Empathy

 (So this was a short story I did for a contest on the website Vocal. Long story short, the site went down at submission time, and I couldn't enter it for judging, but I thought the story was decent and wanted to share. So here it is, and I hope you let me know what you think!)

Everyone had an idea of how the world would end. A colossal nuclear war, perhaps, or a leaked hybrid superflu, or maybe an asteroid hell-bent on collision. Floods or famines or robot overlords or even waves of zombies, everyone had an idea.

Nobody expected it to end because everyone just stopped caring.

The scientists say we all burned out on information overload, and the preachers say God’s love left our hearts. Me, I think people saw more wrong than right in the world and just said, “Fuck it.”

In the end, the reason didn’t matter as much as the reality. People quit chasing their dreams, quit going to work, quit looking out for each other. There were shortages, and assaults in the street, riots and lootings and murders. People sequestered at home with whatever they could stockpile, sticking to the family group. But as empathy waned, even families splintered into abuse.

My name is Natalie, and I have a mission in this world gone mad. I wear his image encased in a silver heart around my neck. And as the last of my stockpile dwindled to a few cans of beans, I packed them into a backpack, armed myself with a wooden dowel that (in saner times) had been a curtain rod, and set out to find him.

I exited my apartment and made my way through the hallway. It was strangely cluttered, and I had to pick my way through an assortment of random junk, trash cans and baby strollers and old toys and debris. I brushed against a rubbermaid container full of empty beer cans, and accidentally knocked it over with a clatter fit to wake the dead. 

I didn’t wait to see what trap I’d just sprung on myself … I ran for it, down the hallway and out into the street. I stuck to the bushes and the shadows, moving quick but as quiet as I could. The night streets of this new world were good only for the suicidal. But I heard a commotion up ahead, along my path, and I slowed and sidled closer to see.

Four men had a woman trapped against the brick wall of a nearby building, and they were batting her back and forth with punches and slaps, laughing heartily. One punched her in the face, hard, mashing her nose with a hard crack and sending blood spattering.

“Aw, why’d you do that?” said another. “Now she’s too ugly to fuck.”

“She already was,” said the Puncher, and the others chuckled brutally in agreement.

I crept up, keeping to the shadows, but all of them were intent on their prey. The four stood in a loose semicircle around the girl, who had her back to the wall. Two stood side-by-side, facing away from me, with another to my left and Puncher to my right.

I picked the first two for my target. I tightened my grip on my curtain rod, said a hasty prayer, and swung it with all my might like an oversized baseball bat. The rod connected with the first one’s head with a sound like a melon being pulped. He dropped like a stone. The second one took a glancing hit and stumbled to his knees - I swung a vicious downward strike and he collapsed as well, the rod sinking into his skull. I worked it free and kept swinging, the others stunned by the suddenness of the attack.

I swung for the one on the left first, catching him full across the face, his jaw breaking out of alignment and tooth fragments scattering to the ground like a cannibal child’s marbles. He fell, and that left the Puncher.

Who drew a knife and slashed at me with shocking speed. I jumped back, but felt a stripe of icy coldness streak up my side. Still, I had the reach on him, and I danced backward while swinging my dowel again and again, battering him mercilessly. I managed to land a blow against the side of his head, and his eyes went dull, his body sinking to the pavement and the knife sliding out of his loosened grasp. I kicked it away, then went to the girl.

“Can you run?” I asked.

She blinked tears out of her eyes and looked at me, confused. “I - think so?” she managed.

“Then come on,” I said, grabbed her hand, and we ran down the street. Two rights, a long stretch, and then a left, and we were at the shattered entrance to the local pharmacy. The alcohol section stood looted bare, but most of the medical supplies were still intact. I gathered a few boxes and told the girl to sit down.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said, but complied.

“It’s Natalie,” I replied, and set about trying to splint her nose. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Sheri,” she said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, pulling a strip of medical tape off the roll.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“If you have to ask, then you wouldn’t understand.”

She was quiet a moment, then said, “I think I do understand. I’m just having trouble believing it.”

“Well, start believing,” I said brusquely, and smoothed down the medical tape. “There. Best I can do.”

She touched her nose gently and said, “Thank you. Now let me see your side.”

I thought about arguing, sighed, and then lifted my shirt. I was a little curious myself. The wound looked ugly, snaking up my side from hipbone to ribcage, caked with clotted blood and gaping, but at least no organs were hanging out. I said as much.

“You need stitches,” she replied. “Hang on a second.”

She stood and headed to the back of the pharmacy, vaulting over the counter. She rummaged around a few minutes and then returned carrying several bottles of liquid, packs of gauze, and a pile of little plastic-wrapped packages.

The packages were suture kits. “You know how to use those?” I asked.

