Andrew
I DON’T ASK QUESTIONS WHEN JAMIE TELLSme to run. I don’t want to leave him but I’m hoping he has a plan.
“Run!” he screams. I turn and bolt. The rifle goes off behind me and I look back to see blood on the lioness prowling the street. I keep running. There’s another rifle blast but I don’t look this time.
He’s still alive. He’ll be fine. I keep telling myself this as I reach a bridge a half mile down the road. I run across it, looking down at the creek that flows beneath it. At the end of the bridge I turn around. I wait there, catching my breath.
Five minutes pass. I haven’t heard a gunshot or a scream or even a roar.
“Come on, Jamie,” I say to myself. I sit down on the side the road, waiting to see Jamie come walking down the street. I picture the rifle slung over his shoulder, the smirk on his face. I imagine myself running toward him and hugging him tightly and him hugging me back.
I don’t see his smirk, though. I don’t see him at all. I stand up and pace back and forth on the road.
Maybe he’s hurt? Maybe he’s limping or the lion scratched him before he killed it and he had to clean the wound.
That option becomes less likely as the hours pass. I’m sitting at the side of the road now, my shadow getting long on the ground. Tears burn my eyes as every kind of horrible thought begins to run through my mind.
Jamie’s dead. I break into sobs. He’s dead and it’s my fault. I wanted to go to Alexandria so I could ease my guilt and now my best friend—my only friend—is dead. I killed him.
I have to go back for him, but I can’t. Not yet. I have to get to Alexandria first. If I find him dead now, I won’t be able to go on. It becomes too real; I’ve learned that now. I’ve seen the bodies of my mother and sister—it isn’t real until you see that life is gone from them. Until you see the corpse that looks nothing like the person they used to be.
I pick up my pack and turn away from the bridge. As I make my way to Alexandria, tears continue to stream down my face. I’m sobbing so hard I don’t hear the thunder until the dark clouds are right over me, and when the rain starts to fall I let my sobs grow louder. I don’t know what’s tears and what’s rain anymore and it’s better that way.
Lightning lights up the monuments as I pass by them. I cross another bridge over a larger river. I move under a tree and take out the road atlas, memorizing the roads I have to travel to get to 4322 Lieper Street. The end of the line.
As soon as I do what I have to do, I’m going back for Jamie. If I can’t find his body, if the lions have taken it, I’ll go after them. I’llshoot them until I run out of bullets or they tear open my belly with their claws. But I’ll save one bullet. Just in case.
The sky gets progressively darker as the afternoon grows late and the rain isn’t letting up. Alexandria is just as empty and dead as DC, as the rest of the world. I know the animals that escaped from the Smithsonian haven’t gotten this far because there are leathery bodies along the ground.
I stop at a house that has a front porch. Taking off my pack, I sit in a dusty chair and open one of the mystery cans of food. Stewed tomatoes. I put a forkful in my mouth and swallow without tasting it.
Then I look at the red pulp at the end of my fork and my mind immediately jumps to Jamie being ripped apart by lions. My stomach churns and, tasting the bile in my throat, I jump up and run to the edge of the porch, ready to throw up. But nothing comes. I put the can on the porch railing and sit back down, waiting for something to happen.
Anything.
I sit longer than I should. The rain begins to slow and the sun is setting somewhere behind the clouds. It’s getting dark quickly now—I’ve completely lost track of time. I have to get up if I hope to see the street signs and house numbers, but my body won’t let me move. I’m too weak. Worse than when I broke my leg.
I’m alone again. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I wipe the tears from my eyes and put my pack on my shoulders.
Lieper Street is ahead. My hand goes for my gun instinctively as I round the corner. There’s someone on the road ahead of me. It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks like a man and I can tell that he’s armed.I take my hand away from the gun. Let him shoot me or kill me if he has to. I’m ready to give up. If after all of this, trying to do the right thing, I still lose Jamie? It’s not fair.
Maybe it’s Marc Foster. The universe is just bitchy enough that it’s possible. I come all this way to tell him what happened to his parents and he shoots and kills me in the middle of the street before I can even do so. His parents’ death remains a mystery.
The rain has stopped now; my teeth are chattering. I don’t walk quietly—in fact, I make as much noise as I can walking down the street. The man turns and speaks.
“Why are you walking like an elephant?” he asks.
My heart leaps into my chest. I can’t feel anything, but I’m moving. Running as fast as I can.
The closer I get the better I recognize him. His jawline, his arms, his legs, the way his chest is out, the way he stands with his shoulders back. I run into him and I pull him into a hug so tight it might kill us both.
Jamie lets out a low “oof” and begins to laugh.
That laugh! The laugh that fills me with warmth and hope. I’m crying so hard I don’t think he can hear what I’m saying.
“I thought you were dead. I waited so long and you didn’t come and I thought you were dead.”
“I can’t breathe,” he says, but he’s laughing. His hands pat my sides and I realize I’m squeezing him around his arms. He’s also wet from the rain. I loosen my grip and step back. I can see his smile in the darkening twilight and I can’t stop myself.
