After The End Read online

  I can tell from the moment we step foot inside that we’re not going to find anything here. The shelves have been torn down and a layer of mud—at least, I hope it’s mud—covers the floor. Weeds sprout up between the aisles.

  We spend only five minutes in the place before moving on. The next store is much the same. A drug store looks promising so we go inside and try it.

  The main area of the store is ransacked but there is a locked cupboard way in the back that is still secure. Someone has tried to hack away at the lock and left divots in the wood but they didn’t manage to break in.

  They weren’t as determined as I am.

  I take out the sturdiest of my knives and swing it high, hitting the cupboard door to the left in the middle. The wood splinters. I do it again.

  “Do you need a hand?” Garlind calls out from the other side of the store. He must have noticed the racket I’ve been making.

  “No, I’m good.” In fact, it’s cathartic. I can take out all my frustrations and anger on the wood. I can pretend it’s the aliens or all the people that have tried to hurt us. I can let it all out with my knife.

  I swing again and again until I can pull the remains of the doors open.

  My effort is rewarded with an assortment of medicines. Some I know are strong pain killers with codeine in them. Others are antibiotics, I think. A bunch more are foreign to me but I take them anyway. I never know what we’ll need down the track. Some of these medicines will be able to help Rhys now.

  “Does anyone like jellybeans?” Sarah calls out. She holds up a packet of brightly colored beans.

  “Never had them,” I admit.

  “Me neither,” Rhys and Garlind answer in unison.

  “We’ll have them tonight,” Sarah says before she stashes the packet in her backpack. “I found a bunch of them at the mall when I was living there. Ate them for about a week straight. Never thought I’d see another one again.”

  I hope that’s not all the food we’re going to find before it gets dark. The sun is still high up in the sky so we have a few hours yet. But I doubt we’ll find anything else in the drug store.

  We move on through each of the buildings until we’ve managed to scrape together enough food for us to eat for a few days. As long as we’re sensible. I know we’re starving right now, but if we eat too much it will only make us immediately vomit. That would be a terrible waste of time, energy, and nutrition.

  Garlind stops outside the last of the stores and stares into space. I stand next to him, trying to work out what he’s looking at. “What can you see?” I eventually give up and ask.

  He points to the top of a tall building a few streets over. “That’s a radio aerial.”

  “And we’re interested in it because…”

  “It should be able to pick up radio signals stronger than anywhere we’ve tried before. If we can work out where the radio is that is attached to it, we can do a scan of the airwaves. I’m going to check it out.”

  “We’ll all go,” I insist. He’s not going to be wandering around the town without us. It may look abandoned but we can’t be too careful. The gunshots from the mountain are still fresh in my mind and Rhys is a walking reminder.

  We tell the others and then walk through the streets until we locate the correct building. None of the structures here are overly tall and the one we are searching for is the highest at four levels. It sticks out quite well.

  The glass doors have been broken and the glass walls of the lobby are all shattered but still holding. I don’t know who else came through here, but they made a terrible mess. I don’t understand the destruction. Search for supplies, fine. But why destroy everything too?

  We bypass the elevator doors and find the stairs, heading for the first level up. One thing I’ve noticed about stairwells in these kinds of buildings is they are very difficult to destroy. Some graffiti is sprayed on the walls but that’s it. Nobody can destroy the concrete steps.

  The first floor looks to be offices. Garlind is lost in his own world as his searches for the radio. He’s completely focused now, leaving us to wander around and search for other supplies that might be useful.

  Offices are generally pretty bad areas to find anything good. They rarely have food that would have last for the past seventeen years. They never have weapons we can use. And stacks of paperwork are only good to start a fire. It’s why I generally try to avoid them if we’re dangerously low on supplies.

  Garlind clears the first floor and we follow him up to the second. It’s the same. As is the third level. The top floor also contains some offices but there also a booth with microphones.

  “This is a radio station,” Garlind says in awe. He trails a finger along the windows of the booth as he peers in.

  Everything I know about radios is what he taught me. I can only imagine what they were like to listen to back before the world ended. I guess they were like televisions just without the visuals.

  He enters the booth and sits down on a large chair. A puff of dust explodes from the seat as he does so. I wait for the cloud to settle down before I follow him.

  “This is amazing,” he says.

  “Why do you like radios so much?” I ask out of curiosity. It’s not like we’ve ever experienced them in our lifetime. Apart from that one broadcast we heard back up on the mountain, there is nothing to hear.

  “My dad used to talk about the stations he listened to growing up. They played music and did talk shows. He was really sick when he was little and he said listening to the radio made him feel like he had friends. He could imagine they were talking to him and he didn’t feel so isolated anymore,” Garlind explains.

  My heart goes out to his dad. I know what it’s like to be alone. I can understand how he felt. Maybe I would have enjoyed the radio in the bunker if they were still functioning normally.

  “Do you think you can get this one to work?”

  He shrugs. “I can only try.”

