The Self-Proclaimed Medical Expert (Part 1)

Anthony Evans

It's day 1532 after leaving the Underground which means I'm now thirty-two and have nothing much to show for it. I was a Biomedical Engineering major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT for those of you actually in the know, when the war hit. I tried to help as much as I could from the topside but I eventually had to admit that the Underground was my only option for survival. Which, naturally, makes me quite the outsider, even amongst our weird little entourage. Honestly, I think Carley is the only one that really cares if I'm around or not and it's likely of a hormonal based attachment than truly psycho emotional...perhaps just psycho…

Our fearless leader is Nathan, not that any of us really know why. It's not as if he has some grand wealth of knowledge or experience. Of course, we could all be counted as fools for following after some nineteen year old punk kid when everyone else called it quits. There had to be something about him that made us all think he was right about staying on the move. I just wasn't overly fond of the location. A single clean well was far too easy to become tainted and there were barely enough resources to last a month with so many people. So, I made the decision to stick with these losers and I haven't found anywhere advantageous enough to warrant staying since my initial move. I suppose I also didn't consider the possibility that Nathan would really continue taking on the leadership role after all this time.

The rest of our motley little crew consists of a teenage tag-along and a silent giant. I don't go out of my way to socialize with either of them these days, not that I was overly outgoing in the beginning with that enormous brute. I did try to reach out to Maria at first, though, especially after her mother died from radiation exposure. It had taken three days for the woman to die, certainly not a pretty picture for any of us. As much as I hate kids, I'm not exactly heartless. The least I could do was try to look out for Maria after all that trauma. But she didn't seem to want any help at all, choosing to stick rather close to that bimbo Carley. Maybe it was just a female thing. Whatever the case, I let her be after that. As for the silent giant, as I've dubbed him, he just doesn't talk to anyone much. He's not mute so it's a self-ordained silence from the man that should have been a sequoia tree. Whatever his reasons, the man is an enigma wrapped in mystery. Frankly, I'm simply not intrigued and have no intention of trying to solve the puzzle of who he is.

That's all of us, I'm afraid. There were two others that we lost not long after Maria's mother passed away but I'm not exactly good with names, not that it matters now. We're miles from where we left them, following some insane plan to search the entire continent for surface-dwelling survivors. We spent the whole first year up here trekking across what had once been the United States. Seeing as there's not really anything up here but crazy mutated animals and plants, I'm pretty sure it was all just a giant waste of time, energy, and resources. Even now, after four years of wandering around, we've ever only found the dead and dying. There were a few people that we found last year, eking out a living in an abandoned shopping center. They were running out of water so they decided to come with us but they only lasted a couples weeks before we woke up to find them dead. It makes me wonder what has kept the five of us alive for so long.

Today, we should be starting the trip south towards Mexico. Despite so many changes to the world after the war, there seems to still be some normalcy in the seasons. It's why we keep track of the days. Once winter actually hits, everything north of mid-continent is cold enough to kill you in a few minutes without shelter. So, we've learned to travel as far south as we need to keep ourselves in a moderate climate. It reminds me of my studies on the indigenous peoples and the nomads that wandered the land from civilizations long past. I suppose it makes sense that we've reverted to a more primitive way of life these days. Of course, if that were truly the way of things, certain people would have already succumbed to natural selection.

Speaking of evolutionary advantage, or lack thereof, I think Maria just walked out of camp. It's not even dawn yet. What is she doing up, much less wandering off? If she keeps up like that, she's going to get someone killed. Not me, of course. I'm not stupid enough to follow her out there. I did not spend all this time surviving just to throw it all away chasing some snot-nosed brat into the pre-dawn hell of our modern apocalypse.

I tried going back to sleep but I had this strange, nagging feeling. It started in my middle, kind of like the bubbling feeling you get after air gets caught in your stomach and your body is attempting to find the best exit strategy. It was easy to dismiss at first but things started getting strange after a few moments. I caught a glimpse of Nathan leaving camp on the other side, the giant close behind. If they had been going after Maria, it probably wouldn't have been too odd but they weren't. Then, the feeling in my stomach went from slight annoyance to intense problem in the span of a heartbeat.

I bolted straight for the edge of camp. In retrospect, I probably should have angled towards another person for the sake of safety but logical thought wasn't on my list of necessities for that moment. As it was, I was just looking for a clear space beyond camp to empty the contents of my nutrient deprived stomach. I didn't make it far before bile ejected from my esophagus and spilled across a large, twisted shrub. Once it started, it seemed as if it would never stop. Even when there was nothing left, my body still heaved, trying to expel whatever had agitated it.

By the time I could breathe again, I was on my knees, nearly doubled over from the strain on my abdominal muscles. I'd never felt nausea like that and it seemed all of us were affected. It slowly registered that the others had wandered out of camp for the same reason I had. Blurry vision didn't help me locate them but the edge of dawn creeping over the horizon gave just enough light to see the expanse of our camp. A quick rubbing of my eyes gave me little clarity over the situation but it was better than I had started. Camp was empty minus the assortment of backpacks and scattered supplies. I could see Nathan leaning against a boulder just to my right, still breathing heavily from the exertion. So, where was everyone else?