The Walker

Ben walked silently down the barren road; nothing could be seen for many miles, empty houses stacked upon empty houses. Trees had begun to grow from windows already; it had only been four years since everyone died. Four years, six months, two weeks, and six days since the world ended, he thought. Well, the world wasn't "over" yet, it is pretty darn close, he added to his mental conversation with himself. Ben Warner's hands were shoved deep into the pockets of the army blazer jacket that he loved so much. His head was bent down, and his eyes studied the minutia of the road as his foot unconsciously kicked a rock. He had walked this road so many times he no longer needed to watch where he went. This would be only the second time he'd come back from the market empty-handed. Still no eggs; the empty weight of the backpack was harder to bear than one stuffed full of egg cartons. Maggie would once again have to whip up meals without the added flavor and substance of those delicious golden-filled shells. Along with many other things that they were out of, like milk and butter. They had yet to discover the cause of all these problems; the fallout had not affected this area, not yet at least. Scientists said it wouldn't, yet the retired army sergeant had his doubts. They had not been spared the effects of "The Disease"; their luck would not start now. It seemed like they woke up in a world different, devoid of half the population, at least close to it. The mortality rate was a crisp 80 percent at that point. Four years, six months, two weeks, and six days ago, that was. Though in the following months, with further evolutions, it rose to 90, then 95. Fortunately, not a whole lot of people caught it now. Not that they had survived the effects of the disease, but some people were just immune to the strand and never caught it. Like the few remaining people left in Barrs Burrow, Ohio.

Ben was so lost in thought that he never noticed the man walking just alongside him until he let out a little cough, which jarred Ben from his ponderance, bringing his gaze to this new stranger.

"Jeez, nearly scared me to death!" said Warner. "What are you doing around here, eh? Never seen you before."

"Well, my name is Edmund Aliassui; that's Italian, by the way, at least I think so. It's a very old name. But I have many other names. Some call me the traveling bard, the walking bard, or just The Walker." He said, seemingly proud of his many titles. "You can call me whatever you like, or you could add another name to my repertoire if you would like," he smiled at Ben.

"Yeah, I would. Annoying," Ben gave a very forced grin back and replied, "I think I'll just call you Edmund," then averted his gaze back to the path. He could tell that the man, Edmund, the "traveling bard," was still looking at him, probably wanting him to ask how he got the many names. So, Warner looked back at the man dressed in a t-shirt and flannel, wearing cargo pants with a satchel slung over his shoulder.

Edmund took this turning towards him as permission to speak. "So, I bet you want to know how I got all of these names?"

"Actually," Ben tossed his thumb towards the road, "I still have a way to walk yet, to get back to town, and I am going to need to find some way to get food."

"Ah! So, you are walking back to your town, eh? Perfect. I will accompany you back; I require a place to sleep tonight, after all. And since you have all this way to walk, I can fully impress upon you how I got these names, with a firsthand experience."

"Oh Joy," thought Ben, as the man began explaining his numerous names by spinning a fine web of stories for the remaining three hours of walking. Not wanting to be rude to the man, Ben just decided to grin and bear it. The man expressed why he was called "the traveling bard" by beginning to sing. Now Warner had no problems with singing or storytelling; in fact, he quite enjoyed the arts, that is when the artist is good at what he does. But when you sing like the air being squeezed out of a tire, well then you should consider a career change.

Finally, Ben could see the gate to their town, Barrs Burrow, a once quiet little town of farmers. Where every 18-year-old went away to serve their tours with the military, some branch or other. Then came back and took over their father's ranch, hunted in the woods, and went to church on Sunday. Now, Barrs Burrow was an even quieter town, but people still went hunting in the woods, and they still grew their crops in their fields. When they needed something else, they still walked the 10 miles into town. Only now there was a wall to keep the red cross out. Only now the few "Armies," as they called those like Ben, taught everyone how to shoot and fight. Only now there was a nightly watch and patrol. People said not to bring your work home with you; now I know why, he chuckled to himself.

Ben, along with Edmund, walked up to the gate. "Halt! Who goes there?"

"Really, Horace?" called Ben. "It's Warner, and... what was your name again?"

"Oh, please, like you forgot it already. My name is Edmund!" he yelled up.

"And Edmund!" he yelled to Horace. "Unfortunately, he's with me," he said mostly to himself.

"Oh, don't act all exasperated like that," Edmund chided him. "Come on in, Warner, and Edmund, welcome to Barrs Burrow," the gate opened up to them.

