It’s been four days. Four days and the girl keeps coming back. Matted blonde hair tied back into pigtails. Wearing tattered clothes stitched together with fishing line and shoelaces. She can’t be older than eight or nine.

She just stands or sits in front of the front hatch camera. Sometimes she waves. Does she know I’m here? She’s dirty but not starved. She is skinny, very skinny, but not on the verge of death. How can she be out there?

After the plague? After everything that’s gone on out there? How could she be alive without any protective gear? How can she even EXIST?

She has to be a hallucination. I’ve already started hearing things. This has got to be the seclusion and depression setting in. There’s just no way she’s real. She can’t be real.

Can she?

She moves closer to the door and I bolt upright. I can’t see her anyway. She’s too small for the camera that close to the hatch door. I almost get up and run to the front door. I just want to see her for real.

The intercom buzzes with her little voice, “Hello?”

It’s distorted and cracked but it’s her. Or is it? I just can’t tell. Is this just more madness seeping forth? My hands are trembling as they reach for the button. I know I shouldn’t say anything. If she’s just a delusion I can’t give into it, no matter how tempting.

But what if she IS real? I can’t just let her rot out there.

I can barely manage a whisper, “H-hi there.”

She leaps back from my response and stares at the camera in surprise and fear. Then she smiles. A little girl smile. She claps her hands together excitedly and runs off.

“Wait! Don’t go! Don’t…” I shout into the intercom. But she’s already gone. I can’t spot her on any of the other cameras. I sit back and sigh, running my hand down my face. Should I go out after her? I have a chemical suit and as long as I cycle the airlock coming and going I should be fine.

Shit. If she’s a carrier I can’t just BRING her in here. Could she be immune? I certainly don’t know how to test for it or treat it. I can clean a bullet wound well enough, sure. But blood work and medicine and all that crap? Shit.

She can’t be here alone. There’s just no way. If she brings her family back they’ll ALL want in. I can’t just throw them some food like they were ducks and tell them to go.

Although it’s not like they can force their way in. I’m not sure if I could stand by and watch people starve to death on my front porch. I never liked killing people. It’s why I preferred to work with machines. Make the guns work so someone else can fire them.

It’s a couple hours before she’s back. She’s dragging a bag with her. It’s a big duffel bag. It looks like it takes all her strength just to move it. No wonder it took her so long to return. She plops it down by the front hatch where its dry.

The way the front hatch is built there’s a long overhang and a lip at the end on the top and bottom. It works great for backing trucks in. Throw up an air-tight seal and you’re good to go for transporting goods or passengers. She starts pulling stuff out of the bag.

Blankets and some food. I use the term “food” loosely. Canned stuff and maybe some dried meat. I don’t want to know what kind of meat it is. It looks like she has a tent too, but she doesn’t bother trying to set it up.

She hops over to the intercom and says, “Hi again. My name is May. Can I stay here?”

I nearly fall out of my chair grabbing at the microphone, “Yeah, yeah! That’s cool. Go ahead.”

She responds through the electric crackle, “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Jack. My name’s Jack,” I say, trying to remember how to talk to another living being. “What are you doing all alone, May? Where’s your mom or dad?”

She’s quick to respond and I find it a little disturbing, “They’re dead.”

I don’t know why I asked that. The answer was pretty obvious. Lousy conversation starter. She steps away from the intercom and sits in her pile of dirty blankets. After a moment of thought she pulls a piece of jerky out and starts to chew on it.

I really hope that’s animal jerky.

She pulls what looks like a water damaged story book out of her pack and flips through the pages. Then she sighs and puts it down. Even from the camera feed I can tell it’s beyond readable. May hops up and goes to the intercom.

“Mr. Jack? I’m getting sleepy, can you read me a story?” she asks, as innocent as a sunrise. “My Papa used to when I couldn’t sleep.”

I’m not sure if she was starting to cry, but I know I was having a hard time not losing it. Fuck. I want to let her in so badly. She doesn’t deserve this. If anyone should be safe in here it’s May. But if I open that door and let her in it could kill me.

I hit the button and speak into the intercom, “Yeah, May. I can tell you a story.”

God help me.

Tags: apocalypse, child, god

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Jack Finley's Blog, Reporter's Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.