Resilient

by Toni Cox

  We pass herds of animals on our way home; and not just cows and sheep. We see zebras and antelope and ostrich — Morgan barks when a Kudu crosses the road in front of us.

  Hunter opens the gate when we get home, and we park the cars. The horses have lost weight, but they’re fine thanks to the fact they always had fresh water and grass to graze on.

  The drive took it out of me; I can’t believe how weak I still am. Hunter seems fine, but he says they only took a little of his marrow; it was a small op compared to what they did to me.

  For a few days, he lets me do nothing but rest. He looks after the horses, cleans the house, cooks food, and does everything he can to make me comfortable.

  I become stronger with each passing day. Hunter says it’s my bone marrow regenerating and producing fresh blood. The doctor explained it to him.

  Within a week, I can’t take it anymore.

  “Enough,” I shout, throwing a pillow at him, and climbing out of bed.

  He just laughs.

  “You cannot keep me confined forever,” I protest. “I’ll go mad.”

  He comes over and takes me in his arms.

  “What would you like to do?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, honestly. “Let’s explore.”

  He grins, wiggling his eyebrows at me, and I smack him on the arm.

  “Explore outside,” I say, turning the subject away from the bedroom.

  The threat of the Primals has almost passed. When the researchers tested those that attacked us at the communications building, they discovered that they were already dying. Peter thought their aggressive behaviour towards us was a last attempt to save themselves.

  Now, two weeks later, the Primals at the army base that escaped the initial killing have died of their own accord. On our drive home, we saw several just lying by the wayside. Their time is over.

  “Alright,” Hunter says.

  We kit up and get into the Rover. With no destination in mind, we drive around aimlessly, stopping here and there to stock up on supplies.

  There might be no Primals around to bother us, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Once, we encounter feral dogs. Morgan almost gets into a fight, and I almost get bitten before we manage to get back into the car.

  Driving down an overgrown road, we come across a kill. Three jackals are squabbling over whatever they’ve caught, and we have to drive around them to continue.

  On our way back home, something black covers the entire road in front of us. We approach slowly, unsure of what it is. When we get there, a flock of ravens erupts into the air, darkening the sky.

  The city is changing, and if we are to survive, we’ll have to change with it.

  Chapter 20

  We drive to the air force base in Pretoria once a week for updates from England. Hunter isn’t happy with the arrangement, though, and is systematically disassembling the equipment so we can take it home with us.

  When we got our first update from Andrew, we were shocked to find out that the entire British army consists of just twenty-seven people, thirteen of which came on the mission to South Africa.

  Bronwyn fills us in on other titbits; the prime minister is alive, they have three doctors and seven scientists, and a total of twenty-one civilians.

  The British population has been reduced to just sixty people, plus Andrew and Bronwyn. It makes us wonder how many people out of the almost eight billion people on Earth survived.

  “They are distributing the cure now,” Bronwyn tells us three weeks after they left. “The people here can’t wait to get out of their suits. They are ill, have sores, and they look terrible. I can’t even begin to describe it to you.”

  Bronwyn looks disgusted, and I can only imagine what it must be like to live in a HazMat suit for months on end. Urgh. How do they use the toilet?

  “The prime minister has ordered the army to keep looking for survivors. Apparently, they’ve already made contact with a small camp in Germany. They will probably send a team there to deliver the cure,” Andrew says.

  I’m glad that whatever makes Hunter and me different is helping people overseas. Still, I can’t believe we are the only ones immune, or resilient, as the scientists call it now.

  Today, we take the last piece of equipment from the air force base. The next time we broadcast will be from our home. I help Hunter lug the heavy items to the Rover, and we say a final farewell to the place we hope never to see again.

  It’s been five months since World War III - for that is what it was - and the last of the Primals have disappeared. Their reign was short-lived, and we’re glad for it.

  We’re by no means at the top of the food chain, however, and Hunter and I need to be more and more careful when we go out. This is Africa, after all.

  “We’re running out of space in the garden,” Hunter says when we get home. “The horses have overgrazed the lawn, and I’m struggling to keep them out of the vegetable patch.”

  “I know, but what can we do about it?”

  He shrugs and gives me that cheeky, crooked grin of his. “I think we’ll appropriate the neighbours’ properties.”

  I grin back at him. He’s right, of course. Although we still have the option of shopping at the malls, that food source will not last forever. Most of the products expire within two years.

  Our best option for the long run is to be self-sufficient. I started this by planting the vegetable garden and harnessing the rainwater, but I never thought an entire lifetime ahead. I always hoped I would one day be rescued. Now I know this is going to be my life. It’s Hunter and me, together forever, in a city that will soon be swallowed by an Africa as it used to be; wild, dangerous, and beautiful.

  While Hunter gets busy installing the communication equipment, I check out the property to our left. This area of Bedfordview is where the millionaires used to live, so the houses are huge, and most have big gardens.

