After The End Read online

  Maybe we’re the ghosts?

  “Shall we look around?” Garlind suggests. I look around for River and Clare but they’ve already gone off on their own.

  I shake off the cold tingle creeping down my spine and plaster on a smile. “Sure. We’re here, we may as well look around a bit before we have to leave.”

  We amble around the park. I walk with my arms crossed over my chest and hope that will keep any bad spirits away. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched by a thousand eyes. Hopefully they all stay in the park when we leave and not follow us out.

  “Now that is cool,” Garlind exclaims as he points toward a carousel. Faded horses are frozen mid-gallop around in a circle. Black panels that were probably mirrors once sit in the middle. It was probably colorful and beautiful once.

  Once.

  Now, it’s eerie seeing them with their too-wide eyes and rearing legs. They don’t belong in this time with us. They should have been destroyed so they don’t have to be constantly waiting to move again.

  Garlind is as giddy as a child as he jumps up on the back of one of the horses and pretends to ride it. I’ve never seen him so playful before. “Giddyup! This is awesome. Imagine riding this when you were a little kid. It would have been the best.”

  I carefully climb up on the one next to him and picture what it would have been like. The colors come alive in my imagination and the horses’ expressions soften. It would have been kind of fun. Especially when I was a little girl. “It is pretty great. I wonder if it played any music as it went around?”

  “Probably. Everything had music, right?”

  “I don’t know. I guess? My dad used to listen to some songs in the bunker. He said they were the classics. I wasn’t too sure about them. I preferred the modern music, the ones just before the meteorite hit.”

  “I’d love to listen to music.”

  “You never have?” I ask, surprised. Although, I shouldn’t be. Not everyone had access to electricity after the world ended. We were luckier than most in the bunker.

  “No, never. My mom would sing to me sometimes. I guess that’s kind of the same.”

  “The ships will probably have music.” I say it to cheer him up but I also think it’s true. Hearing songs again will be nice. They’ll always remind me of my dad.

  “Probably,” he agrees.

  We’re lost in our own thoughts for some time after that. We don’t move off the horses, just sit there and think. The carousel could probably hold at least thirty kids. I wonder how long the ride went for? A few seconds, minutes, longer?

  It’s Garlind that breaks the silence. “We should wait until Clare is better before we try to leave again.”

  “I thought you wanted to leave as soon as possible?”

  “We can spare a few days. I don’t feel right leaving now. Do you?”

  “No, I don’t.” But I never thought he would feel that way too. “I’m happy to wait for as long as it takes for Clare to feel better. River shouldn’t be left to look after her alone.”

  “As soon as she’s better…”

  “We’ll leave,” I finish for him.

  “Do you—” Garlind never gets to finish.

  Clare’s scream fills the entire park with a piercing noise.

  Chapter 11

  Garlind and I take off in the direction of her scream. It’s not easy finding our way through the weeds and the stray rats. I almost step of a couple as they run across my path.

  We have to stick close together so neither of us get lost in our rush. I have no idea what could possibly have made Clare shriek like that but it had to be more than a rat. Maybe there are mutant animals here too? That half-elephant-half-beast thing could have migrated down here.

  She screams again and again before everything goes very quiet. We rush in her direction and hope something bad hasn’t happened. If she were having another fit, she wouldn’t be able to be so vocal. Has something happened to River? Is her illness catching and now he’s the one in trouble?

  A hundred million horrible scenarios play out in my mind as I run. This is exactly why we shouldn’t be so quick to split up. We can’t protect one another when we aren’t together. If something bad has happened, I’ll always regret not going with them.

  Rides blur past on both sides. Fallen signs and broken fences litter the ground and threaten to trip us up. We have to look both up and down at the same time so we don’t run into something. It’s frustrating as it slows us down.

  I spot two figures beyond a rotten wooden fence. They’ve made it to the ride beyond but are stopped. It takes me a moment to work out why.

  A group of people stand in front of them. They’re young—probably no older than us—and there is five of them. We’re outnumbered. And they have weapons. Some carry a knife if their hand, others various tools like a hammer or an axe. They aren’t here to make friends.

  But neither are we and we will fight with everything we have if it comes to it.

  Garlind and I approach from behind to stand with River and Clare. The others stare at us, unfazed by our sudden arrival. They know they’ve got the upper hand. Which means we don’t look intimidating at all.

  That doesn’t surprise me.

  “Leave your backpacks on the ground and get over to the fence,” the guy in the middle orders. He’s the tallest of them all with long, straggled hair. His coat looks like it’s a combination of several, or been patched so many times it’s practically a new one.

  “We’re not giving you anything,” River replies. He somehow manages to sound menacing, despite being on the probably-losing side of this fight. “Get out of here and nobody will get hurt.”

  The long-haired guy actually laughs. He’s not buying anything River is selling. “I’m going to say it for the last time: put your backpack down and get to the bloody fence!” He yells the last words, making me shrink inside.

  I want to move to the fence.

  My body is frozen.

  I’m absolutely as still as the air in the bunker while I wait for something to happen. I know it’s going to be bad, whatever it is. River and the long-haired guy stare at each other, unflinching. Only one side can win this fight and I don’t think it will happen peacefully.

