Chapter 3 - Waverly
It is well past midnight before Gilbert turns the SUV down a side road to make camp for the night. Ethan questions his decision, but Gilbert tells us that we will run out of gas in the next 100 miles or so and we need to figure out the best place to find fuel so we can actually get to the town of Crestwood .
The road winds through a forest and he eventually stops when he sees a small clearing surrounded by large trees. I open the door and step out onto the grass as the cold wind nearly knocks the breath out of me.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” Ethan says to no one in particular. “The nights are getting colder the farther north we travel. We might want to sleep in the car.”
“You can sleep in there all you want,” Gilbert says, “but you can’t have the heat on. Uses too much gas. Besides, the back window is shot out. I say we build a fire.”
“Build a fire so raiders and greyskins can see us for miles?" Ethan says.
Gilbert holds out his hands and turns. “Why do you think I drove us back here? No one is going to see a fire out here. We’ve driven long enough to know the raiders didn’t follow us, and we’ll take turns staying up to watch for greyskins.”
Ethan doesn’t respond, but I care nothing about raiders or the greyskins. All I care about is getting warm.
“Fire sounds good to me,” I say quietly.
“You see?” Gilbert says. “She agrees with me.”
I don’t know how I feel about Gilbert being happy that I agree with him, but I don’t even acknowledge his words.
“You guys want to see what’s in the back of the SUV?” Gilbert asks.
Neither Ethan nor I answer him, but we gather around. He opens a satchel he found in the front seat and pulls out a flashlight as the hatchback of the SUV opens. He flips up a small compartment and what we see makes Ethan light up. Gilbert reaches down and pulls out a shiny rifle that looks as if it has never been fired. This hidden compartment is full of guns and ammunition. No doubt it will help the group and all, but I don’t want any part of it. We aren’t used to carrying weapons like these. At least I’m not.
Lucas and I had always avoided using guns. Firing one only meant drawing in more greyskins. Sure, they were good for blowing away a few at a time, but the sound carries so far, there is no way a greyskin wouldn’t hear it and come running.
When Gilbert is done gawking at the firearms, we finally start gathering wood for the fire and within an hour, the front of me toasts warmly while my back is nearly frozen.
The three of us sit in silence as the fire eats away at the wood, falling into smoldering coals that give off a heat warm enough to make my brow sweat. The moon illuminates the cold fog that lingers throughout the trees in the forest and the flickering flames cast our shadowed forms along the trunks. I try not to look into the trees at all. Despite the security they bring, shielding us from curious eyes, I hate how little I can see into the distance. I hate the trees because I never know what might be lurking behind them. That’s why I keep my eyes on the fire.
As we sit, all I can think about is Lucas. It pains me to know it, but I doubt there is anything left of him now. The greyskins devour every bit of a fresh body. I often wonder how there can be so many greyskins in the world when they eat so many of their victims. I suppose there are so many people that escape the fate of being completely eaten, only to be scratched or bitten, the poisonous saliva or blood mixing with theirs.
How could all of this have happened? How could humanity be reduced to an existence of mere survival within a span of three years? How had this disease spread so rapidly?
I have feared the greyskins more than anything. And even after our run-in with Scarecrow and his men, I still fear the greyskins more. There is just something disturbing about a creature that used to be a person like me but is now walking about mindlessly. Any time I see greyskins, I know that they were once average people like me who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. They had been scratched or bitten. Then, within twenty-four hours, they were dead, only to wake back up, their skin an ashy, grey color, their eyes almost black and dripping with mucus. And over time their skin just rotted, but their body kept moving, motivated only by the desire to eat human flesh, to taste blood. It has been a never-ending nightmare for the past three years.
I look up from the fire and my eyes fall on the other two. Gilbert sits and studies his new weapons from the SUV, and Ethan…he seems different than Gilbert. I guess we are all different, but for him, it’s something I can’t place. He doesn’t carry any of the guns from the SUV. Instead he has a baseball bat that was probably once a light-colored wood but is now stained brown and black from so many greyskin head-bashings.
Lucas and I had only been with these two for a couple of days, but from what I understand, they have not known each other for very long at all. I suppose that is why the silence persists. Neither of them really knows the other that well.
Ethan stokes the fire with a long stick, maneuvering branches so the flames burn brighter and hotter. I watch him as he swallows, and moves his mouth like he wants to say something. He clears his throat and looks at me. I dart my eyes away, but they find Ethan’s again. He smiles at me for a second before setting his stick down and standing.
