Snowwalker

Chapter 1

Fallout has been killing people. According to the National Emergency Association (NEA), the fallout brings the slain back to life, regardless of being their killer. The resurrected humanoid monsters that you can’t differentiate from a real person. A Snowwalker.

Human skulls judder on my fence’s finials. People walk the streets, displaced by the NEA, seeking shelter, knocking on every door, hoping someone will welcome them in. However, hope doesn’t get a person in, nor does it get a yes. Nothing can, if the News and the U.S. Government consider the monsters indistinguishable from humans. And hope doesn’t give strength all the time—these people learn to pass my house. It’s better that way, because the thing that’ll knock on my door is a monster, and there’ll be another skull dried on the white metal spears for fences.

Recently, my tactics have been desensitized. Snowwalkers’ skulls are on everyone’s fences now. And the owners who had none had already been killed by Snowwalkers and turned into Snowwalkers themselves, obligating the NEA to use their houses as research facilities and to keep anyone out.

I came to pass at least eight of them on my block a few days earlier. Workers with air-filled hazmat suits are unloading a truck full of cleaning supplies, gasoline, rifles, and a few other staples. Their heads rear towards me until I turn a blind eye. Then they’ll murmur as they finish unloading.

I lay on the couch, waiting for the fiber-optics to project pixels onto the analog TV. Don’t know why the government chose the NEA News to go live during the twilight, but it leaves a lot of people like me bored out of their minds, or others anxious about how to spot a Snowwalker. I know what they know: Snowwalkers are fearless. However, there is a lingering feeling in my mind that tells me they’re not so predictable.

Rhythmic knocks reach my door.

“Mail,” a muffled voice says.

A heavy letter falls on my welcome mat. Once I see the mailman leave my lawn, I open the letter. A stack of hundred-dollar bills, an NEA Staple VIP card, and a photo of us when we were younger. When Veronica still had curly hair and braces, ten years ago.

Sorry for not sending a letter for so long! This mail was

given to UPS in case I didn’t make it to your house alive

I wanted to leave my parents’ mansion to be with you.

know you turn into something else without me, crazy

girl!

Love best friend,

Veronica

I threw the letter away, letting the snow swallow it.

***

Sprawling on my couch once more, I look at our old picture. Veronica has curled hair and diamond eyes, but her smile shines brighter. Then, there’s me, on her side, her arms wrapped around my shoulder. She’s the monkey, and I’m the tree. No expression, gray eyes, and evidently, the most unenthusiastic person that day. Even if it was her birthday, or if it was captured at her family’s estate, with the high-tech floating chairs, transportable TV’s—it’s what every person dreamed of here in the suburbs—the estate where everything was a reality, but not me. Items can be made, but trust and love are not as easy to come by or create.

The skulls rattle on the metal fence. Trust and love, I thought.

***

Someone’s knocking on my door. I tread through the lake of trash, mostly used tissues, ripped UPS envelopes, bags of chips, and candy wrappers. They knock again. A smile tugs on my lips.

“Veronica, I’m here!”

Suddenly, a bloodied hand reaches through the dog door, slithering its way to the knob. I kick it, making the hand flinch back out.

A teen boy’s face springs behind my oblong door window. Brown skin and black irises; his hair sprinkled with snow. He grins like a regular person.

“Jose,” I say with embarrassment.

Casual blinks and long, far gazes are what I get in return. Jose’s lips are shut as my door; it’s unusual for him to do this.

When he sees me from the window, he begins to laugh—something he would do. Immediately, he halts when I don’t respond.

He knocks on my glass window, eyes moving more slowly like a curious animal. It creaks. Rubbing the pane with his hands, he acts like a mime, holding a beam of satisfaction as it cracks.

“Jose?” I say.

Weirdly, Jose jumps back, placing his hands behind his rear. As if he’s in trouble, he looks around toddlerishly.

“Jose,” firmly, I say.

Putting his hands up, he acts surprised, then hides them in his pockets when he notices the blood. “You got me.” His voice is still in that same joking tone.

“Does this look like a joke to you?” I reach within my coat rack, keeping my shaking hand there.

