The Breadwinner Trilogy (Book 1): The Breadwinner (9 page)

“Only if you promise not to whine like a baby girl.”  His father smiled back at him and gripped his shoulder tightly.  Veronica joined them at the door to embrace her father and soon thereafter watched him walk out their apartment door and close it behind him.   

The apartment building halls and stairwell were empty as James left.  He considered himself lucky that the dead could not turn doorknobs considering all the noises he’d been hearing from his neighbors over the past few days.  He swallowed the lump in his throat as he exited the dark stairwell on the ground floor and approached the front door of the building, fearing what might be waiting to greet him on the other side. 

The street was littered with debris and alarms sounded randomly around him.  Car, fire, police, ambulance, you name it; the air was still alive with the wearisome sound of sirens.  Any noise he made would have been drowned out and he was perfectly okay with this. 

He moved faster than he ever had in his life, ignoring anyone running around him or the screams that carried themselves on the wind.  He didn’t care who he was seen by because he didn’t plan to be on the street for very long.  A pang of guilt hit him hard when he saw out of the corner of his eye a woman being attacked across the street as he turned the corner.  He knew he didn’t have the time to help her and kept going.  The grocer’s door was a mere 20 feet down the block and he silently prayed that no one had had the sense to barricade themselves inside. 

“Fuck.”  James said to himself as he noticed a man bent over an unmoving body on the curb up ahead.  The man was savagely feeding on someone, the body and face were so badly mangled from the thing’s feast that James could not tell if it had once been a man or a woman.  He slowed his steps and quietly maneuvered around the gory scene.  He had almost cleared the beast without being noticed when gunfire erupted from the streets up ahead.  The eater on the curb snapped his blood soaked face up and growled.  His eyes locked with James’ and a wail escaped his mouth, spitting chunks of flesh and blood at him.  James raised his rifle but thought about what other unwanted attention it could draw out in the open like this and ran for the grocer’s door.  He charged inside, his heart fluttered and he couldn’t help but feel relief and excitement that the entrance had been left unlocked.  He spun around toward the door and the eater that was after him came charging through almost as if on cue.  He swung the butt of his rifle up and met the thing’s jaw with a loud crack.  It fell to the floor and began to get back up but James was already on him again and again with the blunt end of his gun, smashing its face in until there was nothing left but a headless corpse in a bloodstained black and green track suit.  James stood over the body, breathing heavily, his hands shaking.  “Holy shit.”  He said aloud, bringing a hand up and rubbing his forehead.  The mess on the floor below him might have been his doing, but he knew he did what had to be done.  He assured himself that he had everything under control and continued on with his quest.

His adrenaline pumped at all-time highs and he filled a bag with what little was left in the small corner store and was back out the front door and out in the open in under 5 minutes.  His feet were heavy and his heart was working hard as he turned onto his street and nearly tripped over a woman crying on the sidewalk.  It was the same woman James had ignored earlier. 

“Please,” the woman begged him.  “Please, I haven’t been bitten.  I was stabbed.” I was stabbed.”  She hysterically cried out in pain and fear.  Her face was twisted in agony and her eyes burned holes into his soul.  “Please help me, I’ve been stabbed.”  The woman clutched at her stomach and James felt the heavy burden of altruism in his heart.  He decided he couldn’t ignore her again.

V

Veronica frantically twisted her hair and paced back and forth in the living room.  It was all she could do to keep herself from standing out on the balcony and screaming for her father to come home.  Isaac sat at the counter with his head in his hands, bouncing both legs up and down in a careless fashion.

“It feels like forever.”  Isaac kept repeating.  “Something bad is going on, I can feel it.”

Veronica ignored him and kept pacing.  She would glance at the sliding glass door every now and again, tempted to look, to go outside.  “Just be patient,” she told her brother.  “He’s coming back, I know it.”

The two sat waiting for only a moment longer as Veronica heard the stairway door in the hallway fly open and slam back shut, filling the void of silence momentarily in the apartment building.  “V!  Izzy!”  Her father’s voice rang down the hallway.  Something wasn’t right.  Both children ran out of the apartment door and recoiled at the sight of their father.  Blood ran down James body from a huge wound between his neck and left shoulder. 

