ANYONE ELSE?: (ANYONE Series Book 2) A post-apocalypic survival novel

by Angela Scott

  Cole reset the pins and returned with my ball.

  I couldn’t help but do a little victory dance like football players do after a touchdown. “Did you see that?” I put my hands above me and shimmied.

  He cocked his head. “Three pins is a good start.”

  “You’re damn right it is.” I attempted a Michael Jackson moonwalk back to my seat, relishing my moment.

  He caught me around the waist, stopping my goofiness. We stood like that for a moment, me standing in front of him with his hands on my hips. “You’re something else,” he finally spoke.

  I winked. “Something else in a good way, right?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t remove his hands either.

  “Right?” I tried again, not exactly sure what was going on. Had I done something wrong? Maybe three pins weren’t something to be overly excited about, but weren’t we supposed to be having fun? I thought that was the whole point.

  “Too good.” It came out barely above a whisper.

  My smile faded. “Is everything okay?”

  Again, he didn’t answer, staring at me.

  We just stood there without saying a word, his hands on my hips, him watching me, and me watching him.

  “Cole, are we okay?”

  He released his breath and his hands from my waist at the same time and stepped back. He looked away for a moment, as if thinking. He turned back to me. “Yeah, everything’s good. I just think—” He stopped and turned his head toward the door. “Did you hear that?”

  I turned my head, too, listening. I heard nothing.

  “Bob’s awake.”

  I still didn’t hear anything.

  “Umm … why don’t you go ahead and try to hit some more pins. I’ll go check on the kid. I’ll be back in a minute.” He didn’t change his shoes but quickly left the room.

  I decided to wait. Bowling without an audience wouldn’t be the same. Victory dances weren’t only for the victor. If I hit even one more pin, I planned to dance my heart out.

  I waited.

  Cole didn’t come back.

  Chapter 42

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I stood inside the doorframe to see Cole sitting on a chair, his arms resting on his legs. Bob contently slept on the bed surrounded by a wall of pillows, and Callie lay spread-eagle, eyes closed, on her back — just the way I had left them.

  Bob woke up, my ass!

  I stared him down, hands on hips. “It was your idea to have fun. You created an amazing time downstairs, and then you ditched me. You ditched me.” Yeah, I was pissed. More than just a little. “What is wrong with you?”

  He jumped to his feet and looked the same way I assumed a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar would. “Shhh, you’ll wake him.”

  I really didn’t care. Okay, maybe I did. I had a lot to say to Cole and if Bob woke up it would ruin my moment of wrath and damnation. I pointed at Cole and motioned for him to step out into the hallway.

  He hesitated.

  I mouthed the word now and crossed my arms over my chest. Oh, no, he wasn’t going to get away with treating me like that. He had some explaining to do and nowhere to run.

  I waited for him, giving him a look that read, I’m not going anywhere, and stepped into the hall.

  He didn’t come out of the room all that quickly, the coward. When he finally emerged, he shut the door behind him, leaving it open a crack. “For the record, I really did think he woke up.”

  “But he didn’t, and you said you’d come back.”

  He tucked his hands in his front pockets. “I know.”

  “I waited almost forty minutes for you!” I threw my arms up. “What’s your deal, Cole? Why the balloons and bowling if you were going to run off? Did I do something?”

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t do anything. You were just being you.”

  “What does that even mean?” He was so damn frustrating!

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Forget I said it. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  I waved my hands up and down in front of myself. “This is me.” I glanced down. “Well, except for the dress and bowling shoes. That’s not really my style, but everything else is me. It’s who I am. If me ‘being me’ makes you run off and treat me like this, then I’m not sure what we’re going to do here, because I don’t know how to be anything else.”

  He leaned against the banister. “I don’t want you to be anything else.”

  I placed my hands on either side of my head and squeezed my eyes shut. “You’re making no sense.” When I opened them again, I narrowed my gaze at him. “You do realize that, right?”

  “I’m the one who needs to change, Tess.” He placed a hand on his chest. “And I’m trying. I really, really am. I thought we could have fun down there.” He pointed to the balloon-covered floor below. “I wanted to do something to take your mind off things and give you a chance to be normal for a moment, but then it became all…” He waved both hands around in a chaotic way. “…magical, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  He stepped closer to me but kept space between us. “Magical. Yes, I said it. It was like we were on a date. Kudos to me, because I did a good job of putting that all together, but that’s not the point here. The point is, it was not a date. It was not a date whatsoever.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “And I’m a guy, Tess, in case you haven’t noticed.” He shrugged. “I think guy stuff. I feel guy stuff. I do guy stuff, but I’m also a guy who should know better, and who’s trying to keep the situation between us from becoming weird. Then I blow up balloons, toss glitter, and lace up your shoes for you. Who does that?” He pointed both thumbs at himself. “This guy. This big stupid man. This dodo-head who’s been running laps, jumping over baby equipment, and shooting hoops whenever we start getting too close, because someone has to be the one to say stop sniffing me before a line is crossed that can’t be uncrossed.”

