Memories and Monuments

I haven’t seen the moon in months. I’m not even sure it’s still there. Everything else has changed, I couldn’t see why that would stay the same. But I stare up at the clouded sky and speak to it just the same. It’s something I’ve done since I was little, huddled in the crook of a tree’s branch, savoring the darkness. But the moon always found me. Sometimes, it felt like it was the only one that looked.

We’ve been walking for so long, but we shouldn’t be stopping. Even if the house is warm and empty. Even if we’re deep in a dense forest, far enough away from everything. Even if we have to. 

I stare at the house, reflecting in the distorted ripples of the gentle waves over the lake’s surface. There’s a motorcycle in the garage, sleek and black. I had seen it while we were searching the house, making sure nothing had broken in. It has a full tank of gas, I had checked. Enough to get me far away. 

They’re closing in on us fast, despite what everything had said before. I wonder if that’s what did them in, those who were killed in the first wave, before we had enough time to learn how wrong we were. They had trusted the movies and books and stories so much, they couldn’t see the fire raging around us, getting closer and closer. 

I don’t know how many of us were left, in total. There were five in our group. Our tribe, Will had called us. There used to be more. Will and Pete and Julia and Ash. And more before that, before they had found me. 

They all died, everyone did. Mostly, it’s disease. Sometimes, it’s an accident, a fall or a fight. Pete blew his brains out last week. We had all been shaken by Julia’s death, but he had taken it hard. I suppose he thought it was his fault for convincing her to search for food with him. He thought it was his fault the animals had found them. He thought it was his fault he escaped and she didn’t.

We buried them. I didn’t know how long it’s been since everything went to hell. Couple years, maybe. But we knew how to deal with the dead. Burn them. Then bury their ashes and bones deep, ten feet should do it. Use a boulder to cover the mound. As a marker or memorial, I suppose, but also to slow them down, just long enough to get away. It’s harder to come back without flesh, but they manage somehow. 

I keep waiting to see Will again. He must be after us like all the others were. I had killed Pete myself at least half a dozen times. He’s even faster than the others, but Will is still gone. 

I pull the crumpled envelope from the pocket of my windbreaker, turning it around in my hands. The black ink has faded to blue, the words near illegible now. I doubt the letter inside is still intact. But I held onto it anyway. The unopened seal still chants its taunt as I spin it around and around. I haven’t told the others about it, yet; they have enough to worry about. 

The heavy wind stirs the sycamore leaves above me. The gnarled roots dig into my back and legs. 

We’re all hungry and tired and hurting and angry and empty. Lola had barely been conscious when I last saw her. She’s probably slipped into some fitful, feverish sleep as Jen fawns over her, doing everything to help. But I know, the way I had known when Will lay in Lola’s place. 

We should bury her under the tree. It would be a fitting end for the botanist, to become one with the earth, at least for a time. She would like it. Maybe I can risk a trip to the city. It’s exposed and dangerous, but I think I still know the way to the greenhouse. I would dig up some tulips, pink were her favorite, and bring them back. I’d plant them over her grave. They won’t last long, not with all these mindless and soulless feet to trample them, but nothing does anymore. 

I suppose it just depends on how long she holds out. It’s a half day’s trip there, another back. It’s bad luck to dig the grave before a person dies, but much worse to leave it unfilled for more than a day. If Lola holds out for another day or two, I could be back with the tulips. If she dies soon, there’s no chance. 

At what point did the question become when they die and not if? I suppose it was always when, only that no one spoke like that. But everything is different now and it’s when and not if.

We’ll bury her little bone buffalo statue with her, the one she always touches for good luck. It was pockmarked and smoothed by her trials and touch. 

We each have our own charms. I don’t know when or where we got them, but somehow we all ended up with some trinket or another to hold so tight that blood runs down our hands when steps echoed through the darkness. 

Jen has the small, brass bell that stopped ringing long ago, dented and tarnished by time. 

Rick has a rock, a perfect skipping stone that he will someday skip along the clouds. 

Tom has a pen with no ink and a cap that’s been chewed.

I have a feather, ruffled and drooping from my grip. I ran my fingers over it now, letting my mind take flight on the wings of a long dead bird. The others think it’s bad luck to have Death’s pet carried around in my pocket. Maybe that’s why I like it. A middle finger to the sky. 

Come and get me, I scream. I dare you.

But no one comes. 

“Hey.”

I look up at Tom, standing just behind me. His dark circles are shadowed bruises under his eyes, but I guess everyone’s are these days. He sits carefully next to me, mindful of the bruises painted over his ribs, shoulder pressing against mine. 

“How’s Lola?” I ask into the wind.

I hear him chuckle a single, breathy laugh, the only kind I knew anymore. “She’s comfortable,” he answers simply. There isn’t any emotion in his voice, even as the understanding passes between us. “Have you chosen somewhere?”

“I was thinking right here,” I say, patting the ground beside me. 

He smiles. “She’ll like it.”

I hear a rustle of paper. I know what it is without looking. I know what it looks like without turning. The picture is fading quickly, the paper already soft with how many times he stares at it. But in Tom’s eyes, the golden lights glowed just as bright behind the Eiffel Tower as they had when I had first seen the picture. 

“Someday,” he whispers. “We’ll get you there, Mira. Just hang on.”

He turns it over and this time I look. A dozen names are scrawled over the back in careful print. Different handwriting and hands, but the same love and loss. Everyone Tom’s ever met since all this began. Everyone Will had met before him. Everyone Mira, a girl we knew only from Will’s stories, had met. This was their monument, the only one they would get. I wondered who would get it when Tom died.

Because everyone dies. I’d known that since I was little, when my first fish had died. Mr Dopples, I called her. I must have only been three or four at the time. It was one of my first memories. Somehow, death was all of my memories now. Only it wasn't a somehow. It was all I remembered because it was all I knew anymore. It was all any of us knew. 

Someone called to us from the house, half-hearted and empty. I know Rick’s voice like I knew my own brother’s. Tom does too. We look at each other. 

And, just like that, I’ll add another memory and Tom will add another name.