Seeking Daylight

by Becky Poirier

  Cletus and I were two of the best shots we had, so it made sense that we were put in charge of handling the weapons and training our people in the limited time we had. Kyle’s skills were being put to a better use. We had already moved our weapons into the central location that Doc had suggested. The best place for defense, was where they used to can the food back when the factory was alive and running. There were no windows in there and only one exit door. Which was also the worst place to be working with guns. We were working by the dim light of a couple of propane lanterns. We’d have more when it came to the fight, but for now, we just had the two.

  Just because we had no windows in this room, didn’t mean that it was completely safe though. They could just as easily break through the ceiling or walls. But at least we would be able to mount a better defense.

  I wanted to do more. Kyle was busy setting up traps with Seth, Nina was mixing up deadly ingredients, that we could use to launch at the infected and I was busy taking inventory of our armory and teaching people how to hold a gun. There were only two things that kept me from demanding a new assignment. One was the knowledge I had, that if Doc wanted me to do this then there was a good reason for it. And two, I knew Seth was stressed enough as it was. The last thing he needed was anyone complaining, especially me. I stuck to my task, hoping that the others would be able to complete theirs’ in time.

  Unfortunately, we couldn’t spare the bullets, so we had to hope that just showing them how to hold, aim and fire would be enough that when the time came, they’d be able to do their part. Only half of the people actually knew how to fire a gun, and of that half only a couple had actually fired at a moving target before. We had an hour to teach. They came in separate groups two at a time, taking breaks from their assignments, for us to teach them. It wasn’t enough. Cletus and I both knew that these people needed more practice, but one hour was all we could spare to train them. Everyone needed to pitch in, to prepare. Sundown was only a couple of hours away and the longer our day drew on, the more pressure was felt by all.

  We were busy teaching our last pair of the day. My nerves were shot trying to keep from yelling at my so-called students. I wasn’t the most patient person in the world and the impending attack had me so on edge, I felt like I was about to snap at any moment. I didn’t know if our last pairing was a blessing or a curse.

  Cletus was teaching Jane and even though she protested, I was teaching Matthew. Normally Matthew had a calming effect on me. But I wasn’t so sure I had the patience to teach a seven-year-old. Then again, I was better off teaching him over Jane. She looked just as anxious as I did. She was barely paying attention to her own lesson. I’d heard Jane arguing outside the door with Seth before she and Matthew came in for their lesson. She’d tried to argue that it would do more harm than good to try to teach Matthew, but Seth had insisted. Even Jane knew better than to push Seth at this time.

  Had it been any other circumstance, she would have held firm to her position, but even she had to recognize the dire situation we were in. I doubted very much that Matthew could learn well enough to actually help us, but I hoped I could teach him enough that if he were under direct attack, that he would be able to defend himself long enough to get to a place of safety.

  “Am I holding it right?” he asked me.

  I adjusted his arms making them firmer. “You need to hold it tightly. When you fire a bullet, the gun will recoil and if you’re not holding on tight enough you could injure yourself.” I’d decided that it was best to teach him to use a nine-millimeter. A rifle would be too hard for him to hold onto firmly enough. This was the same gun my father had started me out on. Of course, my dad had months, even years to teach me how to properly handle weapons. One hour with a seven-year-old was ridiculous.

  “Like this?” he asked as I let go of his arms. He held it the way I’d shown him. I nodded with a smile trying to hide the anxiety growing inside me. He didn’t need to know just how scared I was. He was already terrified as it was. He needed the adults around him to keep it together.

  “Where do you aim for Matthew?” I asked him.

  “The heart?” he asked.

  “Do you know where the heart is?”

  “In the chest of course,” he said as he rolled his eyes at me. I laughed. The way he looked at me and responded with an ‘I’m not stupid’ look, reminded me so much of Molly. This was going to work. We had to make it work. I wasn’t willing to lose anyone else. I pushed down all fear and focused back on my student.

  “Yes, but where in the chest.” He shrugged his shoulders looking confused. “The heart is not an easy target for someone who’s well trained plus the infected move fast. Can you think of a better target? One that’s a large area to aim for.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “The head,” he said proudly.

  “Very good. The head is the best place to aim for. You shoot them in the head, and you’ll take them down for good. But remember a shot to any part of the body will slow them down giving you a chance to try again. If you can’t get a clear shot to the head, aim to injure first, and kill second. Now let’s teach you how to load a clip when you run out of ammo.”

  Matthew and I headed over to the table of weapons that sat in the centre of the room. Jane was over there with Cletus learning the same thing I was planning on teaching Matthew. “He doesn’t need to learn this,” Jane insisted. “It’s too dangerous. He could accidently fire the thing while trying to load it. Besides it’s not like he’s going to actually be firing the gun to help us. It’s for defense only. I think he’s learned enough for one day.”

  “The whole point of our lesson is to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. The more knowledge he has, the safer he’ll be,” I replied trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. We both wanted the same thing for him, and I had to remind myself of that.

