Kyle West - Apocalypse

“Were there people turned into them, too?”

“No. I have never seen people turn into these monsters. Is that what happened at your Bunker?”

I nodded. “Yeah. There’s apparently a new strain that targets humans, too.”

“Then this is only getting worse,” Makara said.

“The bodies exploded, sending purple slime everywhere,” I said. “That seems to be how it spreads.” I thought of Khloe, with a shudder. “Bites also seem to work.”

“Anything that’s infected gives off the slime. It can be pink, or purple. Pink for plants, and purple for animals. The explosions, though…I’d never heard of that until now. That’s very disturbing.”

“How did you escape your Bunker, then?” I asked.

“When the last helicopter took off, I wasn’t even supposed to be on it. My father ran with me in his arms across the helipad with the monsters behind us. He threw me into the helicopter just as it was lifting up. Someone onboard grabbed me. I still remember my father’s face as he fell away, as more of those things overwhelmed the tarmac. He was buried in a wave of them, his arms outstretched, screaming my name. I cried and cried, but we were already flying away.

“The journey to California was incredibly cold. We were supposed to join Bunker 114, but they didn’t have room for us. So, we were to touch down in L.A.. The plan was for the Bunker survivors to find some uninhabited corner of the city and start new. But as we got closer, the helicopter blades just…slowed down. I don’t know if we ran out of fuel or something else, but that next moment, we were spiraling toward the ground.

“We crashed. By some miracle, I survived. I was thrown out of the helicopter and landed in some grass nearby. I was knocked out, and woke the next day to find the helicopter turned on its side like some dead thing. Everyone else had died in the crash – all except me.”

“Lucky.”

“I know. My luck didn’t end there, though. My older brother had escaped in an earlier helicopter that had flown to L.A. as well. I thought he had died.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. But it doesn’t matter now, because he actually is dead now.” She gave a long sigh. “That’s another story.”

“So, what happened after the crash?”

“I escaped, with nothing more than a broken collar bone and a few bruises. I ended up staying at the crash site for a day before heading into the ruins of the city. On my way there, a patrol found me, not from another Bunker like I thought. It was the Lost Angels.”

“Lost Angels?”

“A gang. A man named Raine was their leader. He took me under his wing, and in time I forgot about my past. Soon, I was reunited with my brother, Samuel. He left the community the Bunker One survivors founded, and came to join us. A good thing he did, too. The Bunker survivors were taken and enslaved by the Black Reapers, another L.A. gang. They were our bitter rivals.” Makara sighed. “That was twelve years ago. Another life.”

“God…you must have been, what, seven or eight?”

“Seven. That’s as much as I remember, anyway. I guess I was tough, even back then.”

“Which makes you nineteen now?”

Makara nodded. “Nineteen. Nearly twenty. The point of the story is…yeah, you will cry sometimes. Life sucks, there’s no way around that. But you never know when good might come. Maybe it won't, but you shouldn’t count it out. And besides, that’s what makes us human, right? Even if it seems impossible, even when there is no point; we fight to the death, with smiles on our faces.”

I was quiet for a while. Hearing her story made me feel better, crazily enough – something I would have thought impossible just minutes ago.

"Thanks, Makara. Believe it or not, this actually helps."

“Get to bed, kid. Story time’s over.”

She lay down, and wrapped herself up. I heard her snoring almost instantly.

I didn't know how she could fall asleep so fast. Despite my exhaustion, I lay there for a while, thinking. I thought about how narrowly I had escaped Bunker 108. I didn’t know if I had it in me to survive another encounter with something infected with the xenovirus, human or not.

But at least I had Makara. Makara, who would teach me how to survive out here.

However, the more I saw of the Wasteland, the more I saw how the odds were stacked against me.

I just hoped I could find that fight within me.

Makara and I woke with the sun. After eating, we set off. It was our goal to reach Oasis by nightfall.

Any tenderness Makara showed last night was completely gone. She did not smile, and her face assumed a hard, stony expression.

“This makes me nervous,” Makara said.

“What?”

“It’s so empty. No signs of human life.”

“Isn’t that normal?”

She shrugged. “I prefer to see my enemy.”

“Do you think they’re following us?”

“I know they’re following us. Every batt we have is in that pack you’re carrying right now. Brux is not going to let that go without a fight. Count on it.”

I smiled. “I still can’t get over the fact that you guys use batteries as money.”

“They’ve been the currency of Raider Bluff for the last ten years. When you have a lot of goods going through a place, you need something to use as money, or things bog down.”

“Raider Bluff?”

“It’s the biggest city in the Mojave, on the Colorado River. Five thousand people, mostly slaves.”

“Slaves?”

“It isn’t pretty, but someone has to man the farms, or everyone starves.”

“Still…who runs this place, anyway?”

“The Alpha. I haven’t been to Bluff in a while, but last I went, the Alpha was a man named Char. I used to raid with him. He’s a good man, for what good is worth around here.”

“Why wouldn’t he be Alpha anymore?”

“Because if you’re Alpha for over a year, you’re doing pretty damn well.”

“Then why would anyone want to be Alpha?”

Makara shrugged. “Everyone thinks they’re special, that they won’t die from an assassination attempt.”

It was hard to imagine how thousands of violent Wastelanders could cooperate long enough to build a city. But I guess even raiders needed a safe place to lay their heads for a while.

I guess there was a lot of things topside I’d have to get used to. Like, the fact raiders were tracking me because I was carrying a lot of batteries in my backpack. If only Makara knew how many rechargeable batteries there were in Bunker 108, she just might turn around and try to raid it.

“We better hurry, then,” I said.

“We can only go as fast as our weakest link.”

“What? Is this slow to you?”

“We should be running, given the circumstances.”

“I can try harder, if that’s what you…”

Makara held a hand up, and ducked. I fell to the ground with her.

“What is it?” I asked.

It was quiet for a moment. A gust of wind blew over the rocky ground.

“Nothing,” Makara said. “Just a feeling.”

“You fall to the ground because of a feeling?”

Makara stared pointedly at me. “You don’t trust your gut out here, you’re dead. It’s a mistake most people only make once.”

We waited a couple minutes. At least it was a chance to catch a breather.

I looked behind and saw nothing but the flat, red expanse we had already traversed. Some low hills rose on the southern horizon, along with several mesas against the backdrop of the sky, pink in the morning light.

It truly did seem like we were the only ones alive.

“We’re not going to wait here all day, are we?” I asked.

Makara heaved an exasperated sigh. It looked like she wanted to hit me.