by T. S. Ward
He pushes me into the building as the shockwave rolls through the trees toward us. He slams the door shut and drags me down behind the service desk. I’m not too worried, after the first one didn’t do too much damage, but this one is worse. Closer. He shields me as the building is rattled, ceiling bits raining down, things falling off walls and tables.
I feel it in my bones. In my gut.
My brother lives in the outskirts of that city. He works there. My little sister lives with him, goes to school there, and I don’t know if they left. What if they went further into the city?
Panic grips my chest.
I climb to my feet and go back to the door. It’s been blown open, ripped off a hinge to dangle crooked against the wall.
The entire place looks like a tornado blew through. The roof is half ripped off the house I was just in, peeled up like a can of tuna for a couple cats, and the balcony rests in pieces on the ground. The carnage makes my stomach sick for what’s happened in the city.
Not everyone left. Not everyone left.
They gave everyone stay-home orders and then bombed them.
That’s some bullshit.
I climb up the ladder on the side of the building and stand on the roof. Half the forest has been ripped apart. Trees are cracked in two, root balls torn up. I can see the city now—what’s left, anyway. The skyscrapers are only sky.
I kneel against the lip of the roof, arms a pillow for my chin against it. Tears spring at my eyes.
Soldier sits on the edge next to me, facing away from it all. “They started evacuating when everyone decided to leave. They got as many out as they could. I’m sure there are safe zones somewhere. Might have saved everyone.”
“Might have,” I breathe, unconvinced. “But not everyone left. Innocent people, Ben. We could have gotten more people out instead of running like everyone else did.”
“Could have,” he nods.
“Even just one.”
He scratches his growing beard. “Just one… It doesn’t make what you’re feeling go away.”
“But it’s better than none.”
He’s quiet for a while, before it seems like he’s decided something.
“How about this,” he says, and he kneels down next to me. “I’d have stayed put if it wasn’t for you. That probably wiped out my house. So, in a way, I’m your one person. And you’re mine. I almost didn’t stop, but I had to take your road to get out of the city. I saw your flag at the end of your driveway, remembered the number, thought what the hell. I can deal with having the ever-living fuck annoyed out of me.”
I rest my forehead against my arms and hide the small smile I get from that. “You’re a jerk and I hate you.”
“What’d I do?”
“I annoy the ever-living fuck out of you? That’s the nicest shit anyone’s ever said to me.” I screech into my arms, and now I’m both laughing and crying, and I think I’ve thoroughly confused him.
He taps a knuckle against my elbow. “You know I can do a lot better than that, right?”
“Okay, then tell me my brother is one of the idiots who left town for some mystical fairyland somewhere else. Tell me they didn’t die to bombs or cannibals.” I am really confusing him now. There’s still laughter in my voice, but now the tears are flowing freely. My fingers grip the sleeves of my jacket tightly.
He rests an elbow on the lip of the roof and sets a hand on mine. “We’ll get there as soon as possible. I’m sure they’re okay. Any idea where they’d go, if they aren’t there?”
I lean back onto my heels, tilt my head up to look at the sky, and breathe out slowly. It’s strange, seeing stars between two bright cities. “I don’t know. My mother’s place, probably.”
“Where’s that?”
I laugh again. “Athens.”
“Back where we came from?”
I shake my head. “If only it were that easy. No. Athens, Ohio. Five hundred miles away. And with the luck we’ve had, I don’t think we’ll get there any time soon.”
“That’s only if we have to.” He scratches his jaw and looks at me sideways. “But hey. I will walk five hundred miles, and I will walk five hundred more—”
“Shut your mouth,” I snort, smack his shoulder lightly. “You remember that time we met and I mentioned having to learn how to walk again? Sure you want to stick around?”
He nods and looks out to the city. “Let’s give this a few days to settle down, then we’ll see if that’s what we need to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“Shut your mouth, Ghost. Don’t you worry.”
Day Twenty
I’ve learned something about Soldier.
He’s private. So private I doubt he even lived in that house full time. I’m sure he spent more time elsewhere, or maybe it was an old key from having lived there previously, or maybe he stole it off whoever actually lived there. Either way, I know nothing about him. I thought I did, but I don’t know shit. Maybe it’s because he acts so warmly, so friendly, but this realization is making me act different.
I’m more distant. Quieter. Keeping to myself.
It’s the complete opposite of what I’m normally like, and I’m sure it’s something he’s noticed, but he hasn’t said anything. He’s barely been around.
That’s another thing. The disappearing.
I’m starting to think that he is the ghost. One second I’ll be talking to him, and the next I turn around and he’s gone. For hours. Sometimes two days. But this time, it’s three. This time, he’s gone so long I pack all our shit, take my newly scavenged stuff, and start hiking toward my brother and sister.
I have eaten a full meal. I have charted my course around the outskirts. I have done all my physio in preparation. I am going, leaving, no longer patient enough to keep waiting.
Adam and Sadie could be hurt, vulnerable, surrounded by a siege of undead, or at the mercy of gun toting asshats. Anything. Anything could be happening to them and the longer I wait, the worse it gets.
