. . . A N N E T T E | D A N E S . . .

“Mom! Over here!” A voice – his voice – cradled in the wind, blending with the birdsong and lulling rumble of the waves. And when she bore her palms into the sand, felt it grit between her toes and lifted her face to meet the warm caress from the sun, she saw him. He ran parallel to the deep blue horizon, his worries tossed away in a way only he could manage. Slender, all skin and bones, his toothy grin big enough to build instant love and trust on. That was her boy. He waved to her – threw his hand up into the air, flapped it dramatically, and even from so far away she could hear his trademarked two-note laugh. It was the contagious kind, the one she waited for after a hard day’s work to remind her what genuine happiness sounded like.

Foamy water kicked up around his feet, splashed his knobbly knees, glistening on his calves in the brightness of the midday sun. And he stopped. Perfectly still in the ankle-deep water with his face falling to a blank slate, her son Sebastian froze, went stiff, the color in his body leaking out into the water around him. Her own heart plummeted into her guts, her eyes going wide and the very breath in her lungs being ripped out in one swift tug. She tried to stand and run to him, to reach out to him, but found she couldn’t, like her veins had been pumped full of lead and her bones had become I-beams. In absolute terror she counted every millisecond in slow-motion, could hear every breath she drew amplified to a deafening magnitude.

Fluidly, so smoothly, Sebastian’s head swivelled to face her and he locked his eyes with his mothers’. Every strand of his wiry, dark hair bounced and floated weightlessly, as though he were underwater, and his lips parted so painfully slowly. When he blinked his eyes, it took forever for them to reopen and for his vision to refocus on the face of his mother he looked at with general contentment. With bated breath she waited on the words he was forming with his mouth, praying every last syllable would contain the love she had been dying to hear for so long, to fill-in the crater in her heart that had been formed on the day when she had to say goodbye to them both.

But she knew it wouldn’t – she knew he couldn’t.

Sebastian’s eyelids gingerly fell, hid those eyes big like planets. The corners of lips upturned in a soft smirk, and his whole chest rose with a big inhale of salty seawater.

“Mama,” he said in that innocent, boyish voice of his. “Mama… I love y –”

A bang.

Something broke.

Everything was falling apart.

A scream was caught in her throat, her skin was drenched in sweat. Annette Danes bolted upright in her bed, her fingertips clawing at the damp bedsheets, her eyes flicking around the shadowy room and seeing every detail without registering what anything was. She drew the tattered blue sheet up to her chest as her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. It took her a few seconds for her brain to catch-up with the rest of her.

There was another few bangs, albeit less explosive than the one that had woken her up, and in the calmness that came after the initial panic of a bad dream, Annette realized it had been a knock on the front door. In the dusty dimness of the lightless bedroom, Annette clambered out of bed, let her feet fall onto the cold floor. She stood, felt her shoulders and left hip ache as she did so, and she stifled a yawn. A grogginess, an exhausted sadness immediately resurfaced in her as she took her first few steps into hallway. It was the reminder of where she was, who she still was. Everything came back to her at once, and it was something she could have done without.

The living room was brighter as the morning sun filtered in through the slatted blinds. It wasn’t her own home; Annette refused to go back to her own apartment only two floors above. It was no longer her own. Nor was the current one she slept in, but it beat seeing the ghosts from a life she so desperately wanted to fall back into the arms of.

At the front door Annette peered through the peek hole. A broad-shouldered, bushy-bearded bald man with red, sunburnt skin was staring down at his shoes. Though he was in his fifties, his face suggested he was much older. Stress from the new life ate away at him, like it had all of them. Annette only noticed in that moment just how tired and frail her friend looked.

Annette undid the lock, slid the bolt away, and opened the door. She kept it closed enough to not reveal her pyjama-clad, early morning messiness, and rather let only her oily, swollen face peer through the crack.

“Morning,” Alexander J. McMurray greeted in his gruff, monotonous tone. Annette only nodded in acknowledgement. It was still too early for formalities.

“The group’s heading out. Thought you should know,” Alexander informed her, referring to the scavenging party planned to tackle the mall a few intersections northward.

“Thanks,” Annette replied. Her voice cracked, still sounded rusty. She coughed, cleared her throat, and smirked a pathetic attempt at a smirk at him. “I’ll be down soon.”

“You take care now, Annette.” Annette listened to his footfalls grow softer as he left down the hallway and the heavy door leading to the stairwell slammed shut behind him. There were no other sounds, but Annette still stood by the door listening anyway, leaning against the wall. Half of her hoped for human contact, connection, something to make her feel thought-about and loved. She wanted affection, arms to hold her, a second heartbeat to feel pulsing against her own chest as she hugged them tightly and refused to let go. The other half of her couldn’t stand how much the first half craved that. It needed isolation, only her own thoughts to entertain it. It was the numbing half, the bleak half, the half that whispered tempting thoughts of letting her toes wiggle off the edge of the balcony or slide the cool, serrated end of a blade down her inner forearm.

Annette didn’t want either half, and yet she lost herself in their throes each and every time she woke up.

After a few more minutes of lingering while she combated a million different thoughts, Annette dressed into jeans and a flowery blouse that smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Before Annette left the apartment she slid the glass door leading to the balcony away and stepped outside. It was warming up, feeling more like spring, though she still felt the cool chill tickle her ears. Down below on the rooftop courtyard of the main building she saw several people standing about, talking, eating, watching the motionless streets, losing themselves in their own inner-wars. Annette stopped wondering why so many people were awake so early in the day when she realized most of them were simply unable to fall asleep to begin with.

There was a slight, metallic grumble as another balcony door slid open. It was a tall, light-skinned woman who once had boyish short blonde hair that had since grown out ragged. Her face was soft, her eyes big and always looking as though she was surprised.

“Good morning,” Annette greeted her. Hannah Pritchard glanced up, that pleasantly startled look either just natural or genuine (no one could tell), and smiled warmly. “I hear you’re leaving soon.”

“I am,” Hannah answered. Her voice was gentle and quiet, sometimes a mere mumble. Rarely did she raise her voice; it was always something soothing, something pleasant.

“Oh, and, good morning,” Hannah quickly added, a little timidly. She rolled her eyes, directed at herself; she smiled goofily and chuckled. She made her way over to where Annette stood, and together they both rested their arms on the railing and looked out at the cityscape.

