Hey guys, girls and readers from all around the world!
Sorry for not uploading sooner, but no matter how hard I tried this chapter never turned out right. I had to keep writing and rewriting, and the worst part was I wasn't even sure what to look for. So between that and Christmas, My birthday and New Year's I really was too busy.
But here's the chapter ("finally!" I hear you all say) and it's a long one. Please enjoy.
Vote, comment, anything you like.
TigerLily_x
P.S. vote if you like my new cover
I got the picture of the sniper from deviantart.com. If you're looking to get a cover or redo your cover, try looking there. It's a website where real people put up their drawing, paintings, doodles, Kind of like this website. Try looking. You never know what you might find.
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Chapter eight; the story before the story
Recap:
“My name is Jordan river Matthews.”
He looked back at her over his shoulder but she didn’t let him speak. She continued in a rush.
“My father began an apocalypse that destroyed the human world when I was six years old. Ten years ago.” She felt tears prickle behind her eyes, but she didn’t dare wipe them because she didn’t want to bring attention to them.
“He’s my father. But I hated him long before any of that.”
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Jodi found a short, flat boulder and sat on it, crossing her legs. Damien sat on the other side of the rock facing her. He brought twigs with him and started a fire beside them both. The fire attracted the lizard and rabbit from earlier and they both crept close enough to feel the heat the fire gave out, but far enough that they could easily run away from the humans that had started the fire. They were no longer fighting, but sitting easily next to each other, as if there had been no fight, as if one of them had not just tried to drive the other away.
Jodi looked back at Damien who was observing her with great intensity. The way he looked at her made her stomach flip, a feeling that surprised her, especially so soon after her recent heartbreak over Nate.
She took a deep breath, and wondered where to start. She decided to narrate the story as though it was not hers. It seemed easier to say that way, for the topic was always a painful one for her.
“Dr Matthew was a scientist, who was the CEO of River Incorporation of Environmental and Technological Sciences.” She picked up sooty twig from the fire and began to idly draw a stick figure with a lab coat in the rock. “He was forever working in his lab with his partner Jonas” She drew another stick figure without a lab coat and a box around it. The pictures didn’t mean anything, but it gave her somewhere to look rather than to see Damien and his reactions. She stared at the forms in front of her, and then threw down the photo Damien had given her earlier. It lay beside the drawing, and the reflection of the fire flickered across its worn, but still glossy surface. As she stared the memories, the events that lead up to her mother’s demise, and then the human population’s, began to flood her mind. She saw it, saw everything as it had happened, and related what she saw to Damien.
< < < <
August 25th 2040
(Ten years ago)
“Mummy, Mummy,” cried a six year old Jodi and she grasped her mother’s sleeve. Her bright red coat and dark grey pants were all Jodi could see from where she was, but she didn’t mind, she was not looking at her mother. Instead she was staring all around her excitedly as they walked through the shopping centre, then called the Chadstone Shopping Centre, particularly at a build-a-bear workshop beside the food court they were about to enter. The shop was over 50 years old and boasted how it looked the same as it had since it had first been build, the same plastic furniture, the same case of foam, the same everything. But Jodi wouldn’t know this, this was something her Grandma had told her.
“Mummy, please can we make a bear?” she pointed eagerly at the shop.
He mother looked down at her and then at the shop. “Haven’t we already made a bear for you this week Jo-Jo?”
Jodi grinned sheepishly. “Maybe” she said.
“It’s almost your birthday; we’ll come back here and make one for you then.” She said.
Jodi nodded to herself. For the past month she had impatiently been waiting for her birthday, crossing off the days till then like she had seen her favourite cartoons do on TV. Grandma would be here then, and she and her new baby brother Jacob could come here. She’d make one for him too, and maybe for Grandma too.
“Come on, we have to meet your Daddy now.” Her mother said.
The kids at her kindergarten said their parents told them that her father was a world famous scientist, because he had made the flying cars and bikes that she saw on the roads. They said he was a good guy, but Jodi didn’t think so. She didn’t like him. He was never around, he came every now and then, and when he did her mother would tell her to call him “Daddy”.
Immediately any happy ideas of the bears she would make disappeared from her mind.
Her father, was a tall scary grown up. He didn’t like her, she knew. He hit her once, and didn’t say sorry like her mother did. He was always yelling, at her mother, at her.
He hit her mother too, and Jodi didn’t like it when he did, because then her mother would cry, and that always scared Jodi. But her mother never listened to her when she said she didn’t want to see him. She would shush Jodi when she said she didn’t like him.
“he’s your father.” She would say, and then pull Jodi along behind her. “Some day you’ll see how important he is.”
