We were driving for about an hour before we hit an old dirt road outside of the forest area, miles from the burnt down village. I took over driving about a half hour ago when the sun began to rise, give Aaron a chance to rest in the back alongside Ash. Callum was asleep on Holly, his head resting against her shoulder with his action figure firm in his grasp while her open eyes looked out the window at the passing fields of dead grass. On the horizon there was sunlight, enough that I could finally turn off the headlights and save some battery power. These roads are deader than the creatures that attacked us last night... I don't think anyone else made it out alive, we were the only ones I could see. All the other guards, all my friends, people who I treated like family... all dead. Just like the rest of the world.
I could barely make out the dirt road when we hit it, it's so overgrown with moss and dirt, tire tracks and grass, but not one other car or person to be seen. Just a seemingly endless dirt road for miles on end. Holly sat up in her seat and I became more focused after about an hour of sunlight, when the dirt road we had been travelling on all night began to come to an end amidst a main road, still deep in the countryside. I drove the hummer up the small ramp leading from the dirt path onto the smooth tarmac of the two way road, shot up by cracks that were caused by jackknifed trucks and old grenades that have blown chunks out of the roadway. Here, there were more cars, but no drivers. Trees and moss were grown inside and out of the cars. The bodies inside inhabited little bugs and rats. Any fuel that was in the cars has already been pumped, all the gaskets are wide open. I swayed the hummer slowly along the road, driving around the cars and dead bodies scattered throughout the road. For a quiet country road, it had gathered many cars and bodies throughout the years.
I saw several rotting cars I had not seen in years, police cars with rotting skeletal corpses alongside them. The blue pain with the writing "police" was withering away to white.
'This is where a police checkpoint was held' I said to Holly, us being the only two in the car awake.
Her eyes looked around the road full of cars, for a distant country road, there were high amounts of deteriorating vehicles and corpses amongst the roadway.
'What happened?' asked Holly, stroking her sons arm gently.
'People began getting impatient, so they overthrew the law... I remember seeing this on live news, not just this road, all of them. Police checkpoints were overrun by frightened people who ran over innocent men and women to get free of populated areas'
Holly shook her head as she looked at the devastated road that I tried to get free of as quickly as possible. I didn't want Callum or Ash to have to see it.
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the village, which means that yesterday was July 13th, year 2040... a Friday... Friday the 13th. Huh... ironic. The disease started over twenty years ago, may have started in someplace earlier than others, all I know is that I was sitting by my fire with the Christmas tree still up, celebrating the day after New Year's Day, sitting down watching Breaking Bad... just as it was about to reach its climax, that's when my brother called. He told me the white house had just been evacuated and that New York had been shut down... that's when shit started to go down. January 1st 2020 was the last normal day I had on this earth, I'd do anything to go back and relive it just one more time.
It wasn't long before I saw a familiar road-sign, a welcome sign reading "Welcome to Belleview Estates"... well there's a sight for sore eyes, my mom and dad's estate, the place I grew up.
I haven't seen these roads in some twenty three years or so, yet I remember them so well. The cracked pavement was there before all of this, and the homes with ivy growing on them, they were there too. Sure they are more than overgrown, but I still remember the place for how it was. There are cars scattered around the road, no doors or tires, some don't even have an engine. Show's how desperate people were when the whole thing went down. I drove straight down the street towards my parents place, stopped the hummer outside and looked at the home, untouched by the end of the world. Everything is as it was, apart from the garden, overgrown with weeds that have killed off all my mother's beautiful flora. I drove the car into the driveway, the garage door had been blown right off the hinges, gone. Yet still I parked the hummer inside the garage.
'What is this place?' asked Holly as I drove into the scavenged garage.
I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door 'Home' I replied.
Aaron took one of the bags and I took the other. Callum held his mother's hand tightly as we walked out of the garage over towards the front door. Ash followed us slowly, looking around at the real world, everything that had been hidden from her all her life.
'Well I be damned if it's still here' I said as I bent down to grip the old, ragged welcome mat and turn it over, and sure enough, mom's spare rusted key was still under the math, untouched since the day she last put it there.
