Remnant, After COVID-19

This is my survival journal, from COVID-19 being the first wave in 2020 to this cancerous fourth wave crushing what remains of us in late 2021. Based on the fact that I’m in the top 10% of survivors—not that there’s much competition—I might be someone worth listening to.

If we’d only known that the coronavirus was just the beginning, maybe we would’ve survived the next three waves. Then again, it’s impossible to know. Dad said it was pointless to think of what could have happened, because that’s not a productive use of our precious time.

That’s the funny part—not the kind to make us laugh, not much does that anymore—no, I mean the fact that time is all we seemed to have had during the initial wave of the coronavirus. And no, it was not followed by the Bud Light virus or the Dos Equis virus…I doubt the people that made those kinds of jokes made it past the second wave. 

I remember hearing about someone who came home coughing up blood after a week of having the coronavirus—that’s the same thing as COVID-19, it’s hard to remember those little things with everything that followed. The crazy thing is that she had gone to the doctor a week before and been tested for flu and all kinds of stuff, except corona, and then sent home. 

And that’s how everything else went. We didn’t know what we were looking for until it was too late. In fact, by looking for those things, we made it worse, and the spread was so much faster, wider. 

 -Remy

charger and cable

phone - triple check

magazine, paper

magazine, clip

trade for whatever food we can get

September-ish, 2021

You keep interrupting me. I’m trying to write this FOR you, Micah. You’re too young to understand it all, at least, that’s what I tell myself. Maybe I’m just not ready to tell you.

You broke the rules, so we have to leave again. Not that his community was that great, but it was safe. 

I’m sure you don’t remember this, but I told you not to show our pre-fallout pictures to other kids. You know exactly why, and it’s very important they don’t see what you looked like before. We won’t have to follow these rules much longer, but I can’t tell you that. Poor kid, you can’t keep a secret to save your…well, you know. And these days, that truly is the power of secrets.

I can’t blame you completely.

“It’s a waste of resources,” someone said when they caught me using a laptop to edit some photos, but the lady didn’t just say it like a fact. She said it like she wished I would leave, like I’m toxic to her little vision of paradise. 

If you ask me, and no one does, I think we need pictures, reminders. We need art and joy. Honestly, we need to be able to waste something. I know, that doesn’t sound good in times like this.

It’s probably a good thing you’re fast-forwarding our stay here. It’s a matter of time before they’re raided, though ‘conquered’ might be a better word. And we do not want to be around for another one of those, especially not you, little one.

That last escape cost more than it was worth. This time, Micah, you may have just saved our lives. I’ve got you packing our bags already, though you I know you don’t want to leave. 

“But, I just made friends, and there’s this girl who’s really nice, and she showed me her picture when she was pretty and I wanted to show her…” 

“That’s enough.” I had to interrupt you. I don’t like doing it, and I know exactly how it feels. 

When Dad did it, I stared fire through him—not to be confused with the third wave, of course. And now, I find myself doing it to you. Now I know why, it’s because I know something you don’t, lots actually. But I still don’t know enough.

Maybe if I’d filled my head with words rather than images, I’d have a better idea of how to handle these thi—

And…I just had to chase you down. You tried to run away, again. Or tried to run back into the town. For a smart nine-year-old, you’re not very bright, which is more proof that my plan is a good one. Where did you think you were going to go? Then came the part you might actually remember, a switching. I don’t like to do it, but you’re almost as stubborn as me, and I know what it took to keep me in line.

Whatever it takes, I’m going to get you to Sam’s—no, not the giant store, every one of which was raided during the second wave (some might say they were raided during COVID, but that was child’s play to what came next).

Being without Dad is hard. Sorry, I zoned out for a minute and thought about him again. You may not be able to tell, but I’m barely holding it together. If someone asked me how, I would say, “I don’t have a choice. It has to be done.”

I sure miss him. I know you do too. I had more time with both of them than you, but a hundred years wouldn’t be enough.

-Remy

charger and cable

phone - triple check

food (trade ammo)

water pen

lighter/matches

Soon enough, Micah, you’ll learn all you need to know about surviving in this new world. You’ll go back to the old world ways with Sam’s help and be ready for anything.

When we lost Dad—I’m not ready to relive it on paper yet—I wondered if I could make it myself. Sixteen years on the earth isn’t a long time, especially when most of it was spent perfecting a social media presence rather than learning survival skills. In my defense, no one needed to care about that stuff. No one could’ve seen this coming.

