Together the two of them stood there in the quiet early dusk light, one frowning and one smiling. His heavy winter coat - dark and standoffish in the smoke-stained emptiness of the hillside - blew softly in the slow breeze; it was September, almost 15 years to the day. She shivered and crossed her arms under her shallow attempts at warmth; double layered long johns blanketed by an old army sweater that had surely seen its better days. It had fit her suprisingly well, that first horrible winter when she had manically pulled it off of the dead corporals body. Now it was sagging and torn. For a moment her thoughts drifted to that dead corporal. Where had that happened? Northhampton? Had she even left boston then? Those things were trivial now, and events that she had sworn she'd never forget had long sat decaying and collecting dust in the higher floors of her memories.
She shook her head in a way that he wouldnt notice.
"So thats it."
She flinched and looked at him as he finished speaking. There wasnt even birds here, anymore. His voice, in the openess, had been catastrophic.
"Flinching?" he asked, still grinning like the young idiot he used to be. "I thought by now you'd for sure ..."
"Dont." she said, her hands gripping her elbows tighter. "Its just very cold," she paused. "And different."
They were quiet and trying to overlook the awkwardness. He shifted his weight.
"It sure is different."
"This used to be it?"
"No," he said, "We're too high." He squinted, the sky a fading bright gray, colorless, devoid of anything passionate or sweet. "This used to be the top of the park, remember how the park sort of spiraled up a little bit?"
"And the monument wouldve been right over there then?" she pointed to a space about 50 yards from them, where large piles of earth had been blasted up over each other, like a group of middle schoolers who had just tackled the quarterback.
"Yeah, i believe the monument would've been there, and there would be trees all ...." he looked around. "Well i think all around us, in this whole area here."
"So the hospital would've been right there."
They stopped talking and both stared vacantly down the gentle slope. The shape of the road was still visible, buried under all the ash and grit. Other than those faint gray lines there was no other sign that anything had ever existed. The place that they had briefly shared almost 15 years before had been wiped away from existence, as if, even with everything else crumbling around, God had personally taken an eraser to it to ensure it did not survive.
She sniffed.
"I cant even understand how its all gone." She shook her head. "There's not even ... ... do you think it was planes?"
He nodded and unbuttoned the top half of his coat, and as he pulled out the condensed cigarettes she saw that his hand was horrible scarred.
"Do you smoke these days?" he asked.
"Sure." He lit the two cigarettes and she watched his hands; they were both horrible scarred; deep, old, gashes, curved and crossed like tiny roadmaps, and the indents of crude stitches could be clearly seen. "Did you get bitten?" she asked, taking the cigarette, nodding at his hand. He glanced down.
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
"No," he said, smiling. The wind picked up. He turned the hand and flexed the fingers and curled them. "You know i was here, on day One." he said quietly. She looked at him again then as he exhaled deeply, the cigarette smoke thin and pathetic. "I used to live right down the street."
"I didnt know that."
"Right after they made the announcements to stay inside. I came up here in the dark, with an empty duffel bag, you know? Snuck in through the back and made it to one of the supply rooms, filled up the bag with dressings and morphine." He flexed his hands again. He smiled, sadly, staring at his hand.
"I was here too." He looked at her. She nodded and took a deep drag off of the cigarette. "In the ER. I dont know how i got down there. It was horrible. They were everywhere, just ... dozens of them coming up, coming back ...." She trailed off and looked back towards the large piles of old, blasted earth. He followed her gaze.
"Way i figure," he said. "This area was so overflowing with them ... they probably just flew a bunch of Air Force guys over this whole area, you know? Blasted the whole place to shit." he spat and tossed the cigarette away. "When did you get out? Of the city?"
"The second day, the next morning." She took another drag and offered it to him. He took it. "I got out of the hospital somehow, made it down to the Police Station on foot. Just caught a group of cops that were high tailing it. They could see i was a nurse so they let me come along."
In the far distance, down beyond the bottom of the hills, a tiny black truck drove across the blankets of grey and white. It started to snow.
"What happened to them, if you dont mind me asking."
"Who."
"The cops."
She rubbed her nose, shrugging her shoulders. He stared at her, then turned his face, and nodded.
"They all got killed. In massachusets, in Northhampton Massachusets. Just ... went into the wrong building i guess. I was alone ..." she laughed, the look on her face reminding him of the look he once got from a man he wanted to fight who was twice his size, amused disbelief. "I took this sweater and an M4 from a dead US corporal, and just started walking. Ended up getting picked up by, one of those convoys? Ended up in White Plains."
"Ah. White Plains." He fiddled with the cigarettes and the lighter again. "We heard about it, i mean we heard it was safe. We didnt wanna risk it."
She nodded.
"Well you made it."
The white light all around them had started to grow dimmer. Without a word, almost in unison they slowly turned and began to walk back the way they came, towards the access road.
"Shuttle should be here soon."
"Yeah," she said, shivering.
"You know i always wanted to ask you out, back then." He smiled and lit the cigarette. "Long, long time ago."
In the dimming light they headed down, the sounds of their footsteps softly crunching the ash and the snow and the old debris, buried like a historians treasure. She listened to him inhaling the smoke.
At the station, which was nothing more than a sign and a few crudely built wooden benches, a few others had gathered. As they sat next to each other she looked out and saw another sign that she hadnt seen on the way in.
It said "All Walking Dead Cleared as of August 1st, 2025"
She sniffed and thought about the corporal.
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