These cans of beans were mine and I wasn’t going to give them up without a fight. I held them under my coat and gave anyone I passed a look of thunderous intent. If they were going to take my food, then I was going to hurt them.
Everyone carried a knife.
Mine was in the front pocket of my jeans. If one person decided they wanted my beans, I wouldn’t hesitate in pulling it out and threatening them. So far, I hadn’t needed to get further than the threat. I’d waved it about and the kid who had confronted me had run in the opposite direction.
Faith was relying on me, I had to get food now to store for later. It didn’t seem like the adults were coming back to life so nobody was making or growing any food. What we had on this planet now was the only food we were going to have.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who worked this out.
Kids were scavenging through all the houses and businesses, taking supplies and hiding them in secret places so they wouldn’t be raided. Oliver, in all his wisdom, had worked this out months ago. He had taken an entire supermarket and squirreled the food away for later. He wasn’t eating it himself, but running the shelter and distributing it around to everyone.
I hadn’t been to the shelter for almost two months. It held the most number of kids in the city. Which meant it also held the largest gathering of ghosts.
They were continuing to beg me for help but there was nothing I could do for them. They were dead, we weren’t, and I had to focus on the living. One, in particular.
Faith.
She was too young to think ahead a few months. She didn’t even understand that this was a new world we lived in. Survival was the single most important thing, and that meant you had to do things you weren’t proud of.
Like threatening kids younger than you with a knife.
Like taking food from kids who weren’t as careful as you.
The Event had changed things and most of us were only just coming to terms with the fact they weren’t coming back. All those bodies of adults would stay dead while we continued to miss them.
We were hiding out in a basement apartment that was empty when I found it. The body of the adult owner was either moved by someone else, or they hadn’t been home at the time of the Event.
When I snooped around the apartment, I found pictures of a middle-aged woman in hospital scrubs. She looked like she was a nurse, so she might have been at work when it happened. I silently thanked her for the use of her apartment and gave an apology for going through her things.
The hospital was a building considered off limits in the city. There were too many things inside that could harm a child. Not to mention all the bodies rotting inside. Someone had locked all the doors and windows from the inside so it wasn’t easy to break into. It seemed to be doing the trick so far.
Little gangs were starting to form in the city. They roamed in packs and took whatever they wanted from kids that couldn’t defend themselves. I’d told Faith to stay away from them and hide if she saw one. So far, we’d been okay.
Someone rapped on the door to our apartment and I was instantly on alert. There was no telling who or what would be on the other side. I crept over and looked through the peephole.
Oliver.
I opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
He flashed me a smile, one I’d missed seeing every day. “Can’t a guy just visit his best friend sometimes?” He was carrying a plastic bag of food so I doubted he was telling the truth.
“Of course you can visit. You just can’t bring us food when other kids might need it.”
I moved from the door so he could come in. The first thing he did was to deposit the food on the kitchen counter. “This is your allocation. If you ever came to the shelter, I would serve it to you like all the others.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been lately.”
“We could use your help.” Oliver’s eyes were so honest and genuine that it made all my insides churn with guilt. I didn’t know how to explain to him about the ghosts that haunted the shelter and my inability to be able to control them.
I couldn’t go on much longer living with the guilt. I didn’t want to let Oliver down but I wasn’t much help when all the spirits overpowered me all at once.
So, yet another lie was in order. “I’ll come down soon. You can make me do whatever you want. Cook, clean, serve, I’ll do it all. Just give me some more time, okay?”
Oliver nodded because that was the kind of perfect human being he was. He wouldn’t dream of pushing anyone into doing chores but I knew his opinion of me was lowering with every day that passed and I still didn’t show.
I was a horrible friend.
But I was also terrified of the ghosts.
Fear won out over my sense of duty and I hated it. With every beat of my heart I hated it. One day he would stop visiting and that would be the day when I was truly alone in this world.
“I better get going,” Oliver said. “Now that it’s starting to get cold, more kids are showing up. If you stumble over any huge stashes of food, will you let me know? I’ve got a feeling we can’t go on forever with what we’ve got.”
I nodded. “I’ll keep an eye open for you. Have you tried the Grocery Superstore out on Pine Avenue?”
“It’s already been claimed by another group.” Sadness crossed over his features. “They have a distribution method that isn’t exactly the same as ours.”
“But at least they’re distributing the food, right? That’s got to be a good thing.” Oliver couldn’t be all over the city, other kids further away needed help too. He couldn’t take responsibility for everyone, nobody could.
“I don’t know, I guess so.” He offered me a weary smile. “Just keep your eyes and ears open. See you later. Bye, Faith.”
“Bye, Olly,” Faith said in a singsong voice. She had witnessed our discussion but hadn’t said a word before that. She had been acting sulky all morning.
I waited until Oliver was gone before I hid the food. You could never be sure food was going to be where you put it unless you hid it from thieving kids.
They were everywhere.
Absolutely everywhere.
I cooked some baby corn spears over a camping stove and then sat with them next to Faith. She stabbed a few with a fork, like me. I wasn’t prepared for what she asked next. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“What do you mean?” I suspected I knew, but I didn’t want to assume. There were too many possible answers to consider in the big picture.
“I mean, what do we do now? Are we going to live here forever? When is school going to open again?”
So many questions from such a little girl. I didn’t have any answers for her, only vague reassurances that we would be okay. I tried for something more solid. “School isn’t going to reopen for a very long time because we don’t have any teachers now. I can teach you anything you want to learn about. We could even see if there are any books left in the library, would you like that?”
“I guess. What about all my friends? I haven’t seen them in ages.”
“They will be with their sisters and brothers, all being taken care of. We might come across them sometime. I’d say they’ll still be in the city.”
She was on fire now, not having to think too hard before finding the next question. “Are we going to stay here forever?”
I looked around at the small apartment. It was tiny, but it was ours. It seemed safe enough, but it still didn’t feel like our home. “It will do for now but we might still move if we find something better.”
“Are Mom and Dad ever coming back?” Tears were starting to well in her eyes and I couldn’t handle another Faith meltdown. She always made me want to cry and then we both turned into blubbering idiots.
“I don’t think so, Faith. But they’d be really proud of us for finding food and shelter if they were here. We have to stay strong for them, so they would be proud of us.”
She seemed to accept the answers and studied her corn spears intent
ly. I sighed with relief, feeling like she’d let me off the hook with my half-answers.