Those Who Lived: Fallen World Stories Read online

  THOSE

  WHO

  LIVED

  FALLEN WORLD STORIES

  Megan Crewe

  Other Books by Megan Crewe

  The Earth & Sky Trilogy:

  Earth & Sky

  The Clouded Sky

  A Sky Unbroken

  The Fallen World Trilogy:

  The Way We Fall

  The Lives We Lost

  The Worlds We Make

  Give Up The Ghost

  Copyright © 2014 Megan Crewe

  Illustrations by Ludi Price

  All rights reserved.This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9939806-0-2

  To the survivors, every one of us

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Carry the Earth (Tessa)

  Trial by Fire (Drew)

  Water Song (Leo)

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  When I finished writing The Worlds We Make, the final book in the Fallen World trilogy, I knew that was the end of Kaelyn’s story. There were some loose ends and questions left unanswered, but I felt her arc as a character was done and that exploring those avenues would drag the story on too long. I had some ideas about what happened after, and I figured readers would come up with their own, which was fine with me.

  What I hadn’t anticipated was seeing so many readers commenting on how much they wished I’d included more about later events and characters who hadn’t been seen in some time. I still believed Kaelyn’s story had ended where it should, but I couldn’t help wondering, What tales might I tell from the point of view of some of the other characters? What could happen in Tessa’s version of the world, or Drew’s, or Leo’s? And my writer brain immediately began spinning those stories.

  It wasn’t an ideal time for new inspiration. My husband and I had recently welcomed our first kid into the world, and it was difficult getting any writing at all done while looking after a three month old. On top of that, I had a new trilogy coming up that required I get drafting and editing other books. But the Fallen World story ideas kept gnawing at me. I wanted to give those characters’ their voices, and I wanted to give something more to the readers I’m so appreciative of, who’ve followed the trilogy all the way through. Finally, with my agent’s encouragement, I started outlining the stories and then, in a break between other drafts, wrote them out. I couldn’t help liking them more and more as I worked on them.

  Now I’m pleased to be sharing those stories with you. I’ll note that my intended audience is readers who are already familiar with the trilogy, so you won’t find a lot of recapping of past events, and as the stories all take place after the official end of the trilogy, the major developments in The Worlds We Make are thoroughly spoiled. If you haven’t read that book or the previous ones yet and intend to, I recommend you start there.

  You’ll still find that not everything is wrapped up perfectly, mainly because I don’t believe life ever does, and I try to reflect that in my writing. But you will get a further look into the friendly flu-devastated world from the perspectives of three characters whose heads you’ve never been inside before. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed the writing.

  -Megan Crewe

  CARRY THE EARTH

  Meredith burst into the greenhouse with her thick, black hair flying wild and her hands waving like leaves about to break from a tree, and my first reaction was alarm. I straightened up over the patch of potatoes I’d been weeding, looking away from her to the wide glass walls. The rectangular shape of the log-built gathering house blocked my view of the fields beyond.

  I didn’t need to see the coming intruders to be prepared. As always, I’d kept my feet on the boards laid amid the plots of soil to avoid footprints and left a few scattered weeds so the other plants looked less cultivated. To add to the illusion that this former artists’ colony was deserted, that there was nothing of value here, I’d need to stow my gardening gloves and trowel in the box concealed under the stone by the door. The bag of carrots I’d harvested I could bring with me to the cabin I shared with Meredith. I’d have to make sure none of her drawings were lying out before we squeezed into the compartment under the—

  “Tessa!” Meredith said, grasping my wrist. I realized I’d tuned out at least ten seconds of chatter. Also, she didn’t look alarmed. The opposite, actually. She was beaming. What I’d taken for panic at first glance must have been excitement.

  I let my hands pause, the one still gloved dangling the glove I’d already removed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re back,” Meredith said, bobbing up and down. “Kaelyn, and Leo—they came back, just like she promised they would.”

  Not intruders arriving, but friends. Friends who, despite the promises made, we hadn’t known would ever make it back. I found myself smiling too, with a rush of relief and surprise and a sensation that didn’t quite fit, like the bottom of my stomach dropping out. Because I couldn’t quite believe it? It didn’t seem likely Meredith could be wrong.

  “The car stopped at the side of the road,” she was saying, “and Suzanne was about to sound the warning, but I just—I had this feeling, I said we should check with the binoculars and see what the people in the car did first—and then they got out, and I saw her, so I ran down—the snow’s a lot thinner on the field now—and I helped them carry—they brought a bunch of food—Suzanne’s just giving them some of the lunch.”

  As her voice raced along, she tugged me toward the door, still carefully walking on the boards the way I’d taught her. I stopped her long enough to tuck away my gloves and trowel, because who was to say real intruders couldn’t show up today too? Then we padded together across the slick layer of ice that coated the ground between the buildings, to prevent footprints there.

