Okay, it wasn't my choice to be born in a zombie apocalypse. Then again, is it anyone's choice to be born?
My name is Maria. I'm fourteen years old, born June 3rd, 2019, six years after the fungal outbreak known as cordyceps. I'd say something for you to Google, but you probably don't have internet, just like me.
The reason I know about electronics and past verbs like 'googling' is because of all the things we find, and the stories my mom tells us about life before the outbreak. Speaking of which, I live with my mom and older brother Michael (he goes by Mikey…at least by me), in the only known place to have electricity in the United States, which is a hydroelectric dam in Wyoming. I can't say the exact location, not for secrecy, but to be honest, I haven't seen a map in a while.
The town isn't the biggest, as compared to places like the pre-fungal (PF for short) New York City, which I'd love to visit from all the postcards and pictures I've seen that exist of it. Obviously not now, but you get my drift.
We've probably got a little over five hundred residents, which is considered to be a lot in this remaining world. About a quarter of that amount is kids, and of that amount of kids more than half are under the age of ten. Which is fine and all, don't get me wrong, but it gets boring. Boring as in the fact that there aren't that many fourteen year olds running around for me to befriend. I'm not much of a loner, my social skills and humor have been fine-tuned and tested from years on the run with my family, and I have a thing for Yo Mama jokes. Geez, am I advertising for myself?
School is another story. With the young residents actually having enough people to fill a classroom, the rest of us just clump together, eleven to seventeen. Our skill levels like reading and math are all over the place, so we have fun screwing over our teachers, with teachers being old professors who like to tell tall tales from the PF age and impress us with how the world once was rather than focus on the quadratic equation. Not that I'm complaining about that. Because of this way of teaching, I know more about history than anyone else. Plus we get access to the library, which is awesome.
A few weeks ago some new residents came into town, and being on summer break and all (technically we're always on break with this school system), I'm working up the nerve to befriend the girl. Apparently they're big news, because one of them is the brother to Tommy, who, with his wife, runs this dam. Personally, I don't like Maria. She's a bit…loud? Out there? Obviously I admire her courage, as her and her dad have brought up this rundown town into what it is today (a rundown town with electricity…hah).
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"Okay, so Avery says if I let him borrow the Xbox 360 for three weeks, he'll let us have his PS3 for the same time."
I bite my lip, contemplating the decision. Mikey sits across from me, awaiting my verdict. This also has to be another thing of growing up in the during-fungal (DF) age…everything is limited. My brother and I managed to get our hands on a few electronics in our travels, and after charging them we were rewarded with things that actually work.
Between us older kids, we trade around gaming systems and barter with the weeks you're allowed to have them. So far I've played things like Kingdom Hearts, Super Smash Bros (which is a ton of fun with the neighborhood kids), Kirby and the Magic Mirror, The Dogz Island, and we had been working on Castle Crashers on the Xbox.
Mikey's into racing games with titles I can't remember, but he wants to get the PS3 for another one.
I shrug, "Sure, let him. I get to watch you play, right?"
To this he nods, and then I push back away from the table and stand up, "I'm going to go see if Mom needs any help."
"She's in the back." Mikey calls after me, and I give a nod to acknowledge hearing him.
Our home is a 'beaut', according to Tommy. It's right in the neighborhood, and it's got four bedrooms, three bathrooms, attic, kitchen, dining room, living room, family room (which is where a Ping-Pong table resides, and you have no idea how much we had to give up for that), a little laundry space, and my personal favorite, the Crow's Nest on the third floor.
Pushing back the screen door to the backyard, I catch sight of Mom going after the poison ivy growing up the side of the tree with a pair of clippers.
Stepping out onto the sun-warmed wood of our back deck, "Hi."
She pauses and gives me a smile, "Hi, sweetie. How're doing?"
"Good. Need any help?
Snipping off another thin, leafy vine, "No, I'm alright."
I nod, and head back inside, feeling the cool rush of the AC smack me straight in the face…but it's a loving, comforting smack, if those should exist. I run up the stairs to the second floor, and then up the slick wooden stairs to the Crow's Nest.
In the case of electronics, I have about three: my iPod Classic (named Felix), my laptop (you have no idea how jealous Mikey is that I found one before him), and my headphones, which are made of cushy-goodness and awesomeness.
Plugging headphones into Felix, I turn on my laptop. Every time I do this, I have to check the wifi for some reason, and see the last page opened before the internet went caput.
The internet seems large and vast and exciting. Sometimes I wish I was born in the PF era because of all the cool stuff those generations had. And then again, I guess growing up in the DF era now would be harder, because I'd remember how cool life once was.
My mom doesn't seem to be affected too much by it. She cracks jokes about pizza delivery was (I wish that still exists, to be honest), and how it was being a student in law school (her previous full-time occupation before the surviving the outbreak with me and my brother as little kids).
