The Beginning at the End of the World: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Series (The Survivor Diaries Book 2) (8 page)

As I awoke this morning, I immediately made my way to my wash bowl and vomited blood. I grabbed the bowl and ran to the front door. All I was wearing was my white flannel pajamas. I carelessly put on my boots, jacket, hat and gloves and went into the front yard.

I didn’t feel in charge of my own actions. I grabbed a shovel that we used for snow removal and started to look for a place to bury the contents of the bowl.

“What are you doing out here, honey?” asked Mark. “Come in before you catch your death.”

I looked at him directly. “I already have.” I tried to tip the bowl slightly to show him, but before I could do anything, the vomiting began again.

I feel to the ground, knees hitting the hard packed snow. I yelled at Mark to back off, and found a walkie in the pocket of my jacket.

“We need a medical transport to the Patton house, immediately,” I said weakly, just before vomiting again, this time into the bucket.

“Stay. Back.” I told Mark, punctuating my words.

Annie ran outside to see our little play unfolding. She tried to run to me, but Mark held her back.

Jackson and Bri came running up to the house, wearing what looked like very sad versions of movie hazmat suits.

One look at me, and they each took an arm and pulled me to my feet. It was all I could do to not heave as I let them support me until we got to the golf cart. I couldn’t let myself look back at the two faces I knew were bent in a pain of their own.

I was beginning to feel dizzy and wanted to speak to Bri before I inevitably passed out.

“Bri, I have to tell you something. I need my camera and my journal from my room,” I told her plastic covered face. “Please, I need them. I also need you to start documenting how you made it to Monterey, what you do here, everything. It’s important, promise.”

“I will, Aunt Laurie,” she told me. She didn’t try to argue. I must look bad.

∞

I woke in what looked to be a hotel room, what
was
a hotel room. It was the Hotel, the one we use as quarantine. There was an IV in my arm, and I tried to push myself up, but couldn’t. On the table beside my bed lay my camcorder and my diary, waiting there for more entries. I could barely reach my arm to my camera to turn it on.

The needle in my arm stung, and the queasiness was bad. My head was pounding, and I could feel my heart working in sync with my head. They must have been in cahoots.

Doctor Malcolm came in, adorned in the same type of strange outfit my “drivers” wore earlier.

“I am glad you are awake,” he said.

When I went to reply, my tongue was thick, and I couldn’t get out the breath it would take to answer, so I opted to just shake my head, instead.

“Just nod or shake your head to answer me, okay?” he said.

I nodded.

He pulled out a breathing mask from beside my head and put it over my mouth.

“Did you feel sick before you began to vomit the blood, like during the night?” he questioned.

I shook my head to indicate no.

“Do you think that you can swallow a little ginger tea? It will settle your stomach some. I gave you some Compazine earlier, but we are running low.” He looked sad. “Amanda made the tea.”

Amanda.

I nodded.

I made a scribble movement with my hand to show that I wanted to write something. Doc Malcolm pulled out a hotel pen and pad of paper from the desk drawer.

“Ha,” he said, slightly amused. “Finally, someone will actually use one of these. Maybe later you can write a post card.”

I smiled, more in thanks than at the joke.

I wrote: “Family?”

“They are okay. They are concerned. I told them that we seemed to have caught it early.”

I nodded.

When he left the room, I lay there for a bit before picking up the pen. I wanted my family to know how much they meant to me.

Dear Family,

I am not sure if this is the end of the Village’s road for me. I am not feeling well, not at all, and the Sneaker Wave is killing so many of us. I don’t even think that I have a fifty/fifty chance of making it, but that is alright. I think I have done what I needed to do to keep my family safe. I will be alright going if I know that all of you will carry on. And that is what I ask of you; please carry on.

This is going to sound funny after the end of the world, but I think that I am the luckiest person, ever. That’s because I have all of you. The Balous-Patton Clan is amazing. I was lucky to be a part of it.

Mark: Thank you for being my rock.

Mom: Thank you for being my cornerstone.

Briana and Amanda: Thank you for being my warriors, each in your own way.

Jake: Thank you for taking care of our family once I am gone. I know you will.

Bailey: Thank you for letting me know what it felt like to be a mother.

