The First 400 Days (Book 1): We Are What Remain

by Taja Kartio

  I tried not to think about the fact that this used to be someone's home. It bothered me too but what choice did we have? We couldn't sleep in a car every night. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up having to leave this house eventually anyway.

  I didn't really have comforting words, "I think this is how we'll be living for awhile."

  "What? Picking out a nice house and deciding, 'That's where we'll be staying tonight!'?"

  Well yeah, "Haven't you ever watched The Walking Dead? That's basically what they did."

  Alex lifted his chin and casted a look at me, "That's a TV show."

  "Well, then we're in it. The zombies aren't quite the same but it's basically the same situation."

  He couldn't disagree with that statement, "So... then what's the plan?"

  "Plan?"

  "Ya. Like what's the plan for the rest our lives?"

  I tilted my head, "Don't you think that's a little broad?"

  He shrugged, "Maybe, but I don't see this whole zombie thing ending anytime during our existence."

  I dropped my chin onto my palms, "I can tell you're a real optimistic."

  Alex gave me a look, "You going to tell me you think that this whole thing could just end?"

  I shook my head, "I never said anything like that. I'd just like to think that our entire lives won't be filled with crazy people and... and crazy people eating everyone who isn't a crazy person. I'd like to think that one day we could live normally again. It would be nice to see a car drive by every now and then, you know? It's kind of like we're the only ones left alive in the entire world."

  Alex chuckled in a disbelief, "I think that you're living in a dream Dani. You've watched movies and all TV shows and read all those stories about some kind of fictional apocalypse... It doesn't even have to be a zombie related thing like the one we're in, it could be anything! But have you ever gone through one of those stories and watched the world return to normal? Have any of those stories ended with a happily ever after and all the main characters just went back to their old jobs as teachers and police officers and sit in a cube at the office all day before coming home to their kids?"

  What was with this all of sudden? I sighed and shook my head.

  "Exactly! Those kinds of stories never end like that! And even if this whole thing somehow magically blew over and all the Infected disappeared for good, nothing would ever be the same again. There's already been too much destruction and too many people have died. Society would never be able to recover from something like this because too much damage has already been done. Half the world is in the midst of their own war and who will we depend on to help us anyway? The National Guard? They're screwed! We all are! We probably haven't seen the worst of it either! We've probably barely scratched the surface of how bad our situation is right now," Alex's fire dimmed and his back leaned against the counter, his eyes on the floor, "And I think it's only going to get so much worse."

  Everything he was saying made sense and I wasn't going to deny that I had thought the same thoughts at some point but I had only been trying to be an optimist to make Alex feel better, even if it had only been slightly. Now listening to his thoughts out loud, I was sure I made him feel worse.

  "At least there's no taxes to deal with now?" I had only been silent for a few moments before I tried to horribly lighten the mood, "No home mortgages and bank loans. I won't worry about college tuitions and student debt or anything."

  Alex didn't reply but he acknowledged the statement with a nod and the ghost of a smile.

  A silence met the room again and this time for a long period of time. We both sat there in the kitchen in a long train of distant thoughts. I watched Alex as he was so deep in thought that his brows twitched, furrowing periodically.

  Then I spoke, "If you want a plan for the rest our lives than just stick with surviving,”

  Alex cringed at the word itself.

  "Go day by day. I don't like what's going on any more than you do but it's not like we get to pick what big catastrophe hits all of humanity, ya know?"

  Alex agreed solemnly, "Ya."

  The conversation ended as there was a crash upstairs, like glass against the flooring. I pushed the stool aside and sprinted to the source of the noise with Alex not two steps behind me. The landing at the top of the stairs was large enough to be its own mini living room. There was a leather L-shaped couch and a flat screen on the wall across from it. Beside the TV was a tall end table. Kale stood beside this table staring at the floor where large shards of glass laid in a five-foot radius.

  "Way to go genius," Beckett held an annoyed look on his brother.

  "It was halfway off the table before we got here," Kale gave back incredulously.

  "Well," Beckett ignored Kale's excuses and turned to Alex and I instead, "There's no Infected here so we may as well take this place for the keeping. We should probably unload the car real quick."

  "We have separate rooms right?" Alex asked, eyeing the few extra bedroom doors behind him.

  I glanced at my brothers, suddenly feeling a little anxiety about the answer to the question.

  Kale shrugged, "If you want your own room be my guest, but I think us three will camp out here."

  I relaxed. I was hoping he'd say that.

  Alex shrugged, half in agreement and half in slight confusion, "Fine with me I guess."

  It wasn't like there was much to unload from the car. I mean, we had a few things from the gas station but none of us had felt like stopping elsewhere for anything after. I didn't even have extra clothes that fit me so after raiding every drawer and closet in the bedrooms, I was stuck with oversized sweatpants and a raggy shirt.

  I told Kale and Beckett I would be quick before slipping into the master bathroom. The door shut behind me with a soft click as it latched to the doorframe. I thought the shower would prove to be a nice getaway. I wasn't completely off guard but the initial edge was clear as I knew my brothers were close by and the foreign house we stood in was clear of Infected hostilities. I was thankful Beckett and I had grabbed plenty of shampoo and conditioner from that gas station and I was super glad to have warm water on my skin, to rid myself of the grime and dry blood. It almost felt like I was a new canvas, ready to start new.

