Plagued

Awakening

     I woke up to the same lifelessness surrounding me, the trees are dead and the foliage that thrived under them have decayed. The air feels empty. I crawl out of my improvised wooden shelter to stand and review what sustenance I have left. Fireside, I ate and quenched my thirst, then gathered the fragments of my camp supplies. I know there are sanctuaries toward the West, untouched by plagued winds where life remains and continues to grow. Mental preparedness is one of the many things I've learned in this New World, the horrors that are presented before you can be terrifying. I'm reminded that those adversities don't hurt me. I'm still alive, now that cost of living is greater. 

     Hours later, I'm still making my trek to a lifeless city. The buildings were only minimally damaged, anything man-made remained barely touched while the human souls that built them have been extinguished. Any speck of life has vanished, it's like a skeleton stripped of its flesh. It remains a memorial of what it once supported, what it was once. Now, it's lifeless, complimenting the nature surrounding it. I've finally made it through the tree line, the silent city on the grim horizon. I can truly see the devastation, the many shades of brown to show the ages of decay. The city and sky act as the only splashes of contrasting color. Even though I push on, my thoughts can't go without thinking of the society I knew. My friends, wife, and daughter remain as only sparks of memory in my heart. 

     The streets are filthy, littered with the occasional crashed car and human remains. During the panic people were running for their lives from the flood-like, plagued smog encompassing the city; it flowed through the streets choking anything in its path. I hear glass crunch to my left and frantically jump to cover staring in the direction of the unsettling noise. Even tiny almost inaudible noises were startling in this world. It could be bandits, someone wanting to bash in my skull just to get another meal. Even worse, it could be the depressing sight of someone just like me trying to survive. After a few seconds, I stood back up for further investigation only to find out that the noise was created by a falling box of comic books in the bookstore nearest to me. Literature was another remnant of human and life history, some helped us recall past times, others are windows to our own created worlds; just like the one, I find myself in.

     Blocks away from the bookstore, I find a decent looking 2003, olive green Jeep it looked unused even before the devastation came. I've always had a knack for cars and vehicles of all kinds. My father, well before the apocalypse, owned a dealership; I learned a lot from him, if it wasn't for him I'd be dead right now. Inside the car was nothing but some garbage in the back seat and on the dashboard. I open up the underside of the steering wheel to hot-wire the ignition to see if there was fuel left and if there was, survival would become much more plausible. I fiddle with the wires revealed from the panel, and eventually start the car. The gas gauge slowly creeping up to tell that there was only just below a half tank left.

     I follow the clearest path in the road that leads West, I don't know exactly what I'm looking for other than actual living plants. I know I'm close now, I have to be. In this calm moment, I notice the sun setting, the range of orange it painted on the sky was refreshing; like there was hope for the world, an orange light at the end of this road of misery. Later, when the dark sky came something felt wrong. I turn to the tree line left of me then to the other, I kept looking every once in a while. There it was, weaving between the trees, the movement at the corners of my vision is not just the wind but a moving figure. A four-legged figure sprinting, following along side my car. The first bit of life I've seen in a long time and it seems to be hunting me. Though it seems, abnormal, and behaving in rabid ways. It's gaunt curved back lifted by stumbling boney legs. I pull the vehicle closer to the side of the road to better examine the creature, then... (To Be Continued)