  “I can help,” Matthew insisted. “You need everyone working together. It’s not fair for me not to do my part.” He was trying to sound much older than he was, but that wasn’t really possible with his tiny little voice. Still he stood his ground.

  Jane placed her gun down on the table gently as he she dropped down on her knees to get down to Matthew’s level. “Sweetie, I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, but he scooted away. Jane looked like she was fighting back tears. It was only then that I noticed how badly her hands were shaking and her skin was much paler than normal. I was sure Cletus was well aware of her instability. Matthew didn’t see it. If he had, he never would have said what he did.

  “You’re not my mom, you can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Matthew,” I scolded coming to Jane’s defense, “that’s completely uncalled for. Jane has been there for you like a mother. She loves you and she’s only trying to protect you.”

  “I can protect myself,” he said defiantly.

  I shook my head. “No, you can’t. The sooner you realize that the safer you’ll be. No one can survive on their own, not even the grown-ups. We all need each other and that means showing respect for those who want to protect you. You need to apologize.”

  “I’m not going to say sorry. I’m not sorry,” he said stomping his foot on the ground and crossing his arms. It had been awhile since I’d dealt with a tantrum. I was out of practice. “I want to get back to the lesson.”

  “Well that’s too bad,” I responded trying my best to control my temper. “I’m not teaching you anything else until you say you’re sorry and promise to show more respect.”

  He slammed his thankfully unloaded weapon onto the table and ran off crying. “I’ll go get him,” Cletus offered trying not to smile.

  I half expected Jane to go off on me once Cletus left the room. It was probably in poor taste to overstep my bounds and take on the disciplinary role. But instead she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “Thank you.” When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes. Her hands were no longer the only things shaking. Her whole body shook as though she wa
s freezing. But I knew it wasn’t from the cold.

  “I’m afraid I’m a little confused, just what are you thanking me for?”

  “For understanding how much he means to me and trying to get him to understand that it’s all about keeping him safe. I know we haven’t really seen eye to eye as far as Matthew’s education has been concerned, but I appreciate you siding with me on this.”

  “I’m not so sure I deserve your thank you, after all. I believe Matthew needs to learn this and that he should have learned it sooner.” She looked at me stunned. “That being said, he doesn’t get to talk to you like that. What you did, taking him on like he was your own child, isn’t something most others would do in this world. And I think he should learn that. He’d be more grateful. I’ve seen children, baby’s even, abandoned by their own parents, who were only concerned with their own lives.”

  “Do you want to know why I did it?” she asked me.

  “Seth said you had children…”

  “And a grandson. He would have been Matthew’s age. I lost my grandson, my sons, my two daughters-in-law, my husband, all in one night. It was the worst night of my life. “She didn’t bother clarifying whether they’d died or been turned. My guess was that it was latter based on her use of the word ‘lost’. “But after I emerged from the chaos of the attack, I found Matthew curled up in a bawl by his mother’s lifeless body. He was a little over one-years old. The infection had killed his mother quickly. I think she’d been malnourished, probably sacrificing rations to give to her son. If she’d been healthier, she would have survived long enough to infect Matthew.

  “If I didn’t have Matthew to care for, I’m not sure I would have found the will to go on. He gave me a reason; he gave me hope. In some ways it’s easier when you know the ones you love are gone like Nina does. She knows her family is dead or turned. Either way they’re gone. But I didn’t lose my whole family that day.”

  “But you just said you lost all those people.”

  “I had two daughters, one was married to a wonderful young man, whom I’m afraid my husband and I never treated very well.” Jane sat down on the floor showing her exhaustion as she slumped against the leg of the table. At least her body was no longer shaking. “April was our firstborn and no one was ever going to be good enough for her, especially the man who got her pregnant ruining her athletic career. Back when such careers still existed. It seems such a silly thing now. But he did love her, he married her even after she miscarried. That should have proven his worth, but we didn’t want to see how good he was because it would mean that the way we’d treated him was absolutely awful.”

  “What about your other daughter?” I asked sitting down on the floor beside her. This was the most pleasant conversation we’d had in a long time and though I knew there were more productive things we should be doing; it was a welcome distraction. I could tell she felt the same way. For the moment, our fears were put aside.

  Jane smiled. “Her name was Summer. She was our youngest, not quite twelve when the outbreak happened. We were all supposed to travel to New York for our youngest son’s wedding. But Summer caught pneumonia and our doctor didn’t think it was safe to travel, as she was also an asthmatic. He wanted her to be close in case he needed to give her further treatment. April and Andy offered to stay behind and watch her. After the wedding we were all driving home to D.C for the reception in our hometown, when the highways were closed down because of the pandemic. We tried calling our girls to see if they were okay and to tell them to stay put, that we’d make it back to them. But the cellphone towers were overwhelmed. And then they just shut down. We tried pushing on through country backroads. But we kept being pushed back by the infected, until we finally had to settle in at one of the sanctuaries the military had established. We told ourselves it was only until the pandemic was contained, but of course that never happened.”

