“Oh, Jesus,” Ryder said as he stepped up next to me. He turned his head away and scrunched up his nose.
I dropped the corner of the blanket as though it was contaminated with some kind of infectious disease. My stomach turned. Only seconds ago, it had been unnecessarily keeping the dead body warm.
The smell from the corpse stung my nostrils. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it when I first came into the room. Perhaps it had settled and only filled the room after I’d moved the blanket.
My stomach twisted harder, and all I could think about was getting out of the room. I covered my mouth and pushed my way past Ryder.
Seconds later, I heard Ryder closing the door. “This room is off limits.”
“Claiming it for yourself?” Charlie asked with a silly giggle.
“No, it’s already been claimed.” Ryder stared at her as if trying to send her a telepathic message.
“Oh?” Charlie raised an eyebrow clearly not receiving his message.
Ryder stomped over to the fireplace. “Yeah, and he, or she, is still in there. Trust me when I say you don’t want to go in there. That’s not something you can unsee.”
“We’ve seen some shit,” Charlie said crossing her arms. She looked as though she was offended by his words.
“Just trust me OK?” Ryder said looking up at her. “Let it go.”
He stood and walked over to Logan, who was going through the piles of junk to see what he could use for the fireplace.
“Let’s go get some wood,” Ryder said.
Eli stepped out of the kitchen breathing heavily. “No need,” he said, and they both turned to him. “I think there’s some stuff we can use downstairs.”
Eli, Logan, Ryder, and Charlie all left the room to go have a look at whatever Eli had found. The room was quiet, and it felt like it was the first time I’d breathed since I’d met them.
I sat down on the somewhat cleaner floor next to Shawn. His body slowly moved up and down with each breath.
I looked over to see if his eyes were closed. It didn’t surprise me to see that they were. I could see them jerking around under his eyelids while he dreamed.
Shawn didn’t seem to care even a little that he was stuck with people he would have once considered his enemies. The thought of what they might do to him wasn’t keeping him awake with worry. But maybe falling asleep had been out of his control considering his condition. Maybe he had fought it but lost the battle.
Shawn needed the rest. He needed to get better.
The sooner he was well, the quicker we could leave this place behind, maybe find something similar far, far away from everyone up here in the north. We just had to keep going.
South.
It would be warmer.
I could grow food. Things had to be better. All we had to do was get there.
There would be fresh fish and plenty of water. I could have that life again, and I wouldn’t be alone.
Sure Charlie would be there, but maybe that was better than being stuck alone for the rest of my time on this planet. I would at least tell myself that it would be.
The gang ran up the stairs and had a fire going in minutes. The area in front of the fire warmed up rather quickly, and I was able to take off all my winter gear. I laid down and stared at the flames.
“Warm beans tonight, boys,” Eli said digging in his backpack.
“And girls,” Charlie said, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire.
Ryder looked out the window and sighed loudly. “It’s not going to last. We’re going to need to find more.”
“I’ve seen several wolves over the last few days,” Shawn said. “Could try to trap one. Or use that club if you can get close enough.”
Charlie grinned as if it was some kind of compliment to her.
“Probably won’t get close enough. But you might be on to something. Perhaps we can construct a trap with the junk in the basement.”
After we ate, Logan stared out the window into the darkness while Ryder and Eli worked downstairs. Occasionally, I’d hear something banging or falling. I wasn’t exactly sure what the noise was, but hopefully, it was the sounds of progress.
My stomach rumbled, and I closed my eyes. Visions of the feasts I used to eat with my mom and dad filled my mind.
It felt so real when my dad leaned closer and whispered into my ear. I could still hear his words when my eyes popped open.
Leave.
Run.
Don’t trust them.
13
When I woke, there was a bit of light coming in through the windows. It wasn’t morning, but it would be soon.
I was alone near the dwindling flames. After blinking several times, I spotted them all looking out of the front windows.
Shawn and Eli were at one window and Logan, Ryder and Charlie were squeezed together at the other. I couldn't even guess as to what was going on.
“What are you all doing?” I said walking up behind Shawn and Eli. I tried to peek between their shoulders, but I couldn’t see anything.
“Shh!” Eli said over his shoulder.
I lowered my voice quieter than a whisper. “OK, what’s going on?”
“Wolf,” Shawn said.
“You’re kidding,” I said pushing my way between them.
I could feel Eli’s eyes on me, but I ignored them. It wasn’t like I was going to scare it away from inside the house.
“Maybe we should use her gun,” Charlie whispered.
I was already shaking my head before anyone could even ask.
“Might be too loud. Plus is anyone here a good shot?” Ryder asked.
“I am, but we’re not using my gun,” I said touching the cool metal to make sure it was still there.
The wolf paused. Its ears twitched as if sensed someone was watching it. Then, it bolted.
“Nooooo!” Charlie whined as she stomped over to the fire.
I walked over to Ryder who was still at the window. He was probably hoping it would come back.
