by Jones, Isla
An awkward pause passed between us. I glanced up at the cloudy sky above. There was nothing interesting about the sky. I was simply uncomfortable. Why is he still here, I asked myself?
“I should go,” I said, backing away. “These cars aren’t gonna search and move themselves.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” His suddenly severe and low voice stopped me. “I’d prefer you stayed here,” he said. “The other civilians are more than capable of handling this task without your assistance.”
“Shouldn’t I help, though?” If I didn’t help, the other survivors might resent me. I didn’t want that.
Leo looked over my head at the others; they pushed cars in pairs, and filled up rickety shopping trolleys with loot. Then, Leo lowered his gaze until his eyes met mine. I had the sense that he was considering his response carefully.
“You’re new,” he said. My lips thinned, and I waited for him to state more facts. “For now, we’d rather keep an eye on you. We don’t know if you’re from another group, or if you’re planning to keep items you find for yourself.”
“You don’t trust me.”
He didn’t hesitate, nor did he sugar-coat it. “I don’t trust you.”
It pieced together in my mind. It wasn’t second-hand privilege by association with Vicki that won me a ticket in the caravan. “That’s why I’m in the RV. So you can watch me?”
I watched his lips part, ready to issue an insensitive response, but no words came. His gaze shot up, looking over my head, and darkened.
Spinning around, I scanned the highway. I knew his look—and it sent panic spreading through my veins. It’s strange, is it not, that panic feels cold inside the body, but causes sweat to break out? That’s what happens to me, at least. I’m scared, I sweat.
I saw nothing. The others were pushing cars off the road, clearing a path. Some dug around in popped trunks, legs dangled out of open doors, people squatted down at their bags to stuff collected items inside. There weren’t any infectees; there was no threat.
“What’d you see?” I asked, raking my eyes over the sea of cars.
Leo didn’t respond. I turned back around, but he was gone. It took me a second to spot him with Adam by the other RV—the one that we didn’t travel in. They whispered, then Leo pointed at me.
I blinked, surprised, and a cold dread plagued my limbs. They both stared in my direction, but not directly at me. Again, I looked around, then over my shoulder, but I saw nothing unusual.
Well, unusual for the end of the world, I suppose.
Some might think I overestimated my status in the group with what I did next. They would be right.
I jogged over to Leo and Adam. “What’s going on?”
Adam sneered, and Leo looked down at me with total indifference. He slipped a handgun from his holster. Instinctively, I stepped back. There was a threat in his eyes, and it was reserved for me. Even in the heat, my instinct prickled my flesh with goosebumps and I shivered.
“I thought I saw something,” he said, each word rolling off his tongue. “On the bridge.”
I craned my neck and gave the distant bridge a once-over. The roofs of a few cars winked from the glow of the hot sun, but no movement caught my attention. “I don’t see anything.”
Leo didn’t care. He didn’t acknowledge that I spoke at all. “Adam, you’re on the van, James on the RV. Tangos on the bridge, possible hostiles, one klick at eleven o’clock.”
My face scrunched up in confusion. I had no idea what a tango was, other than the dance, and nobody was dancing up on that bridge. Leo pushed by me, and Adam ran over to—whom I assumed to be—James. Adam and James separated and took their ordered positions. Leo pressed binoculars against his eyes and inspected the bridge.
As the minutes passed with nothing exciting happening, my fear trickled out of my body. The soldiers maintained their positions, but Leo eventually lowered the binoculars when groups of the survivors returned with their booty.
When the survivors formed an orderly queue at the rear doors of the van, I hopped onto the boot of an abandoned car. My back was to Leo as he opened the van doors and inspected what each survivor had collected. He decided which items joined the ‘iron rations’; rations for an emergency survival situation. A few judgemental glances from my fellow survivors had me feeling pretty darn useless, so I stopped looking over my shoulder at them and stared ahead from where we came.
I couldn’t blame the survivors. Their perception of me was all that they had to form their opinions. They saw that I didn’t help move the cars or scavenge supplies, and that I was permitted to ride in the RV after only joining the group one day ago. I tried to ignore their narrowed eyes and slewed stares—
A gunshot blasted.
