The Flowers

There was a field of flowers surrounding the outskirts of the old city.  They grew even when no other life marked the area with its presence.  Even in the winter, when petals fell like tears in the rain, there were always many more still blooming.  Vibrant reds, bright purples, and pure, untouched whites – all shining against the darkness of the world like the last standing soldiers on a battlefield.

They marked the edge of the world to all who lived there.  To those who would never step beyond the boundary of the crumbling ruins where they lived.  The buildings stood as a stark reminder of all that was and all that had been.  The stone crumbled above people’s heads; the lights flickered but never quite went out.  Empty cars rusted on the sides of the streets, their windows long broken and their insides long gone.

And the sky never changed.  The clouds never moved.  A heavy gloom hung in the sky, as if it had always been and always would be.

At the edge of the city, just a few yards away from where the flowers grew, a man stood, looking out at the horizon.  His body was young, though marked with scars from fighting, and with hardly an ounce of fat upon his bones.  His eyes were as old as the clouds above his head and weary of it all.  His hands clenched as he looked out at the field – a cut on his hand reopened, deep red droplets marring the grey concrete, but he didn’t seem to notice.  He looked down at the other hand where a deep burn mark remained from his childhood and he sighed.  The field was empty of all but flowers and that was the case every day.  It probably always had been.

“Where did you go?” a tremulous voice whispered from the darkness. “You were gone for so long.”

He turned to look at the frail woman cowering behind the dirty sheets that covered her bed.  Her brown hair was lank and knotted from days without washing and the bones were starting to protrude from her undernourished body.  Her name was Catherine and she was his older sister.  It had once been love that tied him to her, but now there was only duty.

“Was looking for food,” he muttered as he grabbed a towel from the floor and wrapped it tightly around his bleeding hand.

Her pale blue eyes followed his movements and he could see tears welling there. “You got into a fight, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did!” he snapped. “It’s the only way you can ever get food around here these days.”

“Gabe…” she murmured, looking down at her trembling hands.”Gabe, I’m sorry.  If…if it wasn’t for me…you could leave this place…go somewhere else.”

Gabriel’s jaw clenched and he almost agreed with her but instead he sighed, turning away.  To be honest, he didn’t really believe that there was anywhere else.  In his eyes, those flowers marked the end of everything – how ironic that something so beautiful would be the everlasting sign of their demise.  And moving around in the city made no difference to your life – it was all the same everywhere.

“Did you go see the flowers?” she asked, softly, looking wistful.

Catherine had always loved to look out at the field, imagining that, one day, she would be allowed to run through them and escape to some better place.  Even when her hopes had been dashed as a child, she still held the fantasy within her mind, especially now.

“Get dressed,” he said, ignoring the question. “I found an abandoned place, still got running water.  We’re heading over there – no point staying here.”

She nodded, rising to her feet without a word.  She walked unsteadily, though without complaint. Both Gabriel and Catherine had learned, in that ancient time when they were still children, that being unhappy about your life just made it that much more difficult to live.

The clothes she pulled on were threadbare and the jumper was stained with blood.  It was agonising to watch as she slowly moved her weak arms to pull on the heavy jacket she had scavenged in her younger, healthier days.

“Do you think I’m dying?” she asked softly, the blue in her eyes shining like the flowers.

“Even death is probably better than this place,” Gabriel replied, though he couldn’t look his sister in the eye as he said it. “Aaron’s probably better off.”

She winced at his words and he instantly regretted them.

Catherine revelled in using a small amount of the water to wash her tired body.  She never felt completely clean anymore but at least some water could help block that feeling out for a while.

She still remembered when things had been better.  When it had been her and Gabe and Aaron.  They’d been united against the world, ready to fight anything. Both she and Aaron had hoped for something better for their lives…for their child’s life.  Now…now there was nothing left.  She and Gabriel were just waiting for her to die.

There was a noise to her left and she jerked her head around, the water on her hair dripping over her bra.  Gabriel had gone out looking for food again, apparently determined to find her something before the night came in.  She raised the knife that was sheathed to her belt, though her hand shook with the effort of holding it.

“Who’s there?” she asked, determined not to let herself be beaten.

No one answered but as she moved closer to the doorway she could hear the sound of someone struggling to quiet their breathing.

“I can hear you,” she said, sharply.

