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She was 'the girl' and he was 'the boy,' because there weren't any more of either. She had a name—or a number—but she'd never spoken it out loud to the boy. And if he had one he hadn't said it either. Why would he? Names were a waste of sound. So the boy only hissed “Hey!” at her.
It was just loud enough to get the girl's attention, and not loud enough to carry far down the gray street. The air was cold, crisp, and quiet, so the sound carried further than it should have anyway. It interrupted the north wind, which liked to blow through the city in slow, steady waves like something huge and asleep breathing. It wasn't good to interrupt that. Interrupting the wind could get you noticed. All the more reason not to waste sounds on things like names when “Hey” was enough. So the girl swiftly moved to his side, looking to see what had gotten his attention.
It was a door left ajar. The wind, or the breathing, should have it slammed it shut but a pile of empty clothes jammed the threshold and held it open. Just barely open. Just open enough for a boy and a girl. And if the clothes hadn't been disturbed it was probably another empty building, and an easy one to get into at that.
It was getting dark. They didn't waste time or breath or sound by talking about a plan. The boy knew staying here was a good idea and so did she. He slipped inside and she followed him, as she so often did. They stepped on clothes that probably hadn't been touched by skin since the city fell and immediately set to exploring.
There weren't many rooms. It was a small apartment—she thought she rememberd the word 'apartment'--and the only door to the hall outside was locked and dusty. There was a closet with its door swung open, full of suits taller than the boy and girl combined and sagging limp from their hangers. They too looked like they hadn't been touched in a long time.
That was good. Almost every building in the city was empty. Maybe most every building in the world—the girl didn't know. But some weren't, and the boy had a knack for stumbling into those. It made her glad to see little signs of emptiness.
There was a television on a stand, but its screen was black and cracked. She was glad to see that too. The boy did strange, stupid things when they found televisions that still worked—things even stupider than trying to watch them. She wondered if he was disappointed that this one's screen was smashed, but if he was he didn't make a sound about it. He just looked at it. She couldn't tell what he was thinking with that paper bag over his face. She probably couldn't anyway. She didn't think she'd ever known much about people.
A sudden sound made her stand up straight. Something was scurrying. Good scurrying, the kind that made her mouth wet and her legs start moving on their own. She darted quickly around an old garbage can and pounced, catching something fast and brown and struggling in her hands. A cockroach! It was hard but it didn't have claws or teeth or fists like harder prey did. She secured it in both hands—because it was almost as long as her arm from fingertip to elbow—and triumphantly marched back into the middle of the room with her prize.
She held it up to show the boy. He wasn't even paying attention. That irritated her enough to make her poke out her lip. This was a good catch and he should have been looking. The boy, though, was already looking straight up at the very top of the open closet. She warily followed his gaze.
Sitting on a high shelf above all of the tidily folded clothes was a hat. It was just the size of the boy's head, with a brim that only pointed forward. What was the name for a hat like that... a baseball cap, she thought. The words came to her even though she didn't quite remember what baseball was. She sat down, only breathing out the tiniest of sighs, and bit into her struggling cockroach with a crunch. This was her prey. The boy had just spotted his and he wouldn't be happy until his hunt was finished.
Despite his silliness, the boy was nimble and good at climbing. He leaped up to the hanging suits and scurried up them with ease. But that could only bring him so close to the shelf where the boy-sized hat sat, and the leap was difficult. His first attempt missed and he fell all the way down and hit the floor with a smack.
The girl took another bite out of her cockroach. (Which was only half-struggling at this point.) The boy would be fine. Probably. He wasn't made of porcelain. He was made of meat and meat could take some bruising. Sure enough he clambered back to his feet, brushed off his coat, and scampered back up those clothes to make the exact jump again.
Smack.
This might take a while.
There wasn't a clock in here and even if there was the girl wouldn't have trusted it. But she guessed she was watching him try and fail to make that jump for about half an hour. The cockroach had lost half of its body and most of its fight. She put the uneaten half beside her as she wiped her mouth on her raincoat's sleeve and kept on watching, leaning back and letting herself relax for the first time all day. Her ears were still keen and her legs were still ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. But watching the boy and his silly hunt made this room feel a little more safe.
His hunt may have been silly but she liked the way he kept at it. He always did this. He set himself strange little goals and just would not give up until he'd finished. He was very... what was the word... determined? Or maybe he was just dumb. She'd known other boys and girls like him before. None of them were around anymore.
Except maybe for her. Was she like him? It had been so long since she had a real goal she wanted to chase, except living a little longer. Had she forgotten what that was like? It bothered her that she didn't know.
