Realistic or Modern Haven (Main)

[Lixy]

It was a little unsettling hearing her name coming from the taller woman's mouth. She was used to most of these Americans calling her Suzy, or worse, Suzanne. She wasn't opposed to the nickname Zana, far from it, she preferred it to the bastardisations or even her full name, but it belied a level of intimacy -- of being known and seen by the other woman that she wasn't sure she was entirely comfortable with yet.
Zana set her mouth as she watched Sybille light her cigarette. She wasn't a fan of the smoke herself, but her bába had smoked like a chimney, and it seemed that half the Mall did as well. Zana was more partial to wine when it could be found.

"I'm sorry, Zana, but children? Zana, those children have each killed more ghouls in a single outing than times I've even left the Mall with you. I have faith in you to pull your weight for the group," she continued, smoke flowing out of her mouth, "but I do not need faith to know that any creature near the business end of Hazel's bat is already dead and buried." Sybille smiled down at the shorter woman. "Do try to have faith in me, Zana. I've at least gotten this ball rolling, right?"

Sybille's smile was putting her off-kilter. If she'd been annoyed, or even angry, Zana would have had the fuel to continue the minor argument. A smile and mostly calm discussion weren't in her wheelhouse. "Even if true," Zana insisted, taking a step closer, drawing herself up. "Are you ready to have dead children on your conscious?"

Her thoughts drifted again to her students. Though much younger than those coming on this trip, they had still been outside. Some had even killed before. Would she trust them to watch her back in a fight? Perhaps. Would she want them there in the first place?

Zana glanced over her shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps, taking a self-conscious step back. She hadn't quite realised how close she'd gotten to the other woman. Her face pinked in a mix of embarrassment and anger, spotting one of the children approaching.

“Hey Sybille,” Hazel called out as she got closer. “What gives? You forgot to give me instructions.”

"My o vlku..." She side-eyed Sybille, wondering if she'd pushed it too far. "Do not mean to doubt, kámoš. Only..." she gestured at Hazel, now upon them. "Concern." With that, she swiftly departed before the young woman could figure out what they'd been talking about.

Spoiler: Translations

Kolega
Translation: Friend
Usage: Less close than a friend, closer than an acquaintance e.g. a coworker, classmate, etc.

Kámoš
Translation: Friend

My o vlku (a vlk za humny)
Translation: "we (are speaking) about the wolf, (and the wolf is in the backyard)"
Usage: Speak of the devil

 

[queendilettante]

Sybille watched the Czech woman walk away after reaffirming her... threat? No, not quite. Obviously, Sybille didn't want anyone in the group to die on the way East; the goal was explicitly for that not to happen, in fact. Of course, it was always a possibility. Hell, even if someone never left the Outer Ring, there was still the threat of a bandit raid being worse than SecDep could handle and civilians dying to them instead of infected. Existing in this world was an ever-present threat to everyone's lives.

And, children? Really? Sybille couldn't get past it. Both Hazel and Hal were older now than Sybille was at the start of the Outbreak, and Sybille was fairly certain that she was older than Zana. She had made it this far mostly on luck; Hazel and Hal had both fought - and fought hard - to grow up in the apocalypse. Childhood no longer had the privilege to exist, and even if it did, the "children" of the group were far more grown than any early twenty-something had the right to be.

Sybille spat on the ground and adjusted her sunglasses. She looked to Hazel, one of the "children" in the group and nearly winced. Of course she didn't want her to die. She hardly understood why half the time, but the woman's tenacity had worn her down. Hazel and Charlie were the two Sybille was most concerned for, if anything.

“Hey Sybille,” Hazel called out as she got closer. “What gives? You forgot to give me instructions.”

"No I didn't," Sybille sighed, lighting another cigarette. The concern from before soured, as it so often did, as Sybille processed Hazel speaking. Fuck, what was she thinking? Why did she have a soft spot for such a brat? No one but Hazel or Charlie could walk up to her and get in her face and not get punched. She groaned. So it goes.

"I figured you'd be following me around anyway," she mumbled, looking past the younger woman at the open shop door, "so I was gonna have you help me." She swung her backpack over her shoulder and looked toward the blonde. "Okay?"

 

[Hard Boiled]

In the meantime of waiting for the doorway to clear, a habit he'd picked up long ago after being trampled one too many times, Charlie bounced himself off of the wall and made for his bag, praying he hadn't fallen victim to any unsavory character's sleight of hand. He couldn't help but feel a tinge of redundancy as Sybille ordered him and Noelle to stock up, but perhaps she just wanted everyone to feel included.
"Everyone pack extra socks. They'll save your life!" He announced as the crowd flooded out, sliding his utility bag off of the table and hauling it towards the back for safe keeping.

"Feet, hands, neck, balls,"
"Extra socks warms them all!"

Noelle finished the Charlieism for him as he stuck his equipment under the recently refurbished register, pulling a hearty chuckle from the both of them. Whatever panic-fueled fury previously engulfed him immediately washed away with the certainty of her voice. He supposed that was precisely her charm - she could talk anyone off of any ledge without so much as raising her voice. The perfect buffer for his volatile highs and lows.

That said, they still had a big problem.

"Noelle, my dear..." Charlie grunted as he shoved his bag into the cubby. "It appears great minds think alike."

“Ah, that’s what they say sweetheart, but I don’t know if I’d call switchin’ your mind the day of the meeting as thinkin’ alike. Our mean ol’ leader got anything to do with you bein’ here, or is this your way of tellin’ me you’ll miss our witty banter?” The corner of her mouth turned up in a small smile. She was honestly glad for his presence, certainly a stable and unwavering mind in a sea of odd folk, but that didn’t dispel her curiosity. He’d been fairly set in stone about staying behind the last they’d talked.

"You got me." He raised his hands to his shoulders briefly. "Wouldn't last the week without you... Neither will the Mall." His tone took a grim turn.
"I don't have to tell you what this means. For everyone." He gestured to his side, facing the empty shop with crossed arms.
"Who are we leaving in charge?"

Noelle sighed, glancing at Charlie with a wary expression. The poor man never knew when to quit worrying.
“Hon, the Mall’s going to be just fine without you and I. I left Michayla in charge, and you know she’s been at the Mall only 2 years less than I have."

"Michayla? What is she, sixteen?" He interrupted under his breath. Michayla was thirty-four, a former physical therapy student who'd bounced between Charlie and Noelle's departments for the past eleven years.

"I have complete faith in that woman. I’ve also got a couple people lined up for your division if need be, but I trust you’ve got that handled?” Her voice lilted softly, as if she was talking to a child who fell off a bike. She didn’t see Charlie as a child, of course, and certainly not one of her babies, but it was an unfortunate habit to coddle those who were anxious or otherwise.

"Uh-huh..." Charlie scoffed at the thought of her choosing for him. "And what about the staff? Half of them can't even spell hospital."

“They’re probably relieved to know our old grumpy selves won’t be there to nitpick everything they do!” With her free hand she patted her friend on the back, slowly flexing her fingers to relieve the painful tension there.
“I’ve written out a checklist for my nurses just in case. You know, things I need done no matter what. I suggest puttin’ one up yourself. You got your things packed?”

He shook his head and gestured to the bag below him.
"Everything I could reasonably think of. Dressings, splints, water, saline, chloroform, um, alcohol... Penicillin." If he could even call it that. The mold they grew had some Penicillium in it, along with a whole host of harmful fungi. In short, not to be used on anything the patient wanted to keep. There were various other tools and equipment he failed to mention.
"I also took one of the transfusion kits." One of two remaining from a W.H.O airdrop that had miraculously survived the bombardment sixteen years ago. A scavenger had found and traded them a few months ago for some opium.

"There's nothing we can do for Thomas if he has an incident in the middle of the desert. I'm sure he's aware." Nothing we can do here, either.
"Otherwise, I'm... Cautiously optimistic." He couldn't let himself agree with her just yet. Not until they'd made it past the gates and he didn't have a choice.

Noelle hummed in agreement before taking her last puff of the cigarette and putting it out.
“Well I’m going to go cautiously get my things in order, you worrywart.” Grabbing her purse from the desk she had seated herself at for the meeting, she wrapped a gentle arm around Charlie before leaning in for final encouragement.
“These guys are gonna need their doctors in good shape, honey. The mall has protection, doctors, farmers, and the like. What do these people have? We’re doing more for our leader and everyone who’s following than we ever would have here. A cure, Charlie, isn’t it wonderful?” She let out a giddy chuckle before making her way to the entrance.

"Don't push it." He flicked the lights off as he exited with her, fishing a key from his jacket and locking up after Sybille had left in such a hurry. She'd thank him later.

“I’m happy to have ya here love! If you need any face cream for those worry wrinkles you know where to find me!”

 

[Swoob]

A sharp glint caught in Noah’s eyes. He got up. Everywhere thick pools of sunlight spilling onto the floor. The afternoon was leaning in further and about to collapse. Still no customers. He sighed.

In Noah’s little shop on a quiet streak in the Outer Ring it was a slow day. The old air conditioner rattled and wheezed from the back corner, trying to keep up with the relentless pace of the April heat.

“I thought I turned the AC off,” he said.

Olivia was sitting in the back right under the air conditioner, writing something in a small black notebook. She looked annoyed.

“Yeah,” the kid yelled back at him, “I turned it back on.”

He opened his mouth to speak—

“Before you say anything, I literally know we have enough money to afford it. Plus it’s like, a billion degrees outside? When else are you supposed to turn it on?”

They argued over the air conditioner for a little longer but in the end Olivia won. And she was right: as Noah let go of his worries and eased himself back into his chair the coolness of the air felt like it was saving him. Suddenly, he realized he didn’t really care too much. It was a wonderful feeling. Mundanity. Felt like the whole world was gliding along in a little boat. Noah sighed slowly, let the cool air in his throat swim. He thought about a design or symbol for everydayness; maybe he’d put it on himself. Here, the most important issue was making the room cold. Here, the doors were unlocked and the streets were gently empty. He wouldn’t mind if every day continued like this. He really wouldn’t.

“Olivia, why don’t you head home for the day,” he said slowly a couple hours later. “I’ll keep us open till closing, but I don’t think anyone’s gonna come.”

“If you say so.” Seeming like she was waiting for this moment, Olivia sprung off a counter and headed for the door. “See you tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder before leaving.

“Seeya,” Noah said back a little too late. He smiled. Olivia was a good kid. She asked to be his apprentice a few months back, but since then, she’s already been able to administer a couple simple tattoos to customers. She was opinionated and a little fast-paced compared to him, but of course a teenager would be. Soon she’d be even better than him. That made him a little sad, and kind of proud. It was fun trying out teaching for a little while.

A few days ago Noah heard a whisper somewhere in his shop. That Sybille was gathering a group to head East. The last place where Noah’s parents could be. His heartbeat increased. He had to do anything he could to get on that team.

As he waited through the last stretch of open hours at his shop, praying he’d be able to catch Sybille sometime before she left, he thought about the life he was trying to leave behind. Peaceful days and peaceful nights. Spending time teaching kids how to draw and tattoo. Maybe building some kind of arts community in the future. He wouldn’t mind if every day continued like this. He really, really, really wouldn’t.

 

[kaito9049]

By the time Joseph arrived at the hospital, his hand had already started to swell, the flesh red and a bit puffy. The near-constant pain had kept him from resting, so he’d just spent a few hours making the rounds, calling in favors and gathering supplies from folks who were all-too-eager to pay off their debts — real or imagined. He didn’t tell any of his benefactors why he needed the items, of course. He didn’t want to risk, any more than he already had, word getting around to the Founders.

The legwork left him tired; he hadn’t been sleeping much lately, what with the stress of the approaching departure. Dark circles underlined his eyes, and his hair stuck out at odd points.

In other words, he looked perfect. Sure, medically speaking he probably should have gone in as soon as Tom had crushed his hand into powder, but if he was going to sell this to as grouchy and skeptical of a mind as Charlie’s, he needed every aid he could get. Joseph was no stranger to pain, despite what he knew some might think. Hell, it was his experience with pain that made going to such lengths necessary. Why couldn’t Tom see that he was trying to save them all a truckload of hurt? That they — yes, even Tom himself — needed someone like Joseph, who knew how to navigate the micro-politics of a new group to make sure everyone got what they needed?

Ah, well. Tom would learn soon enough how important it was to be on Joseph’s good side. Or he’d be left behind. Either way, he’d be out of Joseph’s hair.

Joseph poked his head into the clinic, looking around for the wiry physician he knew would be running the place. He’d had only a few interactions with Charlie; other than the occasional work-related accident and… work-related more-than-accidents, Joseph kept out of the place. But like everyone else at the Mall, he knew the guy’s deal. He was blunt, no-nonsense, sometimes a bit harsh. But he was also a genuinely caring man.

Joseph could use that.

“Hey, Doc,” Joseph said, keeping his voice a tad lower than normal, a distinct difference from the cheery tone he used with his coworkers. It used to surprise him, how easy it was to change how he presented himself. But he’d been doing it since he could remember, even before the Crash.

“I, uh, got into some trouble,” he continued, approaching the physician. He kept his eyes downcast and his voice to a mumble, as if trying to shrink into the floor. The way he cradled his right hand with his left and hunched his shoulders, it was all part of setting the stage. He needed to seem like a man who needed help, but felt ashamed to ask for it. It was a look he’d seen in others countless times before.

“Got into trouble? What am I, the school nurse? Sit down.” Charlie snarked back at a similar volume without looking away from the paper he had to hold at arm’s length to read.

“What’s bugging you, how long’s it been bugging you?” He glanced up only to acquire the man’s face before returning to the more pleasant sight of his staff list. He was down to his last three candidates for a successor by process of elimination, following Noelle’s advice for once.

Joseph nodded to himself. Right to business, then. He expected nothing less. “I was” — he hesitated, pretending to consider his words — “cornered by a guy. Just a bit earlier, actually. I think he broke my hand.”

Presenting the wounded appendage for the doctor’s examination, Joseph watched Charlie to gauge his reaction. There was no guarantee he’d buy Joseph’s claims, or even care. But maybe he’d be smart enough to figure out that — whether or not Joseph was being entirely truthful — Tom was too much of a liability to bring along.

Charlie put the paper down and squinted at the hand as if it didn’t have a man attached to it, bouncing his eyebrows once in feigned shock. He felt around the wrist for a few moments while the vocal cords continued their spiel.

“Try to move your thumb.” No movement. He poked it with the tip of his pencil. “Feel that?” No.
Without so much as a second look, it became evident that poor Joe’s thumb had been dislocated, in need of a reset — a job for more nimble hands than his.

“Kayla!” he shouted towards the changing rooms.

“If I tell you something, you can keep it a secret, right?” Joseph asked, wincing. The pain, at least, wasn’t something he needed to fake. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that? Or did that get tossed out the window as soon as everyone started turning into a bunch of biters?”

“You know, you don’t have to slam your hand in a door to dodge coming with us, this isn’t Vietnam,” Charlie dismissed as a woman around Joseph’s age approached in the distance.

“Well, what is it?”

Joseph eyed the woman carefully, a strange focus quickly becoming visible in his expression. It’d be easier to bring Charlie around if he didn’t have to watch his words, but whatever. He could adjust. The good doctor seemed ready to kick him out anyway.

“I talked to Tom after the, ah, volunteers’ meeting,” Joseph said, speaking quicker now. “We’ve worked together, and he’s always had it in for me. I dunno, I think he’s jealous that I make friends more easily than him. I went to him, tried to see if we could mend things up, and he lost it. Said he ‘knew what I was up to’ and that if I stayed with the group, I’d regret it.”

Joseph nodded to his hand. “I guess he wanted to show that he was serious.”

Charlie paused for a moment to let the smell of bullshit air out.

“Sounds serious.”

Michayla clacked her heels against the floor at attention, staring over Joseph’s shoulder at his hand with little regard for his personal space.

“Yeouch.” She sucked her teeth briefly. “Reduce it now?”

“Mm-hm.”

Charlie finally gave his patient the courtesy of eye contact, tilting his head forward as if he still had a pair of glasses to peer over.

“You’re telling me that Tom, old farmer Thomas, broke your hand because he’s jealous of you?”

“Can you wiggle your thumb? Can you feel this? What about this?” Michayla, meanwhile, continued her assessment like nobody was there, kneeling beside Joseph’s stool and fiddling with his fingers.

“Yeah, I feel it. Listen, Doc,” Joseph began, wincing as the woman manipulated his digits, “why would I make this up? I ain’t got beef with Tom. And I know as much as anyone that now’s not the time to rock the boat. If I need to keep my head down so old Tom doesn’t bash it in, I’ll do that. I just figured you and our fearless captain might wanna know about it. Do what you want with the info.”

“Noted.”

The three sat in relative silence until it became too much to bear.

“I don’t want him off the team,” Joseph added after a moment’s pause. “I can’t imagine what he’d do to me if he got booted. But I gotta wonder — if he’s willing to push around someone when no one’s looking, what does that mean for folks he’s never met before?”

“I don’t know, Joe, maybe he’ll shoot us as soon as we walk out the gates.”

Sensing Charlie’s exasperation with the patient, Michayla decided to cut to the chase and draw some of the attention away.

“Alright, I’m gonna reset your finger.” She grinned up at Joseph, gingerly taking hold of the tip of his thumb with two fingers and pressing her free thumb into his second knuckle.

“It’s gonna hurt, and then it’s gonna feel better, okay Joe?” She called him by the name she heard Charlie use.

By the time he began protesting, she was already counting down.

“On three, ready? One, two!” On two, she pushed her thumb forward and bent his finger back to pop the joint back in place in one smooth movement, immediately letting go to let him wince.

Joseph yelped, not expecting the sharp burst of pain. What was Charlie teaching these people? But seconds later, he realized the near-constant ache was subsiding. So it really was just a dislocation? That wasn’t nearly as cool. No wonder Charlie seemed to think he was an idiot.

“All better! Can you wiggle it again for me?”

Joseph had failed, it seemed; persuading the doc was like trying to make broth from a scalpel. And if Tom found out Joseph was spreading rumors about him, this whole thing could backfire.

“Thanks for the help,” Joseph mumbled, trying to blink away tears from his eyes. “Listen, Charlie — you don’t have to listen to me. You’ve done more than enough for all of us a dozen times over. But I’d appreciate it if this, whatever you do with it, doesn’t make it back to Tom. As good of a conversationalist as you are, I’d like to not land back here with more than a dislocation.”

“Right.” Charlie smiled up at Michayla, who saluted him and promptly took her leave.

“Feel better!”

“So, what are you up to?” He pressed before the wolf could fully zip its sheep outfit back up, quickly regaining his chronic RBF. “Walking three-thousand miles just doesn’t seem like your flavor of quick buck. No offense.”

Joseph hesitated. Charlie didn’t seem the type to strike up a conversation just for fun, not when the patient had been handled. “None taken,” he answered. “I know some people here think I’m flighty. There’s some truth to that. I like to help people, do a lot of different things. Means I don’t always stick around to see a job through after my part is done.”

That wasn’t what Charlie had meant, Joseph knew. But it was the old politician’s tactic: answer the question you wish you’d been asked.

But other questions demanded an answer. Not because of their political importance, but because if a guy didn’t respond, they might just keep him up at night.

“But I’m sticking with this one no matter what, Doc,” Joseph continued, his voice strangely quiet. “We’ve all done stuff we’re not proud of. And for what? To keep from ending up on your table with a bite mark. If this vaccine works, if this plan works, we don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’ll all have been worth it. All of us, we need to take that chance. ”

Joseph grunted. He hadn’t meant to talk that much. He supposed doctors had that effect on people, maybe even more than he did. “How about you? You’re not gonna have regrets taking care of a handful of people instead of a whole settlement?”

Charlie used the last of his social battery to refrain from rolling his eyes as Joseph did his very best Sybille impression, figuring it was pointless to use such straightforward wording with a man as complicated as he. Working at something or not, once they were outside the Mall, Joseph would either have to play nice, or finally face the consequences of his actions.

“Nah,” he answered monotonously, “I’m well past our life expectancy of thirty-five. Might as well have a little fun, right?” If Noelle wasn’t getting a solid answer, Joseph Park most certainly wasn’t either.

Satisfied as he would ever be, Charlie crossed another name off of his list before putting it down for the last time.

“Anything else I can help you with?”

Joseph stared at Charlie for a time, his expression unreadable. “No,” he answered finally. “I suppose not.”

 

[guac]

"I figured you'd be following me around anyway," she mumbled, looking past the younger woman at the open shop door, "so I was gonna have you help me." She swung her backpack over her shoulder and looked toward the blonde. "Okay?"

“Okay!” Hazel could have jumped for joy. Sybille always managed to make her feel special, whether she intended to or not. “So where to first?”

Sybille managed a smile at the overly excited girl. Hazel had a way of driving her crazy, but her specific brand of loyalty was almost familial. Sybille liked to think that, in a world where things were like they used to be, this is how a little sister might have acted.

"We're heading up to the top of the Macy's," Sybille answered. "I need your help discreetly packing up some things from my office." By that, of course, she meant that she needed Hazel to be ready to nag any overly nosy associates of Sybille's away from her makeshift office.