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With trembling hands, I pick up the gun in my brother's room. Feeling the cold metal in my grip, I try to place a flittering finger on the trigger before dropping it all together.
I can't hold a gun, no matter how hard I try. Mikey will let me play with his airsoft pistol sometimes, and that's the closest I've ever gotten to holding something similar.
Picking it up, I lay it back in the top drawer of his dresser and shut it. It's stupid and silly and childish that at age fourteen, twenty years into the apocalypse...I've never aimed or fired on anyone. Back in the quarantine zone, I would always hide behind my mother and cling to her when the soldiers offered their guns to me and Mikey.
They weren't loaded and he played with them, but all I can remember is the fear that envelopes me. Is it something deeper? A memory that's trying to resurface?
I know people with guns kill people. I know how precious a single bullet is in this world. Is that it? Knowing that I can't afford to screw up, to mess up the shot?
Mom says she was unsure of guns and killing in general when the outbreak occurred, but she quickly understood the mindset that it was the opposing force or her going down, and she couldn't leave two little kids behind in this messed up world.
I open the drawer and observe the small revolver, hands shaking once more, trying to pick it up—"Pizza night!" Mikey calls up the stairs, and I drop the gun, hearing it click before lying flat on the bottom of the draw. Huh. Click.
In way of clickers and runners and bloaters, I've seen my fair share. My mom and brother handled those pretty well in our travels, and whether I was able with a gun or not, I never touched one in our journey.
Mikey's not used to handling the gun for months and years and then stopping all of a sudden. He's into airsoft like the other guys, and sometimes the adults will let them take over the back fields and have a huge battle. At these, I hang out with the girls who don't like to participate, and we'll kick around a soccer ball or play baseball.
The best times of these are when the adults let us take over a field at night. Some of the boys find glow sticks or other glow-in-the-dark items, like a Frisbee that lights up, and we play all night. Mom remarks about how maybe the cordyceps was a good thing for the kids, because in the PF era, they were so consumed with electronics and the internet and things like 'Facebook' and 'Twilight' and 'The Hunger Games', which I have seen and read. Too bad the cordyceps hit before the release of the second movie. That's my only regret.
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The other kids in the street hold their parents' hands, swinging them with a vigor as they skip. I can't help a smile coming onto my face, and glancing back at Mom and Mikey. Back in the quarantine zones, Mom and Mikey would take my arms and swing me up in the air. If you're wondering about my dad…he's just not in the picture
Pizza night is when Tommy and Maria and Dr. Mundell (Maria's papa) and the other adults bake a bunch of pizzas for the kids, and people bring in drinks and deserts and stuff, and the kids run around in the back fields while the adults and teens eat in the barns that back up to the fields. A while back I used to run around with the kids in the back with some other kids my age, and we'd put the little ones on our shoulders and have a lot of fun. Then they left, like some do, to try and find a better life, and I haven't seen them since.
We head to our usual table, which has my mom's friends and their kids, who are barely out of diapers. The oldest one at five, Tyler, admires my brother, and constantly wants to go into the back fields with his airsoft and play with the 'big boys'.
"Hi!" Tyler says, beaming and waving as we sit down. My mom plays along with a smile and waves back, "Hi, Tyler!"
Mikey gives her a look at this, and I grin, enjoying when I side with my mom to embarrass my brother. Mom strikes up a conversation with the parents,Ken and Lisa, while Mikey and I entertain ourselves by talking to Tyler.
"So, what'd you do today?" I ask, and Tyler grins, pulling his lower lip down and pointing to a black space, "Lost mah tooth!"
"Awesome! Gimme some five!" I say, holding my hand across the table for him to smack. He does so vigorously, and Mikey glances back at him, "Entering first grade next year, right?"
"Yes I am!" Bobbing his head, and I can't help but laugh at his energy. Mikey smiles, and then I glance back at Tyler, "Hey, I got a new joke for you. Alright, what do clouds wear under their pants?"
"Clouds don't wear pants." Mikey says under his breath, and I step on his toes under the table. Tyler thinks hard, looking thoughtful as he gazes up at the ceiling, and finally I give the answer, "Thunderpants!"
He collapses in a fit of giggles and I release my foot from the position on Mikey's toes. Just as I'm getting ready to tell another, a clinking sounds at the table at the front. Looks like we chose the barn with Tommy and his crew, because Maria, Dr. Mundell, and his brother sit at the table. That girl with the auburn hair is there too, and she's being shushed by Tommy's brother at something as Tommy silences the room.
"Alright, tables eleven and twelve are up first. After we'll have six and seven, nine and ten, and eight and five."
