by R. K. Weir
Ignoring the many eyes, I leave the dining room and walk upstairs. It might be in Anna's room; I know that she liked that photo. Walking past the many open doors towards her bedroom, I notice Rocket standing in one of the rooms. She must have walked in during the make-shift procession. I stop in the doorway to watch her.
She stands by the side of the queen-sized bed, holding a photo that she picked up from the side-table. I clear my throat to get her attention. She lowers the photo and looks over to me casually, not as if she has just been caught snooping. She glances back down at the picture in her hands.
"This your wife?" she asks, angling the photo so that I can see it. Sure enough, it's a picture of my ex-wife, Jessica, cradling an infant Anna while I look down at her, cooing softly. I nod, breaking my eyes away from the photo to look around my old bedroom. Jessica hadn't changed any of it, the photos from our wedding day the only things that are missing. Besides that, the place looks exactly the same from when I had last seen it. This does not make me feel any better.
"She's pretty," Rocket says, putting the photo back down.
"Yeah," I mutter, "she was."
Only now do I notice that she is avoiding my gaze. Despite putting the photo down, she keeps her eyes on it, her body turned from me. I can sense a certain tension emanating from her rigid posture.
"You okay?" I ask.
She's quick to nod her head, moving her eyes from the photo to the floor.
"Is it about Aaron?" I ask. She doesn't nod, doesn't move. I don't think she is going to respond, when she sighs.
"He was a really good guy," she says, her eyes finally meeting mine, "I've been with him since the beginning. It's gonna be different without him."
I nod. He was a good guy, even though I didn't think so when I first met him, he definitely proved himself in the end. A part of me can't help but see the injustice of his death. Even though I know it's wrong of me to think so, I can't help but wish that Joey had died instead of Aaron.
It doesn't matter to me that he's decided to turn a new cheek now. It shouldn't have taken the death of his brother and countless others to make him change. He deserves to be the one that died. But instead, it was Aaron that answered for his mistakes.
I shake the thought away. There's nothing that can be done about it now, no way to change things. Accepting reality and living with it is our only option, no matter how shit said reality is.
"I don't even know what we're gonna do now," Rocket says, moving away from the bed and towards me.
"He wanted Joey to take everyone to Canada," I tell her, as she stops in front of me.
She snorts. "We'd be better off running down the streets blindfolded."
I repress a smile, because that isn't something I want to joke about. Not when I agree with her. It'll only be a matter of time before Joey screws up again, having him take charge will never work. We'll have to think of a plan before we leave.
Rocket clears her throat, and I realize that I'm standing in her way. I look down at her and make no effort to move. Within such a close proximity of her, I can't help but remember the night we shared at the school. Remember her body, moving against mine, her skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat that glowed in the moonlight.
She was adamant that the night meant nothing to her, and maybe it didn't. Maybe there isn't anything romantic between her and I. But standing so close to her, I feel compelled to find out.
Leaning down, I press my lips against hers. A tingle of electricity passes through me, forcing a shiver to run down my spine. For a moment, I think she is kissing me back, but I must be wrong, because she pulls away, the shiver going with her.
"I'm sorry," I say, the words desperately rushing out. She shakes her head, her eyes cast down, hiding the emotion in them.
"I have to get the bus ready," she says, pushing past me. I stand in the doorway, wondering if I imagined the shake in her voice. She disappears downstairs and leaves me wondering if what I did was wrong.
It must have been a mistake if she pulled away. Maybe that night at the school really doesn't mean anything to her, nothing but a casual hook-up. And if it doesn't mean anything to her, then I'll make sure it doesn't mean anything to me. I shake my head, feeling stupid for feeling anything in the first place.
I decide to push her from my mind, and the feelings that accompany her. Giving the bedroom one last glance, I turn back into the hall and continue on into Anna's room. I don't pause outside her door, I barge in, not giving the emotions and memories a chance to manifest.
Just like my bedroom, Anna's bedroom is exactly like I remember it. Overly pink with a stuffed animal staring at you no matter where you look. Posters of her favorite cartoons cover the walls, and I remember the days we spent putting them up. A million memories fester in this room. Like the day she pretended to be sick, and forced herself to eat seven cans of chicken soup to try and convince me. Or the night we stayed up late, watching scary movies that were far too inappropriate for her age, but I let her watch anyway because she pleaded with those big green eyes of hers. I don't want to spend long in here.
Already I can feel the bitter emotions creeping up on me, tainting every memory I have of her in this room. Tucking her in at night and reading her favorite stories to her over and over until she would finally fall asleep. A good memory, but one that brings nothing but pain.
