The Monster (Unbound Trilogy Book 2)

by J. D. Palmer

  I’d laugh thinking what Don would say to this.

  “We will stay out of her way. And we will be gone as soon as we can.”

  I stand up and almost sit right back down, my legs groaning and cramping at the sudden movement.

  Karen stands up and walks around the desk to offer me, and Beryl, a hand. “I’d like it if you showed these women the other side of men. Showed them that it ain’t gonna work out to hate them.”

  I can’t help myself. “And if we don’t?”

  She looks me dead in the eye. “Then I’ll let Felicia do whatever it is she wants. And maybe that’ll be more help than keeping you around.” She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes as she exhales. “Please. We will open our doors, our pantries, and our hearts to you. The world has been torn apart. We should’t keep adding to it.” She opens her eyes and looks at me, and then to Beryl. “Ain’t going to be worth surviving the winter if we’re already dead inside.”

  BERYL | 23

  HARLAN TELLS THE others what the woman said as we huddle around a dining room table. Bowls of beef stew sit in front of us, hands cupping them in an attempt to soak up more warmth. No one uses spoons, sipping directly from the white porcelain dishes. Salt stings lips cracked and broken, reminding me how thirsty I am. Water boiled over the wood stove cools in coffee mugs. Theo burns his tongue, but keeps drinking. We eat, and drink, our hunger the only thing keeping us from falling asleep at the table. It’s hard to think about standing up again now that we are sitting.

  “We can stay here. For the winter.”

  “But we can leave if we want?” Sheila asks.

  “We can leave if we can.”

  A moment as everyone ponders this. What the weather means, and how it has a final say in our plans. I don’t know if we ever thought we’d be stuck anywhere by something as mundane as Mother Nature. The world was empty, and we were wanderers. This is something we hadn’t considered.

  My head throbs and it’s hard to focus. But this conversation feels important. It feels like there should be questions, or some sort of consensus. But I’m too exhausted, too spent to come to any other conclusion than that the decision is out of our hands.

  A clink jolts me upright. I didn’t know I was leaning on the table. I didn’t know I had closed my eyes. A woman is picking up the bowls. I watch her take them to a tub and start to wash them. Because they’ll be reused. Because this is a home, not a camp. My leaden mind watches her with fascination, the act seeming so foreign.

  I glance at the others. Various forms of catatonic states all around, only broken by shaking hands bringing water to their lips. I hear a whispered voice, but I’m too tired to feel curious. But then I hear a groan, and the scrape of a chair moving back. And then Har’s hand touching my elbow.

  “Come on Berly.”

  We stumble down the hall, and I just keep my eyes on the back of Theo, willing myself to keep walking.

  The building is huge. The rooms on the ground floor get more heat, meaning the only bedrooms available are upstairs. We fall up them more than walk.

  A woman named Cristen, and Jacqueline, are patient as they guide us to our beds. Cristen is a brown-eyed brunette with an effusive smile and a natural, generous air. She offers a handshake to everyone as we enter the room, grip firm and eyes steady as she repeats our names three times and promises to try hard not to screw them up. Both of them hover as we move in, I think waiting for us to complain about the chill. Cristen tells us layers are important to staying warm. They linger even as the silence stretches, and it dawns on me that these are the first men of the same age they’ve seen in a long time. Our group is too exhausted to really pay attention.

  “I’m sorry, about the… about making you walk. Like you did.” Cristen is able to get it out in pieces, and I know it’s hard for her to say. But we are too tired for anger. Now. And too tired to say that it’s okay. Theo finally rumbles something to her, his hands waving in a conciliatory manner that seems to satisfy her that we hold no grudge.

  They leave. Two rooms, four twin sized beds. We opt for the one room. Blankets everywhere and most of us not in a bed. But before that there is something odd. A moment in which we draw close to one another, hands grabbing shoulders and pulling close. An odd clump forming in the middle of the room, and even Sheila taking part. A hug, a squeeze, a physical sob of relief.

