by Laken Cane
Really, who knew? Maybe this was the great beyond. Crowbridge might actually be my afterlife. Maybe I’d died and hadn’t realized it.
When I thought of the town like that, though, it was hard for me to breathe. The sky seemed too close, and I was sure if I tried to leave Crowbridge, I’d find an invisible wall there to keep me inside.
I told myself I was glad of the new status quo. In the world before, bad things happened every single day. It’d been a shit world. My sister had been killed in that world.
This one was better now that most of the assholes had died.
That’s what I told myself.
I rolled off my cot with more energy than I could ever remember having before the world ended—a short two years ago—then grabbed a bottle of water to drink while I peered at the goals, motivation, and conflict note.
I had always been a creature of habit.
I dressed methodically, pulling on a t-shirt, a warm button down shirt, and worn jeans. I laced up my boots before shrugging into a protective vest that would help deflect the blades or—if the attacker was completely stupid—a bullet.
No one used guns. They were too loud.
Noise brought the mutants, and if there was anything worse than an attack from a deranged human, it was the attention of a mutant.
That’s not to say I didn’t carry a loaded pistol. I did. But I would take that gun out only if I had no other choice. Only if I had to use it on myself. Because by then, noise wasn’t going to matter.
I slid blades into the pockets of my vest, buckled on a belt to which I added more knives, a flashlight, a lighter, and a small container of bear spray. The bear spray was protection against hungry, wild animals who figured a lone girl would be an easy meal.
I walked to the boarded over picture window and looked through the cracks between the plywood. Not a mutant or baddie in sight.
Still, my stomach tightened as I geared up and then walked to the back door in my kitchen. I suspected that feeling would never entirely go away.
Outside my home was danger.
But I sort of liked that feeling, because it was something. An emotion in the endless, heavy silence. Sometimes I felt like it would smother me, that silence.
No one cared.
No one cared if I sometimes went a little crazy and huddled in a corner with a blanket over my head.
No one.
Literally.
There was no one left to care.
This wasn’t the house I’d lived in when everyone started dying, but I’d chosen it later because of its cellar—the door was in the back porch floor and easily hidden by a heavy rug—and because it was closer to town.
And because none of my family had lived or died inside it.
It was mine now.
I took a deep breath, gave my pockets and sheaths a habitual pat, picked up the machete leaning against the wall, then opened the door.
I locked the door, then turned to grab my bicycle.
Every day I did this.
Every day.
What else was there to do?
I’d have gone crazy long ago if I’d been too afraid to leave the house. I had to be out in the world.
Yes, I was afraid.
But the fear let me know I was alive.
Going to town gave me a purpose, and I needed that. I needed that badly.
I had a few goals when I made my runs.
One, get more water. I took cases and gallon jugs of water every time I went to town, then stored most of them in the cellar. I also had two fifty-gallon drums out back in which I collected rain water for bathing and bathroom purposes.
The water in town was nearly gone. I’d broken into houses to get water before I’d started in on the water in the mall, which was the only reason there was still a few cases left in the stores.
I also kept an eye out for a dog—preferably one that wasn’t rabid or wild. I would have killed for a pet. A companion. I adored dogs. One time, I’d seen a cat, but it wouldn’t come to me when I’d called. A dog, though. A dog would come.
Too bad the pets hadn’t been able to last long. They’d been killed, eaten, or had starved to death, poor things. Some of them roamed the streets in packs, wild and dangerous. They were why I carried the bear spray, mostly.
I lifted my face to the sun, breathing deeply of the fresh, cool air. Sometimes I had nightmares that I was trapped in the cellar and couldn’t reach the sun.
That almost scared me more than the thought of encountering a mutant.
I peddled out of the yard and into the street, tuned to the sounds—or non-sounds—of the area.
In my world, silence mattered.
It didn’t just matter. It was essential.
My legs enjoyed the workout the bike gave them as I peddled up a short hill. The world was quiet, still, lonely.
The same as it always was.
No baddies, wild dogs, or mutants in sight.
Perfection.
I coasted down the small incline, grimly vigilant. I wouldn’t relax until I made it back home. That was okay. Relaxing was for safe people. And dead people.
The road to town was as familiar to me as my own face. It wasn’t blocked or bloated with stalled cars from the before—no one had been trying to escape Crowbridge when they’d died. They’d gathered supplies—the town had, unfortunately for me, lost a lot of its supplies long before the world ended—and boarded up their homes, then locked themselves in their basements and cellars and panic rooms—as though that would protect them from the sickness. The killing flu.
And they’d died there.
Oh, there was the occasional car, of course, but no piles of stalled or wrecked vehicles with the dead hanging out open doors.
Then after the disease had started wiping out all the people, the mutants had come.
Who knew how any of it had started?
I sure didn’t.
I’m sure someone knew—maybe the US government, though they’d denied it completely—but for most of us, it was like death. No one really knew what came after death, and no one really knew what had brought the disease and the mutants.
