by AJ Powers
Aaran snuck back outside and headed across the way to grab a five-gallon bucket he’d seen next to another trailer. It was grimy and had a bit of a funk to it, but what Hadas would put inside it—should the need arise—wouldn’t be much better. He spun the bright orange bucket upside down and gave it a few hard shakes followed by some gentle taps to get out as much of the muck inside as he could.
He jogged back to their trailer and headed straight for the bedroom. When he put the bucket down on the floor next to the bed, Hadas opened a single eye. “It’s not exactly a porcelain goddess, but in case you feel sick again, it’s better than nothing,” Aaran whispered.
Hadas gave the slightest of nods before closing her eyes again.
He grabbed her rifle, which was still leaning against the wall on her side of the bed, and put it on the bed next to her. “I’m gonna go check out some of the other trailers. Your gun is right here, in case you need it.”
“Okay,” she said, barely above a whisper.
Aaran grabbed his bag and walked out of the room, gently latching the door behind him. He glanced down at his watch; it was almost noon. At first, he couldn’t believe that he had slept so late, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Other than some sore muscles, he felt great. He could have easily gone ten or fifteen miles today, and with energy left to spare. Hadas horking up last night’s dinner reminded him, though, that the beginning stages of the cold he’d been battling earlier in the week had all but gone away.
Perhaps the best cure for a cold is a steady regiment of adrenaline pumped through the body for several days straight, he thought as he entered the living space of the trailer. “I think I prefer the chills and phlegmy cough,” he said to no one in particular.
Out of habit, Aaran did a onceover in the living room and kitchenette that Hadas had scavenged the night before. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but he was overly thorough and wanted to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything—and she hadn’t. Moving outside, he walked over to the closest trailer and looked around a bit more. He eventually made his way over to the door and walked inside. Unfortunately, like the trailer they were staying in, there was nothing worth taking. In fact, it was worse, because there wasn’t even a mattress and box springs to search between. The only bed was a cot mattress that looked like it had come straight out of county lockup.
Empty-handed, Aaran stepped back outside and over to the next trailer. Of all the mobile homes on the lot, it looked to be one of the better-maintained ones, giving Aaran some hope that he’d find something useful. With his right hand resting on the handle of his carbine, Aaran grabbed the door handle and gave it a twist.
His suspicions from before had been correct. The inside was much nicer than the other two he’d been through since arriving. However, the décor did little to bolster his confidence that the trailer would yield anything that could inflict serious bodily harm on the technological zombies patrolling the streets. The unhealthy obsession with koala bears and the half-dozen unfinished knitting projects scattered around the living room made him think the trailer belonged to a sweet, old lady—the type of person who wouldn’t be sitting on a stockpile of AK-47s and Bowie knives. Still, Aaran looked around.
The cabinets were open and empty, a clear sign that someone else had already hit the place. An ironic laugh slipped out of his mouth when he noticed that two cans of lima beans were all that remained of the food supply. Aaran hated lima beans as well, and refused to allow such a terrible tasting food take up any space in his pack. Like the scavenger before him, Aaran left them untouched.
Heading back toward the bedroom, Aaran stopped off in the airplane-sized bathroom to relieve himself. He then skimmed through the medicine cabinet above the sink, hoping to find something to make his effort worthwhile. Besides a pair of tweezers, there were some prescription eyedrops and a half-used tube of hemorrhoid ointment. “That’s helpful,” he said under his breath before moving to the bedroom.
The room was about the same size as the one they were staying in across the street, but seemed bigger because of the twin-sized bed tucked away in the corner. Several more knitting projects spilled into the otherwise tidy bedroom, making it somewhat of a disaster zone. Sitting on top of a dresser in front of the bed was a folded blanket—no doubt handmade by the Koala Lady herself. Pinned to the top of the blanket was an index card that read:
Miss Kathy - $25
It looked quite warm. And since Aaran was pretty sure “Miss Kathy” wouldn’t be swinging by to pick it up anytime soon, he grabbed it. He also grabbed the comforter off the bed in the corner and balled it up enough to keep it from dragging along the ground before walking back outside.