“It’s kind of, um, kind of weird – how far we can see now,” Hannah remarked. The skies had cleared up drastically, the visibility of the city stretching on farther than it ever had before.

“All it took was the world ending for us to finally love it,” Annette added. Hannah nodded, gave an agreeing mumble, and returned to watching a flock of birds fly across their field of vision.

“Anyway, I should go get that list. See you down there,” Annette said after what felt like a solid ten minutes. She patted Hannah on the shoulder and stepped back into the apartment. She headed out into the hallway illuminated solely by the windows on either end that let in enough light to showcase the dark brown panelled walls and beige carpet. With enough maintenance, the condos had been stunning. They still were, just not nearly as clean.

Before the door at the end of the hallway had fully opened, Annette had stepped past it and headed down the stairs. Every step made some new part of her ache or groan in protest. The day they had generators that could run the elevators, Annette would be a happy camper. Until then, she had to settle with exercise. Not her favorite thing.

At the very bottom of the stairwell, Annette turned left and opened a door that brought her into one short hallway, doors to abandoned units left wide open on either side. They didn’t house anyone and were used merely for storage and letting sunlight into the hallways. The hallway ended at a glass door that separated the first floor units from the lobby, and as she got closer to the lobby she could already hear muffled voices through the closed door.

The lobby was one long, rectangular room with the doors to the first floor unit hallways down a very short hall on the back end of either side of the lobby. Two curved staircases with an ornate, polished bannister curled along the side walls and up to the second floor, where a balcony overlooked the lobby below. Up on the second floor was where the party rooms were. In the back center of the lobby was the concierge desk, and hanging high above it was a festive chandelier that once glittered magically but had since been caked in dust and cob webs. Near every corner of the lobby was a grey stone pillar that met the ceiling; large, ceramic pots were placed around the bases of each pillar and vines grew from them, snaking and twirling around the pillars.

As Annette strolled across the glossy marble floor, the murmurs from before came to an abrupt stop. Without stopping, Annette glanced over her shoulder and up at the rounded balcony. Sitting on one of the stone benches up on the balcony was Maria Santos. For once her dark hair was not in a ponytail – rather, it was left to fall around her shoulders. There were noticeable bags under her eyes, and her cheeks had become gaunt and hollow. Annette didn’t know Maria’s weight or size before, but it was evident in Maria’s current form that she had lost a lot of weight.

“Everything alright?” Annette asked Maria. The second Maria had spotted Annette, she fell totally silent, and it didn’t change when Annette addressed her. Maria bowed her head and glanced off to the side. It was then that Annette saw the rosary beads dangling from between Maria’s fingers.

“Didn’t mean to disrupt,” Annette apologized, her voice echoing around the expansive room. Again, Maria kept her lips tightly sealed, but the second Annette turned her back to the middle-aged woman, she heard Maria mutter incoherent words under her breath. Annette hoped it was just prayers, though she had been certain before stepping into the main foyer that it sounded like a two-person conversation more than anything. The other person must have left before Annette got there, she decided. She made a mental note to track down Maria afterward and make sure everything was okay. Only a month ago, Maria had attempted suicide - something only Annette and Amina knew about. Since then, Maria had become heavily religious, trying to use God to cope with her depression. It worked, to some extent, but Annette made sure to keep and eye on Maria and be as loving and supportive to her as she could. She didn't think Maria would try it again, but she didn't believe Maria would have tried it the first time, either.

Stepping through the first set of open doors and manually sliding open the second, Annette walked outside, standing in the paved opening in front of the building. One long, three-foot high concrete barrier stretched across from the wall of the building to twenty feet ahead, where it wrapped around and went on to the right for another fifteen or-so feet, forming half a square, concealing the paved area. Shrubs were planted in the middle, granting another two feet of height. Directly to Annette’s right was the stone pathway, dirt on either side where flowers used to grow. The pathway cut across a small patch of grass and lead to the paved storefront area. A long, short strip of concrete stairs led down to the main road where the cars and trucks the many residents used were parked haphazardly along the road.

The storefronts itself consisted of offices or small shops long since turned into useful rooms or otherwise left to be dark, dusty and untouched. The former coffee shop-turned-meeting area already had people inside it, and of all of them, Annette could hear Ned Rivera’s distinct hyena-like laugh. On her way by it, Annette peered inside and spotted Ned and Edward Wright sitting at a table together, mugs filled with coffee that tasted like earthy piss in their hands, candles lit on the other tables granting them more visibility. One of the newcomers to The Towers sat alone at a table, and Annette felt shame in not remembering his name right away. But she marked his face down as one she needed to get to know in her head and promised herself she would by the end of the day.

Next to the coffee shop sat the pharmacy, the door already propped open with a cinderblock. The second Annette walked inside and looked around at the emptying shelves and general disarray of the pharmacy, someone emerged from the backroom, boxes in her arms blocking her face.

“I didn’t do inventory yet,” Amina Ali snapped without first acknowledging it actually was Annette she was speaking to. “But I got piss drunk last night and I’ll have you your list in a minute.” Amina moved gracefully, her hips swaying and body looking comfortably at ease. She set the boxes down on the countertop next to the unused cash register and let out a huff. Both hands were planted on her hips and she shook her head to herself. With one eyebrow raised questioningly and her arms crossed, Annette stared at her friend, not saying a word but communicating clearly what she felt.

“So I had a bit to drink and felt young again. I’m sorry,” Amina responded sarcastically with a sigh and a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’ll get it done quickly.”

“Amina,” Annette said.

“I know, I know! Okay? It was irresponsible, I’m irresponsible… I get it,” Amina grumbled. She set to work by unpacking the boxes and checking off a list or making little scribbled notes, trying to keep track of what medical supplies they had and what they desperately needed. After their food and medical stocks had been raided and stolen a week prior, recovering everything was the main priority. Though she didn’t say it, Annette knew Amina was feeling pressure trying to organize everything.

“Amina,” Annette repeated, a little more sternly.

“I said I’m sorry, I ju –”

“Can you shut-up, or do I have to send you to the time-out corner?” Annette taunted her with a sly smirk. She watched how Amina’s face went from a stern look to a relaxed, humored one, and immediately to an annoyed one.

