The Fallout

After a nuclear apocalypse, what do you live for?

                I stared out through cracks in the boards as rain drenched the street below. Cracked pavement smiled up at me, littered with leaves and bits of trash, anything unusable to us. It lay there, blowing in the wind, rustling around, alive, but not. Nothing really seemed alive, though. Not in the dark world we called home now.

 

                I don’t know the year, really. I don’t even know the date. Time and dates don’t mean a thing any longer, not now. No one has a use for them. All we care about is whether it’s light or dark out, whether it rains or shines, or snows. That’s it. Nothing like that has matter since before the clearing, the shattering of time and space and society and life in and of itself.

 

                I was too young to remember much. I was six when it happened. I know that was roughly twelve years ago, so I guess if I wanted to, I could do the math. But I have no desire to. Knowing how long I’ve lived like this won’t change a thing. But I do remember chaos, so much running, so much confusion. I don’t remember details, just bits and pieces of pictures. Being shut up in the house. At one point in the basement. Then everyone being loaded into the family van, as much stuff as we could get crammed in there with us, and then we were gone.

 

                And why did we run like that, you ask? What possibly could have made people cram into a tiny van and just leave their home, without so much as a glance over the shoulder?

 

                The lights, the sound, the noxious waste that threatened to creep into our living space. I lived through the worst atomic war in history. I lived through the destruction of nearly every country on the planet. And now I was living in the aftermath.

 

                We’d dropped bombs in most of the Middle East, I’ve been told, and that we turned it back into the deserted desert it once was. Europe went off like a time bomb, one country taking out the next, until nothing stood but ash. And how long can ash stand on its own?

 

                While we were trying to keep ourselves safe, and possibly dig Europe out from six feet under, Japan went up in smoke. China and Russia tag teamed them. We destroyed the countries below us, Cuba, Venezuela, everything. Get them before they get you, I’m told is what everyone said on the news, the radio, the TV. And d****t, that’s what we tried to do. Finally, China and Russia came for us, just as our bombers left for them. I guess I can’t be sure what happened to them, no one can, as the country ceased to exist after the explosions, but we all assume we got them, too. After all, no one came to take what remained of us.

 

                And now there is nothing. There are no countries, no states, no cities. Simply old buildings and wondering people. No, we’re not all dead. Some of us survived. Some of us weren’t in overly populated cities, and escaped before the nuclear fallout came down hard.

 

                And now we live in the shattered frames of buildings we find. We’re in a city, I know that, or what was one. I don’t know its old name. Now it’s simply a pile of charred blackness, so I guess it doesn’t deserve a name.

 

                The wind blew hard against the boarded up window, and brought me out of my history trance. I sighed and sat back, falling down onto the ratty mattress that lay on the floor. I pulled my knees up to my chest and stared off at the dark, cracked plaster wall, fallowing one of the larger cracks up to the ceiling. Outside my room, I could hear the sounds of my family. Since there is no country, people simply split up into groups, often “families”, with a few stray members. My mother, father, older sister, younger brother, and I were the foundation of our group. If there is one. Now we have my sister’s husband, their children, along with a little girl we found recently, a boy just two years older than me that joined us a while back.

 

                We’ve seen other groups like us, but never once have we tried to ban together. And neither has anyone else. I guess maybe there’s a sense of distrust with large groups. We simply want to be left alone. We simply want to survive.

 

                I heard a round of footsteps, and knew it was time to go. I stood up, my thin legs carrying me to the door. I opened it and slipped out into the dark hallway, which led from my room to the hallway of the old apartment building. We’d destroyed a lot of the doors that kept actual apartments separate, so we could all feel connected. No one wanted to feel alone.

 

                In the hallway my father, younger brother, sister’s husband, and my little stray, as I affectionately called the last male, stood. I walked over, pulling my tattered black coat around me. It was a long trench coat, at least a size too big, the bottom turned to rags. But no one’s clothes fit them well, or looked good. You took what you found and went with it, and that was life.

