Something else hits him then—a clarity of understanding regarding her use of unfamiliar words. He believes he knows what one of them is now—not the actual meaning, no—but the way it’s used, the connotation of voice when she uses it.
He uses that word now and it’s a verbally liberating feeling.
Within him, the pressure swells in his penis and Remy’s hole (cunt, she called it a cunt) tightens around it. Her legs wrap back around him as with each thrust, she helps grind him deeper into herself. The streaming hot liquid shoots out of him and fills her.
With that first shot of ejaculate, he screams, “I…”
He thrusts again, sending more of the white liquid inside of her.
“…Fucking…”
Another thrust.
“…Hate…”
Then the last.
“…You!”
He slumps to the ground and slowly rolls away from her.
Remy laughs.
Chapter Ten
“What’s that?” Her voice tears through him in much the same way his machete cleaves through the walking corpses skulls. Outside, the sun has made its way above the eastern horizon and streamers of yellow light punch through the vertical log walls, each one painting patterns of fiery gold on the hut’s west wall. He should have dug for clay a long time ago and filled all those holes, but it had never rained like this either.
Doesn’t matter, he thinks. By this time next year, he’ll probably be wondering the forest, searching for a new home because the river will have taken this one.
She slaps the back of his head and repeats, “What is that?”
He rolls over to face her, his eyes burn like the rising sun. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
She is either too stupid to ignore the menace in his voice, or doesn’t care. Maybe she’s more like him than he realizes. Maybe she’s looking for a way out of this life too, just as he’d dreamed the night before.
She repeats the question a third time. She doesn’t touch him, but points toward the dark ceiling that is just turning gray with the dawn. Amongst all the hanging baskets and trinkets he and his father collected over the years, his father’s dark scrolling words stand out against the gray like beacons.
He wants to roll back over and ignore her, but what good would that do? She’s here now and obviously not going anywhere anytime soon.
His voice is dry and throaty, “I don’t know… my dad carved them.”
Suddenly, her piercing laughter fills the small enclosure. “You’re kidding me, right? A virgin and a dummy? You mean you can’t read?”
She laughs again and he’s tempted to grab a log from the fire and bash it against her head.
“No… I never learned to read. My dad only had time to teach me how to survive. How to hunt… and how to trap game.”
“What? You don’t fish either?”
“Do you see a fishing pole? What about hooks?” He sweeps an arm around the room.
He doesn’t know why he holds back the information about the Snake River fish, but he does. He has no reason to, but it just seems right not to share that information with her. “But no… I don’t fish. Never needed to. There’s enough small game in the forest to feed me for a long time.”
“Oh really? So why did you bring back a fucking snake last night?”
Chris rises to his feet and stands over her. He glares down at her and debates what he wants to say. Before he walks out, he settles on, “I’ve eaten much worse than snake. It was either that... or nothing. Just be glad you had something.”
As he turns to leave, a thought occurs to him and he has to smile despite the events of the past day: Just wait until I cook you up a nice rat stew.
* * *
He stands too close to the northern cliff face for comfort, but at the moment, he really doesn’t care. If the river decides to take more of the peninsula, it can take him with it.
However, as he stands over the ledge, he notices just how much the river’s water level has gone down. He can distinctly see where the floodwaters have cut away a vertical line across the face of the cliff—it extends as far north as he can see. The water level now is at least ten feet below that line, which tells him that most of the rain these past few weeks was localized and didn’t extend too far north.
He doesn’t want to think about what would have happened if the storms still stretched northward—all that water draining south, right past the place he calls home. Any more and the river would have swallowed him days ago.
“So who’s Rose, Katherine, and George?”
Chris jerks around to face Remy. He was concentrating so hard on the river that he didn’t hear her walk up.
“What…?” he begins. Her question momentarily throws him off balance—that, and the pleasant lilt to her voice. It’s completely different than just a few minutes before—before—when … he… when he…
Turning back to the river, he doesn’t want to think about what just happened in the hut. With a quiet whisper, he says, “George was my father… I’ve never heard the other names before.”
“You mean, he never told you about your family?”
He has to turn around again and face her. There’s no mistaking the sudden caring tone. It’s as if the woman of a few minutes ago never existed—that she is a fabrication of his mind. Chris shakes his head slowly.
Her brow creases and for the briefest of moments, he catches a glimpse of that other Remy. A second later, the look is gone, replaced by what Chris believes is genuine concern.
“What is it?” she asks.
He shakes his head again and tries to move the conversation away from what he’s thinking. “Are those the names my father carved?”
She nods.
“What about the last one?”
“Christopher…”
He drops his gaze to the ground and trudges over to a stump. He sits down, places his elbows on his knees, and leans forward to stare at the leaf-strewn ground. “Me, my father, mother, and sister…”
Even though he couldn’t read the names, he knew the people in the photograph. Deep down within himself, he knew them. Sure, his dad’s image gave it away, but until now—now that he actually has names to put with the faces—it just didn’t seem real before.
