Untitled NaNoWriMo Book
Day one
Fucking hell. Does he ever shut up? Ari, short for Maria, sighed in frustration as JJ started to regal them, snort, with another one of his many tales of life before The End. She snorted once again in her head. That was so melodramatic. The End. They might as well just call it the Apocalypse and get it over with. It always sounded like it should have a cheesy Hollywood “Dun dun dun” afterward. The adults had even started a calendar based on the day the virus swept across Earth. They called the years After The End, or ATE for short. Well, they called the year ATE since it had only been little more then a year.
That thought lead to another sigh and the memory of why they were here in this god forsaken wilderness. It actually wasn’t wilderness and in trees, rocks and plants, seeing as it had been a small city at the time of the outbreak, but it was certainly deserted and wasn’t that what wilderness really was to humans? Places where no humans lived? If that was the definition then most of the Earth was now wilderness. After all, the virus had killed over 99.9% or the world. No one actually knew how many people were left, just that a great majority of people were dead. The only people she knew were alive were the people she lived with. Which brought her, again, since her brain had wandered a bit, back to why they were out here. They were searching for supplies.
The base of operations for her group was New York City, New York. It had a lot of shelter and a lot of supplies. Unfortunately, since their group numbered in the thousands, those supplies dwindled very quickly. Especially since a great deal of looting had occurred and as perishables went bad. After the supplies in the city itself had been used up the elected leaders, after all they were American, how else would they elect leaders but through Democracy, set up groups to go and gather supplies from the surrounding regions. Since petrol was pretty much non existent now they had been limited by walking distance. The farthest they had gone was two days walking distance.
In the year since The End, scoff, groups had gathered supplies from as far south as Dover, as far west as Harrisbug and as far north as Albany. The only direction they had not fully picked over was east. East was where it came from. The virus. No one wanted to go there. They had sent groups as far as New Haven and up to Springfield, Mass but no farther. They didn’t dare. Finally they had no choice. They were running dangerously low on food and east was the only way they hadn’t gone yet. So they debated. They debated and debated and debated for days on end. Finally a decision was made. One group would be sent east into the origin point. There was no other way. It was decided that the group would be made up of a medic to keep them healthy, an scholar to deal with how much food they could and should bring and a fighter to help subdue any trouble from the local wild life and supply an extra set of hands.
Ari had drawn the short straw. She was here, young as she was at the age of 17, as the fighter; the bastard who wouldn’t shut up for a goddamned minute was John “JJ” Jones, their scholar and the final person in their merry little band was Alexandros “Xan” Carras, their medic. So far Xan had said little, JJ had said a lot and Ari had spoken sparingly. They had never worked together before this mission meaning they didn’t know anything about each other except their place on this trip. They each knew Ari could fight, JJ was smart and Xan could keep them healthy. Other than that they knew nothing and one day of travel wasn’t going to change that.
“Do you ever shut up?” The words jerked Ari from her thoughts. It seemed Xan had finally gotten fed up with JJ’s constant stream of verbal diarrea and had stopped to snap at the younger man. Stopping quickly so she didn’t get to far ahead, she watched the exchange. JJ had stopped abruptly when the medic had turned around and had a startled and somewhat hurt look on his face. Xan, on the other hand, was standing their, feet shoulder length apart, hands clenched glaring down at JJ. The scholar had just opened his mouth to reply when Xan abruptly turned and stalked off. Glancing once at JJ, Ari hurried after Xan. She heard Xan start following only a few seconds later but his chatter had died. Now they walked in absolute silence.
That thought lead to another sigh and the memory of why they were here in this god forsaken wilderness. It actually wasn’t wilderness and in trees, rocks and plants, seeing as it had been a small city at the time of the outbreak, but it was certainly deserted and wasn’t that what wilderness really was to humans? Places where no humans lived? If that was the definition then most of the Earth was now wilderness. After all, the virus had killed over 99.9% or the world. No one actually knew how many people were left, just that a great majority of people were dead. The only people she knew were alive were the people she lived with. Which brought her, again, since her brain had wandered a bit, back to why they were out here. They were searching for supplies.
The base of operations for her group was New York City, New York. It had a lot of shelter and a lot of supplies. Unfortunately, since their group numbered in the thousands, those supplies dwindled very quickly. Especially since a great deal of looting had occurred and as perishables went bad. After the supplies in the city itself had been used up the elected leaders, after all they were American, how else would they elect leaders but through Democracy, set up groups to go and gather supplies from the surrounding regions. Since petrol was pretty much non existent now they had been limited by walking distance. The farthest they had gone was two days walking distance.
In the year since The End, scoff, groups had gathered supplies from as far south as Dover, as far west as Harrisbug and as far north as Albany. The only direction they had not fully picked over was east. East was where it came from. The virus. No one wanted to go there. They had sent groups as far as New Haven and up to Springfield, Mass but no farther. They didn’t dare. Finally they had no choice. They were running dangerously low on food and east was the only way they hadn’t gone yet. So they debated. They debated and debated and debated for days on end. Finally a decision was made. One group would be sent east into the origin point. There was no other way. It was decided that the group would be made up of a medic to keep them healthy, an scholar to deal with how much food they could and should bring and a fighter to help subdue any trouble from the local wild life and supply an extra set of hands.
Ari had drawn the short straw. She was here, young as she was at the age of 17, as the fighter; the bastard who wouldn’t shut up for a goddamned minute was John “JJ” Jones, their scholar and the final person in their merry little band was Alexandros “Xan” Carras, their medic. So far Xan had said little, JJ had said a lot and Ari had spoken sparingly. They had never worked together before this mission meaning they didn’t know anything about each other except their place on this trip. They each knew Ari could fight, JJ was smart and Xan could keep them healthy. Other than that they knew nothing and one day of travel wasn’t going to change that.
“Do you ever shut up?” The words jerked Ari from her thoughts. It seemed Xan had finally gotten fed up with JJ’s constant stream of verbal diarrea and had stopped to snap at the younger man. Stopping quickly so she didn’t get to far ahead, she watched the exchange. JJ had stopped abruptly when the medic had turned around and had a startled and somewhat hurt look on his face. Xan, on the other hand, was standing their, feet shoulder length apart, hands clenched glaring down at JJ. The scholar had just opened his mouth to reply when Xan abruptly turned and stalked off. Glancing once at JJ, Ari hurried after Xan. She heard Xan start following only a few seconds later but his chatter had died. Now they walked in absolute silence.