by Tim McBain
“Maybe it was your Lucky Makeout Braids. Did you ever think of that?”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was the top.”
I didn’t say that the real magic was probably from her Stolen Airplane Bottles of Makeout Booze.
Bumping me with an elbow, she asked, “When are you going to make a move on Max?”
“Uh, probably never,” I said, staring down at my feet.
“Why not?”
“Because. He doesn’t like me like that.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s nineteen. I’m sixteen.”
“So what? I’m eighteen,” she gave me a hard look, I guess to remind me that she would stab-murder me if I blew her cover, “and Bennett’s twenty-three. That’s a bigger age gap.”
I wanted to say that Bennett is also a skeeze while Max is a perfect gentleman, but I knew it would only make her mad.
Instead I said, “Apples and oranges.”
Breanne sighed.
“Well, now you learned something.”
“What?”
“Next time, be eighteen, like me.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. She is so ridiculous.
Your wide-eyed and unworldly BFF,
Erin
Erin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The morning after
Kelly-
Holy.
Crap.
OK, I need to take a deep breath before I start, or I might skip over something important and ruin the whole story.
So remember how I was complaining about the air raid siren the other day? Well, it started up again last night, not long after lights out. Since nothing happened last time, we kind of all figured it was the same deal. And like I said, after a while, you just get used to it. Enough that you can fall asleep.
I was still working on the sleep part. Mostly because it’s so freaking hot. Our tent is stifling, and I think I mentioned the stupid down sleeping bags.
So I was sprawled out on top of the sleeping bag, eyes closed, trying not to think about banshees hovering over my cot waiting to eat my soul.
And then something grabbed my arm.
Actually, not something. Someone.
The only reason I didn’t scream is because I was so terrified, no sound would come out. I froze. The word petrified makes total sense now. I was exactly like a dried up piece of wood.
A face materialized in the darkness of the tent.
Breanne.
Of course. She had this goofy grin on her face, and I could tell she was trying hard not to laugh. I smelled alcohol on her breath.
She pressed a finger to her lips and tugged me off the cot. When she gestured toward the door of the tent, I pointed a finger at my mom. Breanne frowned and then pressed her mouth to my ear.
“I have to show you something.”
Her whisper seemed so loud after the monotony of the air raid siren, I was worried even the smallest sound might register enough to wake my mom. I figured I’d be better off dealing with Breanne away from our tent.
I ruffled up my sleeping bag and pillow in such a way that in the dark, it would appear as if I were still in the cot. My eyes strayed to my mom’s sleeping bag the whole time, terrified she would roll over and wake up and catch me out of bed with a drunk Breanne.
Finished with my ruse, Breanne latched onto my wrist and dragged me outside. We were barely ten feet from the tent door when she let out a laugh.
“Man, you should have seen your face! I’m surprised you didn’t crap the bed.”
“Shh!”
My shushing made her laugh even more.
“What the hell are you doing? If my mom wakes up—”
“If your mom wakes up,” she said in this mocking tone she does sometimes when I try to explain that my mom is a control freak. “Your mom needs to chill out.”
As if I don’t already know that.
“Seriously, Breanne.”
I could tell by her face that she wanted to mock me again, but then she seemed to change her mind.
Instead, she grabbed both of my hands with hers and said, “I have a surprise for you. Just trust me.”
She linked her arm in mine and hauled me past the other tents, through the fence, and all the way to the edge of the woods.
Have you ever been in the woods at night, Kel? It’s creepy as fuck. Even when it already seems pitch black, it somehow gets even blacker. Breanne kept hold of me the whole way, so every time one of us tripped over a root or twig, the other one did, too. I’m surprised we didn’t snap all four of our collective ankles, but Breanne was just giggling up a storm the whole time. I guess if I’d been drunk, I might have thought it was all a big laugh, too. But when she offered me one of the mini bottles, I declined.
“Suit yourself,” she said and sucked the whole thing down in two gulps.
Somehow we made it through the haunted forest unscathed, and then the clearing with the stream opened up before us. I will say, despite the tyrannical heat wave and the piercing wail of the siren, it was kind of magical back there at night. The moonlight sparkling down on the water. The black outline of the trees against the inky sky. I felt like I was in Harry Potter or something for a moment.
We jumped over to the other side of the stream so we could sit on the edge of this big sheared off rock and dangle our legs in the water. It was cold, but the night was so hot, the chill was welcome. It was maybe the best I’ve felt in days.
Suddenly Breanne stood and pulled her shirt over her head.
“Come on.”
I stared up at her as she unhooked her bra.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going in.”
Breanne peeled off the rest of her clothes, tossed them in a pile on top of the shale, then slipped into the stream. The cold made her gasp, and then she laughed.
“That feels so good. Are you coming in or what?”
“What if someone comes back here and sees?”
“It’s past midnight, dummy. Who’s going to see us?” She twirled around in a circle. “Now stop being a pussy.”