Back at his home, at least for the next couple of days, Aaran did his best to open the screen door without making too much noise. He failed in the sense that the door still screamed in protest, but succeeded in his effort to avoid waking Hadas. She was still sound asleep when he got back to the bedroom. He set the comforter down on his side of the bed, then walked around to Hadas’s side. He traded the coat she was using as a blanket for the real deal, draping Koala Lady’s masterpiece over Hadas’s body. She immediately grabbed at the vibrant fabric and pulled it up to her shoulder.
Wide awake, Aaran walked back out of the bedroom and sat down in the hideously upholstered chair in the middle of the living room. He leaned back and a footrest suddenly popped up, climbing higher the further he reclined the chair. For as bad as it looked, and filthy as it was, the chair was surprisingly comfortable.
As his body started to relax, Aaran’s mind cycled through the ritual questions: What am I doing? Where am I going? And What’s the point? However, there was something different about the questions this time. It wasn’t that he finally had the answers—he didn’t—but when he thought about his new friend sleeping in the room just down the hall, he realized the questions suddenly didn’t seem so bleak.
And that was a nice change of pace.
Chapter 14
Time froze for a moment while Aaran redirected every firing synapse in his brain to focus on a few-square inches of his cheek; the same few-square inches Hadas’s soft lips happened to be pressing against. The unexpected gesture reddened his face and caused him to stammer over his words. “Uhm, well, wha-what…” He cleared his throat and dropped his voice an octave. “I mean, where’d that come from?”
“Just a thank you for taking care of me,” she said almost affectionately. But then also returned to her usual timbre and said, “But don’t get yourself all hot and bothered by it, it was just a peck on the cheek.”
Too late, he thought. However, to keep the game going, Aaran furrowed his brows and scoffed, “Yeah, well, like I said the other night, sweetheart, you aren’t my…” Aaran’s train of thought was derailed by the piercing glare Hadas gave him. He had pushed one button too many and quickly changed the subject in an effort to unclench her jaw. “So, uh, anyway, you wanna check out the other trailers before we head out? I get the feeling there won’t be much in the way of food, but we might find a few useful things.”
“Sure,” she said, the ‘I’m going to destroy you’ expression on her face starting to fade.
“Cool. I’ll go grab our packs,” Aaran said and headed for the bedroom.
Hadas enjoyed the crisp, autumn breeze while she waited for Aaran outside. Having been cooped up inside a tuna can for the past two days—which had been worse than the church basement—she felt like she had been submerged in a cleansing bath the moment fresh air had hit her lungs. She leaned up against a large tree that would have provided a great deal of shade had it been a few months earlier, and fidgeted with the iron sights on her rifle. When Aaran joined her outside, he handed Hadas her backpack. He had also spent most of his time inside the trailer, caring for Hadas, and greatly appreciated the fresh air. He took several gulps of air before turning to Hadas.
“I already checked those two,” Aaran said as he pointed to Koala Lady’s trailer and the one to the left of i
t. “So, wherever you want to start next is fine by me.”
Hadas readied her rifle and walked over to the trailer to the right of Koala Lady’s. She checked the battery on her phone and made sure the earbud was snugly set inside her ear. The door was jammed, so Hadas lowered her shoulder and pushed it open. Aaran took point.
Fortunately, like the Koala Lady’s trailer, this one was also relatively clean. Unfortunately, however, the kitchen cabinets were also like Koala Lady’s trailer—empty. And from the looks of it, the mobile home had belonged to another elderly couple.
As they searched through the living space, Hadas shouted, “Oh, thank God!” after opening one of the drawers in the kitchen.
“What’d you find?” Aaran asked while he rummaged through a small desk in the living room, excited by the enthusiasm in her voice.
