Days 9 to 16

by Amy Cross

  "Hey!" I call out.

  She doesn't respond. She just keeps walking.

  "Hey! I call out again.

  She stops, and slowly she turns to look at me. She's pretty, with long blonde hair and large blue eyes, but she seems a little confused, as if she's not entirely sure about me. I guess that's understandable. As she shields her eyes from the rising sun behind me, she must be pretty confused by me as I stand here with a bag over one shoulder and a rifle over the other, with another rifle in my hands.

  "Are you okay?" I ask, lowering the rifle but keeping my finger near the trigger, just in case. Even though she doesn't look like one of the creatures, I can't be too careful.

  She just stares at me.

  Looking over my shoulder, I make sure that there's no-one nearby before I turn back to the girl and climb over the metal barrier. I'm still not certain that this girl is safe, but I can't just ignore her. After all, if she's smart and unhurt, we might be able to help each other.

  "My name's Elizabeth," I say, taking a couple of steps forward. "What's yours?"

  She stares at me, still shielding her eyes from the light of the sun as it rises behind me.

  "I came from the city," I continue. "I've been there since..." I pause, and then I look down and see that I've still got some of Henry's blood on my clothes. My first reaction is shock, but after a moment I realize that I'm just going to have to keep going like this. I can't go back to the city for different clothes, and I can't walk naked. Damn it, I should have changed before I left, but I was so shocked by everything that happened, somehow I didn't realize. "This isn't my blood," I say, looking over at the girl. "It's my brother's. He died. I tried to save him." I wait for an answer, but she just continues to stare at me. "I didn't kill him," I add. "Someone else did. I killed that guy, though. I left his body in the apartment."

  No reply.

  "My name's Elizabeth Marter," I continue, stepping closer to her. "Can you tell me your name?"

  We stand in silence for a moment.

  "Dawn," she says eventually, her voice trembling as she continues to stare wide-eyed at me.

  "Dawn?"

  "Dawn," she says again.

  "Elizabeth," I reply. "Are you... Were you in the city?"

  She stares at me.

  "Where are you going?" I ask.

  She turns and looks toward the horizon, as if she's going the same way that I'm going.

  "Do you want to walk together?" I ask. "Have you got any stuff with you? Food? Water?"

  She turns to look back at me, and from the blank look on her face, it's almost as if she doesn't understand the question. I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with her, but she seems to be struggling with even the most basic questions.

  "Here," I say, lowering the rifle before grabbing a bottle of water from my bag. "I haven't got much to spare, but..." I hold the bottle out to her. "It's yours if you want it."

  Slowly, cautiously, she takes the bottle and unscrews the lid, before taking a few sips. It's almost as if she suspects that I'm planning to hurt her, but I guess the past few days have probably taught her to be cautious. After all, it's kind of a miracle that anyone got out of that city, especially with people like Bob wandering around.

  "You should probably save some," I continue, as Dawn finishes the last of the water. "Like I said, I don't really have any to spare."

  She drops the plastic bottle.

  "No!" I say, stepping forward and picking the bottle back up. I brush dirt from the neck before taking the lid back from Dawn and screwing it back on. "I'm saving these," I tell her. "I brought a funnel with me, and when it rains, I'm gonna try to refill it. I figure rain water's okay to drink. I mean, if rain water's poisoned, then we're all just completely screwed, right?"

  After carefully putting the empty bottle back in my bag, I turn to Dawn and see that she's still just staring at me. I swear, it's as if she's doesn't really understand what I'm saying.

  "You're in shock, huh?" I ask. "That's okay. I think I am too, but in a different kind of way. I'm heading toward Lake Ontario. It's, like, four hundred miles north or north-west. I don't have a map, but there are loads of street signs, and I think I have to just kind of follow the road to Chicago for a while." I wait for a reply, but she's still just staring at me. "I figure I can walk thirty miles a day," I continue, hoping to eventually prompt some kind of reaction, "so it's gonna take me the best part of a month, when you add in time to stop and get some supplies, and maybe the road isn't totally straight, and I might get lost. I'm hoping to catch up to some other people, but I'm not sure..." My voice trails off as I realize that Dawn doesn't seem to understand what I'm telling her.

