The Event (Working Title)

A project of mine that I started working on in 9th grade ( I am now a sophomore in college). This thing files all around, some days it makes sense to me, and some times it does not. Please be a critic

Climbing up the rocky hill, I found myself tired and frustrated. Its high noon, I’ve been searching for six weeks now.

“Is it just me God?” Huh! Is it?” “Are you forsaking your children?”

At this point, I began to question God. Did he exist? Was he ever there in the first place? As I finally reached the summit, I realized my clothes were torn. I was covered with scrapes and scratches, but didn't feel the slightest bit of pain. I lifted myself up to the top and looked over a desolate, scarred south Texas wasteland. I felt my body go a little limp. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled photo of someone who meant the world to me.

“You took her from me!”I yelled at the sky, “You took her from me; I had to watch as you stole her from me!”

In my fit, I hadn't realized that I had lost my footing on the loose rocks. The last thing I remember was a sharp pain on the back of my head, then darkness. You could call it a dream or a nightmare, I'd choose the latter. It started like this...I heard a barely audible noise, a whisper if you will. It gradually became louder.

Then I realized, it was Jason. Some girl was calling Jason.

“That’s me.” I thought stupidly.

Then I saw her, a beautiful blonde girl. Her eyes were a luminous green, her smile so intoxicating; her light skin gleamed in the gloomy darkness. I knew this girl. I knew her oh so well.

“Maya...” I said.

She walked toward me. As she came closer, I noticed something. Blood ran from her mouth and nose, her face began to shift and contort. Her eyes melted out of their sockets, her skin began to peel, muscle was stripped from bone. It was the most horrible sight imaginable. She said a few words that I'll never forget, ever.

“Why didn't you save me?”

I woke with a start. I stood up, clutching the photo in my hand.

“What do you mean? What the hell could I have done?” I demanded from the sky. I put the photo back into my pocket and looked around. I saw that I was on the other side of the hill that I had just climbed. Or had I “just” climbed it? All I knew was that it was some time at night and I was still in south Texas. I needed to get out of here, I thought. I checked my backpack to see what I had brought with me. As I rummaged through the bag, I saw a book, I picked it out. Hand-lettered in the back was: “This book belongs to Jason O’Hara.” I turned it over to read the cover:

“The Outsiders.”

My favorite book, I read the authors biography. The one phrase that stuck out above all others was: “Tulsa, Oklahoma.” That's where I need to go, I thought. I didn't know why but something was drawing me there.

“But first thing is first. Food.” I thought. My parents voice resonated in my head,

“Remember, Boy Scouts will be very useful to you in the future.”

With that, I took a rope out of my bag and strung it to a tree nearby. I crouched in the brush waiting for something to walk into my trap. Nothing came. After three days of living off of berries and nuts I found myself on a sea of red clay.

“Oklahoma...” I thought to myself.

What had happened to Texas, to Oklahoma? What had happened to everyone? Walking down a desolate and dusty farm road, I noticed another thing. Where were all the animals? As I continued along the road, I felt a metallic crunch beneath my feet. I took a step back and picked up what looked to be one of those green road signs. You know, the ones that conveniently shows up when someone asks, are we there yet?

It read: “Tulsa-12 miles.”

The only reason I had made it this far in the right direction is because my cousins lived in Oklahoma, and my parents would take me up there every summer. There were landmarks I could use, but everything looked so different.

At what I thought to be a bit past noon, I came to what was left of Tulsa. On my right was an abandoned convenience store, its windows boarded up. Spray painted on the boards was a succession of messages, each more dire than the last: “God is dead.” “Lose all Hope!” and finally “This place is your grave.” On my left was a torn up movie theater, the cement roof caved in. I hoped no one was inside when it crashed down. On the movie marquee was the featured film “Safe Haven.” I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye. Jutting out of a pile of rocks and metal was a crowbar. I walked over for a closer look. I bent down to grab it, but before I could I heard a noise behind me. I looked over my shoulder, and what I saw was horrible. Half a man stared back at me, but not just. He was still alive! He was emaciated; flesh hung from bone, one eye was missing, and a broken jaw. He grabbed for my legs with surprising strength, not in the help me kind of way, either. I took hold of the crowbar and swung, I smashed the wretch's skull in or what was left of it. I fell to my knees examining the now dead man.