  Tears slowly flowed down Jane’s cheeks. “I know losing your sister was devastating. That it nearly destroyed you; but trust me it’s better to know then not know. There’s not a night that goes by that I don’t dream of my daughters and wonder what happened to them. I wonder if they’re struggling to survive, if they’ve turned, or if they’re already gone and I am truly the only one from my family left.”

  When I pulled Jane in for a hug, I must have shocked her because she stopped breathing for a moment and then relaxed onto my shoulder as she sobbed quietly. I let her cry there on my shoulder until her tears ran dry. I felt like I finally understood Jane and why she was so protective of Matthew. He was her family, the only family she had, and she wanted to keep him safe. She thought that by me trying to insist that Matthew be told more, taught more, that I was trying to tell her I knew better. But that wasn’t it at all.

  I let go of Jane as I turned around to face her. “Jane, I know that you love Matthew, I do too. And when I wanted to tell him how the world was, it was not because I wanted to undermine your relationship with him. It was because I didn’t want him to end up like my sister. I protected her just like you protect Matthew. I never even taught her how to shoot.” Jane looked shocked by that admission. “I thought she didn’t need to know the truth, that I would always be able to keep her safe. But I was wrong. Had she learned how to use a gun, how to defend herself and when it was worth the risk to jump, she’d still be here. My protecting her got her killed. I don’t want Matthew to face the same fate. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I would ask that you think about what I’ve said and if we make it through tonight, maybe we can work together to help him grow-up to be a man capable of survival.” It was the first time I’d talked with anyone about Molly since I’d lost her and not felt like I was going to burst into tears. It scared me a little. Losing her should never be something that became easy or a part of my past.

  It was obvious that Jane was overwhelmed by the whole conversation. I didn’t expect her to answer me right away and she didn’t. But she did promise that she would think about what we’d talk about. By the time we’d finished talking Cletus returned with not only Matthew, but Seth as well. Matthew gave both Jane and I a sincere apology, which we readily accepted. Unfortunately, our time for our lesson had passed. The time didn’t feel wasted, but I hoped we wouldn’t have any regrets come sundown.

  Cletus moved back to pairing our guns with ammo to make it easy for those who didn’t really know the difference between the weapons. I was about to go help him when Seth asked me if I could help him with something else. “Are you okay to handle this without me?” I asked Cletus.

  “It’s almost done, you could probably be put to better use somewhere else,” he replied.

  With that, I followed Seth out of the room. He reached down for a lantern at the bottom of the stairwell and picked it up illuminating the poorly lit staircase. On our way up the stairs we walked past Nina and Clara who were precariously carrying several large grates of mason jars, filled with different coloured liquids. Clara looked like she was ready to start up a conversation in the hall, but Nina insisted that they move on.

  As we began climbing the stairs, we passed Kyle and Austin who were carrying heavy bundles of wire down the staircase while trying to hold tight to a lantern as well. “Do you need any help with that?” I asked full well knowing that I wouldn’t be much better at carry the load than they were.

  “No, we’ve got it, but thanks for the offer,” Kyle replied. “Seth do you want to be there for the set-up or should we get started without you.”

  “Paige and I have another project we’re going to work on, so you go ahead and start without me,” he replied not looking them in the eye. The two men continued their climb downward. They didn’t even blink at the use of my real name. People had figured it out pretty quickly when the assignment list didn’t have ‘Amber’ anywhere on it, but my real name was right there for everyone to see.

  Seth offered his hand to me, to help me along up the stairs. His hand was even clammier than it had been before, and it was shaking a little. I wondere
d what project he wanted me to help him with, that could possibly make him more nervous than all the rest of what was going on.

  The silence was beginning to really unnerve me to the point that I was ready to stop walking and demand answers. But before I had a chance to, we arrived at the old office where we’d had our meeting with the council before. He opened the door for me, and I walked inside. He handed me the lantern which I placed gently on the desk. When I turned around, I noticed he was locking the door. “What’s with all the secrecy?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he rushed towards me, reached out behind me pulling my body into his, as his lips embraced mine.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  To say I was stunned by this sudden display of affection, would be a gross understatement. He’d barely said a word to me all day and when I’d gone off to do my part he didn’t even bother to say ‘goodbye’ or ‘hey thanks for standing up for me.’ I’d chalked it all to his being stressed and losing his best friend. Still I’d been hurt and the last thing I’d been thinking about was a make-out session.

  He’d clearly been thinking very differently. He was kissing me just as intensely as he had in the panic room. But it didn’t feel the same. In the panic room I was sure when he kissed me that it was love, passion. This just felt like hormones and I didn’t like it. It took me several minutes to find the strength and desire to pull away from the kiss.

  When I pulled away, he looked almost confused. “Why did you stop?” he asked.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  “I would have thought I was being pretty obvious,” he replied with a seductive smile as he moved back towards me. This time I physically pushed him away. “You said when we got back here, ‘all night long’.”