Part 3
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
—
“The Second Coming”, William Butler Yeats
Chapter 20
~ Hope is a Fickle Thing ~
“When’s the last time you drove a car, Adam?”
Adam hadn’t been paying attention. Not to the question, nor the snoring in the back. The landscape zoomed across the window, vibrations spreading from the plastic frame and through his arm, and his thoughts were focused outside and on their current situation. How nice it was. To finally be free. To watch the world extend in front of one’s eyes.
How long had they even been in the dark? More than five years. Or maybe six. Some things must have changed. But not by much, he guessed. It’s not like there were millions of people left who could still make much impact on these parts. There would only be more roots peeking through the rubble. More branches reaching away at the sky. Hopefully, more peace.
“Yo, Adam. Are you daydreaming again?”
“Huh?” He straightened on his seat. “No, sorry, what were you saying?”
His friend had both hands on the steering wheel, but his gaze awaited an answer. Denis. He wasn’t so much a friend as a companion of mishap. Just someone who had found himself in the same predicament. Not by chance. For one, because it would rather be akin to a curse than luck. And two, because Adam wasn’t one to think the events shaping this world were random.
“When did you last drive a car?” Denis repeated with annoyance. “I think it’s the first time I’ve done it since I was in college…”
Adam didn’t care so much for questions, but it had the benefit of offering a way to pass the time. The three of them still had a few hours to kill before finally reaching their destination. Each one taking them further away from this god-forsaken place in which they had been nothing but prisoners, and closer to potential respite.
Adam clicked his tongue, fidgeting with his dangling earring. “Last time I drove?” He let the words stretch, feigning to search the depths of memory. “Well, I guess it must’ve been when I was six. You know, right before the world started spinning.”
Denis blinked. “I always forget you’re such a baby.”
“Oh no, I’m dead serious.” Adam shrugged. “I was a real menace back then. Used to take my mom’s car out for a spin, me and my stuffed cat. I’d sit on the wheel and steer us straight into the driveway flower beds.”
Denis exhaled, shaking his head. “Very funny.”
Adam adjusted the cloth straps around his forearms and melted against the backrest. “Yeah, no, I don’t know how to drive. But hey, how hard can it be if you’re doing it?”
The driver muttered. Probably an insult or some expression of his contempt. He was so very easy to tease that Adam couldn’t help himself. Even as he had been the one without whom their escape would have failed miserably. Fortunately, Adam was left with all the time in the world to be grateful, now that they were on the highway to freedom.
Presumably.
They were passing miles of open fields at the moment, and the landscape mainly remained barren save for the occasional crashed vehicles and their skeleton drivers. The sunrays bounced off the plastic and warmed the interior of the car. A typical summer day if not for the fact that they were inside a stolen jeep with nothing but their own clothes on.
Cranking the window open, Adam let the air rush in. It swept past the mess of black hairs falling on his shoulders and through his loose clothes. A refreshing instant soon cut short as a fly struck his forehead.
Adam swatted the insect away nonchalantly before another one entered the cabin. Then another. And within seconds, the air turned thick with buzzing. A plague of diptera made its way around the car. Some clung to the dashboard, others crashed against the windshield. Even after he had swiftly shut the window, tiny bodies bounced frenziedly against the glass.
Denis scowled, swiping at one that had landed near his eye. “Fucking hell, what is this?”
Good question.
Adam looked for an answer in the landscape. Past the decaying road and heat mirages, across the open fields, cows littered the wild grass — their carcasses a home for pests.
“They must have contracted some sort of disease.”
Denis followed his gaze, his hands flexed on the wheel. “I mean, we’re responsible for them being pretty bad at surviving. It’s a miracle they were still living to catch it in the first place.”
But something else had caught Adam’s interest. A little further away, hidden in the middle of high reaching meadows, stood a great, lonely tower. It was surrounded by fencing and marked the middle of a camp.
“You think it still works?” Denis asked.
“The radio tower?” Adam turned to look at the middle-aged man. “I doubt it. But you never know…”
Maybe someone’s still out there trying to reach ghosts.
Silence settled once more across the vehicle. The tower watched them pass quietly, and Adam resumed his meditation. For no more than a second.
A drawn-out sigh came from the backseat.
Denis glanced at the rear-view mirror. “She’s really sleeping through the end of the world, huh?”
Adam glanced over his shoulder. Their third passenger hadn’t stirred once since they’d taken off from Luxhold. Curled up across three seats, she looked like she had merely dozed off on a long road trip. Oblivious to all concerns.
