I don't dare glimpse at the dead man who spent the night in the middle of the dirt road. I refuse to look at the blood that drained from his head, his muddied shirt, jacket, pants, or his sharp-nailed hands.
The red-headed vultures do a decent job of covering him up.
Travis McCormack curses to himself at the sight of the three large, black-feathered birds a couple yards away and tugs Emmie onward before she has a chance to comprehend what's happening. We all remain silent as we pass.
We tread along the road for a good twenty minutes before any sign of town life appears—or what used to be life. The dirt road transitions to paved asphalt and concrete sidewalks start up on both sides of it. Local shops trickle in, each of them with their doors busted open and spaces inside destroyed. All sorts of wrappers and papers scatter along the ground just as they had yesterday. People rummaged through every store they could before the virus caught up to them. Now it's a ghost town, and the only sound is our feet scuffing against the ground.
As we hike through it, Emmie and Travis crush the silence by chatting away with one another, talking about all sorts of things ranging from the changing colors of the leaves to Emmie's trips to the park with her mom. Travis responds with smiles and encouragement, but I know it's only to distract her from the surroundings. He looks too unfocused to be really listening.
As they babble away, I examine more of the wreckage surrounding us. A few cars line up on the double-laned road, all empty. Immediately, I begin to think of each car's backstory. What happened to the people inside? Did any of them survive? The more I wrack my brain, the more I wonder about Emmie and Travis's history. How have they managed to evade the virus this long?
They couldn't be immune...could they?
Common road signs signal an approaching highway, so I mention that we'll need to "exit" when it arrives. I remember spending a solid amount of time on the highways. There were far less dead, and the lack of resource availability kept survivors away, too.
"The dolly used to be my mommy's. I named her Maddie. She had red hair like hers." I turn to see Emmie pointing at my head. She's currently raving about a time when she had a tea party with her dolls. "She was my favorite. She always wore a white dress," she explains.
A Raggedy Anne doll?
I don't bother engaging in the conversation; Travis has made it clear he doesn't want me included. I'm only half-listening anyway; finding my sense of direction is enough to tune some of her words out.
Eventually, we arrive at the exit. A few abandoned vehicles are sprawled about and my body rips at itself, wishing to drive one of them, even for just a few miles. However, as we pass them down the ramp, I notice their crushed fronts and sides, leaving all of my hope to dissipate. Once we reach the bone-straight road, stretching on for miles in the distance, I swallow hard. From here on, I'll be lost with only the hope that I receive a few pointers from the highway signs as to where to go from here. A map would be useful. For now, onward we go.
A fraction of me knew when we reached the first green sign, there'd be no indication of Braxton whatsoever. I should have prepared myself for the disappointment, but I didn't, and as I repeatedly scan the list of nearby cities and the mileage it takes to get to them, I keep thinking Braxton will suddenly show up.
"What's the town called again?" Travis asks, sweat dotting his face as he stares up at the sign.
"Braxton," I reply, and veer my eyes away from his. "Let's keep going."
After another few miles down the road, Emmie starts to complain to Travis about her aching feet. It takes me back for a second, and I have to remind myself that she's just a child. She's lost her parents and has been following around a man she met only a couple weeks ago. There's no way she understands one bit of what's truly going on around her. So as much as her whiny voice gets on my nerves, it's not her fault. A five-year-old has the right to complain after walking at least six miles in this heat. I guess I should be surprised she's made it this far.
What if we—I—can't find the way back?
Suddenly, I halt and curl my nose up at a sour smell. As I check around to locate its origin, I zero in on discolored bodies lying up ahead. From here, it's difficult to know the exact number, but once we're close enough, I confirm three. Bugs infiltrate their skin, eyes, every orifice of their body as they lie on the side of the road, decaying in the grass. Travis must notice them too, because he instantly increases his volume. Despite his attempt to divert attention, nothing can deter the smell or the emotions swelling up inside me like a balloon when I discover the bodies are a family. Father, mother, daughter. Just like mine.
My breath catches and I clench my fists to contain myself. I can't look away. I...they should be buried. They don't...nobody deserves to die that way. The lump inside my throat is too large for me to gulp down. Shivers race up my spine and I pick up my speed to get by them. I can't...I just can't be near them any longer.
