Dylan looked up. “Yeah?”
“I love you,” Aletta said with a hitch in her voice. Aletta didn’t know what it was like outside. She didn’t know what would happen or why people had left and not come back.
Dylan smiled. “I know. I love you too.”
Aletta’s lips turned up in something she hoped was a reassuring smile. She was the big sister. She had to be the one who was brave and in charge. Dylan needed her.
“Let’s do this.” Aletta stepped out onto the street, cringing at the noise of her sneakers on the broken glass that littered the pavement. That was new.
The light was brighter here—even with the fog that choked the air—and she took the few moments to blink and let her eyes adjust after the gloom of inside. Aletta frowned as she looked around in shock at how much the neighborhood had changed in a little over a week.
Out of habit, she blocked her nose and breathed through her mouth to avoid the putrid stench of rotting garbage overlain with the salty ocean smell. Aletta knew better than to take a deep breath. At least their search for food coincided with low tide. The water had left seaweed draped over curbs and a line of silt and detritus in the street.
A storm drain on the corner still gurgled with seawater, and the salty fog pushed at the periphery of her vision like a warning. What was hiding in the gray?
“It’s really giving gothic vibes more than usual.” Aletta chuckled, forcing a note of levity despite how creepy it was.
Dylan’s eyes were wide as she met Aletta’s. “Where is everyone, Letty?”
Aletta wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulder and squeezed her in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Dylan only ever used her childhood nickname when she was upset or scared.
Fog drifted in from the ocean, creating swirling specters. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she glanced down the water-damaged street to their left. No one there. She glanced the other way. Nothing. She huffed. What did she think was going to be there? She was letting her imagination get the better of her.
It was one thing to be cautious, another entirely to be paranoid. It was just the hunger. It was making her overly dramatic.
But there was something eerie about a space that was usually packed with people being suddenly empty. She felt way too exposed on the street.
“Let’s go.” She grabbed Dylan’s hand, and the two women moved away from the safety of their building, their footsteps sounding louder than Aletta was comfortable with.
“Do you think there’ll be anything left?” Dylan asked, her voice a whisper and her hand gripping Aletta’s tightly.
“Sure.” Aletta forced a note of optimism into her voice. Hopefully, it didn’t sound as fake to Dylan as it did to her.
The corner store where they stopped to pick up the occasional treat—when they could afford it—was boarded up, though someone had torn the door open and it hung from onehinge. It creaked as Aletta slid past it and into the dark of the store, Dylan following her on soft feet.
Aletta didn’t like their chances of finding anything to eat here, but it was worth a try. The shelves sat bare, some even tipped over. The floors were sticky from spilled food, though even the spilled stuff looked like it had been gathered up.
Dylan shifted one of the shelves so she could get through the mess, exposing a package of dry noodles. Aletta fell on it like a bird of prey, tearing it open, and groaning as something hit her stomach for the first time in two days. “Slowly,” Dylan cautioned, passing Aletta a bottle of water she’d brought with her.
Aletta nodded. Dylan was right. They couldn't afford to throw up the few precious calories.
But a single packet of noodles wasn’t going to do much. They needed more food. And a plan.
As the day wore on, Dylan became quieter and quieter. Even Aletta’s limited optimism was worn down to nothing as first one, then another grocery store, gas station, and supermarket gave them nothing but dried beans and pasta. And without clean water, they were fucked.
Everything had gone except the fog. The fog persisted like an ever-present omen.
Then they’d seen the first dead body.
It was difficult to tell the person's age or sex, lying face down in the street. They’d obviously been dead for a few days, and the body was partially dismembered. Aletta didn’t want to consider how or why.
“Do you think that people ate—?” Dylan’s eyes were huge behind her mask, her arms wrapped around her torso.
The fog swirled around their feet as they turned away, Aletta putting herself between the dead body and Dylan.
“No. Absolutely not,” Aletta said, as she gave the corpse a wide berth and strode decisively onwards, one hand gripping Dylan’s forearm tightly as if she could drag her sister away from the shocking sight. No way would she consider that people had been responsible for whatever had happened to that person, let alone cannibalism.
Oh god. What had happened to everyone?
