Day 3: The Sickness & a New World Adventure

Pastor Johnson said the sickness was avoidable. He told me that after Mom passed. He said the people of the Old World were fat and lazy, couldn't take their eyes off of their phones and computers for five seconds. On the island, we don't have fat people. We don't have big people, unless they're pregnant, which is seldom. And no technology, really. All we have is what our government controls and that isn't much. But apparently the people of the Old World had a lot; phones that can write what you say, touch-screen computers, games without controllers. I'm not sure why people had a need for those things but it kept them pretty busy. So busy they didn't noticed their kids playing with the sick or the dead in the street, so busy they didn't notice the signs the Old World government told them to look for with the sickness, so busy they didn't notice they were dying.

Once the sun was up, the Old World became more intimidating. In the dark you couldn't see the streets upon streets upon streets. How did people navigate this place?! I'm so use to being on the island where everything is just....there. But here, the Old World is open. Finding Wal-Mart was easy for Pastor Johnson, I guess because he's been here before. If I had to walk through by myself, however, I most definitely would have gotten lost. Turns out Wal-Mart was a pretty useful place, back then and now. They had some canned food, not much, though.
    "This is canned fruit." Pastor Johnson showed me. The can was yellow and orange with brightly colored fruit in a syrup-y looking juice. A hand reached between us and jerked the can out of Pastor Johnson's hand. It was Marco, a widower who lived across from Mandy and me, and he popped open the can before either of us could say anything.
    "Oh wow...that's sweet." Marco gasped for air, passing the can of fruit to me. "Here, try it." He wiped his mouth. I looked to Pastor Johnson for some notion of anger. He laughed and nodded for me to go ahead. I pressed the cold can against my lips and let the chill fruit slide down my throat. It was tender to the bite but still had the firmness of a freshly picked...what was that? It was soft, kind of tangy.
    "It's a peach." Marco said, watching my eyes investigate the outside of the can for some answer as to what this amazing new discovery was. He smiled, a side ways, dimpled smile as I handed the can to Pastor Johnson.
    "No. You keep it. It's your first can of food from the Old World, enjoy it!" Pastor Johnson insisted. I squealed with joy but quickly silenced myself at the sight of Ol' Miss Angie sitting on the floor, holding her stomach.
    "Miss Angie..." I said loudly, handing her the fruit can. "Look what we found! Here, eat some." She didn't hesitate. I knew the hunger pains she was having, feels like someone is in your stomach, raking at your insides. It looked like it helped her a little, I hope so anyway. She has a handicapped daughter at home and if  Miss Angie doesn't return, who'll feed her? Who'll watch after her?

What's going to happen if I don't return? Will there be someone to take care of Mandy?
-Jemma

Day 2: Boat Ride & First Impression of the Old World

Thick fog covered the water around us and obscured our vision for the first 30 or so minutes of the ride to the Old World. I almost regretted leaving my wind breaker with Mandy because my skin goose pimpled in the cold night breeze. Not like it would've helped much anyway. There was a big rip on the back of the left arm from where Mom had found it stuck under a pile of wood in the Old World during her first trip there. She was sick of me freezing my butt off on the way to the school house so she grabbed it. When she did, because she didn't realize how fragile it was, it ripped. Not bad, just a 3 or 4 inch long tear, easily fixable. The only problem was: I never stopped wearing the thing! I loved it so much. It was the deepest shade of purple I'd ever seen and my mother had gotten it for me so I didn't want to let her effort go to waste.

Right when I was about to curl into a ball to keep myself warm, Ol' Miss Angie--our elderly next door neighbor--placed an extra blanket around my shoulders. I could feel her body heat under the blanket, she'd been using it as a cushion to sit on.
    "I'll be fine. I'll have enough yarn from this visit to make blankets for the whole town." She smiled to herself, squinting through her thick bottle-cap glasses up at the moon. Through the fog, it glowed brighter than any of the towns street lights. I wondered what it looked like from the tops of the Old World buildings. Some of them are tall, I know because I've seen them from where we live. Mom left behind telescopes for Mandy and me, and sometimes--when I knew everyone was asleep--I'd point them all towards the city, towards different areas. Towards homes, stores, the beach shore, towards those shiny mirror buildings. They can say what they want about the Old World, about the monsters left there, but no one can deny it's beauty.

Without realizing it, I fell asleep leaning against Miss Angie's leg. She woke me up when we hit the shore of the Old World. A city stretched over us, some of it with small vines growing up it's sides, some of it untouched. Our party leader, Pastor Johnson, handed everyone their guns and plenty of ammo to keep us busy for the next couple of weeks. He said to check the local "Wal-Mart" for any other supplies we needed, but to go in pairs if we decided to go tonight. No one volunteered when I asked if they wanted to come with me so I gave up and followed everyone to the hotel for the night.