“I uh…I think we ought to recognize Lucas’ bravery tonight,” he says, his eyes lowering to meet mine again. “I didn’t know him very well, but he did a good thing today.”
“That’s debatable,” Gilbert says out of the side of his mouth.
I can feel myself scowl, but I don’t look at him. Instead, I stare directly into the flames as tears come to my eyes. I reach for the chain around my neck and pull out the small diamond ring. My finger rubs at the precious stone and tears start to form in my eyes.
“Be respectful,” Ethan chides Gilbert. “None of us could have known what was going to happen. If the raiders hadn’t shot, the greyskins might not have come. The raiders might have killed all of us.” He takes a deep breath and bends down to pick his stick back up. He pushes a few of the coals around, trying to rouse the heat as he sits back down.
“We’ve all lost someone,” I say. I don’t expect my voice to sound so thick, but I know they notice.
“Some of us have lost everyone,” Ethan says as he continues to stoke the fire. The end of the stick is charred and a flame clings to it.
“What else do you expect?” Gilbert asks. He looks at me. “I’m sorry, but it was only a matter of time for your dear Lucas.” He shakes his head. “It’s only a matter of time for any of us.”
“I don’t believe that’s true,” Ethan says.
“Believe what you want,” Gilbert comes back. “The greyskins are growing in number every single day. Raiders are patrolling, making these roads more and more dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before any of us face a shot to the head or the bite of a greyskin.”
“Then why are you traveling to Crestwood?” Ethan says, suddenly looking up at Gilbert. His face is red with anger. “Why do you get excited about finding a stash of guns in the back of the SUV? Why not just give up if you’re just going to take that attitude?”
Gilbert chuckles, tossing a pebble into the coals. “I’m not suicidal. Of course I’m going to try and survive for as long as I can. I just know my chances of growing old are next to nothing.” He points at me now. “I don’t get upset when someone like Lucas dies because I know it’s just a matter of time before it’s me. It’s just a matter of time before it’s either of you.”
I don’t know what it is…anger…sadness…but I can’t keep myself from speaking up. “Then why don’t you just take that gun of yours, point it at your own head and pull the trigger? Wouldn’t that be a better death than if a greyskin rips you to shreds? Isn’t it better than dying just so a raider can see what you might have in your pocket? Don’t sit there and pretend that you don’t have a hope for your future. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here by the fire. You wouldn’t be giddy at the sight of rifles. If you had no hope you would already be dead.”
Gilbert’s eyes glint through the fiery haze like he is a demon from the underworld. It almost looks like he wants to kill me, but a sudden change in his expression keeps that fear at bay, yet is no less haunting. He smiles at me.
“There is a difference between surviving for as long as you can and having hope,” he says as he picks up his pile of guns and stands. “I lost hope a long time ago.” He looks across the fire at Ethan. “You’ve got first watch tonight. I’m sleeping in the SUV.”
Gilbert storms away and closes the SUV door a little too loud for comfort. Ethan stares into the flames, still looking angry.
“I’m actually relieved he’s gone,” I say.
“I don’t know why I stick with him,” Ethan says. He looks up at me with a serious face. “You can’t listen to Gilbert. I believe you can have hope.”
“After today I’m not so sure,” I say. “Part of me thinks Gilbert is right, though I don’t want to hear it.”
“Then don’t hear it,” Ethan says. “What good would it do to believe there is no hope?”
I shake my head, thinking of Lucas, thinking of my parents…my older sister. Anyone and everyone that has ever been a part of my life is gone.
“Gilbert would say the opposite,” I say numbly. “What good would it do to believe there is hope?”
Ethan doesn’t answer.
“I want to believe it,” I say. “Hours ago I did believe it. I’m not so sure anymore. What if this town, Crestwood, isn’t everything we hope it is? Aren’t we all just going on a stranger’s word that it’s a safe place for people like us? We don’t really know.”
“If it’s not then we find someplace else,” Ethan answers. “That, or we build our own safe haven.”
“Dreams,” I say.
“Perseverance,” Ethan comes back. He takes a deep breath and sighs. “The moment you start to think you aren’t going to make it is the moment the enemy starts winning.”
“Lucas said something similar to me once. Look what happened to him.” I feel empty as the words pour out of my mouth. I hate talking about him in this way. It’s almost as if we’ve just been separated for a short time and that we will meet again soon. It’s so hard to think of him as gone.
“You can’t stop bad things from happening,” Ethan says. “All you can do is try to survive and have hope that you will survive. Why not have hope? It’s not like you can see the future.”
