Bandages

With Thomas and Brian in the other room, a flashlight in one hand and Ana's wrist in the other, I examined her wound.

Although she no longer needed to explain what had happened, she began as if already in the midst of a conversation. As she spoke I could see nothing outside of the harsh circle of light shinning down upon the three bloody grooves etched into her forearm.

"Orhan lie in bed for two days. I dare not leave his side. Sometimes he barely moved, other times, he had horrible fits of shaking. He wouldn't eat or drink, no matter how I tried to persuade. He would shake his head and say he wanted to save what was left for Thomas." Holding the flashlight for me in a less than steady hand, she exhaled gently as I began to clean her wound. It was as if her arm were as disconnected to her as it appeared under the stark beam of light.

"I sat with him often, I couldn't do much else. I must have fallen asleep during one of his quiet spells because when I woke, Orhan was grabbing my arm. I started to ask what was wrong, but something in his eyes stopped me. He was not the same man. I pulled from him but he bore down, clutching with fingers like claws. He was gripping so hard that, that one of his nails snapped free of his finger. I cried out for him to stop, please, and he opened his mouth as if to answer, but he made no sound. Suddenly, I couldn't move. If Thomas had not come to the door, I would be there now."

"Was it your son's idea to climb out the window?" I asked, wrapping her arm as best I could. Ana nodded. "We ran to Thomas' room, but Orhan followed. We were trapped."

Smart kid, I thought. Only now what do we do with you?

As if reading my mind, "I'm sorry to burden you," she said. "Thomas is all I have left. I have to keep him safe."

Taking the flashlight from her, I clicked it off.

Ana

For a few moments the four of us sat panting on the bedroom floor. Thomas had no problem crawling through the open window, but his mother, whose name turned out to Ana, had needed a great deal of help.

"We thought maybe you had evacuated," Brian finally said. "You were so quiet."

"We had no where to go," said Ana with an accent that indicated she was already a long way from home. "We heard you," she said, looking down at her shingle-scraped palms and falling into silence once more.

"Do you have any juice?" Thomas asked suddenly, eyes wide.

"Thomas!" quickly scolded his mother who, in spite of our unusual introduction, obviously still clung to a deep sense of propriety.

"It's okay," I said, putting on a smile that hopefully looked more genuine then it felt, "we could probably all use something to drink."

Downstairs in the kitchen, where the boarded windows kept the room in perpetual night, I poured a glass of water from the pitcher by the stove and offered it to the boy. "I'm sorry we don't have any juice," I said. Shrinking from the glass as if it were an angry snake, Thomas burrowed as far back into his mother's arms as he could.

"Daddy said not to drink the water," he said as if he suspected I was trying to get him in trouble. Ana also looked at me with a measure of distrust and without physically moving she drew as far away from me and my outstretched hand as the room would allow.

"We ran out of the bottled stuff pretty quick," I explained. "We tried boiling the water and it seems to be okay." I took a long sip from the glass to show them, see? Looking to his mother for approval, Thomas grabbed the glass and drained it as soon as she nodded.

"So what happened over there?" asked Brian, sitting down at the table. It wasn't exactly a question.

After a moment's hesitation, Ana told Thomas to go busy himself in the living room and slowly eased herself down into the chair across from Brian. "My husband and I came here fifteen years ago to escape the war in Bosnia. We have seen hard times before."

"Listen lady, I don't wanna hear your life's story," interrupted Brian. "I just want to know why your kid was fucking crawling around outside our window."

"Where is your husband now?" I asked, trying to calm Brian's rising tone by keeping my own voice level. When Ana didn't answer Brian exclaimed under a sigh of forced air, "Ah fuck." I knew what he meant. I knew where this was going too, but we couldn't make any decisions until we heard the whole story.

"My husband," Ana continued, her voice now as unsteady as a lost dog notice blowing free of it's tape. "A few days ago he went out to find food. We still had a little left, but soon it would be gone."

I thought of our own dwindling supplies; two cans of peaches, one can of green beans, one tin of sardines, some flour and some lousy tomato soup; and I realized that Brian was right. If we hadn’t been before, we were now in some serious trouble.