Maybe the mutants had unleashed the sickness, but who’d unleashed the mutants?
It took me sixteen minutes to reach the mall. Not that Crowbridge had much of a mall.
I pedaled slowly down Main Street, my head swiveling, the whirr of tires on asphalt the only sound in the crisp, early fall air.
There wasn’t a lot left, but the mall still contained a few supplies. It made me happy. Once I’d emptied the stores of their remaining supplies, what would I do every day?
There was a grocery store, a pharmacy, a Dollar Store, a small electronics store, a Taco Bell—I never went in there anymore—and a farm and feed store.
Someday, I’d have to find another town to get more supplies. Someday, when the mall had given me everything she had to offer, when she gave a last, gasping breath and fell over and died, dried up and depleted…
I smiled as the memory of my mother’s voice echoed inside my mind.
“Teagan, you are so melodramatic.”
“I guess I got that from you.”
I would have been a writer. I’d have been just like her.
And she was gone.
The world became blurry suddenly, like a vicious gust of rain was blowing against a window. But the rain was in my eyes.
Miss you, Ma.
When the time came to find another town, I’d have to start completely over. Leave my home with its boarded up windows and closed off rooms, my cellar, my familiar streets.
I was young—sixteen. If I didn’t die, I would eventually run through my stock.
But that was a worry for another day.
I parked the bicycle in front of the grocery store—where it would stay. I’d have to walk back home, and let me tell you; pushing a heavy, full cart up even a small incline was not easy. But it had helped me develop some muscle over the last two years.
I’d get
water and some goodies first, then head to the farm and feed store.
I pulled my machete from its sheath and put it in a cart, then pushed the cart to the water. I tossed in two cases—there were only three cases left—before heading to the canned food. It was good that I shopped every day, because who knew when baddies might find my town and steal the few supplies that remained?
I’d also taken cartload after cartload to the back of the mall, where I’d previously buried over a dozen airtight containers. Over time, I’d filled every one of those containers.
Each trip to the mall, I took as much as I could get in as little time as possible. It wasn’t a good idea to linger.
I’d encountered a lone mutant in Crowbridge on a couple different occasions. Those were not memories on which I liked to dwell.
I hurried down the aisle, turned the corner, and then, I caught a glimpse of something that made me lose my breath.
The shadowy dimness inside the shop made the world outside the huge front windows seem especially bright. And in that brightness stood one of the mutants, staring into space, head tilted, listening.
Listening, maybe, to me.
I dropped to my knees a mere second before he turned to peer at the store windows. I was panting, and when I realized it and tried to slow my breathing, I panted harder. I couldn’t get enough air into my tight, constricted lungs.
Lovely time for one of my stupid panic attacks.
I threw back my head and stared at the ceiling as a giant hand squeezed my lungs and there was only a tiny straw through which I could draw a teaspoon of air and I could not breathe.
I could not breathe.
I was going to die. Maybe it was a heart attack. Or a stroke. Even young people had those and with the stress of everything…
Shit shit shit.
The mutant would hear my gasps and wheezes, surely he would. Their hearing was insane—and that was the reason a girl couldn’t use a gun to shoot one of the sons of bitches and the reason she couldn’t drive a car.
Because the mutants would hear.
And this time I was really dying.
That’s what panic attacks did.
They made me believe I was dying.
I held on to that realization with everything I had. I wasn’t dying. The panic attacks just made me think I was.
My chest loosened gradually—when I could breathe again I was lying on my side, my hands at my throat, and little silver spots danced in the musty air of the store.
I got to my knees, slightly dazed. I peered around the cart, then swept the parking lot outside the windows with a worried gaze.
I didn’t see the mutant.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t there somewhere. Maybe he’d sneaked into the store while I was trying to figure out how to breathe. Maybe he’d sidled to the windows, cupped his eyes with his long, pale hands, and had spotted me writhing on the floor.
I stood carefully and reached into the cart for my machete. I had blades in various places all over my body, in my boots, the pockets of my vest—and I’d also stashed bigger weapons all over the stores I frequented.
One could never have enough weapons.
I left the cart where it sat and slipped quietly to the end of the aisle, fully expecting a mutant to appear suddenly, grinning, waiting…
I glanced over my shoulder constantly. I couldn’t let one of them sneak up behind me. Where was he?
I liked the little thrill of leaving my house each day, but the terror I felt at that moment…that was a bit much.
The mutants didn’t seem to have any lovely weaknesses or convenient boundaries like sensitivity to sunlight or an inclination to shuffle along like zombies on TV.
Nope.
From everything I’d heard before the world ended and from my own experiences, they were very difficult to kill. A person couldn’t kill them by stabbing them or shooting them or clubbing them to death.
But a person could decapitate them.
That was the main reason I liked machetes. A sharp machete would take off a mutant’s head with a couple of well-placed slashes.
