Ophelia

by Briana Rain

  I noticed that I was farthest away from our escape vehicle. I also noticed that some water bottles were left behind, ranging from full to empty. I felt how far away I was from the car when I had the urge to go and retrieve those bottles. I noticed that this was a horrible idea, and as the menacing engine sounded closer, I decided to leave the bottles and move my rear towards our escape vehicle.

  I slid in next to Clyde in the backseat, slammed the door, and braced myself for when my mother gunned it.

  Clyde, however, hadn’t yet adapted to this far too common occurrence of speeding away from danger, probably because he'd always sat where I was now, and not the the open, middle seat. He didn't brace himself and was smashed backward while trying to rearrange the blanket under his seat.

  Harrison laughed at him.

  I almost did, too, but managed to keep it down to just a smile.

  Chapter 30: Complaints

  Driving. Driving. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot!

  Driving.

  And as anybody who's been on a road trip will tell you, being cooped up with a lot of people in close quarters isn’t ideal. Thinking about it, the alternative was also definitely not ideal, with, you know, that whole zombie thing going on outside.

  Inside these four doors, however, I was met with a number of annoyances that were slowly but surely, making me the poster child for the phrase, stir crazy.

  Like, I was sitting next to Clyde, right? Well, Clyde isn't a small guy. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder, and shoulder to door. A minor inconvenience compared to being on the outside, unprotected, I suppose. Also: I didn’t believe that Clyde has had the luxury of a shower since this whole thing started. Maybe even longer than that.

  Viola and Puck had also spent a solid hour or two earlier today fighting. They shoved each other and loathed the fact that, somehow, they had ended up sharing the same seat. Although Mom probably liked keeping an eye on them, their voices protesting the situation did not help with my never ending headache. Getting grandmas right hook also didn't help with my headache. Clyde’s smell, the near constant shrieking in the distance, Harrison’s snoring, and not being able to sleep because I had spent the entire day doing just that…

  They all contributed to this headache and I just—

  Stir crazy. Absolutely stir crazy.

  I was irritated. Pessimistic. Cranky. We drove for half the night and “rested” the other half. I'd gotten more injuries than I could count and they were all catching up to me at once. All of the sudden, I wished I could be working on in-text citations for one of Mrs. Kirks essays. I felt like crying, but at the same time I felt too tired to cry.

  And my face hurt.

  Actually, my everything hurt.

  Chapter 31: French

  As soon as those first rays of dawn peaked through the thick layer of leaves overhead, I booked it. I had already silently maneuvered my arm into the back of the car and plucked the roll of toilet paper from the pile of bags and supplies. I held it in my lap, along with my bat between my knees. I all but sprinted away from the Jeep after expertly closing the door without a sound.

  From there, however, I made as much noise as I possibly could for someone trying to not make noise. The dead twigs and such on the ground were breaking, snapping, and crunching beneath my boots, making approximately as much noise as a small bomb would.

  The fear was real.

  After it was all said and done, and I poured way too much hand sanitizer on my hands after the cap fell off, I crept back, much quieter now that I wasn't in so much of a rush. I tried my luck with Clyde’s crisscross walk, but no such luck was bestowed upon my feet. After a minute of walking slow as all heck, like an idiot, I gave up, and decided on walking like a somewhat normal person to cover the remaining distance to the vehicle.

  I thought about what I would do when I got there, whether I’d wait and sit outside, or get back into the stir crazy machine. Vulnerability versus protection. Sanity versus insanity. Fresh air or Clyde’s B.O. Shrieking in the near distance or Harrison’s snoring, and shrieking in the near distance.

  “Hello?”

  Unknown and possibly hostile person in the woods versus my family and others.

  No brainer.

