The Year After

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Scarlet, orange, and gold hues glowed with the sun’s rays, located in small piles scattered all over the old mossy sidewalk. The deep blue sky hosted a few swatches of wispy, stretched clouds, weak attempts of masking the secrets of the void beyond. A fresh, crisp autumn breeze whispered through the air, my first taste of non-stale air in three years. Strands of my dark, tangled hair floated against the sides of my face, brushing lightly against my cheek until I pulled the strays back behind my ears. I stood there, gaping at all the colors, an impossible attempt to take it all in. The view wasn’t really a “view,” it couldn’t really be classified as anything remotely special—just a cul-de-sac decorated with a few dying trees and some houses here and there—but after spending my last few years in a dull, dark basement, it was gorgeous.

I lifted my hand to shield the sun’s heat, which was quickly prickling its way along my arms and face, then turned back to my house. It was a quaint, slightly molded townhouse, covered at the base with patches of growth from years of neglect, but nevertheless, I was in love with it. Standing there, looking at the house from the outside, I already knew fixing its appearance would be my mother’s top priority. She had always been into landscaping, and she also knew a tidy lawn meant nothing if everyone’s attention was focused on the house’s crappy exterior. Then again, she had always had a landscaping buddy, my sister. Maybe my mom would feel differently about her priorities now, without her.

“Guys, you gotta come out here! The air’s even better than I remembered!” I shouted, letting a grin stretch across my face as I spread my arms out to soak in the sun’s heat. There was no response. I let out an impatient grunt, dropping my arms and letting my smile falter slightly, and clambered back into the house. “Guys!” I yelled, walking briskly into the entrance hallway. I quickly scanned the living room, and my eyes landed on a small figure hunched in the corner of the couch, who was watching me quietly. I sighed, and walked to the figure.

I sat down next to him, bringing my legs up to cross on the black leather couch. “I’m scared.” The boy said softly. The seven-year-old looked up at me, his round brown eyes staring into mine with fear. His arms were locked around his legs, pulled up onto the couch, his fingers intertwined in front of his shins. His bottom lip quivered slightly.

I let my hand rest on his shoulder and offered him a pitiful smile. “I know, Aden, but it’s been a few years. The virus is gone now.” I knew he wasn’t worried about the virus still being around, but I thought that if maybe he didn’t think the reason he was scared was even present in my mind, he wouldn’t worry about it so much.

“The lady that was with us had it, and she died. What if that was the only way for it to go?”

Guess that didn’t work. “Well,” I paused, wrapping an arm around Aden and giving him a reassuring squeeze, “we don’t know that for sure, so let’s not assume anything.” He nodded hesitantly, moving his gaze from me to the mattress on the other side of the room. It was old and torn up a bit in some places, tainted with stains and coated lightly in dust. I cleared my throat in an attempt to sound less squeaky from the tears beginning to well up in my eyes, and stood up from the couch, holding my hand out for Aden. “Come on, let’s get Mom and we’ll go.”

Reluctantly, Aden put his hand, which was half the size of mine, into my own and hoisted himself from the couch with a small hop. He kept his hand in mine as we walked to the kitchen and ran into our Mom, who was occupied with the frantic task of stuffing her purse with extra masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves. We all knew they did nothing when it came to the virus, we also knew it probably wasn’t around any longer, but we had always kept supplies like these at an arm’s reach to make ourselves feel like we were actually doing something.

“Mom, let’s go.” I announced, causing her to jump. She turned to face us and looped the purse straps around her shoulder, then gave us a quick nod. We turned to leave the kitchen, and she followed us through the living room and out of the house. We didn’t bother locking the door. If there was anyone left, they’d assume we were either dead or still in the basement, rotting away.

We ended up walking to the grocery store. The car’s battery had died ages ago, and we desperately needed the exercise. Unfortunately, we had also forgotten how long the walk was.

Eventually, probably an hour or so later (although it felt like way longer), we arrived. At that point, I was carrying Aden. He had gotten tired a few minutes into the walk, and I wasn’t about to deal with his inevitable whining.

The thin glass door slid open with a long creak at our presence, and we were met with a flood of chilled air. I bent down and let Aden slide out of my hands, and he landed softly on the floor. He looked around drowsily, staring at the large selection of food in wonder. He probably didn’t remember this place. Last time he was brought through those doors, he had probably been four.

