one order mark | day 457 | video

[honouraryfitz]

[The video feed opens on a twelve-year-old girl with bright red hair, a rather gaunt face, and dark circles under her eyes. She's working on fixing that, really, but it's been a long couple of days.]

Hi. I know it's been kind of lousy here for a while, but it seems like it's letting up. I got some sleep, anyway. I hope you guys did, too.

Anyway, I figured we should celebrate, and since it's basically summer now, why not have a bonfire? We could make s'mores or roast weenies and sing camp songs and stuff like that. It'd be swell.

So let me know if you're interested, and I'll start chopping firewood. [She gives the camera a grin.] And if you need some odd jobs done, can you let me know that, too? I gotta start making some money around here, or I won't be able to afford the marshmallows and stuff. I'm pretty strong, and I'm a good artist, and I don't mind getting dirty. So if you need something done, call me up, O.K.?

Comments

[honouraryfitz]

That's how Janey and I make 'em. She's my best friend back home. You take a slice of apple, and then you put some chocolate on it, and then the marshmallow, and then another apple slice.

[tonsofpun]

... that sounds amazing. I thought you were supposed to use graham crackers.

[honouraryfitz]

...Graham crackers are a good idea, too!

[S'mores were still pretty regionalized in the 1940s. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

We'll get both, and we'll try 'em both ways.

[tonsofpun]

Sure, if I can dig some up. This shortage really blows, but what are you gonna do, right?

[She's had much, much worse, and this only makes it feel like home.]

[honouraryfitz]

At least it isn't rationing. Rationing is the worst.

[O.K., it's not as bad as zombies. But it's pretty bad.]

[tonsofpun]

... I never had to deal with that. But I guess the people outside the military did. Really fucking unfair when you think about it.

Let's hope it never gets to that point.

[honouraryfitz]

Were you in the military at home? [But she doesn't look that much older than Rusty.]

[tonsofpun]

Yeah, military school. I helped out the medics when things went sideways, too. I would have been a soldier when I turned sixteen.

But I... dropped out. Sort of.

[honouraryfitz]

Oh. Where are you from? 'Cause you have to be eighteen to enlist, back home. Skeet--he's my American brother--he's still mad he couldn't join up before the war ended.

[tonsofpun]

Boston, Massachusetts. Most recently. I got shipped around a lot.

But I'm guessing your war wasn't the same one going on back home.

[honouraryfitz]

You and me both. [She shrugs.] And you're probably right--I haven't met anybody from the same war. What was yours about?

[tonsofpun]

Orphan?

[Ellie says it with the same tired look of solidarity she's always had, no pity. Everybody's an orphan where she's from, even if you don't start out that way.]

Uh... maybe war isn't the right word. There was an outbreak about twenty years ago, so I guess everything just fell apart. It's still going on. It doesn't help that the infected people don't die. They just... stop being people, and start being whatever the Infected are.

[honouraryfitz]

Sea-vacuee. [Which is still a word no one here seems to know, so she launches into the spiel.] My parents sent me to America during the war. I lived in Connecticut for five years.

[Her mouth drops open at Ellie's explanation of what was happening back home for her.] Yeah, that's definitely a different war. So they were like...like zombies?

[tonsofpun]

[She's right, and Ellie frowns, but starts nodding at the explanation. Makes sense, even if it would have never worked at home.]

Riley calls them squishy mushroom zombies, because of the fungus and crap that grows out of them.

[Maybe the shiver seems natural, but the sudden way she rubs at her arm might not be.]

... what was your war about?

[honouraryfitz]

That's disgusting. [She makes a face saying it. It's interesting, but it's disgusting.]

A couple countries decided to try to take over the world. Germany, Japan, and Italy. So the Allied Powers--that's the rest of us, pretty much--had to stop them.

[tonsofpun]

You should see clickers. Now they're disgusting.

... shit. Why would anybody want to take over the world? That sounds like something out of a comic book.

[honouraryfitz]

What're clickers?

'Cause they're greedy, I guess. And mean as snakes. Hitler was the worst of all of them.

[tonsofpun]

Clickers are like... a later stage of the infection. The plates start like... splitting their heads apart and coming out their eyes, so they can't see anymore. They can't breathe. But they make this clicking sound, like echolocation, so they can find their way around. Creepiest fucking thing I've ever seen.

... Hitler? Man, I've heard of him. That was a long, long time ago.

[honouraryfitz]

Ick. Sounds like something out of a horror movie.

Yeah, that's what I hear. [Sigh. Why isn't anyone around here from the 40s, like a normal person would be?] How long ago are we talking?

[tonsofpun]

A really good one.

Uh... probably about a hundred years or something. I'm from 2033. ... or 2034, maybe.

[honouraryfitz]

The kind that makes you feel kind of sick, anyway.

Really? [She oughta be getting used to being surprised by this place, but things just don't work that way.] I was born in 1933. And you're from a hundred years later.

[tonsofpun]

I wish I could tell you the future was cooler.

[honouraryfitz]

There's gotta be some parts that're O.K.

[That's how progress works! But zombies, Rusty.]

Or maybe not, I guess.