by T M Edwards
13: Morning After
“No! Honey Badger, gitoff!” I groaned, and pushed away the cold, damp nose and the tongue that sought to wash my face. When I threw the blankets back and sat up, I gasped both from pain and the cold.
In an instant Sam had scooted over and was at my side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” I grimaced at him, but resisted reminding him of the less pleasant parts of last night. Last night. Ohhhh, crap. Deidre, what have you done? That’s also when I realized the only thing I was still wearing was my bra. “Turn around!”
“I, what….okay, okay!” At my insistence, Sam turned around until I could hunt through the blankets and find the rest of my clothing. The rustling of fabric came from behind me, which I hoped meant Sam was also going to be clothed when I turned around.
When I finally stood and turned to face him, I was flustered and panting from my half-panicked sprint to get re-clothed before he turned back around. Sam stood there, one corner of his mouth tugging upward and one eyebrow raised. “Sam, that can never happen again.”
“What, you getting undressed? I imagine that would make washing your clothes a bit awkward.”
Heat rushed to my face. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Oh, I know, I just wanted to see if you’d say it.”
I stomped my foot in petulant displeasure, and then whimpered with pain when it turned out I’d picked my injured ankle to subject to that sudden impact. “This is serious!”
He chuckled, all traces of last night’s vulnerability gone. Was he masking his discomfort, or did he really not care? I wasn’t sure which possibility I hated more. “Relax. Once isn’t going to hurt anything.”
“You’re such a man.” I grabbed my shoes and cane, then swept out of his room and into the hallway without bothering to respond to his surprised exclamation. How was I supposed to explain this to him? We didn’t have these kinds of conversations. Even once was a risk. The stress of the apocalypse had knocked my cycles all out of whack, and I had no way of knowing if any day was safe.
Even if we raided a drug store and got condoms or birth control pills, that one-to-three percent chance of failure was just too much risk for me. It was too important. Being weakened or slowed by an unexpected pregnancy could easily become a life or death situation, and even if I’d ever be able to convince myself to be okay with termination, the country wasn’t exactly teeming with helpful clinics.
Damn you, Sam. Damn you for making me be weak. I dropped my shoes by my room and whistled at Honey Badger. When she came careening out of Sam’s room and down the hallway, I strode out to the lobby and toward the doors.
After the dog dashed outside and disappeared, I stood at the doors in the frigid draft and waited for my eyes to adjust to the brightness outside.
When they did, my heart sank until it felt like a rock in the pit of my stomach. The storm had dissipated, but in its wake was what I estimated to be around two feet of snow. One drift had built up on the far side of the car so high it reached the top of the windows. Once past the edge of the awning, Honey Badger was more wading than walking.
Sam appeared in my peripheral vision, and I jumped. He clasped his hands behind his back as he stared out at the snow. “If we’d kept going, we would be stuck in the car in the middle of nowhere until it melted enough to drive. The two of us and the dog.” He turned to me, and looked down as he took my hand in his. “You were right. We would have been miserable. You would likely be even madder at me than you already are.”
“I’m not mad.” I sighed and looked down at our hands, resisting the impulse to pull away and put more distance between us. “I’m scared, which sometimes looks the same.”
“Why are you scared?” His eyes went to my neck, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Deidre, what the hell happened?”
Realization trickled through me as my free hand touched the bruises. “You don’t remember?”
“I…” His throat twitched as he swallowed. “I remember the nightmare, and then I woke up and you were kissing me. I know we agreed not to, but…”
“Nevermind that. Sam, you attacked me. You choked me. You almost killed me.”
I watched as his face drained with color, and I’d never wished I could take words back as I desperately did in that moment. “I...I did that?” He dropped my hand and backed away, horror written on his face. “How? Why?” He lifted his hand and stared at the palm that had so recently touched mine as if examining it for clues. “And then you slept with me? What is wrong…” He shook his head and kept moving further away.
When I stepped forward, he held up a hand. “No. Deidre, why? Why would you ever let me touch you after that? What if I’d killed you?” His voice broke, and his trajectory took him into a chair, which he nearly tripped over before catching himself on the arm.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was the PTSD. You didn’t know.”
“That’s not an excuse!” The sudden switch from retreating to advancing made me flinch. He strode forward until he was grasping my arms. “I can’t believe you. Deidre, why? Tell me why you slept with me after I almost killed you!”
He was shaking me now, and my brain was shutting down as fear took over. “Because I wanted to help you!” I screamed this in his face as tears broke free and streamed down my cheeks. “You were broken and I wanted to fix you, Sam!”
“That’s not a reason!”
“It is because I love you, you asshole!” I ripped my arms free and staggered backward, sobbing. “You obviously didn’t know what you were doing! It’s not like I planned this, Sam! I’m not some masochist! I just wanted...I wanted…” The words refused to come. After a few moments of trying to gasp out an explanation from a brain gone blank in distress, I threw my hands up in the air and set off toward my room at the fastest pace I could manange.