“What happened to you?” “Oh,God...where are you?!, Where?!”

I heard another noise off in the distance, a tapping sort of noise. I crept toward the noise, crowbar in hand. I slipped through a doorway, then down a dark hallway. I was in a school. An elementary school, I came to an open door, a sign on it announced “ Mrs. Hartman’s 3rd grade classroom.

“This is where it's coming from.” I thought.

The classroom was in shambles, paint stripped from the wall, desks overturned. In the far corner was a child, banging his head against the wall with such force that it was drawing blood.  

Slowly I walked up behind the child, “Are you ok?”

It turned in a blind fury and clawed at my head, gouging skin and muscle near my left eye.

“You little b*****d!” I screamed.

I gripped the crowbar and swung with as much force as I could, decapitating the thing. I stood there staring at a headless corpse lying in a pool of blood.

“God...really isn't here anymore.” I thought.

I curled up in the opposite corner of the room and went to sleep, crowbar in hand. I woke up on what I figured to be a cold winter morning, the pain on the left side of my face was unbearable and the wound was beginning to fester.

I tore my shirt off, my favorite shirt. I took one last look at it and recited “Three

Days Grace.”

“Grace...that's something hard to come by nowadays.” I thought.   

I wrapped the torn cloth around my wound. I looked around the room with one eye and I noticed the body of the child was gone. I didn't want to think who or what came into this room when I was asleep. I looked up at the wall and saw a US map. The middle of the map was ripped away, the rip ended at South Dakota. “Why there?” I said. “I guess up north was the way to go anyway, it’s safer to get out of this damned town.”

I took another shirt out of my backpack and put it on. As I was preparing to leave the school, I noticed a small book underneath one of the desks. I picked it up and blew off the dust. It was quite a heavy-duty book: metal binding made sure nothing would ever wear out the pages. There was even a lock and   key to go with it. On the cover was a scrap of tape that read “Timmy's.” Apparently, Timmy didn't like to write because there was absolutely no writing at all.

I decided to take the book, so I put it in my bag and left the school. Outside the sky was dismal gray.

“Storms coming.” I thought.  

I walked out continuing down the same road that had brought me to this ghost town. Something like twenty miles outside Tulsa, I saw what looked like a kid riding a bike, except she was frozen in space. I walked closer ever cautious. The silhouette of the child against the dark gray sky chilled me to the bone.

Her charred remains stared deep into my soul she was dead for sure.

There was a look of terror on her face, I couldn't imagine the last moments of her life. I pushed the corpse off the bicycle and got on it, and started to what I hoped was South Dakota. As I rode through the stunted countryside, it began to rain, but I kept going. Down the road I noticed a church. I stopped in front of it, and leaned the bike against the stone wall. I slowly walked inside the church. To my left were stained glass windows of St. Peter the Apostle and the Archangel Michael vanquishing the Devil. To my right were more stained glass windows, these were of the Virgin Mary, and even Jesus himself.

I heard a door open from somewhere behind the altar, then I heard voices in a strange language unlike any other I'd ever heard before. I dove behind the last pew, careful not make the slightest noise. I heard one person pleading in English to be let go.

The others paid no head. They pulled the cross off the wall, knocking down the statue of Jesus in the pose of crucifixion. They put the cross on the floor, and I watched in horror as they laid the screaming man prostrate on the cross.

He thrashed, cursed and kicked.

The biggest man in the group punched the victim in the face, knocking him out cold. Another man emerged from behind the altar, carrying what looked like a bag of railroad spikes and a mallet. I closed my eyes. Then there was an unholy clang, it seemed to go on forever. Clang after clang each more ear splitting than the last. At last, silence. I saw the group of men lift up the cross. Nailed to it was the man, blood streaming from his body. Two men from the group lit the candles on the altar and brought out a book with a strange symbol on it. They began to chant in the strange language, kneeling and praising the unconscious man on the cross.