I raised the key like a trophy and laughed 'People truly never check under the doormat' I say as I put it into the keyhole, and heard that ever so sweet sound of my old home's door unlocking. When I opened the door, a familiar scent hit my nose, a smell of home. Not a window was opened in twenty years, not a door touched, the home untouched by bandits and infected, it's as if the infection never happened, and I've come to visit my parents. When I look back I see Ash still outside on the porch, leaning against the white wooden barrier my father made around the porch, taking in the apocalyptic sights. I dropped the bag on the tiled hall floor as Holly and Callum entered, and then I went out to join her, also leaning on the handmade bannister, slowly decaying.
We didn't speak, both of us just looked around. Dozens of homes side by side in the estate, settled behind a once majestically front garden where the locals would be flowering plants and cutting grass. All those once fine gardens overrun by weeds and uncut grass.
To Ash, it was all new, she had never seen anything like it. But for me, it was familiar, especially with this neighbourhood. I know these roads, it's where I would play tag, soccer, basketball when I was a kid with the other boys in the neighbourhood. The roads were once my playground... now they're a feeding zone.
'See that house over there?' I asked, pointing across the street to a home that wasn't quite as lucky as mine, destroyed inside and out with all windows smashed and rooms burnt from bandits with their Molotov's in the early days.
'Yeah' replied Ash.
'That's Mr. and Mrs. Roche's home, an elderly couple high up in their seventies' as I said it, the abandoned cars and overgrown weeds on the road began to disappear and I found myself back in the playful neighbourhood with cheering children and innocent games.
'Me and my sister, when we were 10. We used run across to their home, walk right up those steps and ring the doorbell' I could still feel and hear the ringing of the bell, standing patiently by my sisters side, waiting for them to answer, looking through the distorted glass on either side of the door until we saw movement approaching.
'And then Mrs. Roche would answer the door and the smell of freshly baked cookies would tease our tonsils. "Can we have a biscuit?" we'd ask her politely, she'd simply smile and reply "of course" and invite us in with a great big welcome'
I can still smell it, the old smell of burning tobacco and age old furniture. The unique smell of Mr. Roche's cologne that I called "the old man smell".
'She brought us into the kitchen, and from the top shelf she pulled down an orange cylindrical box, crack it open and point it towards us. And us being kids, knowing we should take only one, reach in and try to be sneaky about taking two. Of course she knew, but she pretended that she didn't. We would eat the first one in her home as Mr. Roche comes in from the garage out back with a welcoming smile.
'Hello Jerry and Bríd!' he would say with such optimism.
'Hi Mr. Roche' we'd say back to him. The fresh air would breeze past our faces as he opened that back door leading to the garage. Mr. Roche would invite us into the living room, we had to walk back out into the hall to get there, a small room with a couch, an armchair and a television. Mr. Roche would sit in his old green armchair with red flora designs and light his pipe.
'Mr. Roche' I'd say.
'You don't call me that!' he laughed 'I'm your neighbour, not your teacher!'
I nodded, not realising he was saying it in a kind way, I thought he abruptly didn't want me addressing him as mister.
'Paddy' I would say, calling him by his first name 'Can you come play ball with me?'
Paddy would smile 'I need to work on my car son' he said 'Maybe some other time?' a usual statement to which my reply was always a nod. I didn't realise his age and fitness level... I didn't even know he had cancer.
The room had a nice warm feel, green painted walls with a carpet design of the same colour in contrast to the white curtains he always had pulled as he sat back in his armchair.
'We need to go Mr... Paddy'
Paddy smiled 'Go on away' he said 'Don't your mommy get scared'
Bríd and I hopped down off the couch and bid him farewell as we walked out unto the timber hallway with walls of the same textile.
'Goodbye Mrs. Roche!' we yelled to the kitchen. She was kind enough to walk us out and say goodbye at the door, waving as we left. My mother would be waiting right here on this doorstep, waving to Mrs. Roche with a smile, and when we return she would give out to us'
'Why?' asked Ash.
'Well' I said, looking across the street to the home I once visited so much, primarily for the sweet taste of biscuits and the company of my favourite neighbours 'She didn't want us going over asking for biscuits... but it didn't stop us from going over to talk to them'
Ash looked across to the house, the door nowhere to be seen, she could see right through into the home, the timber floor I once walked on now blown to pieces, scattered amongst the inside of the home.
'Can we go over there?' she asked.
I looked over at the house and shook my head 'I'd like to remember it as it was'
I placed a warm hand on her shoulder and we both walked back into my home together, closing the door behind us.
