Page 23

First Friend

Alexiares

Forty-eight hours.

The outer parts of Chicago lasted a hell of a lot longer than I would have figured. Joliet was fucked from the first hour, Waukegan a day later. All of Aurora followed nearly a week after, once everyone realized there was no coming back from this. The farther out we walked, the more areas we found that had remained relatively civilized considering the conditions.

That wasn’t the truth of our situation anymore. Three people had been murdered in the night within the neighborhood we’d shacked up in. No one had heard shit. I didn’t let us stick around long enough to find answers. A lack of answers was something I had forced myself to be comfortable with these past two days. The only definitive thing I knew was that bombs had dropped, and we were all fucked.

I wrapped my shirt around my knuckles, forming a fist with my hand. It was dark out now and we needed a place to crash. The walk from Naperville to Schaumburg had almost killed us. We couldn’t run forever. We needed shelter, food, a place to rest up and come up with some sort of plan. Schaumburg was good for the short term, but this much radiation couldn’t be good for anyone. The wind had picked up, sweeping out radiation disguised as the dust of the remnants of Chicago.

“Stay out here, I’ll clear, then signal,” I ordered, lining myself up with the class window on the door.

Life had humbled us a lot recently. Just because the place looked like no one was there didn’t mean it was empty. With the windows not boarded and from what I could tell, there wasn’t any movement inside. Worst-case scenario, there was one of the undead shits lingering in a room upstairs.

Evander’s fingers clutched the grip of his gun. “I’m coming in. I’ll cover you.”

“Don’t need your help.”

Even though I hated the thought of my brother having to kill someone before everything fell apart, it was the harsh reality we faced now. At this moment in time, however, he was a liability. Evander had gone from creeping up to my height, to toggling the line of seven feet tall. Almost a foot overnight.

His other senses had sharpened too, the sound of my heartbeat keeping him up at night in close quarters. The coppery smell of blood and toxins in the air damn near drove him mad. It was the height that failed us the most. He wasn’t yet used to the new proportions of his body. His clumsiness would be of no help for whatever the hell may be inside this house. There had been no sign of me developing any new capabilities, no change in my stature or senses.

I was a ticking fucking time bomb. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if I turned into one of the zombie shits. The only thing that mattered now was getting Evander somewhere safe for when I was gone. The window shattered, and we paused, waiting for any movement inside. I stepped in, Evander taking a step inside. He closed his door behind me, gun raised and ready to fire.

“I told you to wait outside.”

“And I told you that I have your back.” He planted his feet, leaning his back against the door to hold his position in case someone tried to follow us inside.

I shook my head. Clearing this house was the first priority, arguing with him could wait.

“Fine. But stop pointing your gun in my direction.”

The downstairs was clear. I moved through it swiftly, thankful for the pile of groceries still on the counter. Whoever had lived here never had the chance to put them away. I tried not to think about who the sorry son of a bitch was. It was better that way. Easier.

Evander kept his place by the door as I edged up the steps. A creak sounded from the room down the hall. I drew my knife, not wanting the ringing of a gun to draw more attention than necessary. I crept down the hallway, pushing open the two doors on either side. A little girl’s room decked out in princess shit and what looked to be a spare room. They were clear, though I’d need to double back to check the closets and bathrooms inside.

Taking a shaky breath, I pushed the sole remaining door in. A gun cocked in my face as the man on the other side of the barrel held it with shaky hands. I knew enough from my time working under my father to say confidently that a nervous man with a gun was a man that would shoot.

The whole argument of “guns don’t hurt people, people hurt people,” had always been fucking stupid to me. The truth lay somewhere in the middle. Unstable people hurt people, and more times than not, the instability resulted in an overreaction. Nerves were lethal, the response to fear and desperation made people do anything to make sure they were the ones to survive.

I dropped the knife, the sound clanging against the wooden floor, hands going up as an indication of waving a white flag.

“Everything okay up there?” Evander called from downstairs.

The man motioned for me to answer his call, gun waving in my face. I planned on doing that, anyway. No need to drag him up the steps to get his head blown off too.

“Going fine, dropped my knife. Keep watch.”

Crouching low, I ducked off to the side, landing a firm grip on his wrist. A risky move, but the idiot didn’t even have his finger on the trigger. He was quick, dropping the gun, instead lighting his hands in flames.

A little girl peered around the corner. Tears falling down her bronze skin, not a muffle of a cry leaving her fear ridden mouth. The man’s hand flickered, and he released his grip before the flames could burn me. I shuffled for my knife, but he beat me there, a wild look in his eyes.

It slid across the floor, back out of reach. I put my fists up. For what reason? Who the fuck knows? The options before me were a bullet or fire. Fists would do me no good. Panic seized my veins at my lack of power. Recognition filled the man’s crazed stare.

Evander burst through the door at the commotion, gun raised, finger on the trigger.