“Well, no,” he says sarcastically. Both of his parents walk onto my lawn.

“Aren’t your parents gone?” Now both of my hands are hiding under the coat rack beside me. “Dissappeared?”

The mother crosses her arms on her chest, keeping her chin up to the fallout clouds, while the father sets his fists on his hips. Actions seem normal, but there was blood on their lips, and Jose’s back made a fleshy sound when he arched it.

“No, mija. We came back, brought some food with us,” the mother said in her Hispanic accent.

The father nods.

Jose turns around, and all his flesh from behind is shallow. I was only able to see it because a cold wind hit his back, sculpturing what lies beneath his clothes. Blood seeps down to the back of his pants. That must be how he got his hands all bloodied.

“Oh, yeah.” Jose rubs his head, just like whenever he makes a mistake.

“Stay right there,” I say, as I pull the shotgun out of the coat rack.

His parents walk up to him. And they’re just standing there looking at me, smiling with indecency in their hearts. They stand there for a couple of minutes, and the only movement they make is when they begin tripping over themselves and readjust their posture.

“We’re waiting,” Jose says.

Both of my hands tremble as I aim at his face. Just like all the Snowwalkers that knocked on my door, they don’t flinch from looking at a gun.

“We’re friends,” he says. “A family.”

I open the door. At the same time, I unlock the safety slide on my shotgun. But when Jose says that, the shotgun swivels to the father’s face instead.

For the first time, two Snowwalkers cry before me, begging me not to shoot. They don’t look away from the dead Snowwalker or me. Fear is more of avoiding eye contact, but here they gave me puppy eyes and crocodile tears.

Next, I shot Jose’s mother.

Jose kneels at my feet, and I kick him like a soccer ball. His eyes divert away from me. Cold, trembling hands reach my leg.

“Please don’t kill me,” he sniffs.

The plea stops when an empty pellet falls on the snowy porch. But give out an outcry that suffocates me. I lay on the porch, hugging a headless Jose—a boy who’s been visiting me every day, during the War. Tears fall, though they freeze once they reach my chin.

Nevertheless, I know I can’t hug him for long; I have to burn him.

I catch a figure on the sidewalk. Veronica’s wide diamond eyes meet mine. It must be hard pulling those irises to me when she is carrying deep gray bags under her eyes. Her hair is ruffled and crazy, while her thick winter coat has more holes than a beehive. Dried wounds on her forehead—the border of the wounds is blue, maybe from an infection or the cold.

I drop the shotgun, and we both run to our unplanned rendezvous. I got what I wished for; she’s hugging me like a monkey again. Her warmth buries the coldness I felt from killing Jose and his family. I try to hug her too, but my hands are anchoring themselves to my pocket.

A helpless chortle comes out of her. “I miss you.”

I couldn’t say ‘me too’; something is stopping me. “Where have you been?” I ask, instead.

She sobs on my shoulder. “Been to too much…” She snorts snot back in her nose, then phlegm gurgles out of her mouth. “The NEA is crazy in the outside world.”

“Why?”

“They shot everyone where I stayed. I should have just walked to your house.”

“Beverly Hills is a long walk; come inside.”

She guides herself onto my shoulder while limping onto the porch. I let her in the house. Then, I had to take care of Jose.

Bodies lay on the porch, two headless, one had her stomach pelted away to a bush close by. I drag them one by one onto the snowy lawn. Blood leaves skid marks in the snow. Hurriedly, I run to the garage to get a match and gasoline, and pour the gasoline. One of the body’s hands spasms.

I snap back, thinking it came alive this quickly.

Veronica looks at me by the window. I give her a subtle smile—I don’t want her to worry much more; she’s done a lot for me in the past, and she walked almost half the state and a mountain to reach me. I can’t even do that.

I place the burning match on the gasoline. It combusts into a large flame, swaying with the wind as the sky pukes out styrofoam snow. I pour more gasoline just in case, and hasten myself back into the house.

I prep stale bread, a small block of cheese, and a slice of ham for dinner on a plate that hasn’t been washed with water in years. With a knife, I bisect a plastic water bottle. The top-half for me, the bottom-half for Veronica.