“Alright,” I muttered, pulling a crumpled list out of my pocket and opening it to read the crooked words. I squinted at the list in confusion, my eyebrows furrowed. “Soup?” I turned to my mom in disbelief. “We’ve been eating soup for three years. Can we not?”

She rolled her eyes and snatched the list out of my hands. “Fine, but I do want to get some food that doesn’t go bad quickly. Who knows what’s gonna happen? Besides, I don’t wanna be making that walk every week.” She examined the list. “Alright, so we got cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, milk…” her voice trailed off as I stopped listening, beginning to realize Aden’s worries hadn’t been as far-fetched as we had all hoped.

Aden tugged at my sleeve, noticing at the same moment. “I know,” I whispered, stroking his hair softly while I tried to ignore the quickly sinking feeling of dread in my stomach. I glanced back from the aisles I had turned to face to look at our Mom, silently preparing myself to tell her. After listing a couple more items, she stopped talking and looked up from the crinkled piece of paper in her hands, realizing we were waiting to tell her something.

“What is it?” Her once casual words were now dipped in the slightest hint of fear.

My eyes flicked between hers and the registers, silently urging her to follow my gaze. Confused, she turned to look. She stared at the bare counters, stunned. Racks of plastic bags available for customer use were coated in a thin layer of dust; they must’ve gone untouched for months, if not longer. Every monitor in sight had gone to sleep. All that was left as evidence were dirt footprints and dark gray marks streaked across the floor from shopping carts. I grasped Aden’s hand a little tighter, either to comfort him or myself, I’m not sure which. My mom looked back at me, her eyes wide, and commented disappointedly, “It’s all empty.”

It had been easier when Anna and Laura were still around. With them, it was less lonely. We had communicated with cheap walkie-talkies that used to be Anna’s when she was younger, and although we were isolated from each other, the devices allowed us to continue feeling somewhat connected. Anna, the nurse in the family, tended to Laura, our infected, middle-aged neighbor, for about a year before the virus took them both. Laura would’ve died sooner if not for Anna, it was true, but Anna would’ve stayed healthy without Laura, and I think my mom was still bitter about letting Laura come into contact with her daughter because of that. Anna had been the one to bring Laura to the house. She was purely good, the most kind-hearted person I’d ever met, but it had cost her her life.

Anna and her patient had quarantined in the upper levels of the house, leaving us stuck in the basement. Every week or so, Anna would set a bag of disinfected food on the stairs for us to retrieve. When the bags stopped appearing, we were forced to face the fact that we would never hear either of their voices again, and we ended up relying on the surplus for a while. Yesterday, we had run out of canned soups and fruits.

I, for one, had been ecstatic with the idea of leaving the basement, aside from a bit of nervousness. My mother had been terrified. I don’t know how Aden felt about it. I knew he must have been pretty scared, knowing the virus had taken both our sister and our neighbor mercilessly, but maybe he had been a little excited, too. Or maybe the fear had been too overwhelming for little Aden to feel any sense of excitement. I would never know.

Now we stood in the middle of a ghost town. Cars were coated in thick layers of dirt, parked in front of overgrown lawns and houses streaked with dirt. Colorful leaves skittered loudly across gray sidewalks that hadn’t seen a foot in years. I don’t know how I had missed it before. It was clear we were alone from the second I had stepped outside.

Oddly enough, we ended up spending the night in the grocery store, hoping someone would stroll in through the doors at any time as we munched on crackers harder than rocks and sipped soda that didn’t open with a hiss or threaten to burn our tongues with carbonation. We slept on the store’s cold, hard floor that night, and the next night, and the night after that. To our dismay, not a single person walked through the thin glass doors. We were alone.

Even though I had my mom and Aden, I felt so alone. I remembered the excitement I felt when I thought I would finally be seeing my friends again. Three years was a long time without any contact from them, and their faces had been slowly fading out of focus from my mind. Once clear images of my favorite people had gradually begun to blur until their features were no longer distinguishable and I couldn't remember what color their hair was or how their laugh sounded. Many nights I had spent scribbling down the day's events, in anticipation of sharing them with those closest to me on the other side of my front door. I didn’t want to forget to tell them anything, so I wrote down any slightly interesting events. Maybe my excitement had gotten the best of me, and the events hadn’t actually been all that interesting. Either way, it didn’t matter anymore. The excitement had been for nothing. We were alone, and I would never be seeing my friends again. Or anyone, for that matter. We were the only ones left as far as we knew, and everyone we had once known was as good as dead.