reading this letter then I am going to assume that my world has finally come to an end and I am no longer there. Because if you are reading this and I am still alive you will be in trouble! Growing up in my younger life I was a Boy Scout, something I am very proud of. They always instilled in us to be prepared and that's what I hope I had been able to do for each of you by the time this point came. I hope that I passed from this world peacefully and I didn't give cause for you two to worry. I hope that we got to say goodbye. If we didn't then know this one thing. You two are the most important people to your mother and me. We love you beyond words. You both make us proud, and every day you two strive for your best.

  In the event that I left this world due to zombies, which you know I have always predicted, I leave to you two my final gift. A survivor's guide. Inside this document you will find a lot of information. Some of it pertains to our house and how to operate everything. Others are how to build certain tools or storage's that you will need in order to make it. For example, eventually the water will shut off. Therefore, I enclosed instructions on how to store an endless water supply. This is of course assuming everything went down in a rainy season month.

  I am also leaving instructions on how to work the solar panels of the house and the water heater. I bought an electric one, so you will not need to worry about a gas hook up. You will need to go out and buy deep freezers. You will find emergency money under the mattress in my room, around four thousand dollars. If money is still being used of course
. Grab up as much as you can food wise, you can always freeze a lot of items.

  Make sure you look through the instructions and familiarize yourself with how the house works. Also, in our bedroom is the gun safe. The code is your birthdates.

  Make sure you two take care of each other. If you can reach out to your Uncle Mack or grandfather please do. They both are all you two have left besides each other.

  Amelia, you're going to need to teach your brother how to skin animals. I'm sorry that I never got to take you hunting Anthony. I own several books in my room on how to skin and cook wild game that I am sure you will find useful.

  Also, your mother wants me to add in here that her kitchen is set-up so her stove can switch from gas to electric. Make sure you switch it away from gas, you don't need to worry about a gas leak in addition to everything else.

  Make sure you stock up on batteries. Change out all the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. In the spare room in the closet you will find first aid survival supplies along with the hurricane preparedness kit. I hope you never have to use them.

  My children I love you and you always will be my pride and joy.

  I'll keep my eye on you from the other world, I will always be with you.

  We love you both now and forever,

  Mom & Dad

  Amelia wiped away tears as she read the letter. Inside the book as promised she found the instruction manual with details graphed out on how to build lots of different items. It was almost a blue print to building a compound. She never felt so glad her father was eccentric as she did in this exact moment.

  She gathered up all of what she just discovered and walked downstairs and into the garage. There she could see Sam and Anthony working diligently on something. She gently placed the items in her arms on the ground and cleared her throat.

  "Dad left us a message. An apocalyptic message." She looked at Anthony with tears filled in her eyes, "It includes essentially a step by step guide on what to do to survive. Even how to collect water and make irrigation's."

  Anthony took two steps towards her and had her wrapped in his arms. He let her cry the tears she held deep inside. When she got around to showing him the letter she unearthed he cried too. A message from the afterlife.

  "Oh Amelia, I am sorry you were alone when you found all this." Anthony continued to hold onto his twin as he read over the message. When he saw the 'mom and dad' scrawled in his father's penmanship he couldn't hold back the emotion.

  As the two of them shed tears for their parents Sam stood back quietly observing. Amelia noticed him trying to avoid watching them and she reached her hand out towards him. Beckoning him to join them.

  The three of them were becoming more than the family that they had already felt like. After a lifetime of growing up together. These emotions and feelings were different.

  “Dad wants us to go get freezers.” Amelia said to her brother as she wiped off the tears on her cheeks.

  “Why?” Sam questioned.

  “For storage of food Sam. We need to read this and do it. Maybe we should go right now and get the freezers.” Amelia was reading through the letter again, pointing to Anthony on the spot where their father instructed them to get freezers.

  “Any idea where we would pick them up at?” Sam shrugged.

  “What about a Home Depot or Lowes type place?” Anthony answered.

  “It’s a good thing we have the truck now, wonder how many freezers that bed can hold.” Amelia said in Sam’s direction.

  “Only one way to find out. My lady, we will acquire you some freezers.” Sam winked at Amelia and then gave a pretend bow in her direction.

  “I am going to start cooking something. The manual here explains how to switch the stove from gas to electric. Guess I should probably do that first.” Amelia opened the guide to the appropriate page in the manual and began reading. “Hey what exactly is an Allen wrench?”

  Sam perked up, “Maybe I should come help you do that. You know, don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  Amelia looked at him through her tear stained eye lashes. He was smiling at her and she couldn’t help returning the gesture. “Thank you Sam.”

  “For the record, I am not a fan of this at all between you two.” Anthony said. His chest seemed to be puffed out for some strange reason and his voice appeared deeper than it had just moments before.

  “Fan of what?” Amelia said to her brother innocently.

