PART 13: IN THE BEGINNING AGAIN

~1~

Justine's head lay on Randy's shoulder, and it was hard for her to understand the feeling of peace it gave her. The simple touch, his voice, it all comforted her so much. And he was the only guy that had ever done that for her. The only specimen of the male species that had called her gorgeous and meant it.

*

The car slowly pulled up. The girl on the sidewalk wore a short skirt, leaving her long, thin legs bare. She did a lot of work to keeps those legs in shape. She wore a leather, shabby jacket to protect her against the cold at least a little bit. No zipper on the jacket, she had just crossed her thin arms in front of her chest to push the fabric against her body, keeping the warmth near it.
Her long, straight, brown hair was just hanging over her shoulders freely tonight. Her big dark eyes were lined with black, her full lips were darkred. Her skin was pale and she was breathing out tiny, frostwhite clouds.
The people would wonder why a girl would wear clothes like that on a cold night, and why a girl her age was out at this hour what so ever.
Justine looked around with eyes wet because of the cold (or that's what she liked to tell herself), her eyebrows twisted into an insecure frown, wincing a little, as she watched the car drive onto the sidewalk. He had noticed her.
Carwindow went down and a man that was young, but at least ten years older than she was, said: "Hey, gorgeous. What are you doing out this late, all by yourself?"
Justine sucked in her breath shivering. "I-I need a ride,"she muttered, eying the neat slabs of the sidewalk.
"Where to?"the man asked.
"I don't care, as long as it's far way from here,"Justine said, shivering in the cold.
"What, mom and dad have been mean to you?"the man asked with a smirk.
Justine sort of got herself back together again, and her sharp tongue didn't lay frozen in her mouth anymore. "Weren't you ever thought that it's not polite to ask people about their household-issue's? Now are you taking me along or what?"
"That depends,"the man said with a smirk. 'Filthy asshole,'Justine thought, narrowing her eyes. The man said: "If taxi's, buses and trains aren't for free either, then you can hardly expect-"
"Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Nothing is for free, yadda yadda. Let me guess, you're one of those 'I'll give you a ride, you give me a ride'-types?"Justine asked.
The man looked a little baffled, but the disgusting smirk soon crawled back onto his face. "Hop on in,"he said, opening the door to Justine.

*


"Juz?"Randy asked.
Justine looked up with a lazy "hmmm?"
Randy muttered "Nothing" and stroke her hair. If he was going to ask her what was up, why she was being so silent, she was going to get annoyed again. It seemed so easily for Justine to get annoyed. But he still loved her.
Justine smiled. She knew.