When I reached the bed I threw myself onto the mattress and screamed into the pillow until my throat and chest were raw. Then I cried on the white fabric until it was soaked with tears. After that, I screamed some more, until I’d exhausted myself and couldn’t do anything but roll onto my back and stare at the cobwebbed ceiling as I tried to catch my breath.
***
Evening found me having wandered my way into the office, where I’d discovered the unopened bottle of cheap wine hidden in one of the desk drawers. The little card tied to it proclaimed it a birthday present. I felt a small twinge of guilt as I used my pocket knife to pry the cork free, even though I knew the owner was long dead.
That’s where Sam found me a good half-hour later. I was sitting on the desk in the corner, its metal top freezing my butt and thighs even through my pants. The wine was propped on my knee with my hand on the neck of the bottle. I’d found an emergency kit with big flashlights in it, and one of them was set on the deck with the light beam pointing toward the ceiling. It made the whole room look like something out of a horror movie, which suited my mood just fine.
“Are you okay?” He stood in the doorway, half hidden in the shadow. There was a commotion as Honey Badger tried to rush in and he stuck his leg out to stop her.
“I’m fine.” I stared at the wall rather than look at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What I said was out of line. Deidre, I can never apologize enough for what I’ve done to you. I’ve crippled you, possibly for life. If I’d killed you, I don’t know if I could bear it.”
“You would have. You would have kept going just long enough to save the world, and then you would have self-destructed.”
“Probably.”
“I don’t want your apologies, Sam. I’m not going to argue with you about whose fault it was. We don’t have time to unpack all our respective baggage. There’s too many people depending on us to get to the other egg and turn it off. This is what it is. We slept together, and you almost strangled me but didn’t. Now I know not to touch you when you’re asleep. Lesson learned. Let’s move on.”
“Fine.” He sighed, and pus
hed himself up from where he’d been leaning on the doorway. “Let’s move on, then. Just go easy on the wine, okay? I was looking for you to tell you we should be able to leave tomorrow. I got the car un-buried and the highways are a lot clearer than the parking lot. I don’t need you puking and hungover while I’m trying to drive.”
I lifted the wine bottle in an ironic salute, and waited until he’d left before setting it down beside me. I’d hardly drank more than a glass worth, and his words gave me a good excuse to admit it was nasty, even if it was the only alcohol available. I’d never been able to accustom myself to the taste of alcohol.
Hopping down off the desk, I grabbed my cane and the flashlight and resumed my wandering. I ignored the ache in my leg and roamed the halls and empty rooms. So many of them were like time capsules of the apocalypse. They were in a range of states, from beds still made with a neatly-packed travel case sitting on a corner of the mattress, to absolute dumps with bedclothes all wadded in the corners and beer bottles and trash on every surface. I confiscated small shampoo packets and any water bottles I found in the stinking fridges, dumping all of it in a pillowcase to take back to my room and wash my hair. If I was lucky, maybe I’d even find enough to wash some clothes.
Somewhere near the far end of the third floor, my flashlight flickered and went out. I was left standing in the middle of a room when I was plunged into darkness.
Grumbling, I felt my way to the window and threw open the curtains, but the sun had already set and the last remnants of twilight did little to light the room. I shook the flashlight around, even took the batteries out and wiped them off, but nothing helped.
Great. That’s just great. I chucked the useless device on the bedspread and made my way back out into the hallway. The only light was what little illumination spilled through the doorway from the room I’d just left. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of the hotels with windows at the end of each hall.
This is what you get for not having a backup, Deidre. I swallowed down my trepidation and started toward the stairwell, my bag of loot hanging from the hand holding my cane, while I trailed the fingers of the other along the wall. No matter how much I strained my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but the vaguest of shapes.
Just as I reached the end of the hall and felt for the door to the stairs, something squeaked in the distance. I froze with my hand on the handle, stomach going tight with anxiety. Oh, crap. Oh, god. Someone’s here.
For what seemed like forever, I stood there and debated with myself. Finally rational thought won out over fear and I called out. “Sam? Is that you?”
No answer. My skin crawled and my heart sped up until it was pounding in my ears. I pushed the stairwell door open and took the stairs downward as quickly as I dared.
Somewhere between floors three and two, as I fumbled my way downward in complete darkness, the door above me swung open and slammed. My heart leapt into my throat and I increased my pace, risking a painful fall for the sake of escaping whatever dark figure followed me.
Right when I reached the ground floor and reached out to pull the door open, a hand clamped over my mouth and an arm around my stomach hauled me backward. I tried to scream, but it came out muffled. I fought, but strong arms held me so tight I couldn’t move.
No! God, no, I can’t die like this! Sam! Help me, Sam! My attempts were futile. The arm and the hand had a death-grip on me. They shoved me into the wall. My face collided with the wall with brusing force.