 

                My father was talking with my mother in a hush voice, and my sister was holding her husband’s hand. We were heading out in search of food. Sometimes we could find old canned food, or luck out and find a plant we could eat. But mainly, we looked for the wildlife that was taking the world over again. Animals had begun roaming the city streets, maybe hoping the pound everything to the ground so a forest could grow, I couldn’t be sure.

 

                Standing there, I was painfully aware I was the only girl. Not that we were living in a male dominated family, but my mother had been a nurse, and we didn’t want to risk her getting injured, when she was the only one who could tend to us. And my sister was pregnant with her third child; she was in no condition to hunt. Plus, she and her husband had two small children, two girls, and they needed to be looked after. Not to mention the girl we’d picked up.

 

                And we’d be damned if we left our home entirely alone. To do so would only leave what little we had as prey for the Prowlers.

 

                The Prowlers were what we called the bands of people that stalked the world and hunted down other people. Just because the world had shattered itself because of the stupidity of human nature didn’t mean that stupidity was dead. People still hunted after the bands of families to take what they had, often leaving us slaughtered and bleeding for dead. They had no use for us.

 

                Well, typically they didn’t. I’d heard once from a family I stumbled upon that they’d taken a few men to use as hunters, and I’d heard they’d taken a few girls for…well, I honestly didn’t even want to think about it.

 

                I snapped back to reality again when I felt a piece of cold metal pressed into my hand. I took the metal pole my brother handed to me, with a sharpened knife tied to the top. Our hunting tools are primitive, considering they are basically what we could put together with what we find. We do have two crossbows, one my father uses, and the other stays back home with my mother, in case they need to defend themselves.

 

                I pushed my auburn hair back out of my face and filed towards the stairs and down with the rest of the group. My father was leading, but only because he deserved to lead this time. The last hunt he found and killed a huge buck deer, which earned him the right to lead us all. If I had been the one to find and kill it, I’d be leading.

 

                I was in the back, with my little stray. Well, I guess I should call him by name, it might be nice and all. His name is Loss. Yes, Loss, like losing something. I’m sure he wasn’t given that name at birth, but when we found him a few years back, he called himself that, and we accepted it. I like it, to be honest.

 

                “It’s windy,” I said as we stepped outside and the wind gusted through my long hair. I let it whip around me, invading my vision like tiny silken wires. The air was cold and the wind felt like little daggers against my pale skin. I wondered if I glowed in all the black I wore. Dark colors were common for us to wear, because most of the time it was dark. The weather had turned very stormy after the fallout, and most of the time we don’t see the sun. I’m not sure how anything survives. I guess nature’s just unexplainable.

 

                Loss was silent, just nodding to me. He tended to be quiet when we were out, but I think it was because he was forced to survive alone for a long time. It was about four years back he joined us, and he said he’d been alone for probably about three years prior. He’d survived alone in the dark, keeping just out of reach of the slimy little things that slither on in the night. Just out of reach of the Prowlers, of the elements, of life and death. But just close enough for us to find him, and for him to take our hands.

 

                Or, my hand. I blushed a little and made sure not to look at him. I guess it was inevitable for me to not feel something for him. After all, who else was there around me? No one, that’s who. Except him.

 

                We walked down the cracked pavement, moving as one unit, eyes scattering about. My own green eyes were watching the movements behind shattered windows of old buildings. Since Loss and I were in the back, we were expected to keep an eye out for Prowlers. You do not want to be taken by surprise by them, after all. They’ll slit your throat before you even hear their footsteps, or feel their breath. They are ruthless.

 

                We stopped at the end of the street, and the hunters continued on. Loss and I stayed back. We would watch them from afar, moving after them once they were just out of sight.

 

                As they headed off, Loss walked over to the stoop of an old building and sat down, leaning his own metal rod against the pavement. I stared at him as he raked a hand through his long, dark hair. I’ve never seen anything darker, not even the blackness of night. When he looked up, I was swallowed up by those deep, milky brown eyes.

