Transmissions Echoing Away

Hope Is All We Have

By the time they had reached the boarder of California, the car had run out of fuel. The trip had been mostly silent with a few coughs and some mumbling about the destruction that had taken place. The car stuttered to a halt and Kasi sank back into the seat. She sighed. “This is as far as we go in this car. We have a choice from here. Keep walking until we collapse or die or stay along this area. I don’t know about you but I’m finding somewhere to live. Hope you all stay safe” she said, turning on her heel and walking away.

“Wait Kasi stop! At least let us show you a crappy hotel that is safe. I don’t want you getting hurt” Frank said. He had taken a liking to this girl and felt protective over her for some unknown reason. “I want to get to know you and to thank you for getting us away from there. Please?”

“Fine. I guess you’re the only people left that I know of around here. The streets are abandoned, stores are closed and my flat has been destroyed and the city reeks of burnt flesh. It’s a hell hole” she sighed. Frank held his hand out for her and she took it willingly.

“You aren’t from around here. You’re a hell of a way from home” the guy with the massive hair said.

“I could say the same about you guys. I’d recognise a New Jersey accent anywhere in the world and it will always remind me of home. I’ve been in Cali for so long my accent isn’t as strong as it used to be.”

“You’re a Jersey girl? Why are you out here then?”

“College originally. Then I met friends, got a boyfriend and got engaged and moved out here. That was about 10 years ago now” she said, keeping hold of Frank’s hand. “Why are you guys out here?”

“Got married had families and moved out here. It seemed safer than NJ anyway” Frank smiled. “Still miss home. I was meant to go and visit my parents tomorrow but apparently that won’t happen now.”

The rest of the walk was met with silence until they reached a crappy looking building. Paint peeling off the walls, moss growing up the sides and filth covering the windows. “This place looks like it already got hit by a fucking bomb!” Frank exclaimed. Kasi smiled slightly and walked up to the door, kicking it open. She coughed as dust blew into her face and she waved it away. Frank walked inside quickly and quietly, pulling his friends and her in with him. “Maybe we should all get better acquainted” Frank suggested. They nodded and sat down in the lobby area away from the windows and doors to protect themselves. “Okay so you guys know me. Kasi, this is Gerard, Mikey and Ray” he said, pointing to each of them. She smiled shyly.

“Hi. I’m Kasi it’s nice to meet you” she said, shaking each of their hands.

They sat in a circle and spoke for a while, getting to know each other and just forgetting the outside world for a while. “Hey, we should check out the rooms here. It’s only small so we should find rooms and see how many there are so we can crash here.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I’ll take upstairs and see what we have” Frank said. Gerard nodded and headed upstairs with Ray, leaving her and Mikey alone together. The silence was almost deafening. She had never been good with people and she was insanely shy. She sat chewing the inside of her lip and playing with her necklace. Mikey was doing something similar except he was playing with his wedding ring and looking at it sadly. “She might still be alive” she said gently, startling him a little.

“Maybe. I don’t count on it though. I was talking to her on the phone when it just went dead” he shrugged. She moved next to him and put her arm around his shoulders and he smiled a little at her.

“Hey guys there are only 4 rooms that are open and that actually have beds in. Told you this place was a dive. So someone is gonna have to share. I don’t mind sharing with anyone but Frank. He gets all clingy at night for some strange reason.”

“I do not!”

“Yes you do!”

“Okay calm yourselves! I’ll share with anyone I don’t mind” Kasi said, breaking the boys up from arguing. They stopped their bickering and nodded.

“You don’t have to look so tense we’re not gonna rape you or anything mad like that. We’re not evil or heartless” Ray said, she relaxed slightly at that. “So who’s sharing with who?”

“I’ll share with Kasi. I don’t mind” Mikey said. She smiled slightly at him.

“As long as you don’t mind sleeping in the same bed then because it’s a double bed” Gerard said. Kasi nodded and stood up, stretching slightly and revealing part of her tattoo.

“Can I see your tattoos?” Frank asked, pulling his jacket off and revealing his own heavily tattooed arms. She nodded and lifted her shirt slightly.

“Gothic unicorn tattoo across my stomach. I got that when my mum died she was a huge lover of unicorns and gothic stuff, musical notes behind my right ear, a 9/11 memorial tattoo on my back,” she pulled the back of shirt up, showing them the tattoo that consisted of 2 firemen, the twin towers and 2 police officers, “and on my ribs I have a death day skull” she said, pulling her shirt back down.

“Their beautiful. If you don’t mind me asking, why did you get a 9/11 tattoo?”

“My uncle, a good friend of his and some friends of mine were in the towers when they went down so I went and got this tattoo in their memory” she said sadly.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to upset you” Frank said, biting his lip. She smiled slightly.

“It’s okay. I’m going to bed I’m tired. When you guys go to bed can you try and keep the noise down? I don’t sleep very well” she asked. They nodded and said goodnight as she ascended up the stairs.

The guys stayed downstairs for a while, talking quietly. “We can’t stay here forever. What are we gonna do if they find us?”

“I don’t know but right now, we need a good nights sleep. I’ll go and see if there’s any food laying around because this place hasn’t long been deserted” Ray said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen.

“See if there anything that doesn’t have that BLI shit on it!” Frank called as he disappeared into the kitchen. Frank leaned back against the small check in desk and sighed quietly. “We can’t go home and we can’t go back to the city. We need to find somewhere because something tells me they aren’t done with the bombing yet.”

“I know what you mean. We need to go underground preferably” Gerard said. Ray came back in holding a small pile of food.

“This is all I could find” he said, putting it down in front of them. “Well all the stuff still edible anyway.”

“It’ll do. We should take as much as we can and try to make it last before we take off again tomorrow. What do we do about Kasi? We don’t know her well enough and I don’t think she’ll want to run around with us all the time.”

“We’ll talk to her about it in the morning. We should go to bed it’s getting late” Mikey said. He grabbed some food and walked upstairs quietly, walking into the bedroom and shutting the door quietly.

He smiled softly as he watched her sleep. She was curled up small under the covers and breathing gently. He put the food on the small dressing table, pulled his shoes off and climbed gently under the covers. He put his hands under his head and closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep. He opened them again when she moved next to him, resting her head on his chest and draping an arm across his stomach. He chuckled gently but didn’t move her and finally started to fall asleep. Something about that moment just felt perfect and he didn’t want to move her.