Chapter One: Eight Years Later

The shipyard was more hectic than usual. A sweeping mass of fresh faces assimilated amongst the faces of those who frequented the storefronts for years. Somehow, they all looked the same. Little Ezekiel shoved an old, rusty gate open and walked down the gravel path in the alley to the main section of the shopping district. Lugging a large bag of collectables, he trudged his way down the boardwalk to Old Sal’s curio stand at the south end. The sack was nearly as heavy as Ezekiel, but he was more than experienced at lifting heavy things. The torn pages of a Traveler’s Duty magazine were hanging loosely from the boy’s pockets. A picture of the Grand Canyon, Ezekiel’s favorite, was sticking so far out that the gentle spring breeze was nearly mighty enough to sweep the page square out of his shorts. Ezekiel looked passively at the unclean, aging shop owners as they conducted their daily business. As was the usual, people stood around the stands and kiosks, chatting about the year’s crops, raids, elections, or any new parts of the city that recently got the seal of approval to explore. Expansion was an exciting prospect for many in Boston, but Ezekiel wasn’t fazed by it at all. He had already been doing it for years.

Old Sal’s shop was what can only be described as a pile of junk and wood which could be torn apart by the lightest breeze. The old man never really made any money from the junk he pawned off, so most citizens hypothesized he had a second, less obvious source of income. There were underground rumors he hosted dog fights by the Warf every Sunday, but that was just speculation. Honestly, little Ezekiel didn’t care about what he did to make his living. He only cared that Sal would buy his goods and give him enough money to buy food and medicine for his mother. A stable source of income wasn’t common in Ezekiel’s part of town, or any part of town. It was up to the day if his scavenged goods would do the trick for him.

Ezekiel slung the large burlap sack onto the plywood shelf in front of the stand. The aging Italian man looked up from his book and stared down at the child with a smug grin on his face.

“Morning Ez! What glorified pieces of trash have you brought for ol’ Sal today?”

Ez, with a rather bitter look on his face, replied “Just a bag of records I found at some old shop in the far western district.”

“The far west district you say? Well, that’s a dangerous spot. Did you waft in any of that disgusting chemical? I heard last week it was still lingering up by Charter Street.”

“Yeah, there was still that awful smell around there, but nothing that could make me sick or anything.”

Sal’s Grin faded. “Well keep on your toes kid, you are my number one customer, and I don’t want to see you become one of those wandering pale freaks like the ones in Lexington, you hear?”

Ezekiel chuckled. “Come on Sal, I know you really don’t believe in the roamers. Quit teasing me.”

“Don’t tell me that like you know. I’ve seen em’ before with my own two eyes.”

“Forget I said anything. Just look at what I’ve brought you.”

With a thud, a stack of once-precious records spilled out onto the planks like a line of dominos. Sal began to sift through them until he noticed a plastic, alabaster-colored disc, which was absolutely caked in dust.

“Huh. this is the White Album. My sweet god, I haven’t seen one of these since before everything fell apart.” The grey-haired man seemed very pleased by the find. Ezekiel became curious.

“What is so special about that one, Sal? They all look the same.”

“Ah, you wouldn’t get it kid. Your generation could never see the value in this. All you need to know is that you’ve struck gold.”

“Well, if they were so great, how much is it worth to you?” Ezekiel said, pointing to the lockbox with a broken clasp.

“Well, I’ll say something to the tune of twenty-five Foundercoins,” Old Sal said, lifting the dust covered vinyl into the air endearingly.

Ezekiel’s eyes lit up. “Twenty-five? That’s enough money to buy medicine for a month.”

Sal put the merchandise back down onto the table and reached under his kiosk.

“Do we have a deal? Here, I’ll give you the money now.”

He slid open the box under the display shelf and pulled out five large brass squares. Each was smudged by oil and skin grease, but the city label was still clearly legible in their top right corners.

“Well, I’m glad I could help out,” Ez said, swiping the currency from the countertop.

“Hey kid. Keep bringing me good stuff like this, and you might even be able to afford to put a little bit of fat on those twig-legs of yours.”