"Orahn thought there must be something left to eat at the Stop & Shop and he insisted he go there on foot. He told me he would be careful, said it would be just like hiding from the Serbs." Brian shot me a harried glance as she paused to dab at her eyes with her shirtsleeve. I urged her to go on.

"He was gone a few hours and when he returned, the front of his shirt was covered in blood. He told me he was walking back with as much food as he could carry when he was attacked by a group of men with yellow eyes." I could see her own dark eyes becoming larger in the dim light and I felt my palms begin to sweat. "Before he could get away, one of the men bit him on the shoulder," Ana continued. "Orahn dropped the food and ran. He was hurt badly but he dared not run straight home for fear the men would follow him." Ana stopped to choke back a sob and I handed her a dishtowel to catch the tears that fell from her pallid cheeks.

"He got sick, didn't he?" I offered when she seemed unable to continue. She nodded, each time dropping her head down further and further as if she no longer had the strength to lift it. She sat there limp for a while, with her chin on her chest, looking every bit like a marionette without her strings. Finally she spoke again, still not raising her head, "He got the fever and he shook all over."

"Did he attack you?" asked Brian, still firm but without some of his previous vehemence. At this Ana's head shot up and she locked his gaze with eyes that might have been pleading had they not been so filled with hate. Still, she kept her mouth shut.

With his hands palm down on the table in front of him, Brian leaned in and repeated, "Did he attack you?"

When she didn't answer he slammed his hands down on the table, startling me from my seat and blowing some of the fire from her eyes. "Fuck, lady! You obviously left for some reason, and in a big fucking hurry too. Since you came knocking on our window, I need to know if you brought any of that shit in our fucking house!"

I should have tried to stop his yelling, if for nothing else then for the frightened boy now standing in the doorway, but I didn't. "Mamma?" Thomas sounded as if he were about to cry and Ana beckoned him to her. She nestled him protectively into her lap, as she must have done a thousand times before, and my heart hurt to watch them.

"Ana," I said, "please."

Looking down again, quietly this time she said, "It's just a scratch."

Unexpected Visitors

"Hello, anyone?" called a small, choked voice from the other side of the glass. "Please, are you there?" the voice quavered, followed by another burst of urgent knocking.

A plain navy blue curtain hung between the window and the sheet of particle board, blocking our view of whoever was on the other side. Without thinking I reached out a hand that felt weighted in concrete to brush the fabric aside. Brian gripped my forearm, perhaps more firmly than he had intended, and pulled me back.

I could tell by the fevered look in his eyes that he was about to admonish me for my haste when another voice howled from somewhere even further beyond the glass, “Thomas! Thomas, please come back!”

Before I knew it I was at the window again, looking out over the particle board at our pale-faced young neighbor perched out on the shingled ledge, his small, dirty hands gripping the window frame. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him with my forehead pressed against the glass.

“Please let us in!” he cried, his wide, watery eyes like those of some poor caged animal. “We can’t go downstairs and…” he broke off with a whimper.

As I began to reassure him, Brian appeared next to me, his baseball bat now replaced with a hammer, and he began clawing the nails from the wood. “Don’t worry Thomas,” I said lamely. “Everything is going to be okay.” Deep down I knew it was a lie, but I honestly didn’t know what else to say.

While Brian worked on freeing the particle board, Thomas started crawling along the ledge back toward the other side of the house. “Wait! Where are you going?” I cried, suddenly very afraid for the boy as i watched him crawl from view.

Once the board was finally pried loose, I leaned my head outside and watched as Thomas reemerged from a window next door. He inched along with the balance and confidence of a child, followed awkwardly by his obviously terrified mother. Although the ledge is nearly three feet wide, it must have seemed much smaller to the woman crawling across it.

From behind me I heard Brian say, “I know we couldn’t have just left him out there, but we’re inviting a whole bunch of trouble here.”

“Yeah,” I said, not turning around, “I get that feeling too.”

Trouble Comes Knocking

Even before the outbreak, my roommate Brian and I had kept to ourselves. I guess we were typical city dwellers, we knew our neighbors on sight, but we didn't know a thing about them; their names, where they were from, where they worked.

Even the family that lived right on the other side of our duplex, all we knew about them was that they had a son of about seven named Thomas. The only reason why we even knew the kid's name was because from time to time we would hear his parents calling him in to dinner.

