Kate
There’s a small convenience store on the corner. The windows are blown out and it reeks strangely of fish, but as we walk past, I spy a toppled shelf of processed muffins and coffee cakes. There’s no way I can leave the boxes behind. I haven’t seen fresh food in weeks, and even though stale chocolate chip muffins wouldn’t be my first choice, I’m starving.
I’m tearing into the box with my teeth before he can even climb through the window. I toss him a bag and rip open two and shove a handful into my mouth. My eyes water from too much but I manage to swallow it down. The jerk just stares at me, watching me cough and gag into my hands.
“You don’t eat?” I snap when I find my voice again.
He holds the bag up. “What is this?”
“Stale muffins. They taste like ass.”
His eyebrows furrow. “Ass?”
My eyes bulge, I can feel them almost pop just out of my sockets. “Forget it. Just eat.”
He watches me carefully and lifts a muffin to his lips like he’s not sure what to do. Maybe he’s just waiting to see if I’m trying to get him to eat poison. Whatever it is that he decides makes him take the tiniest nibble and spit it out immediately, “This planet should be eradicated.”
“Funny. I thought that had already happened,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Not quite yet,” he retorts, throwing the rest of the bag of muffins on the floor and climbing back out the window. My eyes linger on the bag. I’m still hungry but it truly tasted like it was dipped in gasoline before being packaged, so I follow him back outside with an empty belly.
“Do you have a name? I’m Kate,” I ask, meeting him on the sidewalk. He’s scanning the block, eyes squinting through the misty streets. The sky is heavy with clouds, blocking out the bright sun we had woken up to this morning. He ignores my question and walks back the way we had traveled last night.
“Hey, that’s the way we came last night!” I call out to him, jogging to catch up.
He grunts and keeps on walking.
I have to walk three steps for every one of his long strides. I sucked at Phys. Ed., so I’m panting embarrassingly loud and can’t form complete sentences, or words, or even sounds. Maybe a few whimpers escape. If I was the human that represented the rest of the species to this guy, no wonder he’s not afraid of us. I pretty much suck.
In the daytime, the world looks forgotten. Some old ruin from long ago. My chest aches to see my city like this. Once-tall buildings that blocked out the sun eroded to dust and crumbled before my eyes. The island looks leveled; nothing left stands tall. A fog of thick dust cloaks the streets. It doesn’t billow or move with the wind; it stands dense and static, stinging your eyes, your throat, your lungs.
“This is shit,” I say, waving my hand out in front of us, pausing to catch my breath. “Tomorrow, whoever is left here will wake up with cancer.” I pull my pack from off my back and open it. Rummaging through, I quickly find an old button-down shirt and tie it around my neck. I pull it tight up over my mouth and breathe in through the material. What I really need is a gas mask or a HAZMAT suit.And I don’t know where I could get anything like that.
I’d give just about anything to be able to Google something again. I dig my cell phone out of my vest pocket and stare down at the useless thing.God, I miss the Internet. We weren’t even able to make emergency calls when this all started—every call was a busy signal—it’s one of the worst feelings in the world having something that you didn’t realize you depended on like calling 911 not working when you needed it the most.
I need to pull myself together. I have to find Claire.
Up ahead, I can see the idiot’s darkened form through the fog. He isn’t moving, but I can tell he’s looking up at something.
A few more steps and I see what he’s staring at, it’s them—the metalheads from the night before. Three men made of iron or steel, dangling from atop a flagpole. Their masks lay on the ground below their feet and what looks like liquid alloy drips from their fingertips. They sway from a thick rope wrapped only once around their throats, each body weighing the other one down.
A small whimper escapes my lips.Oh God.
All three of their heads are wrapped with aluminum foil so only their noses peek out, and bent forks stick out sickeningly from the hinges in their armor. I recoil back in horror and avert my eyes, refusing to look any longer. I wonder who my father thought he was when he did this. I can’t even imagine which of his personalities would be so brutal. Maybe my father is back, the soldier. The one my mother would say went to war yet never came home.
I don’t know why but the thought makes me sick. So sick I double over and wrap my hands across my stomach. My dad needs my help just as much as Claire does. But who the hell is going to help me in all this?
The alien-idiot crouches over the masks and spins one around on the pavement. It scrapes and grates against the concrete.
“Give me your knife,” he says, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Not a chance,” I say, backing up and folding my arms over my chest.He’s got to be kidding me.
He stands and spins on his heels, facing me. “I need to cut them down.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline, and I can feel the grit and dirt that’s caked on my face as it happens. “Look, I’m sorry about your friends, but—”
“—Friends?” He cocks his head and frowns in disgust. “You didseethem trying to extinguish me, right? Is that what you call friends here?”
