CHAPTER TWO
Amelia Littleton-Wester
Never count on anyone taking care of you. This advice came from my father, and it’s the only thing I carried with me into the Post-Ash world. That and my dancing. Ballet is something I could never give up. It’s the only thing that brings me peace. It’s the only thing that lets me feel hope—even if it’s false hope—that something in me remains human.
It also keeps me flexible. Being able to contort myself through tricky places helps me ditch the occasional pursuer.
The east wall is rubble, and there’s a hole in the roof. I come to this place so I can dance in the light without the risk of being seen. I set my pack down, shuck my coat, and take off my boots. I stretch, and oh man, does it feel good. Once I’m nice and limber, I dance. I begin with all the eagerness of someone who’s been trapped inside a hovel for the last two weeks. Five minutes after I start, I achieve a perfect jeté, leaving me feeling free and exultant. But I’m hungry and I don’t have much energy, so I go adagio: the graceful, slow stuff. I work diligently to keep my movements controlled and properly executed. There’s no such thing as a sloppy ballerina; they call those former students. I’ve been dancing since I was four, but I haven’t had a lesson in years. Before the Ash my instructors said I had a future, and I so desperately wanted to be a ballerina. Every twelve year-old girl does. Dad put his foot down and said no. A dancer’s work feeds her soul. A grown-up’s work puts food on the table. That’s when he said that thing about not relying on somebody else to take care of you.
Turned out Dad was right. My arches and turnouts never were good enough, and ballet hasn’t fed me yet. It did save my life a couple of times, like that day I got chased by taints—that’s what we call cannibals: the tainted. They chased me all the way up to the roof of a building. There was nowhere to go but down. Or over. I took a running leap, jetéed to the roof of the next building, and got clean away. Those years of practice did pay off, but they still haven’t earned me a single scrap of food.
This is one of my favorite places to dance. The hardwood floor is dinged and scratched, but its privacy suits me perfectly. I lose myself in the moment, but never so far that I’m not listening. Allowing anyone to know where I am could, and probably would, be fatal. If not from taints, then from those strange soldiers that started prowling around a couple of weeks ago. They’ve been gunning down anything they see. Not just taints—everyone. Why? But even if the soldiers hadn’t come, I’d still have to worry about other survivors who are just as hungry and desperate as I am. At any time I could be followed to my hiding place and murdered just for my stuff. I’ve removed my boots so I don’t clunk around, but I’ve got three pairs of socks separating me from the ground. If I have to bolt, at least there’s something on my feet.
Otherwise I wear nothing more than a double pair of leggings and a long-sleeve T-shirt. It’s twenty-seven degrees outside, and I’m sweating.
I dance and awareness fades. I dance, and once again I’m just a girl, not some starved leftover of a shattered world. I dance or I die.
And then I see it. I’m staring down the barrel of a rifle, and the soldier behind it looks back at me through his scope.
I don’t scream; I learned early on that screaming brings more trouble than it’s worth. My heart may pound and my legs may feel like collapsing, but I never break eye contact. Something primitive in the back of my brain tells me to run for it, but I wouldn’t even get three feet before he dropped me. This close, with a gun like that, he wouldn’t miss.
He adjusts his stance, never taking his eyes off me. I can’t tell how long we stay like this: motionless, staring, both of us seemingly undecided. I flick a glance at the gaping hole in the outer wall of the next room. What is he waiting for? If I run, will that make him decide to shoot? I suck in a breath, and slowly I straighten.
A fraction later he lifts his head slightly, and I get the impression of dark hair and a five o’clock shadow. For half a second his jaw flexes. Twin parallel lines etch between his brows as he frowns. I flinch as he adjusts his grip on his weapon, and a terrible, stinging this is it spiders through my veins. Any second I’ll be splattered across the meaningless files. The Wester name dies with me, and no one will even care. I’m wound so tight, if so much as a pebble dropped, I’d pee myself. I always knew this would come. I just didn’t think it would be today. I square my shoulders and lift my chin. I’m not ready to die, but I won’t beg either.
So when he lowers his rifle, I just stare at him. He jerks his head toward the shattered wall, and I finally get it. Faster than you can say thank you, Jesus, I grab my coat and pack and I’m off.
I’m halfway down the debris-filled sidewalk when something sharp digs into my foot. I left my boots. My boots! The adrenaline rush keeps me running. If I take the direct route, as only an idiot would do, I could be back in my hole in ten minutes. I dart from corner to corner, peering around each for any sign of movement. I study the streets, the fallen debris, the windows high above, and when all seems clear, I bolt through to the next block. Anyone could be up in those buildings watching me. Coming here during the light was more than just careless; it was stupid. I can dance perfectly well in my basement, but I had to get greedy and search out light. My heart still pounds, and my back burns like there’s a target carved in my flesh. I don’t know how long I run, but it feels like hours.