Chris suddenly rises to his feet.
“What is it?” Remy asks, taking a step back.
He starts toward the hut. “I need to go check the traps.”
“You just going to leave me here again?”
He turns on her, suddenly angry and he doesn’t know why. “You were going to leave me!” he shouts, pointing back behind him—beyond the Picket Fence to the heavy forest beyond. He spins around and hurries to the hut. He has to get away from her before he does something stupid. Snatching up the machete, the bow, and a fistful of arrows, he sprints away.
* * *
The trails are monotonous, but it gives him time to think. What is he supposed to do with Remy? Will she stay? Will she up and leave? Then it occurs to him—where did she come from and how did she end up in this part of the forest?
Several years earlier, he and his dad huddle around a patch of ground cleared of leaves and debris. His father, holding a blunt stick, draws a variety of patterns in the soft dirt. He first draws a wiggly line. “This is the river,” he says, then points the stick to the left side of the line. “This is the forest.” The stick moves to the other side of the line. “And this is the floodplain.”
Chris’s back is to the river and he turns to look out across the flat expanse of land on the opposite side.
“Pay attention, Chris.”
Chris’s head snaps back around and he focuses on his father’s lesson.
“See this little spot of land jutting out into the river… it looks like a teardrop?”
Chris nods.
“This is where we are now… Homestead… understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
His dad draws a long line horizontal to the river, to the north of their
little spot on the river. He then draws another one far to the south. “These two lines are roads, they run east to west for miles and miles…”
“What’s a mile?”
“It’s a way to measure distance.”
Chris nods as if he understands and his dad turns back to the rough drawings. West of the river, he draws a straight vertical line that connects the two horizontal ones. Where it intersects the north road, he draws a circle. “This is a town where people like you and I used to live… before…” His voice trails off and Chris looks up at him. He waits for his dad to finish his thought, but he doesn’t. He jabs the stick at the circle. “Don’t ever go here, Chris. Places like this are overrun with the Tainted. Do you understand?”
“How do you know, dad? What if they’re all gone?”
His dad shakes his head. “I just know, son.”
Chris drops his gaze back to the rough drawing. “Are there any other towns?”
His dad grows silent for a time and Chris wonders if he’s going to answer. “Yes, there are more, but this is the closest one... and it’s more than half a day’s walk from here.”
Now it’s Chris’s turn to go quiet, until finally he asks, “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because… if you ever have to leave this place… and if I’m not here…”
“Why wouldn’t you be here, Dad?” Chris stands up, visibly shaken by the turn of conversation.
“Chris… Chris,” his dad rises and puts a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere… not anytime soon.”
“But you just said…”
“Chris, I’m just telling you if… I want you to be prepared for anything—and that includes not having me around forever.”
He hugs his son, then pulls away, holding Chris at arm’s length. “Can I finish now?”
Chris nods again but remains standing as his father kneels back down to the dirt map. His dad draws a couple of arrows west, pointing away from their home along the river, but not toward the town. “I want you to promise me to stay away from towns. If you have to leave, go due west or even south-west… and stay off the roads. The roads can be just as dangerous as the towns.”
Chris did promise his dad that he would do as instructed, but now, as he walks the trail to check his traps for food, he wonders if maybe Remy has come from that town. She doesn’t seem like the type of person that could have walked all that distance by herself—if indeed she was by herself.
He has no proof, but suddenly has the feeling that Remy did have a group of others with her—and she abandoned them to the mob of Tainted just as she attempted to do to him. Again, he has no proof, but in the short time he’s known her there’s no other way she could have survived. She couldn’t have been alone—at least, not for any length of time.
Chris comes to an abrupt stop and listens to the trail ahead. There’s a noise, near the next trap. He eases forward, covering the next few feet with light steps. While he’s excited that there may be a rabbit or squirrel waiting for him, he also remembers his father’s lessons. Approaching a wild animal like this is dangerous for the obvious reasons. Rodents have sharp claws and teeth and can strike out like lightning, tearing into Chris’s flesh before he can react or move away.
Then there’s the other danger—the fact that a trapped animal makes lots of noise as it attempts to free itself. That noise attracts the Tainted, so Chris takes his time approaching. What he sees surprises him. Strung up by its back legs is a small boar. His mouth begins to water. He can’t remember the last time he’s had a slab of sizzling pork.
Chris raises the machete and pushes through the underbrush toward the boar. Its squeals intensify, the sound bouncing off the trees and echoing through the forest like an audible beacon calling out to any Tainted within hearing distance. He rushes forward to make the kill.
As he steps into the clearing, there’s a heavy rustling of brush and a deep grunt to his left. He spins that direction, ready to confront the approaching corpse—but there’s no corpse there. Pushing its way through the undergrowth is the largest hog Chris has ever seen. Its tusks curl around its muzzle and are at least six inches long.