Fear coursed through my veins.

Sadness and hate, those were the forces that drove me. I needed to survive this new world, I needed to do this without God. I turned and ran out the church's large wooden doors, mounted the bicycle and headed for the Black Hills in the north.

I peddled as hard as I possibly could, my heart was screaming out of my chest. What had I seen? What kind of sick people were they? I kept looking over my shoulder; the feeling of being watched did not show signs of wavering. This was true fear, this was the primal instinct of fight or flight, clearly I had chosen the latter. Miles away from the church, I began to slow down, I did not ease into the stop, it was more of unwillingness to continue. I slammed my foot on the ground, the bike lost balance and I hit the dirt and stone that lie beneath my shadow. I awoke in a sweat, I immediately scanned my surroundings.

There was nothing.

The bike laid in a heap next to me, the bandage around my eye remained as it was. I stared down the empty road from where I came from, in what felt like, an hour ago? No, it’s been much longer than that. Still the positive side is that those psychos saw no reason to chase me. A clap of thunder interrupted my thought. I looked skyward, the clouds black as ash floated in the colorless void. I got to my feet, finding no use in dusting myself off.  I picked up the bicycle and mounted it. The pedal stuck.

I tried in vain to pedal again and again. I cursed under my breath, I threw the bike to the ground in a rage. Walking was now my only option, there had to be more to this place than just dead grass and clay. I walked until my feet began to give, I needed to rest. Down the forgotten road was just one reminisce of civilization, a rest stop.  

In a better situation, say one where other people still existed and cars worked, I would have said something like “I can wait till we hit town.” or “ I don’t have to go to the bathroom let’s just keep driving.” This was not one of those cases.  It was placed, like most rest stops, atop a small incline on a little frontage road off the main highway. As I approached I observed two things, the side of the suburb house sized building was blown inward, and the front door was nonexistent.  The lack of movement in and around the facility was both comforting and disturbing. I walked through the front threshold without making a single sound. I made my way to the bathroom while watching my corners with the crowbar in hand. I pressed ever so gently on the bathroom door, thankfully it was one of those that did not have a handle of any kind, on the other hand the door fell right off the rusted hinges that could not bear the slightest change in pressure. I winced at the cacophony that followed, but nothing came flying at me from the stalls or the rest of the building behind me. The floor was covered in paper, legal documents it seemed. An enormous crack ran from the ceiling where the last sink was. I moved toward the stalls, sliding across the sand colored tile floor. I looked underneath each one and was satisfied to have found nothing except a dead person. The first human contact in all this time and he was dead. He looked like he was definitely caught with his pants down. The question that arose in my head was: “How did he get in here, there is no car outside…”

This much was true, the corpse was well dressed or partially well dressed. He wore a three-piece-suit, brown in color and red tie. In his right hand was an open briefcase, with the remainder of the legal papers inside. In his left a broken bottle of Jack Daniels. I filed through the papers, underneath it all was the real prize. A snub-nosed magnum. The silver barrel gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, the black leather grip was virtually untouched. I picked it out of the briefcase and exposed the chambers, not a one was fired. This gun had not been used at all. I retrieved some bullets from a secret compartment within the briefcase itself. I placed the weapon inside my bag along with the crowbar and set it against the wall. I walked to the shower stall and checked for running water, to my surprise the water was still running in the pipes. I let the water run to remove any impurities that may have been on the floor. I returned to the sink and put on the drain cover, I let the water run up to the top before adding in some soap. I carefully removed the bandage from head and let it soak in the soapy water. I proceeded toward the shower again, this time peeling off the disgusting clothes from my body and draping them over the shower stall. The feeling of warm water against my skin was relaxing, I couldn’t get enough but it was time to leave. I turned off the water and proceeded to put the same ugly clothes back on. I had no choice, I hadn’t brought anything else to change into. The feeling of unwashed clothes on a clean body was horrible, the old sweat touched the purified skin. The discomfort made me shiver. I returned to the sink and began hand washing the bandage. Blood and sweat seeped from the fibers in the soapy water, the grimy brown began to fade back into normal color.  I glanced up at the mirror, and that’s when I saw it: my left eye now uncovered, had changed color. I’d heard of this kind of thing before, I remembered my middle school nurse: she had told me a story of a man who was hit in the eye so hard that the color of his eye changed due to the trauma. I was so in shock that without proper thought, I submerged my hands in the soapy water and splashed it onto my face. Naturally this would not help, seeing as the soapy water reacted with my still opened wound. “Damn it!” I howled.