My back slammed against the rear windshield of the car. My arms curled around my head as the second gunshot ripped through air—I shimmied off the trunk and flattened myself to the hot asphalt.
An eruption of gunfire exploded over the highway. It came from the bridge—the same one that Leo had noticed earlier. He was right. There was movement up there; only, it was people, not the rotters like I had thought. I almost wished it was the rotters—people could be worse.
There were screams—so many screams, coming from all directions. I heard them, but the blasts of the guns firing drowned out everything else. Bullets whizzed by and smashed into car windshields and pierced through bodies that ran by me.
I pressed myself further into the ground—the stones dug into my bare arms; the heat seared my skin and burned. But I trembled as if cold. My hands shook against my head as I shielded myself, curled into a ball. There were faint groans that slithered through the bangs. People in pain, I thought; people who had been shot, and lay there in the swarm of bullets, bleeding and afraid.
I peeked over my barricade—my crossed arms—and looked at the road. A boy lay a few metres ahead. He wasn’t crying or screaming. His glassy eyes gazed up at the sky. I knew he was dead, not because he didn’t move, but because his eyes didn’t squint under the assault of the sun.
The soldiers fired back. I looked up at them. Adam and James, sprawled atop the vehicles, aimed their snipers and fired. Leo was behind the car one down to my right—I saw him in the reflection of a car window. He shot over the hood of a rusted sedan.
The soldiers, I realised, were in tune. They knew what their comrades would do before they did it. It was a coordinated dance of war; when one ducked and took shelter, the others covered him with a spray of bullets.
I uncurled my body, pressed my back against the car and tried not to hyperventilate myself to death. That cold sweat I mentioned earlier? It dampened my body again. Is it strange that I noticed in a time like this? The perspiration stuck limp strands of my hair to my face, but I swatted them away and focused my gaze ahead; at the caravan.
Cleo was still inside. I needed to get to her. But I had to wait for Leo to unknowingly cover me. Trembling, I counted how many seconds between their change—when whoever was shooting at us stopped, and our side fired back. If a bullet struck through that caravan and hit Cleo … I couldn’t think of it. The mere possibility forced a choked sob out of my dry throat. I swallowed it back, drawing in the scraps of my courage for Cleo.
The caravan door swung open. Mac raced out—moving so quickly that I barely saw him—and threw himself behind a car. The barrel of his rifle curved around the car door and fired. Then, Vicki ran out, carrying a pistol. Mac covered her until she reached him.
I wondered why she had a weapon. Leo had said civilians weren’t permitted weapons. Though, the rules didn’t seem to apply in that moment: As I looked around, uninjured civilians leaned through the windows of open car doors and peered around the side of abandoned trucks, firing at our attackers on the bridge.
A dash of black brushed my vision. My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach and nausea grabbed its familiar hold on me. Cleo darted out of the caravan and sprinted through the spray of bullets. She zig-zagged; fri
ghtened and aimless.
“CLEO!” I scrambled to my feet, barely hearing my own cries rip from my throat. “CLEO, NO!”
“Get down!” Leo barked from the car down from me. I heard him, but I didn’t listen.
I ran.
I ran right into the rain fall of bullets; out into the open.
My only thought was Cleo.
“Cleo!” My cries are mere echoes of memories, now. “Cleo, come back!”
Sprinting down the sides of our vehicles, I called out for her over and over again. The last I’d seen her was as she dashed under a pickup truck at the edge of the highway. That was my destination, until I was thrown to the ground in screams of agony.
A bullet tackled me, lodged in my shoulder. The pain seared through me. I’m certain I lost consciousness, if only for a second. It was difficult to tell if I was screaming or if the cries of pain and terror came from others around me.
As I lay there on the ground, I heard Leo bark orders. His voice grew louder or drew nearer. I couldn’t tell over the shouts of gunfire and a ringing sound in my ears. My body trembled like a leaf in the wind as I pushed myself to my knees. I crawled behind a car.
