Layne's heart was in her throat as the footsteps behind her receded. It had been a long time since she'd had a confrontation with one of the tribes. This time she'd gone to the wrong watering source. She thought that the public pool would be safe, for some reason. Although most of them were dried up, you could usually find at least a supply of sunscreen to protect you from the harsh sunlight, or if you were really lucky, there would be enough clean water left to quench your thirst and fill your bottle.
She'd been due for a refill for a while now and although it was reckless, she had been desperate enough to get herself into danger. She had a bottle of beer left from the last batch she'd brewed, but that was strong enough to dull her senses and get her into trouble. Besides, it would just dehydrate her more. She would have to remember that this area was ruled by the Jackals – the name for the small gang of people who had claimed this turf. After the virus hit and wiped out most of the population, leaving only a few lucky survivors in every city, the tribes had been a way to find peace and security amongst other people who were dealing with the same crisis. There had been safety in numbers, or so they told themselves. While many had been afraid to wander the deserted world alone, moving forward with others didn't seem that bad.
She herself had been part of a group in those first few chaotic years. Being a talented chemist, she'd aligned herself with a team of doctors claiming to seek a cure to the problem, but as it turned out most of them were frauds and civilians, delusional with a self-important mission they weren't educated enough to accomplish. Everybody was hoping for a miracle and she'd been lured in by their pretense. Ultimately, the group split due to bruising of egos and no real direction and she'd been on her own ever since then, trying to make sense of how things had gotten so far out of hand.
As a scientist, she had to trace the line of cause and effect. A pharmaceutical company had ordered vaccinations against what they claimed was an alien virus from space – which was absurd, but everybody was so desperate for answers that they accepted the explanation. Now everybody knew that the first guess had been way off, but back then that was the government's grounds for getting as many people as possible under the needle for a miraculous vaccine that they had commissioned the company, Grow Inc, to develop. In a sad, ironic twist of fate, the virus they thought came from a meteorite that had landed in St. Petersburg, had actually been the result of lax safety precautions, as a team of scientists experimented with a cure for the common cold. They'd flown the team to Russia to try and evade SFT (Safety in Future Technology) safety standards, and the end result had been disastrous.
The antivirus had been promising, and they had been convinced that by pushing the envelope, it would be successful. In initial experiments it had a 100% success ratio, though it hadn't been tested over the long term. After the meteorite crashed into the yard outside the Russian facility where the American scientists had been mentoring a group of people who were working together to rid the world of disease, that was when the results of the virus began to be seen, and how the SFT had gotten involved, claiming that the virus, because it was so difficult to contain and treat, had extraterrestrial origins.
If they had checked more closely, they would have seen that the people that they had injected with the initial strain of vaccination had become carriers of the malicious virus, infecting everybody they came into contact with without even knowing it. A few cases had been reported in America shortly after the scientists returned, and before long half of St. Petersburg was in chaos. People were coughing up blood and begging for release from a pain that nobody could pinpoint, but everybody could agree was the worst they had ever felt. It seemed to move throughout the body, inflaming certain parts for a small amount of time before retreating and coming back with double the force.
Because of the rapid spread in St. Petersburg, everybody assumed that was the origin of the virus, and the city was put under strict quarantine. Unfortunately, it was no use. It spread all over the world with startling speed. Nobody thought that the virus might be in the vaccination. Ironically, the claim was that because the first vaccination had been successful enough during the preliminary trials, it should be utilized now, in this time of crisis. The SFT felt they had no choice and allowed the vaccinations to reach the mainstream market. Every day, for weeks, hundreds of people lined up to receive their vaccine, thinking it would be the only thing that might save them.
Carriers were being created left and right, but those whose immune systems weren't as strong, or whose bodies didn't contain an immunity in their genes, were left defenseless against it. Days after the vaccination, the coughing would begin, until finally people began to catch on that it wasn't an alien virus that was killing people – it was one being spread by the vaccine.
But it was too late. Within a few years, almost everybody was gone. With the exception of a few green-tinged carriers who had made it through, a few genetically privileged people, and some who had managed to escape both the carriers and the vaccinations until the virus finally became dormant. Life as they knew it had crumbled. Layne had no family or friends left, and she had felt so lost and alone, crying on her doorstep when the small group of “scientific” people had wandered past. They saw that she lacked the green-tinge of the carriers and the paleness of the infected, and welcomed her into their group saying they were heading somewhere safe, somewhere far away from there, and they were going to find the cure. Would she help?
She didn't want to leave, but she also knew that she couldn't stay. From that point forward, her survival would depend upon her ability to move on, and that's all she needed to know.