A young girl slowly shuffled into the doorway.  Her clothes were rather less worn than Catherine’s, her cheeks slightly healthier.  Her curly blonde hair even shone slightly in the dull overhead light.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I’ll…I’ll do anything.”

She could only have been ten years old.  Catherine lowered her knife, tears springing to her eyes at the sight of the young girl.  She turned away, pressing a hand to her stomach and wincing.

The girl, obviously sensing that Catherine was far more upset than violent, asked softly, “What happened to your tummy?”

She looked down at her stomach, at the reminder of all that she had lost.  The infection had grown much worse in the past few days with no clean water for it.

“I’m dying,” she replied.

It was all the girl needed to know.

When Gabriel returned to his sister the sky was going dark.  The only light in the building was the dim one which Catherine had kept lit.  She and the girl sat, looking jaundiced, beneath it as they played a game of cards.

Suddenly, Catherine laughed: a sound that he hadn’t heard in a long time.  It was the kind of sound that warmed people’s hearts…or used to anyway, when things like that had mattered.

“You win again,” she said to the girl, grinning. “Who’d have thought you’d be so good at gambling at your age?”

He moved forward, dumping the bag of food on the table where they sat.  He had managed to collect a few tins of various foods and even some stale bread, though he had no idea where the man he fought to get it from would have found such a thing.

“This’s Jaine,” Catherine said, smiling up at him.

He looked at Jaine – she seemed pretty healthy for a child. “Who’s looking out for you?”

The girl shook her head. “They…they died.  We…we lived on the edge but…people still came… I was just looking for somewhere to stay; away from the gangs.”

He could tell from her voice that she was struggling not to cry.  He glanced over at Catherine, wondering why she had become so soft as to offer precious food to a stranger, though deep down he knew why.

Her hand was resting on her stomach.  It hadn’t been an easy operation, in the middle of an abandoned tenement flat on the stairs.  It was the only option he had had at the time.   Catherine had been lying there, crying and in pain, desperately wanting to find Aaron, while the pain in her stomach nearly crippled her and the blood stain on her jeans just kept on growing.  The baby wasn’t coming out and he could see that the blood loss was killing her.  He couldn’t leave her to die.

He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly, a brief smile crossing his lips. “You feed her then.  I’m going to sleep for a bit.”

She smiled up at him, warmth in her eyes along with the sadness.  Some of the people in the city had a lot to answer for – he was sure that the man who killed Aaron couldn’t have cared less that he was leaving Catherine with nothing.  Aaron shouldn’t have tried to change the world; he should have known that path only led to the grave. The image of Catherine huddled on those stairs, her bloodied baby cradled tightly in her arms, had long burned its way into Gabriel’s mind.  He was sure it was the one image of her that he would hold onto forever.

“How long are we going to stay here for?” Catherine asked softly.

It was early in the morning and Jaine was still asleep.  She lay huddled in the blanket they had found for her, her body twitching.  She had been coughing in the night – Catherine was worried that she might be getting ill, even though she herself had developed a fever over the night.

“Not long,” Gabriel replied, looking at the girl as well. “This place’s too near the gangs.  She’d have been better off staying where she was if she lived on the outskirts.”

“Nearer some of the cleaner air as well,” Catherine murmured.

Gabriel suddenly sighed. “Why do we do this to ourselves?  You get screwed just by breathing the air and you fight on the streets for scraps like dogs.”

Catherine smiled weakly. “Not really like dogs since they’re all dead.  And anyway, what else can we do?”

“Sit down and wait to die, I guess.”

Catherine didn’t say anything but it was obvious from her expression that she didn’t approve.  Too many people had died to keep them alive.  Their parents; their friends; Aaron.  She owed it to them all to keep fighting as long as she could.

“I sometimes think you’ve changed so much,” her brother said. “You’ve lost the steel that you used to have.  But then you look at me like that and it’s almost like you’re back again.”

“We should move today if we’re too near the gangs,” Catherine said, ignoring his words. “Jaine doesn’t deserve to be caught by them like Aaron was.”

“Are you sure?” Gabriel asked, looking up, concerned. “You should rest at least another day.”

“I want to see the flowers one more time – I know it’ll take me a lot longer than you to get there…but maybe if we head to Jaine’s old house…”

Gabriel nodded.  He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of her travelling at all and before last night she hadn’t wanted to either.  He looked over at Jaine, a tired expression on his face, not sure if there was even any room left in the world for looking after children.  Except in the eyes of those with nothing left to lose, anyway.