  Yeah, I had totally forgotten about the sniffing thing. Not my finest moment.

  But in all his stupid-man, dodo-head business was the hidden gem — he liked me.

  I smiled. I didn’t mean to. It kind of just happened.

  He pointed at me. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “That thing you’re doing right now.”

  “I’m not doing—”

  “Tess, this is a real moment we’re having here. I’m opening myself up to you right now, so put that away.”

  “Put what away?” I couldn’t stop smiling. I couldn’t.

  “That.” He pointed at me.

  “My face? Put away my face?”

  “Just stop, okay?”

  “I can’t help it if I’m adorable.”

  He gave me a serious look. This wasn’t the time for funny quips.

  “Okay.” I cleared my throat and attempted to remove the curl from my lips, which wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. My face twitched back and forth between crazy smiles and awkward frowns. “I’m trying.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Maybe because I’m kind of happy about this.” An underlying current was there between us that we never talked about. Now, we were.

  “Why?” His brows furrowed as he motioned to the two of us. “This isn’t a good thing. This can’t happen.”

  My smile faded. “Says who?”

  “Says…” He paused. “Says the world.”

  I could tell it was a grasping at straws kind of answer, and I grabbed his hand and led him to an adjacent bedroom, opened the door, and marched him out onto the balcony. “What world, Cole? What world?”

  Ash, smoldering bits of rubble, and a whole lot of nothingness stretched in either direction, except the burnt mountain. Everything was gone. All of it.

  He turned and looked at me. “There’s still a world out there, Tess.”

  “Oh, really, now? Hmmm … all I see is remnants of one.”

  He didn�
��t say anything.

  “And even if there was more,” I went on, “who cares? If we happened to find someone, anyone at all in this mess, don’t you think they’d be happy other people were alive? That they found us? I doubt anyone would be like, hey, what’s up with you two? Because if you guys have a thing going on, I’ll take my chances on my own.”

  He leaned against the railing, looked out over the vast nothingness, and shook his head. “It scares me that you think it’s possible for the two of us to have a thing.”

  I walked over and leaned against the railing next to him. “Cole, we already do.”

  He didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything either.

  We stared out over the charred, lifeless space that stretched out in front of us, both still wearing our designer clothes and bowling shoes.

  Where we went from here, I had no idea. Our relationship was a complicated one. It always had been. We continually flitted between utter contempt and infatuation for one another. Did it have a lot to do with our age difference? Most likely.

  Because if it weren’t for the whole apocalypse situation, would we even give each other a second glance in any other scenario? Definitely not. Adult male. Teenage girl. Not a recipe for acceptable interactions.

  But here we were. The apocalypse had tossed us together, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

  “What are we going to do?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  In a world where rules and morality no longer seemed to matter, I still didn’t have the answers. Knowing he didn’t have the answers either terrified me. I liked him, and he liked me, but it wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Could we continue as we were, keep doing as we’ve always done? No touchy, no feely? Was it even possible? But if we moved forward, tested the boundaries of our relationship, what would happen then? Would it mess everything up?

  I almost wanted to freeze time where we were, leaving the possibility of something more between us open while avoiding the possible consequences if we happened to be wrong.

  I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t either. The silence between us should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t. There was almost a respectful element to it as we both seemed to realize the predicament we were in.

  Bob’s wakeful frets and fussiness carried out through the open balcony doors, interrupting any further discussion we might have — if we were going to discuss anything once we worked our way out of the weeds of silence.

  I didn’t say anything as I turned from the balcony and made my way to Bob.

  Back to life’s reality. No more bowling No more balloons.

  As I stepped away, I realized my relationship with Cole would continue as it had, good, but the same. I needed to be okay with that. I had to be.

  I sighed.

  Maybe it was for the best.

  Cole reached out and took my hand. He threaded his fingers through mine, but he didn’t pull me close. We stood our distance with only our outstretched hands connecting us.

  “Just so you know,” he said, as he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “I can’t imagine life without you either.”

  Chapter 43

  “Here.” I pointed to a relatively small section in the middle of the U.S. map, after spending hours upon hours going through scribbled notes, dates, and random papers, that was left unmarred by giant red X’s.

  Cole balanced Bob on his hip as he leaned over the massive dining table to get a better look. “Hmmm…”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just—”

  Callie leaped onto the table, knocking over a few papers. She strutted her stuff right on top of the map without any regard to the importance of what we were doing. Darn cat.

  “No.” I snatched her up right before she plopped on the map to begin grooming. “You can’t be on the table.”

  She allowed me to give her one quick pet before meowing for me to let her down. “Stay off the table,” I warned her, though I knew well enough she’d probably attempt it again.

  Animals. Selfish little buggers.

  I turned my attention back to Cole. “What were you going to say? It’s just what?”

  He shrugged and raised his brows. “Kansas?”

