Forever Forward

She sat quietly. Her bare feet pressed into the earth, toes attempting to grip the dusty soil. She hugged her knees, trying hard to imagine her mother was in their place, and that they would hug her back. In the distance she could hear the unmistakable sound of a shovel cutting into the earth. Then that sinking sound she’d come so accustomed to hearing; dirt and stone falling indifferently upon a wooden box.

A gust of wind, the caw of a bird. Then silence.

“Jules...Jules, where are you?”

She took a deep breath and turned to the sound of her father's voice.

“Over here!” She said flatly. Loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to not have her voice echo into the dusk.

She heard the crunch of his boots, but failed to turn to him.

He sighed. If you could read into someone's life by the way they breathed, you would know the depths of their strength, she thought.

“I’m sorry, Jules. I know you loved that pup. But he was really sick. You, we...we did our best,” He paused searching for the right words to say. But he knew there were none. They’d experienced too much loss over the past three years. Too much for a lifetime, let alone that short span of time.

Jules looked up at him now, her tears left trails of clean skin through the dirt on her face. His mouth drew in on the corners and his stomach sank at the sight. But they needed to move forward, always forward.

“Dad,” She said, “Will things ever get better?” Her eyes scanned the darkening horizon.

“It will, Jules. But it will take time.”

“Time,” She repeated, mostly to herself.

********

Later that night, when her father was asleep, she’d snuck out of their little home. It looked like it was a nice house in its day. Before the world fell. A house on the water, overlooking one of the four bridges to their island, with farmland. Yea, She thought. This must’ve cost a lot of money.

She stared off at the bridge, or what was left of it. Even now, though the center of the bridge had fallen away, the opposing towers were still somehow beautifully silhouetted against a moon and cloud-filled sky. We built that. She thought. Maybe we can build things like that again.

She made her way to the small mound of dirt. Her father had done the best he could for their little puppy. He’d fashioned a small headstone and managed to write his name across the makeshift cross. RIP Sunny, it said, in blue chalk.

“I’m so sorry, Sunny...We really tried to save you, you know.” It was true. She’d found him abandoned in the woods, crying out for his mother. But he couldn’t walk well. Her father told her that’s why the mother left him. He couldn’t keep up. So she nursed him the best she could. What kind of mother leaves one of her babies behind?

He further explained that if the mother stayed with Sunny, the entire litter would be in jeopardy. The mother had a tough choice to make.

Jules tried to reason it out, but she couldn’t. “I would never do that to my family,” she said in defiance.

“You’re fifteen.You have a long time before you have to think about kids. And I pray you never have to make an impossible choice like that,” he said.

After saying a small prayer for Sunny and begging for his understanding, she returned to the house. She was trying to sneak in when she realized her father was up and watching her.

“Were you watching me the whole time?”

He could tell she was annoyed by his constant oversight. But that would change nothing.

“No,” he lied. “I just got up and saw that you were gone.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Well, I…

The discordant sound of cans crashing to the ground cut her short. Tripwire alarms that they’d placed around the property to warn them that someone was coming.

She attempted to say something, and in a blur her father's hand was over her mouth. “Just like we practiced, ok?” He whispered.

She nodded in agreement. She moved to the rear of the house, grabbed her bug-out bag and crept into the inky blackness. Her eyes scanned the night, seeing nothing. She moved quickly and quietly into the woods.

Get to the rendezvous point down near the water. That’s the plan.

A flock of birds broke from the trees to her right. Something was out there. Her breathing was rapid, her heart pounding in her ears. She strained to hear anything that would explain away their capricious circumstance. She heard glass shattering, and saw a glimpse of a light of some sort. She was supposed to be moving to the beach, to the small boat they had hidden away for them to row to safety in times like these. But she stood there, frozen. Not for fear, but for her father. She needed him. He was all she had left in the world.

A gunshot. Not theirs. She knew the sound of their only gun, and knew without question that it wasn’t theirs. Her heart sank. Please God, Please…

For a long moment, there was a bitter silence.

She lay in the high grass, peering at the distant shadows of their home. Scanning for movement, for life. She chewed her bottom lip.

On the side of the house she saw a flash of incorporeal movement, then nothing.

Twigs snapped to her left and she froze. Her breath catching tight in her chest. It took concentrated effort to move her eyes to the source of the sound. When she finally did, the air came ragged from her.

A man stood not twenty feet from her, crouched and staring at the house. Moonlight catching his face. His hair was long and matted. His face riven with deep lines. He began moving stealthily towards the back of the house.