~ * ~

The grocery stand was only a quarter mile down the road, and Ezekiel gleefully skipped the entire way with a beaming grin on his face. He already knew what he wanted to buy with his newfound riches. The thought of something sweet made the boy salivate. Fresh grown strawberries. Only twice before in his life had he been able to afford the delicacy. Once on his birthday, when his mother gave him five dollars to spend, and once when he found a stash of jewelry in a broken lockbox. Ever since the toxin eliminated most farmers and crop fields, fruit of any kind had become a product in demand by the highest in the social hierarchy. It was naturally tangy, not like the processed pastries and stale candy which were constantly found in every corner of the ruins. People grew tired of packaged goods: the cereals, the trail mix, the boxed raisins, and it was hard to afford anything else since the few remaining growers held a total monopoly on the price of their crop. Ezekiel made quick work of finding the largest crate of berries on sale and made his way out, but only after throwing the ripest of the bunch into a beggar’s baseball cap.

~ * ~

Ezekiel marched his way through the back roads and grassy patches of the district, homeward bound with a box of strawberries as long as a suitcase. He hummed a little tune from his childhood, but couldn’t seem to remember what it was called. His mother used to hum it to him on cold nights to remind him it takes more than a little chill to kill a man. The Great Plague swept through not long after. The singing never made a comeback after the vaccinations took their course. As he reached the chorus, Ezekiel passed by a small, pillbox-shaped storage garage. His happy song was cut short when the child noticed the shape of a man slumped over a stack of brown bags. Curious as to who had taken shelter in such a weary, beaten down place, Ezekiel turned the corner to have a little peak at the squatter. It was a charcoal warehouse. The walls were covered in black stains and the entire place smelled of a long over-tended bonfire. Next to the man was a backpack, torn in three places, as well as two empty canteens of water.

The man was very tan, darker than most of the people Ezekiel sees around Boston. He had a long butch style of black hair and a thick, untrimmed beard. He was in very good physical condition, but also seemed exhausted and underfed, like a deprived jungle cat that learned to walk on two feet. The squatter looked to be in his late thirties, but the strange marks and scars on his face gave him the appearance of someone much older. His blue jeans and simple t-shirt were stained by an undeterminable substance. At best, it was mud. A homeless man on the south side covered in disgusting stains was certainly unusual, but it was also potentially dangerous. Ezekiel’s mother always warned him folks he didn’t know were usually bad, but Ez never really believed that. Ez always read that good people help people in his stories, and they only hurt bad people. Ez couldn’t know which the traveler was until he asked.

Ezekiel almost pitied the man. He looked like he needed help.  It was easy to get sick in a crowded place like Boston if you didn’t have a roof over your head. Slowly, Ezekiel approached the husk of a man. As he drew close, the stranger’s eyes snapped wide open and he flung to his feet, which did a good job of startling the boy. The traveler had a black handgun of some kind in his left hand. It was smaller, compact, and had series of scratches streaking down the barrel. The man soon realized he was only looking at a child, so he lowered the pistol and sat back down on the bags.

A few moments of incredibly awkward silence passed before Ezekiel gathered the courage to speak. “You aren’t from around here, are you mister?”

The traveler wiped the sleet from his eyes and stared back down at the child. “What I am is trying to sleep, but I guess that’s down the drain now. No, I’m not really from anywhere around here, kid. Don’t you find strange folks wandering around all the time?”

“Yeah we do, but we really don’t get that many new people these days, and whenever we do, it must be some kind of special occasion.”

“Well, I guess you could say that me arriving here is a special occasion of some sort.”

“Look mister. I’m real sorry for waking you. I just wanted to see if you were hurt. There are a lot of hurt people around here nowadays. I’m Ezekiel, but people who know me just call me Ez. What’s your name?”

“Well…” The man looked thoroughly surprised by the simple greeting. “It’s nice to meet you Ez. I apologize if I look stern, it has just been a while since anyone has really given me a formal greeting. The name is Jack. I just arrived here a few days ago.”

“What do you mean you’re not used to getting formal greetings? The folks around here always take time to introduce themselves.”

“It’s just not all that common where I come from to make an introduction like that.”

“Why not?”

Jack stretched his narrow but tight shoulders. “Well, where I come from, it doesn’t matter what you are or who you are, it is what you do that counts. People know you for what you can accomplish, nothing else.”

“And where exactly do you come from, Jack?”