I offer Veronica half of the food, which she accepts. Looks like she hasn’t eaten in days, so I give her my share, a loaf of bread, and a small carton of milk.

The TV is still buzzing; the cable hasn’t yet projected the daily NEA News.

“Why did the NEA shoot people?” I ask.

She looks out at the falling snow. “Before I left, my family was well informed by the government. They took the houses so squatters couldn’t go inside, leaving them to die.” Closing her tired eyes, she shakes her head. For a moment, it seems she bit her gums. “When they come back to life, they test them in those houses.” Her brows furrow. “They killed those people because they wanted a large facility. They’ve been doing that to all of the Section-8 apartments down at Modesto.”

I show her the gold NEA Staple VIP Card. “What’s this for?”

“I stole it from my father,” Veronica says. “But even without it, you should get more food. I’ve sent you hundreds of letters. At least five hundred thousand cash throughout the War.”

“I’ve bought plants for food, garden soil to grow them in. But they’ve gotten more expensive than gasoline.”

My fingers point to the rack of bones in the yard where Jose and his family’s bones lie. “Those are my only source of extra nutrients for them. Boil to make gravy because mulch is too expensive.”

Veronica pauses, looking at me. I’ve had eyes staring at me all day. I don’t know if she is exasperated, surprised, or scared. “But where did the rest go? I’ve worked with auditors. You should still have 70 percent of the cash I sent you.”

I stand up, away from her, biting my lip. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. “You’re still fast in math as I remembered.”

A slow, horrific silence lies between us. I know every letter she sent me is only meant for me. She always says it is for me. Because she thinks I am the only one who understands her—the little tree she can talk to, not a wall. Jose is like that to me. Visiting me every day, making me laugh while she’s gone. Jose knows I was alone as much as he was since the war. He also wants someone to talk to, not a wall in his empty house.

“It’s been ten years since World War, Veronica,” I say. “I didn’t want to be alone,” I say.

“You gave it away—” she exclaims. But the News music turns on, interrupting her, hissing erratically at us.

A man in a suit sits by himself, like always, with a whiteboard with a bunch of drawings haphazardly taped on it.

“Hello, and welcome to NEA News. Let’s begin the twilight hours with good news.” His grin is distorted by the camera, making it look wider than it should. And his eyes lose their reflection, only having two dark holes where no light can refract. Elongated fingers tap the desk in a weird rhythm.

Veronica calms herself down and lays her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, I should have come earlier. I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“It’s fine… I shouldn’t have lied to you.” I bite my gums. I should have let Jose live with me earlier, I shout at myself.

“Food shortages have decreased across the nation, making the prices cheaper,” the News Man says. Men in the background hold a large stock image of prices going down. “And the NEA has found a way to bypass wireless connection against the fallout radiation. Printing is now available at our facilities in major cities across America. It only costs one grand per ten square foot. Or one hundred dollars for a single printing paper, front and back.”

The man scrapes the desk with his fingers, but he makes an excuse that it is just a mutated disease created by the radiation. Then moves on to the news that phone calls can now be directed to another person in the country. Other essentials, such as food, can be delivered to the home without being affected by Snowwalkers or displaced people stealing food. We both guessed right: it costs a fortune. Selling our hearts might not be enough to buy half of those services.

Then, almost by the end of it, he surprises us.

He scrapes the table again. “The NEA workforce has been collecting data for months now. In some cities, such as New York, Toronto, Seattle, and many others,” he pauses, flipping a printed page. “There have been Snowwalkers that are animalistic and barging into people’s homes. Beware, southern states, they have been flooding everywhere.”

I nudge my shoulder. “Do you know any of this?”

“No,” Veronica says. “I think that’s after I left.”

The man’s voice becomes static and contorted. “Three people or more per household, that’s the rule.” The TV stops buzzing and turns off on its own.

There’s a knock on the door.

Holding a candlestick, a man stands on the porch—fat and slightly cross-eyed. He has a long winter cloak and a ketchup or blood splatter on his white undershirt. He smiles; ten crooked teeth remain in his jaw. “Ain’t you rude,” he says in a Texan accent. “ I came all the way from Texas; the least you could do is let me in.”