  Except, it wasn't as easy as that. Although safety was in sight, I didn't have the courage to go after it. It was like when I was younger and playing hide and seek, or cops and robbers, or whatever version of that game, and I was hidden in a place where I couldn't see the seeker, or the cop, but I could hear them approaching. Hear them closing in. I knew that I would be caught if I stayed, and that my best chance was to book it while I could still get the jump on them… but there was still that little voice in the back corner of your mind that whispered, “maybe if I stay still, they won't find me”.

  That little voice had taken over, officially, and met with a small amount of resistance. The more I stood here, the more time I had to think about how loud the dead brush snapped beneath my worn soles and, my god, was it terrifying.

  I had almost started crouching down to make myself smaller, and therefore less easier to spot, but the second I moved to do it, my foot shifted, and along with that two millimeter shift came the sound of a delicately stacked pile of twigs tumbling over and falling down.

  “Hello?”

  The voice, which was a strange one, came from behind me, far too close for comfort. Actually, within a mile would’ve been too close for comfort. I heard leaves crunching, way too many leaves for just two shoes.

  I did either a stupid thing, or a smart thing, or just the human thing, and I booked it. Boy, did I run. I could've been mistaken for a track star.

  “Wait!”

  Distances. They were too far. I could see the car, but it was farther than I thought it was. The voice, a man’s, wasn't as far as I thought.

  Oh, boy.

  Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun

  I ran so much and was in so much of a panic, as I imagined how most people would react in this situation, that I ran into the side of the Jeep.

  Are you kidding me? The sun isn't even up yet and this is already happening???

  Great.

  Just great.

  Thankfully, my face did not absorb the impact this time. No, that was meant for every other part of my body. With grace and poise, I scrambled up and launched myself into the car, landing within my seat and not at all shoving a startled Clyde. And since I did not slightly tackle Clyde, he did not in turn smash a drowsy Harrison into the door opposite of mine.

  “There's someone out there. Drive!” I screamed, being that morning alarm that everyone hates. Only, I don't think that I said, “There's someone out there. Drive,” it was probably more along the lines of, “eressomoneoutererive,” really fast, and really loud.

  It was… unfortunate. To say the least.

  What was even more unfortunate, however, was when the body belonging to the mysterious and frightening voice appeared in the headlights of the car. He slammed his palms onto the hood, stopping it. Of course we were going to stop. We weren’t monsters.

  Not yet.

  The man appeared ragged, desperate, and, above all, hungry. His face, which had been developing for around thirty or forty years, looked worn. His eyes were sunken in, and everything seemed hollow.

  I started regretting my decision to agree with stopping for him, because at this point, he looked nothing but crazy and infected, but at the last second, two kids ran to the illumination of the headlights, both directly going for behind his legs, to hide.

  They couldn't have been older than Lucky and Vi, that boy and that girl. The only difference was that we were inside, and they were out.

  “Please. Please, help us.” The man pleaded.

  He had an accent, which explained why he sounded weird to me earlier. I think it was French, which was a bit odd, since we were in the middle of the woods somewhere in the middle of Montana.

  Mom turned the car off.

  “What if they're infected?”
It was a harsh, cold, loud whisper that came from the woman behind me that made me feel like a receiver of a slap to the face. The slap of reality and truth.

  “They're kids, Ads.” Clyde said.

  I was suddenly reminded that Clyde and Addeline were siblings. They glared at each other, weighing one thing against the other. Pros and cons, cons and pros. Risk and rewards. Where our groups morals stood. Collectively, of course.

  Apparently, our morals were still in a good place, and this widespread disaster had not yet plummeted our morals straight into the depths of hell.

  Not yet.

  Mom rolled down the window. Slightly.

  “Step back.”

  They did.

  My mother swung out her pistol and put the bullet in the firing chamber, making that chic-chic sound. Then she stood outside the car, smartly using the door as both a shield and a place to rest her gun, and addressed them, all the while aiming the gun at the man.

  “What do you want?” She asked.

  The man moved to better cover (presumably) his children, his arms hugged them closer together behind him. The girl was dressed in torn pajamas. She clenched a small doll, much like Vi’s bunny, and had two braided pigtails that were falling out, proof that whatever she’d encountered over these past two weeks… wasn't pleasant.