  As expected, it will make an ideal place to keep the horses, especially as we can turn the four-car garage into their stable.

  Going into the house, I discover the pitiful remains of its owners. Hunter will have to help me bury them later. For now, I take the car keys and move the cars out of the garage to make space for the horses.

  The rest of the day is spent moving the hay and horse feed over, but the horses settle well in the new environment.

  “We’ll break through the boundary wall tomorrow, so we don’t have to go out onto the road every time,” Hunter says as I make dinner. “It will be safer.”

  I nod, chopping the onion I found in the garden earlier.

  “This is going to be tough, Erika. Are you still sure you made the right decision?”

  I look up. His handsome face is creased with worry. I drop the knife on the chopping board and come around the table.

  “I know what I signed up for,” I tell him, taking his hand. “As long as you’re with me, I can do this. There isn’t a place I’d rather be.”

  He pulls me close and kisses me. It’s so easy between us; I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him.

  “Alright,” he says, “I suppose we have our work cut out for us, then.”

  He’s smiling, though, and I know he is looking forward to it as much as I am.

  We’ve been working around the houses all day - three are connected and utilised now - and missed the incoming communication from London. We see the blinking light when we enter the main house and immediately dial back.

  “Hey, Erika,” Bronwyn says, and I can hear she sounds tearful.

  “Bronwyn, what’s wrong?”

  “They’ve found two more Resilient. One in Norway and one in Poland.”

  “That’s great news,” I say, wondering why she’s upset.

  “Yeah, it is. They’ve done more research, too. Turns out, all those not resilient and given the cure, are not able to have children.”

  “Oh,” I say. Shit, my heart bleeds for her. “I’m so sorry, Bronwyn.”

  “Only
the Resilient can still bear children, so it is up to them to repopulate the Earth. They have intensified their search, hoping to find more.”

  I can hear the unspoken order; no doubt Captain Connor is standing behind her in the communications room. Make babies, repopulate the Earth. I grind my teeth.

  As if on cue, Connor’s voice sounds through the speaker. “We would like you to be the official base for South Africa,” he says. “We have our hands full looking for survivors this side of the equator right now, so we need you two to provide shelter for any you come across. Do regular searches across the country, find the survivors, and bring them in. It is crucial to our existence.”

  Hunter and I look at each other. In this country, survival itself is a challenge. Going out across the country looking for others may just be suicide.

  “Copy that, Captain,” Hunter says before we disconnect the connection. “Shit,” he says once the lights on the device go dark.

  “How are we going to do that? We can’t just leave everything here. This is our future. If we don’t build this up, we won’t have anything to live off.”

  “We’ll make it work,” he says. “We can spend four days at home, and three days on the road. We’ll be able to check the whole of Gauteng this way. Then, if we do find survivors, they’ll be able to look after the house when we go on longer trips to the other provinces.”

  It’s a good plan, and I nod. I’m not happy about it, but it needs to be done. If there are people out there, we’ll find them.

  The heavy summer downpours have not only washed sand and debris onto the roads but also caused the vegetation to grow wild. Most roads are almost impassable as we make our way across Johannesburg.

  I’m glad we have the Rover as we drive over small sand banks and around rocks. Morgan shares the back seat with our provisions, his entire head stuck out of the window, tongue handing out.

  The trunk is packed with jerry cans full of petrol, which should last us the three days we plan to be out. If not, then we have the pipe, and the hand pump we now use to pump petrol from the underground storage of the petrol stations.

  Hunter found a map of our province - Gauteng - and divided it into sections for us to search. Although I wasn’t altogether for this idea to begin with, I must admit I am quite excited about the adventure now.

  We stick to Hunter’s schedule - four days at home, three days on the road - and we cover a lot of ground that way. In the process, we also investigate new shopping malls and stores, and stock up on items we can no longer get in our area.

  It’s our second month out on the road, and we’re down south, in the area around Vereeniging, when Morgan suddenly runs off while we’re looking at a hardware store.

  “Morgan!” I shout, and run, Hunter behind me.

  We catch up to him just around the corner of the building. He is growling at a black man wielding a staff to protect himself.

  Sipho is the first of the Resilient we find. His story is one of hardship and horror, but he made it. He has joined us now, becoming one of the founding members of the South African Genesis Project.

  The Resilient are hard to find, but they are out there. We have to travel further every day to be successful. Sometimes, we go for weeks without finding anyone.

  All the while, Africa is claiming back what humans took from her. Animals that were confined to tiny nature reserves are now roaming free across the country, and it is the strangest sight to see an elephant walking down the highway to what used to be the airport.

  “The Genesis Project is doing well,” Connor says during one of our reports. “We now have a base in India, with five people. Germany has seventeen. Contact to Australia is intermittent, but they have at least eleven. Here, one couple is already pregnant.”

