Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from the show.
"When I'm gone, what are you supposed to do?"
"Burn your body."
"Good girl."
With one deft swipe of her thumb, Lydia Harris had the lighter burning and brought it to the tip of the torch. She stared at the sheet-wrapped body in the ditch with little emotion, silently bidding her father goodbye. Seconds later she tossed the torch in and the gasoline-soaked sheet was engulfed in flames instantly.
They were alone now.
Her father had been the last one to go, the last one she knew to die, and now Lydia, at only twelve, was the oldest person alive at the compound. She didn't wait for the flames to die out before heading back up the hill -- there was too much to do. There hadn't been enough warning for everyone to prepare properly. Eight weeks ago the plague had claimed enough lives to become newsworthy. Six weeks ago two billion had died and panic had set in. Four weeks ago they'd realized that children weren't dying. Three weeks ago two-thirds of the world's population was dead and the adults still alive were doing everything they could to teach their children how to survive without them.
In Lydia's world, by the four-week mark all those people associated with the Council were sending their kids to the compound, believing in safety in numbers. They had to learn twice as much if they wanted to survive not only an adult-less world, but a world where the population of demons would suddenlyoutnumber humans. Two weeks ago, Lydia's mother and best friend, who was also twelve, had died. It was around that time that they realized that it wasn't just children surviving, but anyone who had not hit puberty. Lydia had not yet started her period, so she was safe, and that had nearly killed her.
At the first of only two un-barricaded doors of the compound, Lydia turned for one last glance of the thick smoke carrying her father to the sky. "'Bye Daddy," she whispered, refusing to let her eyes well up with tears. She'd cried enough; now was time to be strong for the kids.
"Baby, listen to me. It's very important, okay?"
Gem nodded, extremely aware of the word 'important' these days. Her mother held up a necklace of small silver crosses linked together and clasped it around Gem's neck snugly. "I don't want you to ever take this off. Ever."
"Because of the vampires," Gem said softly.
Gem breathed deeply, trying valiantly to slow her pounding heart. She watched the monitors from her seat on the floor and hugged her knees tightly. There were two of them, going room to room, destroying all the furniture and all of their things. They weren't the first to search the house and she knew what they were looking for. They wouldn't find her though, not in the vault. Her mother had promised.
"Get away from her!" Gem almost yelled at the screen the second they'd entered her mother's room, then clapped her hands over her mouth. The vampires hadn't heard, though, and continued their destruction of her home. When they ripped the blanket off of her mother's body, Gem gasped.
Her mother, once so beautiful, was bloated beyond recognition.
Gem forced herself to remember everything her mother had told her before she'd died. "No, not Mommy. Her body." Once a person was dead, they weren't anything but a body anymore. She took in another breath to hold back the tears. She'd already been in the vault for three days and her supplies would soon run out. She knew that if there had been no vampires she would have been fearless -- she was her mother's daughter through and through -- but the evil things did exist, and she was just a ten-year-old girl. With a sigh that bordered on a shudder, Gem curled up on her sleeping bag in the corner and hugged her toy dog, Barney, to her chest. Squeezing her eyes shut, Gem tried to force herself to sleep.
When she was sleeping, she didn't have to think.
"Stake through the heart and sunlight. Holy water burns them."
Jason's mother fixed him with an expectant look. "What else?" He thought for a second. "Decapitation; it kills almost everything."
"Don't forget fire," she said seriously. "It might not kill them, but it'll hurt. Never be afraid to fight dirty."
Jason peered over the edge of the window on the east side of his treehouse and did a sweep of the yard below. The area was clear, but he wondered how long that would last. His parents had been dead a week and he'd made sure to bury them on the side of his treehouse that was obscured by branches. The sound of glass shattering jolted him and he reached for the first weapon he could grab before quickly looking at the house next door.
It was the Donnelly brothers from down the street. Their parents had been the first on the block to go. He heard them shouting as they ransacked the house, no doubt looking for food. Jason felt sorry for them but didn't call out to them. It was every man for himself now. His own stockpile was hidden in the large secret compartment that his father had built into the floor of the treehouse, and along with the food were several weapons Jason's mom had supplied him with. Jason heard the boys jump the fence into his yard and tucked himself into the farthest corner of the shelter, his anger growing with each word they said.
"We can't! This is Jason's house." There was uncertainty in young Curtis' voice.
"Maybe he's dead," said the older of the two, Bobby.
"But he's only eleven! What if he's not?"
"Then we'll make him share."
And there was the smash of a rock going through the back window. Jason seethed and longed to go out there and show those boys just what he thought of them. Then the reality of the situation hit him fast and hard: the Donnellys were probably starving, and if they didn't die of that then some vampire would probably make a meal of them. Suddenly he realized that one day soon he could be just like those boys, starving and willing to do anything for a scrap of food. And he couldn't stay in his treehouse forever -- what was going to happen to him when he had to leave?
Jason tightened his grip on the makeshift axe his dad had made just days before he'd died and, for the very first time since the beginning of this hell, cried.