They left the house with Jaine only a couple of hours later.  Gabriel was carrying most of the supplies that they had in a backpack.  He hadn’t allowed Catherine to carry anything since even her jacket seemed too heavy for her and all the girl had with her was a ragged doll that she clutched tightly to her chest.

“Where are we going?” Jaine asked softly, looking up at them both.

“We’re planning on heading back towards your parents’ house,” Gabriel replied.

Jaine clutched the doll more tightly. “But I don’t want to go there!”

“It’s better to move away from the centre of town,” Catherine murmured, leaning against her brother for support.

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “But mum and dad are there…I saw…I saw…they…”

Gabriel winced, sure he could imagine what the girl had seen the attackers do to her parents.  It had probably been something similar to what had happened to his and Aaron’s. “Like she said – it’s the best place to go – you need to show us the way.”

“But what if they’re still there?” Jaine demanded. “They’ll hurt us too!”

“They won’t be,” Gabriel replied, certain of his words. “There’s nothing useful outside the city.  Everything’s dead but the flowers.”

“A-are you sure?” Jaine asked, uncertainly, looking at Catherine.

Catherine nodded. “They won’t be there. And Gabe’ll…Gabe’ll check the place out first to be sure.”

It took half of the day to reach the nearest edge of the city and the whole time Gabriel had just been waiting for one of Catherine’s stitches to tear or for her to be too weak to go on. She had to lean against him the whole way, the pain sometimes seeming almost unbearable to her. But she’d just kept glancing over at Jaine, as if that somehow gave her strength.

“My mum and dad always said that the city was full of monsters,” Jaine was saying. “They said there was nothing but animals left.”

“There aren’t,” his sister replied, softly. “You saw them.”

“But you two helped me,” the girl said, wide-eyed.

Catherine glanced at Gabriel and simply sighed. “We’ve done our share of bad things.  I don’t know how you got by for so long without having to face up to it.  I held my first weapon when I was seven.”

They reached the end of the last building and Catherine stopped, seemingly awestruck by the flowers in front of her.  In her eyes, they lit up the world.  But Gabriel could see the tiredness in her eyes and the sweat glistening on her forehead.

“Come on,” Gabriel said, an arm around her waist. “We need to find somewhere for you to rest.”

“No,” Catherine muttered, taking a step away from him.

She stumbled without his support but she still tried to make her way towards the flowers.  He quickly moved forward to help her but she pushed him away, each slow, faltering step taking her closer to the field that marked the end of their world.

“Where are you going?” Gabriel asked, worried.

“I just want to touch one.”

“It’ll die – you should know that by now.”

But still Catherine moved forward, dropping to her knees where the line of flowers began.  She reached out towards a bright red poppy-like flower, her index finger stretched forward uncertainly.

As soon as her flesh grazed the petals they began to curl in on themselves, turning a deep-blood red before blackening and crumbling to the ground.  She began to cry then, as if its death had been a punishment for some unrealised crime.

“Why don’t they want us anymore?” she whispered.

The exertion had been too much for her and she fell forward into the field, unable to fight against the harsh pull of unconsciousness.  All around her was the smell of burning flesh.

Catherine and Gabriel had used to live with a small group of families.  That was the way a lot of people had lived back then – those with children had grouped together in an attempt to ensure that as many of them survived as possible.  Now, of course, you were lucky if a woman would even keep her child: there just wasn’t enough food left for anyone and the water was barely drinkable.

That was how they had met Aaron.  He and Gabriel had become firm friends as children and when, as teenagers, their families were slaughtered, they remained together, the only survivors.  It was almost inevitable that Catherine and Aaron would become lovers: it was so rare to find a person in whom you could place your trust that, when you found that person, they would become your only connection to the old way of life.  And no one could ever survive on their own.

He was far more against the world than Gabriel ever chose to be.  It was his idea to attack the stray gang members they had run into.  Simply because they were gang members and opposed all that he and his family had wanted out of life.  Catherine, being pregnant, was in no state to fight anyone but she had refused to hide any further away than the next building.  When the rest of the gang showed up, it wasn’t long before they found her.  They were on the edge of killing her when Gabriel finally managed to break away and run to find her.  By then, Aaron was already dead.

