“You’re right,” she said, calming herself down. “We’re almost there. We can’t know what happened to them until we go see for ourselves.”
The woman took her husband’s hand. “What are your guys’ names? If we’re gonna be sharing this place for the night, we might as well get to know each other a little bit. I’m sure you guys are still a little on edge.”
“I’m Rowan.”
“And I’m Lorena.”
“I’m Karen, and my husband’s name is Amani.”
The man wiped his hands on his jeans. “It’s nice to meet you guys. We haven’t run into too many friendly people out there. It’s nice to feel humanized, even if it’s just for a single night.”
“I agree,” said Rowan. “It’s a bit surreal. I was beginning to think that we wouldn’t find anyone else like us out here.”
Karen nodded. “There aren’t many.”
“And what about you guys? Where did you come from?”
“Santa Cruz. We’ve come a long way.”
“How’d you get here so quickly?”
“We got a tip from someone on the road a long while back,” said Amani. “The 101 is almost completely safe from Goleta up until Pismo Beach, although I suspect that won’t be true for long because of all the people over here roaming about. If you guys leave tomorrow, you’ll most likely have a clear path for nearly a hundred miles.”
“There’s no way it’s safe for that long,” said Rowan. “Are you sure?”
Amani reached into his backpack and tossed a pack of beef jerky at Rowan and a can of almonds at Lorena. “I’m sure. I’ve got no reason to lie.”
“What’s this for?”
“A sign of good will, I guess. We’ve got plenty to last us, so don’t bother trying to give us anything in return.”
Taking her husband’s cue, Karen opened up her own backpack. She pulled out three water bottles and some assorted food items: crackers, sunflower seeds, raisins, and protein bars. She handed them over to the malnourished children, to which Lorena waved her hand in disapproval.
“You’re giving us too much,” she said.
“We really do have enough to get us back home,” said Amani. “We’re almost to our destination, anyway. Please take it all.”
Rowan examined the pile of supplies laid out in front of him. Lorena was right—it was too much. This meant that Karen and Amani were capable people, didn’t it? He looked at Lorena, who had begun to place some of the items into her backpack.
“Take care of her,” said Rowan.
“What?” asked Karen.
“Please, take care of Lorena. You guys seem like you could keep her safe.”
Karen opened her mouth to protest, but Rowan interrupted her. “I can’t keep her safe for much longer. I don’t have what it takes.”
Rowan hated himself. There was nothing that he could do better than Karen and Amani, so he knew that it would be best for them to take care of Lorena. If he were to continue onwards to San Jose with her, all that would happen would be failure after failure. He wasn’t cut out to help her. He wasn’t even sure if he was capable of making it back home. Even if he did make it back to San Jose, what would he do there? Would he even be able to help his parents or Caitlyn? He was wholly incompetent, and his inability to ensure Lorena’s safety was proof of that. If Karen and Amani were to agree with his plea, then he would know that at least one of his responsibilities would be taken care of successfully. He wouldn’t be a total failure.
“I’m sorry,” said Karen, rubbing her neck. “I don’t think that Amani and I can do that.”
“I’m an eighteen-year-old kid. I don’t know what I’m doing, who I should trust, and what I need to do when things go terribly wrong. I don’t know anything.”
“You—”
Rowan’s uneven breathing weighed him down. “You guys made it all the way down here from Santa Cruz, and you still have plenty of food. You’ve survived the infection, the walk, the people—”
“I want to help you guys. I really, really do.” Amani placed his hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “But Karen’s right. We can’t do what you’re asking of us. We’ve failed to protect people… that part of our story is something you don’t know. We might look like we’ve got our shit together and that we can handle everything that life throws at us, but that’s not who we are. We’re people who make mistakes—just like you.”
“Rowan… you’re not doing such a bad job,” said Lorena. “You’ve helped me. A lot.”
Rowan hadn’t even thought to ask Lorena how she felt about the situation. He was swallowed up by an intense guilt, as the girl’s forlorn expression and tender tone suggested that she was actually willing to stick with him in spite of his self-proclaimed shortcomings. Still, he didn’t feel like he had it in him to protect her and get back home at the same time. There was just too much that could go wrong.
“I just wanted to make sure you were in the best possible hands,” said Rowan.
“She is,” said Karen. “The fact that you feel that way is enough.”
Amani reached back into his bag and threw a can of corn at the boy. “I’m sorry, but we can’t spare much more food. This is the best we can do.”
“Don’t,” said Rowan. “You two have already done more than what was expected of you to do as good people.”
“Just take it. We’ll be fine without it. It’s just a can of corn to us. We have more.”
“Thank you,” said Lorena. “We’re really grateful.”
Amani smiled and laid a thick, green sweater down on the floor. “Listen, Karen and I really need to sleep so we have enough rest for tomorrow. You two should do the same. Leave as early as possible in the morning so you can get as much distance on the highway as you can while there’s still light out. Who knows how many of the sick folk have wandered on over there?”
“Who’s gonna keep watch for the night?” asked Rowan.
“We’ll be fine,” said Karen.
