Eve Alone

Eve looked down at the silver locket in her hand. It was shaped like a heart, two curves at the top leading down to a point. She hadn’t looked inside for years, and she didn’t now, instead letting it slip from her fingers to fall onto her chest. Carefully, she turned to look out the window sill, doing her best to keep as much of her head out of sight from anyone who might be scouting out her little home.

Beyond the dirt encrusted window seemed to be a wasteland of broken homes, a cement street with holes and gashes from the wars telling a harrowing tale. No one seemed to be in sight, but she didn’t relax her grip on the rifle she had in her hands. Instead, she turned her head back to face the room she’d made her home.

It was barren, a rotten old bed that she never slept on, a broken mirror with a single piece that was barely big enough for her to look at her whole face, and doors to a closet. Her sleeping bag was in the closet, along with her sea-bag of supplies. It was half full, she knew, ready to get taken immediately in the event her position became precarious and she needed to move on.

Eve turned her head to look out the window again, and froze when she saw one of the aliens that had attacked their world. Its armor was grey, trying to blend in with the street, and the creature moved erratically as if it didn’t know what it was doing or where it was going. She’d been young when the invaders had first arrived, joined the Marine Corps when they started attacking. She’d been in many of the fights, nearly all losing battles. Rumor among the enlisted was that they wanted our resources, and wanted to wipe us off our own planet so they could take them.

Older now, she still didn’t know if that was the case, but she knew the Government Coalition Forces decided that if they couldn’t beat back the far more advanced race, they would just salt the earth so they couldn’t have what they wanted, even if they did win. That was when the order to bunker down went like fire through the ranks. Nukes were launched on our own planet, irradiating resources beyond the aliens use.

It took them a while to realize what we’d done. Many died when they landed en-masse to start stripping the earth of its life. They died quickly; nobody knew why the radiation affected them so swiftly. The ships still in space went back to wherever they came from, leaving those on the planet to scramble for any safe havens left. The war, if that’s what you could call it at that point, raged on for years as the aliens slowly dwindled and humans suffered the consequences of their actions.

Food and water became scarce, and once the aliens stopped being a problem, the humans turned on themselves. She’d been relieved of duty at that point, and was at home, defending her own family from bandits and aliens alike. Her parents, old by then, walked away to leave what little food they could grow for their two children and their families. It had been devastating, but she understood their sacrifice. Her brother and his wife had left to join a local gang of bandits, and she hadn’t heard from them since.

She stopped thinking about the past before it started to really hurt, and watched the invader as he slowly passed her house. Eve lifted her rifle a little bit, as it was past her position and she had a good shot at its head. Then she lowered it. The sound of her gun going off would alert anyone she was there, and she needed to protect the house. Stealth would serve her better, had served her better, for now.

The alien, it’s grey armor and erratic movements were finally out of her sight. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and Eve sighed with relief. For an hour when the sun set and rose, the aliens became immobile as they to enter a resting state. It was the safest time for her, other than constant worry about bandits, to head to the back of the house. Keeping her Armalite Rifle ready, she moved quietly through the house, stepping around the spots she’d found to squeak, until she got to the back door.

Miraculously, whoever had owned the property before the war had protected his land from the radiation. Saying a silent prayer to whoever they had been, she looked out as the vegetables and fruits slowly spread themselves out and grew in their containers. Eve had never been great with plants, but the old owner had set it up to practically run itself as long as she made sure nothing got too big for its space. There was a container full of fresh water, and fish, and it had piping running from its container to water plants. The water drained through the dirt and somehow made its way to the first container. There had only been a few fish left when she’d gotten there, but now there were half a dozen. She wasn’t sure what they ate, but she fed them bits of the plants that they seemed to like and that made them happy.

It seemed to be potato season, since the root vegetables seemed to be as big as she remembered seeing them in the super stores when she was younger. She dug one out and looked at it, checking for any sign of mold or discoloration.

“What have we here?” a voice spoke from the far end, where there was a slight break in the fence. Immediately Eve turned, dropping the potato, and pointing her rifle at it.

“Woah woah.” A man was saying, putting his hands up. “No need for that. I’m just a wandering traveler.”

“Your tattoo says otherwise.” Eve responded, looking at the coffin on his arm.

The man grimaced. “I knew it was a mistake to get it there. Should’ve never listened to Billy. Well, you got me. I’m part of Coffin. What are you going to do?”

It was Eve’s turn to grimace. “I should kill you before you report back.”

The man nodded. “You should. But you look like you’ve been around long enough to know they’ll send a party looking for me. Or my body.”

“I could give you to the alien. I heard they’ll eat human.” Eve considered.

“how’d you do that? It’d get you too.”

“I’ve got about half an hour of rest time. Shoot you in the leg, shoulder maybe. Drag you out to wherever it ended up and leave you to crawl away before it wakes up.”

The man considered. “You could, but that would hardly be quiet, and you don’t know if I have friends.”

“We are at an impasse then.”

“You could come with me to Coffin. This looks like a pretty good grow; you’d be welcomed for the resources.”

“I know what Coffin does with women. I’m not interested.”

“You’d be well taken care of. Fed, protected. It’s not so bad as the rumors make it out to be.” He said with a smile. “Better than roughing it out here to grow a couple of potatoes and fish.”

The metal on her chest weighed heavily in Eve’s mind.

“I’ll take my chances.” She said with grim finality. She pulled the trigger on her rifle, and a loud bang and scream later, the man was yelling, bleeding from a wound on his leg.

“you bitch.” He yelled. “You shot me!”

Eve ignored him, running through the house now and grabbing her sea-bag. She stuffed her sleeping bag inside and ran back to the little farm. The bandit was still yelling, and no one had come to find him. As quickly as Eve could she dug out potatoes, rubbing dirt off them and shoving them into her bag as well. She didn’t know enough about the other plants, and left them. Closing the clip on her now sealed bag, she shouldered it and looked at the bandit. He’d calmed down now, having found some cloth to tie the wound.

“I’m going to kill you.” He growled.

Eve didn’t bother to respond, knowing her time was limited. Instead, she ran to a side door in the fence and ran through the next houses backyard. It was a dry mess, but there was a door to a third backyard. This one had a skeletal tree and boxes that looked like they’d once held bees. She ran into this one, ignoring the dust that settled on the surfaces, the broken glass windows and stains on the carpet. The Marine pulled the front door open and after looking both ways and behind her, she jogged across the street to the houses there. Running through an alley between them to the backyard, equally bleak and grey, she opened the back fences door to a skeletal forest. It was quiet, the birds having long moved on to try to find somewhere else that was greener.

Keeping one hand on her rifle, its strap keeping it raised in the ready, she reached with the other and held the heart locket that showed through her tattered shirt. Eve took a deep breath. Then she continued into the woods, stalking tree to tree as she looked for wherever the birds had gone.