Read Wasted (Part 1) Here.
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Run.
The three letter word that had been fixed in Yan’s ears ever since his childhood, ever since the First Event, ever since he knew how to think and move, talk and breathe. It was the only word that never failed him, and the only word he knew he could rely on.
It was the only thing Yan knew how to do, and soon it became the only thing he did.
He remembered the explosion, the scorching heat that blew his hair back and closed his eyes shut. Through the blazing heat that he could almost hear burning everyone and everything around him, he heard his mother yell with a thundering voice.
“Run.”
So he did. He ran as far away as possible. He turned his back on his people, his family, and his past. Yan’s eyes never opened after that explosion. He didn’t see where he was running—he didn’t know.
“Yan.”
He looked at Melanie, who had stopped the car on the side of the deserted road. He looked out the windshield, and a decaying corpse was a few feet in front of them. The flies buzzed around it and a few landed on the windshield and scattered around. Yan put a finger on the other side of the windshield, and the fly stopped.
“Yan!”
Melanie’s voice was muffled under a gas mask. She had opened her door and put it on, and was now staring at Yan as his trance with the fly was broken by her voice.
“Get out. We must clear the body off the road.”
“Yeah.”
Melanie had not spoken to Yan the three hours they had driven down the isolated two-way road. She had sneezed a few times; that made Yan smile but he hid it by continuing to look at the farmland as they drove past. Above the hilly terrain rose pillars of black and grey smoke from as far as Yan could see. His eyes glazed over as he thought about the piles of burning corpses. Reading their faces, expressions—trying to examine their last words, thoughts, feelings. Yan had a tendency to do that, in a past life. A life he ran away from.
A life Melanie was bringing him back to. Who is this girl? Yan knew of molecular biologists, even European ones, but one this young was strange. She was at most 25. Yan himself was only 28, and he had never finished university. The First Event occurred too soon for him to graduate, as the university was disintegrated, along with everything else.
Did she survive it? Like me? Yan’s eyes regained their focus and he passed one final pillar of smoke, this time he could see where it was coming from. Another corpse pile, bigger than any he had ever seen. Even from the road and speeding past it in the car, Yan could see the faces. He could see the pasts that were lived, the futures unlived, feelings and thoughts. Cries. Yan buried his head in his hands once again, and began slowly rocking back and forth in his seat.
Melanie looked at him. But before she could say anything, she saw the sign.
‘Welcome to New California. Population, 45 million.’
“Non plus.”
Three hours later, Yan was slowly out of his seat and opening the door, leaving the flies on the windshield.
“Gas mask.”
“I don’t need one,” Yan said with a dead voice.
They both approached the corpse cautiously. Melanie had her crossbow extended, aiming it straight at the corpse’s head. Yan paused six inches from the head. He bent down, and immediately, he could feel it.
“Marauders?” Melanie asked.
“No.” Yan stood up. “Something else.”
Melanie put down her crossbow and stared into Yan’s eyes.
“Not Gassers either. They wouldn’t leave it here.”
Melanie looked around the surrounding land. The hills seemed pitch-black, and the scarce trees fluttered their leaves in the wind.
“Quick. Before Ferals come,” Melanie said, shouldering her crossbow.
Yan complied and took the hind legs of the creature as Melanie took the front. Slowly, they dragged the creature, which weighed at least five hundred pounds, slowly closer to the edge of the road. The pace was stressful. Each fluttering of leaves, cricket chirp and gust of night wind made Yan sweat and dart his eyes in every direction. He looked towards Melanie, who was doing the exact same thing.
“Get in the car, hurry,” she said. Yan dropped the legs and jogged towards the car.
“Shit. Door’s locked. Keys?”
Melanie walked towards Yan and he saw the blood trial lead towards the side of the road behind her. She threw him the keys.
“Wait. When’d the corpse start bleed—”
Yan closed his eyes as he heard, and almost felt, the impact of the Feral against Melanie’s torso. The two hit the ground hard and Yan opened his eyes to find Melanie grappling with the Feral’s jaw, her fingers in between the Feral’s teeth. Yan saw the teeth. He almost lost it.
“Merde! Yan! Get—”
She couldn’t say anymore as the Feral was pushing her mouth down with its free claw. The other one was being held back by her boot. A muffled scream as Melanie was stuck holding the Feral’s jaws open, as the claw of it was slowly moving from her mouth down towards her neck.
Straining against the claw, she uttered, “Run!”
Yan loosened his grip on the keys, which were now bloodstained from the cut Yan gave himself, holding on to them as tight as he did. Swiftly, unlocked the door and put the keys in the ignition. Melanie got her boot on the Feral’s shoulder, and grunted as she pushed it off her with as much force as possible. She scrambled for the crossbow, which wasn’t anywhere to be found. Yan was panicking as the engine slowly churned into a rumble. The headlights were brighter than the sun. Melanie squinted, and the Feral’s eyes seemed to scorch with the headlights pointed right at it. It yelped as two arrows penetrated its gut and chest. The Feral shuffled back, but the impact stopped its petrified gaze into the car’s lights. It looked straight at Melanie who was shaking with the crossbow in her arms. Yan knew that look. She wouldn’t shoot. She couldn’t. Not with what she was staring at.
The Feral croaked its head up towards the sky, and inhaled despite the puncture in its lung filling it with fluid.
Yan thought fast. He pushed down the emergency brake. Switched into gear. And slammed on the gas. The Feral’s call was cut short by the front of Melanie’s car shattering both its legs, crushing its ribs, and finally smashing its head against the hard road. The car’s screeching stopped right beside Melanie, who was as frozen as Yan had been moments before.
“I’ll drive,” Yan said. The night was silent once again.
“Yes…” Melanie grabbed her head and entered the passenger door. She stared blankly at the dashboard as she sank into the seat.
He looked at her, and could tell.
“Don’t worry.”
“What…” She trailed off before she could finish the question.
Yan pressed down the gas pedal and began cruising down the road.
“It gets easier.”
She started laughing, sunken in her seat. Yan looked at her, confused. Laughing turned to cackling.
Cackling seamlessly melded into gasps for air, and tears rolling down her eyes.
Yan slowed down and looked down to see her face, almost limply hanging down from her neck. She heaved once to suck in some air.
Crap.
“Eh.” He lifted his right arm and patted her on the back. He held it there. Suddenly, he thought he might as well, and tried to awkwardly embrace her across the barrier between seats. She sank into his chest as much as she could, and he could feel the warmth of her face and the tears from her eyes on his shirt. He started stroking her hair, which felt softer than anything he had touched in days, maybe weeks. The car’s rumble lulled them as neither of them moved, and her sobs turned quieter, and her chest ceased heaving.
She sniffled.
“We’re not gonna die.”
Yan looked out the windshield, at the full Moon. Something croaked in his throat.
“We’re not.”