*

Justine was deep in thought. She was looking at the white winterlandscape through the carwindow, without actually seeing it. She wondered if her fosterparents would've already noticed that she disappeared?
Probably not. She had been there for nearly a year. She usually didn't stay at fosterhomes that long -those poor fosterparents just couldn't put up with Nasty Juzzi, as she was known- and it was funny that the one fosterhome that didn't gave her up right away, was also the most horrible one.
Justine had a lot of fosterparents. She couldn't remember her real parents, they died in a car-crash when she was two. A fantastic first chapter of a human life. Ofcourse there wasn't any close family that her parents had known of, none of the familyfriends had the time, money, room or energy to take in little Justine, so a fosterhome was the only option.
She had gone through a lot, getting nastier with every new family. She started to think of it as a fun game: how can I piss my fosterparents off so much they send me away again? The first thing she did when arriving at a new fosterhome, was discovering what her new mommy and daddy found annoying.
But it didn't work at the farm, not with those two. Her last fosterparents said they "knew children like her". You just had to be tough on them, apparently. She wished they were dead. One of them had gotten sick right before she left. She had been hearing something about a new dangerous disease lately, so you could never be sure. If her fostermom would die, she would only be like: haha!
"You can put me off here,"Justine said as the car drove through a small town; little houses with snow-covered roofs.
"Why here? What could you possibly want to do in this hamlet? Besides, it's cold outside. Surely you wouldn't want to get out of the nice, warm car now?"the man asked her.
Justine turned to him, smiling hatefully. "Yes. Yes, I would as a matter of fact,"she said. She was already about to leave the car, but the man lay a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey sweetie, ain't you forgetting something...?"
Justine rolled her eyes furiously. "Fuck off, you fat retarted bastard. And get your hand off me, that cheap cologne of yours is burning my nostrils,"she said brazenly.
The man pulled her back into the car, shutting the door.
This angered Justine more than it scared her. She put up a scowl that would've scared the bravest warrior away. "Okay, here's a little deal for ya... you let go of me, and I won't rip your lips off and toss 'em into the snow,"Justine said with a mean smile, narrowing her eyes.
"You've got too much of an attitude,"he said. He tried to push her against the cardoor, forcing his lips onto hers. With a enraged growl, she kicked him and opened the cardoor. She ran out into the snowlandscape, which formed a contrast with the black night.
"Hey you! Get back here, you bítch!"he yelled. He got out of the car, and Justine finally got scared, when she noticed that he would actually come after her.
She whimpered a bit and started to run. "Goddamnit you whore, you promised me-"
The man was cut short as Justine ran into someone all of the sudden. She fell onto the ground, sinking into the snow. She heard the barking of a dog, and not long after that the sound of a motor running.
She turned her head, and saw the car leaving. Amazing. "You might not want to stay in the snow. You will get wet. And cold,"a kind, low voice said. Justine rolled her eyes. "Aw, we got a rocketscientist h-"
She would've said more, but instead she stared at the person she ran into. The guy that saved her from... well, god knows what that guy was about to do with her.
He was about her age, and tall. He had a kind, handsome face, warm brown eyes and he was smiling at her. A sincere smile. He wore a long, sandcoloured coat and one of those silly, big, fur-lined hats with slaps over his ears, like Russians soldiers wore.
He wanted to help Justine up, but she didn't need anyone's help -she was going to show him that- and got up by herself. "Hmph. Thanks, I guess,"she muttered reluctantly. Thanking people wasn't her strong side.
"You're welcome. God, people like that... Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, fine!" She waved his concern away with an annoyed, impatient handgesture.
"You're soaked... And aren't you cold in those clothes?"he asked.
"Well, duh. Do I look like I'm feeling tropical?"she asked rhetorically.
The boy smiled shyly, and looked at his shoes as if they had suddenly transformed into something very interesting. "Well, er, anyway, I'm Randy,"the boy said.
"Yeah, yeah. Nice to meet you, I'm Justine, blablabla. But er, we've basically introduced ourselves for nothing, coz this'll be the last time we see eachother,"Justine said exasperated.
"Oh... Don't you wanna dry up and get some hot cocoa then? My place is right at the end of the street. I was just walking my dog,"Randy said, and all of the sudden a fat labrador, that looked pretty old, came walking towards the pair, panting.
"Ah, this is Scout, my dog,"Randy said.
Scout took a sniff of Justine's hand and licked it. Justine shot Randy a very quick smile. "He's cute,"she said.
"She. It's a bítch,"Randy stated.
"What?"Justine said slightly confused.
"Well, that's what you call female dogs, right?"Scott said with a smirk.
"Oh, right."
"Yeah, anyways... I better get her inside soon, the cold weather isn't good for the old girl. Well, I guess if you'll go home now, I gotta say goodbye to you. But I guess I'll see you again soon; small town you see,"Randy said.
"Yeah, except I don't live in this town,"Justine said in a hard voice, just as cold as the weather.
"Oh. Well er... where do you live then?"Randy asked curiously.
"Far from here. At least I hope I'm far from it now. Anyway, is it any of your business?"Justine asked.
"Oh, no, I guess not. But... hm, d-do you wanna come in for a hot drink then?"Randy asked.
"Yeah,"Justine sighed. "Why not."
*
Randy appeared to be an only child, loved and spoiled by his parents, that lived in a nice little house in that cozy little town. Justine envied him so much she nearly turned green. But at least she got her hot drink, and she got to stay the night at Randy's house as well. It wasn't that big, but it was so... homey.
But not everything was right for Randy, as he told her. His parents were both sick in bed, and they didn't leave their room anymore. Randy was worried to death about the both of them, he said he wouldn't know what to do if he lost them.
Justine couldn't imagine what it would be like to love your parents, but for some reason she liked this guy, so she tried to comfort him anyway.
Justine was allowed to stay at the house, and only later did Randy start asking questions about who she really was and where she came from. They had nothhing to do but talking to eachother, as Randy's parents were laying up in bed, getting sicker by the day. And the rest of the adult population of the village wasn't doing to well either.
And then they finally heard about : the Virus.
*
"They're gonna die,"Randy said in a dead voice, fidgeting with the blanket that covered his both parents, deadly sick. Their skin looked like that of thousand year old people, their hair had turned white in one night, their hands had turned to claws, and their eyes were glassy and sickly yellow. And the scariest thing was that the look in those eyes was young. Randy's young parents were trapped in the bodies of misshaped creatures that seemed as old as time.
"They're gonna die,"Randy said again. Justine looked over at him and saw his eyes were wet. She couldn't argue with what he said, because she wasn't a liar. She didn't know any words of comfort either, so she simply laid her head on his shoulder.
*
At the end of the winter, Randy's mother was the first to die. Justine discovered it as she brought them breakfast. She had come to know those people, who had been nice to her in spite of slowly rotting away, and it was quite a shock for her. It stunned her that Randy took this news so calmly.
But it was when Randy's father died, a few days after that, that Justine noticed Randy had just been too shocked by his mother's death to find any kind of response, and now he broke down. He cried the whole night, like a little child and Justine, once again without words, crawled against him and hoped that would provide him with some comfort. She wasn't always nasty. And this guy was just... different.
They buried his parents. With the help of some other kids of the village, They had lost parents too, and they now knew what was going to happen to the other adults who were sick at the moment. They were going to be on their own.
After the funeral, Randy had turned to Justine. Saying he didn't want to stay in this village. Justine understood, she'd rather not stay anywhere where there were people. What if they would get this disease too?
The worldwide disaster the disease caused was clear to them. They needed to think about the future now. They both came to the conclusion staying near other people wasn't safe. They would have to do like people did in the Middle Ages, when the Plague reigned the world with an iron fist: go to a place where no 'infected people' would come.
Randy knew just the place: his grandpa's old cabin, deep in the woods. They could stay there. Gather food. Start a new way of life maybe. They could even survive.
And so they left. It had been the start of the Tribe that would later be known as the Argonauts. Two scared kids in a cabin that met eachother because of a strange coincidence.

*

As Justine flashed back to all of that, she thought where the Argonauts had gone from there. They had come far... but it wasn't clear if that was something to be happy about.