by L. T. Vargus
I looked down at her. She had blue eyes and perfect little hands. Her skin was a glowing, translucent pink, smooth as silk.
“Goddamn it,” I said as I rocked back and forth, wondering what the hell we were going to do with a baby.
“What the hell are we going to do with a baby?”
“Feed it. Burp it. Change her diapers,” Marcus said.
“Oh, like it’s just that simple.”
“Look, Marissa says she’s seen tons of formula around town, so we’ve got that covered.”
“For now. What happens when she starts eating real food?”
“If the garden goes as well as it has been, if Izzy keeps catching fish—”
“If, if, if,” I said.
Marcus handed the scoop of formula off to Marissa and came around to rest his hands on my shoulders.
“Erin, relax. We’ll make it work. We always do. I know it’s an extra mouth to feed, but—”
“Whoa! Where’d the baby come from?”
I turned and found Izzy standing in the doorway, eyes wide with wonder.
“I thought I told you to wait outside,” I said.
“I did. And then nothing happened, so I figured it was all clear.”
I scoffed and spun to face Marcus, looking for backup.
“You know, she used to listen to me.”
Marcus wasn’t paying attention to me, though. His eyes were locked on a spot somewhere over my shoulder.
“Uh… Erin?”
“What?”
He stuck out a finger, pointing in the direction of the doorway.
“Who’s that?”
I glanced over my shoulder, saw Cameron hovering a few inches behind Izzy.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “About that extra mouth to feed…”
Jeremiah
Rural Maryland
10 years, 45 days after
I kept still for a long time after the two Crusaders took my gun, sprawled out face up. Presumed dead.
The shock kept me numb. Held me in arms so cold I couldn’t feel them or anything else.
I think I wasn’t real for a while. Not all the way.
And the visions replayed in my head. Blood. Guts. Holes bored into human skulls. Legs removed from bodies by sprays of metal balls fired out of claymores, blasting out like buckshot from a shotgun.
There were voices in the distance for a while. Jubilant talk. Laughing. The sounds of victory, I guess.
Time now to drink and be merry. To dance over the corpses. Hooray. Hooray. What a fucking delight.
But the voices fade in time. The cackling beings moved on. And that left only the dead for companionship. Not a very talkative bunch.
When it got close to dark, I got up. Took just two items from my ruck and left the rest. Crept toward the heart of the carnage.
The bodies lay everywhere. The color of their skin standing out among the green of the ferns and grasses and weeds.
I stripped the plainclothes off one of the Crusaders. Tattered cargo shorts and a red t-shirt.
It felt strange to drop my uniform. Leave it. Trade it for some strange clothes unlike my own. But it was necessary.
I had to become someone else now. Someone new.
I jogged as far as I could get before the real dark settled in. Maybe a mile, but I doubt it.
And I slept on the ground. In the dead leaves.
The cold of the earth leached the heat from my body. And the chill of the dark descended. A heavy cold. Wet. I shivered all through the night.
When the morning came, I walked on. Still shaking at first. I found a stream and drank water from my cupped hands for a long time.
Then I sat down just away from the muddy banks, and I pulled out the only two items I salvaged from my bag: the notebook and the pen.
And here I am.
So there. It’s all out now.
I wrote this shit down, and I can leave this notebook here. Leave these events here. Leave all these people here to rot. Leave myself here, too. Become someone else.
I’m taking the pen, though. It’s a good pen. And so long as I have it, maybe I’ll have something to write. Something to say. And I’ll be all right.
When I look back on it, I have only one lesson learned: Survival is the only thing that’s real.
I might be a coward, but I’m still here. I’m still alive. I have no regrets.
And, of course, none of this means anything.
The Scattered and the Dead
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- The Scattered and the Dead series -
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Book 0.5
Book 1
Book 1.5
Book 2
Book 2.5
Book 2.6
Book 3 coming soon!
- More Books by Tim McBain & L.T. Vargus -
The Violet Darger series
Casting Shadows Everywhere
The Clowns
The Awake in the Dark series
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- About the Authors -
Tim McBain writes because life is short, and he wants to make something awesome before he dies. Additionally, he likes to move it, move it.
You can connect with Tim on Twitter at @realtimmcbain or via email at [email protected].
L.T. Vargus grew up in Hell, Michigan, which is a lot smaller, quieter, and less fiery than one might imagine. When not click-clacking away at the keyboard, she can be found sewing, fantasizing about food, and rotting her brain in front of the TV.
If you want to wax poetic about pizza or cats, you can contact L.T. (the L is for Lex) at [email protected] or on Twitter @ltvargus.
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