 

                “I hope we find something today,” I said, leaning against the pole. “My poor sister and those kids have to eat. We can last a few more days before we’re miserable.” Loss shrugged and leaned back, his elbows behind him. His lean body stretched out, lined with muscle just under the skin, barely visible. He was pretty thin otherwise, but we all were. I sighed and stepped closer. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little emotion.”

 

                He looked right at me, with those deep chocolate eyes, and sat up, slowly. I stared, and he reached out and pulled me over, so I stumbled and almost fell on the stairs. His face met my stomach, and he hid beneath my coat, face buried in the warmth of my shirt and skin.

 

                “Don’t move,” he whispered, his voice smooth and deep and melodic. “Don’t say a word.” I was confused, and I stood there, hands hanging limply by my sides. “We’re being watched.”

 

                And it made sense then. If he didn’t want anyone to see him, he had to be close, if he didn’t want someone to read his lips, they had to be concealed.

 

                “Watched?” I whispered, barely audible, barely moving my lips.

 

                “Yeah. For the past minute or so, just after the rest left us. Step back slowly, don’t panic, but don’t let go of your spear.” I nodded and he released me. I took a careful step back, my hand holding tight to the metal rod. Slowly, Loss slid down a step, closer to his.

 

                “How close?”

 

                “Across the street maybe,” he whispered, and I moved in front of him so he could reach for his weapon. He grasped it and pulled it to him. “We’ve gotta take cover-“

 

                “What about the others?”

 

                “They’re far ahead,” he said, “and something tells me it’s just two or three Prowlers…not the pack.”

 

                “Oh, great,” I muttered. Only two or three. One alone could mean death. These things were like wild animals, trained in the art of primal needs and nothing more.

 

                Loss stood up, and looked over my shoulder. I saw his eyes widen in the slightest, and he grabbed me. We fell down to the pavement hard, just as a plastic arrow flew by, the tip a black metal. He rolled off of me, and we both scampered back behind part of the concrete stoop that extended to the side.

 

                “D****t,” he said, crouching on the ground, muscles tense, ready to spring. “It’s got a bow. I was hoping for just blades.”

 

                I frowned and gripped my spear. “Well, what’re we going to do?” He looked at me, and my frowned intensified. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a plan.”

 

                “You don’t have one either. We can always hope that maybe they rush us, and we can take the bow.”

 

                “Like that’ll happen-“ I was cut off then I heard the sound of running footsteps, and without hesitation, Loss stood up and hold his spear straight out, gripping it with both hands. I popped up just in time to see a wild figure impaled on it, the spear driving straight through her belly. Her hair was a tangled mass of blonde, and her eyes were wild like a beast. She didn’t seem human. But the Prowlers never did, they were like if a human forgot everything that did, in fact, make him or her human, and became simply animals. They were not like us, not anymore.

 

                Loss twisted the spear, and a sick scream escaped her lips, then a gurgling breath. He pushed forward hard, then yanked back, and his spear was free. She toppled to the ground, and I stared at the sticky red blade now, bits of tissue clinging. I shuddered.

 

                But I had no more time for my disgust. Just s she fell, the one with the cross bow popped up. He fired at us, and we jumped apart just in time for it to shoot between us. Loss hopped over the concrete wall and charged towards him, and I stayed back, wondering if I should run with him, or try and find my family and warn them the Prowlers were indeed out for the night. Or day, I didn’t really know what it was.

 

                My thoughts were cut short, though, then something jumped on me. I fell roughly to the ground, my spear thrown from me. Hand raked down towards my face, and I grabbed the thin wrists and squeezed, pushing them away. The Prowler over me was another thin woman, wild, matted hair making her look like a demon. She stared down at me with wild eyes as I held her at bay above me, baring her teeth at me like a canine. A feral growl rose in my own throat, and I freed one of my legs and shoved me knee up into her stomach. She gasped, and I threw her off me.