  The air outside the greenhouse was still a few degrees below freezing. For a couple of days last week it’d snuck above and turned the courtyard into a vast muddy puddle before freezing again overnight. The other colony residents had started discussing what new strategy they’d switch to when spring arrived completely. I might miss this: sliding one foot and then the other across the smooth, solid surface of the ice. It focused me.

  They were back. Kaelyn and Leo. But not the others—Gav and Tobias, and Justin, who’d run off after them? There were a lot of things that could mean. Some good, some bad. No use in speculating when we’d find out for sure in a moment. Knowing at least the two of them had survived was more than enough reason to keep smiling when Meredith turned her blinding grin toward me again.

  It had been January when we first stumbled on the colony, when I’d decided to stay behind to help with the greenhouse and Kaelyn had asked if I would look after Meredith while the rest of them went on. Now it was March. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure how many weeks had passed. A month-by-month calendar hung near the door to the kitchen, but I’d never seen much point in following it. The only plans I was making involved the gardening, and with that it was better to go by the signs in front of you, by sight or smell or touch, rather than relying on a generic timetable.

  Meredith had been more stoic about the wait than I’d have expected from a seven-year-old with her cousin, the only family she had left, far away facing unknown dangers. The first week, she’d disappeared into our cabin and come out with tear-reddened eyes a couple of times. She’d never stopped peering toward the road whenever we crossed the courtyard. But whatever worries she’d had she’d kept to herself. I wondered now if she’d been watching the calendar,
counting the days. Comparing them to the distances between here and Toronto and wherever else Kaelyn might have needed to go to find scientists who could replicate the vaccine. How much hope had she held on to?

  I’d tried not to hope, or even really worry, other than a brief thought here or there. They would either come back, or they wouldn’t. We couldn’t know what was happening to them, what might delay them, until they were here again.

  And now here they were.

  When we stepped into the main room of the gathering house, Meredith darted from my side to the table where Kaelyn and Leo were sitting. Suzanne was seated across from them, talking in her low, even voice and the deft movements of her veiny hands. Kaelyn glanced past her to me, and Leo followed her gaze.

  They were really here. Alive, okay. My throat choked up. Memories crashed over me, of so many things I hadn’t thought about in months. The day Leo had first asked me out, by my locker at school, when there used to be school; the way he’d smile after we kissed, pleased and almost shy; the sputter of startled joy in his voice when he called me the second after the New York dance school called him with his acceptance, and I had, without any sense of the pending irony, thought, This is probably the beginning of where we end. Kaelyn at my door, the first friendly and healthy face I’d seen in a week, with a packet of seeds in her hand; the two of us exchanging conspiratorial grins before I’d unlocked one of the island summer homes with my dad’s maintenance keys; the hollowness of her expression when I’d offered her a cup of tea, because it was all I could offer, after she came downstairs from one of her vigils after Meredith was infected.

  The daze in Leo’s eyes as he shook his head, when he’d returned to the island, and I’d asked him whether he’d seen my parents on the mainland. The pained curve of his mouth when I’d told him I was staying here and I expected him to move on.

  People died, people parted ways. Even before the friendly flu, that was how it went.

  But all of that was in the past, and here, now, Kaelyn was standing up, saying, “Hey, Tessa,” her voice warm. They weren’t exactly the same as when I’d last seen them: both thinner, Kaelyn’s dark hair long enough that she’d pulled it back into a braid, Leo’s olive-gold skin marred by a small scar beside his nose. Leo got up a little more hesitantly, I noticed. Maybe that pain wasn’t all in the past for him.

  “Almost everything in that stew we grew in the greenhouse,” Meredith was saying, clutching Kaelyn’s hand, “and I helped a lot.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement, walking the rest of the way over. “Hi,” I said. There was so much that could be said that it overwhelmed me. “It’s good to see you,” I managed to add.

  “Where’s Gav?” Meredith demanded. “And Tobias? What happened in Toronto? You said you’d tell me when Tessa was here.”

  “I think I should leave you four to it,” Suzanne said. She ambled over to the kitchen, and Kaelyn and Leo sat back down, Meredith squeezing in between them. So I sat down too, where Suzanne had been. Kaelyn looked at her hands, and Leo glanced at her as if offering to take this on for her. That was enough. I braced myself.

  “The good news is,” Kaelyn said, “my dad’s vaccine is being produced. We had to go all the way to Atlanta, to the Centers for Disease Control, but there are still doctors working there, and they’re making more. Along with—well, it’s complicated. You know the people who were following us before, who wanted the vaccine?”

  “The lady in the van,” Meredith said with a grimace.

  “Yeah,” Kaelyn said. “They were working for a man named Michael, who’s got a pretty big network across North America now. We were able to... negotiate a deal, where his people will coordinate with the CDC and help distribute the vaccine instead of fighting over it.”

  “Do you think he’ll keep to that deal?” I asked. The people we’d encountered hadn’t appeared to be particularly reasonable.