My eyes dart to meet his when he speaks, almost as if he knew something about me that I haven’t shared with anyone. But he just shakes his head and stares back into the fire.
The future…
I did see the future. At least, I saw a brief glimpse of it just before it happened. What sickens me the most about all of this was that I could have done something to prevent Lucas’ death. Well, I think I could have anyway. I’m not certain how it works. I saw the scene unfold in front of my eyes almost as if it were a warning of some kind. I had reached out and grabbed Lucas’ hand to stop him, and then a bright light flashed in front of me. But no one else seemed to have seen it at all. It was as if it happened in my head.
So, having seen the future, could I have altered it? In only a split second, everything played out just as I had seen it in the vision, but could I have reached out and pulled Lucas to safety before Scarecrow pulled the trigger? I suppose I will never know.
I watch Ethan as he continues to stoke the fire. Part of me wants to tell him what I saw, but I can’t really trust him, though he has been nicer to me than Gilbert.
I decide that I might as well try to learn something about him. I am now left with no one to trust but myself. I have no desire to place trust in anyone else, but an ally might be useful. I reach out and warm my palms above the flames. “So, how did you come across Gilbert?” I ask.
“Little more than a week ago, I was traveling alone and saw him in the distance,” he answers. “He had mistaken me for a greyskin, and was going to kill me, but when he got closer he saw I wasn’t going to harm him.” He pats the baseball bat at his side. “Carrying this thing let him know I wasn’t a raider. He let me team up with him because he was lost in a town down south. I had been there for a couple of weeks and knew the area well. I promised to help him find some supplies and find a safe route through if he would let me tag along with him. Took some convincing, but he eventually agreed.” He shrugs. “Now I’m here.”
I shake my head at this. “Why stay with him? He’s such a pig.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he says, grinning. “Looks like you and I agree on one thing, at least.”
“I don’t disagree with you about having hope for the future,” I say to him. The firelight dances on his slender cheeks. His short, dark hair blends with the shadows behind him. I notice for the first time that he is actually handsome when he smiles at me, which he is doing right now.
“I know you don’t,” he says. “You said it to Gilbert yourself. If you had no hope, you would already be dead.”
“I was mostly just saying that to get under Gilbert’s skin,” I say. “Every time he opens his mouth I want to shut it for him.”
“I know what you mean,” Ethan says. “I was actually going to leave him before you and Lucas came around.”
“Really?”
He nods. “When you two showed up, I decided to stay. I hoped you two would bring a fresh perspective. You know, help with decisions and all.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I say.
He grins slightly. “You haven’t disappointed anyone. At least you have a head on your shoulders.” He lifts the stick and points to the SUV. “Gilbert doesn’t listen to anybody, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” He clears his throat. “Not like you, though. At least you seem to care about others.”
“Lucas and I were a good team,” I say. The words are hard to say and they catch in my throat. To speak of Lucas in the past tense seems wrong. It feels like a lie. My fingers tug at the ring.
“Did Lucas give that to you?” Ethan asks.
My eyes don’t leave the fire. I want to answer Ethan and tell him where the ring came from, but I can’t. That moment in my past is particularly hard to think about it.
“How long had you two been traveling together?” Ethan pretends that he never asked the previous question and I am grateful.
A tear slips down my cheek. It’s not the first. It won’t be the last. To think that we made it through so much for three years made his death even more painful. The promises he made me rang true every day. Every attack we encountered, we survived. Until now. “Three years,” I manage to say.
Ethan nods. I know he feels awkward with me sitting here crying in front of him. He doesn’t know me enough to know that a strong arm around my shoulders would go a long way. But in truth, it’s not Ethan’s arms I want around me.
He’s about to say something when we both hear a snap behind us. Without hesitation, we drop to the ground onto our bellies. He shimmies up next to me, his bat held firmly in his left hand. My hand balls into a fist and I bite my lip when I realize that I must have left my hatchet next to Lucas and I’m completely weaponless.
With the fire behind us, the light shines toward the woods beyond and we can both see a lone greyskin stumbling along the edge of the trees. I try to keep my hands firm against the ground so Ethan doesn’t notice them shaking. I’ve killed my share of greyskins, but never without shaking hands. Is it fear? Yes. When I see the dead walking, I always feel fear. I never developed the callous sense of security that comes from years of practicing various ways of attacking greyskins. This one is no different. We have no indication that it has seen us or sensed us in any way, but it would only take a small sound. If it really is just one greyskin, it would be nothing for Ethan to charge after it and bash its head in with his bat. But something I’ve learned over the past three years is that once you’ve seen a greyskin it usually means a lot more aren’t too far behind.