She lobbed the discovery across the living room, catching Aaran off guard when it hit him in the head. “Hey!” he barked, which only caused her to laugh. He looked down at the floor and observed the red pinwheel stripes on the hard candy.
“That’s for you,” she said.
“No, thanks. I hate peppermint.”
“I insist.”
Aaran gave her a confused look.
“Your morning breath is spectacularly awful, Aaran.”
Aaran recoiled defensively. “And I bet yours smells like fresh-cut roses…”
“You’ll never get close enough to find out,” she said with a smirk of satisfaction. “Seriously, though. I can smell old eggs from over here. If you want me to be able to stay in the same room with you, you’re going to eat that.”
Aaran picked up the mint and stared down at it for a moment before looking back at Hadas. “So, what you’re saying is, if I don’t eat this, you’ll actually leave me alone for…” Aaran’s voice trailed off when Hadas stormed off to the bedroom in the back. “Oh, come on, Hadas! You set yourself up for that one,” he said as he pulled off the plastic wrapper and tossed the mint into his mouth. He really did hate peppermint, but even he couldn’t deny that it was a superior taste to last night’s dinner festering in his mouth overnight.
He followed her down the hall and into the bedroom. Unlike the other trailers he’d been inside, the walls were slathered with family photos, and the bedroom was clearly the epicenter of all the memories. Aaran caught Hadas fondly smiling at one picture in particular; a younger version of the trailer’s owners standing in front of a beautiful sun setting over a large lake. With his left hand, the man was holding the woman’s hand while holding a young girl in his other arm; she couldn’t have been older than four or five.
When she noticed Aaran looking at her, Hadas broke her gaze from the picture and started rifling through the dresser. “Find anything out there?” she asked.
“Nothing terribly useful,” he said before clicking the mint off his teeth, his subtle way of letting her know that he had obliged her request. “You?”
“Oh yeah!” she said with feigned excitement. “I’m up to my eyeballs in granny panties and perfume that makes me wish I was smelling your breath again.”
“Well, then, perhaps it’s time to move on.”
“Lead the way.”
Aaran and Hadas left the trailer and went to the next one over. Thirty minutes later, they moved on to the one after that. Hours later, they found themselves approaching the last trailer in the row, and all they had to show for it were a few bottles of water, a pack of gum, and a fixed-blade knife. Since all Aaran had was a small pocketknife, he got to keep the Becker BK2.
Despite the discovery of the knife, Aaran realized when dusk was approaching that they should have cut bait and left hours ago.
“I really don’t feel like staying here another night,” Hadas stated emphatically while they moved toward the final trailer. “What do you think about resting up for a few hours and heading out sometime around midnight?”
Aaran had never really traveled at night before. He’d always assumed it was more dangerous, but for all he knew it could be safer. Especially with Hadas’s little advanced warning system. “Yeah, that works for me,” he replied.
Cautious, tactical movements had given way to tired bodies that now had a full night of travel ahead of them. Aaran shuffled up to the storm door and held it open while Hadas unlocked the deadbolt. When she’d finished picking the lock, she pushed the door open and tromped inside, hurrying to get out of the cold. Aaran leisurely followed behind.
The trailer was neither clean nor dirty, which was a considerable upgrade from their aluminum palace a couple hundred feet away. They both agreed that after a quick search, they would grab a catnap, then get back out on the road.
“Why don’t you head back to the trailer and grab the rest of our stuff so we aren’t having to fuss with that when we’re leaving in the middle of the night. I’ll start poking around here. Maybe the eleventh time will be the charm.”
“Sure. Be back in a few.”
Aaran strolled back to the trailer they had been staying in and walked straight back to the bedroom. He grabbed a spare pair of his socks from the milk crate next to the bed and Hadas’s scrunched up sweatshirt from the middle of the mattress. He also folded up the quilt he had taken from Koala Lady’s place and stuffed it into his pack. It took up a lot of space—too much to justify keeping it for long—but he could tell that Hadas liked it. So for now, he would make room for it.