Just as I was waiting for the knife across the throat or an arm to cross my neck in a stranglehold, the door slammed open and the light of a flashlight blinded me.
“Hey! Let her go!” The body behind me shuddered as something heavy thudded into it once, twice, three times. Rather than the sound of metal on flesh or bone, as I expected, I heard the clank of impact against plastic or metal.
The arms loosened and I stumbled forward into Sam’s arms. I spun around, the need to see my attacker overwhelming my fear. The light of Sam’s flashlight illuminated a cowering figure huddled against the wall. It was clad in a football helmet, and so much clothing it looked like a puffy doll.
“Show us your face.” Sam’s voice was cold as it echoed back from the stairwell walls.
The figure made a frantic motion that looked like it was trying to scrub its chest with a fist, and the helmet turned until a pale, thin face became visible. With all the clothing, and my only view of the face being through the grille of the helmet, I still couldn’t be sure if it was a man or a woman. The figure gestured wildly, but did not speak.
“What’s it doing?” The strange behavior was doing little to calm my nerves, which felt flayed after two almost-chokings in as many days.
“Deidre, that’s sign language. She says…” he squinted at the woman in the weak beam of the flashlight. “She says her name’s Karen, and she’s sorry. I don’t know, I only know a few words. She says she can’t talk. Something about men fighting, I think she’s saying she thinks we were someone else.”
Frustrated and on edge, I interrupted him. “Ask her if she can write it down. I want to know why the hell she just jumped me in a dark stairwell, and what she wants from us.”
Sam gestured back at the woman, and she frowned as if struggling to understand, then nodded. When he pushed the door open I hurried through first, desperate not to be stuck in that stairwell a second longer. Once we were all in the hall, Sam gestured to the woman. He led the way to his room while I hung back, making sure she didn’t run off, though I wasn’t sure what I expected to do if she tried. Whack her or trip her with my cane, maybe?
Once we reached Sam’s room, he opened the door and Honey Badger came bolting out, barking madly. When she saw the new person, her ears pinned back on her head and she crouched, growling.
“Oh, knock it off.” Sam nudged her out of the way and stepped into his room, soon reappearing with a small notepad and pencil. He handed both to the woman, who scribbled furiously for a moment before turning and handing me the pad.
I am very sorry I attacked you. There is a gang here in Casper. They are cruel and vicious. I thought you were one of them and I had a chance to take one out. I’m very sorry. I see now you are someone else. You come from outside? You must leave. It is not safe here. If they find you, they will rape, enslave, kill you. Or all. Please go.
P. S. I am Deaf. I can read your lips a little but it is easier if you write.
I took the pencil and started to write something back, but Sam held out his hand for the notepad. When I turned it over, his brows furrowed as he read. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“What does that mean?”
He took the pencil and started to write as he answered. “I didn’t want to worry you, but there’s a reason you couldn’t get in to the laundry room if you went past it. I locked it after I saw what was inside.”
“What was inside?” I watched as he shushed Honey Badger, who was still grumbling, and handed Karen the notepad.
Sam glanced up at me. “Bodies, Deidre. A half-dozen bodies were in there...or what was left of them.”
“Sam, I swear, if you don’t give me a straight answer…”
“Can you just accept that I don’t want you to have that mental image in your head? All I’ll say is whoever killed them obviously wasn’t surviving off of scrounging granola bars and bottled water.”
As I tried to puzzle out the meaning behind this, Karen read Sam’s note and glanced between the two of us. She scribbled something else, then handed it to Sam, who read it and gave it to me.
Do not worry about me. I have a ranch with solar power and many big dogs and guns. I was only here to find some things for my ranch. Where are you going?
I took the paper and wrote: We think there is another device producing the spores. We want to shut it down so the normal people can go outside again.
When Karen read this, her face lit up and she glanced between the two of us as if she thought we were joking. She held out her hands, demanding the notepad b
ack. When she shoved it back in my hands, her handwriting was so messy I could barely read it.
Thank God. You must hurry. My sister and my son...I don’t know how much longer I can keep them from killing themselves. The rest are gone. I can’t keep running the ranch by myself. Please hurry. I saw the Cannibals roaming nearby. You can’t stay here tonight. It’s too dangerous.
At the word “cannibal,” my eyes shot up to meet Sam’s. “They…” my stomach twisted, and I couldn’t finish the sentence. Horror flooded through me, making my skin crawl all over again.
We can’t leave tonight. The snow is too deep. Our car won’t make it.
When Karen saw my words, she tapped the pencil against her lips for a moment. She grimaced as she wrote her next words, but when she handed me the notepad, her movements were sure and determined. Take my truck. I will stay here till tomorrow until more snow melts and take your car back to my ranch. I will be fine. I have fought the Cannibals before. But you must leave now. Please.
