When They Came

by Kody Boye

  When nothing did, and when moonlight pierced through the thin slice of overhead window, I drew myself into a ball. Still in my nightclothes—and freezing—I closed my eyes.

  “Mama,” I whispered. “Xiomara.”

  I realized, then, that the chill on my hand was not from tears.

  It was blood.

  I dozed off sometime after realizing the blood on my hands was not my own, either from shock, or exhaustion, or a combination of both. Haunted by dreams of my family’s untimely deaths and the destruction of a place I considered home, I awoke the following morning to dappled sunlight streaming through the single overhead window.

  At first I thought it was all a dream—that regardless of my place in the world, none of the events of the previous night had occurred. It was only when slicing pains where rocks and other debris had dug into my feet began to plague me that I could deny it no more.

  My mother, my sister, my home—all gone.

  I was all alone in the world.

  With the knowledge that I was still deathly exposed, I pushed myself into a sitting position and examined my injuries—first on my feet, then on my left hand, which I must’ve cut during the struggle with the Coyote. The pain there, in the quick of my palm, burned with an intensity I could’ve never thought possible—not physically, but emotionally.

  A scar would form there in the coming days, then the weeks that followed, and it would do nothing but remind me of my failure to protect my mother.

  And I called myself a Guardsman.

  After rising to my feet and taking a brief inventory of my surroundings, I tore the sleeves off my nightshirt, and fashioned makeshift coverings for my feet. Reaching into the tool box, I sorted through its belongings until I returned with a wrench that was nearly a foot long and thick enough to serve as a substantial weapon.

  Once that was done, I pushed the toolbox aside, then stepped out into the light.

  There was no way I could realistically continue on my own. Without knowledge of the area and even less knowledge of the cities that surrounded Fredericksburg, I could wander in the wrong direction and get lost forever. Such was the scale of Texas and the terrain that inhabited it. For that reason, I wandered back toward where Fort Hope used to be—hoping, by God’s grace or measure, that someone or something would still be standing. I at least needed shoes. And decent clothes. And a better weapon. And supplies. And—

  I paused.

  When I thought about it, I needed everything I was unlikely to find.

  “Keep your cool,” I mumbled as I continued down the road. “You can’t freak out now, not when you still might be in danger.”

  There was a distinct possibility that the Coyotes—and the Harvesters that had accompanied Them—might still be in the area. Though judging by my current surroundings, that didn’t seem to be the case. However—that didn’t mean They couldn’t be hiding. Coyotes could easily slip through the wreckage, while the Harvesters, with their cloaking technology, would be able to render themselves invisible to all but the trained eye.

  I wasn’t trained to spot anomalies in the sky, and the wreckage was so great that a Coyote could be around a corner and I would never see it.

  As I approached the front of what used to be the Hope Apartment Complexes, I considered the remnants of flowers at my feet—some trampled, crushed and still bearing their petals, but most demolished in the chaos. The heavy, acrid odor of smoke still lingered from where fires had overtaken the property.

  The front office building that used to be a school was destroyed.

  The wrought-iron gates and concrete that used to defend us from the outside world were caved forward or all but destroyed.

  And the bodies—

  I couldn’t look without tears coming to my eyes.

  They hadn’t been eaten; they hadn’t been harvested. Beyond whatever wounds had killed them, they had not been desecrated.

  No.

  They’d been left to rot in the Texas sun.

  “Hello?” I asked, my childish inhibitions rising to the surface when I felt far more helpless than I could’ve ever imagined. “Is anyone there?”

  I knew I shouldn’t have spoken. Out here—alone, exposed, and completely unarmed—I was such an easy target. But I couldn’t help it. That small, quiet voice inside me—usually reserved for and kept locked after childhood—had risen, all to seek out the one person who might be able to help me.

  As I expected, no response came.

  Rather than wait to see if anyone or anything would approach, I chose to step forward and make my way into the wreckage.

  Plundering the corpses for their personal artifacts was the first thing that came to mind, but as I made my way through the battlefield, I found I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Instead, I pushed onward, heading through the gate opposite the one I had exited from the night before. I approached those few apartment buildings that still stood. Among those standing was number ten, and as I arrived, I banged first on the door opposite Jason’s—believing that someone, anyone, would answer. When none did, I turned and stepped toward Jason’s door, knocking with what little strength I had left.

  The strength slipped from my legs.

  I slumped to the ground and sobbed.

  It was hopeless. No one would hear me. No one would help me. And no one would save me. I was all alone, surrounded by wreckage and death.

  As the urge to scream bubbled up inside me, I heard a scrape of a lock coming undone.

  I lifted my head.

  My eyes cracked open.

  The door swung to reveal none other than Jason Parks.

  “Jason?” I breathed.

  “Ana?” He fell to his knees beside me. “Ana Mia? Is that really you?”

  I collapsed into his arms—sobbing, not caring about the state I was in or how he viewed it. I bowed my face into his chest and tightened my hold around his body as my own wracked with convulsions. I couldn’t believe how hard I was crying. I sounded absolutely hysterical. But at the same time, I knew I needed to process the emotions streaming through my system.