With the quilt inside his pack, Aaran walked around the room, collecting their random items that they had unpacked over the last forty-eight hours. He and Hadas would have to organize everything before leaving, so he haphazardly tossed them into his pack. After walking through the trailer again to ensure he had grabbed everything, he headed for the front door, happily leaving the chaos and odor of the trailer behind for good.
Aaran returned to the other trailer. When he opened the door and stepped inside, he loudly called to Hadas, “I’m back.”
No answer.
“Hey, Hadas? Where are you?” he asked again, looking around.
After a moment, she finally spoke. “Yeah, sorry. I’m back in the bedroom, David.”
Warning bells blasted around Aaran’s head as he immediately raised his carbine to his shoulder. He replayed the words Hadas had just said, recognizing the slightly shrill timber of her voice. They hadn’t discussed a way to communicate danger, but Aaran was certain someone had a gun to her head on the other side of the door.
Aaran froze as he tried to come up with a plan. Unfortunately, he had no idea what sort of danger Hadas was in, so he would need to find a way to assess the situation before he could make a move. That meant leaving Hadas in danger for even longer, but it was his only choice.
“Ah crap!” he said with an exaggerative whine in his voice while he set his backpack down on the floor. “I totally forgot to grab that bottle of rum we found last night—I figured we could enjoy some of that tonight. Where’d you leave it?” Aaran’s fib accomplished two things: an excuse to leave again, and to let Hadas know he was aware of the situation.
“Uhm, I think it’s on the counter next to the refrigerator.” Even through the shut bedroom door, Aaran could detect the tremble in her voice.
This is bad, Aaran thought as he reached for the door. His body shook fiercely, but he tried to sound nonchalant. “Okay. Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, attempting to sound frustrated instead of absolutely terrified.
Aaran walked outside and headed back down the drive. It took great restraint to keep from looking back to see if the assailant, or assailants, were watching him from the bedroom window. He had to act like he didn’t know anything was amiss, and nervously looking over his shoulder would do little to convincingly sell that story. So, he just focused on keeping his legs slowly moving forward while he tried not to think about the fact that he might very well get shot in the back at any moment.
He reached their trailer and casually jogged up the porch steps. He glanced to the side when he opened the front door, but the setti
ng sun, along with the distance, made it impossible to make out any details in the window.
As soon as Aaran had stepped inside the trailer, he darted over to a window on the far side of the living room. Years of dust, dirt, and debris created a much bigger challenge for Aaran than he’d expected. Grunting through his efforts, he finally managed to open the window high enough to slither out, dropping silently to the ground outside.
“I’m coming, Hadas,” he said under his breath as he crept along the backside of the mobile home.
Carefully and quietly, Aaran used the line of doublewides as cover while he worked his way down the row. After arriving at the last trailer, Aaran took a few deep breaths and prepared himself for a fight. He peeked around the corner of the trailer and spotted a pair of dumpsters sitting at the end of the paved road. The dumpsters sat almost perfectly in the middle between the trailer he was hiding behind and the one Hadas was in. If he could manage to get behind the dumpsters undetected, he would be free and clear to circle around to the back of Hadas’s trailer.
Aaran press checked his carbine, said a short, silent prayer, then spun around the corner, running as fast as his legs would take him. He kept low, but not so low that it would hinder his speed. He snuck a glance towards the trailer and could just barely see the bedroom window from his angle, giving him hope that even if the person was looking out the window, they might not spot him.
His legs, seemingly unwilling to slow down, had Aaran on a collision-course for the side of the dumpster. He dropped to a slide in the muddy grass, narrowly avoiding a loud impact and allowing him to retain the element of surprise. After a short moment to catch his breath, he darted out from behind the dumpster and angled himself toward the back of the trailer.
Moving deftly around the corner of the trailer, Aaran raised his Scorpion and kept his eyes scanning for threats. He stayed close to the sea-foam green vinyl siding, keeping his muzzle pointed at the bedroom window on the end. As he got closer to the window, he heard a voice—a man’s voice.