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” Amina shot back at Annette. On the paper she had in her hands Amina made a few more notes and scribbled something out. What she handed to Annette was a list of supplies and a doodle of a cat, which Annette chose to ignore.

“So who you sending?” Amina asked.

“Elliot, Hannah and Charles,” Annette answered. “I can trust them to know what we need, and then some.”

“Huh,” Amina nodded. “Hey, what happens when we can’t find anything else? Like medicine and stuff? I mean, there’s gotta be only so much in the city… right?” Annette bowed her head and shrugged. It was question she asked herself often. Would they need to move completely out of the city and become nomadic, travelling to where there were necessities?

“I don’t know yet,” Annette told her. “But I know that we’ll figure it out. We will. We always have, and I trust this group to get whatever we need done done.”

“Okay, calm down. Don’t get all inspirational mayor on me,” Amina joked. Bringing her legs up over the counter, Amina swiveled around and hopped down behind the counter. She continued sorting through the contents of the pile of boxes, trying to keep herself busy.

“Get back to work, Ali,” Annette sighed. She walked out of the pharmacy, the sunlight blinding Annette immediately. She raised her forearm to shield her eyes against it as she hurried down the steps to the main road. Already there was a clear hammering sound coming from the rooftops as Alexander and his crew returned to building the chicken coop on the main building’s rooftop courtyard.

Huddled around a red pick-up truck was Charles Okeke and Elliot Rice. Sometimes when Annette spotted Charles from the corner of her eye, she believed it could have been her son. Their hair, their height, their lanky frame – all of it reminded Annette of Sebastian. It made looking at him difficult at times.

“Waiting on Hannah?” Annette asked the two as she got closer. They had been invested in a deep conversation, one they stood close enough to one another to hear, preventing them from hearing Annette right away. But when they had, both quickly turned and directed their attention to only her.

“Like always,” Elliot remarked. “Actually…” As if on cue, Hannah came jogging down the steps, panting and with sweat forming on her brow. When she reached them she doubled over, planted her hands firmly on her knees and tried to catch her breath, her face red from either the running or embarrassment. The other three shared a small laugh at Hannah’s expense, Charles pitching in and calling her lazy.

When Hannah recovered, Annette handed her Amina’s list, which Hannah tucked safely away into her breast pocket. She opened the driver’s side door and hopped in, Elliot and Charles getting in on the other side.

“Get what you can, we’ll send another group out tomorrow if we have to,” Annette told them through the window Hannah rolled down. “And be safe.”

“We always are, ma’am,” Elliot was quick to say.

The engine of the truck roared to life, a sound so loud and nowadays foreign-sounding that Annette found it difficult to stand so close to. She stepped back onto the sidewalk and waved to the truck as it drove off down the road, winding around the corner and vanishing behind the heaps of rubble from the buildings across the street the inferno ravaged. The sounds of the engine went on for a long time with no other white noise from the city to drown it out. It was relaxing, the silence, but also entirely eerie. Annette didn’t think anyone got used to how quiet everything became.

Heading back up the steps and figuring she would go chat with the unknown man in the coffee shop, Annette let her mind wander, running over the plans to start “vertical farms” alongside the back walls of the buildings. It was still in the early stages, that plan, and Annette –

The boom of a gunshot, as clear as day, tore apart the atmosphere. In quick succession it was followed by a few more – multiple guns firing at once. It was far off, merely an echo to where she stood, but Annette still whipped around, alert. People emerged from the stores, Amina quick to join Annette at her side. All of them stood, speechless, listening for a follow-up indication to other human life.

“Was it… our people?” Ned Rivera asked. None of them carried guns, but Annette knew that wasn’t what Ned meant.

“No – wrong direction,” Annette answered.

“Should we be worried?” Ned asked, her shrill voice a little shaky.

That was a question Annette didn’t know how to answer. In truth, yes, everyone at The Towers should always be worried. In their current state they had yet to witness the brutal honesty of humanity’s collapse and what became of “friendly neighbors” and “harmless passerby’s”. At all times of the day, everyone should be on guard as it was only a matter of time until that bluntness of society’s downfall hit them harder than it previously had.

“No,” Annette answered. “Everyone go back inside. Just keep your eyes and ears open.” Naturally no one moved from their spots, and whispers and low voices broke out everywhere.

“You think it’s actually something?” Amina asked Annette in a hushed voice. The damage control Annette had to work through after their food supplies had been stolen was only just getting better – and that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Panic over a potential human threat –if that – was not necessary at the moment. If anything, it could be nothing but a car backfiring, or good people acting in self-defence. Whatever it was, Annette didn’t want it to be the thing that made The Towers feel any more anxious than it already was. Not yet, at least.

“No,” Annette told her, and it was a white lie that Annette knew Amina couldn’t see through. The younger woman nodded, bit her bottom lip as she started thinking heavily, and walked off.
Glancing over at the small crowd and many people excited or upset by the gunshot, Annette felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. When the time came for them to have to face something big, she didn’t know what to do. But, without missing a beat, everyone would turn to her expecting her to know exactly what to do.

She didn’t what she would do when they found out she was just as lost as they were.

A sigh left David as he walked forward, hands shuffled in his pockets—and a loud noise echoed in the distance. David Levitski had been up long before the sunrise, a sort of habit that the aged detective had previously programmed into his everyday functions. The events leading up to where he was now didn’t change it. Apocalypse be damned, it wasn’t going to change how he operated and functioned no matter how old he got. A conversation with Thomas Wilton came to mind as these thoughts of “age won’t affect me” crossed David’s mind where the even older folk singer told him that he wouldn’t have a choice about it when the time came, especially with the physically demanding role that David lived for decades— eventually at the end of the line it would all catch up with him unless he was exceptionally lucky.

Yeah right.

The chances are that he was already falling apart, he just didn’t know it. He refused to see some “doctor” at the camp they had set up here at The Towers, and it wasn’t out of some fear of doctors or medicine; it was out of a feeling of extreme apathy. If he was going out, it was pointless to worry about it and honestly? He couldn’t care any less if it was painful or painless when it came. There was a void out there when it would happen and it wouldn’t really matter one way or the other. This line of thinking wasn’t one that came out often, but when it did it certainly put him harshly against those who believed in heaven and god.