Hazel gasped. “A secret spy mission!? I have always wanted to do one of those, omg. I am so stealthy Sybille, you won’t even know I’m there.”

She slung Stella over her shoulder and started back towards the mall, a skip in her step. “What are you waiting for, let’s go!”

Sybille forced a smile and began trailing after Hazel with Santa. This may have been a mistake.

The walk back to the Mall wasn’t short by any means, and it wasn’t long before Hazel lost the pep in her step and fell back to Sybille’s pace. They walked together quietly for what felt like ages. She knew Sybille tended to prefer it that way, but Hazel always found it difficult to resist the urge to fill the silence with words.

She thought back to the conversation between Sybille and the Russian woman she had seemingly interrupted. Hazel hoped she was just imagining it, but she got the strange sense that the two had been talking about her. It was something about the way they had looked at her as she approached – or maybe it was that the Russian woman had spoken some mysterious words, gestured vaguely in Hazel’s direction, and promptly left, leaving her wondering if she had just been cursed or something. Whatever it was, Hazel didn’t like how it felt.

“So uh, what was all that about, before, with the Russian lady?” She asked Sybille.

"Russian lady?" Sybille asked. Was there a Russian woman at the-

"Oh," she mumbled, unintentionally aloud. "You mean Zana? The dancer?" Sybille thought back to the conversation with Zana, a Czech woman, and how she dismissed both Hazel and Hal outright. Obviously, she couldn't let Hazel know that Zana had been arguing with Sybille about even letting her come.

She scoffed. "Oh, that was nothing." She spit on the ground and quickened her pace to get ahead of Hazel. "Zana's a weird person, is all. She was upset with role assignments, as I understood it, but we got it sorted." She turned around to face Hazel and Santa as she walked backwards along the cracked asphalt.

"She also wondered about that bat of yours," Sybille pointed at the spiked monstrosity that Hazel named Stella. "I think you should demonstrate how you use that thing early on." She smiled and winked at Hazel from behind her sunglasses.

Hazel smiled. She didn’t quite understand what Sybille meant about Zana, but it didn’t sound important, which set her mind at ease.

She widened her stance and swung Stella at an imaginary ghoul, in slow motion for maximum effect. “Oh yeah, I’ll be swinging for the fences in no time.”

It was yet another phrase Hazel didn’t understand, but her dad used to say it all the time, and it earned her a small chuckle from Sybille, so she didn’t really care what it meant.

—

What felt like hours later, Hazel sat on the edge of Sybille’s desk, kicking her dangling feet against the side.

“Ugh, I'm bored,” she whined. "How much longer is this gonna take?"

Hazel had been prepared to sneak around, but when they arrived at the office, no one was there. Instead of the spy mission she had been promised, she was forced to sit around and watch Sybille sort through her boring office things.

In spite of Hazel's complaining, Sybille was much happier with the way things had turned out. She figured that bringing Hazel to something like this would be the best way to keep her from upsetting any of the others before the group left, but she had been worried since leaving the shop that Hazel would blow her cover in some way.

"I'm about done, Hazel," Sybille sighed in response. Of course it was boring, but she couldn't risk any records of her planned departure circulating after she left. The more likely it was that they could disappear and become ghosts of this settlement, soon to be forgotten, the better.

Even so, she was going cross-eyed with the monotony of the task. Eh, it was probably fine as is. The sun had already begun to set and she still had two full days before they set out.

Sybille pushed herself from the desk without warning, visibly startling Santa in the process. "Whoops, sorry boy," she chuckled. She reached into her bag and put a cigarette into her mouth. "You're right," she said to Hazel, lighting the cigarette, "this has nearly bored me to tears too." She'd need to steal as much tobacco as she could reasonably carry from the fields before they set out, or she'd have an exceptionally uncomfortable first few weeks on the road.

"There's one more place I'd like to go tonight," Sybille continued, smiling at Hazel whose ears immediately perked up. It was almost too easy to get the young woman excited. "Wanna come get a tattoo with me?"

Matching tattoos? Hazel's eyes widened at the thought.

"Is that even a question?" She jumped up from the desk and tugged Sybille toward the door by the hand. "Come on, let's go before you change your mind!"

 

[queendilettante]

Noah considered turning the lights off. Afternoon had crested, fallen and since receded into dusk. The temperature was a bit softer now, an exhale of the day’s fervor. Around him a halo of paper scraps and debris, half-drawn scribbles and scrawls. He started to gather his things and put back his supplies. In the end, nobody had come today. That was fine. Maybe a little sad. But fine.

Knock knock knock.

Just as he sat back down in his chair. Noah sighed. If it was any earlier. “Sorry, we’re just closing up,” he half-yelled to the door. He couldn’t afford to stay even longer at the shop now—he had to look for Sybille before it became too late.

Sybille stood with Hazel outside of the small, rundown building that Noah had turned into a tattoo parlor quite a few years ago now. She was grateful for the sunset’s reprieve from the day’s oppressive heat, but the muggy weight of the humid air was not so quick to recede with night’s fall. Hazel seemed unbothered, as ever, with the unforgiving climate; a trait, Sybille had come to suspect, that came more easily to those that never knew the grace of effective central air.

Sybille knocked again on the door. “Sorry, I know it’s late,” she called, hoping that the younger man who had tattooed her in the past would hear her out. She remembered how excited she was when the teenager that arrived bruised and battered from the road not too long after she had done the same wanted to pursue tattooing. It took some coercion for the Founders to greenlight renting space to him, but Sybille had been itching to get more tattoos since the world had ended. Repeating, “It could bring in money *and* help morale!” ad nauseum worked well enough in the end.

“What the fuck—” Noah jerked back in his chair after hearing a familiar voice. There was no way. Right now? He jogged over to the door, pushing it aside and looking down at a familiar head of pinkish hair.

“Sybille,” he said, smiling wide. “It’s good to see you again.”

Sybille nearly jumped with the rushed, erratic sounding movement inside and the sudden opening of the front door. She half expected to see a runner with Noah’s face, but silently cursed herself for even considering that. If stray noise inside Mall walls was enough to leave her quaking, she’d never survive the journey East. She subtly shook her head. It was the time to steel herself.

“Likewise, Noah,” she smiled, glancing down at Hazel’s wide, shining eyes. Sybille remembered how excited she was when she got her first tattoo on her eighteenth birthday; her dad nearly disowned her for how far the cherry blossom branch went down her thigh, but they both knew he couldn’t afford to kick her out. Like when she brought home a girl for the first time, it was just another thing he had needed to get used to. Sybille only hoped the apocalypse was on the same list.

“Any chance you could give some off-hours tattoos?” she asked, changing the subject before risking a walk too far down the haunted Memory Lane. “We’re in a bit of a time crunch,” she added, smiling apologetically and scratching the back of her head. “I’ll pay extra, if it helps,” she offered in an effort to sweeten the deal. It wasn’t as if she’d need money in a few days' time anyway. The Mall was the only settlement she’d even heard of where the first post-apocalyptic priority was doing capitalism again.

Hazel’s heart began to race. Under normal circumstances, she would have been awestruck by the tall tattooed man who answered the door, but at the moment she was far too distracted by the prospect of going under the needle for the first time. She was no baby, but the idea of having a stranger carve a picture into her skin suddenly sounded pretty painful. Hopefully Sybille will pick something small…

“Fuck that,” Noah said, waving his hand, “you don’t need to pay at all. Come on in.” He started walking towards the couple half-torn couches he used as a waiting area. In reality, he absolutely needed the money. But if things went well…

“No way,” Sybille shot back, “I’m not letting after-hours walk-in tattooing be fucking charity, Noah.” She eyed the taller man as she walked inside the marginally more comfortable building; in spite of the screech from the old window A/C unit that Sybille had fixed up a few years back, it seemed that the room could only get so cool with the weight of the April heat.

Sybille smiled at the man but narrowed her eyes in the direction of the air conditioner. She thought she was fairly clear about how he needed to be subtle about when he used it, as the Founders tended not to prioritize A/C outside of the Mall proper, but he was already doing them a favor; she wouldn’t push it.

She strolled through the, by Mall standards, rundown store and plopped herself down into the chair she had sat in for tattoos before. Noah had tattooed the raven that Sybille had on her shoulder, but she hadn’t found the time to make her way over to his store as nearly as often as she’d have liked to. Funny how, even in the apocalypse, Sybille couldn’t quite shake the workaholic tendencies so deeply instilled within her.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a loose, slightly dented cigarette. “Mind if I smoke in here?” she asked, not particularly concerned with his answer. She pulled out a lighter before he could respond and motioned to Hazel to come and sit down.

Hazel nervously followed Sybille through the shop and sat down on the couch she had gestured to. If the place was any more run down than the rest of the Mall, she didn’t notice — growing up in the apocalypse hadn’t made her particularly picky about the cleanliness of her surroundings. Besides, she was preoccupied with trying to calm her nerves. This is supposed to be exciting, stupid, stop being such a wimp.

As Sybille lit her cigarette, Hazel looked for something to fiddle with. She usually liked to twirl Stella around in the air when she was nervous, but Sybille made her promise to stop doing that indoors after one too many close calls (she’d called them near death experiences, but Hazel thought that was a tad dramatic). She opted instead to take out her pigtails and start braiding her hair, sitting back on the couch and pulling her knees up to her chest as she did so.

“Okay, so what are we thinking of getting Sybille? I was thinking maybe something small and tasteful like — Ooo maybe an infinity sign right here on our wrists, wouldn’t that be cute?” She broke her nervous chatter just long enough to breath before turning to Noah. “This is my first tattoo, is it gonna hurt? I mean I’m not a baby or anything, I’m just curious. I’m Hazel, by the way, but you probably know that if you know Sybille, I bet she told you all about me.”

She smiled up at the man, looking at him properly for the first time. He looked just about her age, she realized, and handsome in the sort of artsy, awkward way she liked. Despite herself, she blushed.

“Hold on, Hazel,” Sybille interjected, “I think you misunderstood what I meant.” She sighed and pulled at her earlobe with her free hand; kneading at the hardened scar tissue from her childhood piercing was an odd nervous tick of hers.

Sybille glanced at Hazel, who she feared already felt crushed. Fuck, that wasn’t the move. She didn’t need Hazel to be disappointed, or worse, resentful, before they set off across the country together. Resentment could easily fester and if she felt sad when they left, she’d be more liable than normal to lose herself in that damn bat at the first sign of Ghouls. It didn’t help that the misunderstanding was entirely Sybille’s fault. Damn it.

“But that’s okay,” she chuckled and smiled in an effort to save the mood. “This is the best kind of surprise!” She sat up from her slouched position and tapped her cigarette into her portable ashtray. “I’ll be getting two tattoos, it seems Noah. One thing that I’ve wanted for a while and a matching design with Hazel,” she smirked at Hazel and winked. “Her choice on the design.”

Noah looked at Hazel. He had been so focused on how to try to persuade her that he didn’t really notice her until she introduced herself to him. She was cute. He smiled awkwardly and scratched his neck. “Sorry, it’s been a while since Sybille and I’ve had the chance to catch up, so I might’ve forgot. But it’s good to meet you."

“And it’s ok; it barely hurts. It kinda depends on where you want to get the tattoo, but the pain is totally manageable. Here—” Noah reached for a pair of old papers and handed them to Hazel. They were mangled, yellowing, cratered with dirt. But still there were visible drawings of gendered silhouettes with various colored areas shooting through them: highways of red over the spines & under the chest, sleeves of blue over the arms. “Usually the places that are really sensitive, bony, or don’t have much fat will hurt more. If you’re worried about pain, the blue areas are places that hurt the least. It’s like a small pricking feeling, or like you’re being scratched kind of hard. I’ll start with Sybille, so you can see how she handles it and think about what you might want to get in the meantime.” He offered another smile and walked over to where Sybille was sitting. “Alright, so what’s up? What are you thinking?”

Sybille’s performed smile turned wistful. This was it. “Um,” she started, voice softer than she ever let it be. She knew that she needed to go through with this; it had been on her mind for years and this could be the final chance. She knew better than anyone, regardless of the confident mask she needed to wear, that the odds of them making it East were slim. But she didn’t have a choice. She would wear that mask until it fused with her skin or she died trying. It didn’t matter how badly the fear hurt her stomach, how many nights she’d woken up in tears, gasping for air; no one was allowed to see past it.

No one but the ghosts she couldn’t put to rest; the voices and faces of those she’d failed, those that she’d lost, who couldn’t help but torment her. A day had not passed where Sybille avoided the grotesque, pained sight of her wife’s final moments - the final moments that Sybille had to put an end to. Claire was the love of her life. She was the one person with whom Sybille could drop all walls and let in without fear, the one person who turned the pained, anxious knots in Sybille’s stomach into butterflies. Claire was love - true, unbridled, childlike love.

Love, the one feeling Sybille could sit in and let wash over her, but ruthless in its evasive flight from her grasp. Like a dangerous high, it could never be reclaimed like that first, careless trip. She made the mistake of learning its warmth, and the hottest San Francisco day felt like snow in its glory. And, like a high, it was fleeting. The warm embrace of a thousand gentle suns was extinguished in a flash. The flash a shaky muzzle, putting Sybille’s love to bed forever. She was the only ghost Sybille couldn’t deny, and the only one she needed to.

Would a simple date make even the slightest dent in helping her ghost move on? Could the ever-present reminder of a single day, one with two life changing meanings, do anything at all to grace Sybille with even an instant of reprieve?

She didn’t know.

But the time had passed to let herself consider it anymore. She couldn’t risk the thought of dying on her way East without trying, even once, to look that twisted ghost in the face and try, though fail as she might, to see love again.

“Could you put ‘February 16th’ on my wrist? It was my anniversary.”

 

[Ha_lfLife]

It never got old – watching the sun disappear over in the West. That was one of the things that remained consistent in these days and the ones before the Crash. Without a cluster of city lights or TV screens to detract from the phenomenon, Tom never ceased to take pause at the sight of it. Most days, he had the opportunity to watch it rise, too. He’d been up since far before the sun this morning, doing the exact thing that he was still doing now.

The notion came to Tom last night that the horses Sybille had enlisted should probably have new shoes before leaving. He’d previously kept a chart in his office, denoting which horse needed to be re-shoed when, allotting 8 weeks before their hooves overgrew to the point of debilitation. If he could at least start them off with new shoes, he wouldn’t have to deal with replacing them so soon. Depending on how long the trek across the country took, they could make decent headway before he’d have to revisit the idea.

The revelation brought with it the unsavory realization that he’d have to re-shoe droves of horses at once. More than the twelve horses he and Sybille had picked, really. Rushing to polish up and rework only twelve out of the thirty horses the community owned seemed suspicious enough on its own. The best way to justify re-shoeing twelve horses in a day was to claim he was doing all of the horses at once, a common practice among past ranchers. Something like spring cleaning — get all of the horses on the same schedule so they could all be given proper maintenance at once, rather than trying to keep track of them individually.

The horses hated it. He hated it. It felt like with every new shoe, he took a good thirty days off of his life. The labor was intense, not to mention he always got kicked the most when he was doing farrier work. The one he was on now, number nineteen, would be his last for the night. He had just finished his back two hooves, now mounting the first of the two anteriors, and taking a spare moment between to stretch out his back. He honestly couldn’t tell anymore if the pain he felt was directly attributed to the fact that he’d spent most of the day at a 45 degree angle or if it was just a symptom of getting older.

This brief break was when he caught sight of the sunset for the first time that day, taking a ritualistic moment to appreciate it. It was then that he saw a shadowed figure coming towards him, silhouetted against the vibrant oranges and purples of the sky. He hadn’t expected to see anyone for the rest of the night, having sent home his two young apprentices half an hour ago. Their mother always started to worry if they weren’t home before dark.

As the shadow grew nearer, Tom recognized who it was. The good doctor himself. A definite surprise. In fact, aside from the brief glimpse of him at Sybille’s shop yesterday, Tom hadn’t laid eyes on the man in earnest for over a decade. It was more a result of circumstance than intention, not seeing Charlie for so long. Tom lived like a hermit most of the time. Well, as well as anyone who lived in a confined community could. He was quite literally on the peripherals of the place, living in an old repurposed shed between the stables and the pastures. It wasn’t fancy by any means, but it gave him shelter and running water and solitude. Living so far away from the core of the place, he didn’t have many accidental run-ins with old acquaintances.

And, to be honest, he hadn’t had any good enough reason to seek Charlie out in the past fifteen years. Tom was one of those old bulls with a resilient constitution. He barely ever got sick, and if he did, he was too stubborn about it to actually seek medical attention. Whenever he felt a sniffle coming on, he got up – same as he did every day – and worked through it. Well, he was still standing.

“Afternoon, Thomas.”

While surprising, Charlie’s appearance wasn’t an unwelcome one. “Charlie,” Tom brushed off the dirt from his hand on the suede kick guard on his thigh, and offered it out, his grip firm but much less insidious than it had been with the last hand it shook. “What can I do for you?”

“You think I want something from you? I thought you had faith in me.” Charlie returned the gesture without the slightest hesitation, his signature restrained smirk weaving its way across his lips. He concluded the shake with a shoulder-pat from his free hand.
“You look good, Tom.”

“Please, don’t let me interrupt you.” He motioned to the beast before him.

“An interruption’s always welcome,” Tom huffed, pulling off his 49ers cap and wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He was a Broncos fan until death, but the supply of clothing available from the Mall was very much centered around the Bay Area. If it came between not having a hat for torturously long shifts in the sun and having to be a 49ers fan, Tom would stoop to that level easily.

Tom didn’t know about looking good. To be honest, he felt his age; the late forties were a tricky time, constantly feeling like his mind was still keen, while his body nonetheless slowly started to betray him. Add to that Tom’s own special problem. Every skipping in his chest or breathless moment induced in him a certain paranoia. Was this finally it? A white flag waving to signify the end? Tom’s condition was an easy enough fix in the world before, yet it served as a death sentence now. Was that what Charlie was here to consult with him about? His bum heart?

Tom again regained that excruciating angle over the propped up stallion’s leg, not wanting to lose his momentum on the last two shoes of the night. “I suggest you come up here,” Tom hesitated, holding the leg flush against his thigh. Bogart was a mean one, 4 years young and not yet complacent with the idea of being tamed. At the moment, Charlie was still well within Bogart’s hind legs.

“I was surprised to see you in the group,” Tom continued humbly, focusing on the hoof he was chipping away at with a blade. “Looking for greener pastures?”

Charlie strafed left, effectively using the rancher as a meat shield. By now, asking him why he decided to leave was a box of chocolates with all his different answers. Today, it was Sybille forcing him. Tomorrow, it would be because he didn’t like the color of the walls. He’d decide on one eventually.

“Just…coming along for the experience, same as you.” He unslung his canvas man-purse and hung it on a fencepost, expecting a nonchalant “okay, Charlie,” but instead finding silence.
“...The nurses will be fine while I’m gone. I trust them.” A droplet of embarrassment ricocheted through his gut at the scene he caused earlier. Your confidence is everyone’s confidence, he reminded himself as his gaze drifted to the dirt beside Tom. Don’t write self-fulfilling prophecies. “No pastures greener than these, anyhow.” He returned to the task at hand with a distinctly more certain tone.

“Will, uh, this fine gentleman be joining us as well?” Charlie gladly aimed the subject away from himself.

Tom straightened himself out again, looking up to see who Charlie was talking about. “Who, him?” He shrugged to the young horse, working now to get the newly shoed hoof back on the stand for crimping. This was always the worst part. The horses hated the iron. Even though it didn’t hurt them, it made too much noise and it spooked them. “No, he’s too young. Not predictable enough.” As if on cue, the hissing from the iron caused the horse to buck against the post, kicking one of his hind legs almost precisely where Charlie’s jaw had been moments earlier. “We should have enough, though. Sybille picked out most of them.” And, Tom thought to himself, hopefully they wouldn’t have a certain volunteer joining them after all, bringing the number down to a sensible nine people.

The doctor flinched at the kick a full five feet away, blinking a few times to reorient himself.
“Oh, well if she picked them…” He snorted at his own mockery, sitting quietly for another few minutes to let Thomas finish up.

Tom finished the fourth hoof, setting Bogart’s leg down on the ground and unhitching the reins he’d tied to the post. He started a slow stride back to the inside of the stables, keeping a close grip on the horse to keep him from doing anything else unexpected.

“I’m only concerned that some of the younger kids haven’t quite grasped the, um, gravity of the situation.” Charlie emphasized, slinging his purse on. “What this entails for everyone involved.”

Tom blew out a sigh at that, nodding down at the ground as they walked. “Probably don’t. I doubt they remember it out there like we do.” Sixteen years was a long time to remember things. For the most part, that was probably a blessing.

There were certain parts he remembered well. The hell of it all. Late summer of 2022 was the worst of it. After the Fort Collins breach. Loading up his RAM and driving for Salt Lake, and after that the coast. Trips that should’ve taken days but instead took weeks. The chokehold of stalled out cars blocking the interstates, many of them empty, some of them streaked with blood. Driving over half-decayed remains in the grass past the roads’ shoulders; being horrified and ashamed to do it at first, growing used to it quicker than he’d like to admit.

