The Ill

It was a particularly chilly day, much due to the sun being blocked out by the plumes of smoke; Ann Stark was lost in her thoughts. She was thinking of the last sound she had heard that was not made by her party. It was about a week previous when she heard the distant but loud dull thuds of some sort of explosives, and from atop her makeshift home had seen a tallish house topple in the distance. She could only assume it was a group suicide, as many of those had occurred in the months following the initial spread of the plague.
Alan Steele climbed through the choir room window of Ogden High School and crossed the expanse of the roof carrying two cans of chicken noodle soup, a few crackers, and some spoons. He handed one can to Ann, pulling her from her daydream.
“Thanks.” She said
“See anything new?” asked Alan. Ogden, Utah was a disaster area; the buildings and houses nearby had all been torn apart by various mobs or survivors rummaging through for anything and everything they may have use for.
“Nah… same old shit.” She replied as she crumbled her crackers into her soup.
“It’s like we’re the only living people in the whole damned city” she added after a moment.
“Well we can’t be sure until we’ve looked.” He said as he looked up at the black smoke clouds still looming heavily overhead and shading the entire city.
“Only problem there is we’re all too pussy to look until we’re sure.” Ann said with a laugh
“Ha!” He exclaimed “Better pussy and alive than brave and dead!”
“I don’t know Alan… sometimes death is a comforting thought.” said Ann with a listless glance.
He slurped a spoonful of his soup and replied prophetically “so is seeing an end to all this.”
Ann gave a heavy sigh and nodded slowly then took a bite of her soup; it warmed her as it slipped into her throat.
“Death just seems so much easier.” She said with a hint of sadness in her voice
“Easy and right are almost never on the same team…” He replied sounding as comforting as possible. “Look, Ann, humanity survived through an ice age, the black plague, and countless wars. Our race hasn’t come this far just to fail now. We have to stretch what little hope we can find or the bad times well get the best of us. We all need each other to win, whatever winning may be.”
They sat for a minute and listened to the empty wind and ate. They looked out on the roads and buildings which had an ever increasing amount of plant life growing upon them.
“So what do you think?” Alan asked with a nudge of his elbow. “Are you with us?”
She took a deep breath of the musty air that smelled of decomposing animals. “Yeah… If I have to be.” She replied.
Alan accepted that answer knowing not to push any further. He knew she was thinking about her son who hadn’t made it during the party’s sixteen block move from their week long hold up at Smith’s Food and Drug to Ogden High School about a month ago. He was only ten years old and one of The Ill was able to run him down and attack him about twenty yards before they made it inside the school. Ann had to be dragged the rest of the way and was forced to see and hear the ill consume her one and only son. For a couple weeks she barely ate, barely slept, and barely talked. She realized she wasn’t the only one, who had lost everything, even though she felt like it sometimes but everyone understood and helped her to pull through.
They sat in silence and finished the rest of their meal. Alan then stood up and began walking back inside. He called back and said “We’re all finishing reinforcements for the east side tonight if you care to join in.”
“I’m just gonna sit awhile longer.” She replied still scanning the dilapidated city.
“Alright.” He said as he crawled through the window.
In the city’s dead state sound was rare and even rarer were pleasant sounds. Anyone listening to the sounds of the city would have more than welcomed the sound of rushing traffic or blasting radios, but these sounds that were once upon a time so easily come by were now never heard.