Time to me is a forgotten concept. There are no more clocks, and there isn’t enough sun to mark the passage of morning to afternoon. We have what seems like endless dark time; obviously that’s when it’s too dark to see. Eventually it grows light enough that it could be a Pre-Ash day, if there was a blizzard coming with heavy, sooty-looking clouds. Light by Ash standards; ugly for the Pre-Ash world.
My socks are soaked through, and my feet are freezing. I get tired of looking out for taints, soldiers, and other random threats, so I duck into the ruins of a convenience store. It’s picked clean, of course. Even some of the shelves are gone. I slide under the counter.
Only then do I collapse my head in my hands and let the shaking begin.
He let me go.
Whoever he is, he’s the best human friend I ever had. The only friend since the Ash began, and he’ll probably shoot me next time.
Who are these soldiers and why are they hunting us? Are they American? I’m not even sure if there is an America anymore. Probably not when you figure no one’s come to help us in the years since they bombed Charlotte. All I know is a bunch of heavily armed military types showed up a couple months ago and took over an old block of apartments. They also set up a couple dozen prefab buildings, all in just a few weeks’ time. Once the building stopped, the soldiers started shooting everyone—even non-cannibals like me.
Every so often I catch the soft crunch of footsteps. Hearing is my best sense. I can pick up a cat’s purr a block away. Well, maybe I’m not that good, but there’s not much that escapes me. I stay where I am until the fall of dark is halfway complete. Only then do I risk going home.
Home is the shattered remnants of an old church. When they bombed Charlotte, they didn’t seem to mind what they hit so long as they destroyed it. The only things they didn’t bomb were the high-rise towers. I squeeze past a narrow opening between two fallen walls, pick my way along the twists and turns in the rubble until I find the basement stairs. Most of the basement is fine, actually. No light so far inside, but I’ve grown used to that. When I first found the place, I scored some candles. They’re long since gone, of course, but I’ve replaced them with LED lights powered by copper wire, nails, and bottle caps of water—you know, homemade batteries. My home is not the open basement. It’s the wreckage in the corner. Part of the upper floor collapsed into the first floor, which dropped heavy stonework and concrete slabs all the way to the basement. I slip through another crack, and there he is waiting for me. Charlie. The only one I trust, the only one I love. I draw the black-out curtain across the crack and power a couple lights.
Charlie meows anxiously, trots past my pathetic garden of vegetables, and drops a rat at my feet.
“Good boy!” I speak softly, but immediately he begins to purr. I stroke his thick coat before I pick him up and hold him to my heart. After I drop a couple of kisses on top of his head, I set him free and plop down beside him. I divvy up the treat. The meat goes to me and everything else to Charlie. He seems to find this a fair arrangement because he keeps coming back. If he wasn’t feeding me like I was his kitten, I’d have starved a long time ago. But even with this meat and the few scraps of broccoli, squash, and kale I grow under the LEDs, it’s not enough. I’m pretty much a thousand calories from starving to death at any given time. These days there aren’t many scraps of food to be found. Every crevice has been searched, every can of tuna claimed.
I build a tiny fire. Charlie meows at the scent of roasting meat, and I worry that the smell will attract someone. As hungry as I am, though, I risk it. After the feast I dig out my diary and write about that soldier with the five o’clock shadow. He could easily have shot me. Why didn’t he? I write as tiny as I can, taking up only a quarter of the page. There will be no more tablets once this one’s filled.
Eight folded blankets make up my pallet; I lie down and pull six more over me. Nightmares invade my sleep pretty much every night, and sometimes I scream. In a world where survival depends on my ability to go unnoticed, this is not a good thing. Before Charlie settles over my chest, I gag myself with several strips of cloth I keep in the box beside my bed. This is Charlie’s cue to make bread on my tummy and offer me his butt.
There are only two places where I know there’s food. The taints have it—plenty of it. Since I don’t want to be their next meal, I’m not going anywhere near them.
The soldiers, now—their garbage is filled with food wrappers and empty cans. They have real food. It would almost be worth breaking into one of their apartments to see what I could get. It’d be no more dangerous than anything else I do. Every day I face the chance of getting eaten by the taints, shot by the soldiers, or starving to death. I’d rather die fast than little by little.
Who are they? Who sent them, and why are they killing us? It’s not for the meat. From what I’ve seen, they just leave the bodies where they lay. I clutch Charlie closer and he squirms. If things gets any worse, I’m going to have to leave Charlotte.
If things get any worse, I’ll starve.