loud rancorous donkey braying at having not touched this in literally a year
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The Survivor's Guide to Surviving the Infection
Chapter 14: N is for Nothing (Left Behind)
? months, ? weeks, ? days after first Infection
Even covered in a thick blanket of snow, it was easy to tell that this had seen its ground zero months ago. A little town, clustered mainly around the one road in and out, was positively decimated. There were hardly any buildings left standing, and any that were were just empty husks providing inadequate shelter at best. There were shells of burnt out cars, some with the passengers still inside, decaying skeletons where they sat in ruined seats.
There was a military outpost right at the entrance of the town from the side they approached, but it was clearly obsolete, its soldiers missing or their bodies slumped over meager barricades. Divine picked at their corpses and the surrounding outpost carefully, seeking fresh guns and bullets to add to her own supplies. Be nice to find more rations to add to her inventory, she was starting to run low since the last safe house they were at.
She found next to nothing worth scavenging. Not even her boys found anything of interest, just poked and prodded at the bodies, but moved on for more exciting ventures. The group plodded on past the outpost and into the rest of the town. There was no sound aside from their footsteps and Ryan's atrocious wheezing and coughing. Nothing new there, but Divine was getting really sick of coming across town after town, house after house, and not even having the pleasure of something falling down on them again.
Normally such a silence would have been worrying. Normally the anticipation between the four of them would have skyrocketed, would have exploded between them and the rest would have taken care of itself. But the atmosphere felt…different. An eerie, chilling calm despite the very obvious signs of irreversible devastation.
It felt like they were walking through a graveyard.
Her hunters had their noses to the air and ground, and they kept sharing the same, confused glance with one another. Eventually they just flat out stopped walking, Zachary plunking his rump down into the snow.
"Nothing," he mumbled. "There's nothing."
"Not even the dead?" Divine asked.
"Hardly any" Zachary crinkled his nose. "Just…nothing."
Divine turned to look at Toni. He looked back as impassive as ever, but his expression said it all.
"Is it the snow?" Ryan questioned. "Can't smell anything past it."
"No no, everything is," and Zachary paused for a moment, trying to find the words to best describe it. "Old dead. Old scents, faded, almost gone. Not here anymore. I don't know what to call it."
"It's okay, I think we get it," Divine assured. "Let's keep going. Maybe there's something in one of these…half-buildings."
Leftover supplies, some signs of survivor passed through, just something that indicated that life had existed here at some point. Even animals would suffice, like raccoons or stray dogs. Anything at all that said THE LIVING IS HERE SOMEWHERE STILL. And yet…They still came up empty handed. Physically, at least. The more they looked, the more Divine began to piece together just what they had stumbled upon.
Sides of partially collapsed buildings covered in scorch marks. Piles of ashes. Metal bent and melted. The people of the town died all at once. And if they didn't, their exodus must have happened forever ago as they left their dead behind, unable or unwilling to bury them. She had to wonder if the soldiers stationed here were directly responsible, or if they were unwitting victims in their commander's grand scheme to wipe out the Infection in this little pocket of the state.
Either way, it succeeded.
When night fell, they took shelter in the least ruined building left in town, which wasn't saying much in that term. They piled together regardless, and Divine heated up a chicken breast MRE to divide up between them. As the MRE warmed up, Divine posed a rather interesting question to her boys.
"What does death mean to you?"
She was met with lopsided frowns and furrowed brows.
"What does it mean to you?" Divine repeated. "What does it mean when something is dead?"
Another round of silence lapsed between them before Zachary finally perked up excitedly.
"It doesn't move no more," he nodded rapidly. "And I can eat it!"
Divine rolled her eyes.
"Okay," she chuckled softly. "But what else does it mean?"
Zachary's exuberant demeanor dissipated immediately, and he went back into deep contemplation.
"Not here anymore," Toni grumbled.
"Not here how?" Divine prodded. "Like, poof? Gonezo? Can't see it anymore?"
"Just not here," Toni insisted. Divine thought it over for a second before nodding, then looking at Ryan. The smoker stared off at the far debris pile, his eye blinking slowly as he thought. Divine didn't press him to answer right away, and she checked on the MRE in the meantime. Zach's nose kicked into hyperdrive, and Divine had to push and hold his face away from it so he didn't burn his face, again, sticking it where it didn't belong.
"Dude, just wait please."
"Hungrrryyyy."
"Give it another minute!"
"Rrrnnhuunnghmmmhurrmmm"
She shoved him, and he tumbled away out of their pile, Toni quickly moving in to take his spot to lock him out.
"'Viiiiinnnne," Zachary whined like a kicked puppy. "'Vine pleaaaase."
Divine stuck her tongue out at him, and he cried and whimpered at his temporary outcasting from their dog pile. Distracted by his antics, Divine promptly forgot her own question, and laughed and teased at Zachary, and she fed them all when the MRE was done, and they settled down to rest soon after in the growing cold and darkness.
The next morning, when the sun first rose, Divine ensured that they didn't leave this town with nothing but their brief existence in its space-time. With whatever debris she could find as suitable material, she fashioned a cross, or as close to a cross as she could. The shoelaces from the boots of soldiers held the two pieces together, and with some help, the cross was stuck into the earth, right where they had entered the day before.
The boys didn't understand what it meant, or why it was important. Divine didn't think she could properly explain either. But the cross was erect, and they shuffled away to find the next safe room, wherever that was. The empty, broken town was left desolate once again with only its ghosts to haunt it, free of the living once more.
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that re-write is coming. one day. maybe. art can't be rushed.