Dust swirled through the air as she gazed across the barren landscape. The crumbling buildings covered with a fine layer of powder told her that nothing had survived in this place, but her heart held on to the last vestiges of hope as she picked her way through the rubble. At what used to be a corner bright with life and laughter, the sign for Emerald Park hung crooked on its broken frame. Here was where her life had been and now only destruction remained.
At the sign for Elm and Main she turned left and began to walk down the once tree-covered lane. A hot wind blew down the road, ripping the hood of her makeshift cloak from her head, her brown hair flying free from its embrace and scattering with the wind. Fear welled in her belly now that her long journey was nearly at an end.
She had been away on a business trip in Oklahoma when it all happened. The bombs had fallen on New York first, but Los Angeles wasn’t far behind. From what she had gathered from the news there had been retaliation from the US, but it wasn’t long before all the lights were out and the news dried up. Lucky her, she had been in Nowhere, Oklahoma where no one cared to bomb. The midwest had been largely unaffected from what she could gather on her travels. Now here she finally was in rural Vermont, hoping with every fiber of her being that she would find her love safe and well in their house. The hellscape before her cooled her excitement like a bucket of cold water to the face.
Four months ago, when it became clear that the world wouldn’t just recover and go back to the way things were she decided to set out on foot in a desperate attempt to find him. The fallout was everywhere, no foods growing in the ground were safe anymore so looting happened quickly as people stockpiled canned goods. She suspected the world would not sustain them in a hundred lifetimes, but without the news nothing was sure. She wondered how far the end was for her, for all of them.
She had managed to find I44 and avoided most major cities on her trek. In the beginning, she came across groups of people most days. They were friendly for the most part, bringing news from the places they had come from. Most of them were leaving the coasts behind as it seemed that was where the fallout was the worst. No one knew where it started, but they all had their theories. China must have done it some speculated. Who else could be to blame? They’d unleashed a virus and then when they knew so many people in the US believed they had done it on purpose, they unleashed the bombs as well. Some speculated it was Russia. After all, everyone knew they were up to no good. Still others blamed the Muslim countries. The attacks from 9/11 would never be far from people’s minds. Every time she heard a new theory, she wondered why it mattered anymore, knowing where it came from wouldn’t change the fact that everything they knew was gone. Knowing who was to blame wouldn’t bring back their loved ones or unblock the sun.
The days got colder the longer the sun was gone, and with the disappearance of the sun came the desperate. She saw fewer people every day and they were more and more hungry, scared, angry, violent. Instead of greeting new people she came across, she began to feel safer hiding. People carried guns and were looking for food. She had no weapons. The small amount of food that she could get came in the form of game that she could snare, and that was only marginally less sparse than the people. She had always fancied herself a survivor - she was the type everyone joked would be on their apocalypse team - but she never really believed that she would find herself in a position to have to do it. Even after the world was wrapped in smoke she believed that help would come. For weeks she held on to the hope that someone would come to save them and all would be put right, but the weeks dragged on and no one came.
She had managed to find a fishing rod in Cleveland and Lake Erie had provided her a handful of meals as she hugged its shores on her travels, but she had become lean and hard from lack of anything but meat, and her energy had begun to wane as her body broke itself down for fuel, making the trip harder by the day. By the time she had reached the border of Vermont, she wasn’t sure she could go on. Her hips protruded and she could feel each spinous process in her back as she lain on the cold ground at night. Every fiber of her being wanted to give up, lay down and sleep forever, but as long as her heart still beat she would keep walking until she found him. And she knew that she was now so close.
Not long after she had stumbled across a small cabin in the woods that hadn’t been discovered by the roaming bands of scavenging humans that had become an ever increasing danger, forcing her into the woods to finish her journey in safety. It was here that she was able to rest for a week and nourish her body on the canned goods she found inside, rest her worn back on a comfortable bed for once. That tiny cabin in the woods gave her the strength to carry on.
Sores and bruises had begun to bloom on her body by the time she walked into the small town that was her home. Now she walked down the lane, unable to tell if the ache in her body was from her long journey or the growing certainty that she would not find him here; not alive. Her feet moved of their own accord bringing her to the door of the home they once shared. All in all it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. The door hung askew on its hinges, proof that someone had made their way inside to see what treasures could be found. The same dirty snow that surely covered all the world had settled on the outside of her lovely home as well. She paused to listen for any sounds of life and hearing none, she slipped inside.
The living room was in disarray - furniture upended as though there had been a struggle, pieces of a broken chair littered the carpet, her favorite lamp was smashed to pieces in the corner, dirty boot prints smudging the cream-colored carpet - but no signs of life.
In the kitchen, the refrigerator lay on its side, long rotted food spilling from its open door. The cabinets were mostly missing their doors and empty inside. She drew a breath and continued to the stairs.
In the bedroom she found him sitting propped up on the bed they had once shared. A searing pain ripped through her chest as waves of agony filled her. He had been gone for a very long time. He sat in a gentle repose with his hands clutched in his lap, his skeletal head slumped forward as if in sleep. Tears streamed down her face as she took in the scene, she had held so much hope that she would find him here alive that it had carried her half-way across a wasteland, only to find he was already gone.
She sat next to him on the bed and moved to take his hand in hers. At that light touch, something shiny fell from his grasp. A heart-shaped locket she knew well - an anniversary gift he had given to her containing a picture of them on their wedding day. He had died here in their bed holding the locket, longing for her the same way she longed for him.
A racking cough shook her frail body as tears began to flow freely down her face. With the last of her energy, she rose and laid the remains of his body down on the bed. At last, she laid down beside him, took his hand and closed her eyes for the final time. Her journey complete, she could now rest with him forever.