“I guess I come from here, and there, and a little bit of everywhere. But I started in Phoenix. We heard there was some kind of metropolis out here. Full of food, water, safety and shit. I decided to make the journey from there. I think it took us a full year to make it here, and I’m sure it could have been a lot faster than that, but we had to take some… necessary stops.”

Ezekiel adjusted the magazine pages in his pocket. Things just got a little more interesting.

“Did I just hear you say you traveled to here from Arizona? How could you make a trip of thousands of miles with the gas still lingering everywhere?”

“You’ve never left the city before, have you kid?”

“I was born here. I’ve only explored this city to its outer limits, and no further. People say it’s dangerous outside the city. Only the desperate and convicted ever step foot out there.”

Jack leaned forward and patted Ezekiel on the shoulder. “It is, but that doesn’t stop anyone from traveling through it. Have you ever heard any gossip around here about The Train, Ez?”

He nodded his head with uncertainty. Ezekiel had heard of trains as a baby, but his mother said they all rusted and died off years ago. She was intoxicated at the time, so Ezekiel wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. When he asked what they looked like, the best response she could manage for the toddler was “A big old metal tube that rolled around on tracks.”

It was hard to learn as a youth in Boston, but Ezekiel always went the extra mile to make sure he didn’t end up stupid like most of the other boys and girls in town. However, all the hard work and time he put into studying only served to make him a target. They would laugh and spit at him and call him silly names like ‘book worm’ or ‘paper kisser’, but none of it ever managed to bother Ez. He knew he was one of the strongest, fastest, and smartest kids in the colony, so things like that never managed to get under his skin.

“Alright then, make sure to picture what a train looks like in your head and keep it there. While we didn’t have the luxury of riding in actual locomotives all the way here, the survivors traveling on The Train did travel in a pattern that kind of looked like one. You see little Ez, I traveled here as a part of a formation made of four distinct parts that all held their own purpose while we traveled. First, there were a few men situated far out front of everybody else in a V shaped formation. Their job was to scout out towns and roads to make sure everyone else wasn’t walking into a deathtrap without a warning. Next, there was a long, rectangular section of the formation which contained most of the normal people with few special skills or strengths. Behind that, there was another set of columns which held all of the supply carts and medical equipment that was lugged around by the strongest, toughest people on board. Finally, in the back of all of that, there were a set of vehicles that were heavily armed that helped to defend the supplies in a place we called the caboose.”

Jack reached into his pack and pulled out a pale blue switchblade and flicked it open. He took it to the ground and began to carve a few basic shapes into the slightly mounded soil. One rectangle after another, he completed the drawing that represented his formation. Ez peered down at the set of odd, poorly-carved shapes. “Yeah, I can see why you would call it a train. How did you travel like that?”

“We walked. How else?”

“The WHOLE way?”

“Ah, a bit of cynicism I see. Well, I can assure you my old feet have stepped on unfamiliar soil almost every second of the last year.”

Ez raised an eyebrow.

“Look kid, it’s not like we did it all overnight. This journey took hundreds of days and thousands of hours of walking. We were on a strictly set schedule as well. We always woke up at dawn, heel-toed a dozen miles a day, and set up camp when dusk arrived.”

Ez thought about the numbers for a moment in his head. Twelve miles a day multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days would give them more than enough wiggle room to make it coast to coast.

“Alright then, how did you manage to travel in such a fanned-out pattern and still keep in touch with the rest of the people traveling with you?”

Jack scratched his chin. “Oh, that was simple. Someone would use a megaphone to signal the start and stop of each day’s travels. It was loud as a tornado siren. I’m sure anyone standing within two miles could have heard that thing. When it finally broke halfway through the trip, we started using flares instead. Not as noticeable, but much more pleasant to the eardrum.”

The whole idea of ‘The Train’ sounded very primitive, but Ez had to admit it seemed interesting.

“Yeah, a day on The Train was a hard day of work, guaranteed, but it always kept you preoccupied. You starting to get a better picture of exactly what I’m talking about, little Ez?”

Ezekiel, while hating the whole notion of being called little, nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m starting to get the idea a little better. You just walked along in a handful of long, thin lines that stretched out horizontally in three or four tiers.”

“Yeah, that’s a very accurate description to be made by a boy your age, kid. I’m impressed.”

