Rats and Roaches

She leaned away from the labored swing of the starving wretch in front of her, too exhausted herself to feel the rush of adrenaline that had accompanied the early fights. Her feet, clumsy from hunger, dragged over bits of broken concrete as she stepped back from the following swing of the pipe, absently noting the once-chrome fixture on the end was coated with dried blood and bits of hair.

A laugh bubbled out of her, as it always did when she found herself in yet another fight, wondering if this was the one that would end her miserable existence.

"Steve would have known what kind of faucet that was," she said conversationally to the ghoul of a boy trying to murder her. Not her best greeting, but it was getting harder and harder to speak with anyone.

His bloodshot eyes didn't show so much as a hint of understanding, and she wondered sadly if he even knew how to speak. With the only chance for most people to talk to another living person coming from interactions like this, it wouldn't have surprised her.

"He was a plumber," she answered the unasked question as she stepped to the side, as if the panting boy had inquired politely, rather than tried to cave her skull in with a piece of salvaged metal. "Specialized in upscale bathroom renovations, Before."

His swing carried him forward, all his momentum lost when the fixture cracked into the asphalt. But she ignored the opening he had left in his defense, bent over from the force of the missed strike. She hoped it was compassion that stayed her hand, and not desperation for human interaction, no matter how twisted.

"And after," she went on with a chuckle, "he used to say that a lot of those rich folks probably wished they had done something different with their money."

A flash of anger rushed through her at the memories brought to surface as the boy sluggishly straightened, and she saw it was time. She knew the swing was coming, and ducked it easily, stepping forward as she did. Her cheap blade hissed free from the cheaper nylon sheath, but it was more than up to the task of biting into the back of his scrawny leg as she slid by him.

He screamed as he fell, sounding even younger than he looked, and it was only through too much experience that she smothered her instincts to care for a hurt child. Instead, she waited. The ones that still had some semblance of humanity left usually accepted their fates with tired resignation. The others, too far gone, raged until they exhausted themselves completely. Here, at the end, everyone left was exhausted.

In either case, she waited to see their response, then did the merciful thing.

She had learned her lesson about mercy.

***************

"We have to at least try!"

"You know better than me how infectious it is." Steve had answered in the obnoxiously steady tone he used when he knew she was near the breaking point. "And what it means that she's already got the bruises.” A tense pause followed. “And Brandon's coughing."

She did know just how easily the disease was transmitted, and worse, she knew he was right.

"And even if Brandon didn't catch it from her, there's no way we could all make it." He leaned towards her as he continued, desperate to connect, to get her to understand. "It might look like it, but it isn't an episode of 'The Walkers' out there. If we can get the van running, finding vehicles to siphon from will be hard enough, and that gas will ruin the engine anyway." He tensed, then added, "and that's if we don't all already have it and wind up spreading it even more."

She crossed her arms as she leaned back to look out the window, a perfect Winter day taunting them all as they hid away from the world and one another. They should have been drinking hot chocolate and tea as they talked about which sledding hill would be the best. Or, she thought with a laugh, screaming at each other from being cooped up for too long.

Not squatting in a remote cabin and discussing how long they had to live.

"We can't leave Sophie," he continued, his reasonable voice making the conclusion she knew was coming that much worse. "Brandon can't make the walk even if he doesn't get sick, and all of us combined won't be able to carry enough supplies."

"So what?" she asked venomously. "We just lay down and die?"

He took a deep breath and plowed on, ignoring her outrage. "You and I are less likely to catch it. And you're better off of the two of us." She was already shaking her head, but he kept going. "I'll stay here with the kids. When...," he swallowed heavily, "...when Sophie takes a turn and she starts to suffer, I'll...I'll make sure she goes gently, in her sleep. And when Brandon gets to that point, I'll do the same for him."

"How can you talk about doing that to your children!?" She spat out, temper finally boiling over as she half stood in her seat.

"We didn't make them sick," he answered calmly. "Even when the hospitals were still open they couldn't do a thing about it." Steve's look hardened as he met her angry stare. "So yes, I will spare my children from needless suffering, if and when the time comes. And I will save my wife from having to be the one to do that. The only alternatives are worse.”

Growling in frustration, she stood fully and stormed from the room, leaving him sitting alone. But later, she let herself be wrapped in his arms as they tried to sleep, their children's misery echoing around the empty cabin until they drifted off, still shivering.

