by Sands, Samie
One Year On
#4 AM13 Outbreak Shorts
Samie Sands
Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved.
Copyright: No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, recording or other electronic mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Rachael
Katie
Emma
Rhys
Oliver
Danny
Emma
Rachael
Oliver
Rhys
Katie
Danny
Alex
Oliver
Emma
Katie
Rachael
Rhys
Danny
Alex
Benji
Oliver
Ryan
Rhys
Emma
Rachael
Katie
Danny
Benji
Emma
Oliver
Alex
Rhys
Emma
Rachael
Ryan
Benji
Alex
Oliver
Rhys
Katie
Emma
Oliver
Alex
Katie
Ryan
Oliver
Rachael
“I miss the refugee camp,” I sigh idly to Olivia. “It was fun there, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” She screws up her nose, disgusted by the idea. “I mean, I’m glad my mom took me there or I never would’ve met you, but it wasn’t all good, was it?”
I tilt my head back and stare up at the sky, recalling my whole experience since this damn virus broke loose. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster with more downs than ups.
“You’re just lucky you had your mom to take you there!”
“Why? What happened to yours? I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”
“Hmm, that’s probably true. I don’t like to remember it too much anymore.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be enough to put Olivia off, so for the first time in a very long time, I speak about the past. “We’d just moved house when the virus broke out. To a new town nearby.” I smile to myself as I recall how dumb and naïve my problems were then. “I had this crush on a guy there. Zac his name was. The funny thing is I can barely even remember what he looks like now.”
“I miss boys.” Olivia pouts. “There aren’t any boys around anymore. Not any good ones anyway.”
I belly laugh at her. “No, I suppose not. But because I kept trying to sneak out to see him, even through Lockdown, so I missed the signs that my dad had been bitten.”
“Oh, no...I’m sorry to hear that!”
“Yeah well.” I shrug, acting far more blasé than I actually feel. “It is what it is. Everyone dies in this world, don’t they?”
“Hmm, that’s a bleak way to look at it. But considering where we are, I understand. So, what happened to your mom?”
Urgh, this is the part which actually manages to twist my heart up in knots. “I don’t know. I presume she turned. She refused to leave with me, she stayed with her husband.”
Don’t cry! Keep the damn tears inside.
“Where did you go?”
“Oh, well I went to find Zac, but as it turned out he’d been bitten too. Then I went to my friend, Emma’s house, but her parents freaked out and kicked me out. Basically, I ended up in a hospital facility where they were killing everyone, so I was lucky to escape.” Wow, saying it now sounds like a movie, not something which happened to me. “Then it was on to the police station until it got overrun. After which, we ended up at the refugee camp.”
“That’s better than my story.” Olivia raises one eyebrow. “We simply went to the camp. No drama crossed our path at all. At least, not until you lot came along. By the sounds of it, drama follows you around.”
I smile, acting like I’m taking her comment as a joke but deep down I agree with her. I can’t seem to escape action however hard I try.
“Well, let’s just hope we get off the road soon and we find somewhere to stay. All this moving around is exhausting.”
What I don’t say, what I want to say, is that I’m scared how much longer all of us can survive this. Out here, without protection, people die far too often.
It’s hell.
Katie
“I could’ve found a cure,” I rasp wearily. “I could’ve ended this if I’d been given more time. I wanted to. I tried to, but...”
“Don’t beat yourself up.” Oliver rubs my back and smiles. I know he’s trying to reassure me, but it doesn’t help. I’m too messed up over all of it. “You tried your best. It isn’t exactly your fault the world is this way now.”
I lean into him, trying to gain some comfort. I could almost do it too if it wasn’t for the next voice which pipes up.
“Yeah, plus if someone could fix this then they would.” I roll my eyes at Ryan. “Plenty of people are more skilled, have been in the medical world for much longer than you, and have better equipment too. To be honest, you didn’t really stand a chance.”
It’s hard with him around, especially since he’s bitter now. It’s difficult for me to accept that after years of me liking him from afar and watching him with other girls, now in the middle of the damn apocalypse, when I’ve finally found someone I love, he tells me that he wants me.
I guess it’s difficult for him too. He doesn’t seem to understand I’m not on his hook anymore. I’m never going to want him like I once did. That version of me, the one who was too scared to tell him about my feelings, who hid away from the world, is long gone.
I’m stronger now, tougher, I’ve adapted to the world, and sometimes, that world would be better without him. I don’t want him to die or anything, I just wish he would move with other people. For his sake as well as mine.
“I don’t think there is an answer,” he continues. “This is the way the world is now.”
While we’re wandering the streets, in between permanent settlements, which never seen to stay very permanent, that’s a really bleak statement. It’s challenging enough when we have a roof over our heads and walls separating us from them, but again our last one fell apart. It got overrun.
