Three Weeks Later

——

Twelve Weeks since Ground Zero

"I think it's safe to say," Logan started, taking a bite out of his apple, juice running down the side of his lips. "—that the Alphas are all gone."

I looked at the man under my boot, close to my age, frowning, blood pooling beneath his head, a small, red-smeared hole at the bridge of his nose. I put Betty back in my holster. "Seems that way," I said. I scanned the living room; three dead bodies lay around us. Not a bad day.

"Well, in this town, at least," Logan corrected himself. "You reckon there's more of them?"

"One is too many already."

"Ah." Logan takes another bite. "Shame, that is."

"That's the last of them here in Colby. I doubt they'll return."

Logan chuckled. "After what we did? Yeah. I don't think they will."

"We haven't found those prisoners that escaped. Do you think the Alphas killed them all?"

"Yeah. That Elijah guy, right?"

I nodded. "Maybe they all left town that night."

"Pretty smart move. Only crazy idiots stay here." Logan gave me a knowing smile.

"Yeah. Only crazy idiots do." A week ago, we had checked the lakeside resort upon the mountains again, thinking that's where Elijah and the rest of the prisoners had gone to, but it was empty as I found it for the first time. As long as they are far away from here, I'm glad. I hope they make it safe to Pittsburgh.

I tightened my lip when I felt a slight pang of pain on my shoulder, thinking I had pulled another muscle there. My left arm was sore, could still feel that bullet weeks ago burrowing, then the itch and the excruciating sting of open flesh like being roasted in an open fire. I massaged the spot, healed now, but the scars remained.

"Still hurt?" Logan asked, concerned.

A small smile crept on my lips. "I'm not a baby, you know."

"Technically, I'm older than you, so you are a baby."

"I'm turning eighteen next month."

"My point exactly. And I'll be nineteen three months after that. See? Older."

Grumbling, I stomped back into the living room, though I tried not to. Logan noticed. "Yeah, but I'm more mature," I mumbled.

"Ah, come on, you big baby. Here. Peace offering." Logan handed me his spare apple from his pocket, almost tripping over one of the bodies. He's taking it in casually, like a day in a spa, I thought. But that was Logan. He tried to play off anything remotely serious, like hunting humans.

I shook my head, reminded of what we had done minutes ago. "Not hungry." And don't call me a baby.

"Suit yourself." He put the apple back in his pocket.

I doubted I had the appetite, anyway. Three weeks of hunting all the remaining Alphas around Colby, fifty-three dead in total, hiding like rats from a surging storm. We burnt houses, sent vectors to ambush and trap them, took their supplies from their outposts, and left them to hang every single one. And to think we've killed more during the vector siege of their home base...

I studied their final outpost from the map Logan had found weeks ago, a two-story house in the middle of an affluent suburb, boarded up in a hurry with trash everywhere inside, smelled like they hadn't bathed in weeks; it was a rough living. These bodies...their faces were all gaunt, skinny, realized they must be starving. I saw that their food supply was gone, probably for days, and to my brief horror, I had thought it was great mercy we put a bullet on them. We could have just left them alone to starve, made their fates slow and painful. Once I thought it, my stomach churned into a knot. How could I think about it like that? This...this is barbaric. But everything always is. I stared at a speck of blood on the back of my thumb, made a frown.

Three weeks felt like three months had passed. But time rarely turned normally anymore; it goes and goes and never stops, seasons passed, nights grew cold, days grew warmer. Yet, the smell of blood remains the same.

Three weeks.

No, this is for Miguel. For Haskell. For all of us. I stared at the man I had just killed once again. He begged like they always did, promised me that he would never return, to never speak or even think of me, but that's the thing about the future. It will always be uncertain, unpredictable, one you can't trust wholeheartedly. There will always be a small part that you hold onto that whispers, "they'll be back, and this time, they'll fight harder," and now you take that as the absolute truth, and suddenly, the world turns from a hazy gray to a rigid wall of black and white. It made it easier to move on, to take the days as they are, to pretend it will always be as it should be. Sometimes, that is all a man needs to survive.