  He sounds proud as if he is the father.

  “We’re getting there,” Hunter says. “Sipho is helping us search, while the other two stay at the house. We’ll be away for a while now, as we’re going down to the Cape. It will take us a couple of weeks.”

  “You’re doing a great job. The survival of humankind rests on the shoulders of the Resilient. I trust you to find them.”

  Great, I think, no pressure.

  Hunter laughs silently before terminating the connection.

  “Quite the speech,” he says.

  “It will take a long time to repopulate the Earth with just over one hundred people. I doubt Connor will live long enough to see it.”

  I’m surprised to hear sadness in my voice. It really hits me that everyone is dead. Nearly eight billion people wiped out. We’re almost extinct.

  I struggle with myself; mourning the loss of life yet rejoicing for the second chance the planet received in the process. I see the changes around me every day. It’s as if Earth can breathe for the first time in a century. Bronwyn says the same is happening in Europe. Everything is coming back to life.

  During our journeys across the country, we come across the aftereffects of World War III. Along the N1 highway down to the Cape, there are still cars and trucks whose occupants are gradually turning to dust in their vehicles.

  Mostly, though, all we see is new life. Herds of antelope graze on the vast plains; buffalo walk along a riverbed; zebras gallop along the grassed-over highway.

  It’s a long trip to the Cape, and we stop at all the towns along the way. In the little town of Beaufort West, we pick up a thirteen-year-old girl called Shireen. She’s feisty, and I’m not surprised she survived.

  We spend two weeks driving around the Cape, and another week just around the city of Cape Town. I’m glad we decided to go, for not only did I get to see Table Mountain, but we also found Helen, Johan, and Agnes.

  We’re a two-car convoy on our way back, feeling accomplished. Things are by no means easy, but they are rewarding.

  It’s now a year since I first met Hunter. Everything I have ever known has changed, but so have I.

  We have built a small community around my parents’ house in Bedfordview. We’ve fenced in an entire block of houses and knocked down all the boundary walls.

  Almost every house now has occupants, and what used to be gardens are now vegetable patches. The horses, of which there are five, are still on the property next to us. We also have three dogs and two cats.

  We don’t stop looking for the Resilient, but we take shifts, which gives Hunter and me more time to be at home together. Genesis in London is in constant contact, exchanging progress reports.

  “We have news,” Andrew says during one of our communications.

  “Good or bad,” I ask.

  “Well,” he hesitates, “we’ve just been informed that the cure won’t last forever.”

  “What?”

  “It’s given us about ten to fifteen years, but no more than that. Our bodies will not be able to fight the virus longer, not even with the cure.”

  Oh, God, not Bronwyn. I cry. Hunter drapes his arm around. Everything was going great; we were making such good progress. Why this?

  “They have another ten to fifteen years,” Hunter says later. “We’ve given them a chance to live.”

  I snuggle into him. He’s right, of course, but it doesn’t fill the hollowness within my chest. The realisation that we needed the others - the non-resilient - to rebuild our society makes me feel terribly guilty. I cannot shake the feeling that we used them.

  “Come,” Hunter says.

  “Where are we going?”

  He takes me by the hand, and we go to the stables. Hunter has learned to ride over the last year, and Button is now his horse. I mount Oliver, and we ride out of the gate.

  It’s late, almost sunset; we don’t usually go out at this time of the evening. Hunter leads the way up Fisher’s Hill. When we get to the top, he stops, and we look out over the overgrown city below us.

  The sunset is magnificent; golden oranges and yellows, tinged with fiery reds. A sunset as only Africa can produce.

  Hunter’s leg bumps into me as the horses shift, and I glance in hi
s direction. There is a glow in his eyes, and he holds out his hand. I take it, and smile at him.

  “This is us, Erika. You and me, and Africa.”

  Life is slowly coming back together; this time for the better, I think.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Germany in 1976, Toni Cox moved to South Africa in 1991. Although she has spent much of her working career in the timber wholesale business, she is also an accomplished horse rider, has a diploma in project management, photography, and nutrition, and has a passion for books and all things fantasy.

  From a young age, her dream had always been to put her imagination into words - give the stories life. When she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2013, she decided life is too short not to follow her dream. So, with the support of her husband and three children, she began writing book 1 of the Elemental Trilogy in January 2015.

  Toni Cox writes: Epic Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy, Sci-Fi Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Dystopian Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, and PNR.

  The Elemental Trilogy

  Elemental Rising

  Elemental Betrayal

  Forbidden Elemental

  The Elemental Short Stories

  On Fire

  Midnight Tales

  Jasmine In Love

  Luke

  The Playing With Fire Box Set

  Follow Toni Cox here:

  Twitter: @tonicoxauthor

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  Website: www.tonicoxauthor.com

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  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ToniCoxAuthor

  Glossary of terms

  Liefie - My love