All this talk about moving across the barren wastes fed into Ezekiel’s obsession with exploring it. This stranger drew a reaction from him, and no matter how much he told him about this strange train, he felt the urge to learn more. “Hey Jack,” Ez started. “Would you mind answering a few questions for me?”

Jack almost looked flattered. “Well of course, ask away. I’m always willing to help teach someone who wants to learn. What do you need to know?”

“Well, first…I would like to ask a little bit about the old world.”

“Yeah, sure kid. What do you want to know?”

“I just wanted to know what it was like before all of this, so if you could run down what a usual day used to be for you, I feel like I could maybe understand it.”

“Alright kid, sure. You see, the old world was a wonderful place, with just a few flaws. Unlike today, nobody used to worry about what to eat. It was more about what you could buy and what you had to do to keep your job.”

“What was your job?”

“Well, let’s see…I was in my late twenties back then, I used to be employed as a night guard at an old storage facility. It didn’t pay anything astronomical, but it gave me enough to help my family get by and taught me how to defend myself with a handgun, so I guess it was good enough.”

“Who was in your family?”

This question seemed to strike Jack deeper, and a look of melancholy and determination grew on his face.

“Well kid, I have a daughter, something around your age by now, named Delilah, and a gorgeous wife, named Sarah. My whole world wrapped up in two beating hearts.”

“What was it like sleeping on the ground out there? Was it always cold? Did the smell of the gas follow you? Did you have to look out for the feral dogs?”

“Oh boy, you sure do have a lot of questions in you, don’t you Ez?

“I don’t know, I have always just been really curious about life outside this place, ever since I was a baby.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so you’re an adventurer, are you?”

Ez’s cheeks darkened into a rosy shade of red. “I guess you can say that. I’ve never been able to explore much of anything though. My mother would never allow it. She always says it’s too dangerous out there for someone like me.”

“I feel your pain Ez. There was a time during my life when I felt pretty trapped myself.”

“I just really want to know everything about what is out there. It’s all calling to me. I have a lot of dreams about being outside the walls. Some good, some bad. I love all of them though. At least they’re different. At least they aren’t set in this pigpen.”

“Hey, don’t feel so glum about the whole situation, kid. You are way too young to have a midlife crisis. I know someday, you will get your chance to take on the world. Mono e mono. You just have to wait for your turn to arrive. Until then, how about I help to answer absolutely any questions you might have about the wasteland? Would you like that?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Ez’s grip on the crumpled magazine page in his pocket tightened.

“Well then, pull up a bag Ez, and I guess we can get started.”

Ezekiel eagerly slid a bulky bag of charcoal dust up to the strange traveler and sat onto the top of it. Never in his life had Ez been so thrilled. He could tell Jack knew a lot about the wasteland, and maybe as he tells his stories, Ez could finally be able to paint a picture of it all in his head.

Jack started, “Now son, I’m assuming you don’t know what it’s all like outside of your little camp. Does that sound about right?”

“Right.”

“Well, this place may be a bit dull, but it’s much better here than anywhere else I’ve been. Out there, in the abandoned cities and forests, there isn’t much pleasant to find. There is nothing more dangerous than traveling across that baron hellscape beyond those scrap-iron walls. There shouldn’t be any believable reason to cross it whatsoever, but people tend to go and do it anyway. It’s crazy, but the trip in some people’s eyes is completely necessary. They won’t let anything, even imminent death, stop them.”

“If this trip is so dangerous and fatal as you say, what could possibly motivate someone to take it?” Ez asked bluntly.

Jack tapped his fingers on the paper bag and thought for a moment. “Well kid, some people go to find better shelter than they have, some come for a taste of long forgotten civilization, some just want a little safety, and a brave few go searching for love. It doesn’t matter what it is Ez, but everybody on the outside has something…or someone, they keep pushing on for.”

“Then Jack, what is it that you keep pushing for?”

“I came here for my beautiful little girl, but I think you already knew that. My family is alive, I know they are. I wouldn’t stop searching the world until I find them or died trying. You can understand why, can’t you little Ez? Do you have someone you would give everything up for?”

“Yeah, I have a mother. She lost my dad to sickness when I was very young, so she has raised me all by herself until she got sick too. Now it’s up to me to get the medicine she needs every week.”