  “Please. We haven't seen anybody else since this started. We've been running and running and you— you— you are the first person we've seen who isn't infected. Please don't send us away.” The man, who was definitely French, pleaded with my mother. Both children were shaking and the girl was crying.

  The boy, who was also in sleepwear, also started crying when Clyde stood up on the seat next to me and stuck his head, and rifle, out of the sunroof. Harrison followed my moms lead and stepped out of the car, handgun drawn. I followed Harrison and also stepped out, cowering behind the open door, with my poor excuse of a gun in hand. We were an army. A machine. No words, but synchronized work.

  I would cry, too, if I had to be at the mercy of us. We looked tough as heck.

  The passenger door in front of me started to creep open. Many thoughts of dread entered my mind. Many. So, I reached in and pulled on whichever twin was nearest to the door, aka: the stupidest one. No freaking way were they going to be in this standoff thing, especially with no firepower, and definitely not if they couldn’t see above the door. I'd already witnessed one sibling get shot, and I was definitely not going through that again. I refused to.

  “We brought back your bottles. The ones from the water tower.” The man shakily reached into the boy’s backpack and offered four empty water bottles to my mom, the ones that I decided on not going back for. Now, with the absence of conversation from our side, fear was visible in the grown man. His jaw quivered, his voice and hands shook, and there may or may not have been tears in his eyes.

  I would shake too. If the situation was reversed, I would be so, so terrified. I wouldn't know what to do.

  “Lower your weapons, guys,” Mom said. “And you can keep those.” She nodded at the empty bottles.

  “I think… I think it's time for breakfast.” She added.

  Finally. Finally, finally, finally.

  Because, oh my god, was I starving.

  Mom broke out the protein/granola bar boxes, and the last candy bar for Vi and Lucky to split. Instead of being broken in half, four pieces went around to every “kid”. Mom was incredibly strict when it came to touching the others, as in, we couldn't. We didn't know where they'd been, what they'd come into contact with, or who (ahem, the infected).

  Harrison and James brought out a half-empty smaller jar of peanut butter to the table (there was no physical table, for the record). It went somewhat well with the granola bars.

  While we were all sitting on fallen tree trunks and logs, as the ground was too wet, I noticed that Clyde took one of his two bars, and gave it to Addeline. He slipped the other into a pocket in his bag when he thought no one was looking. He thought no one was looking because I, who was looking, saw him look around to make sure that no one was looking at him. He did take a bit of the granola bar that he gave to his sister and eat his rationed scoop of peanut butter, which was good. After that, he was left to munching on some jerky that he “found at the bottom of his bag”, according to Addeline.

  Ew.

  The Frenchman, Jude, and his two children, Jackie and Wilson, didn't have anything. Even when they filled and refilled and refilled those bottles, they couldn't help but drink it. They were so hungry, and without weapons, surviving this far in the apocalypse had proved to be so much more than a challenge. He was scared to leave his kids, and they were in fact his children, to go out and find supplies because he first time he did that, his wife was with them. She had somehow, in some way, gotten infected, and when he returned, he found his children trapped on the roof, with Crazy heavily resembling his wife clawing at them through a half open window, and his wife mysteriously missing.

  The matter was dealt with, but the damage done couldn't be.

  On a dirt bike, they continued from there, heading west. Coast to coast. Maine to California. Their home to their hope. They’d heard, miraculously, all the way from Maine, about “safe” boats. Word spreads slowly in the apocalypse, and, in my opinion, a magical floating vessel of safety with no Crazies sounds like crazy. James actually laughed when Jude shared his plans and his destination. To be honest, I, myself, was also on the verge of chuckles. It did seem a bit impractical, going from coast to coast with no supplies, two children, who were eight and nine, and a beat up dirt bike with no gas. But, whatever. They at least had hope.