Mac and Vicki were one car up, but I wasn’t interested in them. I had to get to Cleo. She wouldn’t survive out here alone. She could get hit by a stray bullet, or ravaged by one of the rotters.
They would come, I realised. Gunfire attracts them. They would come and destroy anything that survived. Including my Cleo.
I didn’t realise I was crying until I propped myself up against the side of the car. I tried to look for her, but my eyes were clouds of tears. My shoulder oozed blood at the back, near my right shoulder blade. The bullet was lodged inside, I realised. My other arm jerked; I reached around to touch the wound. But every move and twitch of my arm sent blinding jolts of agony through me.
My eyes rolled back. I tried to catch my breath, but suddenly the world had begun to distort. Bullets flew all around me, like a flock of starving birds. I knew which direction to take, but it was blocked by sprays of the death-delivering ammo. My legs quaked as I try to stand again, balancing most of my weight on the car. But before I could stand, I was tackled to the ground chest-first.
The sound of my forehead smacking against the gravel was the only indication that I’d injured my head. No pain exploded in my skull; I felt nothing through dizziness that enveloped me.
“Stay down!” It was Leo’s voice, roaring in my ear. The weight of his body stopped me from moving; from getting up and chasing after Cleo. Though, I doubt I would have made it metres. Blood dripped into my vision, slicking down the length of my eyelashes. The warmth of my blood soon coated the stones on the road and the side of my dirtied face. By the time it reached my lips, it was diluted with tears, stinging my tongue with salt and metal, like a penny in sand.
Leo’s body left mine. I lay there alone. The faint song of gunshots carried through the air.
“Cleo,” I croaked, but I’m not sure, even now, that he’d heard me. I wonder if I spoke at all, or only thought the words. “I have to find Cleo.”
“Hostiles retreating!” I think it was Adam who shouted. I can’t be sure.
“Advance!” I knew this voice to be Leo’s. But it sounded so distant, so far away. I couldn’t see him; I only saw the stones that wore my blood. They spun and danced, blurring before my very eyes.
Obscurity seeped in, taking my vision for its own, and soon after I only saw darkness.
4.
“I know you’re awake.”
The familiar voice greeted me before I could wrench my heavy eyelids open. I managed to flutter my lashes. Light penetrated my eyes and I quickly closed them again. A groan—mild and gravelly—reached my ears; from the vibration of my throat, I believe the sound to have come from me.
A warm, damp object lapped at my ear. It was uncomfortable, yet nostalgic. I knew what it was. Cleo.
My body jolted upwards, but an eruption of pain exploded in my head. Bile crept up my throat; I swallowed it back and flopped down. I was on a mattress, I realised.
I pried my eyes open and through the harsh white of the bulb above me, I saw Cleo—she was sniffing my face, lapping at my skin, nuzzling wherever she could. Though, she sniffed the bandage wrapped around my head the most.
“Hey, there,” I whispered. I lifted my limp hand and stroked her spine.
“She came back,” said Leo. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “I think she was searching for you when the gunfire ceased.”
“What happened?” I managed to ask.
As the seconds passed, my vision cleared and I recognised the room I was in. At least, I recognised the tacky décor. I was in the bedroom of the caravan, according to the orange panelled walls and spiral patterned carpet.
“You hit your head,” he said. My hooded gaze found him against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He was almost concealed by the cloud of grey smoke that billowed from his lips and nostrils. “We patched you up. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
“The others?” I asked, resisting the urge to smile as Cleo nuzzled into the nook of my neck. “The ones firing at us?”
“Dead, mostly. Some were captured.”
Through the dull pain in my skull, a useless sensation overwhelmed me. I was no help at all under attack, and I’d managed to knock myself out during it. Would they exile me for lack of contribution? Did they notice the little I offered already? Or did they understand that only a few months ago I was a hairdresser trainee, living with roommates and Cleo, with no experience in combat?
