The Last She

Chapter One - Ara

I crouched below the ruined bridge and scrubbed the blood off my fingers. River rocks tinged with gray, ochre, and green wavered beneath the current. Father would have reached for one, but I didn't. Instead, I rubbed my hands against each other, watching the swirls of red disappear into the flow.  

Look, Ara, three skips. Think you can get four?

All around, the trees faded to colors of blood and pus, as if no time had passed. But no traffic roared across the bridge, and the center had given way, the two ends stretched out like doomed lovers' hands. My camouflage backpack rested between the eaves of the bridge, and below it, a squirrel lay spread-eagled on a river rock. His body was laid open, his face crushed. Without a bow or bullets for my pistol, I'd had to smash him with a rock. I couldn't risk lighting a fire and had eaten only the kidneys, liver, and heart. The salty taste and chewy texture only reminded me how long it had been since I'd eaten a real meal. And that I needed a proper weapon.

The new tech will fail you, same way it failed the world. A gun is your new best friend.

But my pistol was empty. Which meant I was about to put into action a plan my father would never have approved. Find a group of men, steal their weapons, bullets, or both, and be gone before they knew what happened. I wiped my hands dry, fished out my backpack, and started back up the steep riverbank. The squirrel's blood had dried beneath my nails, but I let it be. My hands had been stained by worse.

I pushed through the tall weeds until I found the overgrown trail that ran beside the river and the prints I'd found fresh last night. I remembered the trail; it had once been a mecca for young families, full of expensive houses and the flashy new tech machines my father hated. Out here, on the edge of the city, the lots were large and the massive houses were built right up next to the river, with backsides made entirely of glass. Now the expensive houses crumbled, and the Midwestern city once known for its hospitality lay still.

Yesterday a group of men had stopped here for water, then left the river behind and headed deeper into the city, where the buildings grew thicker. There were prints where they'd laid down heavy packs, and if I had to bet, one of those held a weapon.

There are no such things as friendly men, Ara. Not in this world. Not for you.

I tightened the straps of my pack and followed the tracks. The city grew slowly around me, as did the silence. No low drum of cars, no hum of airships, no voices. Only the wind and lonely birdsong. The plague killed females first and fastest, to the point I knew of no other female survivors. But even if a few men had been spared, it hadn't been enough to keep the world from falling apart. Gas stations and other businesses soon pressed in between the encroaching trees, signs faded, weeds and vines growing thick. I passed an abandoned airship lost in waves of billowing waist-high grass. The front half was crumpled, as if it had lost power and fallen straight from the sky. Growing up, almost every family I knew had the new, shiny airships that zipped through the skies, but my father had always preferred the older technologies: steel and oil. In the end, neither had brought salvation.

~

The driveway reflected the full heat of noon, and though the neighborhood should have been filled with the noise of laughing children, lawnmowers, and airships, it was quiet. Only my father's voice rang out through the dry, summer air as he loaded another jug of water into the back of the truck.

"Ara, did you put the matches in?"

"Yep, and two lighters."

"Good."

He tossed our backpacks on top of the other supplies in the truck bed. With them we could go three weeks in the Sawtooths, or even farther north into Canada. Bottled water, canned and dehydrated food, two containers of gasoline, two sharpened axes, our bows, and other supplies lined the truck bed. I'd never appreciated the supplies he kept until now. When news of the plague started just a few weeks earlier, the stores had emptied almost overnight. A week in, I'd heard Mother and Father talking late at night in the kitchen, and when I woke, she was gone. "A trip, to visit her sister," my father said, with eyes that couldn't meet mine. And then my sister Emma and I were separated. Under no circumstances were we to go into each other's rooms. My father brought us food and water. The first night I snuck out onto our rooftop and tapped on her window and her blue eyes greeted me with mischief. But three days ago, the day the electricity shut off, she answered my tap with white eyes weeping tears of blood. I nearly fell off the roof in terror.