Tom had finally made it to the Mall at the start of October, joining others at the complex’s perimeter. They’d come from all over, outsiders seeking refuge and direction. He hadn’t slept for two days - driving straight through the desert, half sure that something would attack him if he stopped and half afraid that the haven he’d heard of in the Bay Area wouldn’t really be there. He’d thrown some food and water in the truck before crossing the desert, but he’d barely partaken in them, unsure of when or if he’d ever get another chance to replenish the supply.

He hadn’t expected the place to be so strict with entries. Sure, Tom knew they wouldn’t be welcoming droves of strangers into the place with open arms and expect everyone to sing choir hymns together. But as he stood in line at the gates, he started hearing rumors from the others that there was a chance at being turned away. For being infectious with any disease that could spread, for being too sickly to otherwise contribute, for being too violent or unruly. The second point concerned Tom, who knew his condition was an immediate disqualification for plenty of things — roller coasters, giant magnets, high contact sports.

By the time he actually sat down in front of someone, he admittedly already looked pretty rough. Though his younger self was trimmer and plenty less gray, he was sleep deprived, starving, and of course, overwhelmed with a fresh and biting grief - none of which was ordered to be of any concern to the man before him prior to admittance.

The double-security doors at the external entrance of Macy’s had been converted into a screening checkpoint with little more than curtains between each unit, utilizing only the bustle of clamoring survivors to drown out any sensitive information. Fortunately, there would be no shortage of candidates any time soon.

“Name and date of birth?” The spectacled interviewer began, sat with immaculate posture over two stacks of looseleaf and a pencil. He donned a blue windbreaker reminiscent of scrubs and a white armband with a red cross, his ginger hair trimmed to a loose right-part.

“Tom. Tom Caldwell. Uh,” Tom closed his eyes and rubbed one of his temples with the palm of his hand. When was his birthday? None of this felt real. “11/21/90.” It was like he was enlisting again.

“As in, Thomas?”

“Yeah.”

The interviewer scribbled a few lines in.
“Occupation, Tom?”

“Don’t really have one now. I ran a ranch before…” Before what? How did someone even start to describe what had happened?

“Nobody has a job now ‘cept us and the rats, bud.” He chuckled once.
“You go to school at all, rancher? Any college?”

“No, just high school and service,” Tom breathed out. His shoulders relaxed slightly as the conversation continued. He hadn’t talked to anyone in days, but the motions of it were coming back to him. The man sitting across from him had an obvious knack for putting people at ease.

“Oh yeah?” The Mall dweller continued writing whilst he spoke. “What branch? What’d you do?”

“Marines. Rifleman. Mostly in Helmand, then Kabul.” Fatigue seeped through his voice, adding to the fact that he really didn’t like talking about those years so much.

“I see. Farmhand sounds like a peaceful retirement plan.”

Tom just nodded. It had been.

“You coming here alone or with a group? Any next of kin?” His least favorite question to ask.

“Not anymore.” He clenched his jaw to keep his composure, looking down to his arms crossed on the edge of the table. He had grasped on to the tail of a woven string bracelet tied to his left wrist, a rainbow of pink, yellow, and green. The wedding band was still there, too. Everything that had mattered to him was condensed down to just one hand. That’s all that was left of any of them.

There was no sly remark from the man this time.
“Any past medical history I should be aware of before the physical exam? Diabetes, hypertension…” He stood and circled to Thomas’s side of the table, pulling his dangling stethoscope off of his neck. Most type-one diabetics weren’t around anymore, anyway.

The moment of truth, Tom thought to himself gravely.

“Just this,” Tom loosened the top button of his shirt. He pulled back the shirt’s collar, revealing a distinct scar on his left collarbone. “Got it replaced last January. Doctor said this one should last fifteen years or so. Maybe longer.” Tom’s voice already held a certain amount of resolve. It was one of the revelations he’d come to on the road, realizing that there wasn’t going to be another replacement when he needed one. It was some sort of mercy in itself that he’d just gotten a new one right before the world started burning, giving him the most time he could’ve asked for. He didn’t look at the interviewer, instead letting go of his collar and letting it fall back over the scar.

The medic squinted down at the scar as Tom began, slumping his shoulders with a sigh after only a couple seconds. He’d transported enough geriatrics in eight years to know a pacemaker incision when he saw one.

Right there, Thomas Caldwell, the thirty-two year-old Marine-turned-rancher should have been turned away according to protocol. Any condition that might use unnecessary resources, require special care, or in the founders’ words, just take up space, should be considered a hard DQ. After all, there was only so much room in a three-storey super mall. It was a decision he’d made dozens of times by now.

“We’re sorry,” he’d told a bow-legged man just last week, “but unfortunately, without education, we can’t accept you if you can’t work.” The mutilated survivor limped back up the road, never to be seen again.

”We have no anticonvulsants. We just can’t afford to allocate the resources every time she seizes,” he’d explained to the mother of an epileptic child, until the whole family was ejected after the father assaulted him.

“Ma’am, we’re already quarantining against one virus, we can’t invite more in,” he rejected a woman who failed to hide her hepatitis through her jaundice, afterwards claiming she was transfused tainted blood by the World Health Organization. She camped outside the Mall for another two nights before being shredded alive by runners.

So many more denied for so much less, and yet here was this ticking time bomb of a man who could code if he sneezed too hard. Any further conversation that didn’t consist of some variation of “get out” could get them both lined up against a wall.

“...Deep breaths.”
He put his stethoscope in his ears and placed the bell on Thomas’s left lung apex. Sure enough, in the background of Tom’s breathing was the steadiest 70 beats-per-minute he had ever heard.

“When’d you first get it?” The medic timed his questions for Thomas to answer between auscultation points. Someone as young as him, there was bound to be a story.

“2012. In Kabul.” Tom replied simply. Twenty-two years old, still a kid. One bad step later, he found himself being served discharge papers in a base hospital in Germany and coming home with an irreversible lifetime condition. It didn’t really change his life as much as he’d expected, at least not until the world turned on its head. Voice still low, he added, almost under his breath, “I’m a hard worker.” It wasn’t really a plea. There wasn’t anything desperate in his voice. To be honest, after losing his youngest just weeks ago and seeing what had happened to the rest of the world up close, Tom was at the point where survival didn’t seem to matter much to him. He was just so damn tired. If he got denied here, he’d leave without any qualms and walk until it was time to stop.

“Ever had any trouble with it? Lead problems?” Tom’s blood pressure was taken next; high for most people, could be a lot worse for someone in his position.

Tom shook his head. “Half the time, I don’t remember it’s there.” Which was the truth. Tom didn’t slow down for much. His size alone displayed a potential for being an asset. He wasn’t a stranger to manual labor and it showed.

The medic paused before undoing the sphygmomanometer, sucking up his lower gum while he ruminated. The strangers quietly came to the same conclusion.

“Go and see Martha in the furniture section upstairs.” He decided, returning to his seat and placing his signature at the bottom of Thomas’s paper with a few more recordings. This magical document might decide both of their fates.
“Give her this, she’ll show you to your barracks.” He offered it across the table.

Tom furrowed his brow, looking down at the paper slid over to him in disbelief. He was serious …? That was all?

“…Before I change my mind.”

Tom cleared his throat, standing up and grabbing his duffel from the floor. He gave the man across from him one more cautious look. The feeling he had was equivalent to getting away with a crime. He took the paper in one of his calloused hands, holding on to it like it was the key to life itself. He’d barely processed the instructions given on what to do next before briefly nodding and heading in the direction people seemed to be moving. Before leaving the intake booth, Tom looked back over his shoulder.

“Um, ...thanks.” The words themselves were informal enough, but there was gravity in them. What the interviewer had done for him was much bigger than simply looking the other way. Even then, he had known that. Tom offered half a wave, slinging the bag over his shoulder, and disappeared into the store’s background.

Fifteen years later, and Tom probably could’ve summarized that chance encounter between the two pretty well. Despite the exhaustion and the apprehension that laced the entire meeting, he remembered the feeling that came out of it – of being entirely indebted to someone for a kindness. Even though so many years had passed, and no further camaraderie had formed since then, Tom still felt that way walking beside the man now. He literally owed him his life.

Tom had done well on his word. He’d stated he was a hard worker and he’d worked like a dog every day since then. He started with the odd jobs that needed doing. But when Tom noted that the half-feral, half-underfed hodgepodge of cattle was dwindling down to near-extinction, he offered the higher-ups his guidance. Tom was soon given his role as the settlement’s rancher and, within a matter of years, the livestock population had quadrupled. Pre-existing medical condition or not, Tom had proved his worth twice over.

So had Charlie. Even Tom the Hermit knew that from a distance. The man practically ran the hospital now. And that little tidbit of information he knew about Tom was something he’d kept quiet for all these years. Tom was grateful for that, too.

After locking up the last of the stalls, Tom moseyed back towards the door. The last of the orange in the sky had finally given way to twilight, casting the world outside in shades of blue.

“They probably don’t remember it like we do,” he repeated with a sigh, looking back over at Charlie as he cut the lights and locked the stable door behind them.

“No, I suppose they don’t.” Ten minutes of talking about nothing, and all was said between them that needed to be said.

“Maybe things have settled out there. Won’t be as bad now.” Tom offered, not even sounding convinced himself. Bodies under tires, blood sprayed across windshields. They’d probably still be there. He sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to revisiting them.

“One step at a time.” Charlie stepped towards the footpath back to the mall.
“Oh,” he turned. “Please don’t break things you can’t fix. They come back to bite me.”

Tom didn’t know what the hell Charlie was talking about at first, but the realization finally hit him by the time the doctor was halfway out of sight. When it did, he couldn’t help but chuckle, muttering to himself as he headed home. Would you believe it if I said he deserved it?

 

[Solar Daddy]

Get food. Understood.

Lars blanked out the rest of what was said for the most part. He was too goal oriented, focused, and determined with any task given or received. When something needed to be done, Lars was the first to offer a solution or provide an answer. In this situation, the solution to starving after a few days in the woods was to collect non-perishable food. The answer was simply grab some rations from Phil the butcher. Easy as pie. Lars almost wished he waited to deliver the deer carcass earlier that day, as he could've had a prime, fresh delivery ready to be packed and processed for their trip. Of course, there was no way Lars would've been able to convert the fresh meat into jerky in time for their departure. The solution was not as simple as Lars had originally thought, but finding an alternative wouldn't prove to be too difficult.

After all, he had Liberty with him. The two were a crafty duo, probably some of the most competent people in foraging and hunting in the area. With Lars' trapping capabilities and Liberty's hunting skills, the two could probably keep their posse well fed for the entire duration of the exodus. Maybe if they were lucky, they could even get a small surplus going.

"We're heading to my place and then making a stop at Phil's." Lars told Liberty idly as he walked. Through a silent agreement, the pride of America and himself went across the crowded Mall with his residence as the destination. Liberty had come around once or twice in the short time the two had been on friendly terms, discussing their luck with the wilderness or exchanging different survival items, mostly reusable traps. He didn't need to lead her to his humble tent, but Lars led anyway. Most of the distance traveled was silent, as Lars wasn't much of a conversationalist, but some talk of drying and foraging was discussed between the two. After all, they would probably become the team's go-to for all things consumable. Anything from plants to meats to pathfinding was going to be their role. It was good for them to discuss their ideas on how to keep everyone fed before the trek started. Lars was happy with it; he was most alive when completing a job or a goal.

When they arrived at the dilapidated tent in the middle ring wall, complete with a few animal skulls and feathers to complete the image of an extremely unoriginal hunter, Lars had Liberty wait outside while he scrounged around inside. His home wasn't much, especially to those living the high life in the Mall itself, but it was his own, and that was enough for the hunter. A few minutes later, Lars exited the tent, producing a can of baubles and a small rucksack full of heavy items.

Lars expected the furrowed brow glancing in his direction. Normally, the stoic wouldn't care much to explain, but Liberty was one of the few he considered himself mildly friends with. "I dropped off an elk earlier today at Phil's. I didn't accept payment, told him I'd be cashing in later, not exactly sure when. Well, we're going to cash in for that elk right now." Lars shook the noisy can in his hand. "This is for any extra he can spare for me to pay for. And, well, maybe a little extra I intend to borrow on good faith."

Next up on Lars' teaching lesson, he held up the heavy bag, which he could only lift a few inches up due to the weight. "Here's my stash of goods I keep for field rations when I go off hunting for long periods of time. About two weeks worth for me, which I'm assuming will last two or three days when shared with the whole group. This, combined with whatever I can trade for that elk, is going to be my contribution for the food." Lars nodded at his companion before tossing the bag back in the tent. "This'll remain here until we depart the Mall. For now, let's go cash in that game."

"I'll bring my personal rations too. Should amount to another day or two of food for the whole group, maybe more if they all know how to conserve well. Should be a decent place to start; maybe a month worth of rations total, what with all the food between us, and whatever that elk will get us. Not to mention whatever Joseph can scrounge up." Liberty gave a hopeful shrug.

With the two in agreement, they set of for Phil's, set up in a small hut in the middle ring of the Mall's sphere of influence. It wasn't a spectacular place, mostly just a plain wood shack with a couple airing racks for jerky, a handful of smoke pits, and the like. Lars frequented the place for his own goods, but also to sell directly to Phil, who he trusted to give good prices and a quality return on food.

Lucky for them, Phil Turner hadn't closed up shop that day just yet. The oaf was cleaving away at the elk Lars had delivered earlier that day. The quiet duo stood outside the serving window of the shop for a few moments, watching Phil's work. It was clear he'd done this for a while; the man's motions were practiced and skilled. This seemed to be his ten thousandth deer he'd butchered, and Lars was always eager to see him at work. Nothing like seeing a fine cut dealt with properly.

When he'd grown tired of the spectacle, Lars placed the bauble down on the wooden surface of the window, which clanked like a hundred coins rumbled inside. The collision got Phil's attention, who turned and lowered the cleaver on sight. "There he is," Phil spoke in a gruff tone, wiping his darkened hands on his apron. "Here I was thinking you were stopping by to collect, but it seems you're here to pay me." He chuckled and propped his hands up on the sill. He gave a quick nod to Liberty. "Good to see you again, 'fraid you might've become ghoul bait. Been a while since you last stopped by."

"Not that lucky just yet." Liberty returned the nod in an almost perfectly replicated fashion. "How's the stock today?"

"Filled out quite nice," The burly man took a glance behind him towards the large freezers in the back. "Surprised at the quality we've gotten recently, not that I need to tell you two. Probably caught and killed a quarter of my whole inventory."

"Glad to see our contribution is apparent," Lars said, pushing the can towards Phil on the counter. "The stag I brought earlier, I need to exchange it for jerky, already prepped and ready. I need every last bit you can throw my way, which is why I brought some extra goods to pay for more." Lars motioned to the can again, which Phil grimaced at.

"I'd love to give you what it's all worth, but that's a lot of meat on short notice. There's a lot of people here banking on getting their cuts-"

"C'mon Phil," Lars leaned in a bit, lowering his voice. "We need this. I've helped you out plenty before. The citizens of the Mall can go a day or two without meat, can't they? We've got the crops for that."

It was clear the vendor wasn't comfortable with the sale. "I just don't have that kind of inventory. People pre-pay, the poor always need the scraps here and there. The hell you need so much meat for anyway? Planning on having a last supper before you go die in a blaze of glory?"

"Something like that." Liberty chimed in, also dropping a pouch on the counter. "You can trust us man. We'll return the favor eventually, you have our word. And you know we're good for it."

Phil glanced between the two stacks of Mall cash, the stag on the table behind him, and the freezers. The beam of the two hunter's glares made the butcher hard pressed to say yes. With a groan, Phil ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I expect a big favor for this. You want me to clear inventory for you. I better be getting some prime meats in the coming weeks. I'm serious you two, I can't just throw away my rolodex. I need to keep my clients happy."

"Can't promise we'll be able to return the favor in weeks Phil," Liberty said brusquely. "I promise you we'll make it up eventually. I won't lie, it'll take a while, but we'll return with a forest full of elk, bear, moose... The people of the Mall will hail you as the ultimate butcher. People'll feast for weeks, cheering out, 'Phil, Phil, Phil!' You won't regret this buddy." Phil waved his hand dismissively.

"Whatever. When do you need it by and where?"

"We'll come by to collect in three days. Just keep it stored for us, we'll be back. And, thanks again Phil. You won't regret this. Probably."

With that, the conversation was done. Handshakes were exchanged, thanks given, and eventually the pair walked off from the shop. With a heavy sigh, Liberty looked ahead as she spoke. "That was all my funds."

"Likewise." Lars chimed in brusquely, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Let's hope this expedition doesn't fail, yeah?"

 

[Swoob]

At this point it was simple. In one gloved hand Noah held Sybille’s wrist in place on the armrest; in the other he traced the inky stencil he had drawn earlier with the tattoo machine. Outside an unmistakable night. Remembering his first days setting up the shop. How hard it was to convince the Founders to greenlight the project; even harder to encourage scavenging efforts for the equipment. Getting disinfecting equipment from Charlie. Through all of it Sybille supported his slipshod efforts. As the process of the tattoo continued, the two caught up, shared stories, and Noah remembered just how much he enjoyed her company when he first arrived at the Mall. He wished he had stopped by her shop more often.

But recently the conversation grew quieter. Noah silently administered the tattoo, glancing over at Hazel every now and then. He had learned more about her too that night: she had a strangely happy energy that he hadn’t quite seen before—especially not from the older members of the Mall. At times her carefreeness reminded him of himself, if only a little. What mattered most though was how close she was to Sybille. As Noah studied her, he tried to gauge the trust between the two. Was she going on the journey East? And if she wasn’t, would Sybille have told her? Is it a secret? Should he not bring it up right here? Would that bat swing at his throat next?

He breathed. At some point he had to just ask. Sybille had no way to run from his question while he was giving her a tattoo. This was his best chance—and it may be his last. “Sybille,” he said, slowly, carefully, looking up from her wrist. “You’re going East soon, right?”

Sybille jumped slightly at the question, but she hoped not enough to ruin the tattoo that Noah was actively needling. “Fuck, uh,” she stammered, scratching the back of her head with her left hand. She shot a glance at Hazel, raising her eyebrows and glancing down at Noah in a poor attempt to wordlessly ask if Hazel spilled the secret. It wouldn’t have been completely out of left field, after all. Sybille noticed how she looked at Noah as soon as the two of them walked in.

“I-” she continued, still unsure of how exactly to respond to the man. Sybille hadn’t spoken to Noah in… Shit, it must have been at least a month. If even he’d caught wind of it, there was almost no chance that the Founders hadn’t too.

So what gave? Why hadn’t they marched over to her shop to accuse her of treason and throw her in those fucking jail cells on the first floor of the Macy’s? Could they have decided to wait? Play coy with her? Pretend like all was well and then surprise them all as they tried to leave?

Sybille couldn’t risk it. It looked like she actually would need to talk to them before they left. Maybe Bill? He seemed consistently the most willing to give Sybille the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, maybe it would be just her that got strung up instead of the whole lot of them.

“How’d you hear about that?” she finally choked out at Noah, shooting another somewhat-accusatory sideways glance at Hazel.

Hazel sensed there was meaning to Sybille’s glare, one she didn’t like. Hazel was many things, but she was not a gossip. Sure, she might have let slip a detail or two about their plans to Todd, but he was just a weird loner-type who lived outside the walls, so he didn’t count. She crossed her arms indignantly, accidentally crumpling the yellowed paper she held in completing the motion.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” she huffed.

“I just heard about it from some guy who came in this morning,” Noah interjected, hoping to relieve the tension. “And it really wasn’t that much. He’s just one of my repeats—uhh, I think a scrap merchant or something? Anyway, you know, people just like to talk in my shop. That’s probably the only reason I heard about it.”

Hazel bit the inside of her cheek, hoping not to show her guilt on her face. Todd did count, it seemed.

“Uh huh,” Sybille mumbled, still glaring at Hazel. There wasn’t necessarily a guarantee that Hazel was the one who talked, but it would probably be better that way. Hazel had a habit of rambling about all sorts of things to whoever deigned to listen, so if it was her, maybe the Founders wouldn’t take the hearsay seriously. At least, that’s all Sybille could hope for.

She turned her attention back to Noah, whose expectant face seemed more focused on Sybille’s response than the tattoo that he was still actively doing. She cleared her throat and eyed the needle in the man’s hands. She sighed.

“Yes, we’re heading East,” Sybille lowered her gaze. She wished she could grab another cigarette, but needing to break for any reason would just exacerbate the nauseating feeling in her gut. “Please, Noah, don’t say anything. Let this be a way of repaying any favors you think that you owe me okay?” She forced a laugh and scratched her suddenly itchy chest. “I’m not trying to get shot before I even leave.”

“Of course,” Noah said. “I won’t tell anyone. And I do have plenty of favors I owe you.”

He let out a light laugh, glancing down at Sybille’s wrist. A couple more letters to go. Running out of time. “Do you think I could ask you for one last favor, though?”

Sybille bit her lip. This was it. What would he want? Money? She already offered it to him and he had refused? What could he possibly hope to extort her for with this information?

Sybille sighed. And Noah hadn’t seemed like the type. Perhaps she needed to reassess her abilities to read people before setting out.

“What is it?”

Noah paused, then smiled apologetically. “Let me come with you?”

