After Days - Chapter 2: Part 1

The sun had risen and set by the time the boys found shelter, probably. The stairway was long, empty, quiet and dark, though this did not phase either of the pair. To them, this was just another part of their world, if anything, one of the safest parts. Elliott skipped up the stairs, two at a time, stopping every now and then to let Leon catch up.

‘Where does he get all this energy from?’ Leon wondered as he pushed down on his knees with each step to help him climb.

“You’re starting to get slow.” Elliott huffed, his chirping voice pinging off the bare concrete walls. “When did you last eat?”

“Well…” Leon panted, leaning back and resting against the railing of the eleventh floor. “…you remember when you stopped to eat your ration this morning?”

“Yyyep!” He said happily with a cheeky smirk, patting his belly with juvenile pride as he recalled each tough but satisfying bite.

“Well I finished mine about four days ago.” Leon admitted. Until then he hadn’t really given it much thought, he had been far too preoccupied with getting the kid home safely.

Suddenly, the jolly bouncing stopped as the child’s face sank. “But, if you didn’t find food, what are we going to eat?” He wrapped his skinny arms around his once braggable stomach, almost trying to hold his rations in place, just a little longer.

Leon had to look deep into his brother’s troubled, innocent face, knowing he had to tell him not to worry. But he couldn’t make that promise this time. “Let’s go. Laza probably had more luck.” He hoped as he urged his sibling to keep going up the stairs. Elliott obliged. But not with the same burst of energy.

Food was nearly impossible to find now, and was more a case of right-place right-time than knowhow and tactics. This time, Leon had the wrong set of assets on his side.

Finally, Leon saw the sky through a shattered opening at the top of the stairs. It was not a beautiful sight, but it meant no more climbing. He pushed himself up the last few stairs before he could give into his body’s urge to collapse. He stretched out as he pressed his hands into the base of his back, summoning several pops and cracks as he twisted.

As he stood, high above the dangerous streets, the night air carried something unusual. Surprisingly, it was not the smell of decay that caught his attention, but the sumptuous hint of cooking meat. Could he really have been right about Laza? Now that would be a first. He wasted no time thinking ‘what if’, excitement along moved his feet for him as he rushed passed the tall remains of broad steel window panes, clasped by concrete.

Drawing strength from the promise of a meal, he leapt up, clinging to the edge of the upper floor before pulling himself up. Leon’s body was slim but lean, he was still strong. Fighting to survive gave him a distinct physical edge, but the same could be said for anyone in his position. He sprinted to the far side of the threadbare carpet tiles, diving through a parting in the columns and down onto an open level, left behind from the bombings years earlier.

Ahead of him burned a bright campfire, so bright it was like an open hole in the world. He couldn’t believe it took him this long to notice it. Frankly, he was shocked, Ueda never used to let them jeopardise their secrecy by lighting fires. Perhaps he was lucky after all, catching her in a good mood.

“That smells delicious. What’s cooking?” he celebrated as he strutted over to a hunched, cloaked figure by the fire.

It shuffled only slightly, peering through a tattered hole in the rags. “About time you got back.” The deep voice said in relief. “Where are your spoils?”

“Wish I could tell you. It wasn’t a good search.” He answered honestly, perhaps with a little too much discard in his voice for a normal day, but at a guess, she was in high spirits.

The figure seemed to shrink, tense with questionable fury, the cloth slightly falling in on itself. “Leon…” As it happens, his guess had been a little off. “…Are you telling me you were gone all this time and you didn’t find a single scrap for us to eat?”

Leon was on the back foot, taking a cautionary step away from the fire before answering. “Things aren’t the same out there since the last attack. It’s odd but you’d believe me if you looked for yourself.” That was a mistake, one that made him feel nostalgic, the scar on his back tingling. Ueda had a simple rule: remember the pecking order. If anyone forgot that rule she was ruthless.

Normally she would have responded to such a tone by burying her heel in his gut, but it had been a while since she had heard such hope in Leon’s voice, it would be a shame to dash his hopes. “That smell isn’t coming from us.”

Leon was puzzled as he looked longer at the cloaked one, waiting for some sort of punchline, or just a punch. It wasn’t until he took a closer look into the flames and noticed that the only feast they held were ashes and firewood. Embarrassment flushed over his cheeks like a fizzing blanket. He had once boasted that he was the best scavenger in all of London and now he was the one stood yearning to be dining at someone else’s campfire.

His knees grew weak and his body wanted to drop, but he couldn’t fall just yet. It made more sense to fall closer to the fire than out in the cool breeze. He ventured over then dropped in a heap opposite his forgiving mentor, though was quick to pull himself together and cross his legs in an attempt to avoid further offence.

“How far did you get?”

