A New World

In Which The Journey Has Long Since Begun

Hills rolled past my window graceful and calm. Nature had only been improved by the disease. The gaping wounds that humans had cut out of the sides of the forest had healed. Trees growing in silence. The trees here were similar to the one in my hometown, evergreens, persistent through any season, same as us. Ezekiel was driving now, but his shift was almost up.

After him, Ray would take over. Right now the boy in front of me was fast asleep, snoring loudly. I and Cynthia were in the back of the car and Grif were passed out in the trunk.

I could tell that he was passed due for a haircut. No doubt all of us were. In these days everyone who wanted to survive kept their hair as short as possible. Cynthia and Ray were lucky. With the texture of their hair, it certainly didn't grow as fast.

I looked out again through the window. The hills had turned to rocky cliffs scattered with trees. A railroad track next to the road. Sometimes trains still ran, but rarely. Just as I was about to wake Ray to take on the next ship something jostled the car. Grif jumped awake in the trunk, his hair plastered to one side of his face.

Cynthia looked up from her book alarmed. "Are they back?"

A vague question but we all knew who she meant. The Deformed plagued us like flies. Large and dangerous flies. Their greed had cost them their humanity, now they were practically zombies. I hugged the bundle in my arms close to my chest hoping against hope that I wouldn't have to deal with another one of them. Luckily there was nothing clinging on to the back of the van. I let out a breath. We must have gone over a piece of trash or a crack in the crumbling road.

"Zeke, pull over, you need to rest and it's Rays turn to drive," I said to Ezekiel.

A small cooing sound came from my arms. I looked down to see the small child resting peacefully. We had named her Iris simply on account of her startling violet eyes. I had assumed that she was asleep but now she opened her eyes wide. The brilliant color still startled me after weeks of caring for her. She grabbed a bunch of my flannel and scrunched her nose in a disgruntled look.

Grif shoved a bottle into my face. "Is she hungry? I'm hungry. Can we eat dinner? I'm tired." He must have been hyper after being in the car for so long. I think we all needed to get out and move.

"Don't bombard her, she looks grumpy" Zeke warned from the front.

Ray reached back and poked me. "Who's grumpy? Iris or Kimmy?"

I rolled my eyes."Just pull over Zeke, I think we could all rest."

Zeke made minimal effort to get off the road, it wasn't like there were that many people making road trips these days. Everyone was either too depressed or scared.

Everyone began to unload from the car but Cynthia was rooted in place. "The more stops we take, the longer it will take us to get to the park. I hope you know that means more encounters with deformed." She pushed her glasses higher on her nose in the arrogant way she always did.

Still, we continued to get out of the hot car. It wasn't healthy for kids our age to be stuck in a car for many hours on end. We could get muscle cramps and even blood clots. Paired with our diet, health problems were all too likely.

The place that we had stopped was no longer in the quiet embrace of the mountains. Through a thin cover of trees on the side of the road, a small river ran by. It was too big to be a creek but it was small enough to be well hidden to untrained eyes.

I handed Iris to Zeke who happily obliged. He unwrapped her from her blanket and perched her on his arm like a bird. It was hard not to obsess over the picture-perfect picture. Zeke's hair fell over his face curling right at the edges, but even through the hair, I could see his smiling face. Iris reached her chubby hands to grab at his face and gurgled happily. I leaned over a placed a quick kiss on his lips, even for a moment savoring everything about him.