Apparently a lot has changed since Pastor Johnson last visited the Old World. He said this hotel we're staying in is getting worse with each trip. He has deemed the top two floors too dangerous for sleeping, so we get our pick of rooms on any of the other eight floors. Other than Miss Angie and me, it's all men, so we get a whole floor designated to ourselves. Whether it's me and her on one floor, or on separate floors, no man is allowed there with us. Pastor Johnson made that rule more for me than for Miss Angie. He pulled me to the side and told me so.
    "You're...growing up. You're a very beautiful young lady. Though I trust our people, sometimes men...make bad decisions. Women do too, don't get me wrong. But men can be...monsters and with the way things get when times are tough, they sometimes get desperate. So, here's some extra ammo from my pack." He handed me a little pink fanny pack. "Now you wear this all the time. If you feel like someone or something is coming after you or that someone's going to hurt you, don't you hesitate to load that gun and blow someone's fucking head off." I took the pack of ammo and wrapped it around my waist. The way he said it was funny but I didn't dare laugh because I knew he was serious. Pastor Johnson helped raise my sister and me so I know he only cusses when he's being straight.

I picked the eighth floor as my own, climbing in bed right as the sky began to light up. In every other room on the floor, there's mold growing through the ceiling. I'm glad I listened and stayed away from the top two floors. The only room where the mold is unnoticeable is the master suite on the eighth floor. It has wall to wall mirrors, even ceiling mirrors. I'm not exactly sure what you'd need a mirror on the ceiling for but I imagine it's a girl thing.

We were each handed a can of disinfectant Pastor Johnson got from the check-in desk in the lobby of the hotel to sanitize our beds and sheets with. He said he doesn't want us getting the sickness. I knew he felt bad talking about it because he looked away when he talked about a woman, after the last trip, getting sick from an unsanitary bed and dying on the ride back.

Needless to say, I sanitized the bed as best I could before climbing in it and drifting off into a deep, uneventful sleep.
-Jemma

Day 1: Leaving the Island

I tugged my ripped windbreaker over Mandy's frail body.
    "Now, when it's cold outside like it is today, I want you to double layer your clothes and wear this jacket. You got me?" I looked her dead in the eyes. My hands shook as I gripped the zipper and slowly pulled it up, trying to avoid catching her soft, blond hair in the track. She looked back at me, just as serious and as scared.
    "You don't have to go. You can stay here. You don't know what's out there! What if you don't find food? What if you have to travel to find anything worth while?" She said with a quiver in her voice.
    "Then I'll do it, Mandy." I held her to me by the shoulders, pressing her head against my chest, trying to force the nervousness out of me and her.
    "It's not safe, Jemma!" She jerked away, roughly wiping at the tears that had began to streak her dirty face. Her bright green eyes made me want to remind her how our mother use to call her Mandy-Cat as a toddler. Those eyes and the fact that she use to meow every time someone went to take her picture was why mom loved her so much. But she wouldn't remember our mother that way and she wouldn't want to be reminded of her at a time like this. Especially since leaving the island is what killed mom in the first place.

They said there are monsters out there, the people left in the Old World. The only people that stayed behind when the sickness came through our area were the sick, the hard-headed, and the poor folk. Of course, we're all poor now. That's why our government (or what's left of it) is asking that at least one parent from each family leave to travel back to the Old World for food and other resources. They say, if we're lucky, we may be able to pick up other non-essential items. For Christmas. Mandy doesn't remember that either. We stopped celebrating it once our former "governor" came into office. He was a cold man and didn't approve of bringing any thing else that would create more trash on the island.
   "We have very limited space, as is!" He said, slamming his fist down on the public conference table when a parent tried to counter him. "It is a waste of time, it is a waste of gas, and it is a waste of space. I will discuss this silliness no longer!" And that was that. When we first came here, we had Christmas. We had all of the holidays. New Years, Valentines Day. We had fireworks for the 4th of July, eggs for Easter. We made every thing we needed to celebrate. But I guess because we celebrated so much, we didn't pay attention to our resources and slowly things began to run out. Chocolate, eggs, paper, black powder. The governor put a ban on unnecessarily cutting down trees and that pretty much killed Christmas for everyone. We had no gifts so the Tree Ban ended the holiday season permanently.

Tonight, after our final meal with the town, we hopped on 12 individual motorboats and, using what was left of our gas, we left the island. All or nothing.

God I hope we find something out there...
-Jemma