  So I cried.

  And cried.

  For what felt like hours.

  Then I saw movement in my peripheral and broke away from Jason. Asha Dawson stood beside him. She, too, wrapped me in her arms, leaning into my body and offering a hug I felt would break me in half.

  “You were right,” she whispered. “That something bad was about to happen.”

  “Did you see it?” Jason asked after a moment’s hesitation. “I mean, in your head? Like Asha said you might have?”

  I pulled away and shook my head. “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “Come inside,” he said, pushing the door open further. “You look like you need to rest.”

  “I can’t stay here,” I said after I’d rested for several hours, during which time I’d bathed, changed into a set of Jason’s clothes, and donned his extra pair of shoes.

  “Look around us,” Jason replied. “This place is gone.”

  “There’s no way They could think there are survivors here,” Asha added.

  “Maybe not in the wreckage,” I replied, “but here? In these apartments?”

  “Asha and I already knocked on all the doors. No one answered.”

  “That still doesn’t mean—”

  “Ana,” Asha said, taking a few steps forward. She placed her hands on my arms and tightened her hold around my biceps until I looked her straight in the eyes. “Listen to me. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “There isn’t anyone left but us.”

  “Everyone’s dead,” Jason added. “We knocked on all the apartments, announced we were Guardsmen, and called for survivors to come out. There’s no one here, and because of that, Asha and I aren’t going to stay.” He crouched and searched through two backpacks he’d arranged on the floor near the doorway. “We were planning on going to Austin to see if we could find that hospital you mentioned to Asha the other day.”

  �
��You mean Burgundy?” I asked, at which point they both nodded. “We don’t even know if we could make it there.”

  “I know how to get to Austin from Fredericksburg,” Asha said. “It’s straight to the east from where we are.”

  “And you know how to judge where you’re going from the direction of the sun?”

  “Rises in the east, sets in the west.”

  At least she knew what she was talking about.

  With a sigh, I settled down on the couch and leaned back, feeling the effects of the night and of sleeping on a surface that had not been a plush mattress. My back ached, my arm throbbed, my feet burned from where I’d run over rocks and who knew what else. All I wanted to do was stay there and sleep—but I knew we couldn’t, not with the Coyotes and Harvesters in the area.

  “I think what we should do,” Asha said after a moment’s silence, “is rest until the afternoon, then leave and make our way east. We can stop in one of the houses once it gets dark and board ourselves in for the night.”

  “What about food?” I asked. “I mean, do you guys even have guns?”

  Jason inclined his head toward the kitchen—where, upon the island, both of their semi-automatic rifles lay, complete with their body armor and ammo bandoliers.

  “We can hunt for food,” Jason said, “cook it in a fireplace, hide out in one of the homes. We might not even have to make it to Austin for weeks if we play our cards right.”

  “But we want to make it there,” Asha said, her voice hesitant. “I mean, so we can be with other people. Right?”

  “Are you sure you guys want to risk bringing me along?” I asked. “After everything that’s happened?”

  “We’re not going to leave you behind,” she replied. “I’ve lost everyone. I’m not about to lose you too.”

  I smiled, though the pleasant emotion was short-lived. I shouldn’t be happy. I shouldn’t be relieved. My family was dead. Asha’s too. And now we were just three kids who had the world and all its dangers before us.

  “Jason?” I turned to face him. “Are you okay with me coming with you and Asha?”

  “We can’t leave you to fend for yourself,” Jason replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Besides—it’ll be safer if the three of us stick together.”

  “Try and get some sleep,” Asha said as I leaned back against the couch. “We’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I’m sure.”

  With that, I laid down, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.

  I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I passed out.

  Chapter 10

  We loaded up three backpacks with supplies and salvaged what supplies we could from Jason and Captain Henshaw’s apartment—including Asha and Jason’s gear from the previous night and a butcher knife for me—before we made our way into the ruins of the complex. Try as we did to avoid looking at the bodies around us, it was nearly impossible to do. They numbered in the dozens, possibly more. Several had been crushed, others felled by Coyotes. A few had even been cut apart by the laser beams. These were the hardest to look at, as they resembled nothing of their human selves. As we passed the threshold into the front entrance, I dreaded turning my head to look where my sister’s body surely lay—not wanting, or willing, to see what had occurred after my mother and I had ran.

  “Come on,” Asha said, taking hold of my arm and drawing me along without so much as a questioning glance. “Let’s go.”

  I could tell she struggled to hold it together. Her body language said it all. From her tiny steps, to her trembling lips, to her eyes which fought to hold back tears—all spoke of grief for a family she’d lost: of a mother and father who had perished the night before. I wanted so desperately to comfort her—to say something that would take away the pain—but how could I ease her pain when I couldn’t even sate my own? When we couldn’t stop to bury our dead without fear of drawing attention to ourselves?

  We passed into the empty streets and regarded the houses in the distance—knowing, without a doubt, that none of them would provide adequate sanctuary come nightfall.