  “You know what I am talking about missy,” Anthony wiggled his pointer finger in the direction of his sister. “Sam knows too. And I don’t like it.” Anthony stormed out of the garage pushing past both of them.

  “He really has anger issues.” Sam teased, as the two of them moved into the kitchen.

  “He takes after our dad, but you knew that. Now again back to this Allen wrench thingy, what does it even look like?” Amelia pointed down towards the instruction manual and put her brother to the back of her mind. She wasn’t ready herself yet to talk about what was happening. What had been happening for the past year between her and Sam?

  SUNNY HAD MASTERED being silent and not seen a long time ago. She sat in the corner of the hallway as the three of them all discussed Amelia and Anthony’s dad’s letter. She missed her own mom and dad too but no one was talking about them. Not even Sam, who knew them. She had spent her free hours crying, because what else was she supposed to do? The rain had come and gone, just like her tears, falling in different waves. Somehow she found comfort in the sound of the water beating against the roof of the house. It almost seemed healing to her.

  She made her way back to her bedroom. Amelia instructed her to call it her room that way she would get used to the idea. Her cousin brought over a lot of items she loved, stuff she actually played with. It had taken a couple hours to unpack everything Anthony and Sam retrieved from her own house .Now that everything had its own place, she felt good. Sunny wasn’t a big fan of clutter, in fact she couldn’t function in it. While she was cleaning out one of the drawers in her new room she found Anthony’s baby album. Tiny little fingers and toes.

  Sunny hated knowing she would never get to have her photos like this. Yes, Sam had brought her some albums but it wasn’t the same. Amelia and Anthony grew up in this house and here Sam and Sunny were just latching on for the ride to enjoy this house. It wasn’t really theirs. She wouldn’t have any more photos of her life and what was going on.

  Her state of depression became something she could easily slip into if she wasn’t careful. She hated the depression. She tried to focus on the good, but all that came out happened to be more tears. Once again she noticed that the rain accompanied her cries. The whole earth around her wept alongside her.

  It wouldn’t take the others long to realize what Sunny was realizing. Her emotions controlled the weather and if she wasn’t careful he could wipe out everyone with a flood.

  There was a soft knock on the door and Anthony pushed open her room door. He smiled at her but she could tell he was up to something. “Hey Sunny.”

  “Hiya Sam.”

  “You hungry? Amelia is making some good soup she concocted.”

  “I’m okay for now, thanks Anthony.” Sunny didn’t want to go downstairs. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Anthony, it was that she didn’t feel comfortable asking him for assistance just yet.

  “You need to eat Sunny, come on, this will help your strength. Get on down here.”

  She obliged with no argument. She didn’t want to cause too big of a scene. There were going to be a lot more days ahead, days she knew that would be bad. She may as well leave the arguments for those days and not for today.

  “Hey Amelia, it smells great.” She said as she strode in with confidence into the kitchen.

  “Hope your hungry everyone I made enough to feed an army.” Amelia replied.

  “I’m starving, let’s eat!” Sam declared from his newly acquired spot at the table.

  “Hold your horses there cowboy, young ladies get to cut in
line.” Amelia guided Sunny across the room. Who promptly looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at her older cousin in a teasing form.

  Sunny thought to herself, maybe all of this will work out after all.

  AFTER DINNER ANTHONY and Sam made their first run to Home Depot. They were able to load two deep freezes into the truck bed without causing a major issue. The next morning Amelia and Anthony took off to the meat market where they ended up spending six hours of their day going through meat to determine if it was savable or not. Sam and Anthony were arguing over where to store the freezers when Amelia walked into the room. She didn’t want to deal with all of the craziness that they were trying to do with said freezers. She asked them to bring them into the den and to stop complaining. Lucky for the two of them, that was exactly what they decided to do.

  “Amelia, now you can go obtain as much meat as your little heart desires.” Sam said to her.

  “Yeah I can, thanks to you.” She grinned over at him.

  “Knock it off you two, man you’re gonna make me puke.” Anthony stormed out of the room after he had finished assembling his parts of the freezer.

  The two of them laughed at Amelia’s brother, they knew it was going to get worse before it was going to get better.

  “Will you go shopping with me tomorrow Sam?” She asked.

  “Of course I will. What’s on the menu?”

  “Meat, lots and lots of meat.” She grinned at him.

  “Maybe we need a third freezer, can you freeze vegetables?” He asked her.

  With a shrug of her shoulder she stated, “I don’t see why not, I mean they have frozen peas at the store, right?”

  “Yeah, true they do. Hey do you want to maybe help me with something?” Sam asked, his tone a bit off.

  “Okay? What is it?”

  “I think I need to try and find some of my other cousins. Sunny wasn’t the only one who is younger and I’ve called the houses, no one answered.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay sure, I can help you. Not sure what you would want me instead of Anthony for though.”