IV - I Lost Myself

The next morning, Lori, Luan, and Lincoln arrived at the capital of Maine– Augusta. Lori parked at the side of a jammed road and exited the vehicle with her siblings. They all headed to the subway station a few short blocks ahead of the road.

Lori knocked on the chained door with the combination lock on the handle. Lincoln took a sip of his water before placing it back on the bag. Luan made sure she had no weapons inside her leather jacket. Then, both siblings finally built up the courage to talk to their eldest sister.

"So, Lori…" said Luan.

"...how are you feeling?" asked Lincoln.

Lori held her revolver and checked the chamber. Empty.

Lincoln accepted her silent answer. He knew that Lori was scaling a mountain of grief. He placed his hands inside his white and orange sweater and lowered his head.

Lori knocked on the door again. And again. And again.

She had enough. She grabbed the combination lock in the handle with the intent to open it herself, but the lock split open. It fell to the ground, leaving the handle unlocked.

Lori grabbed the handle and twisted it, opening the door and dragging the chains with it. The sunlight lit up the wide room that hid a large subway complex beneath it. The three siblings walked down the wide stairs and were met with the iron turnstile. Not being able to go through it, they peeked through it and found that Jax was not there.

"This place is abandoned," said Lincoln.

Lori turned around and walked upstairs, her vision getting blurry again. The ringing returned and overcame Lincoln's voice. Then, another buzzing. Lori turned back and saw Lincoln and Luan.

"Don't follow me!" yelled Lori as she ran out of the subway station.

"Lori!" exclaimed Lincoln. "Luan, what was that?"

"I… I don't know. I'm getting a little scared."

Lori reached into her pockets and pulled out her phone. Another unknown caller. She answered it.

"Please tell me who you are," said Lori.

"Lori, you already have my number saved in your phone," replied a female caller. "You're coming to the party or not?"

"Stop asking me that. I literally don't care about the party. I just wanna know who you people are, where you are, and how you know my name."

"The entire high school is here," said the caller. "Lori, did you lose your mind?"

"No! It's your mind that is lost! Your mind! Can't you see that my family and I are dying out here? Please, just tell me where you are."

"Oh, I forgot, you're lost in the other world. Nobody gave you directions to where we are, right?"

"You mean… the new world?" asked Lori. "No, no one told me."

"Sorry, Lori. I, myself, don't know how I got here either. I wish I can help you, but it looks like I can't."

"Why?" asked Lori. "I… I'm in Augusta. Please tell me I'm close."

"You are," said the caller before hanging up.

"Hello? Hello! No!"

Lori fell on her knees as the ringing returned to haunt her ears. She looked at the metro map ahead of her and saw more bloody messages painted on it.

LOOK AT THAT.

YOU MADE EVERYONE LEAVE.

SHE DOESN'T EVEN WANT TO TALK TO YOU ANYMORE.

OH, AND THE PARTY?

YOU'RE NOT INVITED!

YOU LOST EVERYTHING!

YOU LOST YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, YOURSELF!

JUST SUFFER NOW!

A woman yelled in the distance. Lori turned around and gasped, moving out of the way before the woman could stab her in the back. As she dodged the swinging knife, she took out her hatchet and kicked the woman away from her.

The young woman panted and ran away from Lori, before being chased by her. Lincoln and Luan came out of the subway station after hearing the scream and found Lori chasing the young woman across the road.

"What's Lori doing?" asked Lincoln.

"I don't know. Let's go after them!" exclaimed Luan.

The young woman ran inside an abandoned house with open windows without glass, doors without wood, and walls without paint. It appeared completely empty inside with the exception of the needles in the sandy floor. Lori tossed her hatchet at the open rectangular hole where the door is supposed to be at. However, she missed and struck the cardboard that sat next to the hole.

Lori ran towards the house and grabbed her hatchet, finding the young woman in the dark corner of the empty room. She raised her revolver and aimed it at the young woman.

"Wait! Please don't shoot!" quivered the young woman. "I'm sorry! I only wanted your phone!"

"You were going to kill me over a phone?" asked Lori.