But to David that was their problem if they had a problem with how he thought. Not exactly a “team player” line of thinking, but sometimes you had to be honest with people and not sugarcoat how you felt. That kind of bottled up anxiety only led to you wanting to jump off a cliff and go splat against the pavement below. The sort of anxiety that had caused people to meet their supposed maker plenty of times before… and that was before the epidemic that they called an “apocalypse” happened.

A sigh left David as he walked forward, hands shuffled in his pockets— and a loud noise echoed in the distance.

BANG!

Not an uncommon sound for David or really anyone who had survived the changing of society in the last five months or so, but that didn’t stop people like Nedine or Melissa from probably fearing for the worst and asking neurotic questions. David was sure one of them was prying someone if it was close or if there were bad people nearby. Perhaps it was a good thing that David wasn’t within earshot of said questions because he probably would answer them with a dull toned “Probably.”; not exactly the best thing to answer with to those kind of people.

But David had enough time to think for the morning; deciding to get to being productive, standing around wasn’t going to help anybody.

“Just another day.” He muttered under his breath.

Perhaps he would run into someone while on patrol of the interior and external walls; it’d be nice, considering the loss of supplies due to a supposed thief to run into said supposed thief and give them “retribution” for the stupid action against the community they had scorned and brought delusions that broke down trust between community neighbors. Personally, David didn’t care about the consequences of the persons actions he just knew what needed to be done when and not if he caught this individual—assuming it wasn’t from an outside source, of course.

“Be nice.” He muttered again, answering his own thoughts.

David had checked the perimeter of the community twice-over by now, and no matter what he looked for despite his detective pedigree he couldn’t quite seem to find any conclusive signs that confirmed his suspicions that the timely raid that had just occurred last week had been one that was facilitated by an inside job. Now David wasn’t a soldier, so he wasn’t sure what he was looking for on the perimeter but something in his gut had been rolling over on him and his impulse had served him well in the past. If he was right and the raid was an inside job then whoever it was had covered their tracks well; no chalk marking off unguarded entrance points (hell, David always thought that their security being unorganized was a bad idea since he joined the group). Perhaps it was just a matter of David not being sure what he was looking for.

Who would even be so stupid to endanger everyone like that anyway? Most of the individuals at the Towers were far from being so brash to do such actions.

A very audible groan left David’s lips as he ran his right hand through his hair.

“Guess I’ll head back to the main bits, check around and see what needs doing.” He thought as he turned from his current position and made way back to the main compound. Perhaps something would hit him as a revelation on the way there.

As he began to walk back, David’s detective pedigree started to go in effect as his mind began shuffling through these sort of mental notes that served as small dossiers on the residents that he had become familiar with for some time now. If there was something he retained from his life as a cop was faces, names, and an outline of information about them – though some people in The Towers could’ve been lying or keeping things to themselves; there was also the option that they weren’t trusting of David and he hadn’t gathered much information.

It was a hard thing to deduce, but if someone did do this to them; David would figure it out in time.

"I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,– God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars." Erik Reznov's voice retold the poem with an orator's care, matching the rhythm and pace of the verses with nigh-perfect accuracy.

He sat in a child's bedroom, no larger or smaller than it should be, walls painted a pleasant light blue, easing to the eye. The walls were dotted with pictures of spaceships, astronauts, far-off planets and telescopes. The ceiling, too, was decorated by hanging models of the planets, Moon and stars. The room was lit by only a single bright lamp on the bedside table, giving the room a very comforting glow to it.

Laying down in a small, plush bed was a young boy, no older than five, hair the color of straw. He had a tired sort of smile on his face, almost dreamy as he heard the poem being told to him once more.

"Again, Daddy?" The boy asked sweetly, lying his head back against his large pillow.

"Again, Nicholas?" Erik echoed with a slight raise of his eyebrow. He was still wearing his suit from that day, having little time to change out of it. Work had been...especially stressful that day. Long hours, a seemingly endless pile of tasks. Such was the sacrifice of running your own clinic.

Letting out a feigned huff, Erik ruffled his son's hair with a small, warm smile. "Alright, once more, but that's the end of it. Now close your eyes, Little Astronomer." He ordered in an eased tone before once again looking down at the weathered poetry book in his hand.

"Reach me down my Tycho Brahé, – I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now..."



Erik sat alone in his apartment, little sound accompanying him except for the rhythmic ticking of his watch, a steadfast reminder of the time: six in the morning. Erik normally tried to sleep in around seven or later, but they kept him awake - the nightmares. As realistic and terrifying as they were, he could never remember them upon waking. Only that same, still feeling: horror.

He had been at the Towers for a few weeks, just long enough to put a face to a name and remember the general layout of the buildings. In truth, having a doctor at the Towers was a Godsend. He would often work closely with the resident medical practitioner, Amina Ali, who was only a medical student by the time the Outbreak had occurred. In such times, his experience and training were called upon to help deal with the various injuries and ailments that never seemed to cease. But he didn't mind...it took his mind off of other things.

He played with the glinting wedding band wrapped 'round his ring finger, seeing his warped reflection in the gold. It had been nearly six months since that fateful day...but the wound still bore as fresh as though it had been only yesterday. He would never forget that feeling of utter helplessness as his family, his wife and children had gone from alive and well to dead on the ground within seconds. That was the worst part, the inability to save them, even as their breath caught in their throats in front of him. He would never forget the looks on their faces, never.

Rising from his seat, Erik took a few moments to brush off his shoulders and put on his jacket before leaving his apartment, locking the door behind him. He felt the cool, crisp air hit him like a freight train the second he stepped outside, but he didn't complain. It was a reminder that he was alive, still feeling. So long as he felt the wind, he was alert.

He began the slow descent down the Towers in search of the medical clinic, offering head-nods and 'good-morning's to everyone he saw, though little more than that. At the surface he seemed to have hardly changed since the Outbreak. He had a few more wrinkles here or there, his hair wasn't as neatly kept and a thin line of scruff was starting to form on his jaw, but he didn't look much worse-for-wear. He could even have been considered handsome. But at the moment, the only thing on his mind was helping recover the medical stores from the infamous robbery that only occurred just a week earlier. Medicine was hard enough to come by as it was, but a hit of that level was almost crippling.