We wait a few moments as it continues to stagger forward. My heart beats so fast I almost fear the undead creature is able to hear it, and when it stops for a moment to look around, gnawing, chomping at something invisible, I think it has heard me, but then it continues to walk. I turn my head slightly to look at Gilbert in the SUV, but he doesn’t seem to have heard it. I am thankful for that. Sometimes fear and a sudden realization that a greyskin is near will cause a person to yell out or do something rash. Sometimes the best thing is to sit and be patient as the creature moves along in search of flesh.
I almost feel sick by the sight of it. It’s missing an arm, and part of its chest has a gaping hole in the side of it. I still can’t fathom what keeps these things moving.
I jump slightly when Ethan touches my shoulder. “I don’t see any others,” he says. “I’m going to take it out.”
My mind races back to the moment when Lucas had whispered something similar to me just hours ago. Would it work again? Just as Ethan starts to get up, I reach out and grab his hand.
Again, just as before, a bright light flashes before my eyes.
I feel myself floating above, able to witness what happens below me. I watch down at myself and at Ethan who looks at the other me and smiles curiously as she holds his hand, but she lets go of it and nods to him. Ethan then jumps up from the ground as she stays behind. He brings his bat above his head and just as the greyskin turns to face him, he smashes the side of its head. Like a watermelon, the greyskin’s head crunches open and it falls to the ground lifelessly. I wait to see the tragedy unfold, for Ethan to realize too late that the greyskin wasn’t truly dead. I expect it to reach out to grab his leg and bite into it, ripping away tendons and arteries, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, he looks around the edge of the woods, searching for more greyskins only to turn his head back at her and smile.
“Coast is clear,” he says. “Lonely, nasty greyskin.”
The bright light flashes again and I’m back beside Ethan. To me, the vision lasted about thirty seconds, but to Ethan, I think it took no time at all. But I know what I’ve seen is the future, only this time it doesn’t look grim. I’m holding his hand and he looks at me with a smile on his face, but his eyebrows are jutted forward as though he is curious as to why I’m holding on to him. The last time I had seen the future, I foresaw the person dying, but this time, I foresee him succeeding. Why would I try to stop him?
I let go of his hand and nod to him. Everything happens as I saw. He lifts his bat above his head and the greyskin turns the second it hears Ethan, but Ethan smashes its head with the bat, splitting it wide open. The greyskin doesn’t move after it lands on the ground. Ethan’s swing was true. I watch as Ethan walks along the edge of the woods, searching for any trace of more greyskins, but I already know he won’t find any.
“Coast is clear,” I mutter to myself where he can’t hear me.
“Coast is clear,” Ethan says, turning to me.
“Lonely, nasty greyskin,” I whisper.
“Lonely, nasty greyskin,” he says with a smile.
I know there is a look of shock on my face as I sit up straight, but Ethan just thinks it’s because there was a greyskin.
“Aw, you can’t be afraid of that,” Ethan says, walking back to his seat at the fire. “I mean, those things are creepy, no doubt, but surely you’ve seen worse than that.”
You have no idea, I think to myself.
“Of course,” I say, not knowing what to think about what just happened.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan says. “I know you must have. It’s just the look you’re giving me. It almost looks like you’ve never seen a greyskin before.”
I try to shake my head, but I’m frozen. “I don’t know,” is all I can mutter.
“I have to admit,” he says, “I get pretty shaken up even after three years of this crap.”
But I barely hear him. As I stare into the fire, I wonder what I would have done this time if I had seen Ethan getting devoured in my vision. Would I have been able to stop him? Or is the future I see already set? Could I have stopped Ethan? Could I have stopped Lucas?
Ethan lowers his head to try and meet my eyes, but I stare straight ahead. “You can go to sleep,” I tell him. “Just leave me your bat.” I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight, so I might as well let the other two get some rest. My thoughts are racing. I can’t help but watch the images of the day play over in my head again and again. I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. The feeling drains me, but I cannot sleep. Slumber will have to take me another night.
Lucas is dead, and flashes of the future make me feel confused. Through all this, I can’t help but think about the past and how this all started. When Ethan finally agrees to go to sleep and let me keep watch through the night, my thoughts drift to the time I first heard about the greyskins. What a terrible day it was.