“Oh,” Sybille said, unintentionally aloud. That was- well, not what she had expected. Though, it was clearly true that reassessing the way she read people did in fact need to be changed before leaving. Jumping to distrust so quickly was almost as bad as being too naive. Quite a pendulum.

“Uh, are you sure?” she forced a laugh. “You haven’t exactly spent much time out of the walls since coming here and there’ll be no sure protection out there.”

Noah winced a little. “Yeah, I know…” He thought about it too. Since he first fell through the entrance to the Mall, more than five years had passed. All that time atrophying in his little shop. It was nice. But now the bloody surge of the outside felt like a distant dead friend. A part of him missed it.

Large parts of his life were blotched, burnt hollow out of his mind. A decade of dismembered memories, jagged recollections of paranoia and merciless hunger. Nightmares, daydreams. And still there was a home there, made of childhood if nothing else, and a language laid in bone. He didn’t need to worry about remembering his past out there. He had no choice.

“I know it’s been a while,” Noah said, “but I did spend almost half my life out there. I’m not as skilled as I used to be, but I’m still in shape, and I can’t imagine that I’ve forgotten everything.” He paused. “Plus, you remember about my parents, right? I think they might be out there. Like, out East.”

He stopped his work for a second and looked up. Searched her eyes for anything to grab hold of. “I need to go. Please.”

Hazel had to stifle a snort at Noah’s optimism. If he really knew the outside as well as he was saying, then he should’ve also known better than to hope. Hazel looked to Sybille, trying to read what she was thinking. She’s got to know he’s too naive to make it out there.

Sybille flinched in response to the pleading man, but eyed the tattoo to try and pretend that it was just that pain. Sybille knew better than she’d ever let on the pain of unknowable ghosts; the small chance of maybe felt far worse than any guarantees.

What if her parents really were alive in Brooklyn - or even somewhere in Jersey? She’d be a bigger fraud than any of the Founders if she tried to claim that the possibility of dispelling those ghosts wasn’t a force pushing her East.

She looked wistfully at the young tattoo artist. Another one. Another person who was putting faith in Sybille to guide them safely across the apocalypse. Another person who never had a childhood who thought Sybille can restore something, anything, that was better than this.

Well, in for a penny.

“If you think you can handle this, Noah, I won’t be the person to trap you here.” She sighed, already regretting the choice to endanger another life. “But we’re leaving in two days from tomorrow. I need to help bring you up to speed. Oh, and you’ll have to see Tom, the rancher. Make sure he knows to bring another horse. And-“ She rubbed the area between her eyes, suddenly overcome with a flood of planning.

Now wasn’t the time. They still had two days.

Two days.

“But I’ll catch you up when we’re done the tattoos,” she laughed, turning her attention to Hazel. “She still needs to settle on a design for us.”

“Wait hold on, that’s all it took?” Hazel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Sybille had to know better than to let just anyone tag along on a journey like this, right? “You’ve seen me in action and even I had to beg you for like days to take me with you. For all you know this guy is just gonna be dead weight.”

She paused, looking back to Noah. “I mean, like, no offense or anything.”

It’s because I care about you and Noah’s just some dude, you fucking idiot, Sybille wanted to shout, but she didn’t- she never did. She simply took a deep breath and steeled her expression. Hazel was blinded by her closeness to her to really understand anything.

Was Noah naive? Probably, yes. Was he capable of handling himself? Probably, yes. Sure, he’d been soft in recent years, but the kid made it to the Mall on his own. Best case scenario, he’d prove his worth and help the whole group with another gun and another set of hands. Worst case scenario, he would die and they’d have one fewer mouth to feed.

And one more ghost to haunt her.

Hazel was different, but she was too thick in the head to realize it. If anything happened to her on the way…

“Hazel, please, you realize he still needs to tattoo you, right?” Sybille smiled, cutting her dangerous thoughts off. “I doubt he’ll be dead weight, to be clear. And even if he is, I’m sure you’ll be more than willing to remind him of that.” She winked.

Hazel scrunched her eyebrows. She still wasn’t buying it, but that wink was a weakness of hers.

“Yeah I guess.” She sighed. So I’ll be on babysitting duty, then, she wanted to add – but that conversation would have to wait. She was already planning to be watchful of another young group member, Hal, who she’d seen around but didn’t know very well. Sybille insisted that being Owen’s daughter made her capable enough to come along, but Hazel wasn’t so convinced. If Brock was any indication, having a capable father doesn’t mean dick.

So this dude would just be one more lamb for Hazel to herd. She looked over at Noah again, who was apparently concentrating deeply on Sybille’s wrist, and she suddenly processed what Sybille had said about the tattoo.

“But uh I’m sure you’ll prove me wrong!” She blurted. “If Sybille trusts you, then I’ll trust you as far as I can throw you.” Hazel smiled. Charlie had said that to her once, and she was pretty sure it meant something good. “Which is actually pretty far, I’m stronger than I look.”

Noah laughed. “Yeah, I figured.” Hazel was easy to read. As in he knew she was looking down on him—it was all over her face. He had hoped to make a good first impression. But it was fine. In the end, Hazel’s—and anyone’s—opinion of him wouldn’t stop him from reaching the East. He could make it—as long as he was on the trip. That’s all that mattered. That’s all that mattered. Right?

So why did he feel so uncomfortable?

“It’s all good,” he said, partly to himself. “I’m a hard worker. I won’t bring you guys down. I promise.”

 

[queendilettante]

Air at the mall was heavy in the leadup to the group's surprise departure. Or, at least, it felt as such to most of them. Word spread far beyond Sybille's hopes at the plans for her group's planned exit, but business continued, broadly, as usual. Merchants came and went, the hospital stayed running, albeit a bit more hectically, Rayney Day Mechanic's continued serving the Mall's various denizens, and, most importantly for the safety of the plan, the Founders remained mostly aloof in their bubble. Chatter amongst the citizens of the settlement was common. So what if this chatter was a bit louder? It wouldn't rock their bubble. Probably.

-----

Sybille gazed west at the setting sun. Santa was snoozing on the front of her favorite car, head nestled comfortable between the windshield and the hood. She was in the process of saying goodbye to the car as the night's chill started to set in. With a shiver, Sybille threw her leather jacket over her grease-stained, off-white spaghetti strap tank top and zipped it partially up.

April was a bullshit month. Was it not enough for 80% of the world's population to have been killed and most turned into man-eating demons? Did the weather have to be so temperamental? Still? It felt like a kick in the teeth. If only the news of the vaccine could have arrived a few months earlier; it would have been so much easier to plan for consistent weather. Late-winter into spring would have been far more manageable than April through the summer.

Not like it really mattered. They were going to set off tomorrow morning, regardless.

Tomorrow.

4 AM, in actuality, so a bit before Sybille would really consider "tomorrow," but still. She couldn't run the risk of the Founders trying to stop them by setting off in the middle of the day like idiots. She also couldn't run the risk of the group realizing she had no plans to actually tell the Founders that they were leaving. With any luck, they'd be out of city boundaries before the Founders even woke up.

The bell from the front door of her shop rang as a red head, Ollie, who she'd trained to take over the Mechanic, stepped out for the day. He had a hurt leg from an explosives accident in the field from a few years back, so he hadn't wanted to risk the trip East. He was loyal, though, and made sure to keep things quiet in the leadup, which Sybille appreciated quite a bit more than Hazel almost definitely yapping to whichever boy she was annoying.

"Hey Sybille," he called out, giving her a short wave from across the street. "Can I talk to you about something real quick?"

"Sure Ollie, what's up," she called back, blowing smoke from her mouth and leaning over to scratch Santa behind the ear.

"I, uh," he laughed, nervously, and trailed off. When he was anxious, he tended to put his head behind his head in a manner similar to Sybille. Yikes. It wasn't really a good look.

"C'mon Ollie," she nudged, coughing slightly as she eyed him over her sunglasses, "I quite literally don't have all day this time."

"Sorry!" he laughed again, straightening out imagined wrinkles from his jeans. "I, uh, know you're probably going to be stressed, but I saw Bill basically interrogating people in the parking lot at lunch. I think he may know about your plans."

Fuck. Sybille froze, feeling a well of panic rising up from her stomach. Shit! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck, she nearly had it.

She slid down the side of the car and sat on the pavement, scratching her head like she had just mocked Ollie for in her head. God damn it, they were really screwed. She actually needed to go talk to them now. If not, Bill would march over with a group of SecDep soldiers by tonight. But, if she tried talked to him in the Mall itself, especially this early, there's no way she'd be able to keep him quiet. Shit.

She glanced back at the setting sun. She had about 8 hours. 8 hours to figure out how she was going to leave without getting everyone killed.

Hopefully everyone else's final day was going better.

 

[kaito9049]

Two one-liter canteens. A flashlight. Four AA batteries. Five pairs of gloves. A pristine woodcutting axe with a leather sheath. Joseph, crouched over his second of three camping bags he'd stored in his room, put them all in.

The axe had been a gift, of course. Most of it, including the few dozen pounds of canned beans, kale chips, and brown rice cakes he'd spent the last few days collecting, had come from very generous donors who'd heard Joseph had broken his hand during a moving job and could use a bit of nutrient-rich food while he recuperated. But the axe was different. It'd belonged to a coworker, Delilah, whom he'd met a few years back. She was like him, knowing just what words to say to elicit just the right reaction from another person, and she had a wicked sharp mind behind her bright smile. But she also knew how to command a kind of respect he'd never been able to — not then, and not when he was knocking on constituents' doors trying to convince them to care about zoning codes or something.

They got along quite well, perhaps surprisingly. Joe envied Delilah, maybe, but they were too similar for him to dislike her. They often worked out together, chatting about pre-Crash life between sets. She was from the Bay, and they'd often have friendly arguments about whether the Dodgers or the Giants were the better team.

They were friends, he supposed, when she died. They'd been partnered on a lumber job. Nothing too difficult, but they'd decided to go deeper into Sutro Forest than their supervisor advised. It was Delilah's idea. Joseph told the others that after he returned alone, without his partner and without the truck. He told himself that when he found himself counting the cracks on his bedroom wall. Delilah had just commissioned a new axe, and wanted to try it out on the eucalyptus further away from the forest's edge. They'd been distracted, debating whether LA or SF had better food before all the restaurants got bombed into oblivion. Maybe if they'd been paying more attention, Joseph told his supervisor later, they would have noticed the tree root, arching a few inches from the ground like a snake about to strike.

Joseph knew Delilah was dead as soon he heard her head slam against the boulder. He'd checked her pulse, of course, but the way her head had split open, there was no chance she was alive. He didn't know why he didn't take the truck back. He barely remembered the three-hour walk. The thing he most recalled, even now, was the sound of her body crumpling to the ground, the polished axe dropping with a metallic clatter. Her skull...

Three jars of strawberry preserves. A faded copy of a Sam McBratney book. A half-rusted compass.

Some of these were gifts. He hadn't learned much about his future traveling companions — honestly, there were more of them than he'd been expecting. But it didn't hurt to have a few light items in his back pocket to help prove his value. A large print Sudoku collection for Noelle. Two tennis balls for Santa (and Sybille, by extension). A brand-new pair of fingerless gloves for Liberty. A...set of BTS trading cards for Hallie and Hazel. Whatever happened to those guys, anyway? Those kids might not even know who the band was, Joseph realized. Back at the office, he'd been used to talking to old folks and stay-at-home moms — people who were more likely to vote. How on earth was he supposed to charm a couple of would-be-college students who probably only had a few years of pre-Crash living?

Joseph sighed and zipped up the bag, placing it aside. That would be his personal carry. The other two would be general supplies for the group. It was as much of a symbolic move as it was pragmatic; it signaled that he was more attentive to the collective's needs than his own, and he wouldn't have to carry all the food items himself.

The collective. The group. The neighborhood. Our team. The needs of the many. People used a lot of different terms to mean "the people whose benefit means my gain." Basically, it was a way for someone to appear altruistic when really they — just like everyone else — were just looking out for their own interests. There wasn't anything wrong with that. It was just human nature; the Crash had provided a hundred million examples of that already. It only went wrong when people forgot that individuals succeed when their group flourishes, or when they get the wrong idea of who's in their group. Delilah, as much as Joseph liked her, was prone to the first kind of error.

Their supervisor had given Joseph the axe as a gift about three months after she died. Delilah didn't have any next of kin, and everyone knew the two were close. Besides, their boss owed Joseph; he was the one, after all, who told his manager that his wife was spending an inordinate amount of time with Ron the grocer. That, and the fight that followed, was a nasty sort of business. But it'd paid off. That kind of work always did.

Joe tapped his knuckles against the axe's wooden handle. At some point he'd taken it out of the bag, letting his vision go blurry as he stared at the peeling paint on the wall. He could be forgiven a bit of frivolous contemplation. It was the last time he'd be looking at that wall, after all.

Small piles of loose food items and old clothes still littered his room. And though he had plenty of time until the group was scheduled to gather, he needed to get ready in case they had to leave suddenly. Besides, he still needed to figure out how he was going to handle Tom. The old man would probably blow a gasket once he saw that Joseph was coming along after all. Joe had been nervous in the days following his visit with Charlie, but considering he hadn't heard from their dear leader, he figured she wasn't kicking him out of the group.

Joseph stood, returning the axe to its strap on the side of his bag. The hilt slid through cleanly, tapping the floor with a thud that made him wince. Then, with a sigh, he started packing the third sack. There wasn't any way to convince someone else to do this particular task for him, but that was fine by him.

There was some business a guy needed to do himself.

 

[guac]

As the sun set on her final day inside the safety of the walls, Hazel knew that she should sleep. She was always sharper when she was well rested, she knew that, but no matter how long she tossed and turned, the sleep just would not come. Her tattoo itched like crazy, and she was trying desperately to follow Noah’s directions not to scratch it.

Despite the torture, Hazel still felt like the tattoo was worth it. She had hemmed and hawed over the design for almost an hour, much to everyone’s frustration, but she was determined to pick something perfect. In the end, she had decided on a small silhouette of two birds in flight.

“They’re flying the coop, just like us,” she had said, and that made Sybille smile, so Hazel knew it had to be the one. She chose the ankle for the placement because the stupid pain chart said it wouldn’t hurt too much, but that was a damn lie. Her first reflex when the needle broke skin was to punch, but luckily Noah had dodged it. She made Sybille hold her arms down after that.

As bad as the itching was though, as she laid there awake, the noise was worse. It was still well before the midnight curfew, so the citizens of the Mall were going about their evenings as normal. Even with the store's security gates tightly shut, the distant sounds of people milling around the concourse outside Hazel’s make-shift apartment in the abandoned Claire’s felt too loud, too enticing. The Mall had a way of making sounds carry, so the echoing chatter of children and laughter from adults sounded like ghosts in the room, disembodied voices intent on tormenting her.

It wasn’t that she was jealous, exactly. In the past three years, Hazel had grown accustomed to living alone for the first time in her life. She wouldn’t have minded a roommate – the Claire’s was certainly big enough, and there had been a girl (Michaela, was that her name?) already living there when Hazel moved in, but she had gradually spent less and less time hanging out at home before moving out completely without explaining why. So Hazel grew accustomed to the extra empty space, the time alone. She didn’t have much of a choice.

But still, the sound of families talking and laughing was keeping her awake. Her mind wandered without her permission, stumbling once again into an errant comment Sybille had made in the tattoo shop. I’m not trying to get shot before I even leave, she had said. The phrase had echoed in Hazel’s head in the days since, leaving her with the taste of guilt and fear lingering on her tongue.

She had never paid much attention when Sybille talked about Mall politics, but now she really wished she had. The idea of the Founders trying to prevent them from leaving had never even crossed her mind. Now, the possibilities swirled in her head, images of Todd tattling to the Founders, of rumors spreading like a wildfire, of gunmen waiting for them at the final checkpoint, of Sybille’s body, lifeless and bloody and covered in tiny shards of broken glass – or was that her mother?

Hazel sat up, desperate for a distraction, and reached for her ipod touch. It had been her mother’s when she was in college, and it was full of oldies – Britney Spears, Kesha, Marina and the Diamonds, all the classics. The songs reminded her of comforting memories – like being cradled in her mother’s lap, or the rush of air through an open car window as they sped down the highway, or her father humming as he cleaned and loaded his gun. The music would have drowned out the ghosts, and maybe even helped her sleep, but Hazel reluctantly put the ipod down. There was no way of knowing when she would have electricity again, and she had to preserve the charge.

Instead, Hazel got to packing. Most of her belongings were already in her bag, and had been even before she learned of Sybille’s plans to go East. It was a spacious backpack built for hiking, with an internal frame and a hip belt, along with some not-so-cute stains from the time she tried to dye it pink. It had been a treasure trove of camping equipment and survival supplies when her father found it abandoned at the baggage claim in the Wendover Airport all those years ago. Looking back, she realized he was lucky he wasn’t killed for stealing so brazenly, but then again, the place had fallen into a chaotic lawlessness at the end, so there hadn’t been anyone left to care.

The pack was way too big for her back then, but she’d grown into it, and now could reliably carry everything she owned on her back at a moment’s notice. She preferred it that way – she’d lost a few too many precious items in hasty departures to ever risk fully unpacking again.

All that was left were the things she used everyday, as well as the few decorations she’d let herself accumulate since arriving at the Mall.

Hazel sighed. She knew she couldn’t afford to add the weight to her pack, but it still hurt to have to leave her trinkets behind. A poster of Taylor Swift, a little ceramic gnome, battery powered string lights in the shape of flamingos – maybe they would have things like this out East, but they wouldn’t be the same. These were things she’d scavenged from the trash or haggled for with merchants, little special treasures that she’d fought to collect over the course of her three years at the Mall. She’d miss them.

She rolled her sleeping bag as tight as she could and stuffed it into her pack. Next her bedroll, which she strapped to the bottom. It only took a few minutes to load up the rest of her things. Stella, leaning against the wall where Hazel usually slept, would clasp into a custom strap she’d made on the side of her pack for easy access, but for now she sat down and laid it across her lap.

She checked the time on her ipod, still plugged into the wall for a final charge. Only 9 pm. All there was left to do was wait.

 

[spottednewt]

“I gotta pocket-gotta pocketfula sunshine,
I got a love and I know that it’s all mine
OH-oh-OHOH”

With her shirt on her head, a groove in her hips, and a scene from the American instant-classic film Easy A (2010) in her heart, Liberty made quick work of plodding through the woods to gather branches. The pale blue light cast by the moon had taken on an enchanting effect - a quiet magic just strong enough to distract her from what she was getting herself into. Sticky with sweat, even in the night air, she used the branches and debris to cover up her trail into the brush; nose curling in discontent with every leaf that dared cling to her skin.

For a moment - just a fleeting glimmer in the quiet solitude of the thicket, she considered ditching her heavy cargo pants as well. She fantasized about tying the legs around her shoulders like some kind of deranged cape and finishing her task in cool, granny-pantied freedom. It felt comfortingly reminiscent of her time in college. Back when she was hot and ambitious.

But now she was here, pushing 40 in the end of the world. Sure, her internal temperature was high, and tempting teeth-gnashing fate was plenty ambitious; but there was nothing hot about potentially fighting the undead in your underwear. If she’d gotten even one fleck of black, curdled blood on her last proper underwire bra just before a journey, she’d have a meltdown, as-is. There was no guarantee of what might happen if she had to fend one of those bastards off with her entire, paisley-patterned butt out.

Not to mention that she was still only yards away from their supply cache. In a matter of hours, Lars, and possibly others, would be headed that way to pick up the last of their supplies. If things went sideways, they could come across Liberty bloodied and walking into trees like her cornbread ain’t done in the middle - in a get-up that would make Victoria herself shed a tear.

So she buried that idea, just like she buried the rest of her clothing in the cache - cozied up between two weeks’ worth of dried pasta and her very last box of astronaut ice cream. Not everything would make the final cut, but she’d quickly change her tune on gunslinging in her draws if that crunchy bastardization of a frozen dessert was on the chopping block. It wasn’t a call that she would’ve made before her shadow years - the time she spent scrounging in the wasteland by herself - but it was one that she’d live and die by now.

Still using her bright pink tank top as a long and luscious headband by the time she made it back through the gates of the mall, Liberty did her best to keep a bit of the peace she found in the moonlit forest with her. As crickets and trees gave way to the hustle and bustle of a little city that never truly slept, the task became harder and harder.

What was the point of trekking across hell just to return to a place where her last connection was likely long dead? A place where she herself was thought to be dead? Was it a savior complex? Did she think that four years of good luck in the wasteland meant that she could be tasked with keeping the others alive? Was it about abandoning her father –or what was left of him? –Some type of penance?

Liberty’s redundant spiral of existential crises was cut short by an unmistakably sharp elbow to the ribcage as she was wading through the late-night crowd at the al fresco marketplace.

“You gotta smoke?” She didn’t need to turn to recognize a voice like sandpaper caked in mud. A dark-haired woman of Liberty’s same height and not an ounce of her width shoved past another man to obscure Liberty’s path to the door. Twitchy. A usual haunt of the sun-and-weather battered tents that lined the inner ring of the mall parking lot. Liberty didn’t know the woman’s real name - and she wasn’t sure she did either. --But Twitchy-- that was how she was known, how she introduced herself; whether or not the moniker sat right with Liberty - who often opted for darlin' or honey.