My old family home seemed untouched. The living room still had a nice warm feel to it, the furniture gathering dust along with the pictures on the fireplace, so covered in dust particles I could not even see them until I moved closer and wiped clear the thick layer of dust to see before me an old family picture outside the back during summer, one of the days we had a barbeque.
'Who's the girl in the picture?' asked Ash, who I hadn't even noticed peeking from beneath my arm.
'My sister' I said, looking at the old picture back when we were just children 'And their my parents standing behind us. That there is my older brother Dylan' I said, pointing to the boy in the picture standing by my side with a great big smile and that there' I said, 'And that' pointing to the small golden puppy sitting beside me in the picture 'That's Sandy when she was just a puppy'
I handed the picture to Ash whose sole intention was to look at the puppy, her eyes just as big as Sandy's in that picture whilst she stroked the glass frame where the dog sat, trying to imagine what it would be like to stroke one of those creatures she found so magnificent. When she gave me back the picture, I removed it from the frame, folded it up and put it into my back pocket for safe keeping. There were many other pictures scattered around the home.
'Jerry' said Ash as my eyes moved around the living room to find my dad's old armchair in the very same spot in the corner of the room.
'Your parents... did they...'
'No' I said immediately 'They died before all of this. My mother died of cancer in the year 2014, my father died 4 years later from cancer in his lungs'
'How did he get cancer there?' she asked.
'Smoking' I replied as I brushed my hand along the arm of my father's old and dusty chair 'A lot of smoking'
I sat into the chair, raising a huge quantity of dust as I sat on the cushion, resting my hands on the arms and smelling the scent my father used carry with him.
'The world goes to shit, yet cigarettes manage to survive' said Aaron who had just entered the room, still dressed in his suit from the ball this morning.
'Tell me you have a wardrobe here' he said 'I don't want to fight the apocalypse in a suit, and I'm sure you feel the same in your guard outfit' before he pointed it out, I had completely forgotten I was wearing it. I pushed myself up off the chair and walked past him towards the stairs 'Let's hope the end of the world didn't fatten us up' I said as I moved up the creaking white stairs, by boots screeching on the creaking timber with every step I took to the top of the stairs, where I brought Aaron into my old bedroom, the very same way I left it over twenty years ago when I slept here last. The single bed still had the same sheets, and surely enough, it still wasn't made. Mom always had me make my own bed, if I didn't, she wouldn't. I must have been in a hurry that morning, I forgot to make the bed. Over two decades later and it's still there. I sat down on the mattress and sailed my hands along the sheets to bring back the memories of waking up on a bright summer morning to get the smell of fresh pancakes float around my bedroom.
Aaron opened the wardrobe to appease a vast array of my old clothing, still well fitting.
'It's a little bit 2018... but it'll do'
I got up off the bed and walked to the oak wardrobe 'If I knew the world was going to end, I would have prepared better' I reached in and pulled out my favourite white shirt I wore almost every day. Clean and folded in the wardrobe alongside a pair of navy jeans I always found easy to run in and comfortable to wear, they also had six pockets, two with zips which could easily come in handy.
'Take whatever you want' I said.
After I changed I walked over to the upstairs bannister and shouted down 'Ash! Holly! If you want to change, my sister and mother have an unhealthy amount of clothes to choose from!'
Holly walked out into the main hallway to see me upstairs.
'Thank god' she smiled, I had forgotten she was wearing a dress. And then Ash entered the room, still wearing her navy blue jeans and her black hoodie which she seemed comfortable in 'Might as well take a look' she said as Callum appeared behind her.
'Come up here Callum' I said 'I might have some old clothes that'll fit you'
Callum smiled and came running up the stairs, his little blonde head passed out ash and Holly on the stairwell as he ran straight past me, into my bedroom. Kid's got enthusiasm, I'll give him that.
My old bob the builder shirt fitted perfectly on little Callum, not too small and not too large, just about right. My old sneakers were comfortable on him, and a pair of tracksuit pants I had when I was about his age. We tied the lace just tight enough for his comfort, and so they wouldn't fall off. Aaron put a belt around the jeans he wore to tighten them on the waist while I tied Callum's shoes.
When I looked up, I saw Ash standing at the door with a worried face.
'Ash' I said as I got to my feet, her expression grabbing Aaron's attention also.
She looked at me 'Please tell me you smoke'.