If it is possible, I will be watching over you. I love you all for eternity.

My name is Briana Patton, and I am the niece of Laura Balous. Yesterday, my aunt came down with the Sneaker Wave virus. She is really sick, and we don’t know if she’s going to make it. She is my second loved one in the last week to get sick. My boyfriend came down with it last week, and the doctors say he is fighting.

I am not one for writing in a journal or a diary. Last year, in college, I was asked to write one in a class, and it drove me crazy trying to keep up with it.

College— I wish that I could have finished. Now, I never will. The best I can hope for, any of us can hope for, is to make it until tomorrow.

I am not sure what I am supposed to write about. Aunt Laurie got sick so fast that I only had time to promise that I would write. I didn’t even have a chance to ask her what she has been writing about all of this time. Knowing Aunt Laurie, she is making a record of every event that has happened since the Last War.

My family and I don’t talk much about how we made it from Phoenix, Arizona, to Monterey, California after the war. That’s because the shit that went down was not anything we want to share. But maybe we should. Maybe this will be a record for the future, or maybe it won’t get any further than tomorrow. Either way, it doesn’t hurt, and I made a promise.

I am sure my aunt covered how it all began, so I will skip ahead to what happened to us, like she asked me to do on the way to the Hotel.

Everyone who remains, in every city across America, has their own story to tell about the days when the strikes first hit. This one is mine.

I was called up by my National Guard unit on July 8, three days after the first attack on the East Coast. I was deployed in the city of Phoenix, not too far from the apartment I shared with Adam.

There were hundreds of soldiers roaming the streets, without a strategy for how we could keep peace and order. We were supposed to work in conjunction with local and state authorities to keep the violence and looting under control. All of the planning in the world wouldn’t have done it, but I stayed on the streets until the day we were hit.

I don’t remember every date, but I remember July 13. We had been following the Last War’s progress on television, in the newspapers, online, and on the radio. On that day, the streets of Phoenix were dead even before the first bomb dropped. Everyone must have thought that staying inside was their best option, but I made it because I was on the streets and not in my apartment.

I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first explain what happened in the streets.

My battle buddies during the days leading up to the bombs were Richard Collins and Erica Long. Collins and Long were great for the first three days. We walked the streets, and people listened to us at first. We captured the looters and handed them over the Phoenix Police Department. We thought that we were pretty badass, but I had no idea what that meant until we started our long trip to the Central Coast of California. Okay, I am getting ahead of myself again.

As each day went by, things got more and more out of hand. The big retail and hardware stores were getting hit hard. On day one, people were arguing about supplies, but as soon as they saw our uniforms and weapons, they backed off pretty fast. We saw cars and trucks drive by us packed with supplies. I couldn’t help but hope that my family was doing the same as those people.

A few days later, there was no more politeness and no more shying away from uniformed authority. The masses had begun to carry unconcealed weapons, which was still within their rights there. Arizona’s gun permit laws were known to be some of the most lenient in the country. They made sense to me, before the war that is.

Collins, Long and I were trying to uphold the laws, but the lines were getting blurry. The cops were not able to keep up with everything that was going down, so we began to get more involved in public disputes, and that’s when we found ourselves in the middle of a gun fight in downtown Phoenix. We went into battle mode. I never thought that this would happen in the United States; citizens getting into battles over a two-gallon jug of water. But we were trained for fighting, and so that’s what we did.

Long was behind a dumpster that sat in a parking lot outside of a grocery store. Collins had made his way to the top of the building, and I was across the street, crouched behind a civilian Humvee that just happened to be parked there.

I had never seen anything like what happened that day.

Bullets started to fly from a gun that had just crashed through a window at the grocery store. Some were coming in my direction, and I could hear bloodcurdling screams coming from inside. This went on for minutes, maybe. Time had no reference point; no beginning and no end. The ear-piercing screaming finally subsided.

Two white men dressed in old fatigues ran from the building pushing and pulling two baskets each. The baskets were filled with food and water. They had several rifles each, strapped over their shoulders. A third man wearing all black came running from behind them with gun drawn, looking for a place to aim.

I looked up to see Collins on the roof. He didn’t have a clear shot and neither did Long. Someone not far from me began firing, and when I heard a rush of air just over my head, I opened fire.