“How’s the trap coming along?” I asked.
He looked into my eyes and smiled. “It’s never going to work. It’s a sad contraption made from random metal bars. Wolf kicks over one of the bars, and a bigger bar falls on its head.”
“Sounds like it could work.”
“The trap is smaller than that wolf was. Maybe we could catch a fox,” Ryder said, crossing his arms.
“So you’re not even going to try?” I asked, my eyebrows squeezed together.
Ryder shook his head. “Nah, of course we’ll try, but my expectations are low. Yours should be too.”
“It probably won’t even come back,” Eli said stepping up between us. “Let’s go set it up in case he does come back.”
“Go on ahead, I’ll be right down,” Ryder said, turning back toward me. “Want to come with?”
I could feel the cold air blowing in through the cracks in the window frame. I bit my lip and shook my head. “Think I’ll watch from the window.”
“OK, but you’ll miss out on all the fun,” Ryder said glancing over at Shawn as he picked up his jacket.
“I’m all about taking those risks,” I said as he walked away. He looked at me over his shoulder, his expression was so contorted I couldn’t decipher it.
Logan followed them downstairs. It was so quiet, I could hear their muffled voices through the floorboards.
“He likes you, you know?” Charlie said, her expression blank as she twisted her fingers. “Not just like, normal like. A bigger like.”
I don’t know why but I quickly glanced at Shawn. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was slow.
“Not him.” Charlie shifted her eyes downward. “Ryder.”
My mouth felt dry. I moved my head side to side as if I was trying to shake her words away from my ears.
“It’s true,” she said, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Did he say that?” I asked, my voice felt as though it was getting stuck in my throat.
Her shoulders bobbed. “He didn’t need to.”
“Listen, I think you have it all wrong.”
“No, you listen,” Charlie said leaning forward, her eyes wide. “I’ve known him my whole life. Trust me. I know.”
I chewed on my lip. “Well, even if it were true, I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. I just want to get… where I'm going without trouble.”
Charlie cracked her neck to one side and then the other. Her eyes quickly shifted to Shawn and then back at me.
“Nothing. I just thought you should know,” she said resting her head back against the dirty wall. “Maybe we should melt some snow, wash our hair in the sink.”
At first I thought she was joking, but as it turned out, she was just crazy. Charlie was absolutely serious.
“Did you see the sink?” I asked. “It’s covered in filth.”
“Clean it.” Charlie shrugged.
“Pass.”
She tossed her long pigtails back. “Suit yourself stink-head.”
“Oh, Christ,” I muttered, and she flounced out of the room.
Something in the basement crashed loudly and rang out for several seconds. Metal. What the hell were they doing down there?
Shawn shifted his weight and groaned, keeping his eyes closed. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to say something, but I thought it might be rude.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s about your stinky head,” Shawn said unable to keep the smile off his face.
I lightly kicked my foot against his thigh, and he winced. “Oh shit, sorry,” I said getting closer. “I thought it was your other side. Dammit. I wasn’t thinking, are you OK?”
“I’m fine. It’s fine, stink—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it,” I said pressing my fingers to his lips. The second I heard them coming up the stairs I pulled back. My cheeks felt warm… perhaps I was too close to the barely burning fire.
Shawn’s eyes were on me. His lip curled up at the ends into a curious smile. If only I could read minds.
“All right, we’re going to go set this up,” Ryder announced as they banged pieces of their trap against the wall and then against the door as they exited.
The door closed and Shawn lightly touched my knee. My heart felt as though it skipped a beat when I looked into his sparkling eyes. I could stare at them forever.
“The Sink is clean!” Charlie said bouncing into the room. I inched back and turned to look at her. “And I found a bucket to collect my snow.”
“It’s cracked,” I said.
“If you have a better bucket let me know,” she said as she opened the door and disappeared from the house.
I could feel Shawn’s eyes on me.
“It's quiet,” Shawn whispered.
“Yeah, maybe too quiet,” I said pushing myself to my feet. I walked over to the window just so that I could breathe normally again.
The guys were taking turns trying to get a section of their trap to balance just right. They’d get it up, and in seconds it would tumble back down to the ground.
I smiled when Ryder kicked the snow in frustration. My dad had taught me how to trap animals but never anything as big as a wolf. More like something that would feed just one person.
Shawn groaned, and the floorboards creaked underneath him as he tried to get up.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
“Yeah, to get up.” The irritation in his voice was unmistakable. “Sorry,” he said turning to me, “I’m not used to lying around all day.”
“It’s probably good for you to move around.”
Shawn walked over to the window and peered out at them. He smiled. “That’s never going to work.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said with a small shrug.
“Sure. Yeah.” He turned to me and his eyes caught mine. “Do you think what Charlie said is true?”
I shook my head. “What did Charlie say?”
“About Ryder liking you.” He winced as he touched the cut near his eye. Shawn looked at his fingers, I could tell he expected to see them covered in blood. A tiny, perfectly round circle of blood had seeped through the bandage, but nothing at all major.