Rowan stood up and peered outside the window. “What are we supposed to do if someone just rushes in here and kills us all?”
“We’ll be safe,” said Amani. “Especially in a place like this. None of the infected have barged in here since you’ve gotten here, right? Plus, nobody would even dare to try coming here in the dead of night knowing that there are so many of those sick people outside. You’re welcome to stay awake if you’re paranoid, but as I said earlier, you should get some rest so you guys can travel as far as you can tomorrow.”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. I just wanna make sure that nobody followed you guys over here. It’s possible, you know?”
“Okay.” Amani yawned. “Suit yourself, then.”
Karen turned off the flashlight on the counter and lied down next to her husband. Rowan could no longer see if her eyes were closed—it was utterly black now and none of the moonlight made it inside of the store. He felt Lorena lay down beside him, though he couldn’t distinguish her breaths from the others. They were all equally quiet now.
After a few minutes, Rowan decided to finally lie down. There was something within him that always made him ignore advice, and he decided not to listen to that voice this time. Amani was right. He needed to rest if he wanted to get back home. He needed to put some trust into others. His own judgment wasn’t perfect, after all—it got him into a lot of trouble his whole life.
Before he slept, though, Rowan thought about how Caitlyn always used to tease him as a kid for needing a nightlight to go to bed; although, he always told her that he was still just as brave as she was because it did become completely dark for him as soon as he closed his eyes, and that meant he was kind of sleeping in complete darkness, too. They both knew that it wasn’t the same, though. The boy grabbed one of the flashlights and promptly went to sleep, knowing that tomorrow was near.
Rowan’s short slumber was ended by the sound of Lorena opening up her backpack. He sat up and stared at the dim light painted on the wall in front of him, where Karen and Amani’s belong
ings—and they themselves—were no longer sitting on the floor. The boy reached into his bag and pulled out some dry cereal, which he then offered to Lorena.
“I’m okay,” she said, opening up her can of almonds. She placed some of the nuts into her hand. “Do you want some of these?”
“I’m fine. But thanks.”
Lorena dropped one of the almonds back into the can and stared at it for a moment. “I’m sorry you’re responsible for keeping me safe. This should’ve never happened.”
Rowan turned to look at her, but he looked away at the sight of her mouth trembling. “Don’t be sorry for anything. I didn’t mean to make it seem like you’re a burden to me. You’re not. I just wanna make sure you’re safe. I’ll put it in another way that’s not so self-centered—we’re both going to keep each other safe. Thinking of it this way, it isn’t so much as a responsibility now, but it’s instead two friends helping each other out as best as they can.”
“That sounds better.”
“I’m sorry again.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s just been really tough for us lately. It’s making me think things I shouldn’t be thinking about.”
“Me too.”
Rowan took a piece of cereal and pushed it into his mouth. “But we’ll move past that stuff. We’re gonna keep going.”
When they finished their meager breakfast, Rowan led the way out the door. He motioned Lorena closer, warning her that it was still crowded down the street toward the highway. She took his hand and they slowly crouched outside, finding solace behind a newspaper stand.
“Okay,” said Rowan. “You see that guy on the sidewalk ahead?”
Lorena stretched out her neck and squinted down the street. “What do we do?”
“Let’s wait it out a bit. None of them can see us or sense us right now, and if we’re forced to fight him off, it’s likely they’ll all start chasing us down the entire highway, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to take care of them.”
“How long are we gonna be on the highway?”
“No idea. Amani said it’s safe for about a hundred miles or so. But we might have to get off earlier if we need supplies, and I don’t think we can get very far with what we have.”
“I hope it’s as safe as they were saying last night.”
Rowan nodded his head in agreement and redirected his gaze back at the road. Once the wandering man finally made his way around a corner, Rowan and Lorena dashed down the street as quietly as they possibly could.
When they finally made it to the highway, it was clear that Amani wasn’t lying. There wasn’t anyone in the area, and from what Rowan could tell, it was absolutely deserted.
“Let’s go,” said Rowan, sidling past a broken car.
Lorena followed him onto the on-ramp, where they made their way past abandoned vehicles and forsaken trash bags. It was odd seeing a large stretch of road with no people on it—or even moving vehicles for that matter. It just didn’t seem right anymore. Regardless, the peaceful morning slightly uplifted their mood. All they needed to worry about now was the tiresome walk ahead.
Rowan’s thoughts were soon consumed by the long, unending road in front of him. He felt exposed on every side, though he was periodically sheltered by the presence of large, fallen semi-trucks. The world seemed so big, and he felt so little—trees, homes, overpasses—they all made him ponder the futility of his journey. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. Pismo Beach was nearly a hundred miles away. He couldn’t even handle a hundred mile drive on the freeway, let alone a hundred mile walk. And even then, he and Lorena still wouldn’t be close to San Jose. They would barely be halfway there.
After a few hours, they decided to take a brief break. Rowan propped himself up onto the hood of a van, where he bent over to massage a deep cramp in his left calf. Lorena, after taking a peek into the driver’s seat of the van, sat next to Rowan and took her backpack off, which gave her some breathing room to stretch her arms backwards.