I removed my bangs from my forehead and looked once again in the mirror, nothing had changed. My right eye remained a soft baby blue but my left eye had mutated into a toxic green. I clutched my hands on the edges of the sink and leaned forward, pressing my head against the glass.

I noticed something moving in the background, something large. The shape was human but the proportions were way off.

It lunged.

I immediately dodged to the side, I had just missed being smashed to pieces by an enormous fist. The sink exploded in a flash of porcelain chunks and shards. I scrambled for the bag.

“The gun!” I thought to myself in panic.

I got my hands all over the zipper, when I finally had a firm grasp on it I pulled. Relief turned to panic, it was bloody stuck! I tried and tried but it refused to open. I felt the slack of my shirt tight against my chest, I knew it had gotten me.

“Oh -!” I was cut off in mid curse.

Before I had realized it I was soaring across open space, the tiles raced beneath me and the wall came closer by the milliseconds.

I hit the wall hard.

The pained rushed from my shoulder to my head, I grabbed my hand over my shoulder and staggered to my feet, then I saw the beast.

Eight feet tall and dead for sure, much like the fiend in Tulsa: the flesh hung from the exposed bone, the broken jaw was set in an unnatural angle and much hair was

missing. Yet through all of this horridness I noticed something, there were pieces                         of torn clothing on the things body. It hissed at me like a hell spawned cat, black liquid fell from its maw. It galloped toward me on its relatively infant sized knuckles, the floor cracked with every touch. There was nothing I could do and I knew it, the pain was too much to bear, movement was almost impossible and all it would do is prolong the inevitable. There I stood, weak, hand on my shoulder and eyes closed, ready for the light and the end of the dark tunnel.

A loud crack rattled my ears, I peaked with one eye to investigate its origin. In front of me lied the great “thing”, black syrup-like liquid ran from a large wound in its chest. The b*****d was still breathing, slow but still, what came next was even more surprising. From around the corner wall came God's most great figure of beauty, a girl. She was older than me, but not by much, she was tall and lean. Her hair long auburn hair flowed down her back. I couldn’t see her face;soon after my eyes fell as did I.

I looked once more at the “thing”, eyes partially opened. It just laid there, just breathing its slow, numbered breathes. The girl approached the creature, her tight fitting leather jacket and black jeans moved along with her body as she walked, she stood on top of its chest, revealed a large Colt magnum, aimed towards its head and fired two shots.

Silence.

A soft breeze blew through the room.

The girl stepped off of the creature, checked the barrel, reloaded a few more rounds and holstered the weapon. I made a heroic groaning noise in the meanwhile.

She turned with blinding speed and pointed the gun to my face in response. The look in her reddish brown eyes was so wild and feral. The inhuman movement suggested that she was quite used to being threatened and posed a very large threat to anything around her. Aside from the look a murderer painted on her face she was a very beautiful girl, a baby face so twisted it was unnerving.

“Who are you?!” she demanded slightly southern accent.

I said nothing; this I would find was not the best idea.

She grabbed the sides of my shirt and lifted me up.

“Who are you?!” she repeated a second time.

The look on my face must have been offensive because she slammed me against the wall and then put the gun to my forehead.

“I going to ask one more time, who the f**k are you?!”

“No one!” I stammered. “I just came here to clean off, and this demon attacked me!”

She didn’t seem satisfied, but she let me go and I hit the floor. She turned around and once again holstered the pistol. I thought she was going to walk out but she abruptly turned back to me.  She extended a hand of friendship, her face much for serene and normal, nothing like it was just seconds ago. “Go on, I’m not going to hurt you.”

I looked at this girl as if she was completely insane, still no point in offending someone who is holstering a weapon like that.

