Desolate: Prologue-Chapter Two

Prologue:

I groggily stagger to the front door of the apartment. Who could be knocking at this hour? No one in this complex knew my mom and I, we just moved here last night. I flicked on lights to avoid what little boxed belongings we owned. Our door doesn't have a peephole, so unable to view who the visitor was I open the door a crack.

    A man in a suit stands with a dark leather briefcase in the hallway of the apartment building. His bald head is shiny in the florescent lighting, almost as his gleaming polished shoes. His nose sticks out like a bird's beak with his large nostrils flaring slightly. The man gripes his brief case and says, "Are you Erin Malone?"

    "And who are you?" I ask, suddenly glad I didn't unlatch the chain from the door.

    "Agent Rufus Getti. FBI." The agent flashes me a very important looking badge. My grip tightens on the door knob.

    "Am I in trouble?"

    "No. This is about your father: Jack Malone."

    I unlatch the door chain.

Chapter One:

The Valley has fallen into disrepair since the last time I'd been here. Of course, that was five years ago when I was about to graduate the eighth grade. I escaped out of luck, because my home was not in the Valley. It was twenty-five miles away, ten minutes from the nearest town.

    The Valley is shut off from the rest of the country, to prevent another Event. The only reason I've returned is for my father, he had been at the epicenter of where and when the Event occurred in the Valley. I am determined to find him and rescue him.

    I look behind me and watch the North Pass Gate close with a clang. I turn towards the rugged landscape, remembering how the dead gray and brown grass used to turn golden in the fall. How this road used to be black, not gray asphalt and crowded with commuting cars. And how my dad I used to ride down each morning and...no. None of that. Not anymore.

    I shake my head, and adjust my knapsack. Inhaling a deep breath, I start down the road. Avoiding the deep cracks I make my way away from what was the main road incase I meet an unfriendly traveler. I turn onto a familiar back road, which is now crumbling and only patches of of asphalt. The only sparks of color among the sea of gray and weeds are the daises popping up towards the sun.

    An old neighborhood to my right reminds me that one of my friends, Charlotte Rose, used to live there. I long to go see if she survived or...didn't. I shouldn't go, who knows what condition the inhabitants of the neighborhood are in. But I could just go check really quick.

    Making up my mine, I run as silently as possible up the decaying driveway. The door of the house is laid into place, with the rusting hinges and knocker dangling. A dull, dusty, interior greets me. The couch has ben torn apart, the coffee table turned over, windows smashed. Toys and dolls are scattered about the floor, staring at me with dark faded eyes. This is nothing I wouldn't expect from the Event, and yet, the house isn't unlivable. Perhaps there's still somebody living here. I move towards the kitchen to search for leftover food. As I do, I accidentally kick over a music box with a clang of sour notes playing eerily in the heavy air.

    In the kitchen is only more grime. Crunch. I pick up my foot to find a smashed animal cracker. A carton of full animal crackers is sitting on the counter next to the snack cabinet. I pick one of the container and crumble it with my hand. It's not stale. The carton has only recently been opened.

    "Hello?" I call out, "Is anybody here? It's Erin! Erin Malone! Mrs. Rose...Mr. Rose? Are you here?" I pause for a moment, "Charlotte, Ebony?"

    Silence.

    Without warning, the snack cabinet doors nudge open. One dark brown eye peeks around the door, when a girl comes tumbling out. She scrambles to her feet and stares at me. Her long dark brown hair is down to her waist, in a tangled mass, covering part of her face. Dirt is all over her, masking what would be a freckled face.

    "Erin? Is it really you?" She asks me, her brown eyes that used to be warm and innocent have become hollow and hard.

    I nod. Ebony wraps me in a hug. She's taller than I remember, just below my chest.

    "Is anyone else here?" I ask when she releases me.

    Ebony looks away and whispers, "No."

    "Oh, I'm so sorry..." My voice trails away.

    "It's okay, I've learned how to make it on my own. I've gotten this far haven't I? Plus, this is  one of the safer neighborhoods. Why did you come back?"

    I relay the story of how my dad was in the Valley during the Event.

    "I'm coming with you."

    It's going to be dangerous." I warn.

    "I know, that's why I'm coming. You haven't been here in five years, things have changed." She laughs coldly.

    We gather what little supplies are in the house and continue down the back road. I listen to Ebony how her family disappeared or struggled during the Event. I realize that I barely knew the details of what befell the Valley.

    Ebony says that people started going berserk. Many people thought it was a rabies epidemic or something. So they ridded the Valley of all the possible animal carries of the disease. The afflicted victims were treated with the typical treatment for rabies, but it wasn't working.

    "More and more were going mental, and as far as I know, still are. Then the Lab began taking people in, promising a treatment. And by this time, we'd been shut off for about a month. But when the victims of the illness came out of the Lab, they are Vacant. They don't remember anything and are mute. Their eyes ha e this filmy, glassy look, and their pupils are really dilated. I don't know what goes on in the Lab, but it isn't making people normal."

Chapter Two:

We walk the streets silently. With Ebony by my side, it somehow makes venturing through the town easier. At every turn, I want to turn back and beg for the gates to be opened at the sight of the landscape. It feels as if every corner holds a memory dear to me. We pass the old Martenelli's Ice Cream Shop where old man Martenelli made the best root beer float. That was my elementary school hang-out, and when I reached middle school I helped serving customers. I can almost hear the jangling of the sleighbells on the shop's door now. The bright colors of the building are now faded and the window art work is only jagged shards of broken glass.

