Chewed up cherries

A scrawny, gaunt girl chews on a cherry as she trudges over debris. Her teeth circle the pit; her tongue pulling the juicy flesh down her tired throat.

I think it’s odd that she’s chewing a cherry. I tell you I haven’t seen fresh fruit in a long time. You think perhaps she’s grown it somewhere secretly, or thawed it from frozen.

I pinch my leg hard. Wake up, I tell myself. Hey. Wake up. The pinch hurts but nothing else changes. It is impossible to tell how long it has been since The Incident. The spot I’m pinching on my leg beholds an angry, bloody blister groaning upon infinite layers of scar tissue. Still I don’t wake up.

The girl slows her steps.

We watch quietly.

She spits a cherry pit onto the ground. Her small, grubby hands pop another into her mouth. Her chin is stained red.

You nudge me, and ask why she isn’t moving or hiding. I tell you to be quiet. You insist on an answer. I think, for quite some time. But I don’t have one.

They haven’t been known to eat human food, I say, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t. Everything we hear about them is from someone else, who’s heard from someone else, who’s heard from someone else. It’s hard to know what’s real.

Times like this make it difficult to daydream.

The wind blisters with ice. We cannot hear anything but the sound of cherries being chewed.

You suggest that we should start to move, but my body ignites with caution. I urge she could be one of them, and it might not be safe. You think this can’t be true. And besides, you quip, she is just a tiny, small girl. If we need to fight her off we can.

I am unsettled, but make the choice to believe you. We take a step and then another, slowly emerging from behind the safety of the shrubbery. The girl does not stir. Our boots are heavy, but we make every effort to land softly on our soles. The wind screams. The girl spits out another pit. We flinch.

She stands very strangely in the centre of the marketplace, encompassed by a sprawling street of long abandoned shops. Although she does not have the frenzied look in her eye I have come to recognise in The Infected, I still feel suspicious. Her clothes are clean and un-torn, which brings some solace. Around her neck hangs a deep red, heart shaped pendant. I have never seen one of The Infected wearing a personal artefact before. Perhaps she is one of us.

She stands very close to the pharmacy, the pharmacy I have traveled so far to find. I don’t know how many days I have been without insulin, but I know it has been too many. My mouth is constantly dry, and it feels as though someone has desecrated my gums with a razor. An invisible axe cleaves my head wide open.

Tick tock.

We continue to tiptoe through the outskirts of town, masked by the shadows of derelict buildings. I whisper to you, and tell you I am now confident she is human. I suggest we talk to her. You deny me. I remind you that you said she is so small and tiny that it would be easy to fight her off even if she was Infected. You sigh.

Game over.

You plead that if we are to approach her, we should at least have a safe escape route. We quietly wiggle the handle of a shop door next to us. It clicks loudly, unlocked. The girl shuffles her feet slightly at the sound.

Armed with our escape route, we creep closer to the pharmacy. The girl spits yet another cherry pit out onto the cobbled ground.

The crackling sound of speaker playback suddenly rips through the air.

Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic. We race into the store with the unlocked door, and shove it closed behind us. The speaker begins to play it’s awful siren-a shrill, warbling wail that reverberates across the universe. We wait, our backs to the door, listening as the drones fly over. They buzz slowly through the marketplace.

Tick tock.

The room we’ve locked ourselves in is pitch black and glacial. I could not make out what purpose it served before The Incident even if I tried.

A drone stops outside our door, and we recoil at it's whirring whisper. We do not dare to move. I pinch myself hard. I don’t wake up. The drone soon makes a very large, very unusual, sighing sound, as though disappointed. Before long, it flies off.

The whizzing of the drones becomes faint. My insides throw themselves out of my stomach and onto the floor. If I don’t make it to the pharmacy soon, I’m sure I will not live more than a few hours.

We crack the door open slightly, and peer outside. The girl has vanished. Only her cherry pits remain, scattered in the walkway. The sole movement is that of the bone-numbing breeze gently pushing litter around the belly of the marketplace.

Tick tock.

We share a glance-a glance which says it’s time.

I press open the door. You grab my hand, and we tread cautiously towards the faint green door within which lies my salvation.

Thick, linoleum lights flicker gently inside the pharmacy, licking the walls with light. The odour of rotting sugar engulfs my nostrils. The shelves are half full, and half raided. Muddy footsteps are scattered about the place. We are not the first to have been here, not by a long shot. I make a beeline for the back of the store. I sense you magnetised to my back. Alert.

Entering the pharmacist’s quarters, I scan row after row, searching.

E, F, G, H…I.

The shelf is empty. My heart fills with blood.

You tap me, and point to the floor.

A single packet of insulin lays waiting for me.

Tick tock.

I scramble to pick it up. As I do, a tiny foot blocks my way. A cherry pit falls at my feet.

We both lock eyes with the young girl from the marketplace. She holds one finger up in front of her lips. Shhh!

The girl begins to sign with her hands:

Are you Infected?

I look to you. You speak Auslan much better than I do. You sign back:

No. Are you?

She shakes her head. Then she signs:

What are you doing here?

You reply:

He needs that. He is diabetic. It will keep him alive.

The girl replies:

Why would you want to stay alive here?

You look at me, and then tentatively:

There is a place. A place that can take us away from the terror. Somewhere safe.

She pauses. Her pupils dilate. Then she takes her foot off the insulin. I pick it up; begin preparing it. I forget how to breathe.

Tick tock.

The nip of the needle is euphoric. I remember.

You sign to the girl:

What are you doing here?

She signs back:

I don’t know.

You reply:

What do you mean you don’t know?

She signs:

I woke up here. I don’t recognise it.

You sign back:

Where were you before?

The speaker static, and then the shrieking siren, shreds through the air again. We all duck behind the counter. Soundless and still. The drones tear through the atmosphere.

You sign again:

Where were you before?

The girl doesn’t reply. She just keeps holding her breath. I notice the pendant she wears is not actually red, but is instead just covered in cherry juice. Her entire chin and chest are as well. Eerie.

The sound of drones flying through the marketplace is thunderous and sinister.

You press on:

Where were you before?

Where were you before?

Answer me.

Where were you before?

The girl brings a finger up to her lips. Shhh!

Tick tock.

She signs back:

I told you. I can’t remember.

The drones seem louder than before. Angrier.

The world goes quiet for a moment. And then-

a guttural growl erupts from the girl’s lips.