As if on cue, her jacket fell open, revealing her lean stomach underneath a black shirt with gold spiral running along the sides, but also…

“Guns and knives! My god she’s a murderer!”  I thought to myself. There was no way I wanted to be on her bad side, she might kill me at any time so what did it matter. This was not a land of neighbors and lovers any more, the world as I knew it was a warzone now, Cain and Abel , man versus man. I took her hand anyway, hoping she wouldn’t pull a knife on me or something of that nature. Her grasp was strong, she pulled me to my feet in one go. I nearly fell upon standing, but she steadied me. I gave a sideways look once at her open jacket, two more Colts in the upper  corners near her armpits. On the left wing of the jacket was an array of knives held effortlessly in place by makeshift loops that were woven into the jacket. On the right wing was a G18 complete with two clips and below that were two smaller handguns of which I could not identify. She looked at me and gave a weak smile and zipped up her arsenal jacket. The silence was beyond awkward, me standing there is a painful daze in front of a beautiful possible psychopath.  I limped ever so gently over to another undamaged sink; I wiped the dust off the glass with my hand and took a hard look at the boy in the mirror.

“What’s the matter with your eye?” she asked curiously.

“Does it look like I had time to figure it out?” I retorted.

She winced and was definitely hurt by the answer. I mean really though, who was she to come into this room, kill the demon and then turn the guns on me? Then all of a sudden revert into this nice, innocent girl. Still, that was no reason to be angry, she had saved me and I owed her that much.

“I’m sorry.” I said.

She didn’t respond, rightfully so, it’s not like I was going to grab her and slam her against a wall or anything. Again I studied my face in the mirror, I touched my affected eye and evaluated the damage. The skin had healed around the eye, the opened wound was now closed. It had been days since Tulsa, possibly weeks. As I looked she fiddled around the stalls looking into the man’s briefcase. After I was satisfied with my face, I turned and looked into the stall.

She was the only one there, just her and the briefcase and the myriad of papers on the ground. Even the Jack Daniels was missing.

“I don’t understand.” I started. “Before anything had happened there was a dead guy in there, he was holding that briefcase.”

She stood up and analyzed the scene. She turned and walked next to me. “There was definitely someone there, judging by the stencil imprint of a person in the blood pool, but who?” she looked at me with an inquisitive expression.

I nodded toward the beast that lay just a few feet away.

“That damned thing that you killed, it wearing what’s left of a brown suit, that’s what the guy who was laying here was wearing when I came into this room.” I explained.

She thought on this for a moment. Then she made the remarkable yet obvious discovery.

“The zombie-demon-thing IS the man that was laying here before I arrived? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, unless you got some better idea.” I ventured.

She had none.

“We need to leave.” She announced as she headed for the door.

“We? What is this we? I don’t even know you.”

She gave me a look like I was completely stupid.

“If you want to keep walking that’s fine with me, unlike you I got a ride.” She smiled and walked through the threshold leaving me there to think of my options. I knew I had only two; one of which would make me a total idiot if I accepted it. I decided against it and retrieved my backpack and followed her out of the building. The outside air slapped me clean across the face, the feeling was so uncomfortable that I lost my train of thought and stood in front of the building with a stupid look on my face.

“So, are you coming? Or do you like taking long brisk walks?”  

When I boarded the train again, I realized what she was sitting on, and it was no children’s bicycle. Imagine a Harley Davidson but much larger: the engine and all interior on the cycle was covered by a sleek rounded orange and blue shell. The blue lightning accented the orange base beautifully. The leather seat was flat and extended, the back sides had saddlebags which I assumed contained guns or something of that nature. The front wheel was far in front of the rest of the body, making the whole thing look very unstable. The gas tank was replaced by a large battery looking piece, the top where the gas cap should be was replaced by what looked like a solar receiver. From the battery to the engine ran shining blue pipes, which carried energy between the two. It looked like something that was from a futuristic world. It was so misplaced in the American Midwest.

Again I staggered and began to fall slowly, but she again appeared near me and help me regain my standing.  