They all get overrun.
Well, not all of them. That’s not always what drives us out, sometimes it’s the terrible way that the people in charge run the camps that sends us running. There has to be a leader to prevent chaos erupting, but as we’ve seen many a time power affects people in different ways.
Not always good ways.
“Well, thanks for that, Ryan.” I push myself into a standing position. “That’s just the morale boost we all needed today...”
“Oh, so now you’re going to be bitchy to me just because I’m realistic?”
“I’m not starting an argument with you.” I hold my hands up to silence him. “We all need to find somewhere to stay. Just for tonight if we can’t find something more permanent so can we just all be...I don’t know, positive?”
He snorts and rolls his eyes, but my glare soon has him nodding.
Screw Ryan, he’s the least of my issues here. I just need to get everyone somewhere safe. This is my responsibility.
Emma
My heart pounds violently against my rib cage as an ice-cold snake of fear darts through my system. I’ve heard a lot of yelling in this house, it’s quite a common thing, to be honest, but th
is is on another level.
This is bad.
Really bad.
I shrink back on myself while bringing my knees up to my chest. Mom’s screams grate through me like nails down a chalkboard. Her intense, furious fear leaves me with no choice at all. Dad’s replies are muffled through the thick stone walls, but I don’t need to hear what he’s saying to know that he’s mad. Right now, it feels like both of them truly hate my guts.
I have to get out.
This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to leave. It’s not the first time I tried to make a break for it but obviously, I didn’t succeed then. Months and months ago, I think it might have even been a year back although it’s hard to keep track of dates anymore, my new friend, Rachael, came to stay with me. Her home life had fallen apart under the stress of the AM13 virus and she needed some help. I let her in, I hid her away from my super strict parents and I tried to care for her the best I could.
Unfortunately, my parents didn’t have the same compassionate nature. Upon finding her, they immediately sent her out onto the streets with the infected, sentencing her to death. I tried to run too, I wanted to catch up to her, to try and survive together, but Mom and Dad wouldn’t have it. They captured me and trapped me, forced me to remain here with them.
For a while, supplies weren’t an issue. As an obsessive coupon-cutter, we had a basement filled with food and medicines, anything we could possibly need...but that couldn’t last forever.
Now, we have nothing, and we need to leave but my suggestion has caused my parents to freak out. Ridiculously so, to the point where they are hysterical.
For a long time, I thought as adults my parents had all the answers. I trusted them blindly, did whatever they wanted me to do. Now I can see that might be a mistake and if I continue to do what they want then it might kill me. Of course, being out there in that world might kill me too, so I need to make a choice.
Which way gives me a chance at living?
Which way do I want to die?
I block my hands over my ears as a tear leaks from my eye. I can’t think at all with Mom yelling like that, I need some silence to get my head straight. My head wants me to leave, to at least take my chances out there in the world, but my heart wants me to remain, to die, with the people I love.
I have no idea which side of me is going to win out...
Rhys
“Buck up, mate, it isn’t all bad.”
I turn to give my friend, Alex, a bright smile, but somehow, I can’t seem to make it happen. There’s not a scrap of joy in me today.
“Don’t forget, there have been worse days.”
“Oh right, and please remind me which one you’re talking about exactly.” The sarcasm drips off my tongue. “The day Jordan went psycho and tried to steal all the supplies from one of the camps we lived in, the day he got shot through the head because he was being a freak?
“I...”
“Or maybe you mean the moment I took my eyes off Eden for a second and a zombie tore her to shreds, killing her right in front of me.”
“I didn’t...”
“Or, perhaps you mean the day Laura put a gun up to her head and she pulled the trigger because she ‘couldn’t handle this world anymore’.”
“Rhys...”
“Could it be when Becky and Michael vanished...”
“Okay, okay, I get your point.” Finally, I let his interruption stop me. “It hasn’t been the greatest of times.”
“No, it really hasn’t. It was only last week Jim turned, and no one even knew he’d been bitten. How long can we keep pretending that we have a chance at surviving this? Don’t you think it might be wise to accept soon we don’t?”
“You think we’re all gunna end up dead?”
I shake my head, dismayed at Alex’s wide, shocked eyes.
“You must think it too. You can’t honestly believe we’ll just keep going and going forever. This infection is winning out. Humanity is dying.”
Alex huffs and hangs his head low. “Were you always this depressing, Rhys?”
I half shrug my reply. “I don’t know. I can’t really remember what I was like before, to be honest. I only know what it is now. Bare survival. Until we die.”
“We’ll find somewhere else soon. We can trust Oliver; he’s done us well this far. I think it’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah, until that all falls apart, we lose more people, and we have to keep on going.”