  Death and all his friends cannot shake us. Kindness, though, is a different type of enemy.

  True kindness?

  Karen might have welcomed us, but after our march through the snow… I wish I could believe. I wish I could believe. I wish…

  The last thought before sleep swallows me.

  As a species we have made it our mission to quantify things. The idea being, if we can measure it, we can understand it. Miles and kilometers. Likes. Teaspoons and tablespoons. Seconds, minutes, hours. Days. Years. A fling, love, true love.

  We survivors have been plunged into uncertainty, chaos. Who cares how far you walk or how many hours you sleep? The sun is up, or the sun is down. All that matters is if you’re alive. Still moving. And that means living in the moment, one long strip of time in which you are on edge. Aware. Ready.

  Kindness has a way of erasing that. At least for a time. And I don’t know if it’s a good idea to give people time to consider themselves, to measure who they were versus what they are now. To ask the hard questions. How many people have I killed? How many innocents? How could I have prevented…

  I count my words. That’s my road. I know Harlan counts something much deeper, much darker. I wish I could tell him it doesn’t matter, but I don’t know if I would care for him as much if it didn’t matter to him.

  I rest my back against a wall, Harlan’s head in my lap, his hand holding mine with fierceness, even in sleep. I listen to the breathing in the small room. It reminds me so much of the orphanages and half-way homes in which I grew up. A comfort in that, even as it makes me sad.

  We have been taken in. Adopted by these kind people, rescued from freezing to death. My family is heartened by this act. Quick, maybe not to forgive, but to try to understand the ruthless death march Felicia subjected us to, now that we have warmth. Now that our deaths have been forestalled.

  I’m less quick to trust. Not in their sincerity, I truly don’t believe there is something sinister at work here. Anything horrible would have already been done. No, it’s not a distrust in their intentions, and we have little to no choice in the matter now.

  I don’t trust it to last.

  I’m thankful for their kindness, but there is no way I would have let a group like mine into my home. Pity can make you blind. And if they’re dumb enough to let us in… Who else will come? Or how long before they realize their mistake and make us leave?

  I take in a deep breath. Pike lifts his head up, then flops back down on the floor, but not before I catch his questioning glance.

  I know.

  Am I thinking these things because I believe this is how one survives now? Or is this just the last remnants of my old life, my old anger, twisting this situation into something tainted.

  I have been the recipient of a “good deed” before. I have been taken in and given a home and… I look at us from their point of view. Our hard eyes and hard words. The predatory way we move, the way we clump and shadow each other. This won’t last. No matter how much they wish to show kindness in this dark world, it’s only a matter of time before we are turned out.

  You’re jaded.

  My therapist would always tell me that. She would tell me that I push at people because I am too cynical to believe that they might actually grow to care for me. Perhaps. Or, I argued, I’d rather not get to know the neighborhood kids, or make friends at school, not if I’m going to have to leave them. So it’s best this way. Jaded.

  They, the would-be parents, always wanted something. Not overtly. But they wanted to fill a hole in their lives. Or some of them just wanted to show their friends and family how big their hearts, and wal
lets, were.

  Jaded.

  I shake my head and try to clear these thoughts. We have a roof over our heads. We have time. And they have books, a whole wall of books, open for perusal.

  And they ask nothing of us.

  Nothing beyond help with basic chores. They have a larder stocked with sugar, flour, salt, and canned goods. They have smoked fish. Venison. Cattle to be fed, and some that will, in turn, feed us.

  Nothing.

  So maybe they are different. Maybe I shouldn’t judge. We came to them, from the cold and darkness, and with nothing to offer. And still they took us in. I tell myself it’s different than couples perusing case files and interviewing with therapists and case managers to “find their child.”

  We are like birds with broken wings, not knowing why these people are sheltering us, but knowing that it’s better than the alternative.