I look around her room and find the photo I am looking for on her bedside table. A picture from her eighth birthday, where she thought it would be fun to throw her cake rather than eat it. The two of us are looking at the camera, covered in icing and laughing. Picking it up, I stare down at it for a moment.
Her eyes were so brilliant, so full of life. The kind of green that made you think of a mossy forest, teeming with wildlife. They were beautiful.
I can't believe I ran away from them when I met Stella. Their eyes aren't the exact same. Stella's are harder, more piercing, but they're alike enough that I can see the memories in both of them.
I miss Anna’s eyes.
But I was afraid of them when I saw them in Stella. Even though they were in a different person, I felt like they would still accuse me. Blame me for everything that I've done. Even though the fear is still there, I find myself wanting to look into her eyes again. I don't want to run away from them anymore, I want to face them head on.
Looking down at the picture in my hands, it doesn't feel the same. The still image has failed to capture the life in them, the exuberance.
I need Stella.
I need to look into her eyes. I want to, because that's the only way I can fill this hole in my chest and chip away the guilt. All this time that I've been avoiding them, I feel so stupid. I've been given the chance to look into my daughter's eyes again, and I didn't.
I looked away, I even ran away. But not anymore.
Tucking the photo into the rucksack, I give her room one last sweep, relishing in the pain. Only when it becomes unbearable do I turn away and leave.
I'm ready now. I almost feel enlightened, running down the stairs two steps at a time, I almost run head first into Joey.
"You almost ready to leave?" he asks.
"Yeah," I nod, looking around the room for the eyes. "Have you seen Stella?"
He shrugs. "Uh, last time I saw her, I think she was heading into the kitchen."
The kitchen, I think, striding towards it.
I don't know what I expect to happen when I look into Stella’s eyes. Maybe a massive weight will lift from my shoulders, or maybe the hole in my chest will shrink a fraction. Maybe nothing will change at all. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I'm ready to see them now.
My daughter’s eyes.
For the first time in so long, I want to see them.
Turning at the corner, I come face to face with an empty kitchen. I'm about to leave, to look somewhere else when a glint of gold catches my eye.
It's the locket.
I pause in the doorway, my eyes running along the chain, sprawled
out on top of the counter. I reach towards it, grasping at the pendant as if it isn't real. But it is real. I pick it up, the metal cold in my hands.
"Did you find her?" Joey asks from behind me, "everyone's about ready to go."
I don't reply straight away. It takes me a moment to process what I've found, to process what it means. Even after the meaning sinks in, it takes me another moment to accept it as reality.
"No . . ." I manage, "she's," the word refuses to leave my lips, and I find myself having to force it out.
"Gone."
"Gone?" he asks, "what do you mean gone? Where is she?"
The question unsettles me, because I don't know it's answer. All I can think about is the hole in my chest, and the feeling of betrayal now sinking into it. I don't want to deal with Joey right now. I want him to go away, so I can think. So I can think about what this means.
"Why would she go?" he asks.
"I don't know!" I snap, a familiar feeling settling over me, one I haven't felt in so long. One I hoped to never feel again. "She's just. . ." The word slips through my fingers, just like she has. "Gone."
"Well is she coming back?"
A question I do know the answer to, but wish I didn't.
"No," I tell him. "She isn't."
He doesn't ask any more questions after that. I think he has realized what I had when I saw the locket. She's left. To go to the coast? It doesn't make any sense. I offered to go with her! And she said that she didn't want to go anymore!
Only now do I remember what she was like when we first met. Every second word a lie, every flip of her hair an act of manipulation.
But why?
The question bites at me, causing more pain than it should. I could go after her. She couldn't have gotten very far. I can convince her to come back, or I can go with her. But I have no idea which direction she could have gone.
The more I think about it, the more I realize the fact of the situation. The more that reality crushes down on me.
She's gone, and there's nothing I can do about it.
Looking down at the locket, cradled in my palm, the hole in my chest expands and I feel the phantom pains of loss. A feeling I'm familiar with.
A feeling I haven't felt since I lost my daughter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Stella
It has started to rain. Light and gentle, I can barely feel the liquid kisses on my skin. But it's getting heavier. Soon, I think, it will be a storm. I can already see the heavy clouds, threatening in their slow roll over the hills.
A fitting scene, almost as if it were painted specifically for me. A reflection of how I feel. But I know I've done the right thing. Even if it doesn't feel that way.
I'm better on my own.
Always have been, always will be. No one around that I have to worry about, to care about. I'm more than capable of being on my own. It's how I've survived for most of my life. I'm happy being alone.
I'm happy being alone.
