The Salvation

Chapter 7

|Felicia|

Turning back towards Glade wasn't as easy as the trip away. Three days of walking and they wound up in the wreck of their destination, but returning with less food, water and energy took its toll. Felicia carried Kersti, her consistent and loud complaining taxing at her patience. The third day dawned on them. The night was long and cold, but they couldn't stop. Craig agreed to have his hands tied in front of him with some white twine, Jane was less cooperative (but Malcolm didn't offer her a choice in the end). Jane managed to complain almost as much as Kersti and Joshua.

At first it made Felicia happy to have another woman with them, but Jane's attitude and overall look made her uneasy. A simple conversation about Candice Houda's divine chocolate soufflé with Jane soon turned from Felicia explaining the only food she would choose to eat, to 'that time' Jane ate a feral dog only a week ago. The casual tone and basic facial expressions from Jane as she explained the texture of a skinny dogs flesh made Felicia uncomfortable. Even Shale seemed off around her. The woman was thinner than she should be, her bones almost sticking out and the bump on her belly was far too small for someone her far along. Jane's hair was black and knotted and she kept it parted over her left shoulder, her face covered in dirt and filth and only the sorriest excuse for clothes hanging from her lanky limbs, all ripped and just too large for her.

Craig on the other hand wasn't quite so awkward. He was nicer than Jane and more willing to participate in conversations, answer questions and offer help. Felicia was perfectly fine with letting the British native carry either of her babies, though Andrew wasn't at first. Craig also had black hair in need of a trim, and his bushy matching black beard to go with it. His face was sunken and bony, but the man was tall and well built. He stood taller than Felicia, taller than Malcolm and taller than Andrew. But he was not one to use that as an advantage, willingly binding himself for others safety. Felicia didn't see him as a threat, he'd killed his comrades because he thought killing innocent people to eat their dog was wrong. His green flannel shirt was ripped and ill fitting, his jeans dirty and torn.

The sky above shone brighter than Felicia remembered it could, yet the fighting between cloud and sun still couldn't be won. They'd found the road once more. It was cracked, dull and broken. The dark black roads gone, now left by light and faded greys with a few remaining chipped yellow lines of paint. The cracks ran like the roads on a map, and the straight edges between road and pavement were lost to rough curves and breaks. The landscape mirrored the road, in its own way it was artistic, an abstract and imperfect pattern of problems that made a larger artwork. But Felicia's only word she could use to describe the sight was sad. It was a sorry thing to see. Trees without leaves, plants remaining as only twisted roots and the ground covered in dry cracks. The only way to tell whether a building had once stood was by the rubble there now, only a select number of buildings within ten kilometres of Gateway City had been spared the destruction.

All the people that lived here... Gone. Whenever Felicia would look up at the sky, she imagined what had happened. She watched all those apocalyptic action movies, and occasionally when Andrew would play his video games she would see the wastelands. But it wasn't like that. There was always a silver lining, always some sort of surviving cities and countries... But there was nothing. When the rumbling began, when the shooting started, what had happened? Did the planes in the sky fall like Gateway's buildings? Who had survived? What remained of the old world?

When Candice Houda would sit on Felicia's lounge and chug her glasses of wine, Felicia never cared what she had to say or what gossip she had saved "just" for her. But today Felicia found herself craving to offer Candice a bottle of wine just to see her face. She was dead. So was Bobby Dickson, Nora Stevens, Nathaniel Davis and all their old neighbours. She'd never actually cared much about them, but now she did. She never even met Nora Stevens, but when Felicia recognised her body by a flipped car at the end of the street, she was sad. Felicia couldn't avoid thinking of her family and her real friends. Were they dead too?

Andrew was never a pessimist, Felicia always turned to him for a positive thought to counteract her negative ones. But these days she couldn't recognise the man she called her husband. One week in this wasteland and he'd changed. He looked the same (aside from being dirty and his untamed hair) but the way he spoke, the things he said and did... Were different. When Felicia asked if someone was dead, Andrew said yes. When Felicia asked if they would eat at night, Andrew said it was unlikely. The honesty was appreciated by Felicia, she knew he was just protecting her from disappointment, but she needed something to cling onto. False hope only came from Craig, who vowed that the day he went back to England he'd send them a post card and the first dinner they had together would be a large roast chicken.

Animals weren't scarce. Feral dogs more often than not made appearances and attacked, but they weren't smart and didn't travel in large numbers. Felicia could've sworn she seen a bird, but Andrew shrugged it off as nothing. Until the flock dropped from below the clouds. Crows, terribly thin and desperate for any meal. They didn't dare attack the humans, but Shale was victim to swooping. Andrew only laughed when two bold crows landed on the back of Shale's neck and attacked his head furiously. Shale spun his head wildly to scare the desperate crows off, Andrew simply held his leash tighter and made fun of the poor dog. But Shale won in the end, eating one of the crows and scaring the other away before it either pecked his eye out or became another afternoon snack for the German Shepard. He's eaten more than me today...