"Nice guy you made," said Edmund. "I mean got; sorry my tongue seems to have slipped, consequence of my addled mind it would seem," he laughed.

Ben said nothing in reply. A few moments later, they walked up to his house and opened the door. Unfortunately, Edmund followed him; he didn't have the heart to send him off somewhere else. He doubted that the guy could survive; honestly, he didn't know how he had survived these many years.

"Maggie, I'm home!" cried out Edmund. "I've always wanted to do that!"

"What are you doing? And how do you know my wife's name!?"

"Uh, because you told me, yah dummy."

"No, I did not. I think I would remember that."

"You did too, silly, and you mentioned your little one-year-old Peter, which can I add is adorable because this must be the little guy himself. Hi, you cutie. I am Uncle Edmund!"

"Warner, who is this?" Maggie walked to the door. It might be uncommon for couples to call each other by the last name, but for some reason, it had always felt natural to Maggie. She had met Ben when he had still been in the military, so she was around people who called him Warner. She never admitted it, but the first few weeks they had dated she thought Warner was his first name.

"Ah! Ha!" he let out a slightly manic laugh. "Maggie, this is Edmund. He was actually just leaving. I met him on the road; he's a peddler, a storyteller. So, I walked him here, but now he can leave," he said, looking back to Edmund with a stare that one cannot mistake. Ben had grown quite irritated with Edmund and wary now that Edmund seemed to know his wife and son's names. He was quite sure that he hadn't mentioned his wife, and now he did not appreciate the man picking up his child.

Although through some underdeveloped synapses or perhaps just a general lack of social cues, Edmund completely missed the glare. Perhaps though, he just chose to ignore this. "Why, Ben, your child is absolutely gorgeous, he could model! Oh my gosh, is that a real gun!?" he said, pointing to the mantel after setting down the child. Exasperated and with a hand massaging his forehead, Ben replied in the affirmative.

"I never really cared for guns and violence; I much prefer melody and song. The composition of words and rhymes, they always said a soft word can turn away wrath. Yessir, I am a strict pacifist," Edmund added with a slightly smug look, taking an imaginary moral high ground.

Perfect, I can beat him to a pulp, and he won't even fight back, "Yes, Edmund, it is a real gun, but don't you think you should leave now? It's getting dark. Don't you have a campfire to sing around and scary stories to tell little kids?"

"Oh, Ben, don't be silly, not tonight. I have to interact with people tomorrow. They won't flock to me in droves yet; they don't even know me! Not like you do, anyway. Tomorrow I'll peddle around and talk to the people. But for now, I need some food and rest."

"Well, there's a tavern just down the road."

"Oh, honey, don't be so harsh. Edmund, you're more than welcome to stay with us tonight. You can sleep in the basement," said Maggie, despite Warner shaking his head at her.

"Oh, Maggie, you are really just too kind. I am tired now, though. I think I can show myself down. Is that the door?" he pointed.

"Uh… yeah, yeah, it is… wouldn't you like supper first?" queried Maggie.

"Oh, no, I had some eggs at Fare's Ford," he replied as he walked down to the basement, leaving Maggie and Ben alone.

"Okay, weird," she added. "Um, so you got the eggs?"

"Uhhh," replied Ben, confused, "They didn't have any." He still was looking quizzically after Edmund, then he shook himself and addressed Maggie, "She said that someone had stolen all of their eggs and killed the chickens. They suspect foxes or possibly a branch of the Red Cross."

"But then how did he get eggs… you don't think!?"

"Him a Red Crosser? No way," he laughed a bit at the thought. There was just no way a guy like Edmund could be one of the tyrants or marauders who called themselves the Red Cross.

"Well, I don't know what we are going to do. We have no milk, no eggs, no vegetables, all we have is meat and flour. And some apples."

"Don't worry, honey," he said, hugging his wife. "We are supposed to start planting in a few days, so it'll only be a few more weeks before we get some veggies and some corn. I'll go back in a few days to see if I can't help them catch the foxes."

In the morning, Ben woke up and walked downstairs to find Edmund sitting in the living room with sheets of paper sprawled all over the ground. He was writing frantically, then he would crumple the piece of paper and hurl it across the room, then sigh dramatically. "Ugh, I can't get the next part down right!"

Warner was staring at the giant mound of papers that were sitting in the corner of his living room. "What are you doing? And why are you up so early? It's 4 am!"

"You're up," said a bemoaning Edmund.

"I always wake up this early, old habits and all that."

"What makes you think I don't always wake up this early?" Edmund was now lying down, spread eagle, reaching for his mug, filled with coffee.