  “We need to head east,” Asha said, pointing away from the homes, “toward the interstate that used to be called highway 290.”

  “That’ll take us to Austin?” I grimaced as we stepped over and around the corpses of the Coyotes cut down during the initial siege.

  She nodded and adjusted the gun in her arms. “Yeah, it will.”

  “How do you know that?” Jason asked.

  “My dad had a big world atlas that had the map of the United States on it, including Texas. I used to take a piece of paper and trace the roads when I was little.”

  “And that’s how you know where to go?”

  “Don’t judge me, okay? It’s not like either of you know where we’re going. Right?”

  “No,” I offered, and waited for Jason to reply with a nod of his own before returning my attention to Asha. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”

  “When we drove from Austin to Fredericksburg it was maybe a few hours. But on foot?” She shook her head. “I have no idea how long it’ll take.”

  “And I take it neither of you know how to drive a truck?”

  Both of my companions shook their heads.

  With a sigh, I reached up to run a hand through my hair and grimaced as Jason’s spare pair of shoes threatened to slip off my feet.

  Hopefully we would find adequate, fitting clothing wherever we stopped.

  We huddled inside a small home on the outskirts of Fredericksburg later that afternoon, when the sun shone on the far western horizon and its light turned from bright yellow to a pale orange. Inside, we chose a room on the second floor and secured ourselves as best we could—pushing a loveseat across the stairway, then covering the windows inside the bedroom that overlooked the street.

  By the time we finished, night had fallen upon us, and with it the dread that inhabited our cruel and savage world.

  “We’re gonna be okay,” Jason said, trying his best to reassure both me and Asha. “I promise.”

  I looked from him, to Asha, then back again as he settled on the floor to divide the bread that would consist of the night’s meal. As I received my portion of the loaf, I looked at it and longed for the comforts of real food—of eggs and jelly and meat. Regardless, I bit into the bread with pleasure, and swallowed it down with the bottled water we would have to learn to conserve on the road to Austin.

  Outside, the Coyotes bayed, signaling Their presence to the world.

  “They won’t get in,” Asha said. “Right?”

  Jason shook his head. “No,” he replied, craning his head toward the bedroom doorway—which was closed, locked, and secured by a heavy chair and a dresser. “They won’t be able to get in.”

  “The blinds are drawn,” I was quick to add. “They can’t even see in here.”

  “We just need to be as quiet as possible.”

  Asha nodded, her eyes weary and her lower lip trembling. She reached up to sip from her bottle of water, grimacing as the sound of a Harvester entered our ears. The noise resembled a rush of air shooting down a ventilation shaft. She shivered and set her bread down to tuck her feet beneath her legs and draw a blanket around her shoulders. “Guys,” she said, the tears freely dripping. “I’m scared.”

  I couldn’t blame her. So was I. And if I had to guess, Jason was too.

  How he was holding it together so well I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was because he hadn’t lost anyone close to him at the fort, or maybe it was because his form of PTSD was blocking out any emotion for the time being. Either way, I envied him. I felt so close to cracking I was like porcelain hovering at the edge of a China cabinet.

  Once I finished eating, and once I was convinced my presence wasn’t going to be needed, I settled down in the chair across from the doorway and took hold of the gun Asha had been carrying for the past several hours. “I’ll take first watch.
”

  “You sure?” Asha asked. Jason merely gave me a concerned look.

  “I slept this morning,” I said, adjusting my position in the plush chair. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “If you’re sure,” Jason said.

  I nodded and watched as they clambered onto the twin-sized bed without so much as a sideways glance. “Wake one of us when you get tired,” Asha said.

  “I will.”

  It wasn’t long before both of them drifted off to sleep.

  With a sigh, I set my attention on the doorway and tightened my hold on the semi-automatic rifle. I could already tell it was going to be a long night.

  We rose the following morning and made our way from the city of Fredericksburg to highway 290. Lonely, desolate, and barren as far as the eye could see, we stuck to the sides of the road on the chance we would need to bolt into the nearby trees and tried our hardest to keep our spirits high. Small chat—which normally would have settled my nerves—did little to put me at ease. By the time we fell into silence, I felt like I was the loneliest person on Earth, regardless of the fact that I had two companions at my side.

  My body—weary from having worried too much the night before—protested the efforts of walking. The tennis shoes on my feet felt a thousand pounds too heavy and my head swam as I tried to maintain concentration. The air was humid, the temperature cool, the parched feeling in my throat only abated by frequent sips of water I couldn’t afford to waste. At one point I stopped drinking and pushed through my chronic need for hydration; but I knew that, eventually, I would cave.

  There was no denying it.

  Between the fever sweats from the night before and my total exhaustion, it was obvious I was getting sick.

  “Ana?” Asha slid a hand along my back and grimaced as she pulled it back. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I managed, swallowing the ever-growing lump in my throat. “Why?”

  “You’re sweating—and excuse me for saying this—like a pig.”

  “I think I’m sick.” I turned my head to look at Asha, then Jason—who, with concerned eyes, watched me as we continued along the interstate.