"I needed to take one last selfie!"

The young woman was the same age as Lori and had her golden hair. However, unlike her, it was long and disheveled, much like the dirt spread around her face and hands. Her clothes were ragged and covered in dark stains.

"Your knife! Drop it!"

The young woman complied with Lori's order.

"Who are you?" asked Lori.

"My name's Carly. I'm 19, I think. This is not my house. My house is a couple blocks away from here. Please don't kill me. I just need to borrow your phone, please. Please, I'll do anything for a selfie."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" asked Lori.

"I need to be together with my boyfriend," said Carly as she took out a picture of him. "See? I only have pictures of him. I just need a picture of him and I next to each other. I was gonna take a selfie while holding the picture."

Lori lowered her revolver and sighed.

"I just need a picture of him and I together," said Carly. "There's one in my old high school, but it's overrun by the monsters that killed my boyfriend!"

"That's not relevant– what are you doing hanging around here? Weren't you aware of the group of people livin' in the subway station?"

"Uh huh. I always avoided them. But then they left."

"Do you know where they went?" asked Lori.

"No… I don't mind what they do. So what are you going to do with me now… umm… I'm sorry. I don't know who you are."

"My name is… Lori. You need to leave. You're gonna get yourself killed out here if you're gonna live like this."

"Lori… can I ask you a favor? Can you please go to my high school and find my locker? A picture of my boyfriend and I should be inside. Can you grab it and bring it back to me?"

Lori crouched and glared at Carly.

"What makes you think I'll do that for you?" muttered Lori.

"'Cause, I know you'll do it for me. I see it in your eyes… you're broken. Something tragic just happened… and you know how painful losing someone you love is. I just need a picture of him and I. And I know you know… I need that. And you understand."

Lori didn't understand why she understood Carly. But nevertheless, she was going to do her favor.

"Okay. Where's your locker?" asked Lori.

"It's in the first floor, by the bathrooms. Locker 1212."

Lori nodded.

"I have three questions for you," she said. "How many roamers have you killed? How many people have you killed? And… why?"

Carly remained silent. Lori sighed deeply.

"I need you to stay here. If I see you go anywhere near my brother and sister… I won't hesitate to pull the trigger."

"I won't go anywhere," whispered Carly. "The high school is up the road near-"

"I know where the high school is. When I come back, you better have three answers."

Lori turned around and walked away, placing the revolver back into her holster. Carly sniffled and then stared at the photo of her dead boyfriend.

Luan and Lincoln walked around the streets together, looking for Lori and her attacker. Then, they heard a rumbling noise. They hid behind an abandoned car and saw a truck move in the distance. Behind the truck were people marching with weapons in their hands.

Lincoln found Lori coming out of a crack house, and ran towards her. Luan followed him, though her jog was more calculated as she evaded the marching survivors' sights.

"Lori! What happened? Did you get her?" asked Lincoln. "Lori? Where are you going?"

"Go back to the van," said Lori. "I… I gotta do something."

Lincoln ran up to Lori again as she continued walking up ahead in the road. He reached out to her and tried pulling her back.

"Lori, don't! It's dangerous, there's people here!"

Lori shoved Lincoln away from her and groaned in frustration.

"I said go back!"

Lincoln gulped as Luan held him and restored his balance. Lori wiped the sweat from her face and turned around, walking to the school. Lincoln and Luan turned away, now afraid of messing with Lori. It was clear that she wasn't herself. Not anymore.

The door opened, letting whatever sunlight enter the hall that hasn't gone through the glass windows. There was paper in the floor, from homework assignments to classwork to flyers about the upcoming prom that never happened. And there were corpses as well, mostly decomposed to a sack of bones with decaying flesh on them.

Lori held the hatchet in her hands as she walked past the bodies. She swatted the flies away from her and stepped on the maggots in the ground. She only looked for the bathrooms of the first floor but at the end of the hallways, she was met with a single wooden door. Opening the door, she found herself looking at the stairs that led to the second floor. But what really caught her attention was the grotesque amount of blood plastered into the walls and the rotten flesh that littered the stairs.