    I shake myself to the present. Here I am traveling through a town that holds all of my childhood memories within it's crumbling avenues, along with Charlottes' little sister. My father is somewhere inside the Valley. I don't know where to look, or even start. We're wandering aimlessly.

    "Ebony, wait. This is no use, there's no purpose to wandering around hoping to simply run into my dad." I stop and drop my knapsack on the ground and sit on the top of the bag, holding my head in my hands.

    Ebony comes and plops down beside me.

    "You know, I didn't think there was a purpose for me after...after my family disappeared. My sister, she went out with my father to find food. They never came back. I don't know what happened to my mom. One day she's there making breakfast for us, the next, a note saying we're better off without her. What was I supposed to do? Survive." Ebony plucks at the daisies growing from the cracks in the road. "These little daisies have survived and thrived. They're the only plant I can find that has strived to make it through." She laughs quietly and presses a daisy into the palm of my hand. "It's not pointless."

    I smile at her. I wish I could tell her why else I'm here. How the agent came to my apartment in the middle of the night, and how I'm here on a mission for the Government. The same Government that shut off the Valley and told me if I scouted the Valley for them I can find my dad and get him out.

    She looks about at our surroundings through the fading light. "We better keep moving. We need to find a place to stay for the night."

    We cautiously walk down the street with Ebony in the lead and me in the rear. The desolate street reaches a dead end as it comes to a park. Well, it's what used to be a park. Now, it's a gray, dull, landscape with barren trees and rusting fences. The only sign of life are the familiar daisies dotting the ground in small patches.

    "Where is everybody? I mean, I knew there wouldn't be a lot of people just milling around but still." I comment as we enter the park.

    "Between the people the Lab takes and those who aren't sick, most are in hiding." She answers.

    We continue onto the main path of the park, avoiding the dark side trails. The sky dims and dusk fades into night. Strangely, the streetlights flicker on. The lights buzz and flicker tiredly, giving a creepy effect to the skeleton trees rustling in the chilling breeze. The stillness of the solitude and the abandonment seems to hang in the air. Except, now Ebony and I aren't alone. Figures seem to crawl cautiously out of the shadows. Ebony becomes absolutely still as we watch a few figures shuffle under the street lights. Ebony releases the breath she'd been holding.

    "Oh, it's just the Vancants." She whispers and motions for me to follow her, "The ones you have to watch for are the Mentals. They're infected with the Sickness."

    We continue in the middle of the path, incase we are approached we will see them coming. The Vacants pay no attention to us as we journey. I am beginning to recognize the route Ebony is leading me down as the one that leads to my old middle school. Suddenly, a terrible screech sounds from behind us. Ebony and I whirl around and under three lampposts away is a chaotic scene. The Vacants that were milling about under the street lights are running and stumbling away from a monstrous shape of a man.

    He stands under a lamppost, silhouetted under a beam of florescent light. With fists clenched he stalks down the sidewalk. An unfortunate Vaccant falls a few yards away from the man and struggles to his feet. But it's to late and the man has the Vaccant in his clutches. The man snarls and yells and tosses the Vaccant away as if he was nothing. The Vaccant lays motionless upon the ground.

    "Erin! We have to move, now!" Ebony has me by the wrist and pulls me down the path.

    Over my shoulder, I catch a glimpse of the man racing after us. His arms swing side to side as he pursues us madly. Ebony takes a sudden turn down a side path and moments later he's following us. We come to a halt, glancing wildly about. Looming out of the darkness is the rocketship playground from my memories.

    "There!" Ebony shouts and points toward the swingset.

    My mind flashes back to the day when my father was pushing me on the swings. Me laughing so hard, my dad beaming at me. I asked him if I should jump from the swing.

    He answered, "If you want."

    I thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Daddy will you catch me?"

    "I'll try."

    Those are the words he encouraged me with to jump from the rocket-ship swings with their bright silver paint. I trusted him.

    "Erin! C'mon! You've got to climb!"

    I stare up at her blankly, emerging from my thoughts. Ebony is now perched on the swingset, a good ten feet high. Shouts in the distance. Screeching from the nearby Mental. I scramble up the slippery pole, but as I do I feel a hand clasp my ankle. A scream is caught in my throat as I hit the ground, hard.

    I wheeze and dizzily focus on the figure towering above me. Somewhere off in the distance I am aware of Ebony shouting my name, but it's difficult to here her above the ringing in my ears. Beams of light blind me through the darkness and faraway voices somehow make their way through to my awareness.

    The freezing midnight breeze sends shivers throughout my body. I attempt to stand up but a strong force pushes me back down. I can't stand, only flail my arms uselessly and gasp for breath as the force pushes me on the chest. Rough hands grip my shoulders and press them to the ground. I stare half-concious into the face of the Mental's burly beard that tickles my nose as he grins menacingly. His yellow teeth seem to glint and glow in the dark. The shouts of many voices grows louder despite my echoing ears. The last thing I remember is Ebony shouting, "Erin hold on!"

    "I'll try." I whisper simply and allow myself to be swallowed into the ringing darkness.