Three bloody weeks, and we washed our hands with their blood.

I sat down on the plush couch, exhausted, left wanting to lay my head back and go to sleep. Two sleepless days we followed their trail, hiding, evading, but it still felt hollow once we found them and then tore them apart. Why do I do this? Why am I bothering with them? Must I? Killing after killing...should I stop? Is it worth it in the end? But bringing it to a close lets your guard down, gets you killed, gets your friends killed. I intend to keep on living and protect them.

The back door slid open, and Jun walked in, carrying an arrow in his hand, the tip dripping with blood. "Two tried to make a run for the river," he reported like a soldier, voice stern and unwavering, no hint of emotion at all.

"What happened?" Logan asked.

"I shot the slow one. The fast one wasn't a good swimmer."

"You sure he's dead?"

"He sank like a rock. I waited for five minutes. Nothing."

"Ah, good"—I let out a heavy breath—"That's...good." I tried not to let it bother me that Jun sounded like it was some normal job hunting humans, even if these people were disreputable. Between the three of us, I believed he enjoyed it more. Who am I to blame him? He had witnessed the full scope of the Alphas' atrocities from the beginning. I reckoned he must be happy we got rid of them, though he never showed it. I didn't know what went on inside that head of his, which only made him harder to trust sometimes.

Logan looked at me funny. "Are you okay, Bren?"

"Sorry, I'm just tired. Three days without sleep—"

"Hey, it's over now, man. They're gone."

That was the problem. It never felt like it was the end; it felt like there was always more. Is that why they called it? What's the word...ah! Bloodlust? Seeing red? Ripping like it never was quenched? How do you live through that?

"We should be on our way to Pittsburgh by now," I said out loud. We might be there already. But with three wounded, and one hardly able to walk...

Logan sat down next to me. Jun went up the stairs to take another look around the house. "Haskell said it'd take two more days to fix it," he said.

I let out a grunt. Two more days, huh? We've stayed too long in this town, and the vectors in the mall are starting to grow bold, heading west, heading toward us again.

"It'll be the Fourth of July by then," I said, shaking my thoughts away from those monsters.

"Heh. I doubt there will be fireworks."

"Or a president. Maybe he's dead."

"Or a government."

"It'll be a crappy Independence Day then. No hotdogs, no barbecue, no burgers, no water slides and trampolines, no parades..."

"The good old days."

"Ah, I miss your dad's barbecue."

"Yeah, right. Once it's edible."

"I wasn't kidding!"

"No, your mom's casserole was the bomb. I could eat them for days."

"Nah, barbecue. Give me those greasy, tangy, sauce-smothered red meat. That's the way to my heart."

We paused, chuckling, then, taking the silence in, realized we had stopped going to those things when our parents noticed we rarely talked to each other past sophomore year. They didn't ask, of course, and neither one of us wanted to tell them what happened. Nothing went over my dad's head, and he never pushed, yet he understood clearly. I was glad about that. It left me wondering if they were still alive.

Logan turned to me. "What if...what if we're the only ones left? What if ninety-nine percent of the world is dead? Or one of those things?"

"Then there won't be a home to go back to," I said. Hearing it out loud only made it hurt more.

I turned to Logan, studied his face for a second. Hey, at least I'm not facing this new world alone. His eyes found mine, and I reckoned he thought the same thing.

——

It took four hours just to go back home from the Alphas' last hideout, following the train tracks that ran across town, reaching the warehouses from the east side. Yousef gave a small wave on top of four stacked shipping containers, our makeshift watchtower.

My CB radio beeped from my belt, then Yousef's voice came through. "We thought you all are dead."

I took the radio close to my lips. "Still alive, Sef."

"Three days, man. Don't let us worry like that. Peter almost threw a fit and tried to have a search party for all of you." He laughed. "Miguel calmed him down, though."

