Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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"What does the news say today?"
Sam peered over her shoulder at my voice, granting me a full glimpse of her grizzled brow.
"They made a curfew so nobody gets shot just for being outside when the SWAT teams are out."
I hummed, swabbing an over-filled dish wand into my empty coffee mug. The heel of my booted ankle thickened, poky ants taking charge of the poor thing. Hey, I'd take it. Progress was progress. But I do think they wrapped it too tightly before shoving it in this thing.
"They've tried that before," I murmured as if Sam didn't already know that.
She was my sole source of news these days. And unfortunately, the newscasters had not come back to the city, so I think she got it all from this one YouTuber who refused to stop climbing fences and spying on the police.
Whoever he was, he did a great service to the citizens of Mayhop who had been quarantined and walled into the city. Yup, just like every apocalyptic movie with a giant wall and armored vehicles coming to fearfully save the masses before retreating once more.
That evacuation plan? Yeah, they'd stopped once bands of magic-wielding bikers drove by with shovels in hand. Apparently their aim was good because I couldn't believe the great United States of America's military could be quelled by mere gardening tools.
It was an excuse. I knew it was. Any adult with a single day of adulting experience knew it. But teenagers like Sam and Kirishima had gotten stuck on the base fact: we had been abandoned here. For nothing.
While I had never imagined myself living in something of a war zone, it was a strangely illuminating experience.
The government still tried to tell us what to do. Imagine that. After walling us inside during the cover of darkness and throwing scared, desperate people who'd noticed the construction back over the edges, they still tried to tell us what to do. They controlled all of the amenities, like Wi-Fi and electricity, and apparently, they'd decided we could make do with neither.
I was grateful they had yet to turn off the water.
Four months in, and we had stopped walking on eggshells. Yeah, sometimes, it was dangerous to step foot outside. Patty's followers—who called themselves Vengeancers of all things—really were engaged in some type of gang war/guerilla warfare situation with the tactical police and national guard. They really did set things on fire, and more than one unlucky person has stumbled into a trap spell with no way out.
Turns out, guns and superior military training didn't help soldiers to figure out how to pull a guy from a nest of spidery vines hellbent on consuming him. Turns out, the vines multiplied and then grew darts that contained a low-effect poison that gave people a god-awful orange rash. Seven national guardsmen had learned that the hard way, and now they didn't even bother trying to help people. As if a minor rash would kill them. Weren't they supposed to be on our side?