  If anyone can do it, it’s the brown-eyed boy in front of me. He leaves the booth and we find a room full of equipment. There are boards of dials and panels with so many buttons I would need to have a hundred hands to press them all at once.

  He fiddles around with them, pressing buttons and flicking switches. There is no electricity here which I suspect is needed to get everything going. Still, I don’t argue. We have some food and it’s a quiet building, we can stay here all night if we need to.

  “I need a battery,” he mutters after some time. He peers out the window and hurries to the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I find Sarah and Rhys sitting around a dusty table in what looks to be a break room. An old microwave is covered in a layer of dust in the corner and a fridge smells ominous to the side. You couldn’t pay me to open that fridge door.

  “What’s Garlind doing?” Sarah asks.

  I shrug. “Trying to get a radio signal, I guess. I’m thinking we might stay here tonight. It looks pretty abandoned.”

  “There’s no alien smell,” Sarah says.

  “Always a bonus. How are you feeling, Rhys?”

  He’s looking tired. But he always does these days. “Okay, I think. I’m looking forward to eating something.”

  We each had a small snack between our searches earlier but it only took the edge of our hunger. We agreed to only eat small amounts until we can be certain our stomachs can handle more.

  “We can have something when Garlind is finished,” I reply. “I also found some antibiotics earlier, if you need them. Pain killers, too.”

  “I’m fine,” he quickly replies. That’s the thing about Rhys, he can be completely not fine and he won’t let on any differently. I don’t know why I bother asking him.

  We sit in silence and just enjoy the rest for a while. It’s nice being able to stop after so many days of walking through the forest with no end in sight.

  I wonder where Tabitha and Lincoln are now? They were never that keen on the plan to get to Washington DC, so where did they go?
Perhaps they are making new friends now, ready to steal all their stuff at the first opportunity.

  Garlind makes some banging sounds down the hall. I have to know what he’s up to so I go to investigate. Can’t he just rest and relax like the rest of us? He makes me feel guilty for not doing anything to help.

  He’s tinkering with a black box and all the wires of the buttoned machine. I watch for a few moments before I can’t help myself any longer. “What are you doing?”

  “I got a car battery from one of the vehicles in the parking lot. I’m using it to power the console. I think it will work and then we can listen out for the man we heard talking before,” he explains without stopping.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope. Being here is enough.” He spares a second to flash me a smile before concentrating again.

  He climbs underneath the desk and fiddles with all the wires. They all look the same to me but I guess they’re different. As long as Garlind doesn’t connect the wrong wires and electrocutes himself on the battery, we should be fine.

  I find a seat and pull it into the room. I make sure to stay out of the way so I don’t slow down the master at work. It’s nice to be doing something other than trying to survive. My legs sure appreciate the rest.

  “I think we’re done,” Garlind declares. He emerges from under the desk with a hesitant smile on his face. He sits down on an ancient office chair and positions himself in the middle of all the equipment. “All I have to do is flip this switch.”

  His finger lingers on the switch for a beat too long. He’s worried it’s not going to work. Or maybe he’s building up the excitement for the big reveal. Either way, I want him to flip the switch so we’ll know if it works or not.

  “I’m ready when you are,” I urge.

  “Oh, right.”

  He hits the switch and the console lights up. There are green, red, and amber lights that flicker all over the place. I hope the battery has enough charge to stay on. They’re probably chewing through a lot of electricity right now.

  “All I have to do is set the frequency,” Garlind explains as he goes through the process. “And then adjust the volume. And we should be able to listen and broadcast.”

  Nothing happens.

  Static crackles in the air but there are no voices. No music plays. The lights flicker but that’s about it. It’s a pretty set of Christmas lights that took a long time to set up.

  “Dammit.” He fiddles with dials and switches, trying different combinations. “We’re not picking up anything.”

  “Not picking it up because there is nothing there, or because the equipment isn’t working?” I ask. There is a massive difference between the two.

  He taps a few more buttons before replying. “There doesn’t appear to be anything there. I’m picking up static so I know it’s working. Nobody’s transmitting.”

  “Is it on the same frequency we were on in the mountains?”

  “Yeah. It’s the first thing I checked.”

  “He might be taking a break. He can’t broadcast all the time. He has to eat and sleep. Right?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The deep wrinkles on his forehead tell me otherwise. Something might have happened to the man we heard. The whole country is crawling with aliens. There is no reason to think they would leave him alone if their paths crossed.

  Garlind picks up a microphone and clicks a button. He starts speaking into the device. “Is anyone out there? Hello? I’m a survivor in Tennessee. If anyone is listening, please reply on this frequency.”

  We both wait with eager anticipation.

  I shouldn’t be disappointed when only static buzzes through the speakers. It was a long shot to think someone else out there would be listening to a radio on our frequency and have a microphone to reply.

  That’s a lot of boxes to tick.

  I place a hand on Garlind’s knee. “It doesn’t mean someone isn’t listening. They might not have a microphone to speak into. We didn’t, when we heard it back in the mountains.”