"Well, it wasn't a fun ride on our end, I'll tell you that."

"So, how did it go?"

"We got the job done at least."

"No more Alphas?"

"Every single one."

A pause. "Oh, okay. I'll pray for them later tonight."

I didn't say anything back. A few people weren't so thrilled of me going after the Alphas, Yousef among them. Still, if we stayed in Colby for how many weeks until Miguel and Haskell's wounds healed, I certainly am not sharing that space with a hostile group freely roaming around. You don't leave alone a coyote by your borders knowing he'll go for your chickens. And besides, we needed bullets, supplies, and the Alphas had plenty of them scattered all over the city.

I want what they have, so I took it by any means, even if it's barbaric, I thought grimly—the ancient tenet of civilization since the dawn and evolution of Man. Perhaps nothing changed at all. Could it be instinct, I wonder? Modernity suppressing what's been inside us all along, lying dormant? Nothing defies evolution except evolution itself.

"Is everyone up?" I asked through the radio.

"Yep. You know where to find them."

Logan patted me on the back, grinning. "Yeah, home sweet home."

I nodded. For now.

The railyard warehouse was our haven, all thanks to Jun. After the mall, we got rid of the vectors wandering around the area and compared to the south side where the mall was, it was infestation-free. A week ago, I could have my morning runs around the perimeter without even attracting a single vector. See? Progress.

Morning runs. I snorted. Three months ago, exercise was not even on my mind. But the world had drastically changed since then, where dog eats dog, and if I ignored my weaknesses, I am one step away from an eternal trip six feet under. At least it's not a bad motivator to wake up early. Logan came with me since he did the same routine during football practice back in school, then I taught him a few moves and defenses I had learned from my dojo (Logan was quite a fast learner, to my surprise). It was nice to have a little company, safer in numbers and all that.

As I approached the warehouse, I could already hear the tinkering and welding coming from inside. Peter's voice rose from the cacophony of metal and machine, barking orders as usual, though when did that ever stopped him?

"Damn. Do they ever fucking sleep?" Logan pointed ahead.

"You know what they say. Busy bees don't have day-offs."

"I thought we did more work."

"It's on par, I think."

Jun walked past us. "And we have a high chance of getting killed." He headed off to the stairs, disappearing from our view.

I raised my brow to Logan. "See? Even Jun agrees with me. Nothing beats Death."

Logan sighed. "Touché. But Jun always agrees with you."

I shook my head. "No, he doesn't."

"But, ah, strange man, that one."

"Come. Let's say hello to the others."

Haskell's legs poked out from underneath the RV with Alfie and Peter on the roof, carefully placing the solar panels we had scavenged, the latter two with their shirts off. It was another hot summer day, after all. Peter showed his rippling Herculean physique packed over weeks of running, hunting, working without stopping, then the scars, too, displaying a history of violence and horror in such a short timespan. We all have scars. I had mine, but there are only a few of us who are proud to let the world know it.

Alfie had none, yet still muscular and statuesque, had the arms of a climber, I reckoned, one that you could cut out of a Men's Health magazine, though not quite like Peter. Wasn't he an Instagram model or something? Logan mentioned that to me before. My eyes lingered on Alfie for a second, sweaty and resolute in his task nailing the solar panels on the roof, body slightly bent forward, butt raised, curly hair matted and wet which clung all over his forehead, trimmed stubbles on his rugged jawline, looking like the end of the world had not touched his skin.

He looks good...when was the last time I—

I caught Logan staring at me.

I shrugged—too late to feigned ignorance or utter deniability. "Hey, I'm not made of wood."

"And here I thought you might be."

"It's good to prove you wrong sometimes."

"Well, if anything happens between you two, don't have sex next to me again."

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my reddening cheeks. "That was one time! It never happened again."

"Uh-huh. The sky's blue, too."