 

                I scrambled up and reached for my spear, gripping it and lifting it just as she threw herself at me. I stabbed it deep into her chest and turned the blade, heard the sick, slick sound of tissue tearing, and the hard crack of metal on bone. Her livid eyes faded fast, and I jerked the spear so she slid off it, a sick almost popping sound filling the air as the blade left the wound in her chest.

 

                I turned, my spear ready, but didn’t see a threat. Instead, I only saw Loss walking back towards me, spear in one hand, their crossbow and arrows in the other. I smiled at him.

 

                “Need a hand?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes.

 

                “I can take care of myself,” I said, “I don’t need a man to watch over me.” He laughed and tucked the arrows into one of his deep pockets on his jacket, and hooked the bow at his hip on his belt. His free arm encircled my shoulders as I walked around the concrete wall.

 

                “Not a man,” he said, “just a companion, darling.” We began walking in the direction my family had disappeared in, and I tried to hide my shiver at the “darling” remark.

 

                It turned out my family only found a few wild birds. But it was better than nothing, and everyone was overjoyed with the addition of the new crossbow. They were also thrilled that Loss and I had handled ourselves so well. They must have been desperate Prowlers for putting up such little fight. Probably hadn’t eaten in such a long time that they were deteriorating.

 

                It was darker now, which made me think it was actually night. I was sitting on my ratty mattress, my coat crumpled up on my bed, along with an old faded blanket I found years and years ago. I was stared out the window as rain pelted the Earth, and I was wondering how life came to this. From what I’d heard, life had been so advanced before the fallout, before the atomic war. Life had been so wonderful. And now, we had this. We were like animals, with no real chance of rebuilding, of evolving, not as we were.

 

                Sure, some people thought we could. My family seemed to think we could. They felt we had to repopulate and rebuild. Maybe that was why my sister was insistent on having so many kids, maybe that was why anytime my mother found any kind of educational book she clung to it like it was a pass to a glittering afterlife. I’d read the books, because my mother and father had made sure their children could read, despite my never really being properly schooled before the fallout, and honestly, they weren’t the best. They didn’t teach me anything valuable. Sure, now it seemed I knew how to work a computer, if I’d ever seen a working one that I remembered, but honestly, what did that teach me about my humanity?

 

                Absolutely nothing. And that was what I felt we needed to learn about. We needed to learn about things aside of technology, we needed to learn about emotions, about ideals, creativity, about the things that separated us from the beasts. If we didn’t, and we rebuilt, we’d just make the same damn mistake again. We’d just blow the world asunder again. And we’d all end up like the Prowlers, more feral, more beast than human.

 

                I sighed and lay down on the cot, pulling the blanket up over me. I stared at the boarded up window, and tried to think back to a time when it wasn’t always raining, when the glass let you see outside into the sun, or the glittering stars. Of course I couldn’t really remember, but I could try.

 

                Over the pounding rain, I heard the creak of my door open, and the soft padding of feet across the floor. I didn’t turn around, didn’t move, even as a body was lowered onto the mattress behind me, and slipped under the blanket. A familiar arm slipped over my waist, and I relaxed back against a warm chest.

 

                I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember the stars or the sun, or the smell of fresh sea water, or the feeling of a warm summer breeze. They were all gone. All the little enjoyments gone in the wind, in the toxic air. I tried to remember what it was like to hold my mother’s hand and sit on the porch I’ve been told we had, to sip what they said was lemonade, to watch my sister run around in the sprinklers in her bathing suit, my brother a baby sleeping in the sun. All I saw was what my imagination could invent, and nothing more.

 

                I sighed fitfully, and Loss’s fingers flexed against the fabric of my shirt, over my stomach. I felt his face brush into my hair, and I went lax against the mattress.

