Jason Morrow - Anywhere but Here

A tear slides down my nose and onto my pillow as I stare into the night. The moon is full and foreboding. I think not only of Lucas, but others that I have lost. My sister. My parents. Hattie.

Hattie… what would I have done without you?

I bury my face into my pillow so my cries will not be heard. I try to think of the future, but I feel like there is no future. All I can do is think about the past and those that brought me to where I am.

I never found out why there was smoke in the distance, hovering over the city like some menacing cloud that promised an imminent storm that would soon destroy us all. Perhaps it was an explosion? Maybe someone tried to set a building full of those grey people on fire? It didn’t matter. Hattie was driving us as far away from the city as possible. She tried calling her husband, Charles, but there was no answer. She stared straight ahead, her eyes wide as we moved forward, but I knew she was worried that something might have happened to her family.

I felt sick about my own family. My mom… my dad. I used Hattie’s phone to try and call my sister, but I got no answer. For a couple of minutes, we listened to the radio as she drove, but it was all the same. No one knew what was happening, and all the reports said that it seemed to be a virus that had affected people. Hattie switched it off and we rode in silence the rest of the way to her house.

I never knew that she lived almost forty-five minutes away, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I had always just assumed that she had a house somewhere within Oakridge. It was small, but comfortable. A giant oak tree in the front yard shaded most of the property, and Charles’ truck was parked in the driveway. We looked in every direction to make sure none of those grey things were lurking around before we got out.

Hattie ran toward the front porch, but before she reached it, Charles and their son came out to meet her. Both of them held a rifle in their hands.

“Are you all right?” Charles asked her, hugging her tightly. “I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour.”

“So have I,” she said, “but I haven’t been able to get through.”

“Who’s this?” Charles asked as I walk toward the porch.

“This is Waverly,” Hattie said.

Charles nodded at me and then looked at Hattie.

She shook her head. “She doesn’t have any place to go,” she whispered, though I could still hear her.

Charles nodded again and smiled at me, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It seemed like pity as he motioned for me to come toward the porch. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need to.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Let’s get inside,” he said.

I looked at Hattie’s son and did my best to smile at him, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had met him a couple of years before when he had been with his mom and she had to drop something off at our house. He was about my age, maybe a year older. He had a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. The gun he carried seemed too big for him, but he carried it like he knew how to use it.

“Have you seen one of those things in person?” he asked as we walked through the door.

“Yeah,” I said. “They are scary.” I didn’t want to talk about it, but I had to accept that this would be talked about non-stop for a long time, wouldn’t it? This was the kind of thing that would be the top new story on every station for months. They would be debating over and over. Was this a terrorist attack? Was it a virus? Would there ever be a way to fix this problem? Someone would find a fix or a cure eventually, but it would be too late for my family.

Charles locked the door behind us and stood for a moment, looking at each of us in turn. “We don’t open the door for anyone,” he said. “We keep the blinds drawn and keep the noise minimal. Nobody should be interested in our place.” He took a deep breath and looked at me. “We will be safe here tonight.”

I swallow and look at the floor, avoiding his stare. I don’t want to be around anyone, but I have no choice. To be alone is to be in danger.

I nearly jump when I hear my name.

“Waverly,” Charles said. “In case Hattie hasn’t ever told you, I’m Charles.” He motioned to his son. “And this is Lucas.”

I didn’t want to watch the news but it seemed there was nothing else to do. Hattie sat on one couch next to Charles while I sat on another with Lucas, a cushion between us. The television screen glowed with images of these grey people and I found myself having to turn away more often than not. Hattie looked at me a few times, but I just pretended not to notice. She tried to ask Charles to turn it off but he shushed her and said important information might come up.

The world was becoming chaotic and they were calling it an outbreak of a new, unknown virus. The news anchors weren’t certain how to explain it, but they interviewed all kinds of scientists to try. One of the interviews was particularly interesting in which they spoke with a professor who lived in the epicenter of this outbreak.

“We have with us Professor Jeremiah Adams, from the University of Elkhorn on the phone with us,” one of the news anchors said. “First we want to ask, are you in a safe place?”

“Yes I am,” the professor said.

“Now, from what we understand, it has been determined that this sickness, this virus, originated around the university at one of your labs, is that correct?”

“I have several high-tech labs with a lot of people using them,” the professor explained.

“Is it not true that there was a shooting at one of your labs and that many infected rats escaped more than a week ago?”

“The shooting is still under investigation, and I don’t know enough about the rats to comment,” the professor said.

“Is it not true that the officers investigating your labs were killed as a result of the virus?”

“This has been a tragic situation,” the professor explained. “The sickness has caused the death of many people already and the problem is that it is spreading. I don’t know enough about the officers, and no one has contacted me directly about it. I am here and ready to help in any way that I can.”

“Can you confirm that it is a virus?”

“I cannot, but it would seem that it is,” Professor Adams said. “I have not been able to take a look at any of the rats or people that seemed to have contracted the sickness, but I have been able to make the same observations that you have. It seems that the sickness is not airborne, but passed by saliva or blood. Once someone or something has the sickness, they seemingly die and reanimate. That’s when they desire to eat living flesh and their skin turns grey. When these greyskins see someone or something living, they attack.”

“Greyskins,” the news anchor said. “Why do you call them greyskins?”

There is a slight pause before the professor answers. “It’s a crude term to describe what they look like.”

“In your professional opinion, do you think we will find a cure for these sick people? The greyskins?”

“I fear that the greyskins are already dead,” the professor said. “But I think that one day soon we will be able to find a way to eradicate the problem. But for now, people need to gather supplies and rely on each other to stay alive. The most important thing is that you have a safe place to stay.”

I didn’t care about some scientist who was near the start of it all. The news people were just looking for some answers, someone to blame maybe. I knew there was no one to blame. Looking for answers felt meaningless. Hearing this Professor Abrams, or Adams… whichever he was… did nothing more than add to the endless questions people might have had.