"Just a hunch," Ben walked over to the kitchen to find a mess of coffee beans all over the counter. He sighed and struggled to keep himself calm, failing ultimately, and felt anger rising. He stormed back into the dining room. "Are you capable of cleanliness? Can you just be respectful of people's privacy and their homes? You know, by not throwing papers everywhere and cleaning up a giant mess of coffee beans!"

"Boring," he replied without looking at him. "That destroys the creative process. Sorry about the coffee; I'll clean it up later," he replied, still lying down on the floor.

Warner let a large sigh trying to vent all of his irritation and anger out. His fists were clenched tightly. Then he sucked in some more air and blew it all out again. I am going to be sick, either that or I am going to kill him. It's not like anyone really knew him, no one would know that he wasn't a burglar. Anyway, it's not like I could get sent to jail or anything. Yeah, I think I might just kill him right now. He lusted after the thought.

"Say, Ben, you okay? You don't look so hot," Edmund said, sitting up a bit but still lying down mostly spread

 eagle.

"Oh, I'm fine, just peachy."

Ben didn't kill him. Instead, he went and brewed a pot of coffee, then he went out to his back porch. Leaning against the railing, he absorbed the beauty of the mountains and fields. He was amazed at how nature could always calm him down. He always wondered how nature could make a person like Edmund. He looked back inside but couldn't see the living room. Then again, he didn't want to know what kind of mess was being made in there. He had no idea how long he was out there; he only went in the house to refill his coffee. By the time Maggie came out, though, the sun was up.

When she came up beside him, she asked where Edmund had gone too. "He's not lying down in the living room?"

"No."

"Are there a whole bunch of papers on the floor?"

"Uh, don't think so," she replied.

"Oh, thank God! That means he left."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know, honey. He's a peddler, just like one of the names he called himself. Trust me, he will be fine." Ben Warner was too excited for words to express. He had no idea where he went to or whether he was fine. He did not care.

Although later in the day, that excitement changed. Warner walked down the road heading towards the market; he needed to get some more coffee. As he walked, he was struck by just how much Barrs Burrow had changed, not only the name, from Lucky to Barrs Burrow, but just in the way it looked. Houses had grass growing on the top as well as trees. Tents were set up everywhere where people sold animals or traded items. Everyone walked around armed with some sort of gun or knife, even an ax, anticipating a raid at any moment.

His reminiscing was interrupted by Edith, a nice old lady married to Butch, an even nicer old man who owned the largest field and was responsible for producing over half of all the crops in the town. Edith appeared in quite a disarray, and everyone she passed gasped and adopted a look of terror. "Ben!" she cried out and grabbed both his arms in her old, frail-looking hands, though the grip she had was anything but old and frail. "The barn! It's been burned down! The seeds, the grain, it's all gone!"

Ben's world was flipped on an axis, and he didn't know what to do. His mind fogged up; he tasted lead, and his stomach filled with poison. All of the seed was gone. Butch's fields may have been only responsible for growing just over half of the crops, yet his barn was by far the largest, and everyone stored their seeds in his barn during the winter. Now, as it was just succumbing to spring, no one had taken their seeds from him yet.

"What are we going to do, Ben?" asked Edith and a few other people who had gathered around.

"Ask the mayor," was all he could reply. Ben's world was still rocking back and forth. "How am I going to feed Maggie? What is Peter going to eat?"

"Oh, the mayor has a stick up 'is butt!"

"Yeah, e's right, the mayor can't do squat."

Ben was not a leader; even in the army, he was never a Corporal or a Lieutenant. The only leadership role he had ever taken was teaching men and women here how to shoot. In the army, he had been a sniper, not a leader. He had been a Sergeant for a year, that was it. "Guys, I'm not the leader, this is a decision for the mayor to make," he pleaded with them.

"You might not be the leader or the mayor around here, but you're a man of action, Ben. You taught us how to shoot. You can teach other ways to survive. Please, Ben, you've got to do something," pleaded Edith.

As news of what happened spread, nearly everyone gathered around asking Ben Warner what to do. The Mayor came after someone went to fetch him, and Ben went up to him, skirting around the crowd to get to him. The crowd was getting louder as they chittered to themselves, spreading rumors already about who was to blame for this.

When Ben got up to him, he asked, "Mayor, what do we do?"

"I was going to ask you the same question, Ben. Things, they aren't the same. This city… I don't think it can be run by a politician anymore. You were a successful Army Sergeant, you are used to being in charge. Tell us what to do."

"Mayor, I was a Sergeant for just a year before I retired. I am a sniper, not a leader."

