by Amy Cross
As we reach the convenience store, Henry stops and peers through the broken window. He and Bob have been here before, but there's still plenty of stock left on the shelves.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"Just making sure we're alone," Henry replies, staring into the gloomy store.
"So we can go back to how things were?" I ask. "At least between us. Right?"
He pauses for a moment. "I didn't like how things were," he says eventually, stepping carefully through the broken window. "Some things are better now".
"Some things are -" I start to say, shocked that he could even think such a thing.
"You need to wait here," he says, interrupting me. "If you see or hear anything, come and find me, okay? This place has two floors, so I might have to go up. The best thing is for you to stand right here and watch out, to make sure no-one comes alone and ambushes us. But if you get the slightest hint of trouble, you need to come and find me".
I stare at him for a moment. "Sure," I say eventually, feeling as if there's no point even trying to reason with him. Somehow, it's as if my little brother has vanished, replaced by this wannabe soldier who gets his orders direct from Bob. Even if the whole world went back to normal tomorrow, I feel as if Henry would never be the same again. Something's changed deep inside his heart.
"I won't be long," he replies, making his way through to the back of the store.
Once I'm alone, I take a deep breath and look up at the dull gray sky. Ever since the power went off, the weather's been kind of like this, especially while the fire from the crashed plane was still burning. This morning, the plume of black smoke seems much thinner, as if the wreckage is finally starting to burn out. In a sick, twisted kind of way, I actually get a little comfort from the thought that at least one of the fires is coming to an end. Sighing, I realize how rapidly my perspective has changed over the past few days. I guess it's inevitable that people grow up when they're thrown into a situation like this. I just wish Henry had a better role model; I wish there was someone around, other than Bob, to show my brother how to be a man.
Lost in thought, I almost don't notice the distant banging sound. Eventually I look across the street, as I realize I can hear a noise far away, almost as if someone is banging on metal. Taking a few steps over to the street corner, I spot a dust-covered red car parked slightly askew about two hundred meters away, and to my surprise I realize there's a hint of movement behind the windshield. Seconds later, there's more movement, and the occupant of the car starts banging furiously on the inside of the windshield. It's almost as if someone's trapped in there, and calling for me to go and help.
THOMAS
Oklahoma
"You're drunk," I say, looking down at Joe as he frowns up at me from the ground. With an empty bottle of whiskey just a couple of feet away, it's not exactly hard to see what happened last night. It's not surprising, either: Joe's always taken the easy way out of every situation, and he's doing it again. Right now, he can't even focus on me properly; I guess his world's spinning after another night on the liquor.
"Am I?" he mutters.
"You can't drive like this".
"Sure I can". He tries to get up, but the process is clearly way too difficult; instead, he ends up staring around at the grass, looking a little confused. "Is there a really quiet earthquake?" he asks after a moment.
"I'll drive," I say.
He shakes his head. "Just 'cause I can't walk, don't mean I can't drive". He hiccups. "It's two completely different skill-sets, bonehead. You'll just have to help me to the truck, that's all. Come on, let's get this show on the road". After a few seconds, he curls over onto his side. "I'll wait for you here," he murmurs. "Come and get me when you're ready. I'll just be resting here, ready for the journey".
Without saying anything, I turn and walk away, making my way around the barn until I come to the house. I haven't been back inside since last night, since that final conversation with my mother. Sleeping in the barn, I heard nothing all night except light rainfall on the roof, but now it's morning and I'm faced with the task of checking to see whether my mother survived the night. I'd give anything to not have to go inside and face the truth, but there's no way I can just drive off to Scottsville and leave her here. The worst thing is that, deep down, I think there's a part of me that actually wants her to be dead, not only so that her pain is over, but also so that I don't have to be there when she finally passes.
"Mom?" I call out as I step through the front door. The house is eerily quiet, and I feel like I can kind of tell already that she's dead. As long as I can remember, I've never known my mother to be totally quiet: she's always been busy in the kitchen, or busy with the laundry, or she has the radio on, or some other kind of activity. It's almost like she's scared of silence. Right now, however, the house is silence.
Getting no reply, I walk slowly through to the kitchen, and that's when I see her. Sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed and with a pen in her hand, as if she's writing in her notebook, she's staring at the door, with her eyes wide open. I stare back at her, and for a moment I actually start to think that she might be alive. It's only a few seconds later that I realize there's a glassy, vacant quality to her expression. When I move over to one side of the room, she doesn't acknowledge me at all.
She's dead.
Taking a deep breath, I force myself to stay calm. On the table in front of her, the notebook is covered in blood. I guess she continued to cough her guts up during the night, and eventually she stopped caring enough to wipe it away. Her skin is a kind of yellow-gray color, just like Lydia's when she died, and there's a trace of blood in the corner of her mouth. With no idea what I should do, I just stand and stare at her, waiting for something to happen. The kitchen seems so still and so quiet, it almost seems sacrilegious to move to to make even the tiniest noise, but eventually I make my way a little further around the table, and that's when I realize that there's something wrong with her stomach.
She's bloated.