  Almost.

  Nineteen

  The room was dark but I knew where I was in a second. The Infected laid beneath me in ruins with a caved-in skull. Even in the moonlight, I could see the gory features. And the blood, it was everywhere. On the Infected, on the floor, on me. Especially on me.

  There was so much blood.

  It was fresh, still warm, spilling freely down my cheeks and neck, dripping at my fingertips. My clothes were doused in scarlet and there was a strong metallic taste on my tongue.

  What?

  I jumped back, somehow struggling to get off the Infected I knew I'd killed. I slipped on more blood as I got to my feet and my breathing rate had increased dramatically during the entire process. When I did stand, I found myself at the foot of the bed where I should have seen the self-murdered family of three but with the angle of the light, only a third of the bed was visible and the only portion of any being I could actually see were small curled up legs.

  What was going on? I'd been here before but it had been lighter. Why was I here again? Surely this wasn't real. My brothers, Alex, and I drove miles away from this place so sleepwalking was out of the question... So how did I get here?

  And where were Kale and Beckett?

  There was a shift in the room. Somehow I could feel the movement. I turned back to the bed after breaking out of a confused and dazed muse, and I swore I got a hard punch to the gut. Those tiny legs were gone. Like they'd never been there. They had just been there, hadn't they?

  Before I could think about it too much, there was a moan, like an acute crying. It came from the corner of the room but I couldn't see where exactly in the draped darkness, I just knew what it was. It was an Infected and I was face to face with it. The moment I took a step
back, I realized my mistake. I barely had time to blink, let alone jump out of the way or do anything in means to protect myself. Cold hands wrapped around my neck and my back slammed down onto the hardwood floor. There was a screaming in my ear and a foul smelling odor that seized all sensations. Blackness began to creep into the corner of vision and I could feel my eyes beginning to roll into the back of skull. I waited for the end and felt no will to keep fighting as I knew my time was near but then something unexpected happen.

  All pains disappeared although I still saw nothing but blackness. A voice was whispering in my ear and I felt something shaking my subsistence, I couldn't quite explain what it was but I felt movement.

  "Dani. Dani, wake up!"

  And then there was a bit of light. Not as much as I had seen before in the room but enough to see the overly large figure in front of me. I wasn't exactly sure what it was at first so the outlined shadow frightened me.

  "Hey! It's okay! It's just me."

  "What happened?" The voice that left me quivered.

  "You were starting to thrash around a little bit. Were you having a bad dream?" Kale's hand left my shoulder. He must have shook me to wake me up.

  The room had been so real. The Infected who attacked me had been so genuine and the blood that had covered my body had been so certain. I had almost just died, hadn't I? Yet, here I was. I was safe and sound beside my brother. We were in the house we'd decided to reside in for the time being. I was okay.

  "Ya. It was..." I began before dropping my head onto the pillow, ducking down into the fabric and softness as deeply as I could, "It was just a dream."

  "You want to talk about it?" There was worry in his voice.

  I'm okay. I'm okay.

  "No."

  Twenty

  I woke up to a variety of soft noises, voices included, they sounded close yet somehow far off,

  "You've been into Farmer Maggot's crops!"

  "Dunno why he's so upset. It's only a couple of carrots."

  "And some cabbages. And those few bags of potatoes we lifted last week, and those mushrooms the week before!"

  I cracked an eye open. The TV was on and behind me, Kale was chuckling.

  "You guys are watching Lord of the Rings?" I slurred in a large yawn.

  "Right now it's just me. Beckett is showering," There was a movement and my brother was on the floor beside me. His back was up against the couch, "How're you feeling?"

  I shrugged. I could have used another couple days of sleep but I knew my mind wouldn't allow me that luxury. Not right now at least.

  "You got a few hours of sleep for sure but you were kind of in and out," Kale added.

  I glanced at him, "How would you know that?"

  "Well, I was sleeping next to you."

  "Did I keep you up?"

  "A little," He said honestly, "There were a few times you started getting a little violent. You kicked me in the side pretty hard at one time."

  I cringed guiltily and Kale caught that.

  "Were you dreaming about what happened at the gas station?"

  I nodded numbingly, "That obvious, huh?"

  "Well, you've had trouble sleeping before but not this badly."

  The first two nights of the apocalypse were nearly sleepless for all of us. When we had no idea what was going on and our town was in complete chaos. Our house was two blocks from downtown Litchfield but we could hear everything. All the Infected and all the cries of the townspeople and all the noises in between were clearly heard. I'd had restless nights before the apocalypse as well but I didn't think that was very relevant to bring up right now.

  "What really happened Dani?" My brother asked me.

  "I've told you."

  "No. You really didn't."