  My gaze flickers to Garlind and I gauge what he’s thinking at the moment. He’s always the voice of reason with River, he speaks to his logical side. But right now, his hands are balled into fists and I don’t know what he’s thinking.

  “You’re going to regret that,” Long-Haired Guy says, finally breaking the silent cloud that hovers over us.

  River takes a breath and prepares to say something but he never gets the chance. The guys standing opposite us rush in our direction. They instantly attack with the weapons they have.

  Garlind steps in front of me and shields me from the first boy to reach us. He blocks his blow with his arm and knocks him off course. He veers to the left and stumbles forward. Garlind pushes him further until he falls to the ground.

  Everything else happens so fast I’m not really sure I believe what I’m seeing.

  Clare screams as a boy clocks her on the head with a wooden club. She falls to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  Garlind defends himself against the next guy that comes for us. The guy gets a blow to Garlind’s stomach before he stumbles backwards.

  I barely avoid a knife to my side as another boy lunges for me. I move at the last minute but he tries for a second time. It’s Garlind that pulls him off course as he spins around to attack him now too. I made a fist and throw my first punch ever into the boy’s side. I don’t think my blow even registers with him.

  Garlind manages to throw the boy off but there is another to take his place. And another. And another. There seems to be double the amount of them now and I can’t see a way out.

  Clare still lies on the ground—forgotten now she’s no longer considered a threat. Her chest is steadily moving up and down so at least I know she’s still breathing.

  I
only see River at the last minute.

  He plunges a knife into the stomach of his attacker.

  The long-haired guy clutches his side and staggers backwards. He was yelling so loudly before and now he’s not. He’s so quiet and his eyes are so wide open that it looks like he can’t believe what just happened.

  River grips the knife tightly as he stares at the guy.

  Others notice what I do. His friends come to his rescue and flank his side. They create a barrier all around him, protecting their leader.

  There is blood everywhere.

  I’m not entirely sure it can all belong to one person.

  Garlind steps in front of me again. I’m not sure if he’s protecting me from them or from seeing what is happening. I’m grateful for his concern either way, but I’m not a child. I emerged from the bunker to see what life is like out here and this is it. The whole awful truth of being outside.

  “We need to get him out of here,” one of the boys says. They don’t look so old or as menacing anymore. They’ve aged in reverse and have gone back to being little boys. Scared little boys.

  The long-haired guy collapses. They try to hold him up but all they can do is break his fall as he reaches the ground. His face is ashen white.

  He’s not going to survive this. The realization hits me hard. This boy was alive and strong. But now his blood coats the floor and his eyes are closed. His body is nothing more than a pile of bones on the muddy ground.

  One of the boys turns around as they start to leave. “This isn’t over. An eye for an eye.” He spits on the ground and stomps away with his shoulders slumped.

  Only when they’re gone can I start breathing again. The world starts spinning once more.

  I fall to my knees as I check on Clare. She’s got a horrible lump on the side of her head but she’s awake. I help her to sit up and try not to look at the dead boy lying just a few feet away. The pool of blood is still growing. How much blood can one body hold? It seems like too much. Was someone else injured too?

  Garlind gives me a questioning look as he checks on me. I nod that I’m okay and he continues on to River. “Let me get rid of that,” he says softly, gently.

  River allows him to take the knife from his hand but doesn’t move. His expression is vacant and his lips are clamped together. He just stares at the body on the ground. He’s no longer the long-haired boy but just an empty shell.

  I’ve seen a dead body before. I watched both my mother and father die in the bunker. It was me who had to dispose of my dad’s dead body. I had to put him into the incinerator and let the flames take him away.

  But they died naturally. This…it’s something completely different. The boy was healthy and alive just a few moments ago. His life wasn’t supposed to end today. Right now. It’s unnatural and River was the one who took it away.

  “We should get out of here,” Garlind says in that almost-whisper that sounds soothing and calm. “There is nothing more we can do. They might come back. We’re not safe here.”

  “Do you think you can stand up?” I ask Clare. She nods and I help her to her feet. She’s a bit unsteady, either from the knock to her head or her earlier medical episode, I’m not sure. Not too much is making sense right now.

  “River,” Garlind says in a harsher tone now. “We have to go. Now.”

  He waves his hand in front of River’s face, trying to get him to snap out of the daze he’s in. It’s a long time before he finally reacts. It’s not much—just a blink—but he follows slowly after Garlind.

  We leave the amusement park the same way we came in. We only get down the road before we have to stop again. None of us are in a condition to walk far. All we have to do is be far enough away from that gang to hide from them.

  An old gas station is the building we choose to hide in. Garlind goes ahead and checks it before he allows us to enter. River is still a walking zombie. He stands between two aisles and stares blankly at the glass refrigerators covered in rank mold.

  Clare sits down behind the counter and rests her head on the wall. She’s still groggy from the blow. I hope it hasn’t done any permanent damage to her delicate brain.