“You know I don’t smoke, darlin’. Just say hi.” Liberty chirped with a playful scoff. Since finding her way to the Mall, Liberty Jane had been the farthest thing from social. Her ability to start up a conversation seemed to have withered away over the years that she spent in solitude. These days, and with a small handful of people, she’d been redefining those muscles, slowly but surely. Twitchy had been a lot of help in the endeavor; even if she’d been avoiding the bitter old beanpole for the better part of a week. In truth, she felt guilty for leaving the woman behind. Just another victim of the Mall’s personal Lotus Hotel, living like a virus in the murkier parts of their neighborhood. Twitchy had arrived a tall, strong, and clear-headed seamstress when she arrived - but now she was often as dexterous as one of the roaming dead. She hadn’t arrived squeaky clean, mumbling about a ‘collective’ that she traveled with from time to time; but she’d survived the cult just to offer the mall her own slow death, bleeding pocketbook and all. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed that Liberty was walking at least an extra mile some days to avoid the entrance stoop she frequented.

“You’re avoiding me, everything alright?” She shook her head at her own shuffling feet, the perpetually skeptical look on her face having lost its perplexing pull over Liberty.

Great. She noticed.

“Honestly,” Liberty let an exhale escape her lips, less-than-cognizant of the fact that she’d been holding her breath. “I’ve been hangin’ in there like hair in a biscuit.” Twitchy nodded along in agreement, bouncing slightly like a member of the church choir.

“It’s hard - it’s hard - it’s real, real hard,” She croaked back, whipping the back of her hand across her nose as she eyed the others that weaved around them - as though they hadn’t stopped dead in the middle of the pathway. “It’s hard to stay humble and stay in the grind, you know? The world isn’t like it was with all the shoelaces and crockpots. Right,” She mused to the clear sky above Liberty’s head. “That’s why we ladies have to stick together - take care of our minds and our bodies.” She pressed, reaching to feel the spaghetti strap of Liberty’s tank top as it hung from the side of her head in a perpetual clothing purgatory of half put on and half taken off. If the crowds dissipated, Liberty reckoned that she could probably hear the sound of her own heart crumbling away and falling into the churning of her stomach. Twitchy wanted a friend, and the only ones she’d find were in the new-age substances that once kept her hands nimble and eyes trained to complete days worth of hemming in hours. Like Icarus, she’d improved her productivity into oblivion to earn her keep at the Mall.

“Yaknow, you look like a nun with this,” She declared, still transfixed on the strap between her fingers; translucent skin shining like an apparition in the splashes of blue moonlight and red lanterns. In their stillness among the sea of moving bodies, Liberty watched the steady and nimble fingers of a once-master quiltmaker explore the fabric, fighting off the odd tremor. For a moment, as the woman paused, mouth just slightly ajar as she handled the piece of fabric like a bird with a broken wing, Liberty wanted to stay with her, to keep her company for as long as she could. To sit and listen to the way she often spoke in circles; obliviously optimistic and then sharply morbid before returning back to her optimism.

The woman nodded in agreement to herself before continuing, “A nun of the church of pink –and wrinkles.”

Never mind. Dawn could not possibly come soon enough.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Lars had all of his essential things packed and manageable by the end of the day after his excursion with Liberty to procure foodstuffs from Phil. Whenever something as important as this exodus happened, Lars tried getting as prepared as he could right away. No room to pack things last second and forget something important on the first day. Whoops, sorry guys, we gotta go back. I forgot my great nan's second-hand handkerchief. Not a chance. Lars had everything in bags, satchels and backpacks well before the final day. All of his things amounted to little more than an overly stuffed pack and a sling that shot over his shoulder along with his rifle and sidearm. He preferred to travel light. He wasn't sure what kind of carrying capacity the group would have, and preferred to assume they had next to none. After all, there was bound to be someone who would pack more than they could carry, and Lars wasn't about to be caught with a full load needing to transport someone else's things, too. He preferred resolving problems immediately, but not at the cost of becoming someone else's pack mule.

It's for these specific reasons that Lars found himself stepping through the crowds of the mall on the final day before departure, like a phantom weaving between unknowing idle vessels for him to possess. He travelled quick and nimble, even in a casual, risk-free environment such as this. It was good not to get complacent. Practicing for the worst even at the best was always preferable than getting sluggish and lazy. His destination was close, and soon he'd be once again filling the absent role of father for a friend of his. Lars didn't mind, he always wanted to be a mentor in some ways, and Hallie was well worth the dedicated time to train; she was a natural at picking up his methods, and if it meant keeping another good survivor alive, he would happily continue it.

Without much of a warning, Lars entered Hallie's space with a quick "It's me," before looking around at what the Moore girl had accomplished as far as her packing and prioritizing. "Dorm inspection time Hal, hope you haven't been slacking."

"Lars!" Hallie shot up from her bed where she had been mindlessly strumming her guitar for god knows how long. "Can you please learn to knock next time? Or, ya know, give me at least a twenty minute heads up?" She gestured to her bag, which had been repacked at least a gazillion times in the last two hours. "I've been packed for awhile, don't worry."

Lars looked over at the bag neatly set up. "I said its me," Lars told her as if that was enough of an excuse. "Remember everything? Toothbrush? Snares? SERE kit? There won't be any coming back until the trek is complete. I wouldn't leave behind anything you don't want to lose."

"Yes, yes, and yes," Hallie ticked off each yes on her fingers. "We are good to go Lars. It's not like I have a whole lot of stuff anyway." It was nice in a way, being able to pack up most of her life in one backpack. Of course she couldn't bring the bigger items, like her guitar, but it would be waiting for her when they came back.

"Are ya excited to be going across the country? I know I am." Hallie wanted nothing more than to go out and see what the rest of the world looked like. Just to see if it was as bad as others made it out to be. Even on scouting missions her groups only ever went a couple hours out. Never further.

Lars had to give Hallie credit; he missed when he saw the world with wide eyes, ready to find every last secret hidden out in the wastes. He'd spent far too long in the Ashfields, breathing in dark smoke and evading infernos daily. The thought alone brought a bout of coughing that he tried to keep under control. "Excited might not be the right word for it," He said. "Eager, absolutely. Once we make it out of the walls, it'll be interesting to see how everything goes down, how it's all handled. We have a halfway decent group with us, so hopefully things will go smoothly. Not too sure about some of them I saw at the briefing, though." Lars didn't wish to elaborate to Hal, lest she scorn him for being prejudiced against those that seemed physically incapable of the task. Then again, Lars was a perfectionist in the regard of safety and survival. He just hoped they were all more reliable than some of them looked to be at first glance.

"I am excited to see how well you perform, though. Maybe you'll stick to some of the things I've been trying to get you in the habit of. Like stashing things you don't want people to find." Lars motioned to her guitar. "If you're not bringing that, I'd recommend hiding it. The Mall may be more civilized than most places out here in the wastes, but someone would nick that in a heartbeat. Even if no one reclaims this room, all it takes is a particularly curious person to peep through the cracks and find themselves a brand new shiny instrument. Maybe hide it in one of my stashes on our way out of the city." Lars suggested wholeheartedly; he knew she liked to strum, and didn't want to see her well maintained guitar stolen.

Hallie's ears perked up slightly when Lars mentioned the group they'd be with. She had her doubts, of course, she didn't know those people aside from a few. But maybe they were good people, maybe they would all make it back to the mall okay. What's the worst that could happen when you traveled with strangers across an apocalyptic country anyway.

"For the record, I'm plenty good at hiding things I don't want people to find." She'd hidden all those letters after all, not that hiding an envelope of letters was difficult. Something bigger like a guitar would be different, she knew that. "I'll hide it when I'm done playing." Hallie wanted to hold onto it as long as she could before parting ways with the instrument. "I'll hide it before we leave..." She repeated, although much softer this time.

Lars seemed skeptical at her answer, especially with the last little mumble she gave. "Don't get all sentimental on me now, Hal. Everything'll be fine, and if you hide the guitar well enough, it'll be waiting for you when you get back. Because you are coming back for it. Everyone else, they're secondary. I care about them all, even the ones I don't know, but you and I are my primary goals to keep alive. Just keep your head on when we're outside the walls, yeah?" He paused for a moment, his hand resting on his gas mask on his hip. A bit quieter than before, he said, "It's about time we talked about the gravity of the exodus, though. It's dangerous out there, and we can't bank on surviving on hope alone. You're strong, I'm strong, we've got this. But things can go wrong. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but we need to prepare for the possibility. If I get into a bind, if something goes wrong, I need you thinking about yourself, okay? I told your father I'd look out for you. That means, no sacrificing yourself to save me, or anyone else, got it? You're surviving this damn apocalypse if I need to throw you across that damn river myself." To reiterate, Lars looked Hal directly in the eye. "I mean it. If I tell you to forget about me, do it without a second thought. No second guessing. These are real stakes we're up against. Am I clear?"

“Crystal,” Hallie sighed, “…look Lars, I can promise I won’t do anything stupid now. But we don’t know what’s going to happen- if anything.” Saying she wasn’t going to risk her own life to save others was one thing. But Hal would do anything if it meant she wouldn’t be losing anymore people in her life.

"Just saying, is all." Lars said, turning to leave. "If it gets to a point where I tell you to forget about someone, I don't do so maliciously. Survival is the game, and we're trying to win. I'm going to finish grabbing the provisions for the group today. I'll come back at two, maybe three AM. Be ready, we will not be late. I'd recommend getting to bed early tonight." Lars stepped out of her personal space, leaving her be for the last few hours of privacy she'd have before their journey. He knew by now he sounded a lot like a scolding father, though he was trying to aim more for a guiding mentor instead. He seldom felt like he was hitting the mark, though. Hallie's ability to stay alive on this journey would be a testament to his - and Owen's - teachings. Sink or swim, he supposed.

Lars would spend the remainder of the day collecting on the goods he bought from Phil. It was clear the butcher was still unsure about the trade, and a few lingering would-be customers gave Lars the kind of look a pack of starving wolves gave a helpless fawn. If Lars wasn't as esteemed as he was in the Mall, he doubted he'd make it back to his tent before getting robbed. He was carrying enough food on him to feed a small army it seemed, which was more than enough reason to beat your neighbor to a pulp and steal their earnings.

Lars would spend the rest of the day and early night in a light rest. He wouldn't let anyone know about the improvised mechanism he had pointing at the entrance, a simple string tied to the trigger of his pistol set on an improvised sling. All in all, it looked like some overly complex contraption from Home Alone. Anyone who saw his haul of food and wished to take advantage of his early rest would find themselves with a brand new 9mm hole bored into them. Sure, he doubted anyone would actually attempt to rob him, but there was never certainty in a world like this.

As he had informed Hallie earlier, he was wide awake at 2AM, fully geared (and disassembled any sign of his handgun trap,) grabbing Hallie to show up at the rendezvous point nice and early. Being late is being as good as dead, Lars would say like some old hermit atop a mountain.

 

[Aeris]

It was way too early to be awake. 1:45 am was an ungodly hour Hal had hoped she would never have to unwillingly see. There was a quiet about being up this early that set her on edge. The quiet gave the mind too much time to think- thinking time Hallie did not want to have right now. Instead, she turned her iPod on, letting Billy Joel’s voice drown out the intrusive thoughts.

She’d already packed the day before, though there was no harm in double-checking. The last thing Hallie wanted was to forget something important only to remember halfway across the country. That was usually how it worked anyway. Hallie’s gaze went to the drawer, the one with the shoe box of unsent letters. It would be dumb to pack them all into her bag, a waste of space even. But if they were going to be gone for a while, it felt wrong to not pack them. Hallie assessed the space left in her backpack. There was definitely room. She hadn’t had much to bring besides the basic food, water, extra clothes, and ammo. And the shoe box wasn’t big, if anything, she’d move all the letters into a manilla envelope she had lying around.

Yes. That’s what she would do. Hallie glanced at the clock, the bright red numbers reading 2:00 am. She still had at least ten minutes before she wanted to be on her way. Hallie made quick work of her impromptu task, making sure to place the letter carefully into the envelope. Among the letters addressed to her dad, Hal took to time to write one more. She figured Lars would worry if she was not here by the time she headed out. The least she could do was inform him she would already be up and with Tom should he stop by.

Hey Lars, If you stop by I am already with Tom.
See you when you get there.
Hallie.

Hallie looked herself over in the mirror. She looked tired, but that was a given with how early it was. She took a couple of extra seconds to pull her hair up into a bun before slinging the bag over her shoulders. By 2:15 am she was outside the stables, praying Tom was even awake at this ungodly hour. Hallie sat on the ground, resting her back against the fence. She decided it’d be okay to rest her eyes until Tom eventually showed up. It wasn’t long, a couple of seconds at most before Hal drifted back to sleep.

Tom was awake, too. He had been up since before two, running on a spotty night of sleep. He’d already suffered through a shower, his retrofitted cabin never having been graced with the luxury of hot water, and was now packing the last few of his things. He didn’t have much in the way of sentimentality. He didn’t have much otherwise, either. Just a few books he’d picked up or swapped over the years, none of which he intended to bring with him. Before the Crash, he hadn’t been much of a reader; but now he always had something at his bedside. His current inventory consisted of: Robbins’ 1998 Birds of North America and their Calls, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Pioneers by David McCollough, and a Bible belonging to Julie in the kitchen. She’d insisted he borrow it after they spoke about what she called “the alarming status of his faith.” He’d picked it up twice over the past year, putting in a genuine effort to reignite some kind of certainty in its words. He’d been raised to be devout by his mother, something he never questioned until things started going downhill. The inkling of doubt started when his wife got sick. When the rest of the world started to fall apart, he abandoned the idea permanently. He didn’t believe in much of anything anymore.

He packed enough clothes for whatever weather they could come across – rainwear, sun gear, some heavier layers in case they were still on the road when winter started coming in. A simplistic supply of hygienic necessities. Sleeping bag. Flashlight. Flint striker. Switchblade. A 12” camp ax he’d used to maintain the pasturelands. The Mossberg Reserve, a double barrel with the worst recoil Tom had ever seen on a firearm, not to mention its chronic jamming problem. It had been given to him eight years ago from the Mall’s arsenal. The idea was to arm the Rancher with something to ward off the occasional coyote or infected that got too close to the fence. Whoever chose the gun must not have known much about guns, or much about Tom’s position out here on the border. He’d have to get within 100 feet of the thing to land a decent shot. He also had a 9mm, a Kahr he’d brought with him from Colorado. It only had ten rounds left in the magazine, most of its ammunition eaten up on his journey out West. By the time he’d packed everything he had left, it was twenty after two.

The short walk out to the stables was cold enough that Tom could see the outline of his breath in the air. Spring had a way of tricking folks like that - despite the past few days’ brutal heat streak, the midnight hours remained frigid. It was still pitch black outside. As he approached the fence around the stables, he squinted to see a heap on the ground against one of the posts. He silently pulled his flashlight and his switchblade out from his backpack’s side pocket, not sure if some wild animal had managed to get inside. The flashlight showed it was Owen’s girl. He’d honestly not expected either of the two enlisted by Sybille to get here as early as he did. Even the Flowers Brothers couldn't drag themselves out here before sunrise most days.

By the looks of it, she wasn’t so used to being up this early either. Tom nudged her thigh gently with the steel toe of his work boot, wondering guiltily if she’d been out here all night. “Miss Hallie. Rise and shine.”

Hallie had been having a good dream, a great dream even. She probably could’ve slept forever if not for Tom nudging her awake. Hal opened her eyes slightly, letting them get adjusted to the bright light on her face before opening them fully. Oh. She wasn’t really sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t Tom hovering over her with a flashlight.

“Oh um…mornin’?” There was a lot more she wanted to say, like hey sorry for sleeping on your property but I was a nervous wreck last night and barely slept. But no. Tom didn’t need to listen to her rambling this early in the morning. A simple good morning was enough- for now anyway.

“Hope I’m not interrupting.” He extended his hand to her, pulling her up off the dew-soaked grass. “I’m Tom.”

Hallie accepted his hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Tom…” She’d heard about him of course. Though her father never talked much about the jobs he did with people- other than Lars and Sybille of course. Most nights Hallie had to practically force her dad to talk about the jobs he went on.

Tom pulled his hand back after the shake, putting on his worn suede gloves in preparation for the morning’s work. He’d known Owen loosely, though not as well as that other fellow who was seen walking around with his daughter on occasion. He added, a mellow tone in his voice: “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

“Oh, um…” Hal tensed up at the mention of her dad. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, or that she didn’t want to hear about how much people missed him- she knew that part far too well by now. It was different somehow. “...it’s okay. He wouldn’t want people moping over him still. He’d want us to move on.” Moving on. Something she hadn’t quite done- if the letters weren’t obvious.

“It’s not too early, is it? I wasn’t sure what time to get here.” Was it weird to be here this early? Is that why Tom had looked at her funny? Hallie felt a small pit of uncertainty in her stomach.

Tom shook his head. “My fault for being late.” He cocked his head towards the stables, gesturing for her to follow him. “Worked with horses before?” Tom looked down to her by his side as they made their way over. Maybe the Boss directed her over here because of some prior experience. She definitely hadn’t gotten any practice at the Mall. Tom knew every soul who borrowed a horse from his stables over the past ten years. But, though she was young, she still had a whole life before this one. Just like the rest of them. Maybe she spent her earliest years knowing how to ride.

“Of course, I’ve worked with horses,” Hallie stood up a little straighter, hoping she appeared as confident as she sounded, “I used to ride all the time.” A lie of course. Hallie had never ridden a horse in her life let alone taken care of one. Tom didn’t have to know that. Unless he already knew that. But Hallie wanted to come off as somewhat useful.

“It’s um…been a while though?” She decided to settle on a half-truth, in case Tom decided to ask her something she didn’t know the answer to. “Ya know, apocalypse and all…” Even though she had been alive before all of this, she’d only been a kid. People like Tom and her dad had a whole life they lived before. They got to experience the world when everything was normal. Hal was kind of jealous in a way. The closest she would ever get to experience that was through books and movies.

“Good should come back to you quick then.” Tom took her words at face value. He swung open the stable doors, ushering out a district whiff of damp straw and plywood. “You can get to work on saddling them.” A basic skill easily learned, even by novice riders. “Can you handle that okay?” If she could manage that, he’d be able to get everyone fed. As docile as it sounded, it was a mammoth task, slinging around fifty-pound tarp bags of Mall-grown grains. Tom was twenty years used to it by now, to the point it felt he was tossing around pillows. But he sure wasn’t about to put that task on her.

Oh. Hallie looked from Tom to the saddles then to the horses. Would now be a bad time to tell him her only experience saddling horses was from a DS game she used to play when she was five? Probably not but she didn’t like to admit defeat so easily. Instead she ran up next to Tom to keep him from walking away any further.

“Or,” She looked over to the horses, “I can feed the horses and you can saddle them?” How hard could feeding them be? Hallie was fairly certain she could manage the task far better than saddling them. The last thing she needed was for the task to be done wrong and have someone fall off their horse at the wrong time. And with how her luck usually went, that was very likely to happen.

He turned back to her as she tagged behind him, wondering what kind of rider would volunteer for what was inarguably one of the least favorable tasks in the trade. Then he saw it. Clear as day. The expression, he noted with an aching and familiar sadness, was one he’d come to know well over the years of raising his own kids - the look of being caught in a bluff. Hell, this girl probably hadn’t ever met a horse in her life. He tried his best to suppress a smirk, then he sidled past her back towards the saddles.

“A refresher-“ he called over his shoulder. His voice was friendly - maybe a little amused, playfully mocking, but not mean-spirited. No use in shaming her now.

He grabbed the saddling gear for one of the horses from the wall, slinging it to straddle the stall door across the way. He opened the stall and gestured for her to file in next to the black pinto inside. Noting the hesitation, he urged, “Go on then, he’s not gonna bite you.”

Hallie inched her way into the stall until she was next to the horse, her eyes growing wide with curiosity. She’d never seen one up close before, just from a distance, when she and her dad used to go driving through the countryside. Back when things were perfect.

“Are horses soft?” She looked up at Tom, completely forgetting the lie she had told not minutes earlier.

“Guess so,” Tom muttered, strolling in behind her and latching the gate closed. “You can pet him. He won’t mind it.” Barclay was a beast of a horse, one of the biggest but one of the gentlest.

“Hey…” Hallie’s voice dropped to a whisper as she petted the horse’s side. “How are ya doing boy?” She had always assumed horse hair was wiry, but was pleasantly surprised by just how smooth the hair actually was.

She was a soft-hearted kid. What the hell was she doing going cross country like this? The more Tom thought about it, Charlie’s earlier worries started to ring clearer - these younger ones really didn’t know what they were doing. What was Sybille thinking putting them out there like that? If Haley were still here, he wouldn’t have let her within a mile of the gate. Owen probably would’ve had a similar sentiment.

“Come on, we’re on a clock.” He broke the contented silence that fell between them as Hallie continued to pet Barclay. Sybille had told him yesterday she wanted them gone by 4:00 at the latest. Tom picked up a moth-eaten cut of wool from where he’d thrown it over the stall door. The pads for the other horses were made out of everything from pieces of sofa upholstery to flannel blankets - all previously used and disposed of by the Mall’s denizens. “Blanket always goes down first, “Tom instructed, “Protects the saddle from rubbing on him too much.”

