by Summer Lane
“She could be one of them,” the young man said, glaring at Elle.
“She’s not.” The girl looked at Elle. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I’m not an enemy,” Elle said. “I’m a survivor.”
“Great. So what do we do now?” The Asian girl spoke up. Her short, shiny black hair caught the sunlight. “Jay? What do we do?”
The young man peeked over the ledge of the building.
“I don’t know,” he said, never taking his gaze off Elle. “There’s nowhere to go, unless you all want to jump.”
“I don’t think so,” the frizzy blonde replied.
“They know we’re up here,” the Asian girl said.
“We can jump,” Elle suggested.
The words felt heavy and clumsy on her lips. It had been a long time since she had spoken aloud.
“You’re insane,” the Asian girl said.
“No. I mean we could jump to the next building.” Elle pointed. The roof couldn’t be more than ten feet away from the next building. “They wouldn’t expect that.”
Hadn’t she just done this stunt? This was only a few more feet.
“That’s too dangerous,” the young man - Jay - said.
Elle walked to the ledge. The Klan was gathering around the base of the building. In five or ten minutes, they would burst through the door on the roof, and they would all be dead. Elle had seen it happen to other survivors. The Klan showed no mercy.
“You can stay here,” she shrugged. “I’m jumping.”
She gauged the distance. She was small, light, and strong. She gave herself room to run and sprinted. The span between the two buildings was dizzying. The asphalt spun beneath her, twenty-five stories below. If she fell, she was dead. They would need an eraser to get her off the pavement.
She flew through the air.
And she came up an inch short. She hit the side of the ledge and slid, her fingers catching the edge of the building. She barely had a grip. Her fingers burned and her arms screamed with the effort. The kids on roof were yelling.
“Oh, my god! Pull up, kid!”
“She’s freaking insane – I told you!”
Elle was terrified, hanging by her fingers twenty-five stories above the ground. She managed to pull herself up enough to get her forearm levered over the ledge. She hung for a moment, gathering her strength, then forced herself up, rolling over the ledge. She landed on the roof, smacking the side of her cheek as she hit.
She trembled as she sat up.
That was a close one. Too close.
Elle stood up. The kids on the other side of the building were staring at her. Awestruck? Probably not. They thought she was crazy.
“Okay,” Jay said. “I guess I’m jumping, too.”
He was tall, and his stride was impressive. Elle backed up and watched as he ran toward the ledge and launched himself over the gap, landing in a neat roll near her feet. He looked up at her, eyes sparking.
“You are insane,” he said. “But good thinking, kid.”
The frizzy blonde and the Asian twins followed suit. The Asian girl barely made it, but Jaycaught her wrist before the girl could go tumbling to her death.
“You know a place where we could hide out, crazy girl?” the blonde asked Elle. “The Klan’s on the hunt today. We need to lie low.”
Elle thought about her question.
Should she help these kids? They could very well kill her the second she turned her back. Then again, they hadn’t killed her yet, so that was a fairly positive sign.
“I know a place,” she said.
Jay raised an eyebrow.
“Show us,” he replied.
Elle nodded.
A rusty, decrepit fire escape stretched from the roof to the street. Elle swung her legs over the ledge and tested her weight on the metal platform. It shifted a little. She steadied herself and started climbing down. The other kids followed suit. Elle was faster than they were. She reached the bottom, tensely waiting for them to do the same.
“Now what?” the blonde whispered.
“Follow me,” Elle replied.
She peeked her head around the corner of the building. There was no Klan in sight. They were probably making their way up the stairs of the other skyscraper, hoping to trap the kids on the roof.
“Run,” Elle said.
She sprinted swiftly across the street, ducking into the next alley. She checked to make sure they had no pursuers. There was only the distant sound of the Klan’s shouts as they barreled through the empty apartment building, searching for the children.
Chapter Four
Elle didn’t take them home. Her apartment was her secret, and sharing it with total strangers would be stupid. Instead she took them to an old bakery. La Fresh was the name. It was a small shop hidden in an alleyway. At one point, Elle was sure that it had been trendy and hip. Now it was just impossible to find, camouflaged behind vines and creeping foliage.
Elle slipped through the front door. The brass bell on the door tinkled. Chairs and tables were mostly intact, but the glass case was empty. No more pastries. No more coffee.
“How did you know about this place?” Jay asked.
Elle didn’t answer. She didn’t trust them.
“We’ll stay quiet until tomorrow morning,” Elle said. “Then we can go our separate ways.”
She backed into the corner of the kitchen. A broken coffeemaker lay on the floor.
“What’s your name?” the blonde asked.
Elle cocked her head. Should she tell her? What harm could it do?
“Elle,” she said.
“Like the letter?”
“Yeah.” She held up her index finger and her thumb, making an L shape. “Elle for loser.”
Jay smirked.
“I’m Georgia,” the blonde said, thickening her southern accent for dramatic effect. “This is Flash.” She gestured to the Asian boy, then to his sister. “This is his sister, Pix. And the tall loner in the corner is Jay.”