I tell myself this over and over until the words sound strange in my mind. Forcing myself to believe it, cramming the idea of it down my throat.
But I know that I'm lying.
It doesn't matter, I think, throwing the lie away and leaving it to die on the side of the road. I won't be alone for long, I won't be. As soon as I get to the coast and find him. Then I won't be alone. I'll be happy, I'll be safe and I'll forget all about Joey and Rocket and Aaron and Gale and—
And Logan.
The thought pulls me back, so much so that I actually falter in my steps. It weighs me down, torturing my already fatigued legs. How long have I been walking? It feels like hours, but just like usual, there's no way to tell. I glance back at the road behind me, the house already long gone.
The road in front of me stretches on for an eternity. Staring down its tongue, it disappears into a dot in the distance. I can't even see Las Vegas, and I begin to rethink my plan of going through it. Maybe I should just go around, hike through the desert.
But there's no chance of finding food and water out there. No chance of finding anything but rocks. And since I don't exactly need rocks, I'll need to go through Las Vegas, stock up on supplies and then set off towards the coast.
It sounds like a perfectly fine plan, even if I know that plans never work out the way that you want them to. But I've gotten this far, and if that's a testament to anything, I know that I can make it there.
A memory bites at me, sharp and clear in my mind. The two strangers at the supermarket and what they said.
We can't go back to Las Vegas man! That place is crazy!
The memory worries me, but I'm quick to stifle it. The entire world is crazy, Las Vegas will be no different. Besides, it's apparently obvious to me that I have no choice. I'll just have to be extra careful. And extra lucky.
The rain is heavier now. I can hear the bodies of water crashing against the ground. It's a nice distraction. A way to drown out my thoughts, if only for a little while.
Again I look back down the road behind me, more on edge than before now that the rain has overpowered most other noises. I expect the bus to be coming soon, unless they've decided to wait for me. This is the road that they'll take to get to Canada. I can't let them see me. As soon as I hear the rumble of an engine, or see the faded yellow of its metal body in the distance, I'll have to hide.
It doesn't escape my attention that so far out from the city, still relatively in the middle of the desert, there is no place to hide. I stick out, like blood in the snow. I'll just have to get down into a ditch and hope they don't see me. Until then I'll have to stay alert.
Thunder booms, it's loud echo almost burying the singing voice of an infected to my right. A woman, covered head to toe in mud, she blends almost seamlessly with the mountains behind her. I'm not surprised I didn't notice her.
Long hair, drenched by the rain and crusted with dirt, she sways with every step she takes towards me. I stop walking to watch her, emaciated limbs stretching out towards me, beckoning me to ease her torment and meet her halfway.
She's alone, just like me, and I wonder how she managed to get so far without the company of a horde. Most of them don't stray from the outskirts of a city. She must have been desperate.
Just like me.
She groans again, her black teeth gnashing at a meal she won't get. The rain has gotten so heavy that it's almost difficult to see her now. It pelts against her frail body, and she stumbles to the ground, her thin leg snapping on the way down.
She must have broken it because she doesn't move to get back up. Instead, she crawls through the mud, her skinny fingers sinking in like they’re crafting clay and struggling to get a hold. She wails again, this time sounding more like a cry than a groan of hunger.
It's a pitiful sight, and it leaves me wondering if this is the fate of everyone left alive. If we're all doomed to reanimate and wander the desert alone for all of eternity, or at least until someone is gracious enough to stab you in the head.
She howls again, and I reach for the knife in my back pocket, the one that the nice lady gave me. I never gave it back to her, and I hope that she won't need it. The infected at my feet poses me no threat, she can't even crawl, the mud too slippery for her to get a grip. But I put her out of her misery, because I hope that if I ever turn out like her, someone will do the same for me.
I step back onto the road and look down at her body, awash with mud and slowly being buried by the rain. It's unlikely that anyone will ever find her again. I’ll probably be the last person to ever look at her. Her body is doomed to lie out here in the middle of nowhere, alone for the rest of days.
It only reminds me of how alone I am.
Out here in the middle of nowhere, just like she is. How long will it be until I end up like her? I scoff at the irony of it, that in a world that once held seven billion people, I would find myself entirely alone. And for the first time in forever.
I don't want to be alone.
END OF BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO COMING SOON
Las Vegas isn’t safe. Overrun by the living, it isn’t the infected that need to be feared.
In order to survive in the ‘Gas Man’s’ playground, one will need to keep their wits about them, and work together.
As Stella struggles with being alone, Logan and the others begin their journey to Canada. In a world overcome with predators, backstabbers and lunatics, working together might not be the best idea.
Or it might be the only thing that saves your life.
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