Next, he grabbed the heavy and unwieldy leather saddle in his two hands. He was tall enough and had plenty of arm strength, so that he usually resorted to throwing on saddles one-handed. But he changed his method for the sake of showing Hallie, modifying it to something someone much smaller could handle. “Against your leg like this—“, he braced it against his thigh, bucked it up to rest against his shoulder, and ended by pushing it forward onto the horse’s back. “And up. You got that?”

He followed by showing her how to tighten and tie off the cinches, and how to secure the bit and reins, looking down at her and giving her a brief nod. “Now get to work on the others.”

Hallie watched carefully as Tom went through the steps. It honestly didn’t look too difficult, she considered herself a fairly quick learner by any means. She got to work immediately after Tom's demonstration before any details could be forgotten. She grabbed the blanket from its spot, throwing it up the horse. The saddle proved to be a more difficult task than she originally thought. Tom had made it look easy. Hallie, however, had a hard time getting the saddle up and over. She managed though, and the rest was pretty straightforward.
Hal worked quietly, humming a tune to lessen the silence in the stables. She wasn’t sure why she remembered the song so well, her dad hadn’t sung it to her since she was a kid. She glanced back over to Tom. Did he have someone he used to sing lullabies to? Her dad never mentioned a lot about his previous life, but if they were going to be going across the country together she wanted to get to know him more.

“Hey Tom, do you know the song Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly?”

“Can’t say I do,” Tom grunted, busying himself with feeding the horses on the opposite side of the stables.

She turned back to the horse she had been working on before continuing. “Ya know, lavenders blue dilly dilly, lavenders green, when I am king dilly dilly you shall be queen.” Hallie sang the first verse, in case he didn’t know what she was referring to.

“Your dad sang to you a lot, huh?” Tom finished up his job swiftly, not taking much pause before moving on to the next task. He sauntered over to the storage bunker across the aisle from the stalls - its other door faced the Wall, a perfect place for anyone on the team to drop accumulated supplies when they’d gathered them. He then took up a place in the stall next to Hallie’s, carrying a pack saddle and going about securing it to a muscular stallion named Neptune. He finished saddling in under a minute and methodically started tying down the bulkier items the group needed to bring.

“Yup,” Hallie couldn’t help but smile at the memories of her and her dad sitting in the living room listening to music. “It was just me and him. So we did pretty much everything together.” She turned back to face Tom. “He used to take me to broadway and ballet shows a lot, and when we got home he’d ask me which song I wanted to learn first.” Even after the crash, when they finally arrived at the mall, Owen and Hallie didn’t stop playing music. It was the closest thing they had had to their normal life and Owen intended to keep it alive for his daughter’s sake.

Now it was just Hallie of course. When Owen died, she’d stopped playing guitar and singing for months. It wasn’t until she was cleaning out their small flat that she saw the instrument sitting in a corner collecting dust. It took a lot of work to get it good and new again but Hallie made sure to take special care of it from then on. If only she could bring the instrument with her.

“What was life like before the crash? I think I was eight when it started so I don’t really remember a whole lot.”

She was Haley’s age. Or how old she should’ve been. Tom swallowed hard, finishing off a knot holding a bag of canned food and ancient MREs. He wasn’t the kind of man to wear his heart on his sleeve. Fifteen years he’d spent burying that pain. Just because it felt fresh again didn’t mean he had to put it out on display.

“It was … a lot like it is now. Good days. Bad days.” He paused for a moment to think. It was a loaded question. Hell, the entire trip probably wasn’t long enough to run through the entire list. “Less food. Less medicine. But a lot of things now are less complicated than they used to be.” He considered the idea solemnly, the next minutes shrouded in silence as he moved to secure a saddle and supplies on the second pack horse. The worst difference was the loss that came with the changing of the world’s guard. Never having closure. Never forgiving yourself for things so far out of anyone's control. He didn’t have to explain that to Hallie. She knew that as well as the rest of them.

Hallie continued to talk as she worked. She hadn’t really stopped since she got here, Tom thought to himself. Hallie took a step back, “All done!”

Tom looked the horses over, giving a humble nod before glancing back at Hallie. Her work was decent, especially for a first-timer. Quick on the uptake, that was for sure. “Nice work,” he approved, patting her once on the back. There it was again - that weight in his chest. “Let’s get them outside. Grab that one there and follow me…” he gestured to the horse closest to where she now stood and started a slow meander towards the stable doors.

“I’m sure the old world was more fun though. You didn’t have to worry about being bit by an infected. “ She continued, “Did you always work with animals? What was your old job like?”

Tom sighed as they walked, calling back to her as she strolled with the second horse behind him. “It was like this, I guess. Had a knack for it. Got to be outside plenty.” One of the most important parts of the job was the ability to be the one person to decide how to end another creature’s life; plenty of ranchers out there were thinly-veiled sadists, who chose to slaughter with a whole hell to pay. Tom took his duty as usher towards whatever came next very seriously. No creature deserved to suffer.

Tom led his horse to the far end of the stable yard’s fence, hitching his reins to a post and backtracking to her to do the same with hers. “Sorry to say my life hasn’t been too exciting,” he uttered, offering her the remnant of a tired smile. The two had been consumed in work for over an hour by now.

“It’s okay,” Hal followed Tom’s lead, “My life wasn’t all that exciting before the Crash. I did softball for a little bit and some dance classes, but I wasn’t very good at either. Although,” She paused for a moment to let give Tom the reins of her horse, ”...my dad used to say don’t worry about being good. Just do what makes you happy. So I kept up with those until the crash.” The two returned back to the stables to grab two more.

Zuzanna was not in any way sad to leave the pathetic little room she’d called a “home” for over a decade, but she still made some token effort to leave it neat and tidy for her return – or, in the worst case, whoever lived there next. She fetched her things from their stashes among the Mall’s rooftops before the sun blinked over the tops of the buildings, distinctly unimpressed by her job assignment. Stinking, awkward creatures – children and horses. Joy of joys. At the fenceline, Zana watched two smudges walk out of a ramshackle building and made the assumption that these were… those two. The two people she was working with this morning. She hadn’t committed their names to memory.

With her first step into the dewy grass, Zana winced, already thoroughly unimpressed. Her boots sank into the earth and the whole place smelt like shit. Despite it all, she picked her way around knots of grass and buzzing piles of shit and toward the voices ahead. When they were within speaking distance, she stopped short, adjusting the knife strapped to the small of her back.

“Dobrý den,” she called, folding her arms. She wondered if being assigned to this shit-filled field with children and hermits was a punishment from God, or maybe just a punishment from Sybille. She waved a hand, semi-dismissive. “I am Zuzanna Lebedev. Zuzana. Not ‘Susana’, rozumíte? I was told to come here, help.”

Tom tied the horse he was bringing out to the fence, and approached the petite woman, almost casting a shadow over her with the size difference. “Zuzanna it is then,” he offered his hand to her. Even after wearing gloves for most of the morning, part of his palm still had some remnants of dirt. “Glad you could join us.” Truth was, with Hallie catching on as she had, the two of them had managed to get done what was needed.

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you,” Hallie decided against a handshake, offering a small wave instead. “I’m Hallie.”


TRANSLATIONS:
Dobrý den
Translation: Hello (general greeting, formal)

Rozumíte?
Translation: Do you understand? (formal)

 

[Lixy]

A clear note rang out through the empty room as Zana plinked a single key on the piano she was due to say goodbye to. The studio, a stripped-out and repurposed area of the former foodcourt, had been hard to acquire. Even once she’d somehow managed to scrounge up the capital to gain ownership of such a significant amount of space, she’d then spent the better part of a decade slaving over it in order to get it to a state that one could describe as “run down”. Scavenging wooden floors to replace the cold tile, piecing together shattered shards of broken mirrors to cover the far wall, having iron pipes and struts welded together into barres that she wrapped with strips of off-cut leather bargained from the tannery. She’d scraped and scrounged and begged, all in pursuit of something that most dismissed as no more than a hobby; a passion from a bygone era.
Then, there was her pride and joy. The upright piano took up a better part of the corner it was pushed into and looked more like a scrappy wooden box when the lid was down. Stripped and warped multi-coloured pieces of wood, slathered with lacquer and hewn into shape by someone who didn’t quite have an eye for it. It sat in the corner - an unassuming pile of discarded wood fashioned into a roughly piano-like shape with a small stool pushed in front of it, upholstered in offcuts of fabric from her sewing. Only the gleaming bronze pedals affixed to the baseboard gave away that there was anything of value to be found there.
Once the lid was propped up, exposing the disjointed gradient of yellow-and-white keys pulled from dozens of pianos, and even some bone, its true nature was exposed. Each key had been lovingly tuned by ear with repurposed guitar strings and fishing wire, compared against the twang of a borrowed guitar or her foggy memory. It was always just slightly out of tune but it was still perfectly capable of playing any one of the hundreds of pieces of music she’d collected over the years.
And oh, did Zana own a lot of music; piles and piles of it– from loose sheets to fully preserved books and everything in between. Some of it was so faded or water damaged the notes could no longer be discerned from the paper, while others were only slightly yellowed and musty, found in air-tight cabinets and plastic tubs. All of it was from pre-crash.
The collection, along with the piano she’d painstakingly restored, were her prized possessions. The most valuable and rare things she owned.

Zana sighed, dropping her hands from the keys to look once again at the big metal lock box, surveying the contents with growing unease. She had to decide quickly which pieces she was to bring with her. Of course, she would attempt to hide the box in a secure location for her return, but there were no guarantees it would survive long enough for her to recover it. She had to select the pieces she valued most to keep with her. She’d already given many of the beginner’s books and simpler pieces to several of her students and some of the more classic and well-known pieces to an archivist, but even with those efforts, there were still hundreds of pieces of music that may no longer exist in written form anywhere else. She wasn’t so vain to think she was the only person taking on a preservatory endeavour, but she knew that not everything was lucky enough to have been found in a still readable condition.

No matter how difficult the choice would be, there was one piece Zana knew she was sure to bring. Janáček’s incomplete sonata.
As a child, it had been one of her favourites. A strangely melancholic choice for a young girl, but it resonated still all these years later.
The specific sheets appeared to be hand-transcribed from another book, the words “Sonata 1.X.1905; Three Fugues” hastily scrawled across the top. Zana may very well have left it behind if she hadn’t read the first few bars and known on sight that it was accurate. She slid the brittle bundle of paper from the waterproof pouch she kept all her favourite pieces in and placed it on the music stand.

An incomplete piece of music, already degraded and lost to time. Handwritten on tearing paper with misspelled notation; everything about it should make it easy to leave behind. But she thinks again of being a little girl, feet tucked under her as she pressed her ear to the door, waiting for her grandmother’s snores. She’d sneak out, down to the music room, and listen to the music on repeat, dancing despite the welts and bruises she’d acquired throughout the day.

She wasn’t sure why she loved it so. Maybe it was the mystery of that missing third movement – a funeral march for a dead carpenter, burnt before it was ever performed. Or maybe it was the fact that the first two movements were almost lost as well, Janáček tossing them into the river. Zana had a streak of the perfectionist in herself as well, a kindred flame for this long-dead composer. The image he painted of his frustration spoke to her – little white swan songs drifting down the river, not to be seen again until Janáček was an old man. It was only by the grace of the original pianist, Tučková, that a copy was preserved.
Maybe Zana was less like Janáček and more like Tučková, hiding music away in her little box, long into the end of the world. She plinked away on the keys once more, wondering when, if ever, she’d be able to play again.


Noelle hadn’t spent more than ten minutes checking and rechecking her supplies to make sure all was where it should be before the group embarked. As her increasingly curling fingers flittered over the contents on her desk- patient files made up of hastily scrawled handwriting and lined paper she had once found at an abandoned Staples, her colorfully filled candy jar, pens and pencils- she caught herself repeating a joyful little tune her mother used to hum while reading. Noelle could never figure out how or why her mom would make any noise and simultaneously enjoy a good book as it was supposed to be enjoyed, but the tune had managed to dig itself into her brain nonetheless.

Music had a funny way of using the host to reveal their deepest feelings. Despite the circumstances, Noelle really was feeling as light and carefree as that little tune. She wasn’t sentimental in the way most believed her to be. Her wife- God how she missed her family- had always teased her about her inability to let things go.

“If we died in this plane your ghost would have unfinished business making sure the airport didn’t lose our luggage!” The soft voice echoed somewhere in the back of her mind. The day she and Bailey had taken their first airplane trip together to visit her family in Washington for the holidays was Bailey‘s first plane in her life. She hadn’t stopped talking and jittering until they landed, but Noelle suspected that joke held truth to what her wife believed. In reality, Noelle was sentimental of people, not luggage. She couldn’t have cared less if it all sank to the bottom of the ocean, so long as their ghosts could live together. Of course, they hadn’t crashed that day, or any of the other days they took trips across the country. No, the real killer had been this damn apocalypse.

Well, Noelle thought bitterly as she shuffled back down the stairs, content with what she was leaving behind, it was only a matter of time.

Huffing as she took a step to the bottom, she shifted her bag of vegetables from one hand to the other and carefully massaged her bad knee. She had never considered herself self-conscious by any means, but the word tumbled into her mind as she glanced around to make sure nobody was watching her. If someone from the group had decided she wasn’t capable of going on this adventure, she would have to fight double time to keep her place. Truthfully, an ordeal like that sounded like too much to handle at the moment. Before anyone could round a corner and make that a reality, she righted herself, cleared her throat and carried on until she was stopped in front of Zana’s music room. She hadn’t really planned to visit the girl after the speech, but who else would eat all of her garden before it went to rot?

“Zana, honey, you in there?”

A familiar voice startled Zana from where she sat, transfixed by the ivory in front of her. She straightened up and stood from the bench, pulling back the shower curtain that separated the studio from the hall beyond.

“Kamarád, ahoj,” she said warmly, surprised to see the older woman. “Come,” she gestured to the room behind her, ushering Noelle inside. “I did not know you were coming, I would have…” She glanced around. It wasn’t exactly untidy, so she wasn’t entirely sure what she would have done if she knew. The only mess was the lockbox, still spilled open in the middle of the floor. She walked to it, gathering up the papers and shuffling them back into neat piles. As she did, she flicked her wrist at the piano bench. “Sit, sit. No complaining, just sit.”

Straining to give the girl a lovingly annoyed glare over her shoulder, Noelle didn’t put up much fight. She sat awkwardly, vegetable bag digging uncomfortably into her bony arm, and sighed.

“I don’t have much time hon…” The last ditch effort to escape. It was half-assed, of course, she knew, but truthfully the dissipating tension from her feet felt wonderful.

“Brought you somethin’ for the trip. ‘Spose I coulda’ just handed these to ya earlier, but it slipped my mind. Hungry?” Noelle slipped the bag easily into her hand, leaving an angry red indention on her forearm.

“Thing’s heavy, but you’re the only one who’ll take these when we leave.” She gave her friend a smile before nosing around the room, her dark eyes landing softly on the jumbled piano.

“You play, dontcha?”

Zana stopped shuffling her papers and finally took note of the bulging bag on Noelle’s arm, scooting forward hurriedly – first to simply relieve the older woman of the weight, then with excitement when she peeked inside.

“Oh, ‘Elle, you are generous woman,” she said, flush with excitement. She placed the bag into her lap with as much care as a newborn lamb, smiling affectionately.

Confused for a moment, Zana looked up and followed Noelle’s gaze, her smile turning rueful. “Ah. Yes, for long time.” As she spoke, she put the bag of vegetables to the side, coming to stand next to Noelle at the piano bench. “Now I must hope it has not been destroyed when we return.”

Zana ran a hand over the warm but rough wood of the lid, eyes catching once more on Three Fugues. Hesitating, she glanced at Noelle. “Would you like to hear?”

Noelle watched the dreamy look pass over Zana’s face, and for a moment she didn’t look at all like the feisty woman Noelle had come to know. It wasn’t unknown. She’d seen Zana with this look only a handful of times before. Every moment of this downtime eerily reminded her of herself- often what she imagined she must look like when reminiscing of her family.

It was funny that one could spend so much time getting to know a person, only to stumble upon a new realization about them years later. Of course, she knew Zana enjoyed music, but the apparent hurt that crossed her friend as she stared at what she must part with was saddening.

“I’d love to hear somethin’ of yours, sweetpea.” Shifting her weight to the edge of the piano bench, she patted the open space beside her. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Zana perched on the bench, straightening her back. The position reminded her so much of sitting and learning with her bába that she almost faltered. Vivid memories of stretching her legs to reach the pedals, her tiny fingers straining to stretch across the ivory flashed through her mind before she let them slip away, remaining with the moment. She picked up the sheaf of papers and turned to the second movement. She began to play.
It had been some considerable time since she’d played this piece, and without a metronome, she started a little slow. Gradually, the music came back to her, and she began to sway, moving to the ghost tick-tocking of the metronome from her childhood. She closed her eyes, the after-image of the notes across the page dancing behind them, and she could almost imagine being home again. The music felt beautiful and sad, and she thought maybe the piano would miss her too. The music picked up speed until she was frantically hitting the notes, her fingers slipping on the imperfect surface before it abruptly slowed once more and her eyes flew open.

She reached the end of the movement and let the final notes fade away, blinking away blurriness caught in her eyelashes. Feeling tired all of a sudden, she leaned against Noelle’s side, feeling her fragile warmth and finding comfort in it. Careful not to put too much weight on her, Zana remained for a moment before straightening, reaching out and closing the lid, gently and decisively.

Noelle was by no means as skilled or in tune with music as Zana, yet throughout the piece, as the melody dramatically climbed and fell, she found herself lost in her own emotions. It was as if her friend’s thoughts and feelings had flown over to her, mixing and morphing until they played a cord that hit her own heart. For what must have been the hundredth time that day, she began to reminisce the days before the apocalypse. Her wife in the kitchen, a devilish gleam to her eyes that had always made Noelle feel ten times younger. Their daughter, busy with her latest paint project, so focused she hardly looked up when addressed.

As the piano drifted into a slow, melancholy pace, the vision shifted to those beloved faces now drowned in fear. Around them, the world crashed, and they slipped away. Noelle had to remind herself that emotions would only hold her back. There was no use thinking about it. Yet the music seemed to have a strange power that left her defences completely broken, and like Zana, tears began to prick the edges of her vision.

“That was magnificent dear.” Noelle choked as she ran slender fingers gently through the woman’s hair.

“I’m so sorry I never got to hear you play before. You must’ve been a wonderful teacher hon.” She finally glanced at Zana with a small smile, patting her shoulder gently before standing.

“Everything will be just as we left it, Zana. If it’s not, we’ll raise some hell with the people left in charge, and I’ll make sure of that. They’ll get the ass whoopin' of a lifetime I guarantee it.” She felt the need to remind Zana that she was on her side. She had complete faith that her and Charlie’s department would be in good hands, but by God, if she found Zana’s music room trashed or left in disarray.

“Are you ready to head out love?”

"Yes. Let's go."

Spoiler: Translations

Kamarád,
Translation: Friend

Ahoj
Translation: Hello
Usage: General greeting, informal

Bába
Translation: Grandmother

 

[kaito9049]

Four hours and thirty-seven minutes. That was all Joseph had slept.

He'd done everything right. Gone to bed straight away after packing. Made himself a nice cup of chamomile tea. Read a hand-copied version of "The Lottery." Everything he usually did to ensure he got a good night's sleep. And yet — four hours and thirty-seven minutes. The LED screen of the clock in front of him, glaring at him as he sat on his bed, was proof of that.

Truth be told, Joseph awoke wondering if he should just give up on all of it. He had a good deal at the Mall, didn't he? What was he thinking, agreeing to traverse a wasteland of a country with a group he barely knew for a vaccine he'd only heard of? If he didn't get bit by a runner, he'd get shot by a bandit — or worse, left alone in a forest with Tom.

Tom. Joseph had to make sure he got to the meet-up a bit later than most, when he could be fairly certain enough folks would be around to keep the old coot from trying something, but not so late that Sybille would think him lazy. He was going, of course. There was never any real doubt in his mind. Oh, sure, Joe would complain all he wanted about the mission and how his hand hurt and how hard it was to get canned goods on such short notice, but he'd decided weeks ago: he was all in.

He hadn't completely lied to Charlie earlier — all the best lies had a bit of truth to them. Yeah, he wasn't convinced the vaccine would suddenly make everything all peaches and roses. The world was a kerosine-soaked trash heap before; the Crash just lit the match. But hell if the thought of a world where losing the game of politics didn't get you shot in the back of the head didn't sound real nice. A place where he knew his loved ones were safe and he didn't have to look for knives hidden behind every word and he knew all of his choices had finally paid off — that was what he wanted.

That was what he wanted.

Joseph grunted and pushed himself off his bed. He started to straighten the sheets, then stopped, shaking his head, and went to collect his bags instead. They were hefty, but he was used to carrying sacks of sand across construction zones. Some cans of food and bottles of water wouldn't be an issue.