But Jodi didn’t think so. And she didn’t like it when grown ups said “Some day” because they could never tell her when that day would be, and Jodi really wanted to know.
When the two of them finally arrived home, no one was there. Jodi didn’t tell her mother, but she was glad. She didn’t want to meet her father.
Her mother tried calling him, but as usual his comm-device was turned off. She sighed and sat at her piano. She looked at Jodi and patted the space on the bench beside her. Jodi grinned and scrambled onto the bench, letting her mother support her waist.
“What would you like me to play today, Jo-jo?” her mother smiled down at her with her beautiful brown eyes.
“Row, row, row your boat” Jodi shouted and wriggled excitedly in her seat.
Her mother laughed her beautiful deep throated laugh and began playing the song while singing. Jodi joined in singing at the top of her voice.
“ Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream!”
Her mother played another score before singing the next verse.
“Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
If you see a crocodile
Don’t forget scream”
Jodi let out a playful scream just as her Grandma walked into the room carrying little Jacob in her arms. She laughed and sat down in the old armchair beside the fireplace just opposite them. She began singing another nursery rhyme in her deep voice.
“Ring around a rosy...” she began. Jodi’s mother joined in on the piano and Jodi leaped off the bench and began spinning around and around making herself as dizzy as possible.
“Ring around a rosy
A pocket full of posy
Ah-tissue! Ah-tissue
We all fall down!”
Jodi dropped to the ground and began laughing and everyone joined in.
“That was family for me.” Jodi said to Damien. She finished the picture she had drawn, a simplified version of her memory. A stick sitting at a simple piano, two more sitting in an armchair and a little stick figure in the centre with it’s arms raised with curved lines around it to indicate spinning.
“My father was around so little he was nothing more than a stranger to me. And when he was around he became the evil guy, the villain, a bad man.” She shook her head and looked at the man in the photo. “Mother was still convinced he loved her, so she stayed despite everything. The world expected so much from my father, and so he took the stress out on her. That was what she would say, quietly to herself when she thought no one was listening.” Jodi thought back to the figure of her mother. “My mother was a loving, gentle woman, who was perceived to be weak by the man she loved the most.” To her horror she felt tears pour down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away but they kept pouring. She looked up at Damien who stared back, but she couldn’t see his expression through her tears.
“Is loving someone a weakness?” she cried, the tears in her voice making it louder than usual, high-pitched and broken. “Does love make you weak?” her mind’s eye was showing her Nate, with his face full of disgust.
A hand reached out to touched her face. Damien’s.
She pulled gently out of his reach, and he let his hand drop.
“Besides.” She sniffed and looked away. “Even if she did want to leave there was still my Grandma.” She fingered the photo and looked into her Grandma’s grey eyes. The one’s she had inherited from her. “Grandma didn’t know about the beatings. It all happened behind closed doors. And mother was good at hiding the signs. And she needed a home to stay, retired soldier or not. She couldn’t know about the beatings.”
But despite all this, I was happy. I had my brother my mother and my Grandma. What else does a six-year old need? That was my family. It didn’t include my father, but that wasn’t my fault. I was not yet old enough to long for a father.”
She fell silent and looked away again. She stared at the rabbit and the lizard, both of which having seen her eye them bounded and scuttled away together. The lizard slipped down it’s hole, and the rabbit tried to follow it. That started a fight where the lizard began hissing and trying to scare off the rabbit again.
The silence continued until Damien spoke. “What changed?”
Jodi looked at him, then picked up her stick and resumed drawing the stick figures.
< < < <
September 1st, 2040
Six days later
Jodi was so excited. It was her birthday, finally! She was six years old. She began singing and dancing around her little brother up in his high chair as he gurgled happily at her excitement.
Mummy didn’t know, but Jodi had already seen her presents which had been hidden on the very top shelf of the closet. When Mummy had been taking a shower, she had opened the door and climbed onto a chair she had moved from the dining room and there they were. A princess costume with a silver tiara and a pretty matching doll with black hair, like Jodi’s.
Jodi was so happy she didn’t even mind that father was coming home today, although she wished he wouldn’t. Jodi didn’t want Mummy crying on her birthday.
But come he did, but not in the composed cold manner he usually did. He burst into the house, using a key instead of waiting to be let in like usual.
“Mona!” he shouted. “Mona!”
Mother came rushing into the room. “River?” she gasped. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be back until three.”
Father grabbed her wrist and started dragging her into the kitchen where Grandma was making Jodi’s favourite lamingtons. “Mum, grab the kids and put them in the car.”
“River?” Grandma said, alarmed. “Son, what’s going on?”