The mutants were just like humans in some ways. They resembled humans physically. Most of them wore clothes, though I’d seen a couple of them that seemed confused by clothing. I’d once seen a tall, bald male mutant wearing a lacy, pink dress that barely covered his butt.
It would have been funny had it not been so terrifying.
But in other ways, they were not even remotely human. They didn’t seem to have feelings. They had no heart. At all.
Their preferred food source seemed to be raw, screaming meat. Sometimes they’d tear their victims apart and gobble them down like raw chicken.
Yeah, I’d watched both of those things happen—some of them on TV before it’d gone down, and some in real life.
I’d heard the screams.
I’d had the nightmares.
There were two different types of mutants—those who wanted to eat a human, and those who wanted to catch a human. I had no idea what they did with their catches.
They didn’t use guns. They used blades—though it wasn’t because of the noise firearms made. It was because they liked their meat alive. Bleeding.
At least, that’s what I believed.
A dead human was a useless human.
So unless I couldn’t outrun one or was caught in the middle of a mob of them, then I was safe.
Safe.
LOL.
Smiley face.
I missed the Internet and texting and doing things with my friends.
But right then there were more important things to miss—like the days when the monsters were only in the movies and a girl had a mother to protect her.
Those days were gone.
I found my hidden machete and slipped it from its hiding place, wincing when its contact with a can of juice released a metallic snick into the silent air.
What was better than a machete?
Two machetes.
Just as I stood, the weapons in my hands, I caught movement through the huge front windows.
I saw two things. Two very bad things.
A small girl, a tangled mass of dark red curls hiding her face, stumbled slowly by the wall of windows.
And right behind her, his tall, pale body towering crookedly over her tiny one, the mutant lifted his hands and prepared to snatch his dinner.
Chapter Two
Horror burst from me in a thoughtless scream. “Robin!”
It wasn’t my sister. I knew that.
Robin would have been my size. My age.
My twin.
And Robin was dead.
I reached the exit doors before I was aware I’d even moved. I shot through them, opening my mouth for another scream, praying I wasn’t too late.
I had to save the child. I had to save her.
I’d left one to die.
I wasn’t leaving another.
Maybe I thought saving her would make up for Robin’s death. Maybe I was just that insane.
Maybe I’d get us both killed.
But there was a child, and I would fight for her. I would protect her.
Even if it killed me.
I ran like I did in nightmares—slowly, so slowly, with my feet sinking into quicksand as I slogged weakly on, opening my mouth for another scream.
I had no words, just sounds.
But the sounds got his attention.
He whipped toward me, his head tilting precariously upon his skinny neck as he studied the newer, bigger threat.
The bigger meal.
I needed to shut the hell up.
One mutant I could possibly take. I had two machetes. I had knives. I had desperation.
I could take him.
But if I kept screaming, it would draw other mutants.
And then neither I nor the little girl would have a chance.
“Run,” I screamed at the child, but she slid down the wall and then curled up on the pavement, her face hidden beh
ind her hands.
I knew her terror. Her exhaustion. Her confusion.
The thought flashed through my mind that I wasn’t actually okay in this new world. I understood my pretense.
And I couldn’t allow that thought. No.
That truth might have shattered me.
I didn’t hesitate. With my machetes up and ready, I ran at the creature.
He leapt back when I swung, and my blade cut through the air, barely missing his chest. But I wasn’t exactly a stranger to fighting the mutants—and I had adrenaline lending a hand.
He came at me fast, no fear in those cold, yellow eyes, no sounds coming from his half-open mouth.
I dropped one of the machetes.
I caught a glimpse of large, crowded, sharp teeth, and then I fell to my knees, yanked the small dagger from my belt, and drove it into his groin.
His eyes widened slightly, and he leaned over, grabbed the handle of the knife, and wrenched it from his flesh.
Seconds. It all happened in seconds.
Instead of flat coldness, his eyes now held hunger. Raging, ravenous, consuming hunger.
That’s what pain gave them.
When fighting a mutant, death—preferably theirs—needed to happen quickly. Before they got hungry. Before they got angry.
That was when the mutants ate humans.
They were like people out of their minds on meth. They felt no pain, no fear, and there was nothing but death in their eyes.
When the hunger roared over them, it was as though they had to consume whatever was before them, and they had to do it immediately. They couldn’t help themselves.
I couldn’t believe it was fear—I doubted they were able to be afraid.
He flew toward me like a pale missile, his hands bent into claws, desperate to end his hunger. And if he got those hands on me, I was dead.
Not because his hands were some sort of magical conduit of heart-stopping poison, but simply because they were so very strong. He’d grab me, then he’d sink his teeth into my flesh, and then I’d die.
But pain made them foolish, distressed, and frantic, and that was good for me.
It was how I fought them—smart or not.
Hurt them, make them lose their minds with that pain and hunger, and then I could stand back and wait.
I held the machete like a baseball bat, almost, waiting for him.