No more waiting. No more hesitating. No more relying on someone I don’t even know, no matter the illusion of friendship.
Gone. I’m gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone—
I keep looking back.
I’m walking slow, expecting to see him coming after me. But I don’t, and it’s starting to worry me. It’s starting to make me think something’s happened to the man. And I’m starting to feel guilty about it. What if he needs help? What if he’s sitting somewhere, injured or trapped, and no one is coming to save him the way I’m going to save my siblings?
Hell, what if I get injured or trapped?
“Nope. Nope, nope, nope,” I mutter, pick up speed, shaking my head to myself. “No. You’re not. Don’t even know the guy. Known him for three weeks, only spent two with—not doing it, Ghost. Not doing it. Not doing it. Ahhhh fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuck!”
I stop. In the middle of the road. I lean my head back and swear at the sky, standing there for several minutes. I curse myself for being a complete and utter idiot.
Just go, Ghost. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone. You don’t even need your brother. Your sister, though, she needs you. Eight-year-old girl. Just go. Just go. Forget him, forget about him—
I take a step forward.
“Ghost!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, looking back at the man.
I decide he’ll catch up eventually and keep going forward. I am relieved that he’s okay, but I’m pissed now that I know he is. It’s mostly just anger that spurs me on now. Anger that makes me ignore him until he’s caught up and walking right next to me.
“You know you don’t have a tent on you, right?”
“Don’t need it,” I say, short and tight lipped.
“Sure. Just sleeping in trees, then?”
“Ain’t the first time.”
“Everything’s ain’t the first time with you.”
I shake my head.
“What, then? What’
s a first for you? I’m sure you can come up with something clever.”
I shrug. Snort a laugh. “Look around. The undead. Bombs dropping on cities. Finding out where the fuck you’ve been. I was almost murdered for the first time, the first actual attempt, a year ago, barring all previous near-death incidents, but not the only time. So maybe that doesn’t count.”
He tucks his chin down and grits his teeth. He breathes out long and slow. “You’re pissed. I figured, yeah. I was out looking for supplies again. I ran into some trouble this time around and it took longer than expected. That alright with you?”
“Sure.”
“How about now?” He pulls out a chocolate bar and holds it out to me. My favourite kind, somehow. “I remember something about you. Heard you talking to the nurses one night about how the vending machines don’t have your favourite kind of chocolate bar and all the reasons why they should.”
I don’t take it. I grip the straps of my bag. I feel sick. I don’t know shit about him and he says he knows my favourite goddamn chocolate bar? Fuck off.
“Ghost.”
“What else do you know about me?” I whirl on him. Stop dead so fast he bumps into me before he can stop. “You want to tell me my favourite colour next? You want to tell me the name I’ve never told you? Tell me my whole life story, Benjamin. Or tell me yours and make it even.”
He looks down at me, a frown squinting his eyes. A shallow breath splits his lips. “There isn’t much to tell you and I don’t know where to start. I’m a hell of a lot more boring than you. My name is Ben Daniels, my birthday is in seven days, I don’t have a favourite colour, I don’t like coffee, and I drink chamomile tea with honey because I have major anxiety that no one has ever known about and I lost my mother to a genetic heart condition a few months ago—”
I don’t think. I hug him.
I feel like a spiteful little shit.
He stands there for a moment, and I can hear his heart beat in his chest as he slowly puts one arm around my shoulders. “Alright, alright. Don’t—don’t think you can stop being annoying because I said that. It’s the whole reason you’re stuck with me.”
I move back and hold a finger up. “Hold on. One question. How old are you going to be?”
He grimaces. Puts his hands in his pockets. “Thirty.”
“Oh, so we’ve got seven days left, huh? Then we’re gonna have to find you a walker, or a wheel chair, and—you brush your teeth? Because we don’t have a way to get you dentures—”
“Keep it up. I’ll fight you.”
I start walking backwards, fists raised. “You sure you can handle it, old man? Come on then. Fight me now before you bust a hip.”
“Yeah, you just wait until I catch up to you,” he laughs.
“Want me to slow down? I’ll wait for you. I’ve had a lot of practice kicking old man ass. Won’t be the first time!”
He smiles. Grins. But he’s still vigilant, searching either side of the street as we move forward. “Then tell me a first.”
I’m more pissed at myself now than anything.
Giving in, giving up, letting him get under my skin. I’m pissed that I like having him around more than I can be angry about him disappearing.
I’m especially pissed that I’m sitting here, looking at him over the fire we’ve set in the backyard of this abandoned house. I’m sitting curled up in a hammock, wrapped in a blanket, watching this goddamn old ass man as he cooks dinner for the night. Thinking about how I really wouldn’t hesitate to give him the number he asked for. How I really wouldn’t hesitate to share our one tent if we needed to. But I don’t say anything. I don’t want to say anything.
This limbo state is a kind of armoured place, where the leaving hurts less. Where it’s more an indifference than anything. It’s what I prefer. The part of it I like.
“You good, Ghost?” Soldier asks. He doesn’t look up.
“Great,” I mumble.
Now he looks up. “What are you scribbling down so furiously over there?”