I swished my legs back and forth against the current. The water did feel awesome. And she was right. No one was going to come back here. Not in the middle of the night. So I turned my back to her and stepped out of my pajamas.
The river squeezed the breath out of me when I hopped in. Breanne grinned at me, and I grinned back.
“See?” Breanne said.
I splashed my face and then dipped my whole head under. The air raid siren sounded warbly and strange underwater. I popped to the surface and smoothed my wet hair back over my shoulders.
“Hey, you’ve got a nice rack, Erin,” Breanne said.
She reached out like she was going to honk one of my boobs, but I swished backward in the water.
“Quit!”
There was a sound like a car door thunking shut, and my breath caught in my throat. It sounded close, but I hadn’t seen any headlights. And Breanne didn’t seem alarmed at all.
I was about to ask if she’d heard the noise when two silhouettes appeared. I could tell by the height and build that they were both men.
My heart thudded in my chest. I knew we should get out of the water, that we should dive for our clothes and run into the woods, but I couldn’t move.
The men came forward. And then I saw in the light of the crescent moon that it was Bennett.
And Max.
Bennett nudged him and said, “Didn’t I tell you your jailbait would be here?”
Then he smirked down at Breanne and me.
He had to sort of yell to be heard over the siren.
“You didn’t wait for us?”
Breanne swam closer to me and looped an arm around my shoulder. Her skin was all slippery where it pressed against mine.
“We got hot,” she said, doing that annoying husky phone-sex-operator voice she does around Bennett sometimes.
The realization kind of h
it me in waves. This was the surprise she’d mentioned. She’d told them to come. She convinced me to get in the water with her — naked — knowing they were coming. Knowing Max was coming.
“Are you going to join us, or what?” she asked.
Bennett didn’t seem to need any further encouragement. His hand went for his belt, and he started undoing his pants.
Max, on the other hand, looked unsure. Maybe a little embarrassed at seeing us, though the water was thankfully high enough that he couldn’t see much. As soon as Bennett bent down to yank off his boots, I ducked out of Breanne’s grasp, paddled to the opposite shore, and climbed out as fast as I could. I was quick, but they definitely got a glimpse of my bare ass.
“Where are you going?” Breanne called after me.
I scooped my clothes from the rock as I ran into the bushes, out of sight.
My skin was still dripping wet, but I pulled on my clothes anyway. It felt horrible. Dry clothes on moist skin. Blech. I cursed Breanne under my breath as I tied the drawstring of my PJ pants.
I mean, what the actual hell was she thinking? Did she think we were all going to get together and have a drunken orgy in the woods or something? Ridiculous.
I stood there in the darkness of the woods for a while, trying to decide what to do. Max most definitely saw me as I climbed out of the stream. The idea of looking him in the eye after that was too embarrassing to imagine. And then there was Bennett. But mostly I was worried about Max.
I couldn’t believe Breanne tricked me into skinny-dipping. So stupid.
I considered trying to find my way back to camp, bypassing the trail in the woods. But it was so dark, just standing in the blackness at the very edge of the trees was too creepy. If I got lost out there…
So I crept back toward the river and peeked out from behind a wild honeysuckle bush. Breanne and Bennett were swimming around together, two heads floating just above the water’s surface.
I wasn’t sure what I should do. The idea of leaving Breanne made me hesitate. I still wasn’t sure exactly why she’d brought me. I guess in some bizarre way, she probably thought she was doing me a favor. Trying to get me and Max together… sans clothing.
But I also thought she might have been a little afraid of being naked and totally alone with Bennett, and she’d brought me along as a sort of buffer. A chaperone.
Or maybe she just wanted an audience.
A minute went by, maybe two. And I was still standing there, feeling like I had some obligation to stay and babysit Breanne. On the other hand, I didn’t want to actually watch her and Bennett all that closely, because I felt like a weird perv.
And then something bumped against my shoulder, and I actually shrieked. Luckily the air raid siren blotted out most of it, but Max still laughed pretty hard.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
He was half-shouting over the siren.
“I… didn’t see you,” I said.
“You disappeared so fast before. I thought you turned into a jackrabbit when you hopped out of that water.”
I felt my face get hot again when I thought about him seeing me naked, and I took a step away.
“I just got cold. That’s all. The water is freezing.”
I think he sensed that I was uncomfortable, because he stopped smiling and looked me in the eye.
“You know, I didn’t know about all this.”
He waved in the general direction of Breanne and Bennett, whose voices periodically rose above the level of the siren.
“I mean, Bennett told me you would be here,” he said. “But I didn’t know about… the rest.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little giddy at the idea that he was kinda sorta saying he came to see me.
After a pause, he asked, “Do you want to go back? To camp, I mean? I can walk you. There’s a flashlight in the Humvee.”
I chewed on my lip and glanced sideways at the black water shimmering under the silver moon.
“I feel like I shouldn’t leave Breanne,” I said, semi-worried that he’d think I was saying I didn’t trust his friend.