Rowan lied down onto the car’s windshield and stared at the sky. It was a cloudy afternoon, though he could still barely make out the outline of the sun through the grey veil. He remembered how Allie always used to tell him as a kid that he could go blind staring at the sun, though he never found out how long it would actually take for that to happen.
He averted his eyes away from the sky. Lorena was crushing a package of dried noodles beside him, and he watched her carefully pour a few flakes of the seasoning into the bag. She then tossed the rest of the seasoning onto the floor in front of her, which gave a bit of color to the faded road line below.
“You’re gonna eat those things plain?” asked Rowan.
“The one you made before was too salty.”
“This is seriously not gonna taste good.” Rowan took a piece from Lorena’s outstretched hand. “But it’s a good idea. There’s too much sodium in the seasoning anyway.”
“How is it?” she asked, watching Rowan place the chunk of dried noodles into his mouth.
“Pretty awful.”
Lorena took a bite out of her piece. She then hopped off of the van and grabbed the seasoning packet that was on the floor. “Yeah, I kind of regret throwing this on the ground.”
“It’s fine. Just leave that thing there. We’ll still finish the package. Slowly, but we’ll finish it. It’ll give us a bit more time to rest before walking again.”
Lorena sat back down on the van. “Do you think you’d be able to fix one of these cars up?”
“I mean, if any of these cars could be salvaged to work again, I wouldn’t even be able to do anything. I don’t know shit about cars. My dad never taught me, even though he was always tinkering with our cars all the time.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t know. Just didn’t wanna teach me, I guess. Or maybe I was always busy with other things, so he didn’t bother trying.”
“My dad didn’t know much about cars.”
“I’m sure he didn’t need to. We’ve got people to take care of our cars—people who know what they’re doing. Professionals are always better, aren’t they?”
“I guess so,” said Lorena. “There is one thing he was super good at, though. He was an awesome cook.”
“I’m sure that makes these dried noodles a whole lot worse, then.”
Lorena let out a little chuckle and took a big piece from the bag. “Split this one with me?”
The boy grabbed on the other end of the chunk and accidentally tore most of the piece off for himself. “Damn, you want some of this?”
“Nope. You can even have a little bit more of mine if you want.”
“No thanks,” said Rowan, staring at the lump in his hand. “I think I’m good.”
They laughed for a long while. It had been some time since the two of them had experienced such a luxury, and they were thankful. Joy hadn’t really been on either of their minds. In this brief moment of levity, Lorena forgot about the pain in her legs, which was enough to get her up and stretching and ready to keep moving.
“You’re still okay to keep going today, right?” asked Rowan.
“Of course. There’s a better place out there—and we have to get there.”
“All right. Round two, then. We’ve got a couple of hours left before the sun goes down.”
10
Rowan and Lorena spent much of the next day telling each other little vignettes of their childhood. Rowan mostly told her about all the things his mom would do for his family, such as saving up money for weeks to buy a board game for all of them to play together, or driving him and Allie to the park when they were children even though she had just gotten off of a twelve hour work shift. Lorena, too, talked about her parents, expressing how sweet their relationship was before the divorce. She always wanted a love just like theirs. They were always attentive to each other’s needs, always kissing each other hello and good bye, always laughing and smiling. It didn’t seem like anything would go wrong between them,
but it did, and her father never told her why. He said it didn’t matter what the reason was—they just didn’t love each other anymore, and that was that.
Lorena looked up at the clear sky above. “The moon is almost full, did you notice?”
“Yeah,” said Rowan. “I’ve been looking at it for a while now, actually.”
“You think we’ll catch it when it’s full? It’s been pretty cloudy lately.”
“Once we get to Pismo Beach tomorrow, we’ll see. If we’re going by what Amani said, that’s the last place along this highway that’s safe. If you want, we can try to get a good view somewhere there.”
Lorena’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. If it’s actually safe over there, then we’ll make the most of it.”
“I really hope it is.”
There was a sudden rumbling behind the vehicles ahead of them. Rowan pulled out his crowbar and tried to peer over the cars, but he couldn’t get a good look at anything. There were too many cars pushed against each other.
“Lorena, stay close, okay?”
“What was that?” she asked, taking out her knife.
“Could be an animal. Might be one of those sick people, though, so be careful.”
Rowan tapped the car next to him with his weapon in an attempt to lure out whatever it was that had made the commotion. The lack of a response almost made him believe that he and Lorena had just imagined the noise, but he knew that this wasn’t true. He had come to expect the worst at this point.
“You see anything?” he asked.
“No. There’s too much in the way.”
“They can’t be this quiet, can they? You’ve seen more of these infected people than I have. They’re always making some kind of noise, right?”
“I’m not sure. We really don’t know what everyone is like when they’re sick.” Lorena looked around to make sure that nobody had snuck up behind them. “Should we just run?”
Rowan looked ahead to map out a possible route. Even if they did try running, there were too many things in the way that would slow them down. “That won’t solve our problem. When I got chased back then, I almost got caught. We would still have to deal with this thing eventually, and it might be faster than us.”
Seasons After Fall Page 11