“No way!”  Isaac grabbed the grocery bag his father was clutching and Veronica ushered him inside. 

“Dad, what happened?!”  Veronica was screaming at her father, his face was pale and he had lost a lot of blood.  The kids helped James to the couch and Isaac grabbed dish towels and napkins from the kitchen.  Veronica squeezed her father’s hand as her brother tried to stop the bleeding.  James told them what happened during his trip to get food, of the eater he disposed of, and the two women who attacked him while he tried to help get another wounded woman inside.

“I shouldn’t have come back, V.”  James shivered as he spoke to his daughter.  “I shouldn’t have come back, it’s too dangerous.”  A tear rolled down Veronica’s face as she watched her brother grow more and more frustrated at the amount of blood their father was losing despite his efforts to stop it.  “I had to bring this to you or it would have meant nothing.”

“It’s gonna be ok daddy.”  She didn’t know what else to say and had given up the ability to fight back tears.  James slapped his son’s hand away and held the dishtowel to his own body with his right hand; both his children held his left and knelt on the floor next to the couch. 

“Listen up you two, you’re the whole reason I was ever put on this god forsaken earth in the first place and I’ll be damned if I die thinking you can’t take care of yourselves.”  He stopped talking abruptly and winced in pain, he gasped for air and his eyes went wide before he regained composure.  “You take that food, and that water we got, and you get some shit together and you get to the water.  Just like V wanted, you go, get the hell out of this god damned city and run.”

James never liked to use foul language in front of his kids.  Veronica knew he was serious.  She knew her father was going to die and she knew what had to be done.  “I’m so sorry daddy.”  She sobbed and placed her head on her father’s chest, despite the blood that covered it, she wanted to be able to hear her father’s heart beating.

“Dad, please.”  Isaac’s eyes welled up with tears and he wiped his nose on his shirt, clenching his father’s and sister’s hands in his own.

“Some of the best athletes I know, right kiddo?”  James looked at his son, fully aware that his son had fucked up his chances of ever doing anything athletic in life because of his grades, but at that moment, had never been prouder and never knew a better football player in his life. “I love you two, ok?”

“We love you too, dad.”  Isaac nodded at James.  Veronica sobbed on her father’s chest.

“V, punkin, look at me will ya?”  Veronica sat up and stared with wild eyes at her dying father.  “I need you guys to take care of this.”

“Take care of what?”  Isaac was hurt and confused.

“I will try to hurt you and your sister.”  Neither child answered, the reality of the situation settling in and numbing them both.  Isaac’s head was now buried in his hands but yet Veronica couldn’t take her eyes off of her father.  She continued to stare at James.  At the discoloration in his eyes, the way his chest had stopped moving up and down regularly.  How the blood had stopped flowing out of the wound.  Her time to grieve had now passed as quickly as it had come, her father had died.

“Get back now!”  Isaac didn’t understand but acted quickly.  He ran to the door to grab the rifle and before he could even reach it had heard the growl come from what used to be his father.  Veronica had run to the kitchen and what used to be James was up, off the couch and moving fast towards Isaac.  Isaac was too slow with the rifle and was shoved back into the wall, James on top of him, the wind knocked out of him.  He could feel the spit on his skin, flying from the eater as it hissed and growled, teeth gnashing and biting at the air merely an inch from his face.  It struggled against the rifle that Isaac held out and across his body in an attempt to keep it back as he gasped for air from the blow to his back.

“Hey!”  Veronica screamed from behind the struggling pair and the eater turned to face her.  It didn’t blink; it didn’t hesitate in its attempt to attack her.  But neither did Veronica as she plunged a 9 inch kitchen knife through its right temple and watched it fall to its knees.  Its eyes rolled slightly upward and the head slumped over onto its left shoulder.  Veronica took a step back as the eater finally fell to the floor as a motionless blob.