Dressed and armed with three full bags, one strapped to his back and one in each hand, Joseph started out the door. Then he paused, glancing behind him. It was strange — aside from the few coworkers to whom he'd told his plans to encourage their generosity, he hadn't arranged any tearful goodbyes or effusive final meals. That wasn't the strange part; he had more acquaintances than he could count, some he was quite friendly with, but they weren't his friends. His relationships with them were merely business-oriented. Surely they would understand that.

But this room was different. It was small, even in comparison to pre-Crash Bay Area living spaces, and it'd taken a while for Joe to get used to sleeping in what had been a shopping complex. But it'd been one of the few — maybe the only — places he could be alone, where he didn't have to think about what other people were saying about him, or what he needed to tell them. It was peaceful, or at least as close to it as a person could get.

You could find people anywhere. It was those quiet spaces that were rare. He'd miss it.

Joseph shut the door behind him and started walking.

 

[guac]

Hazel couldn’t say when it was that she drifted to sleep, her head lolling back against the wall where she sat. She hadn’t meant to, but the boredom of sitting alone in a dark room overtook her gradually, until the weight of her eyelids was too much to resist.

- - -

She dreamt at first that she was a barista in a coffee shop. It was the peak of the morning rush, and just like in those rom-coms her mom liked, there was a line out the door. She rushed to pull the right levers and hit the right buttons to make the coffee happen – the motions were complicated, like a puzzle, but somehow she knew just what to do.

She finished the drink she was working on and proudly set it on the counter for a customer to snatch. She wiped her hands on her green apron and prepared to begin the next one. These aprons should be pink, she thought to herself, I’ll have to talk to Sybille about that.

Todd was at the register taking orders – oh Todd, dreamy Todd. Hazel sighed wistfully, wondering how much longer they would dance around each other like this. The desire between them was almost palpable – the stolen glances, the brush of elbows, the hint of deep and desperate longing in his voice as he called out, “One large cloud macchiato with extra cloud.”

Fuck. Hazel hated making this order. She always saw it advertised all big on the faded old Starbucks sign in the Mall and wondered what it would taste like, and it was torturous to have to make it for stupid customers without getting to try any herself. Besides, there was egg white in it, which was such a big deal they even put that on the sign.

She clicked a button and the egg white machine began to sputter and growl like a struggling engine, so loud it almost drowned out the sound of the clamoring customers yelling out their drink orders and crowding the counter. Hazel wasn’t making the drinks fast enough, but no matter how hard she tried to go faster she felt like she was swimming through molasses. Besides, there was no rushing the egg white machine.

The grating noise went on and on, and the chaos of the customers seemed to be growing louder over it. Hazel rushed as much as she could to pull the levers and push the buttons, but it wasn’t enough, the customers were angry.

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream rose above the hum of the machine. Todd. She spun to face him and was greeted with a confusing and terrifying sight – the woman at the counter was eating him. She had her teeth clamped down on his cheek, and as she pulled away she ripped a chunk of flesh out of his face. He stumbled backwards, bleeding, clutching his face, reaching out to Hazel for help – but it wasn’t Todd at all, it was her brother, Brock. And, she realized with horror, the hand reaching towards her was heading for her throat.

Hazel squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m –

Hazel opened her eyes. She’d done it! That last shot had felt a little shaky, but she somehow managed to pull it off and break all four bottles in the carnival game.

“Baby, I won!” She squealed, practically jumping up and down, her pigtails bouncing with excitement. Todd wrapped an arm around her shoulder, wrapping her up in his cozy letterman jacket. That was one of the best parts of dating the commander of the football team, she thought to herself, getting to wear his fancy jacket. Usually the players were only allowed to date cheerleaders, but the coach made an exception when he saw how clearly in love Hazel and Todd had been.

“Hell yeah you did!” He exclaimed. “Pick out your prize!”

Hazel turned back to the booth, which she now saw was filled to the brim with teddy bears of all colors and sizes. It suddenly felt like a lot of pressure, with so many to choose from. This would be her first teddy bear, after all, it had to be perfect. She bit her lip, hoping one would catch her eye.

“Oh, what about that one?” She pointed excitedly to a pink teddy bear wearing a leather jacket and holding a cigarette. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

“Ah, smoking’ll kill you, kid,” the carnival worker sneered, “but it’s your funeral I guess.” He took a moment to brush some of his long hair away from his face before resting his hands in the pockets of his scrubs.

“Whatever Chuck, just give me the bear.” Hazel insisted.

He grunted snarkily as he reluctantly handed the teddy bear over, but Hazel was so happy that she didn’t care. She hugged the bear to her chest and turned back to Todd.

“Should we go get ice cream?” She asked. He nodded.

They linked hands and began to walk through the crowd, the flashing colored lights from the carnival rides and booths around them casting funny shadows on the ground ahead of them. Hazel watched, mesmerized, as they almost seemed to dance to the beat of the music blaring over unseen speakers – music she knew she’d heard before but couldn’t quite place.

She started to feel uneasy. Something wasn’t right, something bad was about to happen. All of the other high school students around her were laughing and joking and having fun – oblivious to the horror Hazel was so sure was coming.

She was just about to say something to Todd when a familiar voice called out to them.

“Hey guys, wait up!” It was Noah, in an identical letterman jacket to Todd’s. He was striding towards them and waving delightedly, towing his girlfriend Hal behind. She wore a cheerleading uniform to match his letterman.

“Mind if we join you for ice cream?” Hal chirped.

“The more the merrier!” Todd exclaimed, and they all set off together. Hazel smiled to herself as they walked, forgetting her dread from earlier for the time being. It was nice to be part of a group of friends.

They arrived at the ice cream stall soon after. It had a retro design, with flashing neon lights and pink striped wallpaper adorning the inside. An Asian man in a striped apron and a silly hat handed Hazel an orange and vanilla twist with rainbow sprinkles through the order window.

“How did you know that was my favorite?” Hazel asked. “I haven’t had it since the Crash.” Joseph said nothing, only smiled warmly and went back to making ice cream for everyone else.

“So Hazel, are you excited for Todd to crush it in the next big game?” Noah asked cheerily. Hazel was just about to answer when she was interrupted by a chilling scream in the distance.

“Oh my god, what was that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hal replied, “I’m sure it’s nothing. Anyway, you should totally join the cheerleading team!” Hazel shook her head to clear it. She had probably just been imagining things.

“Yeah, maybe.” She responded, some of her dread from before beginning to return despite her effort to push it down. “Hey, don’t we have like homework, or something?” Her thoughts felt muddy. She heard another scream. Some of the students nearby began to run.

“Don’t worry about that,” Todd replied. “It’s all taken care of.”

The screams multiplied, joining together to grow louder and louder as the crowd broke into chaos.

“Shouldn’t we run?!” Hazel exclaimed, tugging at Todd’s arm. He wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine.” He assured her. It didn’t feel fine.

The cacophony only grew louder as students pushed and elbowed past Hazel and Todd, running desperately for safety. Hazel couldn’t take it anymore, she couldn’t stand there and pretend nothing was wrong, that she was safe. She clamped her hands over her ears and fell to her knees, willing it all to just stop.

The sound subsided almost as quickly as it had crescendoed. When she opened her eyes, Hazel was safe after all, in the enchanted forest behind the Mall.

The trees around her were softly illuminated by the glowing pink moss that grew on their bark, and the air smelled like bubblegum. It was just after dusk, so the birds had all gone to bed except for the owls, who hooted gently from their nests. Fireflies danced around Hazel’s head.

She looked down and noticed that her dress was torn. The thought brought the prickle of tears to her eyes, though she couldn’t say why. She couldn’t quite remember how she had gotten to the forest in the first place, and that fact was beginning to make her nervous.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fountain of twinkling pink lights, sizzling and popping like sparklers on the Fourth of July. They pulsed and swelled, growing in number and casting a warmth on Hazel’s face.

Gradually, the lights coalesced into two figures; one animal and one human– or at least humanoid. She couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, and as the lights finally subsided, she was left glowing faintly pink like the moss on the trees. She wore a frilly pink dress, and protruding from her back were elaborate pink butterfly wings, which she flapped lazily to keep herself hovering slightly off the ground. Clasped in her left hand, where one might expect to see a magic wand, was a monkey wrench.

The other figure appeared to be a dog of similar proportion, with orange wings that looked like a dragonfly’s. He pranced around in the air, buzzing circles around the fairy’s head.

“Don’t worry babe, everything is going to be fine!” Sybille proclaimed.

“W- who are you?” Hazel stuttered.

“Why I’m your fairy godmother of course!” She replied.

“Godmother?” Hazel asked, “What does that even mean?”

“It’s like an aunt with more responsibilities, but anyway that’s not the point.” Sybille slotted her monkey wrench into a pocket on her dress and stuck a cigarette between her lips, lighting it with a snap of her fingers. “You’re going to the ball tonight, kid. I’m here to fix your dress.”

That was right, the ball! Somehow Hazel had forgotten. All of the eligible bachelors of the Mall would be there, and it was Hazel’s only chance to find a boyfriend. She would never be let in with a torn dress, though.

“Oh. How are you going to fix my dress?” Hazel asked.

“With magic, obviously.” Sybille brandished her monkey wrench with a flourish, and suddenly Hazel’s dress was transformed into an elegant green ball gown. Hazel twirled around, giggling with delight.

“I’m beautiful! You made me beautiful!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, yeah, you look great.” Sybille took a long drag from her cigarette and blew out a smoke ring. “But remember Hazel, you have to be careful. There’s a monster at the ball, hiding in plain sight.”

Santa paused in his frolicking to bark and growl, seemingly distressed at the mere mention of such a monster. Sybille sighed and produced a glowing tennis ball, throwing it off in the distance for Santa to chase.

“Monster?” Hazel didn’t understand.

“You have to choose carefully. They’re watching me kid, you can’t fuck this up. I’m the one who will pay the price.”

“Wait, what? Sybille I don’t get it, what do you mean?” The scene before her began to fade, the glowing pink light dimming and blurring. Hazel blinked hard, fighting to stay.

“Wait,” she pleaded, “Sybille I’m not ready.” She blinked again, and this time found herself somewhere new when she opened her eyes.

She stood before a grand set of marble steps, leading up from the street to a balcony and elegant palace doors. To her left, a grizzled older man in an orange denim vest and a cowboy hat was feeding an apple to a bridled unicorn.

“What are you staring at kid?” Tom asked. “Go on in, they’re waiting for you.”

“Oh, okay.” Hazel climbed the steps and entered the ballroom, taking in the scene before her.

An orchestra at the back of the room played some sort of ancient classical music that Hazel usually hated, but now at least it seemed to fit the mood. At the center of the room was a checkered dance floor, and above it a grand chandelier made of hundreds of tiny disco balls, casting little rainbows all around the room.

It was on this dance floor that she saw the Russian woman, decked out in a teal leotard and matching tutu, spinning and leaping with elegance. She also spotted Noelle, who wore a sparkling purple gown, and was leading a reluctant golden tuxedo-clad Charlie in a graceful waltz. Hal was there as well, in a trendy magenta dress, dancing with a handsome stranger.

On the sidelines, a sharply-dressed Joseph seemed to be on his way to gaining a dance partner, charming a mystery woman as he adjusted his blue tie. Hazel wasn’t sure why he would want to dance with a woman holding an ax behind her back, but who was she to judge? Not far from them, Liberty sat backwards in a fancy dining chair, one strap of her already somewhat scandalous red dress pulled down to expose her shoulder, apparently so Noah could reach. He stood beside her, working diligently on some sort of elaborate tattoo, the sleeves of his grey suit rolled up so as to avoid staining them with ink.

Hazel had been slowly walking forward as she took this all in, but she stopped in her tracks when she noticed the figure standing in the shadowy back corner of the room. It was Lars – or at least it looked like him – clad in a foliage-covered yellow poncho, his face completely obscured by a gas mask. Hazel felt a cold dread come over her as she stared into the dark voids where his eyes would be, unable to shake the eerie feeling that he was staring right back.

This must be the monster Sybille was talking about, Hazel thought. Even Lars would know better than to wear camouflage to a ball. She decided it would be best to avoid him, and tore her eyes away.

She turned to face the opposite corner, and there he was: Prince Todd. He stood under the glow of a spotlight, a beautiful scrap-metal crown adorning his greasy head. Hazel had never seen anyone look more gallant in all her life.

He extended his hand out to her.

“Would you care to dance with me?” He asked. Breathless, Hazel nodded and took his hand, allowing herself to be pulled onto the dance floor.

They spun around the room together, twirling and sliding with elegant ease. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch, cooing and clapping at the pair’s impressive dance moves.

“Oh Todd,” Hazel sighed, gazing into his dreamy eyes, “I can’t believe it, I’ve got everything I ever wanted.”

“Me too.” Todd smirked, and Hazel watched his pupils change, stretch out into thin ovals. His hands, which had only seconds ago gently cradling hers, were now clamped around her wrists. “My plan worked out perfectly. As we speak, the Founders are taking Sybille into custody for questioning.”

“Wh- what? What is this?” Hazel asked, panic rising in her throat. She struggled against him, but his grip was too tight. A snake’s tongue darted out from between his lips.

“It will all be over soon,” he whispered, and before Hazel could process what was happening, Todd unhinged his jaw and struck, engulfing her entirely in his deadly maw. Almost instantly, she blacked out from the pain.

What felt like seconds later, Hazel opened her eyes to the sight of fluorescent lights rushing past her head. One by one they flew by, each nearly identical to the last. Where were they all going? What was the rush? Oh wait, Hazel realized, am I the one that’s moving?

She tried to sit up, but found she was strapped to the gurney. Two EMTs gripped the railings on either side of her, their fast but uniform footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. One set of hands was hairy and rugged from years of farm work. The other was stained with nicotine and motor oil.

“Sybille?” Hazel croaked out, “What’s happening?”

“We’re rushing you to the hospital, kid,” she replied. “This one’s a bit above our pay grade.”

Hazel closed her eyes in concentration, desperately trying to remember how she’d ended up there, but it was no use.

“What happened?” She asked, her voice much fainter than she would have liked.

“Nothing good.” Tom responded. The echoing footsteps continued for what felt like forever. Hazel wanted to ask more questions, but her lips felt like they’d been stitched together, her tongue like it had been soaked in glue.

“Will I be okay, Sybille?” She finally managed, at a hoarse whisper. “Sybille?”

There was no response. Hazel wished she could just see Sybille’s face, maybe catch a hint in her expression, but she couldn’t get her head to turn.

“We’ve got a twenty-one thiry-five comin’ in hot!” Tom called out. “Code yellow, twenty-two year old female with benign inflammation and chronic contusion.”

Powerless, Hazel watched the hands let go of the gurney and disappear as they handed her off to the doctors. She couldn’t turn to watch Sybille get smaller and smaller as she was rolled further down the long hallway. Her eyes felt wet.

Two new pairs of hands caught the gurney and kept it moving, one dark and wrinkled and the other pale and gaunt. The rhythmic footsteps didn’t miss a beat as they continued down the seemingly endless hallway.

“Alright sweetheart, this’ll just pinch a little.” Noelle said as she inserted a tube into Hazel’s arm. Hazel didn’t feel a thing.

“Give me the rundown, what happened?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t even know where I am.” Hazel croaked. Charlie pressed a stethoscope to her forehead.

“Sounds pretty hollow in there to me, that’s no good.” The footsteps sounded faster now. “Noelle, how’s her pulse?”

“Four twenty over sixty-nine.”

“Nice.” Charlie grumbled. “But we need to get her to the OR, stat.” Suddenly they crashed through swinging double doors into a room full of beeping machines. They rolled her to a stop and began to prepare for the surgery. Hazel tried to get her bearings.

To her left, the Russian woman was filling the biggest syringe Hazel had ever seen with a thick blue liquid.

“What is that?” Hazel asked.

“Nothing to worry about, child,” she replied. “It will make you sleep.”

“Will it hurt?” Hazel was beginning to feel trapped, like she shouldn’t be in this room anymore.

“Only if you are pussy.” Zana looked Hazel right in the eyes, holding her gaze steady. “I do not mean to doubt, only concern. Maybe it’s better if you sleep now.”

Without giving Hazel any time to respond, she jammed the huge needle into her shoulder and pushed the liquid through. The room started to look all fuzzy, and Hazel’s head felt heavy and light all at once.

“Ten,” Zana began, “nine, eight…” A whole chorus of voices joined in, Noelle and Charlie among them.

“Seven, six, five…” The voices slowly faded as if Hazel was falling away, falling and falling and falling for what felt like forever, until suddenly she knew, even with her eyes closed, that the cold hard ground was rushing up and up towards her and just before she hit –

Hazel opened her eyes with a start. She was in a hospital room, but not the same one she had fallen asleep in. There was a TV on the wall, showing two silent news anchors at a big desk, and Hazel could hear a steady beep from a machine next to her bed. Orange sunlight flooded in through the windows.

As Hazel began to come to her senses, she felt a confusing warmth cupping her hand. She flexed her fingers.

“Oh my god, Hayleigh? Honey, are you awake?” Hazel swore she heard her mother speaking to her, felt her holding her hand, even saw her tear-streaked face gazing at her, but surely she must have been hallucinating. Her mother had been dead for years.

“Mom?” Hazel whispered in disbelief. “Wh- I don’t understand.”

“You were in an accident honey.” Her mother explained. “You’ve been in a coma for three months.”

“A coma?” Could it be true? Was it all just a dream?

Before she could ask any more questions, her dad and brother rushed into the room.

“Is it true? Hayleigh are you awake?” Her dad asked breathlessly. He didn’t wait for an answer before wrapping her up in a bear hug. Hazel gripped tight. She hadn’t been hugged like this since before he died.

Her mother and Brock joined in the embrace, and soon all of them were crying tears of joy.

“But,” Hazel managed to squeak out between sobs, “You were all dead. There were zombies and… and…” The more she spoke the more ridiculous it all sounded.

“Oh honey, that was just a nightmare. We’re all okay.” Her mother assured her.

When the embrace ran its course, Hazel’s family all sat down in the chairs by her bed, smiling and laughing with relief.

“What about Sybille?” Hazel asked.

“Your sister is out walking the dog, I’m sure she’ll be so happy to see you when she gets back.” Her mother replied. Hazel let it all sink in. The people on the news wearing suits and make-up, the cars driving on the streets out her window, her family all together and intact – this was the real reality. Right? She stared down at her hands. They sure looked real to her.

“So it was all just a dream?” Hazel asked. No one responded. Hazel looked up.

The room was empty.

- - -

Hazel woke with a start. She was alone, in her makeshift apartment in the abandoned Claire’s. She felt strangely cold. She checked the time. 3:53.

“Fuck!” Hazel shot to her feet and frantically gathered her remaining belongings. This was bad, really really bad. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

She threw her backpack on, grabbed Stella, and flung open the store’s security door. She sprinted towards the meeting place, at top speed, not bothering to close up behind her. The vultures could pick at the scraps she left behind if they wanted, it wasn’t like she’d be back any time soon.

As she ran, Hazel couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d had a pretty strange dream, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember it.

 

[queendilettante]

Sybille checked her watch for what felt like the 10th time that minute. 3:21. She tapped her foot on the tile floor outside of the Macy's on the Mall's top floor. She glanced around for signs of life.

Nothing. Well, nothing except for the one SecDep guard at the gate a few dozen feet back. He hadn't stopped her from coming in, which was a better welcome than she was expecting. She had an office here, so it wasn't too suspicious for her to come here. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but Bill always worked late. Maybe their plans really had been kept quiet.
Or maybe it was a trap.

Not like it even mattered. The waiting was killing her. When no one came to violently collect her after Ollie left, she was almost more disappointed than if they had. What was there to do now? Leave and potentially walk right into an ambush outside so all of them would die? She couldn't. It was too risky. Especially not with so many people following her lead. She needed to nip this threat in the bud before angry Mall citizens were tracking them across the country. If she could just convince Bill that she's coming back, maybe-

Ugh! Fuck. Sybille shook out her trembling hands and lightly slapped her face to wake herself up. She couldn't risk panicking now. She'd put her foot down and Bill would listen. He's listened before! When Kat, another Founder, got bit in the field a few years back, Bill saved Sybille from swinging for it. He was reasonable, or as reasonable as a Founder could be. He wouldn't just kill her.
Probably.

She swallowed hard and walking into the Macy's. Here goes nothing.

"Hey Bill," Sybille called as she stepped inside the big carpeted room that the busybody Founders used as offices. Shuffling from the back corner where only one light was on proved her guess that Bill would be here late correct. Okay. This was good.

"Sybille," a deep but nasally voice called back as Bill's bald head appeared in view from behind the cubicle wall. He was frowning. "Didn't expect to see you until you left." He kicked his wheeled chair out of the cubicle and turned to face her, still scowling. "You come to save your skin?"

Not good. Sybille stuffed her trembling left hand in her jacket pocket and squeezed her pocket knife as hard as she could. Keep steady. She narrowed her eyes at the man and smiled. "You got me," she lied, clearing her throat and kicking some mud off of her boot into the carpeted ground. She smiled apologetically and joked, "Couldn't bear to leave without another look at you, Bill."