“Out to Route 52. Couldn’t find a thing. I am sorry Ueda but it looks like we’ll just have to try something else. Make a bow, hunt for birds maybe.” Leon did not look up. His attention was dropped over the ledge of the skyscraper, down to a small fire in the distance. It must have been the Jumper Clan. Bullet, their chief, had been tailing Leon for years. It seemed as though he had finally managed to catch up. Leon did resent him for it, him and the rest of his sickly unpleasant followers, but he was mature about it. At least they had found some food inside the city limits. That was a blessing. He couldn’t help but wonder where though.

“And Elliott? Did he find you?” Ueda asked with more concern than intended.

Leon glanced up, amusement smeared on his handsome, chiselled face. “You knew he’d left?” It shouldn’t have come as a surprise really, if there was one thing Ueda could always see, it was the location of her children.

“He was worried about you. Heaven knows why, it isn’t like you can’t handle yourself out there. I told him you have your dagger but he still wouldn’t stop twisting.”

“That dagger nearly got put through him though.” He admitted with an almost casual level of guilt.

“What did you do this time?” Ueda sighed as if trying to settle a child’s squabble.

As Leon opened his mouth to feed her a false answer, a sharp pain raced through his head as he was knocked to the ground by a sturdy force. His vision was blotchy and unfocused while a strong grasp rolled him to his back.

‘No place like home.’ He thought through his haze.

“Find many Whispers on your travels?” Laza teased as he paced around the flattened scavenger.

“No a one.” He answered, blinking hard to try and clear his head.

The blurred attacker hummed wryly as he came to a stop, each of his large boots planted at either side of Leon’s greasy hazel hair. “I doubt you’ve just been stabbing yourself for no reason.” Laza began to jab at the blood stained vest with a large section of battered pipe. “Oh, did you finally go cuckoo?” His voice hinted at sour delight, fantasising about the possibility. Rivalry had always been fiery between the eldest boys, a rivalry only made worse by the irritation of hunger.

Leon took a long deep breath, keeping his eyes closed so he didn’t risk losing his temper. “No Laza.” He challenged through gritted teeth. “A dog attacked me and I had to put it down”

“A dog?” Laza burst with excitement, springing over Leon and squatting by his side. “Where is it? Did you already cook it?” The chapping of his starving lips was enough to make Leon’s skin crawl as droplets sprayed onto his cheek.

Ueda’s hood folded as she looked between both of the men, knowing even through the silence that the conversation was about to take a turn. She shook her head in dismissal. There was a time when she would have taught them the importance of family and respecting others to defuse the situation, but they already knew it all, and understood it well.

“Where is it?” he repeated.

“Back at Route 52.” Leon confessed, looking blankly up at the sky, counting down the seconds to another one of Laza’s outbursts. “Wanna go fetch?” The corner of his lip twitched to a smile as he heard his own pun.

“What?!” The strong, agitated man boomed. Just as quickly as Leon had hit the ground, he was dangling in the air, the tips of his boots skimming the dust where he had been lying. “We send you to get food and you just leave it there?”

Leon’s throat started to close as he looked his eldest brother in the eye, not flinching in the face of his rage.

“Are you just useless or are you trying to kill us all off?” Laza smacked his other hand to Leon’s neck, it seemed that even Laza’s strength took a beating from starvation.

“Look the meat was tainted, alright, it was black and fowl, we couldn’t have eaten it anyway.” Leon defended, gripping his brother at the wrist to ease the pressure.

Rage boiled in Laza’s stomach, accompanied by the common visit of a hungered rumble. He did love his brother, but he could not adapt to a life where food was such an oddity day by day. Managing to set his anger aside, reluctantly, he drew his hands away, freeing Leon, though his fingers were still curled and tense. The rough seams of his Kevlar jacket snapped as he rolled his shoulders. It wasn’t unusual for the group to have such a contrast in clothing. Dead Whispers don’t have a use for their gear, after all, waste not want not.

Suddenly his hatred seemed to turn to upset, and the fire in his belly became a stinging in his eyes. Desperation was partly to blame, but Laza was a few years older than his coughing sibling and as such felt more responsible for the wellbeing of his group. He was as much to blame for their struggles as Leon was.

“Look the thing was stricken okay. I’ve seen it happen to Whispers but never to an animal before. We need to be careful out there, Laza.” Leon’s tone flipped from frustration to concern, being convincing the whole while as his brother marched back into the building. Stricken was not a term they used lightly. When a lifeform became stricken it lost all sense of what it once was both in mind and body. The dog Leon faced was a prime example of that. “If I brought it back here it would only risk infecting us as well and then what would we be worth?” His words fell on deaf ears, Laza did not so much as tilt his head. He kept walking, fists clenched until he clambered back inside the shattered skeleton of the building. “I don’t believe for a minute that you’d want us to become like them.”