“We lost some of our own, too,” he said matter-of-factly. There was no emotion or sense of loss in his firm voice. He merely stated truths.
“How many?”
“Four.”
Four didn’t seem like a lot to me, but I didn’t voice my thoughts. It would be insensitive. Summer had always said I was as discreet as a bulldozer. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel empathy, but more that I am a victim of word-vomit.
“Get up.” The sudden iciness to his voice startled me.
My brows furrowed as I gazed up at him. He didn’t explain himself, but I suppose he didn’t have to. He was in charge, had saved my life—perhaps twice—and he gave me an order.
Not without difficult and pain, I managed to scoop up Cleo into my arms and stagger off the creaky bed. It surprised me that I didn’t collapse. Perhaps I’m melodramatic in that sense.
My steps behind Leo were unsteady, but I followed him out of the caravan. The shines of the sun hit me the moment I stepped outside, but through the piercing glow I realised that we weren’t on the highway anymore. Surrounding our line of vehicles was barren land instead.
I shadowed Leo down the side of the vehicles to the van ahead. In front of the van were survivors in our group, gathered around three restrained men. One of them couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and the other two looked to be in their thirties. Rope was coiled around their wrists and bodies, preventing them from moving little more than an inch.
Cautiously, I approached them, but made sure to stay beside Leo. Cleo wriggled in my arms to get comfortable. I tightened my hold on her just as something shoved into my back. I grunted before I crashed to the dirt road. I hit the ground with a crunch.
I don’t know which sensation was worse; the spinning of my already dizzy head, the jolts of pain lacing around my shoulder blade, or the crack of my kneecaps when I landed in front of the restrained men.
My arms caged Cleo and I sat on my knees. “What the fu—”
The barrel of a gun silenced me. It pressed against my temple. I recoiled, clutching Cleo even closer to my chest. I didn’t need to face the barrel to know who had me at gun-point. Leo didn’t offer an explanation, and nobody in the group spoke. They watched me with pure disdain, some even sneered at me.
Vicki stood beside Mac behind the restrained men, looking uncertainly between her lover and the soldier behind me. I didn’t understand—I couldn’t comprehend what was ha
ppening, or why it was happening. I could only decipher the rapid heartbeat thumping against my ribcage, and the quivers rattling my limbs.
This isn’t what I had imagined when I joined a group.
“Why are you doing this?” The shakiness of my own voice startled me, and I cleared my throat as though it would strengthen my voice. It didn’t. When I repeated my question, my voice trembled even more, coming out in shaky rasps.
The warm metal of the gun pushed harder against my temple, and all I could manage was a choked sob. A popping sensation gathered at my wobbling lips, a combination of snot and tears. Cleo, as always, sensed my distress and wriggled wildly in my arms. Whether she was trying to flee or not remains a mystery to me.
“Tell us where the rest of your group are camped and we’ll let her go,” said Leo. He wasn’t speaking to me, but to the three restrained men. Through the gravelly sound of my harsh breaths, I heard the rustle and pull of the ropes binding them.
The youngest was the one who replied, spitting out the words like the venom of the virus; “Why would we give shit what happens to her?”
I dared a glance up at Leo. He cocked his brow and asked in a calm voice; “You don’t care?”
None of the prisoners responded. Leo sighed and looked down at my pleading gaze. “Well, in that case I might as well kill her. It’s not like we need her.”
I didn’t get the chance to plead. My lips parted to shout, but his finger applied pressure to the trigger and—
The blast deafened me. It exploded in my ear.
The figures around me loomed and swayed. Or was that me swaying? I don’t remember. I remember the warmth of my tears glazing my cheeks and my eardrums ringing. When the haze began to lift, I squeezed my eyes before opening them.
Mac was talking, but his words sounded like white noise. Vicki wept, her face turned to the side as if to shield herself from the scene. The three men from the other group were panicked, but not for me—for their own fates.
Then I realised: Leo had shot me with a blank.
“She isn’t one of them.” Mac’s voice swam into my mind through the agony of my eardrums. “They’re not with her.”