“Plans for world domination.” I sigh, shake my head, tap the pen against the paper. “Doctor’s orders, believe it or not. Wouldn’t discharge me unless I agreed to write my days out. Mental health, attempted murder victim bullshit.”
“Is it working?”
I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?”
He smiles for a half second as he goes back to cooking. “So, you’re writing about your day. What happened today that’s worth writing about?”
“Not much.”
“Not much, huh?” He waves a hand, inviting me over. Whatever he’s cooking smells alright. “Come on, Ghost. Come eat. And don’t tell me you hate it. It’ll hurt my feelings.”
I leave the hammock. We eat. I don’t insult him. And that’s all, for the night. That’s all we say for the rest of the night.
Day Twenty-One
We’re halfway there.
The ruins of the city lurk to the right, an apocalyptic warzone if I ever saw one. A pale dust coats every possible surface. Skyscrapers are crumbled, collapsed, though some survived. There’s a clear view of the valley ridge on the other side that I never thought I’d see from this angle.
Walking through the outer fringes is like following in the path of a tornado, like some hurricane winds came through and tore everything up. It’s all soot and dust covered. Smouldering, smoking. Fires burn where the dust hasn’t smothered it.
I hate the smell. Metallic and smoky, cement dust lingering in the air and in my nose.
Soldier is quiet. He stays ahead of me, keeping an eye out on the path ahead, rifle in hand. The axe is stuck into the elastic bands of his pack.
It feels wrong to be here. It feels like stepping on a grave. And I fully expect those bombs to have been futile against the already dead.
“We’ve got to call them something,” I call to Soldier, relenting.
He glances back briefly. Casually, an eyebrow raised. “Call what, what?”
“Idiot. The fuckers crawling around trying to eat us.”
“Oh, I see,” he says, voice mocking as he laughs. “Because the classic name for them is so boring to you now. That cultural significance means absolutely nothing—”
He swings the rifle around to his left and stops dead. A hand reaches out along the pavement, a garbled groan following. I catch up, pull the knife from my hip, and hold a hand out to Soldier.
“Don’t shoot,” I breathe, gesturing further, “There’s more.”
He shoulders the rifle and reaches for the axe.
“No, I’ll… I can. I can do it.” I swallow the lump in my throat, grip the knife tight, and crouch down. Not the first time, not the first time, easier than the big guy—the thing’s head lurches to the side, blood and bits spattering out the side with a shlick.
I fall back with a start and scramble back, staying low crossing the street, as Soldier drops to cover me. We duck behind the crumbled building and keep low, crouched. He ushers me forward.
A whistle pours over the ruins. Another answers.
I’m about to run into the next building, one that looks more intact, but Soldier grabs me. Shakes his head. He directs me into the one we’re already hidden by.
Stupid decisions, Ghost.
We duck under a half wall, crouched as low as possible.
“They weren’t shooting at me,” I whisper. I have to lean close for him to hear.
He talks so softly I barely hear him. “Doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“Seems like they were helping.”
He shakes his head slightly. “You had it. That was too close for any sane person. It was a show of power.”
Thanks for the confidence. That thought surprisingly not sarcastic, even though I’m not sure I feel the same way.
I sit frozen, breathing as quietly as I can with my heart pounding the way it is. I try to listen the way Soldier does—focused, still, eyes distant and staring through me—but I just end up watching him and the slight twitch of his he
ad toward the sounds he hears.
Faint footsteps crunch sand and dirt and glass debris. They’re getting closer with each step, stopping outside.
I hold my knife tight and look up at the wall behind Soldier while he watches my back. I am not prepared to fight a living person. I am not prepared to feel what it’s like to shove a knife into healthy flesh and bone, flesh that still holds elasticity.
“Come on out,” a voice calls. “Just wanna chat.”
We aren’t doing shit, asshat, my brain tries to get my mouth to say, but I clamp my jaw shut and focus on Soldier instead. He shakes his head slightly. Like he can see me twitching to be a smart ass. It’s my only response to conflict. It’s the only way I can respond, although I’m sure I scratched and bit the shit out of my uncle and his friends.
“Spread out,” the man orders. Close. Real close. He talks quietly to his people, and raises his voice for us. “Come on and hear me out. Y’all know it ain’t safe out here. We offer safety in numbers. Fight us and we will kill you, don’t doubt that, but join us and you’ll have my devoted protection. Come quietly. Be saved. Be spared.”
Soldier looks at me. He’s drained of colour. Sweat beads on his brow. He’s about to say something to me, but thinks better of it, nodding to a collapsed bit of wall behind me.
I know what he means.
He means I’ll fit under it. He means hide. He means he’s giving himself up to cover for me.
I’ll come back for you, he mouths, and reaches out to squeeze my hand.
I shake my head and tighten my grip when he tries to pull back again. I’m nervous as all hell. Shaking. But there’s a thought in my head that makes me let go. Either we’re both hurt and taken, or I can hide. I can follow behind them, find an opening, and get him out. In the dead of night, maybe, under the cover of dark. It’s a risk. It’s one hell of a risk.
He might get killed on the spot. Or we could stay put, wait for them to give up.