“Somebody should keep a lookout,” Elle said, “in case the Klan tracks us here.”
“You know your way around the city,” Jay stated, turning to Elle.
“We just got here,” Georgia said, sitting on the counter. “I gotta say, this ain’t the L.A. I was familiar with.”
“Where did you all come from?” Elle asked.
“We were in a bunker. All of us.” She gestured to the rest of the kids in the room. “There was a big group of us at the beginning. After the chemical weapons…well, some people went to the surface too soon. A lot of them…died.” Georgia shrugged. “You can’t fix stupid.”
Elle blinked.
“You were in a bunker?” she asked. “For how long?”
“Until two months ago,” Pix stated. She had a pretty, singsong accent. “We didn’t know what we would find when we came up. The statistical probability of us finding an inhabitable urban environment-”
“-Don’t get so technical, Pix,” Jay interrupted. “The bunkers were underground. There were about twenty of us at the beginning – all young, like us. We had everything we needed. Food, water, radio contact, medicine. But it didn’t last. Some went stir-crazy, and we ran out of supplies. The bunker was never meant to support twenty people. We lost almost everyone.”
“Has the whole world gone crazy?” Georgia asked. “What’s the rest of California like?”
Elle could see the fear in their eyes. The confusion. She couldn’t imagine being locked away in the ground for a year, emerging into a world that was completely destroyed. It must have sucked.
“I don’t know what the rest of the world is like,” she said. “But I do know that most of California is dangerous like Los Angeles.”
“What about the military?” Georgia asked. “I thought the United States was all-powerful or something.”
“Apparently not,” Elle shrugged. “What do you guys know about Omega?”
“Not much. Only that they’re everywhere.”
“Almost everywhere. They leave Hollywood and Santa Monica pretty much alone – they like to stay in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles.” Elle looked out the window. “I don’t know who they are or where they came from, but they’re bad. Really bad.”
“We’ve only been in Hollywood for a week,” Jay went on. “There’s no food.”
“There is if you know where to look,” Elle replied, a sad smile spreading across her face. “Some food is safe to eat, as long as it’s sealed. Don’t eat anything that’s been exposed to the air. The chemicals might have poisoned it. The same goes for water.”
Georgia shared a sideways glance with Jay.
“You know a lot,” Georgia said. “How do you stay alive all by yourself, shortstack?”
“I stay alive because I’m all by myself,” Elle answered. “The Klan hunts in packs, and the only way to stay off their radar is if I’m smaller, quieter and faster than they are. Which I am. And that’s why I’m still alive.”
“I have a question for you,” Elle said, turning the tables.
“Ask,” Jay replied.
“What kind of a bunker were you guys hiding in? How many people were there? Were you there with your families or what?”
This time, it was Pix’s twin brother, Flash, who answered:
“The bunker was built underneath a juvenile correctional facility. For emergencies. When Omega came, a lot of the kids in the facility died before we even made it into the bunker.”
Elle released a frustrated sigh.
“So you were all in juvenile hall before Day Zero?” she asked.
“What’s Day Zero?” Jay said.
“The day the power went out. When everything happened.” Elle narrowed her gaze. “You didn’t answer my question. Were you in jail?”
“Yeah, we were,” Georgia said, tossing her hair back.
So. These children were orphaned juvenile delinquents. If Elle didn’t trust them before, she sure as heck didn’t trust them now.
“I hope none of you were wanted for murder,” she grumbled as she retreated farther into the back of the building.
“Nah!” Georgia called. “I mean, before the Collapse? No. After?” A sly smile spread across her face. “Maybe.”
Elle didn’t believe her.
Like her mother always said, Where there’s smoke, there’s firewater.
____________________
“I don’t want to go with him,” Elle said. Tears were streaming down her face as she pleaded with her mother. She was standing in the kitchen. It was dark. The lights had been out for two days. Riots had begun in the city. Buildings were on fire. Women and children were begging for food in the gutters.
“You have to, Elle.” Mother was a tall, willowy woman with black hair. “We don’t have a choice. You don’t, either. This is the only way to keep our family alive.”
The kitchen was empty. The house was, too. It had been for a while.
When Dad and Johnny never came home…well, Elle’s mother had gone off the deep end. Panic controlled her every move. And now she was sending Elle away, out of the city. To a place that was supposed to be safe.
Supposed to be.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Elle begged.
“Because I have to wait for Daddy and Johnny.”
“But they’re not coming back, Mom. They’re dead.”
Mother slapped Elle across the face. Elle’s cheek stung with pain, but she didn’t cry out. She was too stubborn.
“Your uncle will take good care of you,” Mother said, but her voice was venomous. She was angry. Mad that Elle had pointed out the obvious: Dad and Johnny were dead, and Mother was staying in the city because she wanted to die, too.
She was giving in.
“You’re just going to give up,” Elle whispered.
“I’m accepting the truth, Elle. Someday you’ll understand.”
“I’m going to come back for you,” Elle promised.
“Don’t. Don’t you ever come back to this city. This city is death.”
Elle shook her head.
“I will come back,” she said. “I’ll find you.”
