The Last Pioneers

The Last PioneersBook 1Amanda McCallister Table of ContentsChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeFor my husband and my girls. If it wasn’t for your unwavering faith in me, none of this would be possible. I love you. Chapter One It’s crazy the things we remember. A moment. A feeling. A face. These are the core memories that make up our entire lives. It’s even crazier the things we forget. Like taking everyday things for granted. Things you wouldn’t even think you’d miss. Until they’re gone. It was a normal, everyday morning. The kind of morning that doesn’t stand out in any particular way and by the end of it, as you’re lying in bed, you’ve realized you can’t remember any of it. It’s like driving down a long stretch of highway and having no recollection of the past several miles. You just go. You just do. I, however, remember every single painful detail of that day. The day everything changed. I wish I could forget because each detail is a reminder of everything we’ve lost.It was the same mundane routine as I had every morning. I jumped out of bed after hitting the snooze button no less than five times. I shuffled from my bed, eyes half-open, in the awkward stage of wake and sleep. I walked through the narrow door to my bathroom and switched on the light, causing sharp pains in the backs of my eyes as they hadn’t yet adjusted to the waking world. I threw back the shower curtain, adorned with brightly colored pineapples - my newest obsession - and turned the knobs. My eyes finally adjusted to the light, and I watched as the steam rose from the shower in intricate patterns that hovered at the ceiling. The metal rings scraped the curtain rod as I climbed in. The feel of the scalding water sent shivers down my spine and goosebumps rose on my flesh. I watched the water droplets roll down my body and splash on the tile at my feet meeting their fate as they swirled down the drain. My purple loofah scraped against my skin, cleansing it of the dirt it had acquired the day before. Looking back now, it is so easy to see how much we - as a society - took for granted. Simple things like showering, opening the refrigerator and grabbing a cold can of Coke, starting the car, cruising Instagram and TikTok…God, I miss the internet. I missed a lot of things, actually. Things I never really thought I would miss at all. School. I missed school. Most teenagers hate school, begrudgingly going day after day, looking forward to graduation so they can do adult things, like grab Starbucks on the way to their 9-5. Admittedly, I was one of those teenagers, full of angst, regret, attitude, and a general disdain of all things that imposed the slightest inconvenience on my day. Most mornings, I had to pry myself out of bed and into the shower. That morning was no different. I barely made it through the big, double doors of the school before the first bell rang. I wasn’t a bad student, quite the opposite actually. It was just my slender frame, flat chest, lack of popularity, and the fact I only had one parent that made me the perfect target for the school's elite. The ones who were blessed with everything I wasn’t. The ones who always said the right things and weren’t awkward like I was. A fact they felt the need to remind me of each and every single day. And it didn’t help that I was at the top of my class and always had my nose stuck in a book. I kept my head down and did what I was supposed to but somehow, it was never the right thing. I was always the weird girl. The girl the teachers spent a little too much time talking to. The girl who didn’t have to try to get good grades. The girl whose dad died - and they thought I killed him because, ya know, I’m quiet. I’m weird. Even knowing all of that - knowing the Hell it would be and the Hell they’d put me through - I’d still choose to go back. The fact is it would be a lot better than the actual Hell we were going through now. I was barely two months into my junior year when the echo of the emergency alert system sounded in Mr. Perry’s biology lab. Each person’s cell phone began to sound and vibrate, sending gasps and shrieks from all corners of the room. Even though we weren’t supposed to, we all pulled out our phones. A bright notification on the home screen. EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEMTHIS IS NOT A TESTPLEASE TUNE INTO YOUR LOCAL NEWS FOR AN OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROMTHE PRESIDENT OF THE THE UNITED STATES.I could feel my stomach sink onto the floor, and although I couldn’t see my face, I knew it was three shades whiter than it normally was. I had no idea what was happening. I could hear the entire classroom erupt with shouts of surprise and speculation. Mr. Perry had his head down staring at his phone. The whites of his eyes shone brightly as he looked up and asked the classroom for silence, which never came. I watched as he slid out of his chair from his massive desk, walked over to the television, and switched it on. Everyone began to whisper their ideas of what was happening. “Probably another war,” one voice whispered from behind me. “There’s always another war,” another voice whispered back to the first. I didn’t dare look. They hated it when I looked at them. “No way it’s a war. They wouldn’t send out an emergency alert for a war,” a voice whispered. I recognized the voice. It was Braylie Daniels - my