REVA AND THE ROGUE

During a time when lies carry more weight than honor, war survivor Reva Montgomery teams up with a rogue soldier to search for her missing, young traveling companion.

Chapter 1

Plaster crumbled down from the ceiling, landing on the splintered wooden floor and on the once grand dining table whose legs no longer supported it. We gathered along the table’s edge: me, the skinny rat, and the ghosts of the people who once lived here. Molly was outside foraging. A risky undertaking for a child, but there wasn’t anybody out there who could hurt her anymore. 

The rat crawled onto the tabletop. Sliding my dagger from its sheath at my waist, I crept off my tattered backpack, my mouth salivating at the prospect of eating meat. I wasn’t quick enough. The rodent scurried away, disappearing through a breach in the baseboard of the wall.

Grumbling, I shoved my dagger back into the sheath. Had I not been dead tired, I would’ve been faster. But like field crops lacking adequate rain, the journey withered me.

The sound of small feet shuffled toward me, pulling my attention away from the prospect of breakfast. Molly stopped in the archway leading into the room, her frail body bundled in layers of makeshift outerwear. Breathing heavily, she watched me for a moment. Then she extended her hand, the holes in her knit gloves widening, exposing her small fingers. Several green sprigs lay limp across her palm. “I found food.”

Making a mental note to sew her gloves the moment I could, I neared her, inspecting her find. “You’re amazing.” It had been more than a day since we ate, provided we considered gnawing on corn husks we found inside a ramshackle silo eating, which we didn’t. The handful of semi-frozen dandelion leaves Molly presented would never sustain us. We were better off waiting for the rat to return. “You eat it.”

She entered the decaying dining hall, plopped upon my backpack, and sank her teeth into the greens as if they were savory flanks of meat.

My eyes returned to the rat’s escape route. I was patient. That was one virtue I had retained through the years. That, and knowing never to give up.

“Reva?” Molly said in a quivering voice. “Are we gonna stay here?”

I looked back at her. “Do you want to? We could use the rest.”

Molly didn’t answer. Instead, she stared at the floor. Sensing something was wrong, I approached her. “What is it, Molly?”

She swallowed her last bite and licked her lips as if searching for flavor in their cracks. “It’s just that…it stinks here.”

“This entire world stinks.” Kneeling to her level, I cradled her face in my calloused hands. “Molly, look at me. What is it?”

She pulled the red knit hat off her head, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulders. “There’re bodies in the building next door.”

I soared to my feet. “You didn’t go inside, did you?”

“Uh-uh. I saw them through the window.”

“Stay here.”

I hurried through the empty hallway, slipped through the slack-hinged front door, and stepped outside. Snow spewed from the sky like thick pellets of wet fur. The chill coursed through the opening of my ragged coat as I tromped across the snow-speckled field toward the stone outbuilding. 

Branches from an old oak tree stretched outward along my path, revealing the thick woolen threads from Molly’s coat she had tied to them, which guided me to a window. Breadcrumbs. It was a trick Molly used so I could find her if she ventured too far. I would talk to her later about using the fibers from her clothing. The days were getting colder, and my stash of scrap material for patching the holes left behind was dwindling.

Clearing the fresh snowflakes from the glass, I leaned toward the broken window and peered inside. A familiar stench wafted toward me. Old gardening equipment lay scattered along the dirt floor. Wooden planks rested against the wall beyond that. To the left of it, highlighted in the dim light filtering through the cracked windows, lay the decomposing bodies. 

I stepped away from the window. Remaining still as possible, I looked out in all directions. I couldn’t be sure, and I wasn’t going to inspect the bodies, but…

I wondered when the brain disease struck the household. When had the last person died, or were some of them still alive, watching me, waiting to see what I’d do next? The upstairs windows of the house appeared glassy dark. We hadn’t been to the second floor. Anyone could be there.

Stacking the bodies inside the building like this was careless. If the brain disease killed them, they needed to be burned. As Paulo used to say, “Burn them, Guerrera. Ahora.”

The brain disease spread through skin contact, respiratory droplets, and I suspected airborne particles from clothing of a rotting corpse. Burning was the only way to ensure it didn’t spread. One dead body could doom an entire community. I’d seen it happen.

I was immune to the brain disease, more commonly referred to as “the sickness.” That’s why Paulo, the egotistic, cruel man who once controlled my life, had put me in charge of the dying at Luchan, the place from which Molly and I recently fled. One by one I had watched my housemates slip into madness and die, and one by one I disposed of their bodies the proper way. Then, when the last of them were gone, we abandoned Luchan.