I threw my hands up and strode toward the RV, leaving Logan in the dust, trying not to let his words sink in further and let more blood rushing to my cheeks.

The warehouse was noisy and clamorous, too many things going on at once, but thankfully, the building insulated the clangor, or else we'd have a horde camping out by now. They had been working on the RV for many weeks, turning it into a shell of its former self: tinkering the engine until it had a four-wheel drive, the interior completely uprooted and changed, welded armor plates and wires, barred the weak points with wood or metal panels, replaced the tires for rougher terrain, among many others they added and then removed as they pleased. The beauty of an empty town was all these parts and equipment just lying around. All we had to do was scavenge for them. It would be our temporary mobile home to Pittsburgh for the next four hundred or so miles, and it wouldn't hurt to ride in a vehicle that fit all eight of us while also protecting us from monsters.

That includes people, don't you forget. I walked closer to the RV. The last time I left, it was painted white, now it was matted black. Hard to see in the dark. We can move at night then. Haskell and Peter thought of everything.

"What did Haskell say this thing is again?" Logan sidled next to me, dropping what we had discussed earlier. I was glad about that.

"Uh, three hundred percent vector-proof?" I answered, unsure.

"Hm. Vector-proof," Logan muttered to himself. "Heh. Three hundred percent. I see it now."

"Last time, it looked like a motor home for the Brady Bunch."

"Now, it'll fit right in for Mad Max. Nothing will bother us riding that."

"No, it'll still attract attention. Machines this size makes a ruckus."

But Logan didn't let that bother him. He let out a wide grin. "I guess that's where the armor comes in, particular that up on the back...is that a freaking flame-thrower?"

"More like a fire hazard." Fire that up, and we'll have burning vectors around us in a split second. I told them not to make one, said to them that if the vectors caught fire, then the RV would too, but Peter chucked it as a last resort. The last resort will just be us getting cooked inside that tin can once the vectors are done burning around us.

"Haskell didn't cut corners. It's a fortress! We can probably drive to Portland with that thing."

I wondered the same when Haskell laid out the plans. Then we'd be extending a four-hundred-mile trek to three thousand miles. Given the road and the country's state, that might take a full year instead of a couple of weeks. But Margot, Henry, Tessa, and Clemons might still be in Pittsburgh. I can't leave them behind. I have to know they're okay. Margot has the right to know what happened to Felipe; Also with Tessa about her family.

We had barely moved from Albany to Colby, hindered by our skirmish with the Alphas, which started with their ambush. What more could happen within three thousand miles? Perhaps more things that want to kill us. And probably all will. It's funny to think that if they hadn't ambushed us, they'd all probably be alive by now. My imagination quickly vanished when I realized the prisoners and the townsfolk they had enslaved would probably be stuck in those disgusting cells back in the mall. I shuddered to think what could be.

"Bren!" Alfie shouted, pulling me out of my dark thoughts.

Peter and Haskell stopped what they were doing; the latter rolled back from the trolley underneath, his white wife-beater tank top smudged with soot. He almost tripped over himself when he got back up. I noticed that his gait had improved, though he did complain that his butt was still sore. Welcome to the Club of Scars and Pain. Alfie and Peter climbed down the ladder from the rear, tried to ignore how Alfie's pants hung low, showed the rim of his black Diesel underwear. What the fuck is wrong with me today? I could still feel the blood faintly pumping from my adrenaline earlier in the morning.

"Glad you all are safe," Peter said, smiling, wiping the dirt on his hands on his shorts. His smile dropped when his gaze landed on Logan. "You too," he said forcibly. "So, is it done?" He turned to ask me.

It was Logan who answered him. "All the rats are off the ship."

"Then we won't have to worry about them anymore. We're thinking of hitting downtown again, scour for more supplies and equipment."

"What do you need?" I asked.

Peter gestured for Haskell to answer. "Uh, there's a dealership not far from here. We need Tesla batteries."

"Why Tesla?"