She meant every word.
____________________
Elle woke with a start. She was sitting upright in the corner of the bakery. Georgia and Jay were in the opposite corner, talking in low voices. Pix and Flash were asleep. She watched them. They were all thin, underfed. Elle wondered why they – out of all the kids at the juvenile correctional facility – had been the ones to survive.
They looked normal enough. They didn’t appear to be hardened criminals. Pix and Flash couldn’t be older than thirteen. Georgia looked to be around sixteen, and Jay was probably around seventeen or eighteen. They looked…tired. Like Elle.
She knew what it was like to be tired.
She toyed with the idea of bringing them home to her apartment, but decided against it. They could easily turn on her. So far, she had survived because she’d been smart. One stupid decision could end her life.
She wasn’t about to start a bad habit now.
She got to her feet and walked toward Georgia and Jay. They immediately stopped talking, piquing Elle’s curiosity.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Georgia hesitated.
“Well. We were thinking,” she whispered. “Maybe since you know so much about the city, you could give us some tips. Like where to find food. We’re starving, Elle. We need help.”
Elle looked at Jay. He seemed frustrated to be asking for help. “We just want to know what you know,” he said, tense. “Where to look for food. What areas to avoid. That kind of thing. It might keep us alive longer.”
Elle raised an eyebrow.
“You want a tip?” she remarked. “Here’s one: get out of the city. There’s nothing here for you. If starvation or sickness doesn’t get you, the Klan will. And if for some reason you avoid all three of those things, you’ve got to deal with Omega. You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet.”
“But you survived here, shortstack,” Georgia countered. “So can we.”
“I’m lucky.”
“You know what you’re doing.”
“And my life could end in a second! All I have to do is make one mistake and I’m dead.” Elle felt the color rush to her cheeks. “You need to understand that everything in this city is death. Almost every building is full of rotting bodies and most of the food was poisoned when the chemical weapon hit the city. The Klan executes foragers like me on the streets and hangs their dead bodies from lampposts to mark their territory. This isn’t a city anymore, this is a battlefield. And sooner or later, all the good guys are going to be dead.”
Jay and Georgia stared at her, their jaws slack.
Elle swallowed, uncomfortable. She hadn’t meant to go on a rant, but they needed to grasp the danger that the city held.
“If it’s so dangerous, why haven’t you left?” Jay asked, his dark gaze searing into hers.
Elle didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have an answer.
“It’s morning,” she said instead. “I need to go.”
“Elle, please help us,” Georgia pleaded, standing from the table.
“You don’t need my help. You need to get out.”
“But we have nowhere to go!”
Elle lifted her shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, throwing her hood over her head. “Join the club,” she commented.
“Please, Elle. Jay won’t say it, but I will: we need your help, and we’re begging you.” Georgia touched Elle’s arm. Elle flinched. “We haven’t eaten in three days.”
Elle closed her eyes.
She knew what it was like to be hungry. To be starving.
“If I help you,” she said, “then you have to promise to let me leave when I’m done. You can’t follow me.”
Georgia nodded.
“We can do that.” She looked at Jay. “Right?”
Jay stood up and offered his hand. Elle just stared at it.
“You can trust us, Elle,” he said. “We’re not bad people. We’re not here to hurt you.”
Elle dropped her gaze to the floor.
She’d heard people say that before…
She said, “I can show you where to find a little food and water.”
“That’s all we need,” Georgia answered.
Elle wanted to shake her, to tell her NO. They needed to leave the city. That’s what they really needed.
But she didn’t.
Jay stood in the shadows, a muscle ticking in his strong jaw. He looked like he could be twenty years old, but if he had been in a juvenile correctional facility only last year, he couldn’t be older than eighteen.
Flash and Pixgroggily awoke.
They’ll have to wake up faster than that if they want to stay alive here, Elle thought. The Klan doesn’t give you time to be lazy.
“First lesson,” Elle said, tightening the straps on her backpack. “Sleep wide awake. The Klan is everywhere, and there’s more of them than us. So. Don’t be lazy.”
“Sleep awake?” Pix echoed. “That makes no sense.”
Elle shook her head.
This was going to be more effort than it was worth.
____________________
Nadia’s Market was an organic grocery store before Day Zero. Movie stars and wealthy socialites would shop there, buying bags of lentils and quinoa, and other staples of an elite’s diet. Unfortunately, the organic food didn’t last as long as the processed foods, and that was Elle’s first lesson to the kids.
“The only thing you’ll find in there are jars of almond butter,” she said. “And that’s not a bad thing; I mean, food is food. But you’re better off spending your time searching somewhere else.”
They were standing catty corner to the market. The parking lot was full of rusty, broken shopping carts. A colony of once-elegant penthouse apartments comprised the neighborhood around them.
“Where are the birds?” Georgia asked. Her tall frame was sitting on the curb. She stared at the sky. “There are no seagulls, no bugs. Where is everything?”
“Seagulls are starting to come back to the beach,” Elle stated. “Everything else is dead.”
“Are we breathing poison right now?” Jay asked.