"Oh, fuck off," he spat, rolling his eyes. "Do you think I'm just going to sit by and let a dozen people disa-fucking-ppear?" He shook his head and rubbed his tired, wrinkly eyes. "It's one thing for you to disappear, but Charlie? Tom? Fucking Noelle? Jesus, Rayne, are you trying to get us all fucking killed?"

"Bill, I-"

"Don't fucking bullshit me Sybille," he interrupted, standing up from his chair and walking closer. She fucked up. She should have guessed that he'd already be too angry to listen. "I've been here for 10 god damn hours trying to figure out what to do about this little fucking vaccine stunt." He was standing in front of her now, looking down at her. His breath reeked of onion and gray stubble poked through across his ugly jawline. "Sitting here, checking records, trying to figure out what we're going to have left before you all decide to fuck off East tomorrow night. God!" he threw his hands up and rubbed his bloodshot brown eyes again.

Sybille smiled and took a step back. He's got the time wrong. They could just leave now and Bill'd be none the wiser for at least a few hours. "You're right," she said, putting her free hand above her head and trying not to let her relief show too clearly. How'd he get tomorrow night? Was he really just that tired? "We can talk about this in the morning. You need sleep."

His brow furrowed even deeper. He took a step after her, his stride bigger than she expected, and invaded her space more closely than before. "Not a chance, bitch," he growled, spit flying onto Sybille's face in the process. Delightful. Bill did ever know how to speak to women.

"Scout's honor," Sybille joked, trying to bring him back from the ledge and taking another step back. Bill's greasy, calloused hand reached out after her and grabbed her elbow. "What the fuck?" she yelled, pushing him back and stumbling onto the ground reflexively. Shit. Shit! "Sorry!" Fuck! "I just-"

"Fuck you," he spat. He clambered up, panting, and stood tall in front of her. Sybille had never noticed how bad his posture was, but standing straight up like this, he was nearly a full head taller. Sybille's eyes darted down and saw a holster on his thigh. Fuck! What! Fuck!

Bill's swollen fingers looped around the latch. She was fucked. Jesus, how had she managed to blow every interaction she'd had with another person so badly this week. He undid the small magnetic latch, his big hand sliding down to grab the handle of the pistol.

Click.

Sybille pulled her left hand out of her jacket pocket and shoved it toward Bill's stomach.

--

She was running. The air was thick and sticky in her lungs as she sprinted through the checkpoints and toward Tom's ranch. Santa, who she'd left outside with her bags, bounded along beside her. The SecDep soldiers, tired as they were, paid the two no mind as they ran through across the settlement. Thank god she'd played with Santa at night like this before.

Once through the final Western Checkpoint, Sybille pushed even further through the dirt trails and toward the ranch. Streaks of leaves stained almost black in the dull moonlight raced past her head as she pushed forward with all of her might. So much for saving her energy for the trip.
She hadn't even gotten any sleep.

As the light of the ranch came into view, Sybille saw the horses and multiple silhouetted figures standing around. Thank fuck. Her lungs were near about to collapse, but she'd be out of here on a horse soon.

 

[Hard Boiled]

Nearly forty-eight hours later, the doctor's mind had hardly strayed from the ranch, the lingering smell of manure infiltrating his neurosis as he frantically moved files from cupboard to cabinet and ensured that at least names were legible in his decade-and-a-half of cacography. As far as the Founders were concerned, his paperwork was the only evidence that any of these people existed. With so much to do in so little time, he was down to the wire putting his affairs in order.

He emptied his desk, then restocked it and emptied it again. God forbid he leaves without his third spare Kelly clamp, or his precious pack of Pilot G2 pens he'd traded for a meat cleaver; they'd obtained a proper bone saw by then, anyway. Whoever moved in next would need all the space available for the next fifteen years.

The successor herself was the last box to check.

The doctor pulled Michayla aside from her duties and sat her down - of course, he remained standing. He explained to her that he and Noelle would be indisposed for the next year or so, and as such, she would need to head all operations in the hospital until they return. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Do you understand?"

"...I think so." She glanced back at her coworkers in the electronics section.
"Starting when?"

"Today." He glanced at the clock. "In sixty minutes."

Michayla parted her lips wordlessly before closing them and standing.
"Okay. So, what now?" She folded her arms.

"So, I guess you're a doctor now. You're the Doctor now." He corrected.

She gasped. Dr. Michayla bent her knees and shook her balled fists before thrusting an unsolicited hug upon her fellow doctor with a squeal. He returned a gentle pat on the back and allowed one full second before stepping away.

"Congratulations." Charlie whipped out his stethoscope and tapped her shoulders with the diaphragm to officially knight her into medicine.
"I hear they do that in the real thing." They both laughed, then paused.

"Thank you, Charlie."

"Thank Noelle..." He looked away, then back. "You've been doing this shit longer than I was when I got here, and I thought I fuckin' knew everything. Just..." He began to tell her not to change who she is, or something equally corny, but felt it would be redundant.
"I don't know. You'll be fine."


“Yeah, and soon everyone will be like, ‘Hey, Dr. Kayla!’ And I’ll be like, ‘Grr, I hate you!’”
Charlie snickered again thinking about it. Unlike his first appearance, he was the first to arrive at this meeting, but not before picking up his bag from Sybille's workshop. He'd expected to find her there and walk down together, but alas. Probably dying her hair one last time or something. He found himself a seat not far from where he'd spoken with Tom at the stables, placing his man-purse atop his utility bag and settling against the same fence.

By the time she’d arrived, Sybille’s ragged gasps had turned into burning pleas from her lungs to stop. She felt the eyes of the entire group locked in on her, their supposed leader. Perfect. She threw the bags she’d brought onto the ground and retched, hands clinging to her knees for stability.

“W-we… we… we gotta go… now,” she coughed out through jagged breaths. When the group did not immediately spring into panicked action, she shouted a follow up. “Fucking now! Let’s move!”

Observing her episode with raised brow, Charlie remained composed in the face of Sybille’s bile-infused demands, unenthusiastically strolling around her emesis.
“You look awful,” he cheered, offering her a jar of water.

Straightening up, Sybille walked over to Charlie. “Bill’s dead,” she whispered, gesturing to the literal blood on her left hand before putting it back into her jacket pocket.

Charlie’s head tilted. Sybille’s confession washed over his flattening expression briefly, then recoiled up his spine as a hot shiver. He blinked and took a glance over his shoulder. The eight stares once on Sybille now encompassed them both, growing accusatory of his complicity at a moment’s notice. He flicked back.
“When?” Charlie interrogated through closed teeth.

Sybille flicked her eyes between Charlie and the others, following her friend’s gaze. “About five minutes ago,” she whispered as her eyes glanced over Lars and Hallie. Would they follow her if they knew? Anyone caught with her right now would be killed as accomplices, something Charlie clearly understood.

Her eyes shot past the pair and onto Tom, who’s preparation was the only reason any of them had a chance to get out alive. “I need to tell Tom,” she mumbled, still inches from Charlie’s face, “Just enough to get him to rush.”

Charlie pushed the jar into her chest, splashing water onto her shirt.
“Drink this slowly. You’re dehydrated from throwing up.”

He waited until she was occupied to speak again.
“Take a deep breath, and listen carefully.” His voice trembled under his frozen stature.
“You are telling no-one. We are going to wait for Thomas, we’re going to review the plan again, and we are going to walk out the gates.” He counted each step on three fingers in front of her. The dots had connected before his eyes.

“We will talk about this later,” He emphasized. “But I need to know, right fucking now, was this the plan?”

“No!” Sybille shot back, still whispering. “Of course I wasn’t going to kill a fucking Founder, Charlie, god damn.”

“Alright, alright...” He tapped her elbow. “Just clean that shit off your hand, and say hello to everybody. Twenty minutes, and we’re out of here.”

Sybille shot a tentative smile toward the group and stepped around to the side of the ranch to rinse herself off. She was following the steps.

Everything would be fine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sybille made no acknowledgement to her panicked dash as she reconvened with the group. Standing in a circle, she reiterated the plan once more, saddled up the horses, and headed out of the gate before sunrise as planned.

Leaving from the south, the only thing that changed in light of the chaos was the bridge the group was headed for. Instead of leaving via the northeastern gate and heading for the Golden Gate Bridge, the group headed straight south to I-280 and made way for the Oakland Bay Bridge. It was a small detail, one that surely raised some eyebrows, but nothing too dramatic. Only those who actively ran trade routes along the highways would know how off-putting of a decision this even was.

By the time the sun had risen, the group had walked a solid couple of miles down the abandoned streets of what was once San Francisco. The I-280 on ramp was still a few miles out, but when the sun came up and Mall alarms still didn’t blare in the distance, Sybille signaled for the group to come to a stop.

There was so much to say. Obviously, Sybille was covered in blood and retching was a big one - too big, arguably, for the time being. She could let the group know that the Founders never patrolled I-280 this far south, so she had no idea what to expect, but that’d segue too quickly back into her panicked arrival. Eh. It was a wash.

“Well,” she started, addressing the group for the first time since they left while ignoring everything that actually mattered, “we’re out. How’s everyone holding up with these first couple of miles?”

 

[Solar Daddy]

Lars wasn't sure if he was proud of Hallie's early departure or not. Her decision to leave early - even for him - was admirable in a way he would never voice out loud. He aimed to see just how tired she'd be by midday, not that Lars' sleep antics were much better. He reconvened with the massing crowd of pioneers at the time he had informed Hallie of, giving a brusque wave to those already there and otherwise remaining relatively statue-like.

Lars had little opinion over Sybille's bileful arrival, nor did he mind the apparent pep talk she needed prior to joining them all. Sure, he was a curious mind, and the thoughts swirled endlessly in his head, but not as the center of his attention. They were about to hike out into the real thing, the unforgiving wilds of the world where things will, immediately, begin trying to kill them. If even one foot was out of place, especially in a group this large, it meant a bite, which meant a mercy kill, which meant ever dwindling numbers. How many were they total, eleven, not including a dog? that was a lot of limbs to keep complete track over. Lars had a strong opinion on some cast members, either good or bad, while others were unfathomably dull or unknown. He trusted three or four of them, had faith in a handful, and the rest he would not be relying on for his survival. He had yet to see the mettle of those he was lacking acquaintances with.

During their exit, Lars triple checked his things and made sure everything was accounted for. Liberty and himself were the ones carrying the vast majority of their foodstuffs, mostly dried meats. He would've argued in that moment that their lives were most valuable due to the cargo they carried, but didn't voice it. If one of them went down, potentially ruining the vital food they carried, their reserves would be shot. Trust was well earned by their peers, Liberty and Lars probably being among the most consistently on-par. He had little cause for concern about Liberty taking a bite out of recklessness, so to him, their rations were in good hands. The Ashen was still curious on what got Sybille so squeamish, but that was for later when his prying could be better masked as socialization. For now, he would keep pace with the herd, rifle in a low ready and mask resting atop his head, ready to be dropped down to his face should he just tilt his head forward. Every third or fourth trot of his horse was carefully watched to ensure he wasn't going to be the victim of a hidden ghoul or a bandit's trap. Or maybe one of his own, should he have forgotten any.

"We're making decent time," Lars noted as a response to Sybille. "Hopefully the weather keeps up." Lars didn't take his eyes off the path as he spoke his curt sentences. Lars wouldn't be fully comfortable until they were well outside the city limits and enjoying the beautiful scenery of what was once California. He was plotting the path ahead of him, going through the entire thing like a time-lapse through the predetermined route. He had inquired meticulously and offered his advice on the path they'd take to reach their destination.

Of course, a journey this long was bound to hit snags and redirect at some point, it was only a matter of time. Cross-country trips in the post-apocalypse seldom went smoothly.

 

[Lixy]

Sybille's panicked arrival did nothing but plummet Zana's resolve. It was like a swift kick to the morale, and she could see some of the others were made uneasy by it, whether they were openly showing it or not. Something had very clearly gone wrong, no matter how quickly the Doctor seemed to smooth it over. They could all see it, but she could see the logic in keeping it quiet anyway. Still, just the fact that something appeared to have already gone ary was enough for even the bull-headed optimist in Zana to blanche. Despite all the evident problems, it seemed just pathetic to voice her concerns or back out at this point. She'd already done all she could to prepare and there was nothing for it now but to remain committed.

So she stayed quiet, begrudgingly accepting help to mount her horse and meticulously mirroring the movements of those who appeared more experienced to learn how to guide the beast. Luckily, it looked to be well-trained, following after the pack without too much input from his rider. Even Zana could admit the horse she'd been given was beautiful, despite her distaste for the creatures. It was a golden brown, almost honey-coloured, and seemed even-tempered –– though Zana would be the first to admit that she had no real experience with the temperaments of horses. It was probably helping that as they left the fields and stables, the smell of manure retreated, which did plenty to endear her more to the beast. Still, she was unsure of how to ride, holding tightly to her reigns, trying to get a feel of the movement needed to stay firmly astride. She'd been a little surprised by just how strong and warm the horse felt beneath her. While thinking about the ride, she realised she'd failed to really consider the fact that the horses were animals, and they were bred for this purpose for a reason. Privately, Zana named her horse Mikoláš -- "the people's victory" -- and smiled to herself. She stroked his neck gingerly, thinking of her strays, hoping someone would notice them and feed them in her absence.

By the time the sky had fully brightened to something more appropriately called "daytime", the group had made it some distance. They were still in territory Zana recognised and was comfortable with. She reached up and pulled down her goggles –– repurposed ski goggles that cut the glare of the sun and made it easier to scan the brightening horizon. The group came to a staggered stop, Zana pulling Mikoláš a few paces out from the centre of the group to squint ahead of them. One of the men she didn't remember the name of spoke and she nodded along with his assessment. "I agree. Roads here are still good in most places." She decided not to question the inexplicable choice of route for now, knowing this probably had something to do with Sybille's hasty arrival. She still had a good mental catalogue of where the ground was good in this area, and she couldn't see any immediate problems, so it just didn't seem worth the potential problems it could cause to mention it.

 

[Aeris]

Hey dad, it’s me again.
I’m sorry I had to leave your guitar, I would’ve brought it if I could. But we have to travel lightly for the trip. I’m not exactly sure how long it’s gonna take, maybe a few months? I’ll ask Lars later, he’ll know.
Oh! I met Tom! He’s super nice, I wish I had gotten to meet him when you were here. He told me some stuff about the old world, sounds like life was a lot simpler back then.
How’s mom? I hope you two are doing well. Could you tell her I love her, please? I know I never met her but always liked to believe she was watching over us. And now you’re both watching over me.
I promise I won’t do anything stupid.
I love you, dad,
Hal

Hallie folded the letter neatly into an envelope, making a mental note to properly address it later. She looked around at the group before her. In another hour or so they would be starting their journey, a journey she wasn’t sure if they would survive or not. A part of her wanted to back out, to stay in the mall. She was safe here, happy even. Out there was nothing but death and creatures straight out of a horror movie.

But if she stayed, then she would be alone again. With Lars and Sybille both gone, Hal would have no one left. She didn’t have much of a choice but to go.

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted upon Sybille’s arrival. She eyed the pink-haired woman suspiciously. Why had she appeared so distressed? Had something happened? Any other day, Hallie would bombard Sybille with questions. Doing so right now, however, didn’t feel right. It was only when Sybille had disappeared around the barn did Hallie fully process what they were about to do. Would they be able to return home once this was over? She hoped so if only to grab the guitar from her flat.

Hallie nodded along to Sybille’s plan before getting up onto her horse.

“Tom! Look!” She gestured excitedly to successively mount herself atop the horse. “I did it!”

The excitement, however, soon turned to boredom as the group trekked across the abandoned streets. Once or twice Hal found herself dozing off, only catching herself just before sleep took over.

Her attention snapped towards Sybille as she spoke up. “Besides exhaustion, yeah, I’m holding up pretty well.”

Hallie clumsily steered her horse until she was riding alongside Sybille. “What the heck happened back there? Are you alright?” She dropped her voice to a whisper so as not to alert the rest of the group.

Sybille looked down at the younger woman and forced a smile. The first couple of miles of the trek had forced her to sit with her paranoia. Only Charlie knew, but Security Department officers could be hunting them down with their dogs any second now. Every moment was critical and this rest stop, no matter how brief, was wasting time they didn’t have.

The ride so far, fraught with paranoia as it was, had given Sybille time to come up with an excuse.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry about that!” Sybille forced a laugh and started scratching at the back of her head with her now-cleaned hand. “Yeah, it was an overreaction,” she lied. “Some of the merchants started a fight in the parking lot and a bunch of Security Department guys started running around.”

Sybille leaned closer to Hallie and looked around, really trying to sell it. “You know how the SecDep guys can be, so I only told the Founders about us heading out. I didn’t want it to be a whole thing, so when a fight happened right next to me and I had my bags with me, I knew we’d get held up if they caught me.”

Sybille leaned back and forced another laugh. She felt a pang in her chest. She hated lying to these people, especially since they’ve put so much trust in her so far. She just needed to keep them together and confident so they’d all make it to the Mississippi River.

“I just got anxious and it seems my nerves got the better of me, is all!”

“Right…” Hallie gave Sybille a skeptical look. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her, but it was something about the way she was acting. Of course, it was early and they all were exhausted, perhaps Sybille’s nerves had gotten the better of her.

“What did the Founders say anyway? I can’t believe they were okay with us all leaving, especially those three,” she gestured to Charlie, Noelle, and Tom respectively. In her years of living at the Mall, Hal had never spoken to a Founder. Back when Owen was still alive, he had made sure to handle any business they needed and chose to keep Hallie out of their way. Whether that was for their sake or hers, he never said.

“Dad used to say they were pretty strict. And we did just take two of their best doctors. It just seems odd they’re okay with this.” Almost as soon as the words left Hal’s mouth did she find herself getting distracted once more. “I learned how to saddle horses today, and Tom’s pretty neat. I see why my dad liked him.”

“What do you think is out there?” She continued, “Is it all just abandoned lands? Are there civilizations like the Mall?”

Sybille decided to take advantage of the young woman’s absent-minded questioning to change the subject. “Tom also helped me get good at saddling horses. It was years ago, but the man’s been pretty invaluable to us here.”

Sybille smiled, this time unforced. “I can’t know what kinds of craziness stands between us and the East.” She glanced around in an effort at looking nonchalant, but her eyes lingered behind the group. No one was coming after them yet. They still had time.

“Let’s just hope we find salvation out there.”

“Let’s hope.” Hal echoed Sybille's words before falling back to her original position. It didn’t take long for boredom to once again hit the young woman. If Owen had been here, he’d have suggested a game of sorts to pass the time.

The memories were painful most days. It was hard being alone, and Hal was seldom with other people- unless she happened to be following Lars around the Mall.

Today was a good day for the memories though. Hallie rode in silence, recalling the happy times with her dad. Would she still have gone on this trip if he were here? She doubted it. Owen would have told her it would be safer at the Mall.

Hallie rested her forehead against her horse. The exhaustion had hit a long time ago, what she wouldn't give to close her eyes for ten minutes. And maybe if she knew she wouldn't fall off her horse, she would. But if Sybille's worries were to be true, they needed to get as far from the Mall as possible. Hal just prayed the trip would be smooth sailing from here.

 

[kaito9049]

Joseph sipped from one of his canteens, eyeing Sybille carefully as she addressed the group. He wasn’t sure yet to take her earlier silence for nervousness or focus, but considering the state in which she’d arrived that morning...Had he misjudged Sybille’s leadership capabilities? Maybe he should call her out on it now, voice the question that was surely on everyone’s minds. But no, the group was too brittle for a confrontation like that, and Joseph couldn’t yet count on the others’ support. He’d have to wait until he could talk to Sybille in private and persuade her to open up. Clearly she needed someone who could rally the troops behind her.

At least she had Charlie. It seemed the doc had even more pull with Sybille than Joseph had realized. That could prove an issue, considering how standoffish Charlie was toward the other man. But folks had entrusted their scrapes and cuts to Charles enough to fall in line behind him, and whoever he supported. That provided a bit of cohesion, at least for now.

Maybe Joseph could do the same.

“It’s far too cold, as always,” Joseph said, responding to Sybille’s question, “but I won’t hold that against you.” He was really only speaking to draw attention to himself, and to buy time for the point he actually needed to make. “But naw, I’m impressed at how smoothly things went, all things considered.”

He let his gaze run across the rest of the group, but kept his voice light and friendly. “At the end of the day, we got out of the Mall without being stopped. Can’t complain about that.”

Joseph’s horse snorted and stamped its hoof impatiently. The sudden movement made Joseph lean forward and tighten his grip on the reins, nearly dropping his canteen in the process. What an awful thing. How did Tom even find all these horses? San Francisco was built for cars, trolleys, and underground trains, not easily spooked beasts with a whole one horsepower. And why did it seem like this particular horse hated him almost as much as Tom did? If Joseph didn’t know better — and he didn’t — he’d think Tom filled this horse’s walnut-sized brain with vicious whispers about its rider.

“Man, I’m real glad we were able to get these on such short notice,” Joseph said, lying through his teeth. “Props to you, Tom. I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy, but you did what you had to.”

He flashed Tom a smile, knowing at least a few of the other group members were watching. It was a bit ironic, but people tended to think well of those who were generous with praise. And if Tom was planning on besmirching Joe’s name — in public or in private — Joe would just have to make it harder on him.