“Here let me help you.” She offered.

She put my better arm around her neck and hoisted me onto the machine. She quickly let me go and sat up on it before I was able to fall forward. My face was involuntarily pressed against her back, my hands at my side, I was unable to move.  She gingerly took my hands and positioned them around her waist, she righted me so that I could lean comfortably on her back. It was awkward for me because I had honestly never been this close to a girl before that I had met same day, but I wasn’t going to complain, given the situation. She started the cycle, which made a sound closer to that of a sports car rather than a two stroke engine. The acceleration was incredible, hair was flying and G-forces were acting in a matter of seconds.  

I nestled my head into her jacket hoping that it would cause an accidental discharge of one of the guns inside, then I drifted off.  

In the dream I awoke staring at a colorful fire. With every change of color there was a change of scenery, but these were things I hadn’t seen at all. In the blue fire was a scene of children hiding underneath their desks at school, the teacher ducking below her desk instructing the children to stay calm and assuring them that everything was going to be alright. A bright flash enveloped the scene.

The color changed with the next scene.

In the green fire I saw two men, one in a black suit and the other in a brown suit. The man in brown was carrying a briefcase in his right hand, the two men walked into a liquor store talking in whispers as they went. The man in brown, grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels off of the shelf. “Lucky No. 7.”  I heard him say.  The man in black nodded with a half-hearted smile as they made their way to the counter. As the man in brown paid for the drink the man in black kept giving the briefcase a sideways glare and then nervously shifted his gaze to the other man.

The two men walked out and stepped into a sliver BMW.  

The colored changed again.

In the silver fire Maya sat alone in the corner of a dark room, it was like looking into a prison yet it was apparent that there was nowhere to look in from since the room was contained within four solid walls. Her face was quite disturbed, she did not blink and her lips were dry and white as if she hadn’t talked in days. Her green eyes were fixed on a small paper that lay on the ground in front of her, the text however was too small to read.  

The fire went out and I woke up on the girl’s back, realizing that I still didn’t know her name.  

“Question?” I said out of the silence between us.

The sound of my voice must have startled her because I felt her body tense the moment I opened my mouth. She quickly relaxed again, evidently tossing aside the thought she had beforehand.  

“You don’t have to ask permission, to ask a question you know?”

I thought of retorting but thought better of it. I lifted my head to her shoulder so she could hear me without strain and so I could see where we were going.

“What is your name?” I asked while gazing at the open road rushing beneath the wheels.

She tensed again and pursed her lips, her brown eyes never wavering their sight from the oncoming pavement.

She didn’t respond as if the question bothered her or made her think of a deeply suppressed memory. I battled myself,  

“Should I pry her for something as mundane as her name or should I just leave it be and never ever know the name of the only other person on planet earth?” as far as I was concerned anyway.  

I decided to save the question for a later, I saw no point in pestering her at the present moment anyway. To say that I was relaxed and relieved was an understatement; the events that had unfolded in just the past week rattled me still. I wonder if she knew anything about the hooded men in the church, or what the hell happened to Tulsa or everything else for that matter. She appeared to know what she was doing; she was obviously well armed and prepared. Me? I was some hapless moron who made it this far on pure luck and a small amount of survival skill. I had no clue why she had decided to have me along on her journey to wherever.

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked bluntly.  

I leaned on her shoulder again, anxious to hear her reply. Her hair smelled like fruit, mango perhaps? Where had she gotten time to take a shower with mango scented shampoo?

“A safe place, one of the few left in the States, then we’ll see about Dakota.”

“Dakota?” I thought to myself.

What’s in Dakota that’s so important: the map tore right up to South Dakota and now she was mentioning it out of the clear sky. I chose not to let it bother me, yet the coincidence was quite strange. Dakota was an almost foreign land to me, I had been there once on one of the family trips but only to Rapid City, I was too wrapped in a John Grisham to care about the backdrop of the American Badlands. However, that was not the most interesting piece of information at hand. “Safe place? Like a safe house you mean? Are there others?” I was stunned, were there in fact for people?

“More like a safe village, of sorts. Yeah, there are other people, not many though, they are all refugees from…” She stopped in midsentence.