When people started dying all around us, it made it easier not knowing who they really were. Still, in the end our detachment saved us little grief.

It had been a quiet past few days in which we passed the time with books and card games and what ever else we had to stave off the insanity of cabin fever. But then we started hearing voices.

I thought I had finally gone crazy, but Brian insisted he heard them too. Someone was next door, in the other half of the house.

We strained and pressed our ears to the wall in order to make out a word, maybe two, but a shuffling, scraping noise drowned out any valuable consonants.

What sounded like two sets of footsteps pounded up the stairs. A door slammed.

"Do you think it's looters?" I asked.

"It must be," said Brian, "they don't have conversations with each other."

"Or run upstairs."

We sat and listened as a series of thuds bumped their way through the adjacent apartment and a loud scraping, like dry scales rubbing together, mingled with a few muffled cries.

"My God it sounds like they're on the roof!" I hissed. On tiptoes and barely breathing, we followed the noises into the upstairs bedroom and froze as the scraping stopped right outside the window. My limbs felt as if they were filled with sand and for a moment I dared not move.

"They must be on the ledge out there," said Brian with barely a whisper.

When we had barricaded the house, we used most of the lumber for the outer doors and the downstairs windows, securing our greatest weaknesses. The window Brian and I both stared at now was only partially covered by a piece of particle board. If that pane of glass were to break, whoever was on the other side would surly be able to crawl through.

What do we do? What do we do? spun through my head, so loud and dizzying I could barely think. I could see the words flashing behind my eyes but my mouth, gaping, made no sound.

I could feel the tension vibrating off of Brian like the hot buzzing of power lines and I knew he was just as scared as I was. At least he had the presence of mind to grab the baseball bat he kept beside his bed and raise it, waiting.

A knock on the window, light and urgent, took us both off guard.

Stay Inside

At first we hunkered down and barricaded ourselves inside, like they told us to. The TV anchors, while they were still broadcasting, and the radio stations before they went dead all repeated the same message: Stay inside and avoid anyone exhibiting symptoms. So that's what we did.

We boarded the windows to protect against looting and attacks. We kept the lights off so no errant beams of light could escape and reveal our presence. From the outside our house looked just as dead and deserted as all the rest.

After a while your eyes adjust to the dark, but your brain never really does.

We didn't go outside.

At first it was a blessing to not be able to open the windows. Every breeze brought with it the scent of destruction, decay and despair. But the air inside our little safe haven grew ever more stale and unbearable with the restless stench of sweat and desperation.

It had been weeks since we had heard a word amid the radio static and I don't know which was worse, the sounds of riots, attacks and screaming in our very streets, or the eerie calm that soon settled over the neighborhood like a stifling blanket.

Holing up at home was supposed to be only temporary, but instead of emerging from our hiding place to a reclamation of order and control, we had no choice but to venture out into a world as alien as a distant planet.

Not only had we run out of food, but our sanctuary was no longer safe.

Jennifer's story

I found this journal in an abandonded backpack lying mid-isle in a convenience store. We had stopped in for whatever supplies could be found, as it seems the previous owner had done; the pack lay open with a few canned goods and bandages tossed inside.

I can't say whether the blood pooled around it also belonged to the pack's owner, or to another unfortunate soul. I do know however I would not have left those precious goods behind unless I had no choice, or no longer had use for them.

It's sad when the sight of spilled blood ceases to bother you, when you just wipe your hands on your jeans and keep going.

I filled this pack and my own with what remained of the already picked-over items still left on the shelves and got the hell out of there.

That was yesterday, almost six weeks after the shit hit the fan.

The Way Things Were

Things will never go back to the way they were. If I keep telling myself this, maybe one day I will believe it.

Even if this whole mess were cleaned up tomorrow, it's not as if we can just wake up from this nightmare. Those of us who manage to live through it will never be the same. More importantly, if that day ever comes and there is anyone left to pick up the pieces, those who didn't make it need to be remembered. Each one of us has a story that deserves to be told.

I am the third person to carry this journal and I hope that if I don't see tomorrow, someone will find it and continue to fill it as I have. Our story must be told.

My name is Jennifer Adams, I am 26 and I have seen the end of the world.