She left and closed the door, turning to her left instead. And then her right. She found the bathrooms, but of course, there were roamers blocking the hallway.

Lori stormed towards the right hall, lifting her hatchet. She yelled as she swung her hatchet at a thin roamer. Then she chopped the next roamer's head off. Then she sliced through another skull. She grabbed a roamer and shoved it to the lockers, banging it with her hatchet against the lockers. And for the last roamer, she noticed that its stomach was devoured completely. The roamer was unable to get up, so Lori put it out of its misery by stomping it down in the head with her boots.

Blood stuck to Lori's face with the sweat that created an adhesive combination of muck and yuck. She panted and shook her hatchet, tossing the pieces of flesh stuck to it down to the floor.

As she looked up at the hallway, she saw shadows passing by the windows. She quickly fell down on her knees, lying on the pool of roamer blood she created. She looked up at the window and saw survivors wearing a special kind of military uniform. Nothing she ever seen from the nation that formerly stood from California to New York.

In their left arm was a small white and blue flag. Barely visible from where Lori stood, it had a blue Saint Andrew's cross with a normal dark blue cross in the middle. In the area where the heart would be, four black letters were imprinted into the uniform that caught Lori's attention.

It was the K.H.A.N.

Using the small crack in the upper left corner of the window that Lori hid underneath in, she tried hearing their conversation. But as she lied her head down close to the puddle of blood in the floor, her ears caught another voice.

"Status report?" asked the female voice.

"No signs of present survivors, ma'am," replied one of the KHAN soldiers.

"Colonel, I have a suggestion to make," said the other soldier.

"Go ahead."

"Bomb the subway station. That way the survivors won't be able to return."

"We need that subway station for a future phase. Plus, the survivors have to return at some point. So, never… EVER suggest bombing the subways, got it, sergeant?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Her walkie-talkie crackled.

"Colonel Ash. Downtown section seems clear. Permission to move to east of the river?"

"Granted. Let's move, guys."

The KHAN soldiers marched away. Except the colonel. Lori swore she heard about her. She was one of the high-ranking rogue officers that wasn't stationed at Houlton. She came to a realization. There were many rogues out there, but none of them were after her. They were after the subway people.

Lori stood up and sighed as the ringing returned. She looked at the locker numbers as her head pounded. In her first try, she found Carly's locker with the number marked, 1212. As she approached the locker, her phone buzzed. She stopped where was and lowered her head. Then she looked at her phone and noticed it was an unknown caller, again. She answered it.

"Please stop calling me!" hissed Lori. "Stop. I don't know how you got my number, but just please… stop. I don't know where you are. You won't tell me. I don't know what the party is about. You won't tell me. I don't even know who you are. You won't tell me."

"Lori, it's me," said the female caller.

Lori's jaw slowly dropped as she slowly slid down the locker. She covered her mouth with her left arm as tears fell down her face.

"I don't… I don't believe it… how– how are you talking to me?"

Lori didn't receive an answer. She continued to sniffle.

"Leni?"

"I'm here, Lori. I know it's a lot to take in, but it's me."

Lori broke down.

"How– how did you…. I'm lost. You're not alive anymore… so how are you talking to me?"

"You'd be totes surprised what you can do here," giggled Leni as she tried to hold her tears back. "It's not just in your head, Lori. It's beyond this world. It's a happy place here."

"Who… who were the other callers?"

"Chaz and Dana. My friends… your friends. Yeah, I told them to ask you to the party, but to be honest… you don't have to come. It would spare you suffering, but people need you down there."

"I miss you, Leni…"

"I miss you too, Lori… we all do. We'll see each other again… when your time comes. And don't be afraid to fight for our family."

"Leni, I don't deserve to be here…"

"I'm here for a reason. The old world is not made for people like me. Remember how I died? I tried helping someone out… well, at least I'm happy now. Don't be afraid to lose your humanity. 'Cause if you're careful enough… you won't. And you won't lose our family. And you won't lose yourself."

"It's too late. I already lost everything. Even my sanity."

"You haven't lost everything," said Leni. "I love you, Lori."

"I love you, Leni."