Good riddance, Luchan. Good riddance, Paulo.

I promised Molly’s father that if anything happened to him Molly and I would leave Luchan and travel to the safehouse, where Molly once lived. I had hoped we would beat the late October snow, but it was taking us longer to find than we thought. Stumbling upon this old homestead with its intact roof, sturdy walls, and the grand old wooden table we could chop up and burn for heat gave us hope we might have a place to rest for a while. At least until the skies cleared.

But finding the bodies changed everything.

I didn’t want to expose Molly to the sickness again. She might not survive it a second time.

I hurried back to the house. It was still early morning. We had plenty of time to find another shelter. Who knew when the stars would return. Until then, we were at a disadvantage since we relied on them to map out our journey, so we might as well find a safe place to rest a few days.

Molly expressed no objections to leaving. The thin soles of our boots would never provide warmth in this weather, so I filled them with insulation I pulled from the walls and wrapped remnants of cloth around the top of Molly’s boots to prevent the snow from seeping into them. I bundled her up, wrapped her red scarf around her neck, covered my head with an old shirt I tied down beneath my chin, and strapped on my backpack. And off we went.

The old homestead drifted from our sight as the snow encased it in a white tomb, and I couldn’t help wondering if its occupants’ final days had been as terrifying as Molly and mine had been at Luchan.

People do horrific things when they think they might die.

#

The snow continued to fall as we traveled through the day. Miles of emptiness filled our vision. The Indo-Western War struck the continent hard, and when it ended, good, safe shelter had been difficult to find, but now it seemed impossible. Many called it World War IV because most of the continents on the planet had been involved—a three-sided conflict that eventually narrowed down to two; the east versus the west. Before the fighting, before the dark skies and the cold and the snow, the Midwest Province had been a great place to live, with its eco-friendly towns, and spacious farms with fields laden with crops and livestock. The skies had been clear then, allowing me to spot the incoming drones delivering packages, or the jet crafts racing through the air with an intensifying buzz as they neared. The war ended ten years ago, and all traces of the life I once knew dissipated along with the prolonged sunny skies that once filled my days.

But the sunshine was coming back, along with clear nights that granted the ability to navigate through the land. Sometimes the morning rays trickled through the clouds and burst into my sleepy eyes like a beam of hope. But it wasn’t happening today.

Molly and I paused for a break. Jagged edges of building ruins pierced through the snow near us, a cruel reminder of what was. During the months leading up to our final days at Luchan, rumors the sickness wiped out most of the war survivors circulated through the compound. I suppose the rumors weren’t rumors because we hadn’t encountered a living soul since we started our journey. Even the animals were scarce.

Molly pointed onward, and we continued. 

It would make life easier if others were still here—the foraging, the strengthening of walls, having someone to hold at the end of the day—but Molly and I had been out here weeks, maybe months, and I was convinced everyone was dead. The war destroyed the country, and the sickness, it seemed, eradicated the survivors.

Maybe that was best. Now, there were fewer people who could harm Molly and me. 

Molly lagged behind. Pausing, I waited for her to catch up. Her wispy legs lifted and fell, breaking through the snow like feathers as she neared me. I handed her the old flask I kept strapped to the side of my pack and let her drink her fill. Then I finished what was left and filled the flask with snow. I studied her face, making sure she was still there, and then took her small hand in mine and trudged onward.

“Reva?” she said. “There’s nobody alive anymore, is there?”

I sighed. Molly displayed unwavering strength despite her frail body, yet I suspected that if I said “enough,” she would drop in the snow and never want to get up, and I would be tempted to join her. How do you justify your own life when there were no others? What do you say to an eight-year-old who had witnessed what she had witnessed? 

“Good people are right around the next bend, Molly.” 

“I’m sorry we lost the stars.”

“Oh, Molly, that wasn’t your fault. We’ll pick up the trail again soon, when the nights stay clear. For now, we need to find a place to rest.”

We trudged up a gradual hill. The snow was to Molly’s knees now. She followed behind me in my tracks to alleviate the work needed to plow through it. We reached the crest as my insides imploded from hunger pains, and I thought about the rat and wished we had stayed at the homestead a little while longer.

I stopped and looked outward. Molly lifted an arm, pointing it toward the sight in front of us.

Ahead sprawled a large weather-glazed building. Smoke seeped from its chimneystacks. This wasn’t the safehouse we were looking for. I knew that the moment the men emerged from the front door.

I reached for the hilt of my dagger.