Gabriel placed his sister on the floor, wrapped in the blanket that they had brought with them.  Her skin was covered in burns from the flowers and she was shivering from her fever.  The rather peculiar thing though, was that her infection seemed to have healed slightly.  Maybe the stories were true – maybe the reason for the wound had been honourable enough for the flowers to take pity on her, even if the rest of her body was just as damned as his.

“Does anyone ever get past there?” Jaine asked softly, looking at Catherine. “My mum said that no one deserves to ever cross the field.”

“I don’t think the flowers care – humans pollute them – it doesn’t matter what their intentions are,” Gabriel muttered, setting about cleaning his sister’s wound once more.

“Why are you helping me?  My mum and dad always said I’d be dead if I left on my own – no one would ever help me.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It’s Catherine who’s helping you.  All the problems in the world don’t really matter to her anymore.”

Jaine clutched her doll to her chest, looking rather frightened. “Does that mean that when she’s gone, you’ll leave me?”

Gabriel turned to look at the frightened young girl.  He had seen children like her before; children who had been isolated from the real world by their well-meaning parents.  They all ended up dead as soon as the parents were no longer there to protect them.  That was the way the world had become.

“If I need to,” he replied simply, turning away again.

He could hear the girl sniffling but he knew that there was no point in lying to her.

Catherine opened her eyes then.  Her blue irises seemed far brighter and more full of colour than he had ever seen them. “I was hoping…”

“I know,” he said, softly. “Everyone hopes that.  But there’s never anyone out there.”

Catherine sighed, drifting back into unconsciousness. “Maybe if one person could just manage it; maybe if one person said ‘stop’ and decided they didn’t want to live like this anymore…”

Gabriel nodded, hoping that that would reassure her.  He knew that it wasn’t possible though.  Everyone needed food and water and, in the end, that would always be enough of a reason to kill someone.  There was no where else to go if you didn’t want this life.  And, presumably, even the dying weren’t allowed that one last chance to see the world beyond.  What choice did anyone else have?

Jaine’s house was a bit away from the building they chose to stay at for the next few days.  Gabriel refused to even entertain the idea of leaving until he was sure that Catherine had recovered from her burns.  When he did finally relent, her fever had grown worse and she could barely stand without his help.  He knew that it wouldn’t be long before the end and he supposed she might as well finish her life as she had lived it – striving ahead as always.  Jaine grew more pale and nervous with every cough and groan that came from Catherine’s direction.

The house that Jaine had once called her own stood at the very edge of the field, bordered at the back by the first row of flowers – pale white snowdrops that dipped their heads in sorrowful acquiescence to the way the world had become.  The building itself was just as dilapidated as all the others, with no sign of being lived in – in fact, being so close to the field Gabriel was surprised that anyone actually did live there.  He was surprised that anyone had ever come near enough to notice that her family lived there.

By now he was practically carrying Catherine as they walked but still Jaine slowed so much that she was trailing far behind them.  She was scared of returning to the scene of the events that had changed her life forever and Gabriel could understand that – he and Catherine had never been back to the side of the city where they had used to live with their family.

He used his foot to push the front door open, his hands supporting his sister.  The stench of decaying bodies struck him as the door knob slammed against the wall.  Catherine began to wretch and he backed away from the smell, glancing at Jaine.  She stood with her doll clasped tightly to her chest, looking up at them with wide-open eyes.  And then she suddenly ran forward, into the house.

“Jaine, wait!” he called.

“We need to go after her,” Catherine said, softly.

“No, we–” Gabriel started to say, wanting to just leave and never come back.  But he knew he couldn’t do that – not as long as Catherine still wanted to help the girl.

So he helped Catherine to walk into the room, while she covered her face and tried not to be sick.  The bodies were lying in the living room and it didn’t look like they had received a quick and painless death.  Jaine wasn’t there, however, so they kept walking through the house until they reached a door that obviously led down into a cellar.  It was the only place left that the girl could have gone so they slowly climbed down the stairs.  As they neared the bottom, they could hear Jaine crying.

“They killed them,” she said, at the sound of her footsteps. “They killed them all.”

The room was dimly light but bright enough to reveal row upon row of plants and flowers, all either ripped from their roots or burned away by the touch of the humans who had been down there.  There were lights that had been smashed, which Gabriel assumed had been used on the plants.  He wondered if this was where that man had found his bread.

And in the centre of the room, Jaine sat on her knees, holding a small red rose that had been left to fall on the ground.  Catherine began to cry when she saw it all.

