"Hey, hey, Jack, look what I found." The boys have been searching through the wreckage of an old house for canned food. Dust caked every surface. No one had been here in quite sometime. Probably not since the town was evacuated. The boys had been lucky earlier in the week, finding a stash of canned beans and some other canned things in basement. Thomas had even come across a mushroom foragers book in that same house.
"What is it?" Jack came in from the other room. His eyes had dark circles under them and his cheek bones were prominent on his skinny face.
"They left a tablet. And it's not even broken!" Thomas wiped it off with his dirty shirt, clearing most of the dust away. With a press of a button on the side the screen lit up as it powered on. "Awesome! This model has a lithium-sulfur battery. The type with the graphene. Look it's got the built in solar collector, too. My dad bought me one for my fourteenth birthday. I lost it when we left Boston though. I bet we can trade it for a lot of stuff once we reach Pittsburgh."
"If we reach Pittsburgh." Jack's face fell into a frown.
"Listen, Jack, I know it's hard. But we told - we promised - Kassy that we'd deliver her letter to son."
"But we lost the caravan! It just never gets easier. Seeing the bodies. Like, when will it end?" his eyes were glazed over, but he held back the tears. He promised himself he wouldn't cry anymore. They both fell silent, thinking about the group they were with not a week before. The group that had been slaughtered. They had been the youngest in town. Everyone else was at least older than them by a decade or more. They were told it would be safer for them in Pittsburgh. That they should go with the caravan.
The chime of the tablet broke the silence.
"Looked like wireless service was still pushing updates for a while after they left here," Thomas said. "That took longer than it should have. Anyway, I know what you're saying. I'm there too. But we survived. Us. Two out of what? Twenty-three? We can do it. Kass told us to follow route 22 and will get there."
"But we don't even have a map! We don't even know how long it'll take us to get there! Our luck is going to run out, Tom. And we're no match if the mutants attack us again. We should have never left Millersburg."
"Jack, the river was poisoned. Besides, we do have a map." Thomas showed Jack the tablet which had a map app loaded. "Look, we're here in Altoona. We just follow the highway like Kassy said. We're halfway there. By the end of next week, we could be in Pittsburgh."
Jack looked at his friend and nodded, letting out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry, I just can't get that last attack out of my head."
"Here, let's see if there are any movies on this thing. Something to take our minds off this shit-hole of world we live in." Thomas browsed the device and opened up the Videos folder. There were a number of Videos, the first starting labeled VID_20331221_112559. Thomas tapped the thumbnail.
The video was of a young man, the sides of his head were shaved and faded into longer hair as it reached the top. He had a light scruff. "Hey, Devin here, just testing my new tablet out. Thanks Mom! Thanks Dad! Happy birthday to me! Finally 21! I'm gonna get my drink on! Peace!" The video ended as he stuck his middle finger up to the camera.
Thomas played the next video. From the time stamp, it was from about an hour later. Devin was on screen again, "God, there is some new viral videos coming out, people are posting a lot of videos people flying around their back yards or lifting cars and shit. I bet it's viral marketing for a new Oculus game. Some redditor posted one saying it's legit real that his cousin just sprouted wings while they were cutting into his birthday cake. Physically impossible. People are idiots."
In the background, a woman's voice, "Devin! Come here quick, look what's on the news." Devin looks over his shoulder and then back to the camera. The video ends. It dawned on Thomas and Jack. These videos are from the day the world went to hell. They looked at each other and then back to the tablet.
"Play the next one." Jack said. Thomas didn't hesitate.
"Oh god. Oh god." Devin is on the screen, but he now has fully grown horns that sprout from his head and curve backwards and around like a ram's. He was shirtless, his hair wet and a shower curtain behind him suggested he was just in the shower. "What the hell is going on? I just, like, sprouted horns! I can hear my parents talking like their standing right next to me. What? What is this? I must be dreaming." He slapped his face a couple times, leaving a red mark. "I can't let them see me like this. The news was showing reports of those viral videos earlier. I don't think it's a hoax. The guy on the news said there was a common thread. Everyone one in those videos turned 21 today. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! I was supposed to go out tonight." He ended the video.
The next video was from a week after Christmas. "My parents are taking this well. But they told me not to leave the house. I've been sneaking out after dark. I can see so well at night time. It's crazy! More and more 21 year olds are in the news. On their birthdays they're changing. Some crazy evangelicals are saying we're abominations. Others are saying that heaven and hell are finally starting their end times war for the earth. I saw this one video on youtube, this guy grew scales and was able to climb walls. That's pretty cool." There was a knock on the door in the background.
"Shit, Devin, hide. Some guys in camo are here. Look like military."
"Dad, what the hell is going on?"
"Just hide, hide!" The video stopped.
The boys looked at each other again, eyes wide. There was one more video. Jack nodded and Thomas tapped the last thumbnail.
"Things are getting really crazy. I haven't left the house in two months. My parents told the authorities I had left to go back to school right after Christmas. They told them that they hadn't seen any changes," Devin's voice was somber. "They're rounding us up. The government. They're putting everyone in quarantine. Some are resisting. The president...the president initiated martial law. I'm so fucking scared right now." Tears streamed down his face. "What did we do to deserve this?" He ended the video.
"Does that mean what I think it means?" Jack asked Thomas. He answered Jack's question with a nod. "But how could they keep that from us? Why wouldn't they tell us we'd become one of them?" Jack's eyes were tearing up again.
"Jack, uh, maybe that's why they let us go when they attacked the caravan. The mutants. They're faster and stronger than us. They could have easily caught up to us."
"I just don't want to think about it. I. Well I have another year. Maybe they'll find a cure. You're the same age as me right?"
"Jack," Thomas pauses, glancing at the tablet and sees the date. August 12, 2040. In two days, he will turn 21. "Uh, my birthday is in two days."