“She trusts us way too much,” Denis chuckled.
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Adam doubted that. More likely, she was too drained to care whether they drove her to salvation or death. He understood the feeling. Although, whether she trusted them or not, he would ensure she stayed safe. That whole endeavour had been his idea after all, and one responsibility he wouldn’t shy away from.
Let’s all find a quiet place to live out the rest of our days.
They were approaching a city. Signage indicating one landmark and then the next. But it wasn’t the haven he had in mind. If there was one thing Adam remembered from before their underground dwelling, it was that cities were best avoided.
“We should try to find a way around it.”
Denis shot him a look. “We’ll lose hours.”
“If we don’t lose our life first.” Adam gestured at the skyline ahead. “I don’t care how dead it looks, it’s always filled with people intent on killing your firstborn sons. And I’m an only child.”
The driver sighed, tapping his fingers against the wheel.
He was being pushy, he knew, but on that, Adam wouldn’t budge. “Besides,” he added with amusement, “you’re a terrible driver. We wouldn’t make it two blocks without crashing into some weird statue of a frog or something equally grotesque.”
Denis rolled his eyes, and Adam knew he had won. “Fine. We’ll go around. But we might not make it as far as we wanted because of that. I hope you’re happy.”
Very.
But for the time being, they kept pushing towards the city, following the highway in its path south. Billboards and bent signs dotted the view, rushing past in their wake. One in particular caught Adam’s eyes.
MILITARY CONTROL ZONE
ROADBLOCK AHEAD
They were driving too fast.
“Denis, slow down.”
“What now?”
“There was a—”
A blinding flash. The world lurched. Something exploded beneath them. The sound of shredded tyres. The front end jumped upward, and Adam felt himself lift off the seat. Then, the undercarriage slammed back down.
Both his hands were holding fast onto the frame, trembling with the shock. And there was something on his cheek. Wet. Adam turned his head, and while Denis was still gripping the wheel, his face… His chest…
Shards of windshield jutted out of him like broken wings. Blood foamed from his lips as he made a choked sound.
Denis didn’t seem to realise it and looked at him in confusion. There, maybe he had noticed the anguish written on Adam’s face. Maybe he had finally registered the pain. But his hands left their positions to search the river of blood.
Adam’s hands flew to the wheel in panic.
“Shit— shit— hold on Den, we’ll stop on the side.”
He had no idea what he was doing. Why was it so hard to control the thing? The vehicle jerked wildly as he grabbed control. But control escaped him. It was like trying to grip a robot having an epileptic seizure. The wheel spun left and right, sliding under the white cloth, and their path was bringing them dangerously close to a gas station.
A stone pillar.
He tried wrenching the wheel to avoid their impending end. The car only rolled sideways.
And something hard slammed into his temple.
When Adam woke, the world had gone darker. Hours must have passed, and the sun dipped lower. But his immediate concern was for his companions of misfortune.
With one hand on his blood-crusted forehead, he turned his head. The car sat at an awkward tilt, its nose buried into the stone. But it was a different sort of spectacle that interested him. Denis slumped forward, one arm dangling lifelessly.
Bent over him was the girl. The silent passenger.
She was oddly awake now, an early riser. Or rather, something inside her was, but she had left them long ago. Her head bobbed rhythmically as her jaw worked against the meat of Denis’s throat.
When was she infected?
They hadn’t been exposed in Luxhold. She couldn’t have been bitten then, or else they would have noticed. So then—
Her sigh.
The moment she had left them. The moment her heart had given out, only to leave behind a body waiting. Waiting for something else to power its muscles. To take control of its mind. They had been travelling with a corpse. Talking, planning, laughing. She had lied beside them, quietly rotting.
A soft crunch. A sound so intimate that Adam nearly gagged. It almost gave him away. Almost made him betray his still breathing, still very much alive body trapped inside the lion’s cage.
His fingers curled around the door handle. Inch by inch, the door wobbled open. One foot on the ground, then another. Don’t look at Denis. Don’t think. He had to hide. Then he’d be able to decide what came next.
The gas station offered an oasis for his thoughts. The windows were long shattered, the shelves long emptied. But at least he felt safer here. Back against a wall, he sank onto cold tiles and let the hush stretch. Like the quiet between stars.
His loneliness ever so vast.
Loss had become a habit. A pain that stung a little less with each wound. Denis was dead. And she was, too. Not even her name remained. That, he had never asked.