“You can touch the flowers?” Gabriel asked incredulously, looking at her as if she were a monster herself.

Jaine looked up at him. “Dad’s been growing these for years.  They’re not the same as the ones outside.  We could all touch them.”

“Are you sure?”

He could see all of the ones which had smouldered at the touch of the house’s invaders.  He reached out and grabbed one of the undamaged heads, quickly dropping it again when his skin began to burn.

Catherine sat down on the stairs, covering her head with her hands. “Why them?  Why not us?  Why can’t we?  The flowers nearly killed me even when I was a kid.”

“But I’ve never gone near the field.  Dad always said it was dangerous.”

“Why was it dangerous?” Gabriel demanded. “Because of the flowers? Or because of what was outside the flowers?  What’s out there?”

“I don’t know,” Jaine said, looking upset. “He just didn’t want me going out there.  He always told me people weren’t allowed to leave the city anymore.  We didn’t deserve to.  It didn’t matter how nice we were…cos we all could be just as bad as the rest if we had to.”

“But if the flowers let you…” Catherine murmured. “I’ve always wanted to see what’s out there.”

She reached up and touched one of the burn marks on her cheek, wincing.

“I’ve always wanted to.”

Her eyes suddenly fell closed and she tumbled forward, her arms brushing against a tray full of dead flowers that instantly began to burn.  Gabriel ran forward, checking her pulse.  She was still alive, though just barely.  He lifted her into his arms.

“Show me where the bedrooms are,” he snapped.

Catherine lay in a small bed, her arms straight out at her sides, her hair spread around her pale face.  A life of fighting and killing and pain and here she was: the first person, probably in decades, to die, asleep, in bed.

She opened her eyes for a moment and smiled at him. “I love you.”

He looked into her beautiful, warm eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he was sure that he loved her too.  Jaine appeared at his side, holding a bunch of red flowers in her hand, like the one Catherine had tried to touch only days before.  She walked over to Catherine and placed the flowers on the woman’s chest – they weren’t touching her skin but it was the best she would ever have.

“Aaron would have loved to see this.”

A tear fell from Catherine’s eye and then her head slowly fell back.

Gabriel and Jaine had left that house soon after it was all over.  There was nothing left for either of them in that place.  They stood at the edge of the field, looking out at it, both wondering what was on the other side.

“You have to go,” he said, softly.

Jaine looked up at him, shocked. “You just want to get rid of me.”

Gabriel hesitated, wondering if he did, but when he thought of his sister, he knew that all he wanted was for her dream to come true.  For the field to stop being so empty.  Maybe this city was a punishment for all of the deeds of their fathers, but if there was someone out there who could escape it, when the rest of them couldn’t…

“No,” he replied. “I don’t.  But you don’t need to suffer with me.”

“Can’t…can’t I just wait till I’m older or something?  I…I don’t want to go alone,” the girl whispered. “Please don’t make me go alone – what if it’s worse out there than in here?”

To be honest, after all of those years with someone by his side, Gabriel wasn’t looking forward to being alone either.  He sighed and looked down at the scar on his hand.

“You’d just be mocking all the rest of us if you stayed.  All the rest of us who’d kill to have the chance you have.  And then in the end, maybe you’d become like us too.”

He didn’t understand what made her or her family so different.  Maybe they somehow just didn’t have the capacity for the evil that everyone else seemed to revel in.  Or maybe, maybe there was something about them that could make the world out there a better place.  Either that, he thought bitterly, or there was some draw somewhere and they just got lucky.

“I don’t want to go alone,” Jaine repeated, crying.

Gabriel suddenly smiled.  He pressed a hand to the girl’s back and pushed her into the field – she stumbled forward and then looked around, seemingly in awe.  She looked up at Gabriel, a hopeful expression on her face.

“Do you really think it’s going to be okay?”

Gabriel looked out into the distance and for a moment he thought he saw Catherine there, among the flowers, leaning down to smell one that matched the colour of her eyes.  Maybe she would find Aaron out there too.

“Yeah, I do.”

He watched Jaine walk away from the city, her blonde hair shining in the light and her skin looking more vibrant than he had ever seen from the people in his world.  The field was no longer empty.  He could almost imagine Catherine walking along with the girl, finally realising her dream.

And then he turned away.  Back to the city where he belonged.