The next day, loaded up with the bulk of portable supplies they still had, Steve had seen her off.

"If by some miracle I don't get it from one of the kids, I'll try to catch up with you." He said, kissing her on the forehead and acting like everything was going to be fine as he lied.

She hated him for it. And herself for not being able to think of a better way. Or any way to save her family. She was running away as her family died, and no matter how many times she told herself it was the only choice, his arms around her felt like an accusation.

As he pulled away he feigned remembering something, and she very nearly smiled in anticipation of whatever stupid gimmick he was about to pull to try to make her laugh.

"I almost forgot!" He exclaimed with horribly fake sincerity, "You can't go without your lucky necklace!" And with that, he dangled a truly horrid piece of jewelry from one hand: the luridly pink heart-shaped locket he had given her when they were in high school.

It was the gaudiest thing she had ever seen, and he had spent their lives together since trying to guilt her into wearing it. One side of the interior was his 17 year old face, grinning wildly. The other was hers, scowling at something as she tried not to smile.

She laughed as her resolve broke, and she clung to him as she wept. His arms circled around her and the pack she wore again, and she tried to memorize every detail of the moment.

He broke away as she started to tremble from the cold.

"The van should get you far enough South that it won't be too cold to walk. Stay away from the cities if you can, and don't even think about picking up strays." He recited for the tenth time.

"I wish there was another way." She replied. "I wish you didn't have to do this. It's wrong."

"Right or wrong, this is the world we live in now." He said, fighting down a cough. "Hopefully you can make it to the place that's going to help a couple of generations from now have a better one."

“You know the lab probably isn’t there anymore anyway.” She replied, hating herself for taking his final hope away from him.

“Probably,” he agreed with a nod. “But I know it isn’t in you to give up. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

“I love you too.” She echoed, quietly, and sadly realized it would be the last time they would ever say those words to one another.

She nodded finally, squeezed his hands, and turned to leave, tears in her eyes.

*****************

The weeks that followed made her suspect Steve had somehow known what the World was turning into, even before The End. The van had been abandoned, battery dead after she tried futilely to crank it back to life. His prediction of bad gas proved to be true. The weather was punishingly cold to her, but evidently not enough to kill her as she walked, or as she huddled in her sleeping bag at night wearing every item of clothing she had brought with her.

Steve had always been the camper and hiker of the two of them, but even if she thought she could light a fire, she knew better.

She saw signs of people as she walked, and once, curiosity overriding her sense, snuck within sight of a rough encampment. The pathetic looking group shuffled about, coughing, yet still found the time to exhibit the worst of human traits. And worse to her, they argued constantly, even as death stalked them.

It appeared the end of the World itself couldn't put an end to human squabbles. And people were no more able to agree on if a corpse was safe to eat, now, than if the President was doing a good job or not, before.

It was hard to decide which argument was more distasteful.

She slipped away from the camp and trudged on. As the days and weeks passed, it became easier for her to ignore the stabs of guilt from passing by atrocities and suffering. On a good day, she thought at first, she wouldn’t see anyone, and no one would see her. A very good day would mean not even seeing the signs of what passed for civilization, and hearing the screams that inevitably went along with it.

She missed Steve, and Sophie, and Brandon more every day. And she desperately hoped she was wrong, and she would see them again some day when this was all over. And even though she had never thought of herself as a social person, she longed to have a real conversation again.

As she walked on, her desire for conversation remained, even if its only source came to be increasingly desperate people, willing to eat whatever, or whomever, they could catch.

She dreamed of discussing the weather with her attackers as they bled out.

****************************

There were tears in the boy’s eyes as he looked up at her from where he had collapsed, the fire replaced with fearful acceptance.

“Don’t worry,” she said as her arm drew back to end his suffering, her free hand caressing the locket hidden against her chest under her layers of clothing. “You’ll see your family again soon.”

She didn’t feel guilty about lying to the boy, or for killing him when he had been driven mad by hunger and disease. She just wished she hadn’t judged Steve so harshly for seeing the truth sooner than she had: a quick death was all the mercy that was left in this World.

Sheathing her dirty blade, she adjusted the straps of her pack and set off again, hoping to earn her own mercy, and thought about what she would talk about while she died.