You just asked about Dad again. This is getting harder.

“Remy,” your angelic voice squeezed what’s left of my heart. “Is Daddy waiting at the next community?”

“Don’t worry about Dad,” I said, having to turn away. “Everything will be alright.”

Dad’s face lights up in my mind, the last time I saw it. Even then, he was saying that same thing. 

I never understood how he could say “Everything will be alright” when we all knew it wouldn’t—especially that last time I saw him, his hand outstretched as I pulled you away. I still don’t remember who was crying louder. I told you it was just for a little while. And that may be true, but at the rate he was going, he didn’t have long. 

I shouldn’t be so emotional, I need to be more like him. He said you were more like him and I was like mom, always wearing my heart like a new piece of clothing, ready to show it off. “Stay that way,” he’d said, but I know better. That worked in the old world. Hardness works in this world.

And yet, everything is precious. I never knew how incredible our world was. We were at a height beyond what humanity should have been able to reach, clearly. Dad said that he was surprised it took this long for a “natural correction.”

Some of us think the earth decided it was done with our species being on top. At one point, it was the dinosaurs, then it wasn’t. For too long—we assume—humans have been on top. Or maybe we became more of a parasite to the earth, and that’s why we had to be dealt with, thinned out, weakened until we learned our place again.

None of that matters. Big picture stuff is for people with eyes to see it. We’re just ants scrambling in a tsunami, trying not to get killed. 

Getting to Sam’s is our ticket to first class butt-kicking (that would’ve sounded cooler with another word, but you’re only nine, and you could be reading this any day.) And by butt-kicking, I mean we’re the ones doing it. Crap, I wish I could backspace, but that doesn’t work so well on paper.

-Remy

charger and cable

phone - triple check

food

Late October (maybe), 2021

I’m pissed. Tbh—crap, to be honest—I seriously thought about offering you as a trade to get the phone back. I still have the crappy crank charger, but it doesn’t mean anything without the phone. I remember winding that thing for an hour just so we could stare at family pictures for a minute. 

That minute would go by in a flash. I would be staring at that little black mirror for ten minutes more before I realized it. I wanted to burn the image in my mind, knowing it wouldn’t always be there. I hoped it would last longer than it did though.

When I look at you though, I remember what’s most important. Memories don’t do us any good anyways. All we have is what’s in front of us, and we’re damn lucky to have each other, no matter how long or short.

We’ve been more than lucky. Families never survive together, especially not 3 out of 4 like us. It’s usually one or none, though we’re headed that way. 

Dad had the cancer from the fourth wave. Well, technically, the cancer had already died inside him, like it does for a lot of people. But they usually die within a few weeks, sometimes months. That’s why we’re in such a hurry.

The only reason I’m not still mad at you about the phone is these cold beans we just shoveled in. Even if we could risk a fire, it doesn’t matter, food is food. 

“How’d you find that?” I asked when you came back with a can of green beans, which might as well be gold.

“It was between the shelves, under them. It must’ve fallen in there a long time ago.” 

You’re a genius. Maybe you will be fine without me after all.

-R 

Mid-November, 2021 

When I arrived at the address Dad gave us, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little bit excited, though I also had this feeling of dread. It’s not the same feeling I get when something bad is going to happen. That’s more of a forecast. This feeling is one I recognized as a conditioned response. Everything we’ve experienced since the fallout has been a let down. Every new community was great at first, until we saw the filth of humanity show it’s ugly face within a week. People are all about themselves, and those who are truly selfless don’t last long enough to help many others. It’s makes me wonder still if there is a God, because it doesn’t make sense that he would let the helpful people die and leave the rest of us to burn with the world…unless this is hell.

Like we always do on new stakeouts, I had you stay about a quarter mile down the road in a little safe house for him, a barn way off the road that we almost didn’t find. 

Part of me wondered what the hell I’m thinking, leaving a nine-year-old—“basically ten,” you always said. A bigger part of me knows you won’t stand a chance in the future if we don’t get the training now. It’s a crazy risk, but the bigger risk is trying to survive without any skills.

There’s something about being desperate that makes me extra tenacious, even fearless when I have no business being so.

Before I left you, I repeated the same phrase I’ve adopted from Dad. 