Eventually finding the clinic, Erik focused his mind, hoping to work the day away, just as he always had.

Julius Charlton - the epidemic hits

He had read it in the news. He had heard people talking about it everywhere, all the time. Fearful, tearful. He had even seen it on TV. As had everyone else.

And yet... it had never occurred to him that it might kill him too. When others began to bar themselves inside their homes, although such methods had not proven effective, and people simply dropped dead in the street, he carried on as if life all around him was the same. The library was a good place to be, quiet and without the panic that struck the streets. He could walk in and peruse the collection, leaf through the newest literary works, some more base fiction or an academic journal; whatever the case, he would leave with several of his favourites tucked into his rucksack. At least there was never a queue for the self-checkout terminals now. In fact there were very few staff left. One was asleep, so few customers were there in the library.

He went up to her and bent to get a good look at her face. Not asleep then. A shame, this one had never tried to strike up conversation with him, thus not ruining the best aspect of a library: silence.

Present Day

In the past months, Julius had come to appreciate the presence of light. He imagined it was somewhat like homo sapiens and their forebears before civilisation introduced itself; light gave hope of a successful hunt and the night predators would sink away letting the people roam the land. Of course, his appreciation was nothing quite so base. For Julius it was the ability to immerse himself in more knowledge. Once he had assessed the impact the epidemic was clearly going to have, or by that point already had, he had decided that the best place to make his temporary home was, in fact, the library.

He had theorised that there would be a brief period when humanity regressed to being nomads; split apart by distance from most anyone they knew and untrusting of those they came across in this new world. Of course, Julius judged suspicion and erring on the side of caution to be the most intelligent attitude to have as vulture groups had formed. He had watched from the library as individuals and smaller groups had been absorbed, or eradicated, by others who had often armed themselves. Sympathising for the defeated, Julius took comfort in the fact that such short-termism would eventually force the vultures to destroy themselves with the absence of sufficient prey and then they would become the prey of those who had followed more civilised, modern methods of cooperation.

A few groups had ventured to the library but each time he had made himself scarce, always careful to spread signs of habitation around in a manner which might indicate the passing of humans rather than the residence of them. So far he had been successful and no one had stayed for long, most often taking small victuals for themselves. No matter; there were plenty of resources to be found in the nearby area and he had hidden a decent reserve in the medicinal journals section.

Until recently he had judged it unsafe to attempt contact with others until the radio which he had maintained carefully had suddenly sparked into life with a intermittently clear message. Through the static he had made out that a group, which seemed peaceful, had formed itself and he had managed to work out the location from repetitions of the message. Before he met them, however, he would need to gather some supplies and the Mall was the best place to do so.

If the human race was being reduced to near-Neanderthals then it would be best to come bearing gifts. If they were friendly then his standing would be given a boost. If they were not then he might not get riddled with bullets. Win-win.

Ames woke up in a sense of confusion. His surroundings were...different. He could sense it, even in the darkness of his room. As he stood and whipped the curtains back from the window, he realised why.

Shit...I'm not downtown no more.

The apartment was a lot more spacious than his old hovel a few streets down. Looking back, he was grateful that Annette had let him in. His previous home was cramp, decrepit and on the verge of falling apart from mold and rot. That was during the first weeks of the outbreak. He'd been forced to leave after a section of the floor had caved in on him. It'd almost been him in the dirt, dead. Yet here he was, a stroke of luck amidst the death and destruction. The weeks had been tough, transporting him back to an era which he thought he'd left behind. Eating cold food out of cans, living without heat (at least he had a bed and blanket), pissing and crapping into a bucket that he emptied down the drainpipe regularly enough to not make the place as dirty as hell, it felt just like Vietnam, only this was the middle of Canada, not some war-torn jungle out in the middle of nowhere. He'd been able to survive only because he had the sense to prepare early. When the first inklings of the viral outbreaks started in South America, he had immediately gone down to the nearby grocery store and stocked up on canned food, toiletries and water. His foresight had saved him, most of his neighbours weren't so lucky. When the bug hit Rittendale, he'd battened down the hatches (read: barricaded his door and sealed the windows) and waited it out, while all around him the rest of the apartment complex succumbed to the silent killer. When he re-emerged a few weeks later everyone was dead, even the poor widow Richardson. No one had stood a chance.

He stretched the kinks out of his back and made his way to the bathroom to clean up. Without running water, it made it a stretch, but hey at least they had water. He dressed, plainly in a plaid shirt, jeans and work boots, and went outside. It was the morning, as usual, and the rest of the Towers were waking up to go about their business. For him? His usual thing was to amble around the place, see if anyone needed any help or manual labour. It took his mind off of things, really; if he had time to walk around, it meant time to think, and time to think meant time spent going back on his memories of the outbreak, and of the war. He didn't want to dwell on the past, so distraction was key. He'd been part of the team that was working on the other tower, setting up the necessities there while keeping himself out of trouble. Occasionally he volunteered to go out on scavenging runs with the younger men and women, keep himself on his toes and such. Not much else for an old man to do anyway.

Today was no exception; as he made his way downstairs he caught wind of another scavenging run being prepared, no doubt helmed by the young Elliot and his two compatriots. Supplies were running low, as usual, and the run today would be like every other. When he approached the ground floor the crack and roar of the pickup's engine startled him -
_{bullets whizzing over his head
men screaming in pain
his men}
Ames caught himself before he lapsed into another bout. Weak in the knees, even trembling a little, it took him a good few minutes to calm himself down.

Long, deep breaths. Relax. Breathe in, count to four, breathe out, count to four.

It'd been ages since his last relapse, but ever since his doctor had prescribed him with this strange white tablet, the nightmares and episodes had significantly reduced. When the outbreak had hit, he'd been the first to stock up on that particular medicine; a traumatised soldier would break under these circumstances, but he convinced himself every day that he wouldn't. Not that easily. He still had the meds, took one every morning, and that was when he realised he'd not taken this morning's dose.

It could wait.

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and proceeded forth. Ahead, Annette was busying herself with dispatching the runners, and when he was but a few paces away the truck left. All was good and fine, and he caught snippets of conversation from all around him; other survivors, just like him, going about their daily business of living.