More than bloated, actually: her stomach is distended so much, it almost looks as if she's pregnant. I guess it's the same thing that happened to Lydia, and even the slightest pressure would probably made her explode in the same way. Realizing that there's no way I can risk something like that, I decide that the best thing to do would be just to get what I need, and then get out of here. Hurrying over to the fridge, I grab the last few bottles of water and a few items of food, and then I take some pain-killers and a box of matches from the cupboard. Heading back over to the door, I stop for a moment and look back at my mother one final time. I'd love to see what she was writing in her notebook, but I can't take the risk of disturbing her, so instead I head back outside.
I make my way quickly over to the truck, where I start checking through the provisions we've got stashed, ready for our journey to Scottsville. Although I'm still fighting back tears, I find that keeping busy is a good way to keep from breaking down. Instead of thinking about my mother, I fill my mind with more practical matters about the journey that Joe and I are going to take. I focus on stowing everything securely in the back of the truck and making sure that there's no danger of us losing anything; I fixate on the tiniest details, using all this unnecessary fuss to force other thoughts out of my mind. It works, too, and eventually I realize I've managed to keep myself busy for almost an hour. Finally, pausing for a moment, I lose my focus and all the negative thoughts rush back into my mind. In the space of just a few days, I've lost both my parents, and I've seen a stranger die, and I've seen a plane come down in the woods a few miles away. I swear to God, if I actually sit down and think about all of this, I'm going to go crazy. Better to keep busy, I guess; better to focus on what needs doing.
I turn and look at the house.
We can't just leave her there. We have to bury her. Or something. We have to do something.
Heading back around to the other side of the barn, I find that Joe has managed to go back to sleep. Snoring loudly, he's clearly in t
hat vague zone between being drunk and being hungover; either way, there's no chance of getting any sensible ideas out of him. It's pretty clear that if I wait for Joe to be useful today, I'm gonna be waiting a long time. There's no use even waking him up to tell him about our mother, since he'd probably just forget and I'd have to tell him all over again once he sobered up. Instead of disturbing him, therefore, I head over to his little alcohol stash and, one by one, I open the bottles and pour their contents out onto the ground. It's kind of satisfying, seeing the amber liquid spilling out of the bottles, and thinking about how mad Joe's gonna be when he finds out.
Stopping for a moment, I turn and look over at the house. With a heavy heart, I realize there's still one final job that I need to do before Joe and I leave.
ELIZABETH
Manhattan
"If this is more of your bullshit," Henry says angrily as I lead him out of the convenience store and over to the street corner, "I swear to God, I'm gonna -" He stops speaking as he sees the figure moving around inside the car. To be honest, I'm slightly relieved by his reaction, since I'd started to wonder whether I was going mad. I half-expected Henry to tell me I was imagining the whole thing.
"See?" I reply. "There's someone in there".
"Fuck," he mutters quietly.
"What do we do?" I ask.
"It might be a trap," Henry says, turning and looking back the other way. "It's got to be a trap".
"It's someone who needs help," I point out.
"How do you know that?" Henry asks. "Seriously, you wanna just go walking over there and open that door? How the hell do you know that there's not a bunch of men with guns hiding behind that car? How do you know there's not snipers hiding in windows, waiting to pick us off?"
Sighing, I turn to him. "Because I'm not riddled with paranoia," I reply. "Think about it, Henry. If there were snipers, they could just as easily shoot us now, rather than wait for us to go over there. If there are men with guns, they could just jump us while we're standing here. And anyway, when the hell did you start assuming that everyone's like that? People aren't just gonna turn into a bunch of murderers, just because things changed".
"Hungry people are dangerous," he replies.
"That's exactly what Bob said the other day," I tell him. "Exactly, word for word, those are the words that came out of his mouth. What are you, some kind of parrot?"
He pauses for a moment. "You're right. I'm going over to take a look".
"No," I say, grabbing his arm, "you're not".
Smiling, he turns to me. "I thought you just told me I shouldn't be scared?"
"That's not the same as saying you should go over there!" I reply, suddenly realizing that I might have accidentally filled his mind with bad ideas. Henry's pretty unstable right now, and the last thing I need is for him to try to prove himself by marching headfirst into a dangerous situation. "We should go and get Bob".
"In a minute," Henry says. "First, we need to understand what we've got here. We're not kids, Elizabeth. We don't have to go running to fetch an adult every time we see something moving".
"No," I say, trying to grab the rifle. "We're not going over there".
"Then you stay here," he replies firmly, pulling away from me. "Two minutes ago, you were telling me to ignore Bob. You were telling me I'm wrong to let him tell me how to behave. And now, when I want to do something for myself, you insist we go running back to him so he can tell us what we should do. Make your fucking mind up, Elizabeth. You can't be against him when you're confident but then run to him when you're scared".
I open my mouth to argue with him, but suddenly I realize that he might, at least in part, be right. I'm filled with this belief that we should go and get Bob, and that somehow Bob's gonna tell us what to do. In reality, the only thing Bob would probably do would be to grab a rifle and go over to the car. Still, I hate the idea that Henry thinks he can somehow keep us safe simply because he's got a rifle. It's pretty clear that whatever's happening right now, it's not something we understand.