“From what? Or where?”

“From whatever cause this fallout, whatever caused these people to…” Again she stopped.

“Damn it, just tell me!” I finally yelled. “First you won’t tell me your name and now you can’t even tell me what the hell is going on?!”  

She winced as if I had offended her in some way; I deserved to know this basic information, I was in a panic I’ll admit but the fact remained: she owed me this much.

“Do you know what happened?” she asked.

“I swear that I was the one with all the questions. But no I have no idea, I woke up in what was left of my house and went straight for my…friend’s house to see if she was alright.”  

“I was in my father’s shop, working on this beauty and I walked outside enjoying a nice glass of iced tea when the whole sky flashed. Then I woke up in the same place, all the buildings around me were in piles and the town was on fire.”

“What town, if that’s not too much to ask.” “Tulsa.” She said flatly.

Again, the thought of asking if she knew anything else crossed the bridges of my mind, but I decided to let it slide. How had I passed her up and ended up at the rest stop before she did? The feeling of her silky hair assaulting my face interrupted my thought process; I was brought back to reality at that moment. I brushed it back over her shoulder as best I could.

“How far to this safe place of yours?”  

“We’ll have to stop for the night. Somewhere.” She didn’t sound to confident in that suggestion.

Assuming that was the only well thought out answer I’d get I discontinued the conversation and rested my head on her shoulder trying to apply as little pressure as possible. I forced myself to stay awake, I didn’t want to drift into that unpredictable hellish sleep world. My point of reference created a perception that everything around the cycle and ourselves was moving nearly at the speed of light, it would have been a peaceful experience except the blurred images were all black, grey and lifeless trees, from what I could tell anyway.  

The cycle grinded to a stop in front of what looked like the remains of an old gas station, the sign that looked like I would normally hang above the door was smashed to bits near the right window. The façade consisted of torn paint and smashed windows that had been boarded up and painted with similar words to those in Tulsa. This did not surprise me, in times of disaster it seems fit that people would seek refuge in a small building filled with non-perishable food and carbonated drinks. The girl dismounted the cycle and walked over to the storefront, cheerfully skipping over the curb as she walked. She did what most normal people would do to a door, she kicked it in with tremendous force. The door flew open slamming into the exterior wall. She came back to the cycle, I assumed she was going to help me off but instead she wheeled the magnificent beast into the shop using the wheelchair incline directly in front of the door. Then she helped me off of the cycle and laid me down against the inner side of the boarded window then disappeared behind a wall of shelves without a word. These shelves were toppled over in every direction, their contents on the ground. She dragged the shelves one at a time to the door and laid them in a barricade fashion. I watched as she did the heavy lifting and returned to the piles of food, picked up a bag of chips and some Oreos. She looked at me with a little smile on her face.

“Dinner?” she said in a sweet innocent voice.

A flickering florescent light was our “campfire” for the night. We ate what most adult would consider junk food in silence at first. The silence made things awkward: she tilted her head toward the ground so that her bangs covered her face and she frequently looked up at me as if she was checking to see if I was still alive or something. I will admit it was cute, but she was probably making sure that I wouldn’t leave her alone by passing out or falling asleep.  

“So will you tell me your name now?” I asked, hoping that her mood had improved since the first time I had asked.  

She thought about it looking up at the ceiling in what appeared to be a look of minor annoyance either at my question or the falling dust.

“Maia” she said.

This hit like an ocean wave, that name, it burned my ears. I shifted in an uncomfortable way. I must have made a face or something else that showed my apparent discomfort.  

“Something the matter?” she ventured.

“No, nothing!” I said much too loud.

This startled her and she remained silent for several minutes before continuing. “You…wanted to know my name didn’t you? You seem as if I’ve bothered you or something.” she said, the flickering light illuminating her face every other second. Of course this bothered me, the spirit of my lost love was ever present in my mind, with all the people that had died I figured I’d never find another girl by that name.

“How do you spell it? It’s a stupid question I know, but please humor me.” “M-A-I-A” she said in an even tone.