Lori removed the phone from her ear and stared at it. She hung up and placed it back into her pocket. Then, she stood up and lifted her hatchet. She turned around and swung it as hard as she could at the lock, snapping it out of the locker. The noise was heard by the KHAN soldiers, no doubt.

Lori opened the locker and found the picture of Carly and her boyfriend, taped inside at the top. She pulled it out as she heard footsteps running into the school. She ran away from the locker and further into the right hall. There, she found another staircase that led to the second floor, but there was also another door. She opened the door and found herself out of the school into the courtyard.

She ran towards the mesh fence and tossed her hatchet to the other side before she climbed on it, leaping down to the other side once she made it above the fence. She grabbed her hatchet and ran away into the street, covered by a mess of overgrown weeds and shrubs. The soldiers came out from the school and looked around, noticing that their target has left bloody footsteps behind.

Luan and Lincoln looked at the subway station from across the street behind shrubs. They found KHAN soldiers guarding the area as they came in with Humvees and armored vehicles. There was talk going around that the soldiers found a survivor. They gulped and looked away.

"What do we do?" whispered Luan. "They're going to find Vanzilla."

"We need to leave," said Lincoln. "Stay in the van– get ready to drive it out of the city… I'll go look for Lori! If we don't make it back… leave."

"I can't do that! I'm coming with you."

"Luan, please."

"Lincoln, this is not up to debate. I'm coming. Either we all make it or we all don't. Plus, I know my way around this city."

"Fine. Lead the way."

Lori ran inside the crack house and rubbed her boots against the sand in the floor. Then, she ran to the dark corner before stopping in the middle of the room.

The young woman was hanging from a rope tied around her neck and attached to a large nail in the ceiling. Lori approached her body and found a chair tipped over on the floor. She lowered her head and found a note below her, along with a box of .357 Magnum bullets.

She knelt down, trying to look away from Carly's blue fingers. She picked up the note and the box. The note read:

I knew you could do it. Thank you for bringing the picture. Just place it in the ground. As you can probably see by now, I am reunited with my boyfriend once again. Sorry for attacking you earlier. You saw how lost I was, but not anymore. Anyway, here is the answers to your three questions.

No zombies, if that's what you meant by roamers. My boyfriend killed them all.

Just one person. Why?

Because she lost everything.

Thank you, Lori. I hope you don't end up like me. Lost.

Lori lowered her head and sighed. She dropped the picture and the note. She turned around and walked out of the house, taking the small box of ammo with her.

She looked back and found the KHAN soldiers marching to the house with their guns in their hands. She looked ahead and left the street, hearing a burst of gunfire go off inside the warehouse.

On the way back to Vanzilla, Lori found Luan and Lincoln in the middle of the road. They stopped where they were as Lori continued walking. They didn't know what to say to her.

"Follow me," said Lori. "We're leaving. We're going to meet up with the rest of the group."

Luan and Lincoln looked at Lori and nodded.

Lori placed a CD into the radio of Vanzilla. Since Sam had the original version, Lori had to play the Limp Bizkit cover of "Behind Blue Eyes." But it felt more fitting now.

Lori sighed and started the engine for the van. Luan and Lincoln took quick glances at each other as they remained aware of the KHAN soldiers a few blocks away. But more importantly, they remained aware of Lori's mental state. And even though she has never been more broken before in her life, she hasn't lost herself completely.

Still, they all knew, even Lori herself, that she was no longer the same. What happened to Leni has no doubt changed Lori. But they didn't know how. They weren't going to know… yet.

Lori turned the vehicle around and headed towards the highway. They left Augusta, as a helicopter approached the city. Lori felt an urge to follow them, but felt it was better to just leave it behind.

Lori checked her phone. She tried turning it on. But it wouldn't turn on. The battery was dead. And it has been dead for the past two years. She looked ahead into the road with eyes that opened a new type of window. They were grieving eyes, but with the hope of recovering. All she could think about was the last word she saw on the note and questioned if she would end up like that.

Lost.

No. She was before, but not anymore. No longer lost.

End Credit Song

Behind Blue Eyes - Limp Bizkit