"We'll check to see what's happening," Henry says, trying - and failing - to sound confident, "and then we'll go back to the building and consult with Bob. I'm not saying we should go over there and drag this guy from the car, but at least we should find out what we're dealing with before we go back. We can't just go back to Bob and tell him some vague story about a man in a car".
"It might be dangerous," I point out, feeling disappointed by my reaction. Just a few minutes ago, I was chastising Henry for believing Bob's paranoid ramblings, and now I'm the one who's scared. I guess maybe Henry was right when he said that it was easy for me to pontificate about the 'right' thing to do. Suddenly, I have to back up my words with actions, and my heart is racing so fast, I feel as if it's going to explode at any moment. "We have to be careful," I say after a moment.
"If there's any sign of danger," Henry whispers, "we turn and run. You got that? No risks. We turn and run at the first hint that anything's wrong, and..." He pauses for a moment. "If one of us gets left behind, the other one just keeps running".
"I'm not sure about that," I say.
"Stay close to me," he replies.
"Sure," I say, keeping my eye on the car up ahead. It's still hard to make out what's happening inside, since most of the car - like everything else around here - is covered in the same fine blanket of white dust that fell after the power went out. The figure inside is definitely moving, but we're too far away to even tell if it's male or female.
"How many people do you see?" Henry asks as we get to within fifty meters of the car.
"Just one," I reply.
Up ahead, the occupant of the car starts banging harder than ever on the windshield, and waving to catch our attention.
"Think about it," I say to Henry as we edge closer. "Something about this whole situation just doesn't make sense. If this person's been in the car since all of this started, why's he only just started to call for help? We've been outside before, right? If he was banging, we'd have heard him. Why would he wait so long to make a noise?"
"Maybe he was unconscious for a while," Henry replies. "Maybe he was scared. Maybe he only just got here. I don't know, but if you want to go back, I understand. Maybe this kind of thing isn't for you". As if to prove his point, he raises the rifle a little higher.
"I'm not going anywhere," I tell him, even though I desperately want to turn and run. I remember my father telling me once that bravery isn't about the absence of fear, it's about being scared but doing something anyway. If that's the case, then I must be the bravest person in history, since I'm absolutely terrified right now. Still, I can't leave my brother to deal with this alone, because otherwise I'd not only be a hypocrite, but I'd also be pushing him further and further into Bob's embrace.
"It's a guy," Henry says after a moment.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Can't you see? But..." He stops walking and pauses, as if he's hesitant about getting too close. "Something's not right," he continues after a moment.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"You should wear your glasses more often," he says. "Can't you tell? The way he's moving, it's kind of weird. Jerky. Stiff. There's definitely something wrong with him. Anyway, why doesn't he just get out of the car?"
"Maybe we should go back," I say. My heart's beating so fast right now, I feel like I might faint. Looking up at the windows of the surrounding buildings, I realize I've bought right into the fear and paranoia that I dismissed a couple of minutes ago. I've gone from calling Henry crazy for thinking there might be snipers, to feeling as if someone might start shooting at us while we're talking. It's so weird to realize how quickly my mind can be changed by new developments. This whole thing seems like an unnecessary risk, but at the same time I feel as if we have to find out what's happening. We've lived in fear and ignorance for almost five days now.
"I'm going closer," Henry says eventually, although I can sense the tension in his voice.
"But if -"
/> "He's in the car," he replies firmly. "He clearly can't get out. Besides, I've got this". He taps the rifle, before suddenly kneeling down and getting a different view of the car. "There's no-one hiding. You can see if you look underneath. This isn't a trap".
"At the first sign of trouble -" I start to say.
"I know," he says. "Don't worry. I've got two cartridges loaded and ready to go".
As we move closer to the car, I find myself wondering if Henry could really use the rifle. I mean, it's one thing to carry it about and feel like a big man, but it's something else entirely to actually use the damn thing and kill someone. Could Henry actually pull the trigger? After a moment, I realize that the answer is pretty clear. Of course he could. Whatever's changed in him since he became Bob's eager little discipline, it's instilled a sense of calm in his core that gives me absolute confidence in his sense of determination. Basically, I feel safe with him. It's crazy, but even the fact that he has a gun is, in a way, reassuring. I hate guns, but right now I'm so glad that Henry's got a rifle in his hands.
"What the fuck is up with this guy?" Henry whispers as we get a few meters from the car. "Why can't he just open the door?"
Now that we're closer, I can see what Henry means. The man is staring straight at us, although it's hard to make out his features since there's so much dust everywhere. It's clear, though, that the man's movements are strange, as if he's jerking around slightly as he continues to bang on the window. It also looks like there's something wrong with his hands, as if they're not quite the right shape.
"I'm gonna get a better look," Henry says, stepping over to the car.
"Be careful," I hiss.
"He can't get out," Henry replies, as the man continues to bang on the glass. Reaching out, Henry slowly starts to wipe the dust away from the window, and that's when we both see the man's face. "Holy shit," Henry says, taking a step back. "Holy fucking shit, Elizabeth, what the hell is wrong with this poor fucker?"