Had she been listening? Not her, really, but the part of her that lingered in those final moments. Maybe she had wanted to speak out, to warn them of her going. In the end, she had merely sighed, releasing the last breath tethering her to this world. Surrendering to the pull of death.
The parasite, free to take over.
It was their own choice that had made them follow Adam in his plan. And yet, he couldn’t help but feel it was on him. Destiny had a funny way of leaving the guilty ones behind. There was nothing to do but laugh. Grief would come in time.
He closed his eyes, drifting amidst the cosmos, letting it settle around him. Then, with a deep breath, he opened them again and got on his feet.
Let’s at least give her a dignified end.
The crash had rattled something deep in his bones, but he forced himself through the following steps. Plundering the tomb in search of a weapon. Surprisingly, some tools remained. Wrenches in varying sizes. But blunt damage made for a difficult end. Too much effort. Too much mess.
Not the best way to deal with death.
Instead, the only thing with some semblance of a sharp edge was a gardening tool resembling a sickle. He wrapped his fingers around it, prying it from the tangle of metal instruments. It made a faint jingle.
A sound that answered.
Shifting behind him, dragging themselves from their slumber.
Lurkers.
The dead who had been dead for too long. Too far gone to move quickly, too stubborn to stop. Adam took a sharp step back, knocking into a rusted shelf. The clang echoed like he had just fired a gunshot. A dinner bell that screamed ‘Over here! I’m your delicious meal.’
“Shit.”
Adam bolted for the exit. But in his infinite wisdom, he had closed the door. Thus, he tore through the store and jumped through the window instead. Because, sure, flinging himself through broken glass was just what he needed.
With one glorious and reckless leap, he stumbled over the frame and rolled over the concrete.
He was soon on his feet again. There was no time to feel the pain in his shoulder. The lurkers he could outrun. But he knew the ruckus would signal sleeping beauty to come outside for a little jog.
Sure enough, a shriek signalled the beginning of the hunt.
Adam glanced back as he sprinted down the road. And regretted it instantly. She was sprinting indeed. Her eyes, still too alive, locked onto him with single-minded hunger.
Oh, that’s just perfect.
With a fresh jolt of panic, Adam ran. He was not built for this. Not anymore. His lungs burned from years spent idle and breathing dust. But he ran nonetheless.
Or at least, he tried. For, after only a few seconds of his desperate race against fate, destiny had something else in store.
His foot caught on something. Maybe his own bad luck. Either way, his legs buckled under him, and he flew to meet the grindy asphalt, tearing through clothes and skin. A strangled gasp escaped from his throat, and he rolled onto his side.
The sprinter’s footsteps slapped against the highway. Faster. Closer.
A weight slammed into him before he could wrench himself up. Fingers clawed at his arms. Teeth sought purchase on his neck. The first time a girl ever truly fought for him. Adam twisted and shoved as best he could, but her animalistic strength was overpowering him. The sickle had gone clattering farther away, and he was left naked.
SWISH.
The girl went rigid. An arrow had burst through the skull, the tip visible through her right ear. Adam barely had time to shove her off before he heard hooves.
Horses? Of all things, horses were trotting down the road, riders bouncing in their saddles, cutting through the gathering dust. The first one galloped past him, loosing another arrow. Another veered sharply to the side, swinging what looked like a sword on a stick through the neck of an infected.
Then, one of them pulled up beside him. And Adam found himself staring straight into the eyes of a woman. She carried herself like someone who had already decided whether he was worth saving. A bow hung from her shoulder, a knife strapped against her hip.
She leapt down, her auburn hair swinging with the motion. And then she extended a hand to him.
“Are you okay?”
Adam blinked. “Huh… yeah?”
He grasped her wrist, letting her yank him to his feet.
“Thanks for…” He couldn’t even put words into what just happened. “Saving my life, I guess. I’m Adam.”
The corner of her mouth twitched into a charming smile.
“Happy to meet you, Adam.” She said, gesturing for the others to regroup. “I’m Victoria.”
***
I also encourage you to read my short story if you haven't checked that out yet. The four chapters are already out.
And once again, the great Wandering Brain Spasm delivered for this part's cover.
Cuckoo Nest of New Age Monsters by Elijah Talbot 2 in which he wrote about an alternate reality Alek trapped into a strange realm.
I really encourage you to check out his work, he's created a fascinating universe!
Who are you most excited to see next ?