“Well, maybe that’s what this life is now. Moving, all the time, just trying to keep safe.”
“It’s no kinda life though, is it?”
Alex’s eyes sharpen up on me. “Don’t you dare start talking like that, Rhys, I won’t have it. That’s absolutely unacceptable. We all need to remain strong now, for each other. Maybe it isn’t the life you envisioned you’d have before, but that doesn’t mean it won’t all work out. Humanity has overcome stuff before, we can do it again. For now, we just need to suffer. To suffer and move until we find somewhere else safe. Once we do, all will look so much better.”
But as I scan my eyes around the mess that has become the world, I can’t say I’m convinced. It doesn’t feel like anything will ever be okay again.
“I might need you to keep reminding me of that, Alex. Just to keep me going.”
Oliver
“I think we should check this place out.” I nod slowly. “Look, I can hear people on the other side of that wall, there seems to be some kind of civilization there, we could stop. At least for a while, couldn’t we?”
I dart my eyes around at everyone, waiting for an answer. I see a lot of bobbing heads from desperate people who are sick of being unsafe, thirsty, tired, and hungry as hell. There’s no guarantee that we’ll find safety inside there either, but everything is up in the air these days.
“I don’t know about that.” Ryan’s smug voice crops up, just like I knew it would. “I mean, we can’t always trust your judgment these days, can we, Oliver? You’ve made more than your fair share of mistakes.”
I scrunch my fists up by my sides as anger gets the better of me. I fucking hate this guy; I always have done but now it’s even worse. He’s like the Devil on my shoulder, begging me to kill him.
Especially now he’s bringing up something I don’t even want to think about, never mind speak of.
Why did I have to rescue him that day? I lost a good man in Enrico for him. I will never ever get over that.
“Ryan, this isn’t the time to drag up any petty bullshit...”
“I don’t think almost killing Katie can be classed as that, can it?”
I give him a glare, letting him know that tonight’s the night I might actually snap. I might actually wring his neck and kill him.
How dare he speak about that? It’s nothing to do with him.
“I am not talking to you about anything else other than this camp. It sounds like there are people in here and I think we should give them a try; see what sort of people they are.”
“Well, I think it’s best if we put it to a vote. You aren’t the sole leader...”
“Ryan, just give it a rest.” Katie rests a hand on his shoulder. She’s doing it to silence him but the smug look he shoots my way suggests this is exactly what he wanted. “We all need to make this choice together, and your comments aren’t helpful.”
“I think we should do it.” Danny’s wise voice pipes up. “We all need time and space. We need a break. We can’t live on the road forever.”
Thank God for him. The day I found him everything changed, and I’ve been grateful to him ever since. He’s the closest person I have to me right now, aside from Katie.
Katie, the woman I love more than anyone in the world, but also the woman who definitely shouldn’t be with me, especially after what happened...
No, I can’t get lost in that right now.
“Come on, Danny.” I nod determinedly at him. “Let’s go check out the situation, make sure it’s safe. Then we can make a suitable decision
for everyone.”
“Don’t you think I should come?”
“No way, Ryan. You wait here.”
“Yes, I’ll wait here...with Katie.”
My fists squeeze tighter. I’m definitely going to kill him.
Danny
“This place seems nice.” I dart my eyes anxiously towards Oliver. “Don’t you think?”
“Hmm, I don’t know yet. We’re going to have to wait and see.”
“They have high walls, the guys said their leader is really nice, they seem to have food.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. Don’t you forget that.”
I blow out a hot breath of air, trying not to freak out as he says this. Oliver seems to be in a really dark place at the moment, leaving me wondering what he’s going to do next. He hasn’t told me much about his past, but I get the distinct impression that life hasn’t always been easy for him. He’s definitely had his struggles since the beginning of the apocalypse, and possibly even beforehand.
I’m happy for him to lead us, he has a strength that has gotten me much further than I ever did without him, but I’m starting to worry the pressure might be too much for him.
I really don’t want him to crack.
“Ah, there’s someone coming. She looks nice.”
“Hello there.” A stern-looking woman smiles thinly at us both. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”
“We have just come to introduce ourselves.” I step forward, trying to shield Oliver’s glowering. “We’ve been on the road for a very long time...”
“And I’m supposed to believe that, am I?” Her attitude stiffens my spine. I only just notice the hostility now. “I’m supposed to think you’re not from the Bandits?”
“The...Bandits?”
She rolls her eyes dramatically at me. “Now you’re going to pretend you don’t know them?”
“We really don’t. We haven’t come across anyone for a very long time. Are they bad people?”
She laughs nastily. “Yes, you could say that.”