“Don’t talk. We need to leave, now!” he started shouting directions. “Get the kids in the car, Mona grab the emergency kit. Don’t argue just go!”
Shocked and bewildered, they followed his orders. Grandma was especially speechless, as father had never shouted at her like that before.
They filed into the car. Jodi was too scared to be angry that her birthday was ruined. She sat beside Jake in his baby seat as her Grandma and her mother packed food, water, jackets and the emergency kit that was usually kept for disasters.
Emergencies. Was this an emergency? Was it “a matter of life and death” like Grandma said? Did that mean they were going to die?
Her six-year old mind made leaps around in her head, forming conclusions that at the time would have gotten her shushed. Only later on would she find out how close she was to the truth.
Her father rushed out of the house with something in his hands and got into the driver’s seat and started the car without even bothering to close the front door.
During the flight over both Mummy and Grandma tried their best to get some answers out of father. What was happening? Where were they going? But throughout the drive he ignored them.
Their car landed on the parking strip outside her father’s lab, though at the time, she didn’t know where it was since Jodi had never been there before.
By now tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. But she didn’t make a sound so no one noticed, no one saw just how scared she was that day. Her birthday was ruined but she didn’t care. She wanted to be home, in her bed where she could cover herself with her doona and pretend everything was alright. That nothing could hurt her in her small dark space.
But she couldn’t. So in her head she began singing nursery rhymes.
Row row row your boat
Her father led them into the labs still not speaking, carrying a heavy file in his arms. He herded them deep into the building until they reached a door. The door was the biggest Jodi had ever seen. It was metal and very thick, with a large wheel instead of a knob. Her father what was in his hands and turned the wheel until there was a banging noise and the door opened.
“Get in” he said to them. Her Grandma was carrying the clothes and a sleeping Jake whilst her mother carried the emergency box and food and water. Both of them place everything down on the floor in the corner, except for Jake who was kept in a cot in the room.
Gently down the stream
Besides the cot there wasn’t much else. There were five beds built into the walls, and in the centre of the room was a few mismatched armchairs and a sofa. The inside of the room was made entirely out of dark metal and the light came from a single fluorescent globe hanging from a wire from the centre of the room.
“I need to leave,” said her father “but I’ll be back, until then stay here and keep the door closed. Don’t open it no matter what.”
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
“River, what’s going on?” Mummy was saying.
“I will tell you later, when there’s time!” He yelled at her. Grandma gasped, but Mummy didn’t even flinch.
“No River,” she glared at him. “Not this time.” She grabbed his arm and whatever he was holding dropped to the ground. It was a recording device, and when it landed it turned on. A hologram of a man appeared. Jodi recognised the man to be her father. He was saying something, but Jodi was too busy crying to listen.
Life is but a dream
Both her Grandma and her mother gasped in shock at the hologram’s words. But it was her mother who began screaming.
“Murderer!” she screamed. “All those people! What could you be thinking?”
“You will not speak to me like that!” he shouted back at her.
“I will speak to you any way I want!” she continued to shout. She screamed at him some more, but what she was saying, Jodi missed because Jake had woken up and started bawling. Nobody moved to quiet him. Jodi was staring at her father’s face, his back was to the open door, but from where she was she could see it clearly. He was mad.
Really mad.
Jodi backed away slowly but kept her eyes on the scene before.
She was still watching as her father dragged her mother out of the room, slamming the heavy door behind him. Her Grandma rushed to the door, but before she could open it there was a banging noise again. She tugged and turned the wheel, but it didn’t budge.
“it’s locked” she shouted.
Jodi was panicked now. She threw her small body against the door and began banging her little fists against it. “Mummy!” she screamed. “Mummy, come back!”
MUMMY!!
Jake had exhausted himself with his screams, and was now reduced to dry sobs and hiccups. Grandma picked him and held him to herself, her eyes were full of shock, and something else. Something that Jodi had never seen in them before.
Fear.
Jodi didn’t know how long she stayed near the door, staring at it, banging her little body against it as she screamed for her mother, until her little voice was sore. Willing, praying for it open and reveal her.
It didn’t. It never would.
Her father didn’t return either, although he had said he would.
Jodi didn’t know how long she had stayed in the room. She had long since retreated from the door and was sitting beside her Grandma, nestled into her side.
Neither of them spoke.
Jake had been fed a while ago and was once again fast asleep. Jodi was jealous.
She began singing silently to herself.
Ring around a rosy
Suddenly there was a sound. A long keening noise that made her Grandma sit up and stare at the door. She gathered Jodi and Jake close to her, hugging them till it almost hurt.
More noises. This time Jodi knew what it was.