“Wait,” I said, lowering my fists.

I would not let my brother take a life. Not yet. Not before he had to. Unless he had to.

The man raised his weapon again, this time moving it between Evander and me. “Late bloomer?” he asked, sweat beading along his hairline.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Language,” the man recoiled, a disgusted scowl on his face. “There’s a child on board.”

The little girl came around the corner, fingers in her mouth, fairy wings strapped to her back. She peered up at me, her tears replaced with an innocent grin.

“Do you take me for someone who enjoys the presence of a small child?”

The little girl giggled, waddling over to me with a slobbery hand. “Papi said if I get lost, the first person I should find is someone covered in marker or with crazy hair.”

“Cute.” I flinched as her cold spit slapped against my palm.

Evander lowered his weapon, the sweat beading against the tip of his nose. He wiped it with the back of his wrist, feet shifting back and forth.

“You lost?”

I studied the man, the question not one I was prepared to answer. He was around my age, his hair cropped low against his head. Brown eyes hardened as mine locked on them, waiting for an answer.

“Hard to be lost when you got nowhere to go,” I said.

Evander scowled at me. Rule #1, I’d explained, never tell anyone who we are or where we’re going. But here I was, staring at a little girl with fairy wings and a man with honest eyes. I’d learned the difference years before this. Had to if my plans to ruin my father's plans were to go off without a hitch.

“Same,” he mused.

Not shit was funny about our situation. Not even remotely. At the same time, everything was funny because in a blink of an eye, the life we’d known before this had become pointless.

Huffing a laugh, I scanned the room. “Thanks for sharing,” I mumbled.

The pair had pitched together a fort out of pink blankets, what appeared to be every pillow in the house underneath it on the floor. Picture books sat atop their makeshift palette, graham crackers and a juice box tipped over on the side.

That wasn’t what caught my attention. The stack of canned goods forming a pyramid my height in the corner is what did it. That and the dozen jugs of water in front. They must have been camped up in this room, but to have this much food and water at once … he was either extremely prepared, or not as honest as he seemed.

“You welcome,” the man said, making his way across the room. “Hungry? We have food.”

He handed me what appeared to be some sort of jerky in a plastic bag. My nostrils pulled, lips grimacing.

Putting up a hand, I pushed it away. “No thanks, we’ve seen The Walking Dead.”

“Promise it’s store bought.” He smirked, walking to place a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “The good kind.”

“Papi said I can’t watch that show with him till I’m older.” Her frizzy hair was wild around her face, the brown of her eyes the same as his.

I glanced down. “You make it a habit to talk to strangers?”

“Yes.”

Her toothless smile was wide. The sight of it triggering an emotion inside me that I’d fought to bury long before the end of the world. Hope glistened in her small little face, something I hadn’t expected to see ever again. I wondered if they’d made it through the last week unmarred, unknowing of what was left out there with the rest of humanity. The darkness that lingered around every corner.

“Well, you should stop,” I grumbled, cracking my neck.

It was the man who responded, no doubt trying to intervene before I shattered what normality remained in this child’s life. “Why?”

“Because things have changed,” I said, taking a step back to stand near my brother. “It’s not whatever the hell you thought it was when you holed yourself up in here.”

“Name’s Tiago, and this is Dahlia. See, now we aren’t strangers.”

“That’s not how that works.” I scoffed, an amused sneer replacing the neutral front I’d displayed.

He nodded toward the door in response. “Then get out.”

Evander’s hand tightened around the grip of his gun. I placed a hand out in front of him, diffusing the situation before his impulsivity put us in an unfavorable situation. While we needed what Tiago had to survive, he had his daughter to worry about. The fight would be a battle of will. I wasn’t in the mood to find out who’d come out victorious.

“Yeah, not happening.” Evander’s face reddened. I was losing control over the situation. On top of the already tiresome teenager hormones, I now had to deal with a second phase of puberty and it was kicking my ass.

“Okay then,” Tiago surmised, holstering his pistol and picking the girl up as if they were leaving a damn play date. “Settle in. We hit the road in the morning. You can either come with us, or we can hit the road and part ways. Or you can stay here and give survival your best shot. Either way, we can’t take all the food with us, so grab what you need. Leave the rest for whoever needs this place next.”

“Hit the road to where?” I asked.

If there was some place safe he knew about, I needed to know where. Maybe it would give Evander a chance. He needed security for when I was gone. And if I couldn’t make the trip, then maybe Tiago could get him there himself.

“Up north.” His voice was confident, though he didn’t grant us with an exact location. “If we hit the border, it’ll be better up there.”

“The fuck is up there?”

“With our luck,” Tiago and the little girl closed in on us, his eyes revealing the honest man beneath. “Everything we’ve been missing the last week.”

“My brother doesn’t believe in luck.” Evander laughed.

“Me neither.” Tiago grinned. “But now seems like a great time to start.”