“I was a medical student. Before,” she said, setting to work on my side. “Fourth year. About to enter residency. Small chance of me ever becoming a doctor now, but at least I know a few things.”

She did, too. The bottles were antiseptic, not anesthetic, but she sewed up my side with a quick grace that didn’t leave much time for pain. She fastened gauze over the wound and taped it in place, then bundled the extra gear into her backpack.

“So, where to?” she said.

“You want to come with me?” I asked, utterly floored.

“After what you just did? I’m with you for the long haul.”

I couldn’t come up with suitable argument or thanks for that one, so I just nodded. We gathered our stuff, and we left.

*****

We got to the apartment complex just as the sun was beginning to lighten the sky. I led us through the paths to the doorway, and I tried the knob. My heart sank as it swung open, and I saw the shambles inside - shattered tables, torn cushions, smashed electronics, and scattered debris.

“Max?” I queried into the mess, softly, hopelessly. Then -

“Natalie?” I heard his gasp of astonishment and spun, saw the closet door swing open. He stepped out, all messy hair and long limbs, holding a baseball bat. And behind him, his lady, Susan, who was gripping a cast-iron skillet so hard her fingers were white.

“Max!” I shouted and ran for him, wrapping him in a huge hug. He laughed a little and hugged me with his free arm.

“Good to see you too, sis,” he said, then nodded towards Sheri. “Who’s this?”

“Her name’s Sheri,” I said. “She’s all right. Not like the Others. What happened here? Who did this?” I swung an arm to indicate the disaster around us.

“We did,” Susan said. “They don’t bother with a place that looks like it’s already been hit.”

“It’s been working pretty well so far,” Max said.

“That’s great for now, but does anybody have a long-term plan?” Sheri asked.

“I do,” I said. They all looked at me expectantly. I soldiered on.  “We go into the woods,” I said, “We pack your car with all the food and seeds and tools it can carry, and we find a safe place, or make one. And then we go into the cities, in secret, and if we find people like us, we bring them back with us. And when we run into those Others,”  I finished grimly, “we kill them.” 

It sounded dumber out loud than it had in my head. I held my breath while they all stared at me, then Max said, “Sounds better than waiting here to die. I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Susan added, hefting her frypan in a sort of salute.

Sheri smiled at me. “Long haul, I said. So let’s get moving.”

“You still got your SUV?” I asked Max.

He nodded. “Hidden in the overflow parking. Out of sight behind some trees.”

We filled backpacks with canned goods and other essentials and headed for the door, and I felt hopeful for the first time since the madness had descended. My curtain rod hung loose in my hand, and I opened the door.

Directly on Puncher’s snarling, swollen face.

He held a gun. How had he found a gun? Even as I was thinking it my hand moved, curtain rod swinging down on his wrist. But I was too slow, and I heard my brother’s grunt even over the crack of the gunshot.

And then everything was red fire, rage coursing unholy through my blood with a fearsome glee, and I knew then in some small way the draw of the Others’s brutality. I bashed Puncher in the head, over and over, his face deforming and skull pulping, and I didn’t stop until long after his body had gone still on the pavement.

“Natalie!” Sheri called. “We need you!”

I snapped back to myself, ran to kneel by Max’s side. Sheri had slid his pants off, wrapped his belt high and tight around his thigh, and despite the tiny bullethole the pool of blood he lay in was shockingly large. Then he shifted, and I saw the gaping wound at the back.

Sheri put my hand on the belt. “Hold it tight,” she said. “The bullet missed the bone, but it’s nicked the femoral. He’ll bleed out unless I can get it closed.”

I wrestled down my panic and said, “What do you need?”

“The sharpest, smallest knife you’ve got. A light, the brighter the better. And cloth. Lots and lots of clean cotton cloth.”

“I’ve got an X-acto, a camp lantern, and some clean sheets,” Susan said. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she maintained her composure.

“Perfect. Bring them,” Sheri said, pulling bottles and boxes out of her backpack.

Susan did, at a run, and Sheri set to work.

*****

Several days later:

We’d stocked the SUV full with everything we could loot, and the roads stretched empty as we made our way out of civilization. We’d run into a passing soldier, still in combat fatigues, who had traded an extra sidearm for a hearty helping of foodstuffs. We’d told him our plan, and he’d promised to look us up, but said he had someone to find first.

I could really understand.

I glanced in the rearview mirror every now and again, watching him sleep, Susan tucked softly snoring under his arm. Sheri noticed.

“He’ll be fine, you know,” she said. “No sign of infection. His wound is healing nicely.”

“You saved his life,” I said, my throat thick.

“And you saved mine,” she said.

“Does this make us even, then?” I glanced at her.

“Maybe it makes us friends,” she said, and smiled. I smiled back, and turned my attention to the road.

We headed into the wilderness to make our future.