The sun scorched her skin and blistering heat whipped around her. Abby squinted up at the sky, flinching as the bright sun bored into her. The sound of footsteps echoed in her ears and she tilted her head to watch the small group approach.
“Find anything?” she grunted.
One of the men shook his head. “Town’s been wiped clean,” he said. “Not even a crumb left.”
“Dammit.”
“Do we head to the next town, boss?”
She pursed her lips, staring at the horizon. “We won’t have enough light to get there,” she replied. “We’ll bunker down here for the night and head off in the morning.”
“Roger that.”
He turned around to the group behind him and started directing everyone to a nearby building. It was covered in moss, missing windows and dilapidated. But it was structurally sound – one of the few buildings that still stood.
The camp was rapidly set up, a routine everyone was well used to. The group dispersed in the building, eating their small portions of food and quietly falling asleep not long after the sun vanished beyond the horizon.
Abby stretched out on the cold, chipped floor. The group had given her space, they knew better than to disturb their captain at night. She was on alert, all senses raging as the moon rose in the sky. She wouldn’t sleep well. She never slept well.
Dawn broke, another day. Another sleepless night. Abby rose with the sun, cleaning up supplies and waiting for the group to wake. It didn’t take long, most people woke with the sun now. It was too bright to continue sleeping. Too dangerous to not keep moving.
“We headed to the next town, boss?”
Abby glanced at her men and nodded. “Let’s keep moving. Maybe the next town will have some supplies.”
She started walking, making sure that the group remained close behind her. It was dangerous in this world now. Scavengers roamed the land, and violence had claimed many lives. No one truly understood what a post-apocalyptic world would be. So many theories circulated the world and when it happened… many humans turned feral. Violent. Abusive. It was not a world any person wanted to live in any more.
They started to cross the desert. Hot wind whipped across their faces. Abby pulled her scarf over her head as sand belted her eyes. They trekked across the desolate plain, along ravines of sand that used to be roads and past long-forgotten cities.
Their final goal was to find a city worth hunkering down in. They needed to set up a new base, a new home, to survive and continue the human race. It had been months of searching and no city was up to the task. They needed to find something.
The sandstorm picked up as they trekked along. It was hard to see, hard to hear. Almost impossible to recognise the ambush until it was on top of them. The silence was filled with sounds of shouting, screaming and recognisable cracks as bones and bodies snapped.
Abby couldn’t see as she flung her baseball bat. It didn’t connect with anything, but she could hear noises all around her. She felt something connect with the back of her head and darkness surrounded her.
She awoke to silence. Deafening silence. No people talking, no moaning… nothing. The sandstorm was gone and her heart sank as she looked around her. Bodies were strewn everywhere, many she recognised and some she didn’t. No one was moving. Everyone was gone. She was alone.
Abby clasped her head as she scrambled to her feet. She couldn’t orientate herself anymore. She had no idea which was to go or what to do. She was alone.
She picked a direction and started to walk. Head pounding as she tried to focus on her steps. One foot in front of the other. She needed to find survivours. She needed to find a new group to join.
The wind whipped by her and she stopped, staring vacently into the distance. Engulfed in the desert’s parched silence, she was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.
Emilie Turner 