At Least I Had Her

It’s been a month since everything happened and we’ve been scared to leave the house. The television stations were working for awhile and they announced that this gas that was in the air is very poisonous and that we should stay inside and border our doors and windows with towels so that it doesn’t seep in too much. Luckily, our dad had us covered with the emergency lock, but what about other families who don’t have that luxury? What about our family members in other cities? What about Carly? Her house is within walking distance and I told her family that they could stay here before everything went down but they refused, said we had to keep our resources and ration it. So we have been, for a month, and I’m getting stir crazy, Lexi more than me. I haven’t heard from Carly since two nights after everything went down. Cell phone connections are still working since everything was moved underground, since before I was born, but I still haven’t heard anything from her, her mom, her dad. No one. I tried calling my uncle in Florida and nothing. My mind has just thought the worst at this point. Everyone is dead and we are all that is left.

I look up at a pink ceiling, thinking about what we’re going to do next. I’ve been sleeping on the floor of Lexi’s room for the past month because she’s been having nightmares ever since that night, but also, because I’d rather be near her than be alone. I hear her squirm in her bed and I sit up to check on her. She starts to whimper so I get up quickly and go to lay next to her. I cradle her head in my chest and rock her back and forth until she calms down. Instead, I think she wakes up and I can hear her sniffles. I look down at her and she looks up at me and I just sigh.

“Good morning,” I say. “You hungry?”

“Yeah,” she says with a groggy voice.

“Let’s go eat then.”

We get down to the kitchen where I have brought up everything that was in the basement along with the food we already had, so I could split it and ration it. We luckily still had a good amount of eggs and bread, so I decide to make a breakfast sandwich for both of us.

I sit down, handing Lexi her sandwich and she just looks at it, with her head down and her cheeks relaxed into a frown.

“If you eat, you won’t be as tired,” I say as I take a bite out of my sandwich.

“Are we gonna stay here forever? Can’t we go to Canada, like we heard on the radio?” she ask, looking up at me with saggy eyes.

“I don’t know, Lex. How are we gonna get there? We can’t just steal a car,” I say.

“Why not? Do you really want us to walk the whole way?” she says snarkily.

“We might have to. I can search how long it would take and then we can make a move.”

She nods and rolls her eyes at the same time because I already know how much she hates walking, and I can just imagine how many times we’ll have to stop so she can pee or just generally rest.

I make a game plan and see that it would take about a week to walk, but that’s if we don’t stop. We’ll have to sleep at some point so actually...it’ll take almost a month if we walk only 8 to ten hours a day. Fuck. We might have to steal a car at some point.

I get Lexi to help me gather everything from the basement: tents, sleeping bags, food, everything we could possibly need, including weapons because who knows what we could run into.

After about a day of prepping, we decide to leave. I make sure first that I know how to use the air filter and security field, along with the gas masks. We have two backpacks, one for me to carry that has all the equipment and some heavier food that has been air sealed so no gas could get into it. Lexi’s bag has the rest of the food, which I know will be pretty heavy for her since it has a lot of cans and heavy sacks of just goop. We each also have our own 4 gallon sized bag of water that is encased with some flexible metal, so that it can’t be contaminated. My dad’s company really has thought about everything in terms of security and protection, even though we are closed off from the world via giant bubble that reaches towards the mesosphere. We also have layers of clothes so that the gas doesn’t touch our skin, along with some extras so we can change out of wet clothing. Apparently, the smoke causes the skin to blister very badly and even worse, if it gets in our airways, it causes our blood to boil from the inside out and burns our lungs. That… is DEFINITELY not about to happen. Dad was right, good thing we were already prepared.

“Alright, Lex, you ready for this?” I ask her.

“No, not really,” she says honestly. “But I guess we have to do what we gotta do.”

I make a face in agreement and ask “Anything you think you might’ve missed or anything extra you want to grab?”

She pauses for a moment looking like she is in deep thought. She holds up a finger like a light bulb went off in her head and drops her backpack so she can make a b-line up the stairs. While she does that, I make sure I grab a book to read and my phone so I can at least listen to the three songs I have downloaded, on repeat. Who knows if I’ll be able to stream music on my apps. Lexi runs back downstairs with one of my dad’s old jackets and one of his old watches that he would wear camping that has a built in compass. She puts the jacket on and of course it is way too big to the point where it is laughable.

“Okay, now I’m good,” she says more confidently.

I grab her gloves so she can put them on while I configure her gas mask. I turn on the communication system so we can talk to each other without struggling to understand the muffled sounds coming from the mask. I also check that the filter is properly filtering, and then put the mask on her. She kind of struggles with it since it pretty much suctions to your face. She starts breathing kind of heavy.

“Hey, just breathe slowly okay? If you start hyperventilating, you’ll use up too much of the good air. You’re safe in there, okay?”

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and puts her thumbs up to assure she’s good now. I put my gloves and mask on next and turn on the comms.

“Can you hear me clearly,” I ask, testing it out.

“I can hear you,” she says in response.

I nod and go over to the wall by the door to power down all the lights in the house, leaving it almost pitch black since there is no light coming from outside, and get ready to lift the shield. I take a second, closing my eyes to get a grip on everything we might see outside. I take a deep breath and then hit the button. I look down at Lexi to see if she’s ready for me to open the door. She looks up at me, seemingly in response to me looking at her to make sure she’s ready, and she nods. I open the door and immediately a yellow fog hits the face of my mask. We walk outside down the stairs and see the yellow singed grass. Lexi looks around and I can hear her let out a small whimper. I turn towards her and place my hands on her shoulders and crouch down so I can look at her in her face.

“We’re going to be fine, Lex. It’s gonna be a long journey and we’re gonna get tired but we have to keep moving as much as we can,” I say, sounding just like my dad.

“What about if I have to pee?” she says in her typical tone of voice when we’re in a serious situation, but feels like she has to lighten the mood. She does it without thinking but at this point, I hate it and love it all at the same time.

“If we have to pee, we stop, but make sure you still drink enough water without drinking too much. We have the water tablets just in case but we still don’t want to have to use them right away.” I stand back up and add, “We have to do something first before we leave the city.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time, even though time just seems arbitrary at this point. It’s 8:30 am which means we should stop at about 4 to eat and settle down somewhere. But first, I have to check on Carly.