  I sigh, trying to work out what I should do next.

  "You're welcome to come with me," I continue, "but I have to get going." The truth is, although I want to stay and help this girl, I know I don't have the luxury of time, and I can't put myself in extra danger just to help someone who doesn't seem to even really know that I'm here. "Okay, so I'm gonna start walking now," I tell her. "If you want to come, just follow me, okay?"

  With that, I turn and start walking along the grass, before climbing over the metal barrier and resuming my journey along the road. There was definitely something pretty weird about that Dawn girl, even if I couldn't quite work out what was wrong with her, but while I'd like to have someone with me, I guess that maybe she'd just hold me back. I keep walking until finally I stop and turn, and to my surprise I see that Dawn is stumbling along, about twenty meters behind me, having apparently followed me up onto the road. She stops when she sees that I've stopped, and she clearly doesn't want to walk right next to me, but it seems that she's decided to come with me, at least for now. Turning, I keep going, and although it feels weird to know that there's someone walking behind me, I figure that maybe it'll work out. I mean, she has to start talking eventually.

  Thomas

  Missouri

  "Joe!" I shout as I climb out of the truck and hurry around to the back. Having driven all night, barely able to even make out the road in the light of the moon, I've finally decided to stop now that the sun's coming up. I'm running on pure adrenalin as I lift the tarpaulin and see, to my horror, that Joe's a bloodied, motionless mess.

  I stand in silence.

  "Joe?" I say cautiously.

  No response.

  I'm not ready to give up just yet. Sure, it looks bad, but there has to be help somewhere around here. All during the night, I was convinced that we'd eventually find someone or something, but there's been nothing but mile after mile of empty road. About an hour ago, we passed a street sign that welcomed us to Missouri, but I just kept my foot down because I figured there was a chance that maybe, outside of Oklahoma, things might be better.

  "Joe?" I say again. Reaching out, I place a hand on his shoulder. "Please don't be dead," I continue. "Please don't -"

  Suddenly he moves. It's not much, but it's enough to let me know that he's alive. A faint groan comes from his lips, and although he's clearly still unconscious, I can't help but be overjoyed at the realization that he survived the night. I guess the tourniquets I tied around his wounds must have at least helped slightly. Climbing up onto the back of the truck, I reach down and place two fingers against his wrist, and I can just about make out a faint pulse. He's alive, but he's still in a bad way, and I still need to get us some help.

  "Can you hear me?" I ask, looking down at his blood-stained face. "Joe, are you there?"

  He groans again, which I guess is a good sign. After all, the groan seemed to be a response to what I said to him.

  "Okay," I continue, "I don't know if you can understand what I'm saying, but we're in Missouri. We drove all night. I don't really know what happened back there, but something was totally wrong in Scottsville. There were these things, and they nearly... I pause as I realize how dumb the whole thing sounds. Then again, I know it's all true. I can still remember the look on Clyde's face when he thought he'd got us cornered. "I had to get
us out of there," I continue, "and then there was this really loud boom, and then this guy with a feather."

  I sit in silence for a moment.

  "I meant to head west," I say eventually. "I don't know how we ended up going east. I guess I'm not very good at navigation, but I did my best. Anyway, east isn't so bad, is it? At least we're headed toward Washington. Maybe that's where they're gonna start putting things right and fixing this mess, huh? Do you think, Joe? Is that the best place to go?" I wait for him to reply, desperately hoping that somehow he might wake up and help me. Right now, I have no idea what to do. I've never been out of Oklahoma before, and I have no idea whether going to Washington would actually be useful. Maybe, instead, we should just hunker down somewhere and hope that the world gets sorted out.

  I wait.

  "Joe?" I ask.

  Silence.