From within, she heard banging and yelling. They were fighting. She heard another shot ring out into the night. A more familiar sound. The second gunshot caused the man to run towards the backdoor. She saw a glint of metal in his hand. He had a knife.

The sounds of fighting resumed from within the house. He’s not dead...he’s not dead.

“Help Me!” A voice called out.

Jules wasn't sure, but she didn't think that was her father's voice.

“Help me, damnit!!!” The voice cried out.

She heard a scream. A death curdling scream. Ensuing silence.

Her heart hammered in her chest. She’s supposed to run. He made her promise that she would go for the boat and wait for him. And if he didn't come within ten minutes, to pull away into the sea. But she wasn’t running. Hands shaking, she dug through her bag. Where are you...where…

Her fingers gripped around the handle of the flare gun. She opened it and loaded a cartridge. She was just about to run to the house, when she reached back in and grabbed another cartridge and then fumbled through the bag for something else. Her knife.

Jules bolted for the backdoor. Praying it wasn’t too late. She thought about Sunny and how he was left for dead by his own mother. She would never do that to someone she loved, she had said. And here she was, just hours later, her words being put to the test. And in this moment, she knew that she would rather die than live knowing she did nothing to help her father. The man who had kept them all alive when the world they knew crumbled at its foundations. She’d watched him fight off the dredges of a fallen society. Watched him nurse her mother through injuries and illness. And watched him bury her. Never once, failing to care for her. Never once.

She ran with determination towards the backdoor. Deep was her belief that she would meet whatever lay beyond that door with the bravery she’d seen in her parents.

Grunting sounds as she approached the door and crashed through it. A small lantern lay on its side. A minor flame flickering within cracked glass. Two figures wrestling on the floor. Another man lay still a few feet away. The floor was wet with what looked like blood and the air smelled of iron.

She approached them, trying to discern who was who.

The man on top reached his hand up. That glint of metal, that deeply rutted face. His hand plummeted downward and she screamed. But her father had caught the mans wrist. Not in time to fully stop the blade, but in time to deter a deathblow. She watched the knife cut through her fathers shirt, and watched the tip of the blade disappear. She heard the defiant roar of her dad as he struggled for life. The man pulled the knife free and arched his arm up once again.

Jules was already running. Feet moving in their own volition. At the apex of his swing, she stabbed him hard in the pit of the arm. The man screamed and slashed his knife at her.

Simultaneously, her father pulled the man in the opposite direction, just enough to alter the path of the man's knife. It cut harmlessly through the air.

The man sneered at her, “You’re gonna wish you were dead, little girl!” He said.

He turned his attention back to her father. But he was distracted for too long. The lantern broke across his face. The man rolled languid on his side, shards of glass protruding from the mess he called a face. Her father struggled to get to his feet.

“Come on, Dad. Let’s go.. Get up!!!” She screamed.

He grimaced as he got to one knee. “You didn’t follow the plan...You broke your promise,”

She could see him more clearly now. He was covered in blood. She wasn’t sure whose it was.

She threw his arm around her shoulder and together they moved to the door. She heard the man stirring behind them, trying to find his feet. When they got to the door he was wavering, but upright.

“You won’t get far,” she heard him say.

Jules turned, withdrew the flare gun from her pocket, aimed...and fired. Drenched in oil from the shattered lantern, the mad exploded in flames. His scream was short, then fire filled his lungs and he was no more.

They made their way to the little boat and launched off into the lapping waters of the blue abyss. From the shallows they watched their home light the night sky in amber hues. She moved to check his wounds. He pushed her away. But she’d seen enough. A deep stain seeping crimson just under his right ribcage. The first gunshot.

She felt the weight of what was happening fall heavy upon her. She wasn’t ready. “You’re gonna be ok, Dad...You hear me? You’re gonna be fine,”

He smiled at her, and moved her gossamer blonde hair from her eyes. “You’re gonna be fine, Jules. You hear me? Say you’re gonna be fine.”

Jules feigned a smile, tears running freely down her face. “I’m...I’m gonna be fine, Dad. OK? Everything's gonna be ok.”

“One day...we will all be back together. Me, you, mom...and Sunny. All together again,” he said. His words now a whisper.

She reached behind her neck and undid her chain. Then leaned over him and clasped her heart shaped locket around his neck. She opened it, and smiled at the tiny picture of their little family.

“We’re all together now, Dad. Right now...It's ok. I'm ok. I love you. Go find Mom. Please tell her I love her,”

His eyes closed and he smiled. “We love you, Jules. Remember...everything. Always, forward…”