"W-Where is she going?" Emmie cries out, worry in her voice.
I don't look back to check her expression, but I hear her small footsteps accelerate behind me. Judging by her scream, she spotted the rotting bodies. The rotting family.
My jog slows, my body trembling so much that I lose my balance. I grab hold of a side view mirror of a car, and lean against the door for support, focusing on recapturing the breath that family took from me. Heartbreaking possibilities of my parents' fate swim inside my head as I squeeze my eyes shut.
Don't. Cry. Don't. Cry. You're stronger than this, I tell myself.
"It's okay. It's okay," Travis assures Emmie behind me. They finally meet my side and I glance up at them, tears filling my eyes. "Thanks a lot," he mumbles. "Now she's all freaked out."
I gasp at his attempt to blame me. "How dare you? Saying it's okay only makes it seem normal. This is not normal, Emmie," I clarify, my voice breaking. "It's alright if it scares you. It scares me too," I whimper.
Travis shoves my shoulder and I stumble to the side, but recover before hitting the asphalt. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he growls, and steps toward me. "Making her more terrified isn't going to help anyone! How do you expect her to toughen up, huh?" His hands move wildly in the air in front of me, and I cringe at first before I retaliate.
"Oh, so you think avoidance is the best option? Pretending the virus isn't screwing up everything around us won't solve anything!" I scream back at him.
He scoffs and narrows his bluish eyes as his body towers over mine. "You don't have the slightest clue as to what we've been through," he says quietly, pointing his index finger at me. "So you can stop acting like you have it all figured out." With that, he whips around and storms away from me, tugging Emmie along with him.
I take one last look at the corpses and press on, tears in my eyes.
"Search for a running car!" he orders, not bothering to look back at me.
Working cars are hit or miss since the outbreak. Half of the time, the old owners didn't leave their keys behind, and even more often, the unmanned traffic is so bad that there is no way to drive one if you are lucky enough to find one with keys and without dead people inside. This highway is stacked full of cars with too skinny of shoulders to drive around them, proving it pointless to find one here.
I don't mention it to him, but he doesn't carry on about it.
Another mile and I start hearing the annoying buzz of mosquitos. "Do you hear that?" I ask aloud, and jog toward the rusty railing along the edge of the road. I peer my head over and spot a small creek bubbling out of a concrete tunnel beneath us.
Travis and I exchange looks, but he's the first to speak, pessimistically of course. "There's no way it's clean."
I shrug, not exactly agreeing or disagreeing, but remove my backpack from my shoulders and fumble through its little contents. One thing my parents made sure we had in the shelter was a water filter we could use no matter where we were. It was the first item I packed before I left.
Travis's eyebrows shoot up. "Wait, what is that?" he asks, his voice heightening in pitch. "A filter?"
I nod. "Yeah. Don't you guys have these in the military?" I wonder, holding the blue tube-looking thing up and waving it in the air.
"I don't know," he says flatly.
With my attention back on the task of collecting the water, I glance around the isolated area, fenced in by trees, and shrug again. "Here goes." I hop over the rail and crunch the stones with my shoes. Without hesitation, I fill my canteen with the liquid, stick the purifier in, and sip. It doesn't taste wonderful, but it definitely beats back my raging thirst.
Emmie stares at me with wide, hungry eyes as she grasps the metal sideguard. Travis lifts her over and they both join me below. He exhibits some restraint before letting Emmie use the filter straw I drank out of, but in the end, we all take turns slurping up the liquid until we're practically bloated.
I fill up my container one last time after we've all had our fair share of water, and before we know it, we're back to walking.
A couple more miles pass and Emmie stops walking. Just stops. She shakes her head woozily like she's about to collapse, and sighs. "I can't go anymore. I'm trying, I just can't," she pants, and looks at her feet as if she's afraid of meeting Travis's eyes.
Wouldn't surprise me.
For a brief second, he glances my way like he's looking for assistance.
I steer clear of his gaze, not wanting to get caught up in their business. He'd only criticize me if I were to say something he doesn't agree with, so he's not getting my advice.