Maybe someday she'd find a really important prey to hunt. Something bigger than a cockroach.
Definitely bigger than a hat.
The boy hung raggedly from one of the hangers like one of the suits themselves, swinging back and forth, looking straight up at the shelf that was so hard to reach. But there was something about the way he cocked his head that looked sure. This was going to be the one. The girl leaned forward to watch more closely.
He leapt-
He grabbed the shelf!
He pulled himself up and scampered over to the cap, which he picked up in both hands before stuffing it into one of his pockets. (The girl thought, not for the first time, that if he died and she could get to his body then she was taking that coat off of him. He could fit anything in those pockets.) He climbed back down the way he climbed up and dropped to the floor, rushing over to her with the soft pat pat of feet on old wood.
“Hey,” he hissed, more quietly than before. The girl lowered her hood to tell him she was looking. He turned around, slowly taking the paper bag off his head with a light crinkle crinkle and putting the cap on instead. He spun around again quickly, quickly enough to make his coat whoosh, to show her how the new hat fit on his head.
It fit him. But any hat did. The brim stuck out far and he'd pushed it down so it still made it hard to see most of his face. That was an important thing to think about, like how she kept her bangs over her eyes so the boy couldn't see them clearly. The new hat would also keep the sun out of his eyes if it was ever sunny again. It wasn't the silliest thing he'd ever put on his head.
She didn't say anything. She wasn't a talker like the boy. But she looked at it instead of looking at the floor, and he seemed to like that. Eventually he must have felt like she was done looking because he turned around again and took the hat back off. When he turned back around he had the paper bag back over his face. He seemed happy. He loved trying the hats on, but he never wore them for long. That paper bag must have been very comfortable.
The girl picked up the half a cockroach she hadn't eaten and held it out to him. He looked it over strangely for a moment—she wondered if he was gonna refuse to take it like he refused to take a lot of the food she found for him—but he took it and sat down next to her, pulling up his bag to take a nibble.
He really should have kept the cap on if he was gonna eat. Silly boy.
They hadn't been chased, and they were out of the wind, and there was no television, and they had a whole cockroach all to themselves. This day was amazing. She felt safe.
...'safe' was a nasty trap. Nothing was safe and getting comfortable was dumb. Sitting still, feeling safe for too long killed boys and girls like it killed slow cockroaches. She'd almost forgotten that, sitting alone in the hunter's cabin. It was a good thing the boy had taken her away from there. She was mad at first but if she'd stayed there any longer she might have started liking it too much. She'd come to like having an idea of when the hunter came and left, of when it was safe to hunt for food. Or when it was safe to listen to her music box.
It was a good thing the boy had taken her away. If she thought about it that was probably why she followed him. He kept her moving, and even if that meant moving through horrible places, that was safer than staying still. That thing in the television wanted people to stay still. The boy had saved her.
But she still missed it. She missed her music box, too.
It was very dark now. The north wind woke up a bit, getting louder, deeper, rumbling like a growling stomach. It was a good thing they weren't outside. Sometimes things with no names hunted on the streets when it was dark and the north wind was howling. The room was getting colder, and she and the boy scooted themselves under the sofa where it was a little warmer and they'd be hidden if anything came in during the night. They leaned against the wall together, barely able to see in the dark, but at least they could hear each other. She could hear a gulp as the boy swallowed the last bit of bug he was going to eat. She could hear him breathing, slowly, in and out. She thought she could hear his heart beating. Slowly.
Safe.
She decided to be silly. Quietly—always quietly, it had to be quietly—she started to hum. Just to herself. The north wind was too busy howling to hear her, and it would drown her out to everything else. But she wanted to hum. She wanted her music box, but that was too silly even for a thought. Still. She could think about her song. That pretty little song that played in her dreams. Her good dreams. The thing in the televisions liked to reach into your dreams and yank them out. Yank them out, break them like fingers, turn them inside out. But it couldn't have this one. It couldn't have her song. Not as long as she kept running, kept hiding, kept hunting.
Something cold and clammy touched her. She let out a sharp breath, ready to up and bolt. But the touch squeezed around her hand, and she relaxed. Just the boy. Her silly boy. She squeezed his hand back and kept on humming.
It was her song, because there weren't any others. At least there weren't any others that the thing hadn't touched, just like she had the only boy left who hadn't died. (Or worse... grown up.) So maybe it was a waste of sound, or maybe it was a waste of however many breaths she had left. But right here, right now, she didn't care, and she definitely didn't care how scary it should be to feel this safe.
So she sang her song into the silent city.