ANDROMEDA Exclusive First Chapter!

PART ONE – TO ALBANY

Chapter 1

There wasn’t much room to get comfortable inside the old minivan, but comfort was the least of Jade’s worries. She jerked the driver’s seat as far back as it would go and wiped a circle in the grimy window with the sleeve of her shirt. Outside, the landscape was as bleak as ever. She ignored Sera’s choked sobs from the back seat. There was no comfort left to give her. Life hadn’t been a party back at camp, but since they’d been forced to leave it was a matter of survival, and survival wasn’t pretty.

“At least this one doesn’t smell,” Jade said, but she was lying. The seats held the faintest trace of cigarette smoke and must, but at least it didn’t smell of decay or death like so many other places. The thought gave her a chill. She threw her jacket over her legs and curled into a ball. She wished she could crack the window and listen for danger, but the controls were electric and there was no way the van would start. The gas would have been siphoned in the early days and the insides stripped, but at least the metal frame offered some protection from the dangers of the road, which could be anything from a band of thieves to…well, something much worse than that. They’d been lucky so far, but she’d heard the stories back at camp. They avoided trouble the best they could, but sometimes Jade felt a darkness following them from Cambridge like a ghost on their heels. Once or twice she’d been sure someone was behind them, but when she turned there was nothing there but shadows. She didn’t bother Sera with her suspicions. Sera was too innocent to believe in the evils of this world and it would only scare her. It was up to Jade to protect Sera, and Jade couldn’t afford to be weak. Not now.

“Imagine what it would be like to live in one of those fancy houses we passed.” Sera sniffed and dried her tears. That morning they’d crossed through a once wealthy suburb that had weathered the last ten years almost intact. It was easy to close your eyes and imagine the people that lived there once, how easy their lives had been. Sera always imagined such things, but Jade kept her eyes on the road ahead.

“Some of them still had windows and doors,” Sera continued. “Warm bedrooms with four poster beds…feather pillows and bedding, food in the cabinets. We could live like kings.” Jade watched Sera in the rear view mirror as Sera twisted her long, auburn hair into a pillow and rested it on the window, then closed her eyes. Jade wished she could make her own pillow of hair, but her short, functional cut wouldn’t cushion much of anything, and her bony frame made it impossible to get comfortable anywhere. At two years younger, Sera certainly outdid her in the looks department. Not that Jade cared about such things, but it was hard not to notice.

“All that’s gone, Sera,” Jade said. “We wouldn’t have found anything, and we need to keep moving. I don’t like it any more than you.”

Sera didn’t respond, and Jade let it go. The sun dipped below the tree line, silhouetting their branches against a purple sky like fingers reaching into the dark and pulling it towards them. Nights like this Jade missed the camaraderie of camp: the fire pit at night and the guards along the perimeter, the soft conversations with Anyon, but given what happened they were lucky to have escaped with their lives. Jade still heard the gunshots and screams when she closed her eyes.

“Where do you think Anyon is now? And Malachi? Do you think they stayed together?” Sera asked. 

“I imagine they’re making their way to Albany, like us,” Jade said. Anyon had spoken about Albany often. It was the last free camp in the east. He’d told Jade that she should head there if they were ever separated, but she’d dismissed it as his paranoia until the day of the attack. Now she wondered if he’d known something she didn’t. She thought of him often. She hadn’t seen him after the attack, and it was just as well. If he were dead or sick, she didn’t want to know. If he were alive she knew where he’d be going. 

“Do you think they made it out?” Sera asked. “There was so much fighting.”

“Yes. I have to. But it doesn’t matter now. Go to sleep. I’ll take the first watch.” Outside the first star blinked to life in the sky above of them, but Jade didn’t wish on it. Not anymore.

Sleep came easier to Seraphina and this time was no exception. She didn’t remember life before the infection took over the world. For her the old days were a series of memories and pictures that weren’t much more than dreams, but Jade remembered specific details from her past. She recalled her childhood home in coastal Maine, a two-story white colonial brushed with sea salt and surrounded by the smell of the ocean. In her memories she danced down from the sliding glass door and ran to the beach to search for sea glass in low tide. Was the sea glass still there, she wondered, or had the infection taken that, too? 

As Sera slept, darkness descended and swallowed the landscape around them. The van was half hidden in the tall grass on the side of a highway once known as the Massachusetts turnpike, but instead of scanning the empty road, Jade turned her attention to the sky.

The stars were brighter now; at least that’s what people said. Hundreds joined the first one, and the crescent moon bathed the highway in a blanket of phosphorescent light. Jade knew all about the constellations from Sera, who’d learned them from her father. Sera especially loved those named after the old Greek myths and told their stories over and over. Andromeda was her favorite. It was the story of a princess chained to the rocks and doomed to die, only to be rescued by Perseus. Jade traced the constellation with her finger. They’d shared the stories with Anyon and Malachi back at camp, all of them becoming amateur astronomers. Jade dozed off and on as she thought of those times. She woke before the sky brightened and watched the stars flicker out one by one. They’d survived another night. She rubbed her eyes, surprised to feel a tear sitting on the edge. She’d been dreaming about Anyon again.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Sera yawned from the back. She’d hardly moved all night. The seat groaned as she stretched her legs in the back.

“No need,” Jade responded. “It was a quiet night, and you needed rest.” 

Sera pushed on the door handle and it slid open with a loud creak. They both grimaced at the noise. Sera mouthed sorry and shrugged, then walked off into the tall grass as Jade rolled her eyes. Jade got out and surveyed their surroundings. There was no sign of anyone, but you could never be sure. There was a dark spot far off on the highway that she hadn’t seen the night before. It was probably another abandoned car, but Jade wouldn’t feel safe until they were off the highway and out of the open. A minute later Sera called out, and Jade could tell by her voice she’d found another body. It wasn’t the first, but it had been a while and the sight never got easier. Jade trudged over to check, covering her mouth with her sleeve just in case.