  My biggest fear over the past day has been that he might just die suddenly, without any warning. The truth is, Joe's injuries are probably way worse than I've accepted, and I figure there's going to come a time when I'll have to make a decision. That time isn't here yet, though, and for now I have to focus on keeping him alive. I need to stay strong. If I allow myself to become weak, even for a moment, I might lose my brother forever.

  He groans.

  Leaning closer, I see that one entire side of his upper chest has been badly damaged, crushed by the car that collapsed directly on top of him. The heavy bleeding seems to have stopped, but it's clear that he's not going to simply heal up. The fact that he's even alive at all right now, in a way, seems like a miracle. The damage must have affected his lungs, maybe even his heart, and he's been steadily losing blood for twenty-four hours. It's getting to the point that I'm not even sure if a fully-equipped hospital would be able to do much for him.

  "We're going to keep driving," I say eventually. "We have to get to some place eventually, right? Somewhere we can find help? All we have to do is just stay strong. Can you do that, Joe? Can you just hold on for a few more hours?"

  I wait for a reply.

  Silence.

  "Shit!" I mutter, realizing that things are getting desperate. "You have to stay alive!" I shout eventually, even though I know it's not going to help. "You can't die! Everyone else died, Joe! You're the only one left! Do you hear me?" For a moment, I'm filled with anger as I contemplate the possibility that my brother might finally bail on me, just like the rest of my family. The thought of being left alone in the world is too much to bear. After all, the only person who might possibly still be alive is Martha, but she's back in California. For a moment, it occurs to me that maybe I should turn the truck around and head back west. If I can find Martha, she'd know what to do. She'd have to help.

  Joe groans, but it's not even clear whether he's conscious.

  "We're going east," I say finally. "There's no argument. We'll go east until we find someone who can help, and maybe we'll eventually end up in Washington, but at some point we have to run into someone. Maybe the army's already helping out. They're gonna help Washington and New York first, aren't they? Then they'll start heading this way. If we head toward them, we'll find them sooner." I take a deep breath as I realize that this plan, although it's somewhat insane, is better than just sitting around doing nothing. It's our only chance.

  Climbing down from the back of the truck, I hurry to the driver's cab and get back inside. By the time I've got the engine running again, I've managed to put aside my doubts. This plan is going to work. We are going to get help, and Joe is going to survive. Any other outcome is just too terrifying to even think about right now. The world might be in a mess, but it's not going to end.

  Elizabeth

  New York

  The back of the plane is all burned out, so it's hard to make out the name of the airline company, but the front end is relatively unscathed. The problem is, it's right across the road, and taking a route around the edge is going to be difficult since the gaps between the roads out here are getting increasingly overgrown. It's as if someone intentionally dropped the thing right in the middle of the road, with the specific aim of stopping people from getting past. Sighing, I stand and stare at the downed plane, and finally I turn to look back at Dawn, who has stopped about ten meters behind me.

  "What do you think?" I ask.

  She stares at me.

  "No thoughts, huh?" I reply, before turning to look at the plane. I've seen other planes in the distance since I left Manhattan, but they all seem to have burned after they hit the ground. I don't know why this one is mostly intact, but since we're quite close to the airport, I figure that maybe it had barely left the ground when the trouble hit. With the main fuselage tilted to one side, I can see that the landing gear is sticking out, but although I'm not too keen on going any closer, I figure that if the fuel tanks were going to explode, it would have happened by now. The fire seems to be out, at least, and now the plane is just a vast monument to the world that existed before all this craziness happened. It's only been just over a week, but already it seems hard to believe that humans were ever able to get such huge machines into the air. I wonder if there's anyone left alive who knows how to fly one of these things.

  "We're gonna go around the front," I say, hoping that Dawn can hear me. It's weird to be taking charge like this, but it's not as if Dawn seems to have much of an opinion on anything. "We're just gonna get past this thing, and keep going, okay?" I turn to her, but of course she's still just staring blankly at me. "All you have to do is follow," I continue. "Think you can do that?"

  No reply.

  "Of course you can," I mutter, turning back to the plane and finally starting to walk over to the side of the road.

