* * * *
The sun begins to rise. I’m at the ruinous train station again, about to go back through the town of death. The train tracks have brought me back the way I came, and now I’m utterly alone.
Except for the shadow, of course. It’s been walking beside me the whole way. It’s the only companion I have left.
I sit down on the edge of the cracked platform, staring into the distance, watching the fragments of sunrise that flitter in the air, and wondering.
What am I looking for out here? Am I still chasing after Claire?
She’s dead. Dead and gone.
The shadow hovers overhead, waiting for something.
You should have just let those marauders kill you, Lionel.
He’s right. There’s nothing to live for.
I reach into my coat, and grasp the handle of my gun. I pull it out and contemplate it. It’s served me well out here. It’s saved my life more than once, and Claire’s as well.
It’s been a true friend.
I think back, and reflect on the days that have passed. I remember the gun’s owner. The one from whom the endless winter took everything.
“He didn’t use it to defend himself,” Claire’s voice echoes, in the depths of my mind.
What happens if there truly is nothing out here? What happens if I never find what I’m looking for?
I check to make sure there’s a bullet in the chamber. I put the gun to the side of my head, and rest my finger on the trigger.
The shadow looks on, waiting.
Go on, do it. No use going on like this. You don’t want to turn into a monster, do you? Remember the incident last night. All that blood…Don’t want something like that to happen again, am I right?
I close my eyes, take one last deep breath, and start to pull the trigger.
I get about halfway before stopping, and lowering the weapon.
Damn it. I can’t do it.
Self-preservation, murmurs the shadow, beside me. What a concept, huh?
What a concept, indeed.
I’ve no choice but to keep going.
I stand up, and look into the horizon. The sun has finished rising. It’s a new day. I’ve lost track by now of what date it is, but does it really matter? The point is that life goes on.
I put the revolver back into my coat, and reach for the photograph of Claire. I unfold it and hold it up to the sun. I smile at her. She smiles back at me.
I jump down onto the tracks and start walking through the snow.
There has to be something out there, somewhere.
Not giving up hope? teases the shadow. Disappointing.
I can’t give up hope. If I have no choice but to keep living in this place, it’s the only thing I can hold onto. Everything I hoped for is out there, beyond the sun bleached winter.
Somewhere, humanity still lives.
Somewhere, someday, I’ll find Claire again.
In the back of my mind, I think I can hear a girl’s voice calling. I look up, towards the horizon. Just as I do, I catch sight of someone waving at me, before disappearing over a small hill. There’s a flash of brown hair.
“Are you coming, Lionel?” I seem to hear, barely audible.
She’s out there, somewhere.
I’ve found a reason to go on living.
What are you thinking about? prompts the shadow, standing beside me. What are you going to do now?
“Go away,” I tell the shadow, starting to walk along the road. “I don’t need you anymore.”
Epilogue
Countless months later. I don’t know exactly how long it’s been since I’ve written in this notebook. Long, long ago, a lifetime ago, perhaps. I haven’t felt like it since we left New City, but I feel like it now.
We’ve come such a long way, since I last wrote. The story had an unhappy ending, but I’ve had to deal with that and move on. Life out here never ends. It just goes on and on, and I have no choice but to try and make the best of it.
Jessica Riley, Thomas Morrow, and New City are just memories now. They’re miles behind me, thousands and thousands of steps away, buried under the freezing snow. All that is long gone. Where we are now, I don’t know, but I hope that one day we’ll reach the end of all of this, the place where the snow melts and the green takes over. The place where life and death, and good and evil are clearly defined, neatly separated, just like it used to be.
We passed through some hills yesterday. That’s when I realized something: Life finds a way, and humanity adapts. The world we live in has become harsh, violent, unforgiving, and so have we. It’s only natural order, self-preservation. That’s all it is. We’ve only become monsters because we have to.
The story of the old world is over. A new story begins.
* * * *
Morning. A new day. Probably sometime in August. We put the steep hills behind us and soon we’re travelling through a flat plain, where there’s more dirt than frost and the rare tuft of grass shoots up into the dusty air. The trees become less dense until they too are left behind, save for the occasional fallen logs scattered across the landscape, just slightly more numerous than the patches of greenery.
As we descend into a small valley, four loud cracks ring out in the distance. Somewhere beyond it, a man’s faint cry sails on the wind, only just louder than the sound of our footsteps in the thinning snow.
“What was that?” Claire asks, stopping and looking around.
“Nothing. Keep walking.”
“But you heard that, didn’t you?”
“We can’t do anything about it.”
“You don’t know that.”
I sigh, and beckon for her to catch up.
We travel further and further, losing track of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Eventually we come onto a highway, cracked and bleached by years of neglect. We pass a burnt-out service station, where several skeletons, charred black, slump over the steering wheels of rusted cars. The paint on the structure has long since peeled, and through the broken window, I can see only empty, looted shelves. We keep going.
Half an hour later, as the sun begins to set on the horizon, we come to a derelict bus, parked lengthways across the road. More burnt, jagged shapes, more specters, watching from inside as we pass.
A young boy with a soiled face sits forlornly on the stairs extending out from the door.
As I draw near, he reaches out to me with his right hand.
“Please…please…My parents are gone.”
As I pass him, I shoot him a disinterested glance. He’s young, not much older than the children at that farmhouse, back on the other side of Time.
“Please, stop! Help me,” he sobs.
I turn to Claire. She stands motionless, saying nothing.
“I can’t help you, kid,” I say, as I continue walking. “There’s nothing left out here. Only monsters.”
“Please don’t go!” he cries in desperation from behind me. “Don’t leave me on my own! If you leave me here, we’ll both be alone!”
Am I alone?
I turn my head to my left to look at Claire. At first, I don’t see her there, but then I look forward again and see that she’s run ahead. She’s standing in front of me, silent still, watching me carefully.
She’s waiting for me.
I smile at her, and put the lost boy out of my mind.
I keep walking.
About the Author:
D. Robert Grixti is a speculative and horror fiction author and indie video game developer hailing from Melbourne, Australia. His influences, like all aspiring writers of dark fiction, include Stephen King, H.P Lovecraft and John Wyndham. He writes because he likes telling stories. In his writing, he tries to blend elements of literary a
nd genre fiction together, because he believes a good story should both entertain and provoke thought.
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