  Honestly, that had been my first thought, too. I grabbed a black marker and drew a circle a little smaller than the size of my hand. It was nice to draw something different other than an X for a change. “Where else on this map can you draw a circle this size?”

  “No, I see that,” Cole said. “But why the Kansas-Oklahoma area? Because when I think of the mid-west, I picture tornado alley, cornfields, and a lot of flat nothingness. I’m not getting a whole new world vibe from this.”

  I shuffled a couple of papers until I found what I was looking for. With the same marker, I drew the circle, placing several dots. “McConnel, Vance, Tinkle, Altus, and Little Rock.” Wasn’t it obvious?

  Cole stared at me.

  Apparently, it wasn’t. “You don’t see it?”

  He shrugged. “I see it, but I don’t—”

  I pointed to the dots again. “Air force bases. These are all air force bases that are really close to one another … relatively speaking.” They weren’t like close-close, but to have five air force bases in a single span of area that didn’t have X’s all over it had to mean something.

  “Okay.”

  I put my marker down and looked at him. “That’s all you’ve got to say? Just ‘okay’?”

  “I thought it was a good answer when I said it. Can’t think of anything else, really.”

  I tapped the map. “The area is pretty much mid-point of the country, not exact, but close enough. It’s a good meeting place for people coming from any direction — north, south, east, west.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Then what’s your problem?” Before I had declared this great revelation to him, pointing out the largest section on the map left unmarred by red X’s, I’d felt incredible like I’d discovered plutonium or something. Now, not so much.

  Cole placed Bob on the ground, handing the baby a fresh bottle before pulling a chair out from the table and sitting. He turned and stared at me much like a person about to deliver unwelcomed news.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down, too. “Fine,” I said. “Go ahead. Burst my bubble.”

  The dream killer, the hope smasher, the joy destroyer.

  “I don’t want to kill your hopes—”

  I held up my hands, stopping him. “Seriously, you’ve got to tell me how you do that?”

  He appeared confused. “Do what?”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “You’re always saying things right after I think them. Seriously, it’s strange. Kind of cool, but still weird.”

  “You think I kill your hopes?”

  “Something like that.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, mirroring me. “That’s not my intention.”

  I shrugged. “Yet, you’re still going to do it, right?”

  “I’m not against Kansas,” he said, as he picked up a fussing Bob and laid him against his shoulder. He placed the empty baby bottle on the table. Bob immediately closed his eyes and began sucking his thumb — a new habit.

  “Well, it kind of sounds like you are.”

  “To be honest, we’ve spent hours in here, combing through all of this, and I don’t feel as though we’re any better off than when we started.”

  Is he kidding me?

  “How can you say that?” I really couldn’t understand how he could possibly think that way. I touched the map again to emphasis my point since he obviously wasn’t getting it. “Look at this section of map. It makes sense.”

  Cole rubbed Bob’s back in circular motions. “It only makes sense because you want it to make sense.”

  That didn’t make sense.

  “Then explain to me why it doesn’t. Tell me why you don’t see what I do.” I kept my hand on the large circle drawn on the map, as if placing
my hand over it would shield it from anything he might say.

  “Lack of X’s doesn’t mean anything. For your sake, I want it to. It only means we don’t know what’s going on in that section of the map.”

  Incredulous. “We do know what’s going on — nothing. No tsunamis or hurricanes like in Florida or all along the East Coast. No earthquakes destroying much of California. That’s why there are no X’s on Kansas.” I indicated all the papers, post-it notes, index cards, everything. “There’s nothing about Kansas and Oklahoma in all of this! We’re only going around and round the point here.”

  He released his breath. “I’m realizing that.”

  I took my hand off the map, leaned back in my chair, and crossed my arms over my chest. “So, why are we discussing this then?”

  “Because I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “And now we’re back to the whole ‘hope killer’ bit again.”

  “Tess…” He lowered a sleeping Bob into the crook of his arm as he kept his eyes on me. “Just because there isn’t evidence of destruction in Kansas doesn’t mean there isn’t.”

  Duh.

  “I’m sure they’ve suffered, too. It’s Kansas and Oklahoma, after all, and I can use the reverse logic on you by saying that because there isn’t evidence of destruction shouldn’t mean we assume there is.” Wow, look at me being all smart.

  “How many airplanes have you seen?”

  “What?”

  “Airplanes? How many have you seen since coming out of your bunker almost a half a year ago? How many?”

  I could see where he was going, and I didn’t like it. “Just because I haven’t seen any doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

  He held up a finger. “Doesn’t mean they are.”

  That old crappy logic again.

  “The planes could be helping in other areas of the country. Maybe the south. There’s a whole chain-link fence that stretched for miles across the mudflats, warning people to stay out. It would only make sense not to send planes this way. We’re considered a lost cause.”

  Cole simply nodded.

  “Or maybe there are no planes, like you said, but that doesn’t change the fact that those bases are still there.”