 

                I couldn’t remember holding hands, or the warmth and excitement a day like that could bring. I didn’t know the feeling of a summer picnic in the park, or the feeling of my father carrying me on his shoulders. All I felt was this cold, hard lump inside me, a solidification of all the emotions I had instead. I felt like a heavy statue, weighing down on my feeble flesh and bone. I felt hallow aside of that, like I had nothing in me. I didn’t know where my humanity was, but I feared it wasn’t inside me any longer.

 

                “Stop thinking,” came a low, smooth voice from behind me, heavy with the need for sleep. “The sound of your brain turning is keeping me awake.”

 

                I was tempted to tell him to go back to his own room, then, but I couldn’t. Loss had been sneaking in with me on and off since he joined us, but now it seemed he was here every night. It was comforting, though, to not be alone with these four walls. It was nice not to be alone with my mind.

 

                “Loss,” I whispered, “what makes us human?” I heard him grunt, and I sighed. “What makes us different than any of the other animals out there? I want to know, Loss, I want to know what makes me human.”

 

                There was a moment of silence, before his voice split the air like a knife cutting through melting butter. “Your thoughts make you human,” he whispered, “your questions, your emotions, you ability to think about things aside of yourself. The ability inside you to create and explore, physically or mentally, and the willingness to do so. That makes you human, Maddi.”

               

                I blushed, hearing him whisper my name, and reached down, lacing my fingers in with his. The room fell silent again, except for the sounds of my brain turning.

 

                I hadn’t felt human a moment before, I’d felt cold and hard, but suddenly, there was something there. It was like, the way Loss had spoken, he believed I was human. He believed I really did possess those qualities. I smiled to myself, the pit of my stomach feeling warm and slick, the feeling move out to my legs, arms, up my chest and to my head. It made my blood hammer through my veins, but at the same time made me feel heavy, like my body was thick with layers upon layers of warmth, of solidified fire.

 

                And that’s when it hit me, in that moment. Loss made me human. He was what kept me clinging to all those things, those possibilities, those emotions. Without him, I might be as cold and lifeless as a Prowler by now, in a world where it seemed every stress was on survival and nothing else. But through it all, I could still be human, I could keep hold of those visions of things I never knew, and maybe one day, I could know them. If the world rebuilt, and we managed to keep that which was good inside us, the warm, fuzzy feelings from holding someone’s hand, the excitement of hearing your name, then maybe one day I could smell the sea water, or sit under the warm sun. Maybe even one day I could see through the clouds and find the glittering stars, still bright and fiery somewhere in the black abyss.

 

                As I closed my eyes, I entertained the idea of it all. And it made my lips turn up into a grin; my fingers grip Loss’s hand tighter. I think that’s all we need, in the end. All we need is to realize what makes us human, what that one little catalyst is to the rest of our humanity. And if we can hold onto that, then maybe, just maybe, even through the dust and the ash and the rain, we can find one little piece of untouched grass, and sit under the sun, if only for a moment.

Author's Note

This was written over a year ago for a class, and I always wanted to turn the idea into a novel.

Reviews

[NewYorkNights]

My goodness, I loved this! The ending was so touching and beautiful! There were a few grammatical errors, but it was still a lovely story.

[NewYorkNights]

My goodness, I loved this! The ending was so touching and beautiful! There were a few grammatical errors, but it was still a lovely story.

[Ashley]

'My thoughts were cut short, though, then something jumped on me' it should be 'when something jumped on me'.
'Hand raked down towards my face' it should be 'hands' or 'a hand'.
' I freed one of my legs and shoved me knee up into her stomach' should be 'my knee' not 'me knee'.
'chest and turned the blade, heard the sick' should be 'and' instead of a comma.
' your emotions, you ability to think about things aside of yourself' 'your' not 'you'.
these are the only mistakes i could find, just grammar. anyway your writing is brilliant. the text flows very well and the discription is great. i would mabye sugest a little more discription on the scene and surrounding but other wise this is a very good piece of writing. i particularly like the emotions and feelings you display of maddi.