Dead Horizon

Eleanor

"Wake up girl!"

     Still dizzy, the ringing in her ears got progressively worse. The hallway near the door was dark and everything was still an abstract painting to her eyes. The voices Ellie was hearing turned from a blur to a more vivid level. There were two police officers standing above her figuring out what to do with her.

"Tom, she seems to be out of it."

"I don't know, Sasha, she might be there. Let's take her on the bus and she'll probably wake up then. The only safe refuge right now is in NewBedford."

"What about in Mexico, ain't it closer?"

"No, Mexico, Guatemala, Canada and all the west are gone. It is all dust and smoke with hundreds, if not thousands of dead bodies." The man complained, waving his glove-covered hands in front of Sasha.

Eleanor heard the two cops talking and chose not to interfere. Her consciousness was at a very low level. She thought they were going to take her to her dad, but little did she know, these 'cops' were not there for that reason. They were here to see if she could survive, there was not much population left in the U.S. Ellie felt a cold mask touch her face and off she went, the two cops had carried her in the streets, running, dodging falling tree branches and tiny bombs that appeared to be deadly. Ellie did not wake up and she never did, until she was halfway to Massachusetts.

     Five hours later, The bumps in the road had startled Eleanor to the point where she woke up. Nothing was dizzy anymore, nothing was a painting anymore and everything seemed clear, at first. After three seconds of being awake and tired, she panicked. Where is dad? Where am I? Thoughts raced through Ellie's head and it continued until she got up out of her seat on the bus. She walked over to the other side of the city bus and asked a middle aged woman with dark skin and hair that was wrapped in a pretty pink bonnet about where they were going and if she knew anything else.

     "Oh, you're the little blonde girl those two cops were fussin' about. Your dad is in the back of the bus, sweet girl. And to answer your question, we're going to NewBedford, and to a nice quiet shelter to keep safe for now while the government figures out his plan. Now go sit, I'm sure in the next six hours or so the bus will arrive there." The woman had a pretty and slight country accent, it was calming to Ellie.

     Shocked, Ellie sat back down and waited six hours, worried, confused, troubled by the fact that her father was hurt. But she chose not to look out the window, and that was the best choice.