Chris freezes, eyes locked on those sharp tusks and the danger they represent.
The boar sprints toward him.
Chapter Eleven
Chris ducks to the right, spinning away from the boar at the last second and with only inches to spare between himself and the boar’s tusks. As he moves, he strikes out with the machete but only succeeds in slapping the boar on the head with the flat of the blade. He rolls onto the ground, springs back to his feet, then turns to face the boar again. The animal grunts heavily, mucus and saliva dripping from its muzzle in long streamers.
The smaller hog continues to thrash and scream where it hangs. Chris has to shut the thing up soon, or else…
He can’t finish his thought because the boar is attacking again. The creature outweighs Chris by at least a hundred pounds, but instead of ducking away, he turns the machete around in his hand so the blade is facing down. It’s not a stabbing weapon by any means, but Chris keeps it so sharp he believes a stabbing motion might still work. He waits until the last possible moment, steps to the side, then brings the machete down.
The boar turns toward him, one of its ivory tusks rips into Chris’s pants—luckily missing his flesh. The machete blade catches the boar behind the head and between the shoulder blades, separating the skin and driving downward several inches. Chris leaps toward the animal, using his body’s weight to drive the blade down further into the boar's chest cavity.
The animal squeals in pain and slides to the ground in a shower of dirt and leaves. Chris watches the animal warily. It’s still alive, but only just. A bloody foam forms on its snout and a stream of crimson leaks from its mouth. Its great bulk shudders as it strains to catch one more breath.
Finally, the creature is still. Chris retrieves his machete and makes quick work of the smaller pig. A blessed silence descends and he spends several minutes listening—waiting… analyzing the slightest noises for further danger. He unwraps the rope from the smaller boar then stands over the larger one. There’s no way he can carry the animal back—it’s just too large.
He rummages through his pack and removes a sheet of plastic. He usually uses it to keep his clothes dry in a rainstorm, but it’ll have to serve a different purpose today. He’ll slice off as much meat as he can carry and wrap it in the plastic.
* * *
“What are you doing?”
Chris stands in the hut’s doorway. Remy sits on the ground, the red, plastic box rests beside her. Spread out before her on the dirt is every picture from the box.
Remy glances up, her gaze slides across Chris then falls back to the pictures, dismissing him as if he hadn’t spoken and as if these pictures were hers to do with what she will.
“What are you doing with…”
“Oh, just shut up, Christopher… I’m just looking.”
He tosses his gear and the dead pig to the ground and stumbles inside, falling heavily to his knees. He starts to snatch the pictures off the ground and put them into the box—transferring pig blood from his hands in the process. He sits back onto the ground and holds up one of the pictures. He wants to cry—to lash out—maybe even kill something… yes, he wants to kill. The picture he holds is of his family—and there’s a bloody smudge completely obscuring his father’s image.
* * *
As much as he hates hearing his father’s voice in his head, something about no longer having the image of him is upsetting. He spits on his fingers, swirls the blood around, and wipes them on his pants. He does this a few more times until his fingers are relatively clean. He wets his thumb again and carefully tries to wipe off the drying blood—however, all he succeeds in doing is smearing the blood and ink together. As sudden as the feeling to retaliate against Remy came, it is now gone—the feeling of rage replaced by deep sadness.
He continues to stare at the phot
ograph as a wave of depression sweeps through him. He’s tired of these constant flip-flopping emotions. Before meeting Remy, everything had been fine. Sure, he’d been alone with only his father’s disembodied voice to keep him company, but at least he’d been happy—at least he’d known where each day would begin, end, and only had to worry about the river and what Tainted crossed his path. Based on his time with Remy, he is beginning to believe that there are only two options for his future: cut ties with her (however he can accomplish that) and live on his own, or succumb to the Tainted and either die as food, or become one of the lifeless living.
While he stares at the photograph, Remy is uncharacteristically quiet. He raises his gaze and their eyes lock. Deep lines furrow her brow and her eyes narrow with concentration. Her eyes seem to pierce through him, reading his deepest emotions and loving the fact that he is so confused, so angry.
She speaks and her words pry at the fragile lid containing his anger. “Aww… is the little man going to cry?”
* * *
Chris doesn’t remember doing it, but the evidence is right there in front of him, hidden behind Remy’s hand.
“You son of a bitch.” She rubs at the red welt where he backhanded the right side of her face. A tear leaks from her eye and spills down the red skin, but there is nothing but hate in those eyes. “I hope you’re a light sleeper…”
He interrupts her, leaning over her with his face inches from hers. “Do it!” he shouts. “Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to end it all… and you can get your own food from here on out!”
She shrinks back as if he’d struck her again, but he has a feeling he knows why. Wherever she came from, she was always used to getting her way—used to saying what she wanted and never having any repercussions. If she were to go through with her unspoken threat, she’d be alone again—and she can’t survive on her own.
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