Suddenly

MOVE YOUR ASS PRIVATE OR I WILL MOVE IT FOR YOU WITH MY BOOT

<sub>GET DOWN KENNETH FARLEY MOVE UP ON THE RIGHT GIVE US MG COVER NOW

MAN DOWN MAN DOWN COULSON'S DOWN</sub>
Ames awoke just a minute later, broken from his stupor by one of the nearby men shaking him back to the real world. He was lying prone on the floor, shivering badly, a sheen of cold sweat on his face, body and muscles tense as imaginary gunfire whizzed over his head, artillery shells screaming down into the fake bush and setting illusory soldiers ablaze, if not tearing them to pieces first. The war was not kind, hell, no war was kind on the soldiers who fought it. He was no exception to the unspoken rule.

Dammit, I really need my meds.

He gratefully accepted the younger man's help to get back up. He'd get that dose as soon as he figured out what the hell went wrong. He knew it was gunfire; it had to be, nothing else would trigger him that badly, and as he marched right up behind Annette he caught her conversation with Ned that yes, it was gunfire, no it wasn't from the direction the runners had gone, no she had no idea what it was, everybody needed to relax and continue what they were doing.

But he knew what he was doing. After this he'd march straight back upstairs to down his pill. Then he'd go see what the hell was going on, by hook or by crook.

"Annette, ma'am, I just got down here looking for work, but suddenly I heard gunshots. What's going on?"

. . . H A N N A H | P R I T C H A R D . . .

With the window rolled down, the truck engine growling as loud as it could, the wind tousling what strands of her blonde hair were long enough to dance in the uproar – it felt nostalgic, reminiscent of earlier days when Hannah Pritchard would drive around to watch the city lights whip by in neon blurs and the many strangers living lives she would never know about. Down every street there would have been the thumping beat of far-off music, the mechanical squeal of streetcars and the hundreds of voices all tangled into one sure-fire sign humanity was alive and well. She could stand at a busy intersection and smell the many different perfumes and colognes and natural odors wafting into one overpowering scent; she would feel their body heat and shoulders brush into her as nameless faces walked by. On a good day, she would flash a kind smile to someone she never met before and see it in the way their own mouth twitched upward – that mutual understanding that no harm came from acknowledging another and letting them know, in even a very minimal way, that it was okay to care for one another.

“Oh, a Blockbuster,” Charles sighed from the backseat of the truck. Glancing at him through the rearview mirror, Hannah watched Charles look back longingly at the abandoned movie rental store. One of his hands was hanging out of the window, and he gracefully moved it up and down like a dolphin swimming through the water. “We should go, get something good. Bring some cheap, fruity wine. Girl’s night in my apartment,” Charles added monotonously, in his deep, grumbly voice. Hannah and Elliot laughed at the younger boy’s joke, which in turn caused Charles to grin and shrug it off.

Even if Charles Okeke was nineteen and well on his way to adulthood, Hannah still viewed him as a younger brother in need of constant supervision. Though he was more than capable of taking care of himself, Hannah watched over him more than what was required of her. After having lost everyone at once, Charles was the first person Hannah immediately came across. In some way, she knew the emotional bond she formed with him was what left her feeling responsible and protective over the boy. They had become each other’s best friend, crutch, diary and cheerleader. Hannah liked to tell herself he needed her just as much as she needed him, just to add balance to her smothering nature.

Taking a gentle left turn and intentionally ignoring the two bony leftovers of bodies slumped against the brown brick wall of a liquor store, Hannah brought the truck down a narrower road with small shops on either side. A yellowish building with a bright pink awning displayed moldy, unrecognizable heaps of things in the window that had once been freshly-baked croissants and pastries, and next to it was a pet store, the front window smashed and the innards of the store dark, unmoving. It took a lot for Hannah to think about something other than what became of the animals that had once lived there.

In the distance over a bridge with cars pushed haphazardly to either side, the multi-storey mall came into view, the massive brown structure sticking out amongst the vast emptiness of parking lots and construction sites once aiming to build condominiums on those vacant lots. As they drove by a fenced-in lot, Hannah spied a sign hanging off the chain link fence reading, “Coming Soon”. She never knew what was planned to go there, what higher-up city official had conceived. Now, no one would know, and it made Hannah frown a little. It was small reminders like that, little stabs in the heart, that made it clear all the things humanity ever said it would do may never come to fruition. Humankind may never make it to outer space, may never accomplish worldwide peace, may never find out what existed in the other 90% of the oceans. All the hard word humankind had ever put into bettering or furthering itself had either been halted or ground into fine powder to toss to the wind. It was tough to swallow, those pessimistic thoughts that all the remaining humans could do was just try to regain balance and survive. And it wasn’t as easy as Hannah thought it could have been.

“You alright?” Elliot asked in a low voice from the seat next to Hannah. They were almost at the mall by the time he spoke. The sun was beating off the roofs of what few cars were in the above-ground parking lots surrounding it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Hannah replied, forcing a soft smile she hoped could pass as something natural.

“It’ll be okay,” Elliot softly reminded her. Beneath the ragged, scraggly beard he grew, Hannah could see the yellowish-white of his teeth bared in a grin. He was a tall, thick-bodied man with a warm, friendly quality to his weathered face. He grabbed her hand resting on the steering wheel and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Hannah nodded in response and chuckled lightly at herself. The rest of the drive up the concrete ramp to the mall’s parking lot was quiet with everyone staring out the windows at whatever passed by them.

The truck came to a slow halt near the front strip of glass doors, one of which had been shattered and reduced to shards of glistening glass on the black mats inside. Hannah killed the engine and safely tucked the keys into her pocket, next to the piece of paper containing a list of medical supplies they were instructed to find. Heading to an actual hospital did not sit well with them just yet. There was something about wandering down damp, dim corridors smelling of chemicals and rot that didn’t appeal to anyone. There were far more bodies in the hospital than anywhere else, and more of a chance those medicine stashes had been ransacked first.

“While we’re here,” Charles started to say as he unbuckled his seatbelt and picked up his backpack from the seat next to him. “I’m going to find deodorant. For all of us. Some of us need it – and I won’t say who, but…” With a lifted eyebrow Charles nodded his head towards Elliot.