Isaac slid down the wall and crouched, he cried out once in anger, in disbelief, staring at the twice dead body of what was once his father.  The siblings didn’t speak, they just stared.  But for the first time since her mother had died, Veronica was relieved she wasn’t alive.

VI

They had packed two bags, one for each of them with essential needs and nothing more.  They had barely spoken except agreeing or disagreeing on what needed to be taken.  There was no discussion to be had, they only had to follow their father’s directions, get out of the city, run like hell.  A flip had switched in Veronica and she felt as if she had suddenly aged 10 years.  She saw Isaac slip his phone into his pocket while packing up.  She almost said something but decided against it.  Who am I to take his hope away from him, she thought to herself has she zipped her backpack up, fighting back the urge to be angry at the world for taking hope away from her.  But she came to the realization that things would be like this from now on.  Bad things would happen and bad things would happen fast.  She wanted so badly to be the optimistic girl she had been just this morning, but this morning felt like it was light years away now.  There was a difference between being optimistic and being realistic, she knew that now.  She could hope for the best all she wanted, but if she didn’t think quickly and logically, she would end up like James.  She briefly wondered if her father was somewhere up in the great beyond, rejoined with her mother, waiting for her and Isaac to join them someday.  And then she remembered her life had never been, was not now, and would never be a fairy tale.

For the first time in a week Veronica slid the balcony door open and let the outside world into what used to be their family home.  An opera of agony greeted her ears.  Sirens, breaking glass, screams, alarms, screeching tires and feral howls.  Even on the fourth floor the smell of fire, destruction and death filled her nostrils.

Isaac stood in the doorway, “Are you sure you should you be standing out there like that?”

“They’ve got no reason to look up.”  She looked out into the city around her.  Everywhere she looked there was smoke on the horizon.  The streets were less dense but people still ran here and there, screaming as they went.  Somewhere out there, people were shooting guns and driving cars.  She looked off to the west, toward the bay.  “You think if we can make it to the water we could get on a boat?”

“If the keys are there.”  Isaac reluctantly stepped out beside her.  “And if they have fuel.  Most marinas have fuel, but I don’t know much about boats.  I wouldn’t know where to look for keys either.  I’m sure them folk don’t leave their keys hangin’ around in the ignition.”

“Yeah.”  She sighed as she answered him.  She closed her eyes but all she saw was the death of her father.  She opened her eyes up and all she saw was the death of the world.  “Head east and that’s just highway and more cities.  Head west and we hit water, we can at least move along the water and stay along the beach towns.  Everybody’s back to school and work.”

“What’s that mean?”  It seemed as if though Isaac didn’t want to look his sister in the eyes just yet.  Maybe it was because he wasn’t ready to share the pain of their reality with her just yet, or maybe because he thought she would never be able to.  Not after today.

“This time of year it slows down.”  She looked down over the rail at the pavement and spotted a single lifeless body directly below them.  Judging from the way it looked, someone from one of the floors above them had jumped.  Veronica nodded solemnly and twisted a strand of her long dark hair.  “Kids go back to school, people use up their vacation time.  Dad used to talk about it all the time.”

“So, less people means less of them things.”  Isaac spotted the body on the pavement beneath their balcony and grimaced.

“Less people just means less people.”  She turned away from him and went back inside.

“Well shouldn’t we at least wait until-“

“No.”  Veronica cut her brother’s sentence short.  She was standing by the door staring at the lifeless body of their father and had never wanted more to punch her brother right in the face.  She crouched down; grasping the eater’s head with her left hand she pulled the kitchen knife from its skull with her
right.  She pretended to ignore the sickening sound it made as the knife pulled free and looked up at Isaac who was vomiting all over his sneakers.  “We leave now.”

Isaac cleaned himself up and they gathered their things.  They quickly made their way down to the first floor with no incident.  The apartment building was like a ghost town.  Veronica imagined all the inhabitants dead, undead or cowering inside until something forced them to leave or kill themselves.  “Maybe nobody’s home.”  She said to herself as she made her way toward the front entrance.