“Ah, a family man. You see Ez, the idea of determination pushing survivors across three thousand miles of dirty, unsafe, and disgusting conditions is one thing. Traveling that way and enduring unexpected hardship without a good motivation is another. It’s a survival of the fittest world out there, and some foolish people try to make the odyssey without being fit enough, either mentally or physically. They never make it. It’s not a stretch to say one in every three things out there have the capability to end you in an instant.”

Ezekiel cut him off. “You keep talking about dangers out there and how perilous this journey is. What actually makes it so ruthless?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked kiddo. To explain some of the many dangers out there, I will put them into two categories for you, living and non-living. I’ll start you off with non-living. I’m sure you have heard of the toxin that started all this in the first place, right?”

Ez nodded. “Well, pockets of the stuff still linger around the ruins, and breathing any substantial amount in can still be lethal to anybody, regardless of age, race, or gender. The sneaky little toxin also seeps into opened containers too, contaminating the contents. Drinking any amount of infected water is just as big of a mistake as breathing it in. I learned that one the hard way. Also, some structures have weakened over years of mistreatment and have become very treacherous to walk across. Nothing out there is anything close to code anymore, so whenever you are traveling in an unfamiliar structure, you have to watch your step.”

“What are some of the living threats that still exist around here?”

“Well, there are quite a few of those. The most common of those are pesky bands of raiders and bandits. There always seems to be some crew of freaks who can’t survive by themselves, so instead they make a living by gathering large guns and plowing vehicles into groups of survivors to loot them for all they’re worth. Besides those threats, there are also animals which suffered from the effects of the toxin, like the dogs you were talking about. Exposure is a nasty thing. Finally, in very rare cases, there are humans who suffered the same effects as animals, only to a stranger degree. People around here seem to like to call them…”

“ROAMERS?” Ezekiel shouted out with anticipation.

“Well, Yes. How did you know about that Ez?”

“The local junk shop owner said he saw one, but I always thought that they were a myth,” he said with newfound enthusiasm. “You’re telling me they’re real?”

“They are as real as the ground you stand on, and more terrifying than anything you can possibly imagine. You see Ez, not everybody in the blast radius of the dirty air died because of its destructive effects, some weren’t quite that lucky. The eggheads have a theory about how those things came around, but I’ll keep it nice and simple. On the outskirts of the clouds, people were breathing in small traces of that neurotoxin, and they didn’t even know it. Over the next few weeks, more and more particles of the poison gathered in their system, and soon enough, people began to lose their heads. Their skin cells died and began to flake off. First the mind, then the body. It continued until they weren’t human anymore. They became something completely different.”

Ezekiel, amazed and disturbed, continued on to ask. “What makes them so dangerous Jack, are they killers, cannibals, monsters? You have to tell me.”

Jack looked distant and stared at the ground for a few moments. He sighed eventually and looked back at Ezekiel.

“No kid, they aren’t any of those things, they are just lost souls with no competent mind or body to guide them anymore. They only attack you if they are scared, so it’s not like they’re killers. It’s a disease really, but a disease with no cure. I reckon it all must be a fate worse than death.”

Ezekiel stared down at the pavement and blushed. He was so excited to hear tales about terrible monsters in the wasteland and the heroism required to drive them away. Never would he have thought those monsters were just unfortunate people. Stupid story books, he thought to himself as he ran his fingers through his long, dirty-brown hair.

Jack saw the boy, the look of shame on his face and reassured him. “Listen kid, you couldn’t have known anything about them, you can’t hold that against yourself too much. Is there something else you want to know about the outside world, or have you learned your fair share?”

Ez re-gathered his composure, assured Jack that he was fine, and insisted on continuing with the conversation.

“Hey, I think I have an idea.”

“What would that be kid?”

“Instead of just answering questions one at a time, why don’t you just help me figure all of it out in one fell swoop?”

“Oh? How exactly do you propose I do that?”

“Well, how about you just tell me the complete story of your trip from Phoenix to here, start to finish. If you let me know what happened, I think I could just put the pieces together myself. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure Ez. I suppose it is a story worth repeating, after all. We shouldn’t waste any time though, so you might as well sit back and relax, because this might take a while.”