Half Lives (13 page)

There wasn’t really enough room for both of them in the car. The tiny backseat was strewn with a laptop, a brown leather briefcase and a matching overnight satchel gaping open with clothes
spilling out.

The man reached over and extracted something from his glove compartment. I didn’t even need to look; I already knew what he’d be holding. There was something about the expression on
his face and his expensive stuff that told me he wasn’t about to help us. He pointed the handgun at Tate and said calmly and clearly, ‘Get the hell away from my car.’

Tate’s face blanched. He raised his hands in surrender and backed away.

Marissa decided it was her turn. She picked one of those old tank-like sedans. Even though it had to be fifteen years old, its denim-blue paint job was pristine. As we approached the car from
behind, we spotted two heads of silvery white hair.

‘I don’t want to sneak up on them,’ she told us. She wiped her face and head on her shirt-tail and plastered on a big cheerleader smile as she stepped in front of the long
hood. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. Her face scrunched as if she might cry. She rushed back to us.

‘What is it?’ Tate asked.

Marissa couldn’t speak. She shook her head manically, half screaming and half sobbing.

‘Marissa?’ I asked, and put my arm around her shoulders.

‘It’s . . .’ she stammered. ‘It’s . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s awful.’ She curled into me and sobbed.

Tate rushed over to the car, looked in and walked back. ‘Oh, man,’ he said. ‘That’s disgusting. I bet that car must really stink.’

‘What?’ I did and didn’t want to know. ‘What?’

Marissa freed herself and clipped Tate on the back of the head. ‘How can you be so insensitive?’

‘She’s old’ was Tate’s explanation.

‘What? What?’ I asked Marissa and then Tate.

Marissa raked her sleeve across her face, smearing her perfectly outlined eyes. ‘The woman is . . . she was . . .’ She sniffed.

‘Dead,’ Tate said a little too enthusiastically. ‘Yeah, and the guy’s bawling.’

‘What?’

Tate continued, ‘She’s slumped over, and she’s got these—’

But before Tate could give me what I’m sure were the gory details, Marissa whacked him again. ‘Have some respect.’

‘The man’s got these . . .’ Tate flinched when he saw Marissa raise her arm, but it was only to wipe her face. ‘He’s sick too,’ Tate whispered to me.

‘How can you be sure?’ I asked.

‘Trust me. You can tell,’ he said.

We stood there, scanning the vehicles around us. I didn’t see people in those cars; I saw killers. No one and nothing felt safe. Someone could shoot us for staring at them. Some of these
people were already infected. That was it.

‘I’m out of here,’ I said, and found the straightest line to the roadside.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Marissa said. She raced up to me and looped her arm through mine.

‘Yeah, OK. OK. Wait up,’ Tate called. ‘I guess I’m coming too. We can check out your bunker, but I’m not saying I’m going in.’

‘Come on,’ I said, and led them towards the mountain range. One of them was my mountain and I was going to make it there or die trying. My story wasn’t going to end with my
corpse decaying by the roadside like fast-food litter chucked out of some SUV.

‘There is no such thing as a good death.’

