2222: Chapter One

“Mama, I’m hungry.”

“I know, honey,” says Carla Raymond, stroking her thin daughter’s hair. The year was 2221, and Carla, along with the other families, were counting down the days until their significant others would return.

Maria Raymond, Carla’s daughter, had almost no memory of her father. Her early childhood memories of her warm, kindhearted father were being replaced by hunger and the cold, steel walls of the containment center.

“Mama, when do we get to go home?”

Carla doesn’t answer. She’s busy thinking about her husband, but more than anything, she’s thinking about the zombies, and the delayed supply ships.

We don’t have much time left, she thinks, looking around at the dozens of haggard, starving faces. What if there’s nothing for him to come back to?

Just a little longer, she counters. We can go just a little longer.

She’s not so sure she’s telling herself the truth.

She looks back down at Maria. The youngest. Her baby. She couldn’t let her die. Not yet.

She should never have agreed to this. Never. She should have made Clint stay home where he belonged. With his family.

Her oldest two were huddled together. Even cold, starving, and dying, they still clung to their teenage angst and refused to bundle up with Mom.

She wondered if they’d ever feel like a family again. Carla was never ready to be a mom. Clint had asked, and of course, she’d said yes. She could never say no to Clint, and had never really wanted to. And she’d done okay, with Clint by her side. But without Clint… she felt like she was letting her children down.

To Telos. That’s what they started calling it. Fitting.

Because she thinks she might be nearing her end. She’s given every scrap, every ration, to her children. She’s always been on the heavier side. Even now, after a long period of near-starvation, someone looking at her might call her overweight. Her mama used to tell her she was built different. It didn’t matter what she ate, she was always teased. Always ridiculed. So many people might have been jealous of her. At this moment, she looked like she was well-fed, and of course, that made the rumors fly.

She paid no attention, merely kept stroking her youngest daughter’s hair. Their words didn’t hurt her. She had a wonderful husband. Wonderful daughters. She had her life, and she didn’t care what anyone else thought, because they couldn’t take that away.

“Hey, Carla.”

She looked up from her occupied lap at the man before her. It was the brother of one of the crew members, she recognized him from the liftoff. She hadn’t really talked to him before, but she always felt like he was a nice guy. She hoped he was a nice guy.

As it turns out, Mark Caruthers, brother to Dale Caruthers, was a nice guy. But he was also a coward.

And so when the rest of the ship voted, he was nominated to act.

“We know you’ve been stealing food,” he says. “Eating more than your share.”

“I have not,” she says, keeping her voice steady. “I’ve been giving every bit to my kids, and I certainly would never deprive you or your kids, either.”

“Carla…”

Now, she loses it, standing up and pushing her child off of her lap.

“No! Don’t you dare say my name like that. I’m not fucking lying, Mark!”

Mark only stared, his face full of pity. “Carla, we know this is hard. It’s hard for all of us. But you’re only making things harder by lying. We have an eyewitness.”

“An eyewitness? Liar! Whoever they are, they’re a liar!”

“Mommy, what’s happening?” Maria asks, tugging at her sleeve.

“Nothing, honey, don’t worry about it…”

Maria doesn’t believe her Mama. She wonders what Mama is hiding, and why nobody tells her anything.

She lunges for the bigger man, she doesn’t know his name.

“Get away from my mama!” she yells. “Stop being a meanie!”

No one saw who shot the bullet. No one saw any smoke, or a gun. There was only the earsplitting sound, and Maria Raymond crumpled to the ground.

“What have you done?” Julie whispers. “What have you done to my baby?”

She lunges at Mark, and all Hell breaks loose.

From the back of the crowd, a man and a woman snuck away. Right before everything got lethal, they crawled away and they hid.

Their names were Darryl Addams and Elana Mycrovitch.

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