  HARLAN | 24

  JOSEY LOSES A toe. Or most of it, I guess. I think that, in the end, this was how we all started trusting one another. Leading up to the amputation of the little black appendage, everything was still tense. We were there, but Felicia disapproved. To put it lightly. And we were all too… hardened, and suspicious, to try to make the first move.

  And then Josey started limping. Not complaining. He wouldn’t. Not after being run through the streets by strangers speaking in a strange language. Not after we’ve seen what we have all seen. But he didn’t hide it. The first sign, to me, that it was bad. A man like Josey prefers to suffer in solitude.

  It was the second toe. The “Planter’s toe” as my mom called it. His was like mine, longer than all the others. And though the one on his left foot was fine, his right was black. Dead, darkened, with tendrils of red. And swollen beyond measure, the skin around the area stretched taut, bloated and painful to look at.

  It didn’t feel any different to my touch, but I think he was discomfited by my prodding.

  It was medicine by committee after that. Our fretfulness bled into their community, and soon there were new people coming to kneel before him. Kneel before the man who, after all the death and destruction we’ve all witnessed, nurses a guitar and a bottle of whiskey and won’t look down at his foot.

  Jacqueline helps. Or at least tries to. She brings a pot full of hot water for him to soak it in and sets out an array of bandages. Cristen shoos her away and examines the toe for five long minutes before rising to say, “you’re screwed.” But she winks and gestures a couple other women forward to take a look. And after that we meet everyone else. As if figuring out this thing, this small thing… A fucking frostbit toe… Can unite us.

  But it does. We learn who they are, and they ask us our names. And we give them. We give our names. The moment isn’t casual. I remember the time I pieced the scraps of paper together to find out that the woman who shared my cell was named Beryl. A name, given, is a statement of a future.

  There is a boy. Brody, I think. He was found and taken in by a woman named Renee. Wren, as she likes to be called, is a short woman in her late thirties with raven hair and a quick mind. The women keep a bottle of whiskey on hand for her when there is a night of quiet. Not because she is a lush, but because it takes a glass or two before she will sing. She has a pure voice. Joyous.

  I’m always reminded of my sister. Like Wren, she would lose herself in a song, voice belting along to the radio with a wild abandon. Nights that Renee sings always have me sending guilty prayers of well-being to those I’ve neglected. Even as I’ve grown more numb, more distant. Not to them, my family, but to fruitless worry.

  Doesn’t keep me from missing them.

  Wren can read people. I think that’s why she always offers me some of the whiskey, too.

  An elderly man doesn’t leave the fire. Everyone calls him CD and when he talks he makes it sound like he could get up out of his rocking chair and do all the chores himself if the “damn womenfolk didn’t lose their minds every time I tried.” He loves them.

  Jane is a teenager. She laughs too hard and curses too much and is prone to wild mood swings. She still sports a ring in her nose and at least eight rings on her fingers. She almost pukes when she sees Josey’s toe, but she calls it “badass.”

  None of us know what to do about it.

  Eventually, the old man, CD, tells Josey to come to him and, after only a glance, tells him he better lose it quick before he loses his foot.

  Sheila volunteers.

  It looked to be a nasty affair involving a heavy knife and a brand from the fire. Then Sam came in and carefully wrapped the dead toe in string. Tighter and tighter. He spoke softly, reassuringly. A steady cadence that reminded me of someone trying to keep a horse calm.

  Then when Josey tipped his head back to take another pull of whiskey, Sam had a carpenter’s chisel out and lined up in between the bones of the foot and the first knuckle. He brought the palm of his hand down on the handle before anyone could react. Josey sat upright and stared, but I think he had been more shocked by the sound than any sensation. “The fuck?”

  Sam used hydrogen peroxide and thoroughly wiped the area clean before putting on gauze and light bandaging. “Keep it dry.” Then he picked up the stub and handed it to Josey, as if it was his responsibility to dispose of. Which I guess it was. “Keep it dry,” he said, “we’ll give it a day or two and then we’ll deal with the stubber.”