Screaming. People were screaming the screams of nightmares, and horror movies. Many people, hundreds of them, thousands, all of them screaming at once. Long drawn out screams full of terror.
A pocket full of posy
More noises. Noises as though buildings were falling and glass was breaking. Car alarms were starting almost drowning out the screaming.
Almost.
So many deafening noises at once and nothing she could do about it. She screamed herself, and Jake woke up and added his own voice to the din. The noise outside was that of utter destruction.
Ah-tissue! Ah-tissue!
The world was screaming. She shut her eyes and covered her ears, but in her little heart she knew they continued to scream. She was crying now. When she looked at her Grandma she saw that she too was crying, and that made her cry harder. She didn’t know what to do, how to quench this fear. Fear that whatever was out there would end up here. Fear that they would never get out of this alive.
We all fall down.
Jodi gasped as she flew out of her memories. Her mind was reeling as the images that for so long she had kept buried burst out. She was crying, aching, chest-racking sobs. Crying out the grief that she never gave herself the chance to feel.
Her mother, her grandmother; dead.
Her brother had deserted her.
Her family had been torn to pieces all because of that one day.
She let out a wail. The wail of a six-year Jodi that had been buried within her, like the memories she was associated with.
“So many people died.” She sobbed. “Because of my father, my blood.”
Two arms curled around her, holding her close to a body.
Damien.
She froze, shocked into silence. She wasn’t sure how to react.
But her six-year old self reared up and turned her face into his chest and continued to cry. He was warm and solid, unlike the memories of her mother. She could hold him, make sure he didn’t go away and never come back.
She let herself cry until the tears stopped coming.
When she was done crying she stayed in his embrace. Maybe she was being vain, but for some reason she didn’t wanted him to see her tear-stained face.
“What happened next?” he said as he stroked her hair.
“Three days,” she said. “It took three days for the screaming to stop. On the third day, grandma managed to wrestle the door open.” She thought back to how she felt when she saw the sun shine for the first time. It was as though she was seeing the sun rise for the very first time.
‘We found an old man, close to death, lying outside the lab. A pillar had fallen on him, and he couldn’t move. Grandma wanted to help take it off, but that caused him too much pain. He told us what had happened, partly. I never found out about the speech my father made until very recently. It should have occurred to me, since grandma always insisted that we never tell anyone our surnames or our parents’ names, that there had to be some way that people would know, but it never did.”
Jodi shook her head. “All around us were dead bodies, some with their throats ripped out, others just lying dead. We learnt quickly, and managed to avoid the monsters that used to be humans. Grandma raided a shop that sold camping supplies, and managed to steal us all essentials; jackets, bags to put our clothes and food and water in, food itself. We went into a caravan dealership and stole a new model. Three days before all that I would’ve been shocked at the idea of stealing, but at that point nothing shocked me. We stayed on the move, keeping to the forests, which grew quickly, as nature took over the abandoned cities. Grandma’s theory was since the monsters used to be human, they would most likely be in the cities, not the forest.
Grandma used to be in the army, so she knew about survival in the wilderness. We got water, built up our immune systems, and managed to stay away from the monsters all under her care.”
Jodi smiled. “She was my hero, my guardian angel and my parent all in one. She was around fifty at the time, but she managed to raise us and train us. She taught me ballistics and gunmanship, trained us with martial arts and taught us how to survive independently.”
Her voice became softer. “When I was thirteen, Grandma told me about my father. About how he had an idea that he could fix the world. He thought he could reverse global warming by substantially depleting the human population.
‘So he designed and created disease with his partner Jonas, and together they set up ways to distribute it around the world. The project had been cancelled when the subjects it had been tested on started to react strangely to the disease, but the preparations had been done. There were six satellites in the outer orbit of the earth, which were ready to start the process of injecting the disease.
‘Both Mother and Grandma only found out about it when my father had come home drunk and told them about it. But that was after it had been cancelled so they didn’t do anything about.”
Jodi sighed and moved away from Damien so she could look at him. “I don’t know what changed that day ten years ago, but suddenly the plan had been started again, or something happened.”
Jodi stepped off the rock and moved away. She was facing the desert and the moon, which was peeking out among a million stars, glowing at her with an almost knowing manner, as though hinting that it knew what she didn’t.
“We never found his body. Or my mother’s, but I’m sure he’s dead, else he would’ve come back that day.” She turned back to face Damien. The moonlight bleached his skin and shadowed his eyes. The fire died to embers behind him.
“Grandma’s dead. My brother left me. The man I loved hates me. But I’m still alive. I don’t know when, or how, but I will find out what changed that day. I will find out why my father started the project again. Why he decided to destroy the world.”