  He breathes out a sigh. “I was hoping it would work. When I saw that antennae, I was so sure. I thought it was a sign.”

  “It still could be. It doesn’t change anything. Does it?”

  “You still want to go to Washington?”

  “Of course I do.” This doesn’t change anything for me. We still have the best chance of finding help from the old government in that city. They have to be hiding there.

  “It might be Charleston all over again,” Garlind warns with an ominous voice. I hate thinking about how close we came to being captured by the aliens there. If it wasn’t for Garlind, Sarah and I would be dead now.

  “We’ll be more careful than we were. We know what we’re hiding from now.”

  “Let’s not tell the others about this.”

  I nod. “Agreed.”

  He flicks off the switches and powers down the equipment. He leaves it all hooked up. He’s probably planning on coming back later to check again. Ever the optimist.

  We find the others still in the break room. Sarah has made a bed for herself on the floor and Rhys is almost asleep in his chair. We are definitely spending the night here.

  Being indoors feels like luxury compared to spending so long in the forest. The carpet is softer and there is no chilling wind constantly washing over us. We close the door and wedge a chair underneath the handle so nobody can surprise us while we sleep.

  For the first time in a very long time, we don’t need to take shifts to watch over the camp. We can all sleep soundly knowing nobody can touch us tonight.

  I imagine this is how they used to feel before the world ended: safe.

  I enjoy it while it lasts because we don’t know when we’ll be able to feel this way again. I hope Washington DC changes all that. I hope we find a population of humans that have managed to organize themselves into a community. Something we can be a part of.

  In the morning, we actually have breakfast. The crackers are stale and more than a decade past their expiry date but it’s food and it fills the void in my stomach. This is the most comfortable I have felt in months.

  Now if only I had some clean clothes…I could conquer the world.

  As we’re packing up and preparing to leave, Rhys speaks up. “I think you guys should go ahead without me.”

  We all stop to look at him. I hope I misheard what he said. “Why would we do that? What’s wrong?”

  He flops down on a chair. “I’m slowing you down. I’m just a burden to you. You’ll be able to get to Washington a lot faster without me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Garlind says. “We’re all going together or we’re not going at all.” He levels Rhys with a stare that should have him convinced.

  Rhys shakes his head. “I’m a liability. I’m going to get you all killed someday. I’m still taking too long to heal.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I scoff. “You were shot. You still have the bullet lodged inside you. To make the recovery you have is a miracle. Don’t give up on yourself now, I put a lot of time and effort into getting you better.”

  “And I really appreciate it. But the truth is that I’m slowing you down and I don’t know if I can handle that any longer.”

  “What will you do if you stay?” Garlind asks. Although, it’s not really a question, more of a challenge.

  Rhys shrugs one shoulder. “It’s nice here. I guess I’ll just wait until I’m stronger and then go out for more supplies. Maybe I can just live here.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “Doesn’t mean you have to do it again,” I point out. “You’re our friend, Rhys. We can’t leave you behind. If you need a few days to rest then we’ll all rest. Yes, we need to get to Washington, but we all want to do what is best for you too.”

  “You can’t stay here, Rhys. I’ll miss you,” Sarah adds in a quiet voice.

  Rhys looks at each of us in turn. His lips are set in a frow
n and I can see the conflict in his eyes. There is no way we’re leaving here without him.

  “Do you need more time here to rest?” I ask.

  Silence lingers in the air between all of us. I will Rhys to believe what we’re saying. We’re not Lincoln and Tabitha. We don’t just give up on people because they suffered a horrendous injury. We stand by them stronger.

  “No. I can keep going,” Rhys finally replies.

  “Okay then. No more of this nonsense,” I say and continue packing my bag.

  We’re all busy again before we’re ready to leave. Rhys lets me check his wound and it looks like it’s actually healing thanks to Sarah’s poultice. I’ll be able to take the stitches out soon so the skin can continue to heal.

  Garlind checks the radio one more time before we head downstairs. I hate leaving such a secure building but we can’t stay here forever. We’re searching for something better and there is only one way to find it.

  Just like when I left the bunker, I have to take a leap of faith.

  There is no trace of anything having changed out in the street. If there were other humans around, they’ve left no signs. We follow the road out of town and leave the safe buildings behind.

  We’re only on the long road for about half an hour when we see the first ship. This one isn’t flying, just hovering in the sky. We take cover underneath some trees and hope the thick foliage is enough to hide us.

  The ship starts to lower.

  It’s going to land.

  Chapter 7

  Our position in the woodlands overlooks the town we left. It’s in a valley with plenty of flat fields that would have been farming land before. They’re overgrown weed farms now.

  The ship lands in one of those fields. All the grass is flattened underneath them as the large weight touches down. The ship is like a shining silver egg. Like all the others I’ve seen, there are no windows. It’s polished and smooth, a perfect shape.

  A side panel opens and a set of stairs lowers down to the ground. A few moments later, the aliens march out in pairs. Their oversized guns are in hand.