  It was harder to understand this guy, the more he talked. Eventually, the food was gone, even for the slowest of chewers. I had yet to hear the new kids speak, but, then again, I hadn’t said much either. The silence may or may not have been because felt guilt and stupid for running away from this seemingly friendly and somewhat jolly man, but it also could've been from my whacked-out sleep schedule.

  Boy, did I miss my bed.

  Eventually, the break was shut down by my mother, who gave the French group a minimum amount of gas while Clyde filled up the Jeep with the remainder of the fuel we had in the trunk. Another grown man and two more kids couldn't fit in a Jeep that already had eight bodies in it.

  And off we went with the same seating arrangement as before, me crammed between Clyde and the door, my knees aching, my head pounding, and everything in between hurting.

  At least I’d had something to eat.

  We drove. We drove in silence, with not much to say, and not much energy to say it. Clyde still smelled. I still felt tired. The explosive whine of the engine tailing us, the same one that caused us to flee the water tower, did wonders for my head, as anyone could imagine.

  I tried looking out the window about ten minutes in, hoping that the scenery would help distract me, but alas, there was a fire nearby, either in an unseen town or lost deep in the trees, and gave just as much as it took from the land in the form of smoke in the sky and ashes as far as the wind could carry them. An unwanted gift, if you asked me.

  “Mommy, can you tell us about Washington?” Ah! Just in time! A distraction from the jarring silence! Celebrations.

  Mom glanced at Viola, and at the others through the rearview mirror. I knew her. She was deciding. Washington and the details of what awaited us there was valuable, delicate information. Information that could keep us alive.

  Information people would kill for.

  I mean, a place where, after being thrown into this overwhelming mess of a situation, promised safety, food, and water? Sign every living, non-infected person still on this earth up. I guess I got where Jude was coming from, with the whole dragging the remainder of his family across the country on the hope of these things. The only difference between Jude and Juliet was that Washington was #confirmed, while the ships were just a rumor.

  “My friend lives there. He'll be able to help us. We'll be safe there.” She briefly explaine
d after a sigh, and after a pause, she added, “All of us.”

  I looked at Clyde to see his reaction to the confirmation that his future with this group was secured. Because, let's face it, without Clyde, we would all be dead at this point of the apocalypse.

  He was looking back at his sister hopefully, while she was glaring at him, shaking her head.

  I… don't think she wanted to stay with the group.

  But, why wouldn't she? Why wouldn't she want to be in the safety of a trustworthy group like us? Why?

  Or… I was just speculating.

  James and Harrison, however, were all smiles. Enthusiastic, over the top, bright, radiant smiles. I could feel the joy from here.

  “How many kids are going to be there?” Vi asked.

  The question took away the brothers smiles just as quickly as they appeared. It sobered them up. The joy receded.

  They were thinking about Marcus for sure.

  “I don't know, sweetie. We'll all just have to wait and see.”

  Vi seemed satisfied with that answer, and didn't find the need to ask anymore questions, so the car quickly fell victim to silence yet again. If Vi and Lucky weren't here, or were asleep, there would have been some sort of discussion. Pros, cons, and statistics being thrown around. How much food did we have left? Water? Medical supplies? Should we let these new people stay? What do we know about the virus? Was it a virus? Bacteria? Fungus? How did it spread? What was the grace period between initial infection and “turning”? How did it work?

  We knew that skin to bodily fluid contact is out. And scratches.

  Well, at least Clyde and I knew that. There hasn't been enough time to tell the others that.

  Eventually, we were going to find out. And I was afraid that it would be the hard way. Someone would slip up, because it only took one time, one second, and we'd know from their mistake.

  All of this thinking… it really tired me out. Like, emotionally. That, combined with the silence, and Clyde’s hotness— warmness, warm like a space heater, I mean— really, really made me tired, so I rested my head against the door, watched the snow-like ash drift and swirl in the wind, and, eventually, fell asleep.