The first man I ever killed was one of the camo-guys with the baskets. He slumped over his hard-earned rewards. His blood poured over the contents of the basket, as if claiming his prize.

I turned and saw Long run out, firing. She was not following any of our training; she was just shooting, emptying her gun like a character in a video game.

The man dressed in pure black turned and fired at the roof. Collins came hurtling down before coming to rest on a red SUV. The firing of the guns wasn’t quite enough to cover the blaring car alarm that was triggered by Collins’ impact.

The gunman in black turned and looked me straight in the eye. I took the shot milliseconds before he did. As he fell to the ground, he fired high into the air, creating an arch of bullet spray. His finger must have been stuck on the trigger, because it didn’t stop. The sound of his high powered rifle blended with the car alarm in a symphony of death.

From behind me came more people dressed in black; this time they wore bulletproof vests with “SWAT” written in white letters on the front and back.

With that, my butt fell to the ground and landed on the sharp curb.

Sweat poured down my face and mixed with the salt of my tears.

After I confirmed that Long and Collins were both dead, I looked for my command in the building where they were set up, but they were gone. I probably wouldn’t admit this out loud, but for hours I searched, like a little kid lost in a supermarket, running up and down the aisles; afraid that their parents had forgotten them and left. My parents never did forget me, but my command had.

No wonder Aunt Laurie spends so much time writing; it feels good to get it out. I hope this is what she was looking for. She helped raise me, helped to teach me too, and we have always thought a lot alike, so it should be okay.

But I have wall security in the Village now. It’s going to be a miserable shift. It’s pouring rain and sleet.

I will have to continue later.

I talked to Tabitha, the physician’s assistant, this morning. She works in the Hotel where we have half of our sick Villagers. That’s because the actual hospital lost a lot of its buildings in the war, and what is left of it is full now. I am losing track of the numbers of people with the virus, but I know it’s high. Tabitha said that Laura is getting worse, but anything can happen. Apparently, it’s still too soon to know.

She keeps close tabs on the hospital where Adam is, too. He might be home by the end of the week, maybe even earlier. I am so relieved. I love him so much.

The fact is, neither of them can die. They are going to lead us out of here, to safety. This plague is proof of what needs to be done.

Where was I in my story?

Phoenix represented the best in huge, urban sprawl. Before the Last War, it could take a good hour to get from one side of town to the other. There are almost one and a half million people who live there, I mean
used to
live there.

I had no transportation, the phones were all out, and I couldn’t trust anyone anymore. So, I started walking. Eventually, I saw other soldiers walking alone, too. The number of people on the streets was decreasing.

The first night I slept under a freeway overpass. I had my army provisions with me still, so I was living off of those and hits of water from my Camelback. I kept it filled from hoses on the sides of houses at night, when I couldn’t be seen.

It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and my pack was at least sixty-five pounds. I didn’t think I was going to make it until I saw an army jeep driving straight up the street towards me. I ran into the road and waved my arms. I refused to let it pass me.

It slowed, and I saw the young male driver, probably a year younger than me. I hurried to the passenger door and swung it open before he could drive off. I saw that lost look in his eyes; the kind of lost look that must have mirrored mine.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Home,” he said.

He agreed to take me as far as he was going before he had to take another highway. It took five hours, but he got me within a half a day’s walk of my father’s house. I never asked his name, how he had his own jeep, or where he was going. All I ever knew of him is what his uniform revealed; his last name was Johnson, and he was a Specialist in the U.S. Army. That didn’t even really matter.

When he pulled off, I grabbed my pack and shut the door.

That man – boy, really - saved my life that day.

It was getting dark, so I thought that I would walk as far as I could during the night so that I wouldn’t have to do as much in the boiling sun the next day.

I walked until about 1:00. I was too exhausted to go any farther. I found a bench in a small park and just crashed there. Before falling deeply asleep, I looked around to make sure that I would be safe out there in the open.

The park was a leftover of an old neighborhood. Buildings were in various states of dilapidation and there was a sign that read “Greenwood Apartments.” It was completely quiet and seemed safe.

It couldn’t have been too long before the ground began to shake. It was time; I knew it.