I couldn’t help it I had to tell her something, the poor girl didn’t deserve to be left in the dark, especially since she had taken me this far away from any danger.

“I knew this girl. Before all of this happened, we were close, she was like my best friend. After I woke up at my house, I ran to her house about three miles down the street. I found her after searching a while, she was caught beneath a bookshelf. I was able to move the thing but when I did I saw that she had been run through by a sharp piece of wood, right into her stomach. She was still alive, and now that I look back on it, that was the most horrible situation for her to be in; alive I mean. I fell on my knees right next to her; she smiled, somehow. I don’t really know how she could have managed one. I did the manliest thing at that point, I began to cry. She shushed me softly and told me how everything was going to be alright, but still I felt that there had to be a way to help her. I got to my feet to go find help; before I could move she grabbed my leg and begged me not to leave her there alone. I watched her die there, unable to help her, to do anything.”  I looked at Maia mercilessly in the eyes.

“Her name was Maya. M-A-Y-A. She was my girlfriend.”  

The look on her face was one of pure astonishment, she looked as if she had committed a heinous crime and that I was her victim. She looked at the ground again, her eyes moving from side to side as she pondered a deep thought very quickly. She looked up at me, her face still stuck in a surprised look.

“I’m sorry, I…I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t plan for you to know. I was of no importance to anyone until you told me your name.” I said quickly.

She huffed, obviously hurt by my comment, but what could I do? I barely knew this girl and she was expecting me to spill out my guts to her?

 Noises outside quickly drew our attention, we both shifted all of our senses out the window. Shadows danced outside the glass in every direction, hissing amongst other sounds followed their movements; though it may just have been my imagination. Maia had brought out her Colt again, brandishing it near her face as she remained concentrated on the window. She put her finger up to her lips and motioned for me to stow it. She stood up ever so slowly and aimed the gun toward the area of the disturbance. The fluorescent light flickering over her as she walked toward the window, ducking behind some of the shelves as she went.

As she continued to walk forward I noticed something about the boarded up windows, little tendrils were sticking through almost like plants growing through concrete. Some stupid thing inside of me just keep it quiet anymore.

“Maia! Shoot the goddamn window there’s someone there, right side!”

She looked back at me as if surprised that I was able to speak then whipped her head back toward the window and fired her boom stick without hesitation three times into the boarded window. Immediately I went deaf. My ears felt like they had exploded internally and their contents spilled down my shoulders. Maia ducked just underneath the window and peered through the boards where the fingers had just been. She fell down on all fours gagging and damn near coughing up a lung. Meanwhile I was still dying, still covering my ears and still being useless. In the next few minutes Maia had made her way back to me on all fours, her coughing had subsided but her face looked like that of someone who’d seen their favorite dead pet rise from the grave.

She rested her head against my chest, I could tell that her eyes were still wide open.

“What happened? What did you see out there?”

I had no reply for a long while, so long that it began to make me feel uneasy. She gripped my shirt into a bundle as she wept.

“Jason...they were children, no more than fifteen, no more than babies and I killed them!”

“What were children doing out this far away from any civilization? F*****g Goonies or what?” I thought to myself.

Out of all the things we could meet in the wastes of the Midwest it had to be a couple of kids that winded up at the wrong gas station at the worst time. However, in spite of that there was something that bothered me even more than the death of some kids.

“Maia, I never told you what my name was.”

The crying stopped almost immediately; her grip on my shirt softened. She pushed off of me gently and looked me in the eyes, she held my cheeks in her hands. Her slender fingers rubbing just under my ears.

“When we get to a safe place I will tell you everything, but until then I don’t want you to worry about that or anything else other than just getting to Dakota. Please.” She said as she lifted my bangs and kissed my forehead.

“Interesting first date.” I said as I closed my eyes and wrapped my arm around her.

She continued to cry silently on my chest just like before, her eyes closed, her breath soft and steady. Until she finally fell asleep.

Author's Note

Can't write dialogue for my life
Be a critic please
I really want to make this better
Does this paint a clear picture or is it confusing?
Notice, that writing begins very immature(9th grade) and hopefully improves