  Climbing over the barrier isn't the difficult part. The difficult part is getting down the grass verge that leads to the trench that runs between the roads. The last thing I can afford is to get any kind of injury, so I make my way very carefully down the side of the embankment until, finally, I'm in the shoulder-high grass that runs along the bottom. Looking up, I see the nose of the plane looming above me, and I'm careful not to look too closely at the cockpit windows, just in case I might spot something I'd rather not see. After all, there are probably a hundred or more dead bodies in there, and they've had eight full days to fester.

  Looking back, I see that Dawn is slowly making her way down after me.

  "Good girl," I say, figuring that she's basically following me like a dog.

  Although the grass is long, it's not too hard to walk through, and soon we're both past the plane. Figuring that I'd rather be up on the road, I start climbing back up the side and eventually I haul myself over the barrier.

  "Jesus!" I shout, almost falling straight back down as I see that there's a dead body just a few meters away. I steady myself, but I can't take my eyes off the corpse. It looks like a guy, face down on the tarmac, with a whole load of flies buzzing in the air above him, and what appears to be a piece of shrapnel in his back, as if he was felled by some flying debris. I can't see his face, but one of his arms is stretched out, the skin looking discolored and with something crawling through the flesh. I guess the flies and maggots have well and truly got to him, but at least he's not like the guy back in the city, who seemed to be alive despite the fact that his body was dead. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to remember that this is unlikely to be the last dead body I encounter during this journey. Still, it brings back memories of the scene back at the apartment building when I was kneeling next to Henry.

  Turning, I see that Dawn has reached the barrier. As she climbs over to join me, she seems totally unfazed by the dead body, and instead she simply stands next to me, as if she's waiting for me to lead the way again. Damn it, I wish she'd actually talk to me. It'd be good to have someone I could talk to about these things, but she just seems totally blank, as if there's barely a thought in her head. I guess this is her way of dealing with what's happened, and hopefully she'll emerge from her sense of shock eventually.

  "It's okay," I say, s
tepping past the corpse. "Let's just keep going."

  As I walk away, I find it hard to believe that I'm able to deal with all of this. I should be breaking down in tears, but instead I'm managing to keep everything under control. I guess the tears and the sobbing will come later, when I can afford to relax, but for now -

  Suddenly I stop dead in my tracks as I hear a dull banging sound nearby. Turning, I see that Dawn has also stopped, but the banging sound is continuing and after a moment I realize that it's coming from inside the downed plane. I stare up at the windows along the side of the fuselage, but there's no doubt: someone's in there, banging on the metal and trying to get our attention. It's a chilling though to imagine someone in the plane, staring out through one of the little windows and looking straight at us.

  "Leave it," I say to Dawn. "We can't rescue them. We..." I pause as I spot movement in one of the dark little windows. It's impossible to make out the person's features, but they've clearly seen us, and now the banging is becoming increasingly furious, almost manic.

  I take a deep breath. What if this was the plane my parents were on? As a cold shiver passes through my body, I remember that my mother called from the airport, which means that she and my father were already off the plane. Allowing myself to relax, I try to remind myself that there's no point torturing myself unnecessarily by trying to imagine everything that could possibly have happened to them. They're gone. I accept that now, and it's time to move on. I just have to keep going.

  "There can't be a survivor," I continue eventually. "It's been more than a week. Even if they had enough food, the disease from the other bodies." I pause to imagine what it would be like to end up trapped in a long metal tube with scores of corpses. Finally, I realize that although it might technically be possible that someone survived for this long, the more likely explanation is that it's another of the creatures that Henry and I saw in the car. After all, a survivor would probably have been able to open the door or find some other way out of the plane, whereas the creature seemed unable to even open the car door. Whatever they are, they don't seem too smart, so I guess this is just another of them, banging on the inside of the plane in a vain attempt to get out. I'd like to think that I won't encounter any more of them, but I know that's a forlorn hope. At some point, I'm going to have to work out what to do, but right now I just need to focus on getting to Lake Ontario. Maybe Mallory and the others have some ideas.