Dystopian Fiction: Alone, Alive

Last night I got some great news...my latest short story placed (second in my group) in round one of NYCMidnight's Short Story Challenge! Please keep in mind that this is flash fiction, written over the course of a few evenings after work, and limited to 2500 words...so no time for the kind of thought and development you'd expect from a short story written for a publication. I was assigned these surprise prompts:

Action/adventure (genre), solitude (subject) and a volunteer (character)

Here's what I did with the prompts, warts and all:

Synopsis: Bee volunteered for her neighborhood watch, knowing full well that it could kill her. Instead, something worse happened—she lived.

Alone, Alive

Bee sped toward the beach, the lightweight motorcycle growling as she pushed it to its limit, then skidding to a stop as she caught sight of the boardwalk. She jumped off the bike, letting it fall to the ground. The blue solar boat was still there, bobbing near the buoy-line. They could track her over land, but she liked her chances on the water.

The hot pavement burned her one bare foot as she raced from blistering concrete to scorching dry sand, finally reaching the cool wet sand by the shore. Without hesitation, she waded in, splashing her way forward until it was deep enough. She reached down and tugged off the other sneaker. Then she swam like hell.

A minute later she was onboard. She had to hand-crank the windlass to bring up the anchor. She glanced at her reddened left foot. She would need to find shoes.

There was no sound aside from the waves, but Bee scanned the horizon as she pumped the lever up and down. The lush scenery reminded her of Meeahmee—where she’d been living her perfectly ordinary life when The Consciousness had struck.

Bee’s small community had tried to rally together and fight back…they’d fought to live…but it had taken them too long to realize what was happening. They’d always been a step behind. Always too late.

Now she knew that the first deaths had been reported in Wauregan, and that it had taken months (and over a two hundred dead, by gruesome means) for law enforcement to find a pattern. By then, three of her own neighbors had already been killed.

The lever stuck—the anchor was in place. “Come on Baby,” she crooned to the cigarette boat. “Get me outta here.”

About ten minutes later, when her heartbeat had finally slowed, she cracked a smile. Then she began to laugh and whoop. “Yes! Woo HOOOO!” she yelled, taking one hand off the steering wheel to punch at the air.

She was giddy, and somewhere inside she knew something was breaking, but she pushed the thought away. “Fuck you motherfuckers!” she yelled, feeling defiant. Then the tears came. She barely noticed them.

Today had been close. So close. A Murder had entered the construction site that had been her safe haven for close to eleven months. It was a large site, intended to house one of those megamalls, with their movie theaters and pleasure houses. Barren of vegetation, holding nothing useful, she’d figured it would be her best bet.

Each day she ranged far and wide—“running errands,” was how she liked to think of it. She tried to spend most of the daylight hours out and about. She would scavenge for what she needed, hydrating often. She always collected as much water as she could carry, then “bathed” in dirt right before heading back. Manure, too…if she could find it. She reckoned anything that made her smell less like a human was a good thing.

Well before dark, she would retire to the little “apartment” she’d fashioned for herself on the roof of the half-finished megamall. She’d scavenged a couple small telescopes (she’d spray-painted them a dull black) and some binoculars, so she could check her perimeter. There had never been any reason for a Murder to approach the hot, dusty lot...until today.

She’d been looking over the rooftop’s short wall when some motion on the ground had caught her eye. After gauging the group’s approximate speed, she’d grabbed her emergency pack and left, moving as quickly and furtively as possible.

Every now and then she’d stopped and looked back to see whether the group had changed direction or sped up. She didn’t think they’d tracked her to the site. It had seemed more like a patrol. A mountain lion had been at the lead, with maybe a dozen others following. Putting aside everything she knew about The Consciousness, the great cat was terrifying. It could surely outrun her. And her almost non-existent weapons training would be pretty useless once it caught her and its furry friends joined in tearing her apart.

Bee had put some distance between herself and the Murder when she’d heard the trilling “Caw! Caw! Caw!” of a (damn it to hell) raven. It had almost seemed as though it was alerting the others. She’d abandoned her attempts at being quiet and practically flown to the roadside ravine where she’d stashed the little motorcycle.