“Do you want your face broken? ‘Cause that’s how you get your face broken,” Elliot playfully retorted. He craned around the seat and punched Charles on the thigh, who gasped and shouted a profanity loud enough for the entire deceased neighborhood to hear.

“Okay, you guys,” Hannah chuckled, shaking her head with a smile as she opened the door and stepped outside. The other two took a few seconds longer as they exchanged friendly insults and other comments Hannah pretended she didn’t hear. Where Hannah was Charles’s older sister, ready to confide in and offer advice, Elliot was Charles’s irresponsible older brother who preferred to teach Charles how to make improvised explosives. Hannah thought it was a good thing, for Charles to have someone he could call an actual friend – someone who shared his interests pre-apocalypse, and not just someone he had no other choice but to latch onto.

With a stretch and a grumbling yawn, Hannah turned around to face Elliot and Charles just as Elliot, with an aluminum baseball bat gripped in both hands, took a batter’s stance and saw off the imaginary baseball he rocketed into the distance.

“Why do you have that?” Hannah asked with a small laugh of disbelief.

“You know… in case,” Elliot shrugged. “People we once lived with stole all our food, so who knows what someone we don’t even know will try to do, right?”

“You sound like Naz,” Hannah teased as the three began slowly walking towards the front doors. The only sounds were of their feet tapping off
the cracked pavement. Sometimes Hannah still looked to the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a plane or jet flying overhead. No one ever found out what happened to the other half of the world; the power had gone out before Europe or Asia or anywhere else could say if they were affected. She hoped they were doing well, completely untouched by the virus and already putting effort into helping. For all Hannah knew, South and Central America were already saved, and rescue efforts to bring them all back to regular society were only a few days away.

“Hey, how come we haven’t seen many other people? Like, how many people do you think actually… you know?” Charles asked.

“Probably because people see The Towers and think we’ll shoot them on sight. And the people who are brave enough, well, they live with us now,” Elliot explained.

“So then… not a lot of people survived, huh?” Charles assumed. They came up to the doors, and Elliot went first as he ducked under the jagged glass maw of the shattered door. Charles and Hannah followed him, careful to tip-toe around the shards of the door scattered around the doorway.
In the total stillness of the mall’s front entrance, Hannah pressed forward, a black flashlight held in one hand; she turned it on, and a cone of blinding light suddenly illuminated the expansive darkness ahead of her. She heard the crunch of boots pressing down on glass over her shoulder as Elliot and Charles followed, their own flashlight beams probing every shadowy corner of the wide hallway. On either side were store entrances, most with metal gates closed – or else half-closed – and debris, boxes and random trash scattered across the beige linoleum floor. Where the hallway opened up wider into a semi-large plaza with escalators leading up to the second floor, a kiosk promoting “the world’s best cookies and cakes” displayed the skeletal remains of something once considered human. The snow had somewhat preserved a majority of the bodies, making some of them still recognizable, but ever since the cold weather had dissipated, those bodies resumed decomposition. Hannah hadn’t prepared herself for it, but somehow it made it easier to look into a skull rather than a face.

“I used to come here a lot,” Elliot mumbled, though his voice ricocheted off every wall and was amplified to something unsettling loud. “They’ve got a movie theater upstairs. I had my last date there.”

“Was it nice?” Hannah asked him. They walked across the plaza and around the kiosk, cringing at the smell of mold and decay. The hall ahead curved, and according to a map placed in the very center of the plaza, there was a pharmacy down that end and up on the second floor.

“It was,” Elliot answered. He stopped to look at the mannequins displaying last year’s style in the storefront of a well-known upper-class clothing store. He shone the flashlight in their blank faces, ran the light down their bodies. “Yeah, he was pretty great, but…” He took in a sharp breath of air and let out a whistle. With his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, Elliot rocked on his feet and shrugged.

“… but then you met me and now we’re happily-ever-after,” Charles added.

“Nah, I’ve got standards,” Elliot shot back. From further down the hallway Charles let out a boisterous laugh and clapped his hands. Elliot himself chuckled and continued moving along. He made eye contact with Hannah and cast her a goofy smile to lighten the situation.

“Shall we?” he asked, indicating they continue their walk through the mall. Hannah nodded and jogged to his side, looking at the stores with him as they passed each, listening to the far-off water dripping rhythmically into a puddle and the multiple coos of pigeons nesting somewhere above. Charles was ahead of them, shining his light into the many stores he passed, occasionally stopping to peer inside as if debating whether looting yet another pair of shoes was worth it or not. He took a large step over a puddle occupied by a crushed paper cup and an abandoned purse left open to expose its untouched possessions. There was a bench near it where a bundle of blue blankets had been left in a messy heap. The potted plant next to it had long since died, reduced to nothing but the decrepit twig bent over itself, draping lifelessly onto the floor.

The hallway curved to the right, and the closer Hannah got to it, the more she saw natural light filtering in through the skylight high above and how it leaked across the floor, trying to spread into the darkest reaches of the empty mall. She skirted around a few chairs nestled around a table outside of a café and saw the escalators leading upward. There was a large, circular fountain in the very middle of the small opening.
People used to sit there and watch the streams of water shoot high into the air; or they would toss in pennies that still glinted in the sunlight at the bottom of the dried-up basin. Dust motes danced in the large rays of light, and Hannah found comfort in how easily the claustrophobia of the dark hall transitioned into airiness, big and open and silently inviting.

“The drug store’s up there,” Elliot pointed out. Charles had ran ahead, tackling the escalator with stamina and speed Hannah had not felt herself since long before the world ended. Most of the time it was a major accomplishment to simply get out of bed as gravity warred with her. Charles was something else.

Elliot and Hannah followed after their younger friend, Elliot stepping aside at the base of the escalator and slightly bowing, letting Hannah go first. With a smile and reddening cheeks she had hoped he hadn’t seen, Hannah began trekking up the powerless luxury-turned-regular staircase. There was never any romantic affection between Hannah and Elliot – she had every belief there never would be, either. Her deceased boyfriend, Marcus, was still a fresh wound constantly in the forefront of her mind anyway. But the flattery of being made to feel appreciated still put a positive spin on the otherwise bleak atmosphere Hannah found herself in.