I tucked myself under the bench that was cemented into the ground. I could see the entire show from my small cubbyhole. I tried to hold my pack in front of me to protect my head. I peeked out to see the clouds of debris, smoke and fire. My ears started to ring almost from the start. I could hear the engines from planes overhead, though.

Even with all that I had seen on television about the East Coast and the battle that I had been in downtown, part of me had trouble believing it was happening. Things were actually melting in the distance. It was more surreal than the Salvador Dali painting of warped clocks. I saw the top of a high-rise building crumble and in its place was a puff of smoke suspended in the air.

When the world stopped rolling, I squeezed out of my shelter. Incredibly, I was not hurt.

I robotically pulled my pack on and began my trek home again. I can barely remember the trip that lasted about three hours.

When I finally left the housing area, I came to the stretch of a four lane street. People were just standing there, some were crying but most were just staring, lost in their own terror. I tried not to catch anyone’s eye. Being in my uniform meant I was the authority; the government. But I wasn’t. I was only one person wearing combat boots. I was no longer a part of a hierarchy; a National Guard sworn to protect because there wasn’t one anymore. As far as I knew, there wasn’t even a nation anymore.

The sun was just starting to peek over Camel Back Mountain. I have never seen anything like the sun rise that morning. The sky was swirling with vibrant reds, purples and oranges. I won’t ever be able to see another sunrise and not smell the putrid scent of burning flesh. The ash rained down on me until I was covered from head to foot.

My father lived in a nice place near the base of a mountain. It was one of the few houses not in a track-home neighborhood. Most importantly, it was one of the few places that happened to be built into rock.

I hiked for what seemed like forever. I turned my mind off, refusing to look around me until I found my family. I don’t know how to explain it, but I could feel that they were still alive. I stared at my feet, willing them to move rhythmically. I started to sing out cadence, something I would never have done in public before. I started just humming it, but by the time I made it to my father’s street, I was shouting it until my throat was completely raw. I stopped and used the hillside as a visual reference to where I was.

I saw the iron fencing of my father’s home. I allowed myself to look up slightly, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Half of the house still stood. I flung open the gate and ran up the driveway. Then I was able to focus on what I had been praying for, hoping for. I knew they were still alive.

I ran screaming to Ammie. She was kneeling on the ground, and she looked up at me. I could see the shock on her face as I got closer. She didn’t move.

She looked down; and I followed her gaze. My father lay on his side in front of her. I could see the blood that matted his hair, and I began to doubt that feeling I had that my family had made it.

Before I knew it, I was kneeling next to him. He was covered in a reddish dust that matched the hillside and now covered everything in the area.

Amanda came and sat on the ground beside me. “I pulled him out,” she told me.

My father rolled onto his back by himself, as if to tell me he was still alive. “Bri,” I think he said.

Another rumbling started, and Ammie and I locked eyes. I know that we were both thinking it was happening again, but Ammie’s eyes shifted to something behind me. I turned to see what she was looking at.

It looked like a giant gray clump of cotton balls was being thrown over us. We have seen dozens of dust storms living in Arizona, but none like this. It was too fast. Before I could even absorb what was happening, I felt the stings of a million bees over my exposed skin. But it wasn’t bees, it was sand. Ammie covered Dad’s face with her body.

I knew that we needed to get him inside, but the house didn’t seem too stable. I saw the basement door on the side of the house, and I told Ammie to help me. I took his upper body, and she took his feet. We got him into the basement. It was dark, damp and smelled like mold, but it was out of the elements and the best we were going to do.

I took a quick visual survey of Amanda, and she looked fine, just filthy, like me.

Dad was breathing, but he was losing blood from a big gash on his head. We went through all of the first aid kits and found something called a “blood clotting agent” that neither of us knew how to use. We followed the directions on the bag that simply stated to pour, pack and apply pressure. To our amazement, it worked.

I was trying to process everything that had happened when a loud banging at the basement door knocked me out of my thoughts. Ammie’s eyes looked fearful, but I pulled out my rifle and went up the steps.

“It’s me, Adam. Let me in.”

I opened the lock that still had the keys in it and flung the doors open outwards. My amazing boyfriend was standing there. I jumped into his arms, and we held each other, tightly. I never wanted to let go.