Hands trembling, she’d attached the positive and negative terminals to the under-seat battery, and whispered “thank you” when it started.

At first, it had looked like the mountain lion would overtake her. The beast had somehow sunk its teeth into the sole of one of her sneakers, pulling it off her foot as she screamed and revved the bike. Just the memory of it made her shiver.

“Anyway, I got away,” she whispered.

When Bee saw the small dock, she was glad it was time once again to stop thinking and start doing. (That was how she tried to live these days.) She anchored the boat and set out on foot along the paved road.

“First, I’ll find shoes. Second, a place to sleep.” Then maybe she’d have to do some serious thinking...but not yet.

She came to an area with a few old houses, and more than a few bodies decomposing in and around them. Some of the cadavers had shoes on, but she didn’t have to resort to pulling them off—there were some pretty new size seven sneakers in one of the closets. Socks, too. She was pleased. She had missed having socks. She frowned, wondering when she’d gotten so blasé about dead bodies.

“Don’t think about that,” she said. “Time to move.”

As she settled into a steady jog, she thought on the raven. As far as she could tell, birds were mostly still acting like birds. Same as when the people of Meeahmee had finally realized that the larger animals around them were acting intelligently—far more intelligently than any animal had been known to act before—and that they were systematically killing off humans.

The papers had stopped running, and the radio stations had gone silent. They’d always loved their quiet little corner of the world, isolated from the four mega-cities and their too-bright lights. But being suddenly cut-off from “civilization” had been scary. They’d organized into a neighborhood watch that shot anything larger than a gopher on sight. They’d started a community farm. Sent out groups to scavenge what they could from the homes and businesses of the dead. Bee’s curves had disappeared. She’d complained about them for years, hating the pillowy roundness that had set in after her teens. Now she was lean and tough, and felt no happiness about it.

Soon enough, the elders had called a town meeting to discuss sending out a long-distance scouting party. “We need to find out what we can,” Gard’ner had said. “Our numbers are down to just about 200 and we have no idea how the Murders will continue to evolve. As you all know, they get wilier every day. We need to act rather than continue reacting.”

They’d talked for hours. Bee had been the first to volunteer, and there’d been a lot of arguing, especially by Lucah. (Bee tried not to think about him too much. She knew the pain could drive her insane.)

Finally Bee had gone up to the podium, and Gard’ner had let her have the old battered-up mic. “Look, we know both groups—the ones that stay and the volunteers for the scouting mission—need to contain some elders. And some of the youngest and fittest. And we can’t just send men and leave the town populated by just women. We oughtta protect as many as can potentially have kids as possible. Lucah and I have been married seven years and it’s no secret to some of you that we were trying and...and no luck. So far I’ve been pretty good at scavenging and getting back safe. So I’m going,” she’d said. “Who’s coming with me?” And of course, Lucah had volunteered, too…

“Don’t think about that, Bee,” she chided herself.

Tired in her bones and her very soul, she reached the old truck stop. Hoping she was unwatched, she inspected the massive trucks, risking the noise of smashing in passenger windows so she could look inside. One of the massive ones—an 18-wheeler—had keys in the ignition. She tried to start it, but wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. She’d always been pretty good with cars and bikes. She could change tires and batteries—simple stuff. But she just didn’t know enough about these behemoths.

“Where am I gonna go anyway?” she said. “Useless to turn back to Meeahmee, and I’ll be killed for sure if I try to get to the city.”

There was nowhere to go, and frankly nothing much to live for. “The animals have won. This is their land now,” she said. She’d kept these thoughts at bay for months, but they were always simmering near the surface. She sighed.

“If I haven’t been attacked by now with all the noise I been making, there probably isn’t a Murder for miles. Time to get some shuteye, Bee,” she said. There was a small bed in the cab, so she curled up and, mercifully, fell right asleep.

