Nameless

Nameless Chapter 2

Walker only wants a way out. His moms know this too, but the monsters are too close to their home to leave the Quarantine Zone.

"Walker, you're pacing again," his birth mom, Laurel Reed, who is one of the top eight journalists for ABC news, says before glancing up from her laptop. "Walker."

He stops in his tracks as he hears him name a second time. "Sorry Mom."

Walker has too much on his mind lately. Six of his friends/acquaintances have gotten sick and all of the stores have been shut down. They should have been shut down earlier, like a week earlier when the virus was less deadly and before that new mutation, but they didn't. Now they ship food to homes; the prices are astronomical. No one risks the disease though, only people who can't afford it at all to ship are allowed to pick out food from the stores. Even then they have to be safe because of the DUMBs. Walker is the only person he knows of to call the monsters that, other than those kids on the news broadcast a week ago. He shivers from thinking about it. Dangerous Unsafe Mammalian Beings.

"Hey baby, maybe go play some video games or something." Mama (Walker's other mother) offers.

"Nah. I'm sick of them."

She nods her head in agreement. "Well Walker, there's not much else for you to do. You keep saying you're bored of everything. Maybe go learn a new skill, like kung fu or surreal photography or blogging." Her voice is teasing.

Walker shakes his head and leaves them to go to his room. After making sure to lock the door, he pulls out his phone to do a quick search of the Internet. What is the average speed of a monarch butterfly? 1.98838782 mph. How long does a water buffalo live? Fifteen to twenty-five years. What is the state that gets the most flyovers by airplanes? Delaware. Can you sneeze out your eyeballs? No.

His fingers hover over the keys after a few boring searches, thinking of what on earth he wants to know next. He knows he's not supposed to go to anyone other than Mom for information, but he doesn't care.

News video of kids from the Voaeid.

Walker has only seen this video once, a week ago when they closed stores because of the new even-more-deadly mutation from the disease. That's what everyone calls it: the disease. It has a scientific name, but like Voldemort from the Harry Potter books, nobody likes to give the new threat an acknowledgement that it's here and killing them all.

Walker doesn't even have to scroll for long, because the video is the second result under...Grammarly? Of course. Just Grammarly being Grammarly.

The video is only about ten minutes long, that's how short the interview of the kids was (Walker shouldn't even be calling them kids, they're all older than him). They basically just say how scary the Voaeid was, and what had happened to them there. Most people are saying it's all just kids wanting attention, but Walker can just tell that their words are the truth.

He just knows those kinds of things. Comes with having a mom whose job is to find the truth.

Walker clicks the play button on the YouTube link, popping his earbuds in so he can hear their words without the captions or his moms hearing.

Their words always haunt him.

"They attacked us." the girl-who Walker calls Nameless because she's the only one who doesn't say her name-says. Her ferocious brown eyes lock into the camera. Walker always feels like she's looking at him, even though she isn't. "None of you know. It's all your fault."

Walker shivers. Her words almost feel like a message. They aren't though. Right?