But Max only nodded, like it made perfect sense, and I remembered that he’d warned me once before that Bennett was a jerk.
We were more or less yelling to hear each other over the siren. Max reached out and tugged on the sleeve of my t-shirt, indicating that I should follow him. Breanne and Bennett were still in the water, slobbering and pawing at each other like two horny sea lions.
I followed Max over to the Hummer, and we climbed up on the hood, resting our backs against the windshield. I could see the ripples from where Breanne and Bennett’s movements disturbed the water, and sometimes I could hear her giggle or playfully tell him to “Stop that!” So even though I didn’t have eyes on them, I didn’t feel like I was abandoning her.
Max said something then, but I couldn’t hear what it was. He bent closer and put his mouth right by my ear instead of yelling.
“I don’t know if I made it clear before, but what I was trying to say is that I didn’t come out here with any ill intentions,” he said. “I’m not a letch.”
I could feel the little percussive pops of air against my skin when he pronounced a hard consonant, and the sibilance of words that ended with S fluttered against my hair. I got goose bumps all over. This was not like Mrs. Hennigan’s gross moist math-breath.
“I know that,” I managed to say.
“Good.”
I’d scooted closer so he wouldn’t have to slouch so much while we talked. When he leaned toward me, his chest pressed into my shoulder, and the warmth of his body against mine sent a rush of blood to my head.
“Though I have to say… and I know I probably shouldn’t say it since you’re only sixteen and all… but you do have a nice ass.”
Thank God it was dark out, because I don’t think I’ve ever blushed that hard before.
“Uh… thanks, I guess,” I said.
“I’m assuming you didn’t know either?”
“About what?”
“That Bennett and I were coming?”
“God, no.”
“Have you two come out here and done this before?”
“No!” I guess I must have looked horrified or something because Max’s hissing laugh tickled my cheek.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I know she’s eighteen, but she should be more cognizant of the fact that you’re only sixteen.”
I scoffed.
“She’s not even eighteen.”
“She’s not?”
“No, that’s just what she told Bennett. She doesn’t turn eighteen until September.”
I don’t know why I blew Breanne’s cover like that, but it was too late now. I guess I was still pissed at her for the whole tricking me into getting naked thing.
Max glanced over to where the two lovebirds were tangled up with each other in the water and then back and me. He started to chuckle again.
“That. Is. Hilarious.”
“Why?”
“Because Bennett’s always giving me shit about hanging around you. Calling you jailbait and whatever.”
That bummed me out. It was becoming more and more clear that Max would never consider me anything more than a sixteen-year-old kid.
“Oh man,” he said, still amused.
It hit me for the first time that he might tell Bennett what I’d said, which of course would get back to Breanne, and I’d never hear the end of that. Actually, I probably would hear the end of it, because she’d never speak to me again.
“You can’t say anything to him,” I warned.
“Are you kidding? This is perfect! I finally have ammo for the next time he tries to assign me to some bullshit detail.”
I clutched at the sleeve of his shirt, desperate for him to listen to what I was saying. “No, you can’t do that!”
“Why not?” He seemed entertained by how panicked I’d gotten.
“Because he’ll say something to Breanne—”
“She shouldn’t have lied.”
“But she’ll get pissed at me!”
Max had this glint in his eyes, and I didn’t know if he’d meant any of what he’d said or if he was just trying to rile me up.
“You’re gonna have to come up with something to trade me for it then. Because this is too good.”
I was still grasping his shirt in my fist, and I realized that we were face to face now, and really close. Super close.
“Like what?” I asked.
My pulse was thumping out of control again, and the extra adrenaline from Max’s proximity made me feel almost short of breath. I wished just then that I hadn’t gotten out of the water. That I’d stayed and just… let things happen for once.
Max didn’t answer right away, he just kept watching me, and I realized he didn’t have that manic look anymore. He looked very serious. Almost pained. And I could feel his chest rising and falling under my arms. He was breathing hard, too.
His lips parted, and I swear he was either going to kiss me or say something about kissing me, Kel. I could just sense it.
So his mouth opened, and I held my breath, and then there was a tremendous, blinding flash of white light.
Like lightning, but brighter. More intense. And no thunder came after it. In fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was perfectly clear. Max and I both jumped like we’d been jolted by an electric shock. And I heard Bennett say, “What the fuck?”
And then it occurred to me how clearly I could hear his voice, and that’s when I noticed the air raid siren had cut out.
Delfino
Sikeston, Missouri
9 years, 133 days after
You’re a little less human every time you kill someone. That’s what I think. You’re a little more animal. Even if it’s for survival. Even if it’s life or death. Don’t matter.
That said, I don’t know if it changes you the way people think it does. Maybe it does. Or maybe it just sharpens your perceptions of how things really are, what the world really is, what you yourself are really made of.
This apocalypse deal brings it to the forefront, but if it’s true, it was always that way.
Humanity has always been a massive collection of suffering animals. That’s what I think sometimes. And mostly there’s no one to help them. No one who cares.
