Yonder

Chapter Two

There were a billion other things he ought to remember, but simply couldn’t. Those memories would come in time. Echo told him that he would learn eventually what had happened when the world stopped spinning and hell and pain rained down like the plagues of Egypt. Felix knew that one day he would know the truth about his parents, about Echo, and about himself. But today was not that day. And every day Echo didn’t tell him his past, he knew that that was one more guaranteed day of freedom to believe his past was whatever he wanted it to be.

            “Felix, stop drifting! Go around the back,” Echo whispered, interrupting Felix’s thoughts. “I can see them in the window. If you go through the back door, we can ambush them!”

            Felix mindlessly nodded and cocked his gun, walking around the back of the house. He found a door that was already slightly ajar, and he slowly pushed it open to prevent any creaking. After quickly examining the small farmhouse kitchen, he made his way towards the living room where he could already see the two once-men bickering with each other and by bickering meaning they were making aggressive growls back and forth. Their bodies were almost in the same condition as the dogs were. They had barnacle-like muscles on their limbs and blisters and boils all over with foam drooling from their mouths.

            Felix crept slowly and quietly upon the two of them. Their eyes were mostly swollen shut, so they couldn’t see him. He saw Echo crawling through the front door. The infected didn’t notice. As Echo and Felix neared the once-men, Echo counted down on her fingers. As soon as she put her index finger down, she and Felix lunged towards the two infected. They each took down one but Felix felt as if they were taking down a hundred. These infected were extremely powerful and Felix was knocked to the ground twice. Echo took hers down with one swift movement of her large knife through the creature’s throat. She didn’t worry about Felix because he eventually took his down. They both gasped and Echo offered up a high-five.

            “Good job, kid!” She smiled. “Go check the kitchen for food and supplies. On second thought, just supplies… don’t eat anything until I get back; I’m going to see if there’s any infected hiding upstairs.”

            “And if there are?”

            Echo shrugged. “Then I’ll handle it. We can rest here for the rest of the night. We’re probably not that far from a town. In the morning, we’ll see what we can find and if there are any survivors.” Felix sighed and they parted ways.

            Felix scrounged the kitchen and the pantry and all he found was a pair of scissors, a couple packs of batteries, a can-opener and a pantry full of what he’d only come to recently learn where what were called ‘canned goods’ and ‘unperishable food items’. When Echo came back down the stairs, he led her right to the half-eaten pantry. She was more concerned with the packs of batteries for their flashlights but she applauded Felix nonetheless.

            The two cracked open a can of stringed beans and one of Felix’s personal favorites, fruit cocktail. They booby-trapped some floorboards on the bottom floor with grenades they found in a shed next to the house, and headed upstairs to the cleanest room Echo could find.

            “I want meat, Echo,” Felix moaned playfully, but he honestly couldn’t keep his eyes off the diseased dogs just whimpering and barking outside the window.

            Echo noticed Felix was staring when she finished pulling in another bed from the room adjacent to the one they were staying in. Due to the darkness she managed to trip over almost every toy and trinket in both rooms. “I’ll put those poor guys down before we leave. They’re probably starving, and eating each other will only make it worse…”

            Felix dusted off the mattress on the new bed and laid his head down. He couldn’t remember the last time his head slept on something so soft. “We also don’t want those things escaping, right?”

            Echo nodded hopping into the other bed that was bolted to the wooden floor. “Yeah that would suck. When we go into town, keep an eye out for anymore animals that look infected… I don’t doubt the people in the town nearby got the disease; I’m just hoping it wasn’t many. If there are any survivors, we’ll find them.”

            Felix sighed, “if you say so.” And he fell asleep.

            Echo watched his eyes shut. She had no idea what lay ahead, but whatever it was, it was waiting for them. She’d managed to raise Felix for ten years without either of them getting infected, but it was only a matter of time.