“Everything will be alright.” And you still seem to believe it.

When I got to the house, I could tell it had been abandoned. The front door was boarded shut from the outside rather than the inside, the first sign something was different here.

“Hello!” I shouted. Best to announce yourself rather than sneak around. Odds are, if anyone is around, they know you are too.

I stepped onto the creaking porch and glanced at the windows, careful not to put my head in sight of a potential gunshot. They were all boarded up from the outside also.

“Ezra sent me, Ezra Holden,” I say as loudly as I can without shouting. “He said you could help us—“ 

Shoot! 

“Me,” I shout, “I mean, you could help me.”

Rather than making up some lie—which I’m actually quite good at now—I keep my mouth shut. 

I stepped around the house after checking the back door to see a barn in the distance. The large doors were closed but not boarded shut, though it was hard to tell.

“Ezra is—was—my dad,” I finally worked up the courage to say. Based on the fact that he was not here to greet us with open arms means he didn’t make it. 

“He said you owed him a favor, he said you would help us if we could find you.”

I heard a crack near the barn and immediately collapsed, sinking into the ground as though we were old friends embracing.

The sound repeated, and I recognized the sound of wood and old hinges. When I worked up the courage to look up, I saw that one of the side doors on the barn was open, being whipped by the wind.

I don’t always have the best instincts when hunting—I’ve never actually been able to kill anything…another reason I’m here—but I have plenty of experience being hunted, at least, that’s how we’ve survived this long. If you act like everyone is out to kill you, you’ll have a much better chance at survival. 

I know the power of distraction, so I used the slapping door as my chance to glance back at the house. Sure enough, in the one rear window, I saw the slightest flitter of movement in the half-inch gap between two boards. 

The fact that I wasn’t dead by then means they’ve been listening. I stand slowly, raising my hands to become as vulnerable as I can. I still have my large coat on, there’s no need to expose more than necessary. A person has to have secrets, after all, especially in the new old-world.

“Remnant,” I say the word. “Remnant!” 

How appropriate. How Dad could have seen any of this coming is impossible, so it makes me question the possibility of a higher power yet again. He never explained what it meant, just that ‘Sam’ would know, and that it would earn us anything we would ask of them, assuming they kept their integrity. I’ve had my doubts. In a world like this, who could have integrity and still survive?

I stared hard at the space in the window. No more movement.

Instead, I heard the muffled sound of locks disengaging from behind me, in the direction of the barn. When I looked at the barn, I lost track of where the sound was. It was closer than I expected, much closer.

The ground quaked only ten feet away, but it was just one portion of it, as though it were thumped from below. Then, it began to swell. Naturally, I sprinted back to the house, never looking back as I rounded the corner.

When I felt I was hidden, I pulled a pocket mirror out and set it on the ground. I used my foot to push it to the side so I could see what was back there, still ready to run if I had to.

“You must be Remington. Is Micah…is she okay?” 

I’m shocked to hear my real name come from the mouth of anyone other than Dad or you. More than that, I was surprised that our secret was out before I realized this person never knew you as a boy. We’d done a good job passing it off.

Perception is more powerful than sight, but give it a few years and you won’t be able to hide it very well. But we don’t have to hide it anymore, and in a few years, you’ll be a survival machine, akin to the native Americans that once claimed this land as their home.

Knowing I was seen and feeling I was somewhat safe, I peeked around the corner to see a woman in overalls and a plaid shirt holding a shotgun. Behind her was a hole in the ground with a door covered in earth, one I didn’t even see on the ground when walking just near it.

I won’t bore you with the details here, but things have been going well for the last week. Against all my apprehensions, this has been the greatest post-fallout week of our lives. 

While I still plan to learn how to fend for myself in the wild—and make sure you are equipped to survive without me—I’m considering staying here a little while longer. All things come to an end, good and bad, but the good ones don’t seem to last as long as the bad, in my experience. That being said, I’m going to embrace this time. I can feel that the cancer in my bones has finally died, and I feel healthy, but that’s how most people felt before dying. Either way, I’ve found a little bit of peace knowing that you are in good hands. If I die tonight after writing this—the probability rises with each new day—I’ll be okay with it. Not that I ever had a choice.

I think I’m finally starting to understand why Dad always said what he did. 

“Everything will be alright.”