You're Not in This Alone

I awoke to Gerard muttering in his sleep. He was holding me a little too tightly, and he was saying things like, “It burns,” and, “Make it stop.” Glancing over at Sarah, I saw that she was sitting up in her bed and looking at us in concern.

I usually let him keep sleeping when he was talking in his sleep so I wouldn’t interrupt his dreams, but this time I was worried. He was acting like he was in physical pain. “Gerard,” I said, crushing his cheek with my hand.

He turned his head away from my touch, and a wrinkle line appeared between his eyebrows, showing that something was hurting him.

“Wake up,” I said more loudly, getting desperate. I shook his shoulders, but nothing happened. “Wake up, Gerard!” I pleaded, but he still didn’t respond. So I put all my weight on top of him and kissed him with everything I was worth.

When I pulled away, his face relaxed, and he murmured, “Sorry Ebony. I was only dreaming.” He didn’t open his eyes.

I rolled off of him, suddenly conscious of Sarah’s gaze. “What were you dreaming about? You looked like you were in pain.”

He laughed darkly and wiped gleaming sweat from his face, saying, “I was in pain. I was dreaming about the fire again. It was so close; it was too hot.”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

Finally opening his eyes and sitting up, he replied, “I don’t know. I can’t even tell if it was in the past or the future.”

“You dream about the future?” Sarah inquired.

Gerard looked as if he had just remembered she was there. He also looked as if she had reminded him of something. “Yes,” he told her. “And last night I dreamt about something hurting your ears today.”

Looking scared, she asked, “What was it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, sounding troubled. Turning to me, he asked. “What do you feel?”

“Something’s going to happen today,” I declared. Then, laughing to myself, I added, “Something’s been happening every day.” Not wanting Sarah to feel left out, I turned to her and asked. “Do you hear anything unusual?”

She shook her head.

“Then let’s eat breakfast, get changed, and get out of here.”

Neither of them bothered to ask where we would be going. We changed, ate, and packed up. We walked down the dead, crowded street for a few minutes until we came to a store in which we could get clothes for Sarah. We didn’t spend very long there. She wasn’t very picky.

After we’d put her new clothes in my bag, we ate lunch. We were all tense, knowing something was up. I felt like Gerard and I were responsible for Sarah now, and knowing something was going to hurt her bothered me.

“We can’t stay in the city forever,” I pointed out to them. “We need to find fresh water somewhere to bathe in. Pools aren’t going to be good enough forever.”

Gerard nodded, and Sarah asked, “Where can we go? Do you know anywhere?”

I shrugged. “I don’t feel the impulse to go in a certain direction, if that’s what you mean,” I explained. “I feel stuck.”

Gerard put his hand on my shoulder as we packed up lunch, saying, “Don’t worry. Let’s just start heading out of the city. I’m sure something will happen to point us in the right direction.”

And then it happened.

Hello? a voice boomed in my head, so loud I fell to my knees and wasn’t aware of anything else for a second. I looked around when I regained control of myself. Sarah was on the ground, pressing her palms to her ears, practically writhing in pain. Gerard was the only one still standing, but he was holding his head. They had heard it too.

“What the hell was that?” Gerard moaned.

“We’re not hearing it with our ears,” I explained to them, not knowing how I knew. “It’s coming from inside our heads.” I got a strange feeling and added, “It’s going to happen again.”

Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to be so loud, the voice said more quietly in my head. It was the voice of a very young man that had just gained his lower voice.

My name is Lance. I’m fifteen years old, and my girlfriend Miranda and I are alive. I have this gift: the ability to put thoughts and pictures in other people’s heads. We don’t know why everyone’s dead, but if there’s anyone out there, Miranda and I are in a small town called Catskill on the Hudson River a couple of hours drive from New York City.

We waited for several minutes to make sure he was done. I broke the silence by asking, “Are you two alright? Did you catch that?”

“Yes,” Sarah replied, and Gerard nodded.

“Alright then. We’re going to Catskill,” I declared.

In the middle of the city, the cars were in the streets, so we couldn’t drive. I figured we could drive once the traffic wasn’t so bad, though. For the rest of the afternoon we walked towards the outskirts of the city. We stopped at a hotel to spend the night.

While we ate dinner, Sarah mused, “I wonder how many people like us there are; how many people are left.”

“There can’t be that many,” I answered.

Smiling at me, Gerard said, “It’s strange how only Sarah was left out of all the people in New York City, but you and I grew up next door to each other in a small town.”

“Strange,” I agreed, caught between a grin and a frown.

“Strange,” Sarah echoed. Having just eaten her last bite of beans (which we had for dinner again), she yawned and stated, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

I knew she was going to sleep to give us time alone, but I didn’t really want to argue with her. We all changed into pajamas, and Gerard and I sat on the big chair in the hotel room.

He put his arm around me, and I felt the anxiousness pumping through his veins. He waited until I told him Sarah was asleep to ask, “Are you alright?”

I sighed. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?” he pressed.

I couldn’t keep anything from him. “I miss how easy it used to be. Sure, we had to live with all the people, but at least we didn’t have to worry about what we would eat, where we would sleep, or how we would stay clean. Now we’re on our own, and we don’t know what to do. It’s not that bad for us, but what about Sarah? Kids her age need parents, whether the love them or not. What if there are other children out there that don’t know what to do?”

Avoiding eye contact, Gerard mumbled, “Either we’ll find them, they’ll manage, or they’ll end up like everyone else. We can only do our best.”

I almost resented his cold indifference, but I knew it was only a mask to cover up that he was really as worried as I was. I continued, “And even if we do find other people like us, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to live? We could find a small town to live in if it has everything we need, but with all these bodies around… We could get sick if we’re not careful. And what are we supposed to do with our lives? We can’t go to college, get jobs… Are we going to sit around?”

Gerard tugged my chin gently to make me look straight into his eyes. “Stop talking like all hope is lost, Ebony,” he ordered. “You and I… We’re alive, okay? And we’ve got years ahead of us. We’ll find something to do. In the meantime, we’re going to find those two kids, Lance and Miranda. We’ll find as many people as we can, then we’ll settle down in a small town with everything that we need in it. We’ve got each other, and we’ll be a family. I think Sarah’s already a part of our family. She’s like a little sister already. I feel like I need to protect her now almost as much as I need to protect you. We’re going to be fine.”

“I love you,” I whispered, “because of the way you make me feel like everything’s going to be okay.”

He kissed me and replied confidently, “It is. Now let’s go to sleep. It’s getting late.”