WriterVerse

Copyright A.S. Winchester

“There was a man… God, he had to be in his fifties or sixties and he was trying to get this car started, but it wouldn’t.  Except, it wasn’t the car that had my attention.  It was those…  those things attacking the car.”

“We call them biters,” the young man nearest to her interjected politely, his words slurring around cigarette between his lips.  He was her age, maybe just past his twenties, with outgrown hair and eyes angrier than any she had ever seen.  Just by the look of him, she knew she had to watch out for him.  He came off as unpredictable and in their world, unpredictable led to death.

“Fine… the biters had my attention,” she snapped angrily.  “I’d never seen one before.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the closest thing I’d ever seen to them were the zombies in a few comics I’d stolen from the bookstore.”

“Biters aren’t dead,” he interrupted with less politeness.

“Oliver,” the man sitting across the campfire scolded immediately.  He was significantly older than them with greying hair and weathered skin.  His pale eyes offered no room for argument.  “If you’re going to ask her how she got into all this mess, you’ve got to let her finish telling her story.  Continue, Ava.”

“Thanks,” she muttered.  Before she could stop herself, she sniped, “Biters aren’t dead and I know that.  Anyway, I watched the biters break through the windows of his car like it was nothing… they dragged him out and began to eat him.  He screamed for… well, too long to be damn comfortable.  I high tailed my ass out of there, grabbed a few things from the mall, and got my ass out of town.

“Turns out, I’d missed the Sweep.  No one knew about the girl who lived inside the ceiling at the mall so the military had no clue to get me when those genetic mutations escaped Canada’s labs.  Dumb idea to try genetically modifying humans if you ask me.  Who thinks up that shit anyway?  And who actually does it?”

“Canada,” Oliver chuckled.

“Well, fuck Canada,” she retorted, making him grin wider.  “I’ve been on the run for seven years, six months, and twenty-two days.  You’re the first people I’ve come across so far.  Well… the only alive ones.”

Copyright: A.S. Winchester

“I was three months in, twelve years old, and seriously considering killing myself in order to avoid dealing with the loneliness forever when I heard a car sputter.  I’d been sitting on the swings when I heard it and just went running for it, hoping I’d find someone else… and found someone I did.

“I was eight when I was orphaned… left on the doorstep of Granny Anne’s Institute for Lost Girls.  It should’ve been the institute for abandoned girls because that’s what we were… abandoned. And it wasn’t just for girls.  That was a lie, too.  She took in as many boys as she could, too, whenever the opportunity arose.  Every kid she had offered up a crap load of money from the state for her to keep us out of the way.

“I wasn’t even there two days before the belt beatings started and I knew… I knew I wasn’t going to find a new home.  I was going to be stuck there until the money from the state on me ran out.  That’s a crappy thing for an eight year old to realize in case you didn’t know,” she grumbled, shoving strands of chestnut brown hair out of her eyes and narrowly missing her forehead with the knife she was holding.  “Anyway, I ran away so it’s whatever.

“I found this mall about two towns over… it was a hell of a hike, but worth it.  The place was huge… people everywhere all the time.  I walked in one day and never had to walk back out.  One of those chain stores… what the hell was the name… I think it was Pennies or something like that.  I can’t remember.  Had all the works, you know.  I jimmied a few of the tiles in the ceiling and made myself a little spot up there... would take a few small things here or there when I needed them.  No one was the wiser on it.  I knew all the schedules of the security guards, knew the mall hours… went in just before closing, came out during the busiest time in the morning.  No one ever caught me,” she boasted with a grin.  After a moment, she added in a softer voice, “No one ever knew I was there…

“Four days after I turned twelve, it happened.   I had this clock wired into the store’s electrical system and kept waiting for the right time to come around… listening to the sounds in the store, but there was none.  I waited for hours… the mall never closed during the day so I thought maybe my clock had messed up.  I snuck out of my spot to find absolutely no one in the store, which was weird.  It was still locked up.  The whole mall was shut down as if no one had shown up for the day.

“It kind of had me freaked out,” she admitted.  “I hadn’t left the mall in almost four years, but I left that day.  There was no one… anywhere.  The town was empty… papers in the streets, clothes everywhere, cars crashed… bullet holes.  I remember a lot of bullet holes.  The thing was, I couldn’t remember hearing anything during the night.  I mean, I slept with earplugs because I hated the sounds of the pipes and such in the ceiling, but I should’ve heard something, right?  All the chaos around me and I hadn’t heard anything.

“The first week was pretty awesome to be honest.  I went wherever I wanted, did whatever I wanted, and there was no one to stop me.  The second week was less interesting.  The third week… the third week was boring and the fourth was lonely.  I was alone.  There was no running water, no electricity… no anything.  I didn’t know how to drive and I didn’t know how to leave.

“I don’t think I wanted to leave.  The town itself was scary enough, but what if the whole world was like that?” she proposed softly.  “What if I had been completely alone?  What if there was no one else anywhere in the entire world?

Dr. Seuss inspired drafting poem!

Rest in Peace, Harper Lee. You will forever be a legend. 

Nelle Harper Lee