  I can’t get the image of the dead boy from my mind. It replays over and over again. Several times, I think I see blood on the floor in front of me. I look down and it’s not there. It’s not real but sometimes I swear it is.

  The walls of the gas station seem to come closer. The floor lurches up. The ceiling creeps down. It’s all closing in on me. There is no air left to breathe. My lungs can’t inflate. The room starts spinning around me.

  River killed someone.

  He’s a killer.

  I can’t stay here. I can’t be in this room right now. Not when it’s so small and I can still smell the metallic stench of all that blood. I have to get out of here.

  Am I moving in slow motion? It seems to take me forever to reach the door. I thought I was right beside it. But it was all the way across the room—practically a mile away.

  I fling open the door and rush outside. I thought the cool air would help my flushed face and the heat coursing through my body. But it doesn’t. It just reminds me how cold my father’s body was when I stuffed it into the incinerator. Is the boy’s body that cold yet? Has he started to freeze in place and tighten up so much that nothing can move him?

  Dead. So dead.

  I can’t stand the thought of his body being out there all alone. It’s open to the elements. Someone could come along and do anything to him. He attacked us and now he’s defenseless. I want to go back and check on him but I know I can’t. It would be stupid. So, so stupid of me to do that.

  Standing still just makes everything worse. I have to keep going and maybe then I can outrun this feeling. Maybe if I run I might be able to get some breath back into these lungs of mine. I don’t know how far I’ll have to go before I can breathe again.

  I’m blindly running down the long stretch of road. A part of me knows I should get off it so that gang of boys can’t find me. They want revenge and I am as good a sacrifice as any. An eye for an eye, doesn’t that mean they have to kill one of us now?

  I can’t think logically right now. All I can do is run.

  And run.

  And run.

  Until my legs hurt and my lungs burn.

  My pace slows as I come across a huge old tree. It’s probably been here for thousands or millions of years. It might be here for millions more. Right now it offers me shade and some small amount of protection from anyone that might be stalking the streets.

  I lean against the trunk and sink down to sit on the grass. It’s overgrown like everything else in this world. The thought of mutant snakes sliding in amongst the weeds don’t scare me right now. Humans are far worse to be feared.

  My lungs suck in much needed air and my lungs can finally inflate again. I think I’m hyperventilating and my head is dizzy. I have no idea how to calm down or what to do. Everything is just in such a mess.

  I don’t even hear Garlind until he’s standing directly in front of me. My gaze starts at his feet and travels upwards until I settle on his face. His mouth is a grimace, his hands in his pockets.

  He must have followed me all this way but he’s not even sweating. The difference between our fitness levels is starkly apparent. I guess spending seventeen years of my life in a forty feet by sixteen feet bunker wasn’t conducive to getting much exercise.

  “Can I sit down?” he asks.

  He’s probably the only person in the world who I wouldn’t tell to go away. “Yeah.”

  He settles on the grass in front of me. Not to my left or right, but directly in front so I can see him and only him. “Why’d you run away?”

  “I couldn’t handle it for a minute more in there.”

  “Why?”

  I know he’s curious and trying to help but I don’t know the answer to his question. Why did I feel the need to run away? How do I even describe what I don’t understand? I shrug my shoulders and hope th
at is enough.

  He hesitates and watches me for a very long time. I think he’s trying to read the answers on my forehead and so far is coming up blank. All I can still see is the blood and how it pooled across the ground. So. Much. Blood.

  “Have you seen anyone die before?” he asks gently.

  “My parents. They were sick. It happened over a long period of time.”

  “It’s different seeing someone killed. Especially when it’s by someone you know.”

  My gaze flicks to meet his in surprise. “You’ve seen that happen to someone else?”

  Garlind nods solemnly. “A few times. Some were necessary, out of self-defense. Others were…more random.”

  “How can you live with that?” I can’t imagine ever forgetting the scene I witnessed. Every little detail is vivid in my mind. It keeps replaying like a horror movie.

  A shadow passes over his face and darkens his features. “You have to find a way. Death isn’t something you can avoid out here. It happens. You just have to protect yourself as best you can to make sure you aren’t on either side of a kill.”

  Having to murder someone never occurred to me before. When I stepped out of my bunker, I didn’t think we’d come across any other living people. Now I know better and I hate knowing how dangerous things have become.

  Would I be able to kill someone if they attacked me? Attacked someone I cared about? I don’t know the answer and I think that’s for the best. I’d like to think I couldn’t do it, but if it’s them or me, perhaps I would be forced to choose me.

  “There was so much blood,” I finally say. “It’s all I can think about.”

  “The memory will fade. Every day will dull it a little bit more. You’ll never forget entirely, but you’ll learn to live with it. I’m sorry you had to see it today.”

  “I don’t know how I can look at River the same again.”

  Garlind purses his lips before he replies. “He’s really upset by what he did. He acted out of instinct, it wasn’t like he chose to stab the guy. He was defending himself.”

  “I know,” I say quietly. I could play out the scene a million times and still come to the same conclusion. It was the other guys who brought weapons to the fight. We had nothing to defend ourselves. If it was just fists and feet, perhaps nobody would have died today.