"Doesn't matter, son. You taught the people how to shoot and how to survive, and you did a better job than you give yourself credit for. Lead them, and if not lead, then guide them. I'll help you as much as I can."

This all seemed out of nowhere to Ben. He didn't know what to do, but he figured one had to start somewhere. His mind was still putty, and his mouth was still full of lead and an acid cocktail. "Well, we need to find who did this and why he did it, whether or not he was Red Cross. Then we need to take stock of all the food we have left. Let's not place it one area, so there aren't any more mass burnings. Then we should ask around to see if anyone else can help us, somewhere like Perry Falls."

"Okay then, go tell the people. I think it's safe to say you are in charge now."

Ben did not want to be in charge. He hadn't led people for very long; he had never quite got comfortable with it. So, the first thing he did was designate leaders. People he trusted, he gave them tasks. "Hugh, Jackman, go try and gather any seeds you can find, anyone who thinks they have even one bag left. Chris, Evans, count the livestock. Brad and Pitt, find a few people who you think can track well. We need to see if there are any Red Cross around. The rest of you try and go back to normal."

As the crowd began to dissipate, Warner noticed someone, or more precisely, the lack of someone. Where the blazes was Edmund? Was he truly a Crosser? Had he come with Ben just to get into Barrs Burrow? That just couldn't be. Ben couldn't believe it; no one was that good at being dumb. His mind was already straining, thinking up some way these events could make sense. It seemed like a bad dream, one that he had some power over but would always end the same way.

A few days later, answers came; the scouts had indeed found traces of the Red Cross. Pitt came in with two other guys, and they had a man by the arms while Pitt had a gun to his back. "Warner, we found the guy; he was in the woods. He reeks of gasoline and has a box of matches with him. More than that, he took a sack full of grain and seeds with him."

The man before him was none other than Edmund Aliassui, smirking like a fool. "Why, good to see you again, Ben. Golly, I have missed you."

"Shut up, you!" said one of the other guys as he bashed him in the back of the head. "What do you want us to do with him, Ben?"

"Give us a moment, please," said Ben as he walked around from his desk, which was full of maps and plans, treaties written with Farlow, Perry Falls, Maumee, and a couple of other places. The men grudgingly left. "It was you, Edmund! Why? Are you a Crosser? Did you just follow me here to get into the city? Who do you work for? Are there more of you around here? Why did you do it, and why did you stay so near, just in the woods!?"

Edmund seemingly unaffected by the barrage of questions, stood up and dusted off his hands from being shoved down. He looked at Ben and smiled. "Well, Benny, can I call you Benny? Well, Benny, the woods is a great place for inspiration. Why did I do it? I caught that barn on fire because you wanted me to do it."

"I didn't want to catch the barn on fire."

"No, no, you misunderstand me. You didn't want to catch the barn on fire because it burnt down years ago. You

 wanted me, as in Edmund, to catch it on fire. You made me do it because of your desire for me to be bad, to be the villain."

"What are you talking about? That barn didn't burn down years ago; it was just a couple of days ago!"

"Ah, but Benny, you're stuck living in the past. Look around you; your world isn't what you think!" he gestured out the window; the sun was shining down brightly, and people bustled about. "It hasn't been six years since the world went caput; it's been some twenty years."

"You're crazy! It's exactly how I think it is. Look outside, a beautiful spring day… who are you?"

"Why, Benny, I am you. Now try this," Edmund snapped, and suddenly the sun fell out of the sky, and the moon rose. The people disappeared, and the houses became ruins. Ben's own clothes became tattered and burnt rags. "Listen to me, Ben. I am you, at least half of you. I thought you would have caught my name. Aliassui, a derivative of the words Alias and Sui, other self. It's Latin, not Italian, by the way."

"What do you mean you are me?"

"I am a personification of all that you wished you could have been before society pressed upon you its morals. The freedom and creativity you had as a kid, carefree, worry-free, all of the things that the military beat out of you. I am the you that you wished you had been, that part of you that you were most afraid of. Because you have never understood me, I never fit into the constraints of your society. You actually used to love me; heck, you named me after your favorite literary character, Edmund, from the Chronicles of Narnia. Now you hate me, though. So, I went from the thing that you longed for to the thing you feared and then the thing you most hated. Lack of rules, lack of order, and so on. But now I am back! Since you're dead now, I'll be spending some quality time with you. See, you died fighting that fire; in fact, your whole city burned. So now it's just me and you. We are going to be here for an eternity, stuck in this city that your mind has created. Such fun, isn't it?"

The End