When Bee opened her eyes, the sun was rising. “Damn, slept through the night and everything,” she said. It was talk to herself or talk to no one…and the latter made her feel crazier than the former. She yawned and reached for her pack, pulling out a granola bar and her wallet. She had a few photos in it, and some days she spent hours staring at them. Remembering her life, and remembering Lucah. Today she felt like she was just about ready to join him.

The morning of their departure from Meeahmee, the town had been overrun by an enormous Murder. Gard’ner had yelled at them to go—she’d been helping the volunteers pack up one of the town’s two metrobuses. Fourteen had made it out of there on that bus. When they’d run out of fuel, they’d started walking. One by one, they’d been picked off by Murders. And Lucah…Lucah had died for Bee.

Murders. Murders. Murders. The word haunted her…permeated her waking thoughts and her dreams. Gard’ner had started calling them that because of an old folktale about animals that passed judgment and killed transgressors. The story had been about crows. But no one had never seen any crows—or any other birds, for that matter—with the murderous Murders around Meeahmee.

The community watch had killed mountain cats, wolves, and even some dogs…possibly strays, no collars. Best Bee could say about that was that there’d been a steady supply of fresh meat to supplement their otherwise meager diet.

Beloved pets—both cats and dogs—had simply disappeared one night. No one knew whether they’d run away or been killed. One kid had a bunny—it hadn’t disappeared with the others or acted any different. Smaller creatures like squirrels had been no threat. (Or so they’d thought.)

The closer the scouting group had gotten to the city, the harder the Murders had gone after them. Bee would give anything to know why.

“No way of knowing,” she said now. “Time to do something.”

She still had some food in her pack, but she figured she’d check the little truck stop store and restaurant. If she got lucky, she’d stuff herself and stock up. Might as well keep living until she was dead. “I’ll be eaten by the earth’s new overlords soon enough,” she said lightly.

She climbed out of the cab and moved as silently as possible toward the restaurant. When she was maybe ten yards from the front doors, she froze.

There was a big dog by the door. And it was looking right at her.

She had pepper spray, a gun, and a knife…and they were all neatly stowed in the damn pack on her back. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I be this stupid? she thought.

The dog—a German shepherd, maybe?—gave a soft whine. Bee was surprised to see it had a collar. A young Bee would have thought: Aw, poor thing is lonely.

This Bee was terrified.

It could hurt her pretty bad before she got out her gun—if she managed to get it at all. Worse, maybe it belonged to a Murder. If more animals joined the attack, she was toast. Should’ve tried carbon monoxide poisoning when I had the chance, she thought.

She didn’t know if it could understand human speech, but things being what they were…

“Excuse me,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to ah…intrude on your territory. You just stay where you are, please, and I’m gonna back away nice and slow. I mean you no harm, and you got no reason to try and hurt me.”

The dog whined again, keeping its eyes on her, but making no attempt to move. “I don’t hurt you,” it said.

“Holy fucking shit!” Bee exclaimed, the words rushing out before she could clamp her hand over her mouth. For a few seconds all she could do was stare and tremble. Once she’d calmed herself a bit, she lowered her hand. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…I mean, you shocked the hell outta me. None of the—none of your kind has ever spoken to me,” she explained.

“Yeah. Yeah. But I miss my Jekkie,” it said. The sound was half yowling and half whining, and it seemed he had trouble pronouncing the letter “m,” but those were words alright.

“Your Jekkie?” she asked, stepping nearer and then thinking she must be insane for getting closer to it.

It whined again, and the sound wrenched her heart. “This has to be a trick,” she muttered to herself. “Well…I would help you if I could, but I’m sure I can’t. If Jekkie was your owner, er—I mean no disrespect, your human companion or whatever—well, I’m guessin’ she’s dead. So, I’m just gonna go, okay?”

She said the words, but she couldn’t bring herself to go.

Bee felt a part of her would rather risk it—risk her life—to see if the dog could tell her anything useful. Or anything at all.

She moved closer to it, stopping about five yards away. Then she sank to the ground and shrugged out of her pack.

“Tell me everything you can remember,” she said. Then she smiled. She hadn’t had a conversation in nearly a year.