  I'll admit that I'd been very imprecise with the explanation of what had happened to me after Beckett told me to run away from that Holiday. I obviously had a run-in with Infected but I never specified how many or how exactly I was able to keep myself alive. I never told my brothers where exactly I held myself up during the attack and I didn't tell them about the dead family in the bedroom. When I found my brothers, I think I was still in a state of shock so they let me off the hook but now, I knew Kale was going to nag me until I cracked and spilled out every detail, especially since I was having some stupid nightmares about the whole thing.

  "I don't want to talk about it, Kale."

  "Tough. We're going to talk about it right now."

  Oh, now he was forcing me to talk about it. That was rich.

  With my arms crisscrossed on my pillow, I laid on my stomach and rested my chin on the back of my forearms, facing the couch and avoiding any potential eye contact with Kale.

  With the silence that followed, I thought maybe he would just give it up but that hope vanished when I heard him sigh.

  "D... I know you don't want to talk about it, I get it. I do. This whole thing's a mess. Zombies and the apocalypse and what-not, but... you came back covered in blood. You had a gun from God knows where and a piece of broken wood that was just as covered in blood as you were. Now you're barely sleeping because of it,"

  I didn't answer.

  "You're not in this by yourself and I know you think-"

  "But you guys weren't there. I was by myself," There was a long beat. I had him on the line with that one, "I know we're all here for each other and I know we're going to have each others backs no matter what because that's what we do and that's what we've been doing our entire lives but... what happened was just me. You and Beckett weren't there and I think that's going to happen a lot because we can't be glued to each other 24/7."

  "We could be."

  I rolled my eyes, "We could lock ourselves in a room and never leave too."

  "See? Problem solved!"

  "My point is that no matter what we do, we can't stop anything from happening. We're all going to get screwed in the end."

  Another silence. He was probably wondering why I was acting like such a debbie downer. Maybe he was wondering where I had gotten this mindset from. I wondered that too.

  "I think you've watched too many zombie movies," Kale sounded a little amused and for some reason, that amusement crawled under my skin.

  I turned onto my side, "And how do all those movies usually end up?”

  He gave me a look, "This isn't a movie Dani. This is reality and Hollywood is rarely even close to reality."

  "Really."

  "Yes. When do you ever see the girl riding off with her true love into the sunset and having a happily ever after? That never happens because Hollywood doesn't ever come close to what reality is like. You get what I'm saying?"

  What? "That's completely unrelated to what we're talking about."

  "But you get what I'm saying right?"

  "No. That didn't make any sense."

  There was a short beat of silence before Kale spoke again, "So... what happened to you?"

  I dropped my head back onto my pillow, "I don't want to talk about it, Kale. Jesus. Get off my back about it."

  "You can't keep it bottled up."

  I felt my eyes roll again, "It's been like a day."

  "Exactly! And look at you! You're insanely pessimistic now."

  I turned to him, "No, I'm not!"

  My brother's voice dropped in a tone that mimicked my words earlier, "We're all going to get screwed in the end."

  I glared at him, "That doesn't even sound like me."

  He sniffed and shrugged, "Look. Something really bad happened and you're not sleeping over it. You haven't done anything like this since Mom and Dad, and it's only been a night. What if this goes on? What if you get worse?

  I raised my head again. Mom and Dad are never mentioned. Their names are never brought up in conversation and they're a subject that is avoided at all costs, and Kale just said their names like it was nothing.

  "I won't get that bad. Not again," I said slowly.

  "You don't know that."

  What did he know? They're my nig
htmares about an experience I had.

  "If I tell you, will you leave me the hell alone?" I said it more harshly than I intended to but I was sure that Kale would get the memo.

  "No. I wouldn't," I was surprised he answered at all let alone the fact that he ignored my annoyed inflection. I watched my brother carefully. He kept his composure, steady yet a little uneasy. His eyes were off somewhere else but I wasn't sure if he was staring at anything in particular. His frown was just as downcasted as his eyes, "I think I'd be worse. I think that after you do tell me, I'll be more worried than I was before because you're right, I wasn't there for you and whatever happened to you, it happened to you when you were by yourself. You probably almost died and where was I? I was arguing with Beckett in front of a fucking gas station."

  I'd been having these moments lately where I just feel like a complete idiot. I hadn't put Kale's mindset into consideration and I had been making it more about me. I felt a punch to my gut.

  "I'm sorry," I muttered faultily.

  He shook his head, a small smile forming at my apology, "There's no reason for you to be sorry kiddo. I didn't like it but I understand why Beck told you to run. It's a brotherly instinct in a way. I don't think it was the best decision at the time but I'm pretty sure I would have done the same thing under the circumstances. We were under attack and the only thing we could get through our mind was that you needed to be out of harm's way, but we both forgot that you couldn't just run to a neighbor's house and ask for help, we just threw you into an even worse situation."

  That was a heartthrob.

  "Are you telling me you're admitting you were wrong?"

  My brother turned to me in the driest way possible, "Really Dani. I'm trying to be sappy and sentimental and you're just going to reply with sarcasm?"

  "It's kind of odd listening to you be sappy and sentimental. You always used to say you were never wrong."

  "Well," Kale turned away with an exaggerated frown, "now you'll never hear me like that again because you completely ruined the moment."