The Girl in Red

While that isolation might have saved Red and her family from the first ravages of the disease that rolled over the country like a tornado, she expected that an army truck full of survivors would show up any day to take them to a camp, just like in those movies about the end of the world. Everyone always ended up at a government camp, ragged refugees surrounded by gun-toting soldiers in gas masks.

She had treated the memory of those movies and books she loved just like an instruction manual. Red had always liked camping, though her mother was inclined to fuss whenever they hiked. Mama seemed to think Red didn’t know her own body well enough to stop if she needed to, and so Red was pleased when Mama decided Red and Adam were old enough to go backpacking without her or their father. Adam was an okay brother in at least one respect—he never asked Red one million times a day if her leg was sore or if she needed to sit down.

As soon as Red knew the End of the World was nigh she started packing. She sorted and discarded things in her pack until it was down to just the necessities—clothes (breathable layers that could be rolled up small), food with a long shelf life, a portable water bottle with a purifier, some of those space blankets that volunteers wrapped around marathoners at the end of a race (they were lightweight and packed into a rectangle the size of a playing card box and were good for extra insulation if need be), soap (because she was not going to stink all day and all the time, and if you could only pack four pair of underwear you were going to need to wash them sometime), baby powder and skin cream (because when you have a prosthetic leg your stump gets sweaty and chafes if you walk a lot and powder and cream help and she was not getting through the apocalypse without those things, that’s for damn sure) and antibacterial gel and a first-aid kit and other gear deemed vital for living.

It is astounding how much crap humans need to survive, Red thought as she packed all these things. And this was just the survival gear—she wasn’t carrying photo albums or books (okay, just two books—the apocalypse would be a lot more pleasant with Robin McKinley along) or any of the other random junk people took with them when they didn’t need it.

Red liked Godzilla movies and in the old movies there was inevitably a scene in which Godzilla would be destroying some prefecture and a person would be fleeing with literally every single thing they owned on a little cart. There would be furniture and dishes and all this other random crap, and of course a baby perched in a basket at the top of the pile like an afterthought, like, “Oh, we’ve got Mother’s tea set packed, maybe we should bring the baby, too. We have space.”

Red knew that if she was fleeing from a giant monster with nuclear breath she would not be poking along pulling a cart of furniture. She would be running like hell to the shelter farthest from the rampaging creature, which was what sensible people did when being chased by monsters.

She also would not be fleeing directly in Godzilla’s path, which was another thing that always made her nuts when watching those movies. Didn’t anyone ever move at a perpendicular angle away from the monster’s feet? She just wanted to see one person dart to the side and wait for the creature to pass.

Red tested her go-pack until she was certain she could carry it for a long time without its weight dragging her down. When you have a prosthesis even the slightest change in weight can affect the way it fits. She knew the stump would swell a little, especially at first, and she wanted to get used to both walking and carrying. This wasn’t going to be a weekend backpacking trip. She was positive this was going to be a leave-home-possibly-forever trip, even if nobody else in her family agreed with her.

Adam wondered where she was going off to on all her long walks through the woods that bordered their house, but she was going to be more prepared than prepared. She would be fit and ready to leave. Everybody knew that the highways were always jammed up when there’s trouble and anyone who tried to drive was just going to have to abandon their car and walk anyway. She wouldn’t be the one complaining that her legs hurt and her feet were sore, and she only had one foot and one and a half legs to complain about.

And besides, she didn’t want to be a burden. She didn’t want to slow her family down or keep them from being safe.

She decided to take one of the chef’s knives from the kitchen and wrap it in newspaper, but her father caught her stuffing it inside her pack and made her put it back.