Episode 4.1

EPISODE 4: "SURVIVING"
STARRING: MARLA MANSLAUGHTER
SALT LAKE CITY, UT

I wish I could say that things got better after aliens arrived and blew up Fort Douglas.  But they didn’t.  I was glad to have found Minh, but she wasn’t much of a conversationalist. 

Because I’m clever. 

            

 Those were the last words I heard her speak.  After we left the ruins of Fort Douglas, she would only communicate by nodding for “yes” and shaking her head for “no.”

             

“Was that your car you were sleeping in?”

            

 Nod.

            

 “Do you know what year it is?”

            

 Nod.

            

 “Are your parents somewhere nearby”

            

 Head shake.

            

 “Are your parents still alive?”

            

 Head shake.

            

 “Do you want to come with me?”

            

 Nod.

            

I didn’t even learn her name until that afternoon when we ducked into an abandoned Jeep to hide from a flock of head-poppers.  After we reclined the seats and listened to the little snot walkers slither through the street, she reached over and grabbed my hand.  I felt a cold chain dig into my wrist and looked down to see what it was.  She was wearing one of those bracelets that look like pretty versions of hospital I.D. bands.  On the small card of metal that connected both ends of the chain, I read the name Minh Ha.  I lifted it from her wrist with my thumb and saw characters that I assumed to be her name in what looked like Japanese to my untrained American eyes.

            

 After the head-poppers had vacated the premises, I pointed to her bracelet.

             

“Is that your name?”

            

 Nod.

            

 “Minh Ha? Did I say it right?”

            

 Nod.

            

 “I’m Marla.” I shook her hand, and she smiled.

            

 She looked like she was about twelve or thirteen—that streak of orange in her shiny black hair could have only been the result of a misguided attempt at preteen rebellion.  I felt bad for the girl, but I secretly wished that my first companion in this new apocalyptic world would at least talk to me. 

            

 We wandered down Foothill Drive towards the Dan’s where I used to buy my weekly college rations of Easy Mac, Diet Coke, and chocolate-covered pretzels.  I was clinging to the idiot’s hope of running into someone who knew what the hell to do in a situation like this, which reminded me of the conversation I had with the mysterious and awesomely named Max Bodycount.  My memory of meeting him was now fuzzy and dreamlike and even though I was lugging an automatic shotgun that he gave me, I began to question whether or not the meeting ever really took place.

            

 Marla Manslaughter. 

            

 That’s what he “dubbed” me.  At the time, I guess it felt like I had some kind of destiny…like I was supposed to know what the hell to do in a situation like this.  But right now, as I wander down the automobile graveyard that was once Foothill Drive, as I sidestep broken glass and errant brain matter with a mute preteen in tow, I feel pretty damn helpless.