– Just Saying 66

ATTI

A
ll the rockstars are clustered around Atti like a litter of kittens. They slept all night in this jumbled pile with their arms and legs tangled
together. Seeing those lights in the Man-Made Mountains scared them. Atti’s the oldest and a Cheerleader now. The rockstars look up to her like she does to Finch. They needed her last night,
and she liked being needed. But she has to show Finch, show all of them, that she isn’t a rockstar any more. Last night she could hear the Cheer Captain talking to the Great I AM. He asked
for guidance and strength and wisdom. Then he started all over again. He is so smart and so good, but there was something about the way he kept Saying over and over that made Atti feel shaky
inside. She heard Finch come back. He didn’t even check on her. But he’s busy and important. She knows he’s thinking of her even if he doesn’t always show it. There was this
kind of buzz all night. The rockstars kept crying. She’d stroked their dreads just like her mum used to do. Mum. Her mum. It was her mum Out There. She knows it. The Cheer Captain always
talks about signs. Atti’s never really understood it before but when those lights came on, she said to herself,
That’s my mum. She’s Out There. She’s lost and scared and
she’s signalling to me and Finch to come and help her.
Why can’t Finch read the signs like she can? When the light outside the cave changes from black to a soft grey, Atti makes up
her mind. She will go and find her mum, even if no one else will. Even if it gets her into big trouble on her first full day as a Cheerleader. That’s what Cheerleaders do. They are leaders.
That is part of the name. Part of the word that she now is. She nudges one rockstar and pokes another and they roll away. Now she’s cold. She rubs her arms and legs. Harper says she generates
her own energy. She wishes Harper could come with her but she thinks she needs to do this all by herself. Show them that she is a Cheerleader. She crawls over to the mess of clothes along the back
wall. She was supposed to wash them in the Mountain spring yesterday or the day before, but she doesn’t like to wash. It’s boring. She pulls on a few shirts and a skirt that fits.
They’re supposed to share, but she tries to wear the same things all the time. She rips the material and ties a few knots to make the clothes fit better. Her body is different from everyone
else’s, and their bodies aren’t the same shape as those of the people who first wore these clothes years ago. They all know it, but no one says. She has to roll up the waistband and
cuffs. Her feet fit the shoes and her head fits in the hats, but she doesn’t look like the people in the pictures from the Time Before. The bracelet her mum gave her slips off her wrist
because her hands are too small. She takes the silver loop from where she keeps it safe and slips it all the way up her arm until it gets stuck. She kisses the metal and tells her mum that
she’s coming. She tells the two Cheerleaders guarding the cave that she’s going to the Necessary. Lucky is waiting for her right by the Mall. She’s flicking her tail back and
forth as if she’s keeping time to her own special song. Atti gives Lucky a tickle behind the ear and a kiss on her head. She spits out the thin cat hairs that stick to the cracks in her dry
lips. ‘You can come on this adventure with me,’ she whispers to Lucky. She imagines that the Cheer Captain will tell her heroic story.
Atti and the Cat
. She likes the sound of
that. She sneaks out of Forreal with Lucky at her heels. She’s pretty good at sneaking and Lucky is too, but it’s easier because most everyone is asleep. She bets Finch has people
patrolling now, so she’d better be careful. She can’t get caught. Not until she has brought Mum back. Finch will be so surprised. He doesn’t think she’s smart and strong,
but she is. She’s a Cheerleader now. She will show them. She will probably be given her very own title – Rescue Captain or something like that. At the edge of Forreal, right at the
place where she thinks Forreal ends and everything else begins, there are these boulders that have the sacred symbol on them. Lucky leaps from one rock to another until she is sitting on the
tallest one. ‘Cheer Captain Lucky,’ Atti says, and laughs at the cat looking down at her with her big yellow eyes. The way Lucky sits with her back straight and her head held high, she
could be a leader. Atti will lead like a cat. ‘Come on, Lucky,’ she calls to her, and claps her hands. She takes off running because she’s afraid if she stops she won’t have
the courage to do what she knows, deep in her heart, that she has to do. The lights were a sign for her so this has to be right. She’s got to be brave. The Great I AM will watch over her on
her sacred mission. She needs to go! Go! Go! She hesitates when she gets to the Black River. She’s never been this far before. She’s not supposed to be here. It’s as if Lucky
knows, because she sits on the edge of the Black River and meows at Atti. Lucky’s so loud that Atti thinks someone might hear her. They can only leave the Mountain with the permission of the
Cheer Captain and he only lets a few people leave every so often to find stuff they can use. But this is a special circumstance. The Cheer Captain will understand and forgive her when she returns
with her mum. Atti races down the Black River and hopes Lucky will follow, but the cat just sits there. Atti keeps turning back to check, which makes her stagger off course. Lucky’s still
there and still there and still there, until she’s a black dot that fades into the landscape. Atti runs and runs and runs. The sun is directly over her head now. Her legs feel wobbly because
they aren’t used to all this flat. She runs by rusting hunks of metal. She zigzags from side to side, looking in these big metal containers. Finch said the rubber rings they sit on at
Storytime came off these things. He said they used to move, but she doesn’t see how. Some even have bushes growing inside them. One has a nest but she doesn’t wait around to see which
animal lives there. Being out here on her own is a bit screepy. She wishes she’d remembered to bring water and food. She should search for some of those plants May mushes up in her stews. She
races off the River and looks high and low, but everything is brown. Just brown all around. She spots a chuck and wally. She races after them. She’s caught them before, but there are too many
places to hide here. She loses chuck and then wally. She’s hungry and hot and tired. She thought it would be easy to find the Man-Made Mountains. They are right there in the middle of the
valley. She figured she could walk in a straight line. The Black River looks as if it leads there, but now she’s not so sure which way the Black River is. She walks one way for a while and
then another. The sun is mixing up her head and this flat nothingness all around her doesn’t feel real any more. Her feet keep walking. Maybe she should just go home. The sun is escaping
behind those mountains over there. ‘Mum!’ she calls. ‘Mum!’ Maybe Mum can come and find her. Atti’s getting so tired. ‘Mum!’ she screams. She’s got
to hear her. ‘Mum!’ But Mum’s not there. Atti’s lost and she’s really, really scared. She runs as fast as she can.
Just run
, she tells herself. She’s
looking up for the lights in the Man-Made Mountain but all she sees are stars. Her foot rams into something hard and she sprawls flat on her face. It’s the Black River. Maybe she’s
safe. One way leads to the Man-Made Mountains and the other to Forreal. She just needs to get up, but her body feels so heavy. She hears a low growl. She shuts her eyes tight and curls into a ball.
Maybe it can’t find her if she’s so small. She offers up her humble Saying to the Great I AM.
Whatever . . .