Everyone agrees and nods to this, and the selected tables stand up and go head over to where the piping hot pies lay. A bunch of kids get up from tables and head out to play in the back fields as a silent sign seems to pass through them. Tyler's among them, and he doesn't look back as he heads outside.
"You could go out with them." Mikey croons, and I shove him, "Stop it."
"Hey, Mike!" One of Mikey's friends is waving him over and Mikey doesn't have to think twice about leaving the table. I give him a look of loathing as he strides off, all über-confident to go and chill with his buddies.
Our table is table eight, and Tommy's is five. So looks like we'll both be going last. I sometimes worry about them running out of cheese pizza, and then I remember they've got all these kids that aren't about to take a slice of meat-lovers off the platter the first time.
I glance over at Tommy's table to where the girl is. The brother's name is something like John or Joe. I don't know her name though, and I'd like to make friends before school starts again.
Maybe it's cliché, thinking that she's the only one I can befriend. I like the other girls in my class and all just fine, but they're so consumed with makeup (if there's any left for them) and beauty (ditto…hah) and trying to doll themselves up so the boys will look at them. It's kind of like, we're living in an apocalypse, I'm not sure what else you can dress yourself in other than faded and dirty clothes. We do have washing machines though, but believe me, they definitely don't work enough for some of our gear.
Mikey comes back to our table just as our number is called, so I slide out from the worn park bench connecting to the table and head in a line behind everyone else.
Table number eight follows right behind, and the girl is behind me. Before we begin taking some slices, I hear her whispering to Tommy's brother, "What the hell is this?"
"Pizza. It's good."
"Looks pretty f—kin' weird."
I try not to laugh at this and help myself to a few slices of cheese and a paper cup of a punch of some sort. Heading back to my table, I let myself snicker and Mikey asks in a dubious voice, "What the heck are you laughing at?"
"Nothing." I say, giving a smile as I sit down and bit into my very hot, very delicious pizza. I can't deny that the girl has the same reaction to pizza as I did, only difference being that I'd get in trouble with my mom for using the same language.
A few minutes into eating, Tommy stands up again to get our attention, and then Maria stands up as he sits down.
"Tomorrow will be our monthly art show. It'll take place in the square and continue up to the woods. All are welcome to come. There will be face-painting for the kids, different artworks to display, ice cream, and it is open to everyone."
Chattering starts up again as she sits down, someone lets out a few shouts and whooping for it, and I grin to myself. All are welcome to come, it is open to everyone. Could she have made it more clear?
When we first arrived, back in April, I went to my first art show. With the supplies like paint and brushes low, artists here get creative. They'll paint on shards of glass, flat pieces of wood, and something paint a whole scene on bricks. Those are cool, because it's kind of a like a puzzle to set it up and show the right picture. Some people will have jewelry on display, and others will be open to commissions and trades and bartering.
Starting on my second slice of pizza, I try to think about the possibility of going. I once got to help at the face-painting both, where they use berries (pokeberries, but nonetheless ?!) to draw designs on the kids' faces.
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A half hour later I'm stuffed and kind of tired. My subtle pokes to Mom get us somewhere, and in a few minutes we've said our goodbyes and headed out.
The evening is cool, and I let my head loll back, gazing up at the countless stars in the inky sky. There used to be a saying I would tell about myself…I have lived fourteen lives in fourteen years.
People would get confused, and I've have to explain. I've been the sweet baby, the stumbling and clumsy two year old, the quiet three year old, the energetic four year old, the terrified five year old, the brave six year old, the determined seven year old, the cowering eight year old, the moral-line crosser nine year old, the confused ten year old, the knife-wielding eleven year old, the scarred twelve year old, the almost-infected thirteen year old…and here I am at fourteen. I don't know what I use to describe my life as it stands now. The surviving? The living? Still living?
But even I know, even in this safe and small town, evil always lurks. Death never wavers as an option, to fall victim of the infection. It claws at the back of my mind, coming from the deepest, darkest depths of my brain to scare me in the middle of the night.
I know that my fear with a gun will come back and hurt me and haunt me and screw me over at some point or another.
A few months back, before coming to town, my brother and I almost got infected by a runner. It was a vicious attack, and I remember trembling and shaking and wanting to cry but I couldn't, I couldn't cry.
Mikey shot the runner down and then came to me. At sixteen, he knew better than to pay attention to his little sister, but in that moment, terror still fresh in our minds, he let me hug him, and I remember shaking in his embrace involuntarily.
I'm so used to terror and fear and panic racing and coursing through my veins. Maybe it's an omen, a foreshadowing of some sort, but I've never truly felt safe anywhere. Forget the electric fence and the men willing to put their lives on the line for us. I know, and I have seen that in this world, it is only a matter of time that the reality of our situation will come crashing down, and we won't be able to get out of the way.