Victoria

What About Mom?

     The sky was dark. There were no stars. It'd been months since I'd seen stars. I'm not even sure I can remember what stars looked like.

     I turned around to make sure Mallory was still behind me, "C'mon, Mal. Keep up." I chided.

     "I'm coming, I'm coming." She said, picking her pace up a little bit as I slowed down a little.

     I turned my eyes back to the horizon, looking for any sign of a city in the distance.

     "Elliot?" Mallory asked.

     "Yeah?" I asked, turning around to look at her.

     "What do you think mom's doing right now?" She asked.

     "I don't know." I said, turning back around so I couldn't see her, "It's been less than three months since we've seen her. She's probably doing exactly what she would've done three months ago."

     "Like what?" She asked again.

     "I don't know. Watching TV I guess." I said.

     "How would she be watching TV right now?" Mallory questioned, "There's no way the powers on back in Indianapolis."

     "Just drop it, Mallory. Whatever mom's doing right now isn't important."

     "It's just a question." She said.

     "And I told you to drop it." I said, more forcefully than before.

     We walked in silence for a few minutes. Our feet crunched the gravel as we walked. My hands and face were the only things exposed to the cool night air, and it ever so slightly bit at the skin. My legs were exhausted, but I kept walking.

     Just over the horizon, the sun began to appear. Mallory stopped walking and began to cough. She stopped to catch her breath then began to cough again. Her coughing became more violent and seemed like it would never end.

     She eventually stopped, "Elliot," her breath was ragged as she spoke, "Can we stop for a break?"

     "Yeah, sure, Mal." I said, helping her to sit down on the side of the road, "15 minutes then we'll go."

     I sat beside Mal and took my backpack off, setting it down in front of me. I opened it, searching through it for the map that I hoped I remembered to bring. I felt the paper beneath my fingers and mentally breathed a sigh of relief. It was the most important thing in my backpack, it had all the roads we needed to follow mapped out.

     I opened it up, setting it down on the ground in front of us. In the dim sunlight, you could see the dark lines I had drawn onto the light coloured paper.

     "We're right about here." I said, pointing to just right of Atlanta on the map.

     Mal leaned over, "So we've come from here," She pointed to Orlando, then slid her finger up to Indianapolis, "And once we're done in Atlanta, we'll go back up here?"

     "Maybe. Depends on how well it goes in Atlanta."

     "And what if it doesn't go well in Atlanta?" She asked.

     "I don't know. Then we won't go back up to Indianapolis." I said, folding the map back up.

     "Where will we go?"

     "I don't know."

     "Can we go back to Orlando?"

     "No. Stop asking questions. You ask too many."

     I folded the map back up and shoved it back into my backpack. We sat in silence. I handed the water canteen to Mallory, watching carefully to make sure she didn't drink the last of our supplies.

     She took a few sips, then wiped her chin and pointed to the city, "Look, we're almost there."

     "Yeah. Only a few more hours. Maybe two or three." I checked my watch, despite the crack in it, I could still see the hands. I stood up, "That's 15 minutes. Let's keep going."

     I held out my hand, offering to help her up. Her platinum blonde hair shone in the low light, and her deep brown eyes caught mine. I took a second, realizing how small and mousy she looked as she sat on the side of the road.

     She took my hand, getting to her feet with a strained grunt. I put my backpack onto my back again and began to walk.

     Mal sighed, "Five more minutes?"

     "No." I told her, "We've got to get moving. The sun's already almost up, and we'll be much easier to see in the daylight."

     "But Elliot-"

     "No, Mallory." I said, my voice much firmer.

     Mallory kicked a rock further down the road, then kicked it again. She kept doing that as we walked until, finally she picked it up and put it in her front pocket, along with several other rocks she had been collecting.

     We both dragged our feet, exhausted as the sun rose more, making the air hotter and more humid. Mal shed her jean jacket, slinging it over her arm. Her hoodie followed the jacket, and it got slung over her other arm. She sweat through her dirty t-shirt quickly. I followed suit, taking my hoodie off and rolling up the sleeves on my long-sleeved shirt.

     The edge of the city got closer and closer, feeling less impossible to reach. I wondered what would be waiting for us in the city, if we would ever be able to talk to our mother again, and what I would do if I could.

     We soon entered the city. It was eerily quiet. Every building seemed to be abandoned. Most were covered in a few layers of dirt, and most were missing windows and doors. As we moved further into the centre of the city, the buildings looked worse, and the few people we saw looked even worse. Most of them seemed to be aimlessly searching for something, but what, I don't know. Some of them walked along, eyes glued to the ground, some of them dug through the rubble. I kept Mallory close to me, making sure none of them came too close.

     Whoever told us there was still electricity in Atlanta was right. Some of the buildings or stores that still stood had lights that flickered in the empty windows.

     "Almost there, Mal." I said as we walked down the street, lined with it's eerie, grey faces. They were the faces of the war's children. We all were.