A
t first our pace was slow, and then I looked in the car windows. I didn’t mean to, but they were a few feet away and curiosity got the
better of me. Maybe I wanted to check for myself. It was completely illogical, but a part of me was clinging to the tiniest shred of hope that this wasn’t for real. I still wanted to believe
that terrorists hadn’t unleashed some horrible ripple that was spreading and killing quicker than the speed of a tweet.

The people in some cars looked fine, except for panicked expressions and their inability to turn their heads and look at us. They were as afraid of us as we were of them. In other cars, I saw
people with skin of a pale-greenish colour. Others had blotches and splotches that looked like the combination of a bruise and a blister. I saw one guy vomit, just spew right over the dashboard and
coat the windscreen. I gagged and then started running along the roadside. These people were dying. They were only a few feet away from me, and they looked dead already. I couldn’t wrap my
head around it. I knew it was happening, but actually seeing the effects of this deadly virus made it even more unbelievable somehow. Panic is not an intense enough word for what I was feeling.
Panic times infinity to the power of infinity. I wanted to get as far away from what was left of humanity as fast as possible. Marissa and Tate were soon keeping pace at my heels.

All doubt about what to do vanished. I channelled my fear into action and ran. I spotted a path that looked as if it might have once been used as a road. I pointed and tore off down the path.
Sweat was washing down my body and I was slip-sliding in my flip-flops. When the cars behind me blurred into the landscape, I skidded to a stop. I hunched over and panted for air. Marissa and Tate
caught up. Neither of them looked as near to collapse as I felt. This running stuff was easier for a cheer athlete and a hyper pre-teen.

‘Take it easy, Icie,’ Marissa said. She rubbed my back but her touch felt icky and contaminated. I ducked from her hand. ‘I got heat stroke one summer at cheer camp. It’s
nasty. I think we should take a second and prepare for our hike.’