"Ugh," Travis huffs, evidently irritated. "Come here," he tells her, and I glimpse back at the two of them. Emmie crawls onto his back without another thought and Travis straightens out, determined to keep going. I don't mention out loud how much paler his face appears when he says to me, "Let's go."
Regardless of the added weight, we continue on with the same speed as before, though I'm curious as to where he's pulling his energy from. I don't have a kid or a huge gun to carry and I'm about ready to pass out. To be fair, I did offer to carry his backpack for him, but he made it clear he wasn't letting that happen.
Why he's pushing himself so hard, I don't know. I guess he just wants to get there as fast as he can. His mindset must come in handy out here.
We eventually reach another road sign. At the very bottom is Braxton, located twenty miles from this point. In a way, I'm relieved, because I never thought I'd come across any such luck of finding my way home. On the contrary, twenty miles on foot is going to kill us before we can get there.
Travis clearly sees it as an opportunity to start giving orders again about finding a vehicle. "I'll drive it in the grass, I don't give a shit. But there's no way we're getting there before dark. And I can't risk the dark with her." He nods to Emmie, who is hanging off of him like a zombie. "I'll check this side. You check over there. I'm guessing if these people were on the highway, they'd have enough gas to make it off."
I wish I still had my car. Who knows where it ended up...
On Day 1, someone ran out in front of me, so I slammed on my breaks and skidded to a halt so I didn't smash into them. Needless to say, that was their plan to steal my car and drive away with it. Dumb move on my part, but back then, I couldn't stomach the idea of killing someone, or someone being dead in the street.
Now the roads are littered with corpses. And people kill each other left and right, like it's nothing.
Travis and I split off from one another, and I trudge over to the other end, sulking as I check cars on my way. Only one has a driver inside, which scares the living crap out of me when I see it, but other cars are crushed, and some are locked, which confuses me more than anything. Who has time to lock their car if they're fleeing from it? Did people actually think they'd come back for it later?
Some things I'll never understand about human nature.
The sound of glass shattering makes me flinch and I peer over to see Travis banging his rifle against the window of a blue sedan. I watch him reach his hand in and unlock the door. He then ducks inside of it as Emmie stands and waits behind him. As I make my way over, he pops back out and waves "no" to me.
"There were some grocery bags in the back. But they have been sitting with a dead guy for three weeks," he explains, holding his arm over his nose to block the smell. I slide my shirt up over my face as I get closer.
"I'm running out of room in my backpack, so we should stuff them in yours."
Food is food, right?
Hopefully we won't need it. Still, for him to trust me to hold food for the group is a step.
As we continue along the deserted road, Travis and Emmie resume talking about things I can't engage myself in. I feel awkward next to them, like a third wheel on a date.
The sun is smack dab in the middle of the sky now and beating down on our backs. None of us have eaten anything all day, and yet Travis denies any suggestion of a break. I wish I knew how much longer we had. My stomach really wants to know. The idea of eating the chips that sat next to a rotting body still grosses me out.
Travis ends up putting Emmie on his back again and she winds up falling asleep there, which initiates the fiercely uneasy tension between him and me. Neither of us have much to say to each other. I haven't had true human communication for days, so I should be lapping this up like a thirsty dog, but everything I consider saying is far too personal for casual conversation, and Travis doesn't come off as a personal type of guy by a long shot.
Unable to withstand the eerie silence as we saunter through a car graveyard, I blurt out the only thing that comes to my head. "So...you're Travis?" My words slice the air unnaturally. Maybe I should have kept quiet.
His head shifts in my direction, surprised at me discovering his real name. After all, it's the first time I've said it out loud. He then checks his neck for his tags. "Yeah," he replies darkly, and turns his face forward again, ignoring my attempt to break the ice.
"I'm Aurora," I introduce myself, hoping he will lighten up.
He manufactures a throaty sound, something like a grunt, in response. "Well, I guess that's better than Jane Doe," he admits. "For your sake, I really hope you aren't making all of this shit up about your property."
My jaw clenches. "We will. A car would be nice, though. I don't know if we'll make it there tonight on foot."
He shakes his head. "The shoulders are too small here. I'm guessing that's why none of them drove off the road to try and get out of the traffic."
"Makes sense," I agree.
"We'll get there," he promises, and hikes Emmie further up his back.