“I doubt it. She doesn’t like me. She’s probably just screwing with me.”
Shawn shook his head. “I don’t know. I think she’s telling the truth.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked looking away from his perfect eyes.
“I don’t know. Does she have a reason to lie about it?”
“No, but she’s just guessing.”
He shrugged. “An educated guess perhaps.”
“I don’t know, why are we even talking about this?” I asked as he took a step closer. My heart pounded a hard beat. What was happening? Why did I have to react to him in such a way? Was I afraid of him because of all of their talk about The Evolved?
Shawn stepped in front of me and looked into my eyes. “We can talk about whatever you want. I’d like to thank you again for saving me, but I know if I brought it up, it would just piss you off.”
“You got that right,” I said with wide eyes. “Let’s talk about something that has nothing to do with me.”
“That’s too bad. I find you very interesting,” Shawn said leaning forward ever so slightly. He was gazing deeply into my eyes as if he was trying to find something… something that would reveal everything about me to him.
We were inches apart when the front door swung open. I abruptly stepped away from Shawn as if I had been caught doing something I shouldn’t have been.
The second they were all inside Ryder slammed the door shut. They were all breathing heavily.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Ryder’s palms were pressed against the door. He looked over his shoulder at Shawn and me.
“They’re out there,” Ryder said.
“Who’s out there?” I asked.
I’d seen Ryder fighting with one of The Evolved, but he hadn’t looked anywhere near as frightened as he was now. “It’s the Natives.”
14
I ran over to the window and scanned the horizon. There wasn’t anything out there, at least as far as I could tell, that would have caused such a fright, but they were spooked to the core.
“Make sure all the doors and windows are locked,” Ryder said as he moved around checking the various doors and windows in the room. He stopped and glared at the others. “What are you waiting for? Help me!”
Everyone started to move around. Even Shawn was trying to help although at a much slower pace due to his injuries. A switch had been flipped, and they all seemed to be in fight, or rather defense, mode. Except for me. I couldn’t quite understand what was so bad about the natives. In fact, based on their definition, I would have been considered a native.
“What will they do if they find us?” I asked.
“This group is nasty. We’ve seen their work before,” Logan said in a rough, almost angry voice. “They’ll kill us.”
“And then they’ll eat us. That order if we’re lucky,” Charlie said running back to the front window, moving the curtain ever so slightly out of the way so she could peek out.
It seemed strange to me that both of these groups, Shawn from The Evolved and the others, ex-renegades or whatever, were both equally afraid of the natives.
It wasn’t like their groups hadn’t killed others. But I guessed the difference was the part about the natives going so far as to fill their bellies with their enemies.
“Your groups have killed for survival too, why is what they are doing any more terrifying?” I asked as I stared out the window, still not seeing what they had seen.
“We’re doing it because we are fighting for what we believe in. We take no pleasure in it. I don’t even know why they’re doing it,” Eli said.
Logan grunted. “Because they can.”
“Maybe, or maybe they’re doing it for what they believe in. Couldn’t that be the case for them?” I asked.
Ryder grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes. His eyebrows were pinched together. “It doesn’t matter why. They’ll kill you if they find us here. For all I know, they already saw us. I think we got inside quick enough, but if not, there are a good twenty of them out there. They won’t hesitate to kill us, all of us, and that includes you.”
“But I’m not a renegade or one of The Evolved,” I said shaking my head. Surely, they’d see I wasn’t marked.
“It doesn’t matter. They don’t give a shit about any of that. They’d kill a native if they wanted to,” Ryder said.
I could feel just how tense the situation was making him by how tightly he was gripping my shoulders. “I understand but you live with the threat of dying every single day, I don’t understand what makes the natives so much worse.”
“They like to play with their food,” Logan said, opening the bedroom door we weren’t supposed to open.
The putrid odor filled the room and stung my nostrils. Thankfully he was in and out of the room in seconds.
“Remember those three guys that tied you up?” Ryder asked. “They were natives, but it was a new way of life for them. What they did was nothing compared to what seasoned natives will do to us.”
“They’ll take over this whole place. Torture us. Store us in the basement, killing us one by one, and they’ll do it with a bloody smile on their faces. They don’t have a specific place they call home. They’ll stay here as long as they have food,” Charlie said, frowning. “I don’t want to see that happen to any of us.”
Her eyes quickly shifted to Ryder and stayed glued to him. It didn’t seem as though she was scared of the natives only for herself.
I instantly realized why Charlie hadn’t liked me. It was because she had some kind of feelings for Ryder. As far as she was concerned, I had gotten in her way.
“What about the fire? Won’t they see the smoke rising out of the chimney?” I asked.
“Jesus Christ,” Shawn said, quickly hobbling over to the fireplace. He moved so slowly that Ryder beat him to the already low flames.
Ravaged Land: Divided Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Books 1-3 Page 8