  “So far he seems to be,” Leo said. “There was a group, on our way back north, who confronted us—I think they were going to steal our supplies, but one of them recognized us and said Michael had sent out word not to mess with us, so they backed off. We don’t know how long it’ll take before the vaccine makes it up here, though. They hadn’t produced enough to even cover all the survivors still in Atlanta when we left.”

  “But eventually…” I said.

  “...no one should have to worry about catching the virus, at least,” Kaelyn said, smiling for the first time. “Yeah.”

  It was good news, but in a way that didn’t quite penetrate me. We were so isolated here that the friendly flu felt more like an occasional tragedy than a continuing threat. And Kaelyn had already given me a share of the vaccine before we’d left the island.

  “So Gav stayed there?” Meredith said. “In Atlanta?”

  Kaelyn’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “No, Mere. He— You remember that man who ran at us when we were checking out that truck, who was sick, and Gav stopped him from getting close to the rest of us? It must have been because of him... Gav got sick. When we were in Toronto. There wasn’t anything we could do.” She paused, swallowing audibly. “Tobias too.”

  “But... I got better. You helped me get better, with that blood transfusion!” Meredith protested.

  “Meredith,” I said quietly.

  “We didn’t have any doctors, or medical equipment, or anyone to help,” Kaelyn said. “I tried. Believe me.” She gave a short laugh, so raw it hurt to hear it. Not just for me, it seemed, because Leo stepped in then.

  “Justin’s okay,” he said. “He decided to stay in Atlanta, to keep an eye on things and pitch in where he could. We should let Hilary know, as soon as possible. Is she around?”

  Meredith, abruptly on the opposite end of relating bad news, looked at me, as if I’d make her be the one to say it.

  “Hilary passed on,” I said. “A few weeks after you left, an infected woman wandered this way, and Hilary and a couple of the others ran into her in the woods unprepared. They were all exposed. The one guy, Kenneth, he ended up being okay, but Hilary got sick. And...” I spread my hands. They knew how it went. I hadn’t even seen the three of them, other than Kenneth once it was clear he was fine, after they’d shut themselves away in the quarantine cabin. I’d only heard, through conversations passing by me, that Hilary had chosen to end her own life when she knew she was sick. When the other woman had become uncontrollable, the colony leaders had consulted with everyone and decided to “put her to sleep” to spare her further suffering. With the ground too frozen to allow a burial, the bodies had been wrapped up and placed a few miles into the forest.

  “Oh,” Kaelyn murmured. “She—she did know where Justin had gone, at least, didn’t she? He said he wrote her a note.”

  “She knew he’d followed you. She knew you’d do your best to keep him safe. I think she understood. He’d been getting pretty restless here, she said.” I didn’t want to keep talking about the dead. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Yeah,” Meredith said. “Where are we going?”

  Because of course they wouldn’t stay here. And of course she’d go with them. I’d known that, but my stomach tightened as Kaelyn motioned vaguely.

  “We’re heading back to the island,” she said. “I want to let everyone know we made it—and to see how they’re doing. After that, I’m not sure.”

  “The roads are a lot better now,” I said. “You’ll have a faster trip than we did getting here.”

  “But you’ll come too, right, Tessa?” Meredith said.

  She had to ask. But I don’t think Kaelyn or Leo was surprised when I said, “No. I have the greenhouse to look after here.” And I had nothing there, really, to go back to.

  Meredith dragged Kaelyn off to show her the few new things around the colony, and Leo came with me to gather Meredith’s few possessions. They weren’t even going to stay the night—Suzanne was concerned about them leaving the car parked nearby, and there wasn’t anywhere safe to hide it.


  “Meredith hasn’t given you much trouble?” Leo asked as we mock-skated across the ice to the cabin. His dancer reflexes made me look as graceful as an elk in comparison.

  “No, not at all,” I said. “We were already pretty used to each other, since it was mostly just the two of us before, when Kaelyn was sick and her dad was working at the hospital all the time. And I think she thought being brave about it would somehow help Kaelyn get back.”

  “I guess it worked,” Leo said with a rueful smile. “It really was a good thing she stayed here, and didn’t— Some of the situations we got into, I don’t know how we’d have managed to look after her.”

  “It was the right decision,” I agreed.

  The cabin was the same one Leo and I had shared the couple of nights after we’d first arrived here, though since they were all identical he might not have realized. The pencil crayons one of the artists had offered Meredith were neatly tucked into their box on the desk, but her sketches of tiered ball gowns and intricate necklaces littered its wooden surface. Some included notes about ideal types of fabric or alternate color schemes. I didn’t know if she imagined people might still make and wear clothing like that in our lifetimes. It hadn’t seemed like an appropriate thing to ask.

  I retrieved her basket from under the bed, with a few changes of clothes the colony residents had found on their scavenging runs, a folded “book” with a short story one of them had written for her, and a drawing of a coyote she’d saved to show Kaelyn. Leo shuffled the sketches into a stack and set them inside, raising an eyebrow at the top ones. Wondering the same thing I did, I suspected.

  “Can she keep these or are they on loan?” he said, picking up the box of pencil crayons.