A story by Journey Hart. Added to regularly, last updated September 30.
Brookes stepped over cracked glass and broken chandelier pieces, maneuvering
through haphazardly scattered furniture. The reception desk, instead of looking clean and chipper for the new arrival, looked worn, its appearance betraying signs of past looters. Every valuable resource had been scraped from the hotel’s smallest crevices, leaving nothing for Brookes to fill his satchel with.
“Brookes,” a soft voice carried through the lobby. Brookes looked up from the glass to find Crimson stepping lithely over the mess toward him, holding an untouched sheet of paper. “I found something.”
She stepped up to his side as he looked over at the paper. Holding it so that Brookes could read it, she explained, “The same logo is on the top right of the page. The same signature is marked at the bottom. This has to be the hospital.”
Brookes nodded along to her reasoning. The paper seemed like a regular log-in sheet for a high-class hotel, but there was something off about it. There was a long list of names that marked the guests’ check-in date, phone number, and their birthday. Yet, when you looked closer, you could see no sign of a check-out. At the bottom of the page, the words “Mandin Hospital” were typed in an almost unreadable size. The logo at the top looked normal, but it wasn’t the logo of the hotel.
“Mandin Hospital,” Brookes said under his breath. He took the paper from the Crimson, feeling the weight of the find with every word he read. Quickly, he rifled through his satchel until he found an old, worn plastic folder, which he placed the paper in with care. When he had finished, he turned to Crimson.
She spoke before he could. “You think Willow would really be able to find something at that place?” she asked doubtfully. “It seems like a pretty large leap to assume she could create a cure from an old hospital.”
Brookes adjusted his satchel and tied it closed. With a slight twinge of giddy in his voice, he said, “I’ve never assumed a thing in my life, and I’m not about to start now. This hospital-” He thumbed the strap of his bag vaguely. “is the center of everything. The rot will be gone. We can finally enjoy the world again.”
He looked out the broken glass door, tired of worrying if the buildings surrounding them hid danger inside. There was beauty in the vines that snaked around distant skyscrapers. The sun, sinking below their concrete tops, had seemed brighter since Brookes had found out about the hospital. Crimson rolled her eyes and began maneuvering toward the door.
“You’re such a dreamer,” she tisked. More humored than offended, he grinned.
“You think so? I’m just being realistic.” He followed after her with a smile as they stepped into the sunlight.
“I don’t know why you don’t leave it be,” she said as she opened the door. Brookes went through, nodding as he went past her, emerging onto the broken and cracked road. “I mean, I suppose a cure would be nice if one of us ever got bit, but it’s been years since we’ve even had a close call. We don’t need to go out of our way to find the location of some weird hospital just to make something that wouldn’t change much. As long as we’re careful, we won’t need it.”
They walked along the road side by side, breathing in the natural air. The walked past apartment buildings that had been abandoned for years, stop signs that no one had heeded since the apocalypse began.
Brookes had started to forget what it was like to live in a house. It had been 10 years and counting since the apocalypse began, and the life he deemed normal before now seemed distant and foreign. Sometimes, in his dreams, he yearned for it, but memories of darker times sent him running away, never to reach the core of his childhood. .
“It’s not just about our safety,” Brookes confessed. It felt wrong to say even one word about what his life had been like before. It was a comfort, therefore, to be encouraged on by Crimson’s anticipatory silence. “Someone... important was turned into one of the rot.”
They passed by decaying skyscrapers in silence. Rusting cars lined the road as though they had been frozen in position and left to the devices of time. A white butterfly flew across their path, landing on a yellow flower that poked through a crack in the pavement.
Slowly and deliberately, Crimson replied to Brookes’ divulgance. “I know you were alone before and are used to keeping to yourself, and that you don’t really know us that well,” she hesitated. “but it would be good if we knew a bit about your past.”
Brookes took in a breath. He couldn’t decide if he should say anything. The words had been stuck in his head for so long, it hurt to bring the memories to his mouth. After a moment’s thought, he opened his mouth, and pulled the words out.
“I had- have- a little sister,” he said, thankful for the lack of emotion in his voice. “When the apocalypse started, we were home alone and I had been left in charge. The rot came, and I thought I knew what I was doing, but when we ran, we got separated. I found her weeks later, and... well, you know. She was one of them. But she wasn’t like one of the rot. She looked like it, and she acted in some ways like it. She couldn’t speak at all and she couldn’t move very well, but she knew me. Or, at least, she recognized me.”
They were nearing the edge of the city, where the skyscrapers lowered their tops and turned into ordinary houses. Where the houses ended, a forest began. Again, they walked in silence together. They stepped through the treeline, and as the city
fell behind, obscured by thickening branches, Brookes drew breath a little easier. The way the leaves enveloped him felt safer than any city.
He didn’t want to talk anymore, but he knew something that would suffice more than his reluctant explanations would. Instead of going the route that would take them to their forest hideout, he gestured for Crimson to follow him. They went the opposite way than the rest of the group, winding through dense trees without a path to stick to. It made Brookes forget all about the uncertainty of the city, focusing all his energy on remembering the route, merely trusting his
instincts and the boughs that waved him along.
Soon, he found himself before a disheveled looking cottage that was almost completely swallowed by nature. Wooden planks peaked out at irregular intervals in between encasing vines, and the window panes had been long since removed from their frames. Quietly, Brookes put a hand out for Crimson to stop walking. Slowly, he began to walk toward the cottage, beckoning for her to do the same. The grass muffled their footsteps, but Brookes still watched the place he would put his foot next before lifting his leg. Seeing his carefulness, Crimson imitated it.
The door to the cottage seemed to be bolted shut by vines that curled around it, but
Brookes opened it with ease. When he stepped inside, Crimson wavered before going in. Slowly, Crimson let herself be handed into the door. She walked inside, wary, but no danger appeared. Instead, a small bed came into view. It was covered in sheets, more than
Crimson had seen in one place for a while, all placed to keep a little, sleeping girl tucked in warmth. The girl lay silently with her eyes closed and her breathing slow. As Crimson edged closer, the girl’s face grew more pale and lifeless, the timid light revealing more with each step. In an instant she hadn’t felt pass, she found herself standing over the girl, watching every sign of the virus in the child’s face.
Her cheeks were almost pure white, her face frozen in perpetual discomfort, even fear. A hand poked out from under the pile of blankets, one that revealed a fingers that curled into fists. The girl looked like she was fighting for her life.
“She’s been getting worse,” a voice she’d forgotten reached her ears. “I need that cure soon. I’ve worked so hard to find it, but every second I spend searching, she just keeps getting more sick.”
Crimson couldn’t take her eyes off the girl. She couldn’t tell whether she should run from what the girl was, or sympathetic for who she had become.
“What’s her name?” she asked softly.
“Emmy.” Brookes was suddenly beside the bed, staring down at his sister. She turned to him and saw the grief he hadn’t been willing to show before now welling in his eyes. His hand brushed the girl’s fingers, but without a word, he let his arm drop to his side.
With determination quivering his voice, he faced Crimson. “We have to find that cure,” he said. He turned and walked to the door, mumbling under his breath.
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