  Theo looked like he was going to faint. Sheila stared at Sam with something like admiration. Josey couldn’t take his eyes off the black toe in his hand.

  But in two days the wound is still clean, with no signs of infection, and various women take turns coming in to check on it. The little boy, Brody, in particular loves to hover around. He asks Josey, shyly, if he can see it each time anti-bacterial is rubbed on and the bandage changed.

  Josey composes a lovely little ditty called “My car got toed.” Strummed on an old guitar of CDs. It’s a hit. And he’s a hit. The gift of music, and new stories, giving everyone something to look forward to at day’s end.

  Sheila has taken to bickering with Felicia, and both of them seem far too happy discussing the merits of one gun versus the other. A relationship just a hair closer to violence than friendship. Karen does her best to keep them separated.

  Having a behemoth like Theo around has also proven to be popular, whether there is shoveling to do, sacks of grain to be lifted, or if Sam needs someone to hold down a cow.

  Even Beryl seems to have more life to her.

  I feel like an outsider looking in. Observing the melding of two peoples with a wall of ice separating me from them.

  It’s hard to be still. It feels stagnant. Against the grain of what I have become accustomed to. Even when confined to Camelot there was a frenetic amount of activity. No, that’s wrong. There was danger there. Here… The greatest danger is finding too much time to think. Too much time to dwell on all the decisions made, and what I could have done better.

  “You need to chill, dude,” Jane says, “I just wanted to see your tattoos.”

  Chill.

  An understatement considering how shitty my reaction was to her sudden questions. Her sudden, if innocent, touching.

  I need to chill.

  And as each day goes by I feel the pull to do just that. And more powerful than that, I think, is the pull to satisfy the most neglected part of my psyche. Culture. To tell stories and listen to stories and engage in conversation. To learn, and to teach. To maybe write a few words down on a page. To share thoughts that have been pushed aside since this all happened.

  Then I hear a shuffle. The whisper of little feet on a hardwood floor. And I turn to see a little boy, eyes wide in terror as he stares at the body lying on the floor.

  Hard for me not to panic. To run outside. To demand that we leave there and then.

  Chill. Chill.

  We have been living like primitives for so long. Beryl and I longer than most. Survival is the foremost thought. Food. Shelter. Warmth. And then the north. Stay moving.

  And now�
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  Now there is a chance to shed some of the trappings of the death dealers we have become. To stage a play in which we pretend at a bygone era in which there is time to relax, and socialize, and sleep a little late.

  But I can’t.

  Not at heart. I pretend for the others. But even in my pretense I hold back. I don’t want to allow this habit to infiltrate my bones, to make a home in my flesh and erase the instincts I’ve developed. But the little voice whispers… What am I fighting for? I might as well roam the forest and howl at the moon.

  Josey sinks into life at the ranch like a man coming home from a war he didn’t want to be a part of in the first place. Theo recovers from another cough and begins to emerge from the reticence that has been his persona since Camelot. Sheila pretends to hate it. Maybe she does. But when the little boy walked up to her and asked her what was wrong with her hand she said, “it’s healing, day by day.” And I think she meant something more.

  We awake with the sun, every day. Time is measured by the dim light filtered through winter clouds. It’s odd to me now, thinking of life before the downfall, and how little daylight truly meant to us. How often we wished for the night to come so that we could imbibe or party or say the day is over. Time measured by the glow of a phone instead of the sun.

  Strange.

  It’s hard getting back out into the cold. A cold that sank into my bones and hasn’t thawed. But we must earn our keep. A debt that grows with every day they feed us. Every day they offer their medicine, and fire, and words. Every day we take but give little.

  And not all are happy to have us.

  So we go out into the cold and help Sam feed the cattle. Or feed the horses. Or muck out the barn. Or chop firewood frozen solid. Or shovel out the road that, for some reason or another, Sam insists stay clear.

  It’s nice being around cows again. Limpid eyes that don’t see any alteration to their world other than the changing of the seasons.