At the very top of the escalator Hannah happened to glance to the left, and the familiar pink name printed boldly above its wide open store caught her eye – Victoria’s Secret. It had been a while since Hannah felt the comfort of a new, clean bra; wearing someone else’s she found in one of The Towers’ apartments felt wrong to her. It was a selfish thing to divert her attention toward, one that she found was degrading herself when they had more important things to attend to. Even having fresh underwear that didn’t have holes in them – unlike her current two pairs – was a guilty thought she sheepishly entertained.

“Go,” Elliot suddenly said, causing Hannah to jump a little. She felt both confused and embarrassed and failed miserably at masking either. With an amused smirk, Elliot added, “I get it, and I won’t question it. Just go, get what you need, and come find us.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” Hannah insisted.

“Women. That’s what they all say,” Elliot mumbled. The sexism in his joke wasn’t genuinely meant; he knew it bothered Hannah, and so it was one of his favorite things to joke about. He began to walk off in the direction Charles ran off to, swinging the baseball carelessly around in half-circles at his side.

“Hey, you know, the store is for girls. You’re allowed to shop there, too,” Hannah rapidly replied with, and she felt a sense of pride in how quick that comeback came to her.

“Hoho, Pritchard! Getting with the insults,” Elliot laughed. By the time he had finished that sentence he was already around and off to the other side of the escalators, and she had made her way closer to the store. At the entrance she turned on her flashlight again, unable to see anything past the first ten or-so feet. She waved the flashlight around the room, trying to spot the display that carried her size. It had been a while since she had last been measured, and with the high amount of weight she had lost, she wondered if she would still –

Her foot kicked something soft, something Hannah would have paid little attention to if only what she kicked hadn’t moved and shouted something incoherent at her. Hannah herself gasped and stepped back, swiping the flashlight downward to reveal the face of a younger boy scramble backward, and suddenly something cracked over the back of her head and the floor smacked her square in the jaw as she collapsed onto it.

And everything went quiet.

Julius Charlton

One of things that Julius most missed was the exactness of time. Of course, there were many ways to determine roughly what time of day it was but the actual time was another matter entirely. The usual sources he had come to depend on (radio, computer and internet clocks, his mobile phone set to update automatically via the mobile network) had all died along with the millions across the country. This irritated him; now it was so much more effort to keep to an appropriate schedule.

Now he perched on a windowsill, fashionably converted into a reasonably comfortable place to sit (before he had despised such places but had come to enjoy and respect its virtue, now that everyone else was gone of course) by whoever had run the library. An almanac was open on his left knee at the page depicting the sun rise and sunset times for his present town of residence. Upon his opposite knee rested his notepad, flipped to the page with his shorthand notes on various methods of measuring time from the position of the sun. He double checked his calculations until he was satisfied that the time on his watch was as accurate as possible without the appropriate apparatus, nodding with grudging satisfaction.

"It'll do." He muttered to himself. The books took mere moments to clean up, the almanac returned to its rightful place in the library while the notepad found its way into his 'essential knowledge' file. Inside were other notepads on various, potentially useful, topics such as agriculture, hunting, weapon construction all the way from a short spear to hunting rifles and many others; all neatly categorized and then organised in alphabetical order of genre. If nothing else his stay in the library had been productive and he felt equipped to rain the reward of his labours onto whichever group he deigned to join. It would be like a rain onto the desert, he told himself.

No, that would be demeaning. It's illogical to assume that a group collectively would not have the same knowledge I do. Individually, though... that's a different matter.

Satisfied he had internally corrected his false assumption, Julius carefully packed a few more essentials into the rucksack he had liberated from a camping store early on in the crisis. Water, some healthy but nutritious snack bars for a quick energy boost, a small first aid kit and a torch with spare batteries. He considered taking a map but dismissed the thought; he knew several routes to the mall and it would simply way him down. Even if he ran into undesirables the library was something of a landmark and wouldn't be hard to find his way back to unaided.

Carefully, Julius surveyed the outside streets until he was satisfied that there were no others in the immediate area before stepping out of the library. He left a door slightly ajar and dragged his 'signage' into place (a now positively skeletal corpse) to dissuade anyone from entering the library. He had reasoned that if it looked unoccupied few would bother searching such a place. The essentials were food, water and medicines and the library held next to none of these making it a thoroughly unappealing building to bother entering.

The young man admired his work, nudging a leg into a more natural position before turning his back on his refuge of several months in search of intelligent life. Amiable intelligent life, where possible.

-------------------

There were something eery about an empty mall. Normally such thoughts would not concern Julius, which was why it perturbed him that he was having them. He concluded that it was merely the fact that he associated such a place as a hub of bustling people and the sight before him jarred so heavily with his memories. With caution he approached the main entrance, noting the automatic doors, long since having lost their power, had been pushed open to allow entry.

Before continuing he retrieved his torch from the rucksack, made cautious by the clue to potential habitation. The last thing he wanted was to meet someone who had made the place into a home and get embroiled in... well, anything. He stepped into the mall and breathed in deeply through his nose, noting the aroma of freshly rotting flesh was largely absent. There were vestiges of older decay but nothing that warned him he might come across fresh corpses. Not that they bothered him but he avoided places of fresh death in case it was caused by less natural causes. Like a bullet to the head.

"Now, what do people in a post-apocalyptic world need most?" He mused, poring over a faded floor plan of the mall while attempting not to be distracted by his disgust of the patronising colouring. Why on earth did they feel the need to arbitrarily colour code maps when there was no actual legend or method - it was just to distinguish the different lots from one another even though there were clear black lines to symbol walls. His attention was drawn to a shop he recognised as pharmaceuticals vendor and assigned the route to it in his mind.

The escalators weren't on, as expected, but he had always preferred to take staircases in any case. Standing still on a moving platform with nowhere to manoeuvre in the event of, all things, slow walkers had always irritated him. That and it was an easy and convenient form of exercise that he didn't have to pay for.

Once he reached the floor above he faintly heard voices coming from his intended destination. Julius switched off his torch and walked in a cautious but deliberate manner towards the pharmacy, keeping obstacles in the way until he found a good vantage point in the doorway of a long-since ransacked jewellery store. Ducking into its darker shadows he waited to see who the voices belonged to and how likely they looked to kill on sight.