Die Alone

a post-apocalyptic short story about a girl trying to find company so she doesn't "die alone"

I plant my feet on the ground with caution. The rubble is a human trap, and most certainly a stupid way to die. My boots are two sizes too big on me - the only ones left in the panic after the bombs fell. I could pull a better suited pair off a body of course, but just the thought of it fills me with guilt. They died with them on. They deserve to rest with them on, too.

A deep throb radiates through my jaw; a result of my teeth having been clenched together since I left home. I attempt to relax. It fails. It was silly of me to try - it always fails. My muscles are the slaves of my mind, which can’t seem to find anywhere else to send unreleased anxiety.

I cough at the fume riddled air that surrounds me, only worsening as I enter the shelter of the buildings that make up this town. There’s nothing to move it here; no trees or wind to filter it. It just sits.

It surprises me how much ground I’ve covered when I glance back. M hometown - or what’s left of it - sits in dim heaps and mounds, faint through the ever present fog that covers the entirety of the earth. One structure still stands as a beacon in the haze. My heart swells with longing. That’s the building we sought refuge in. The building that’s housed me since it happened.

The building that everyone died in.

Mom, Emmy, Jack. The list goes on. Their bodies still lie there, because we - no, I - just couldn’t bring myself to throw them outside, knowing they’d be devoured by the animals that now rule the earth, no humans or predators to keep them in check.

Emmy died two years ago. She was the last one. It took her hard, growing all over her body until she was beyond recognition before graciously taking her life. I know I’ll get it too. I’m the last one left untouched. The thought is terrifying, but there’s an undercurrent in my mind that’s eager to get off this dangerous, desolate wasteland. Escape the constant fear, and even worse, persistent loneliness.

Except that there’s the slimmest of chances that it may not be completely deserted. Which is why i came here, because my preference would be to live out my last days with company. This town has a radio station, something I can use to find anyone who still lives. It’s the only thing that could ever convince me to leave. Between the wolves and rabid dogs, and then the brutal landscape on top of that, it’s a difficult enough environment to kill a person after only a couple miles. I made it ten, somehow. But if the environment doesn’t get you, then the radiation will.

It sets my heart banging against my ribs just to think of it. I’m going to die. The same way Emmy did. But my fear of dying alone is greater than my fear of dying.

A flash of movement in the corner of my eye shakes me out of my head. I turn towards it slowly, wary and breathing faster than I’d like. I clench my clammy hands into fists at my sides. The motion comes from a collapsed building with sharp spears of metal thrusting themselves out of the wreckage. My breath comes out shaky - it’s exactly the kind of place the dogs like. 

“Hello?” I push out. For a moment, nothing happens, and a fanciful glimmer of hope tries to convince me that it might have been nothing. But then something steps out of the shadows.

It’s tall, massively so, and thin. A man. Brown, curly hair falls in ringlets down to his shoulders. A faint beard - something my mom would have called a five-o’-clock shadow, with a nearly imperceptible tinge of disgust laced into her voice - grows from teenaged stubble. And then I see the scar that mars the skin on his forehead, a scar I’ve known since childhood, a scar that a younger version of myself was quite responsible for, with the unfortunate partnership of a rock and a game of tag, a scar that quiets the little voice in my head telling that it couldn’t possibly be him.

“Gray?” I whisper. His eyebrows furrow, then shoot up in realization.

“Cameron,” he says, and I shut my eyes against the sound because a human voice is so mundane and there has been no such thing as “mundane” in my life for years. I hold a hand up to my mouth; my body wracking with a sob. I run with all previous worries of tripping suddenly vanquished from my mind. His arms wrap around me and mine around him, gripping with unhuman force his body. I can feel his ribs through his threadbare t-shirt. Comfort is a foreign feeling. One I’ve almost forgot existed. But it exists right now, at least in my mind, in the way his arms send warmth into my skin and the sound of another human breathing against my ear.

How was it ever possible to take such a thing for granted?

“Are you crazy? Walking all the way here?” he asks as he pulls away, just slightly, to look at my face.

“Not crazy yet, but getting there,” I say with a half-smile. “I’ve discovered that loneliness is worse than death.” His face softens in understanding.

“Come. We should get inside.” I nod and obey as he gestures me towards an old apartment complex. Its one half is desicrated, cutting open barren and dusty rooms right down the middle. I step with caution up the fire stairs that run along the building. They creak with every step, eaten by rust in the corners. Reaching the top, he reaches around me and pulls open a heavy metal door. We step into a dark room, my eyes gradually making out more as they adjust. Sweat and food and all those human smells waft into my nose. A bed sits on the floor in the corner. A wooden table stands at the center of the room. A mess of tools and parts lay piled against the wall. Lights fllicker from across the room - a radio? I rush over, my sore legs screaming at me to stop for just a moment and my mind not caring. 

“Does it work? Have you found anyone?” I ask excitedly, gaping down at it.

“Yeah.” His reply is so unenthusiastic that it dampers my elation.

“Well then, why are you still here?” I spin to look at him. Gray holds my gaze for  a few seconds before lifting his arm and showing me the underside.

I see the little lump forming just below his elbow.

“It got me, Cam.” It comes out as a whisper. Cold siezes my stomach. I have no reason to be shocked, everyone’s always dying, but my heart sinks all the same. “I’m not much of a help, am I? You come all this way and I won’t even be around to keep you company.” He attempts a smirk, but his eyes are filled with a sorrow I’m all to familiar with.

“Good thing. I wasn’t much looking forward to spending time with you anyways,” I say. The forgotten shape of a smile can’t help but grow on my face. 

“One would think that with all this tragedy, you might have matured.”

“I guess one was wrong.” He laughs, and it’s like heaven in a single sound. 

***

We get ten days together. The happiest ten I’ve had in a long chain of tens. But his body was cold this morning. I covered his body with a sheet, too tired of death to cry. 

I reach up and touch my neck in the compulsive manner that’s been irresistible since I found it. It’s a repulsing and yet somehow soft mound underneath my skin; for now, only the size of a coin and more uncomfortable than painful. But it will grow. There will be more. It will kill me, certainly. It’s unheard of to survive.

All of that, and yet I still die alone.

Author's Note

I'm new to this so if I've put it in the wrong place, please correct me :)

Reviews

[Makadewaandegeke]

Hello Fellow Canadian!

First, well written, and I enjoyed the pacing of the short story. A little heartbreaking that she dies alone in the end though! Any attempt by her to make use of the radio? And is the sickness a result of radiation or infection did her childhood friend infect her or something else? I have so many questions lol! It was a great read!

Respectfully,

Maka

[June bug]

I enjoyed the read, nice imagery and descriptiveness. Awesome write