A day of climbing into bed and going to sleep, and knowing that tomorrow was just another normal Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whatever fucking day it happened to be, and not a day of fighting for survival and whatever scraps of life we got at the end of it. It’s normality that I crave more than anything else. It’s living and breathing, not Krispy Kremes and bottled beer—though of course I wouldn’t turn those down either.
I climb on top of the bed, the evening too warm for covers, and I put my arms behind my head and stare up at the ceiling, letting my thoughts trail over the past couple of days—all the mistakes and the errors. The things that happened, the people that got hurt. And I decide that, although we were out looking for Adam, someone that I was supposed to be looking after, all these things that happened were not my fault. Not this time. It’s this life, I decide. This life that’s the problem.
I think about O’Donnell and the guilt creeps back in. I should never have gone upstairs with her; it was a huge mistake. But a mistake that I can’t take back now.
I’ve only been here a couple of days, yet it’s already beginning to feel like somewhere I can relax, at least a little. I really hope that O’Donnell and I can remain friends and that I haven’t just messed up my chances of staying here. I can’t lie—I like it here. The people, their ways, their beliefs. It’s what I’ve been searching for. And they’ve accepted me, all of my trouble and more. What else can I ask for?
Maybe that’s pathetic, but I don’t care right now. Sometimes you just want to feel like you belong, like you have somewhere to go when you can’t hack the real world anymore. I haven’t felt like that in a while. Even up at the treetop houses, I didn’t feel like that. There had only been one place I’d felt that kind of contentedness, and that had been when I was with Nina. She’d made me feel like I had roots when I was with her.
I close my eyes. The image of Adam and Nina was hidden behind my lids and my stomach somersaults at the sight of them. I open my eyes and get up, moving to stand beside the window and look outside.
I won’t sleep well tonight—that much is certain. It doesn’t matter how many pep talks I give myself, there’s still a deep-rooted hatred buried deep within me. And until I find Adam, that feeling won’t ever ease.
The streets outside are quiet, like everyone is sleeping and no one has a care in the world, but when I shift my gaze to look at the boundaries of the complex, I notice the shadows moving along the top of the perimeter. I’ll have my day of keeping guard here soon, and then my self-torturing insomnia will come in handy.
I turn away from the window, my gaze falling to the bushes beside this house, and I see a shadow move—a split second of something. I stare harder, focusing myself on those bushes and what could be within them, but when I can’t see anything I wonder if I was just seeing things, my paranoia holding hands with my exhausted body and seeing things that weren’t there. It’s easy enough to do.
I wait several beats, but still don’t see anything, so I climb back on top of the bed and close my eyes, forcing away the images of Adam and Nina this time. Sleep deprivation and guilt are making me paranoid, I decide.
Chapter Sixteen
I wake up feeling like shit. I wish I were one of those people that wakes up with a spring in their step and a smile on their face like I’ve been cast as the lead singer in a musical. But I’m not.
I always wake with a headache from grinding my teeth—a problem I’ve dealt with since I was a kid. I’m always tired, no matter how much sleep I get, and I always wake up hungry, though I never complain. Even before the apocalypse I didn’t complain. Growing up there was never enough food in the house to feed me and my brothers and sisters, and being the eldest I always made sure that they had enough to eat, knowing that I could beg, borrow, and steal to feed myself. My mom worked hard to keep a roof over our heads. There was no point in complaining that I was hungry; she couldn’t do any more than she already was. So the empty hole was never filled, and she never knew. It never even crossed my mind to put that burden onto her, even at nine years of age. See? I wasn’t always bad.
I stretch my arms up above my head and let out a long yawn, pausing as something brushes against my arm. I crack open an eye and slowly roll my head to look up at where my hands are, my heart stuttering in my chest.
Zazz, or some equally scary big-assed snake, is coiled around the headboard of the bed and looking down at me, its forked tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. I want to punch it between its beady little eyes. I want to yell and cuss and dive off the bed as quickly as humanly possible. But I don’t, because I remember Phil’s words from yesterday about keeping calm and not frightening her. So instead of doing any of the things I want to do, I slowly slither my body down the bed and then roll myself to the edge of it and stand up.
Zazz is still watching me, her tongue hissing louder. It seems she doesn’t like being in my room any more than I do.
“Easy, girl, it’s going to be okay,” I mutter quietly, raising an eyebrow when she seems to be calmed by the soothing tone of my voice. “I’m going to go and get Phil. You just wait right here.”
I walk slowly to the door, keeping my eyes on her at all times, and then I shut the door behind me, lean back on the wall beside the closed door, and let out a slow breath. I give myself a minute for my heartbeat to return to normal and then I stand upright and go to take a step forward, almost standing on Miss Foxxxy Love as she scurries across the wooden floor in front of me.
“What the actual fuck?” I yell out, not being able to hold it in this time. Foxxxy doesn’t waste any time waiting around to see what I’ll do, and I’m glad. Instead she runs off into one of the other rooms and I reach over and slam the door shut behind her.
I decide to seize the day and get the fuck out of dodge, taking the stairs two at a time, jumping over a couple of cockroaches that skitter across the wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs, throwing open the front door, and diving outside before any other creepy critter attacks me. I jog down the porch steps and then jog back up them so I can slam the door shut behind me before jogging back down them again.
I’m breathing hard, the air burning in and out of my lungs. I bend over, putting my hands on my knees and sucking in some air as slow as I can, and attempt to calm myself down. But I can’t, this is a damned critter attack!
“Morning, dude,” Phil calls, crossing the street in front of the house. He takes in my panicked expression as I stand back upright and he runs over to me. “What happened?”
“Bugs,” I gasp, still feeling out of breath. “Foxxxy and Zazz woke me up for an early morning ménage á trois!”
“What?” Phil frowns, his eyes going suddenly wide. “Are you serious?” he asks, already walking away from me and heading up to the house.
“Yeah, man, I wouldn’t joke about this stuff.” I stay at the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to go back inside the house.
Phil turns and comes back down the stairs before grabbing me by the throat, his face looking furious.
I tense, not wanting to kick his ass, but also not afraid to if I have to, because I have no doubt that I could.
“What did you do to my babies?” he yells in my face, his cheeks flushing red in anger.
“I didn’t—” I gasp, threading my arms upwards through his and pushing his hands away from me. “I didn’t do anything. I woke up and Zazz was curled around the headboard like a damn…well, like a damn snake.”
“Their tanks and cages were all shut. They couldn’t have just gotten out on their own, Mikey. So how did they get out?” He paces in front of me. “I swear, if they are hurt in any way!” He jabs a finger in my direction.
“I was sleeping, man, and as far as I’m aware I’ve never sleepwalked, so I haven’t got a clue how they got out,” I yell back.
Phil’s expression changes, a quick flicker of worry washing over his features. “Okay, okay, I believe you.” He climbs the porch steps. “Come on.”
“Hell no, I’m not going
back in there,” I reply without hesitation.
Phil turns back to me. “I’m fucking serious, dude, get up here and help me. I left you in my home last night, in charge of my family, and whatever has happened, has happened, but you’re helping to put this shit right before one of them gets hurt.”
I climb the stairs slowly, the freshly stitched bite on my leg throbbing because of the running I did only minutes before. “Fine, but I’m not touching the snake or the spider,” I snap.
“Pussy,” he replies and opens the front door. And there’s not an ounce of humor in his tone when he says it.
“Fuck off,” I respond as we go inside.
One of the huge cockroaches scuttles across the floor in front of us and I immediately dive down on to my knees and reach over to scoop it up. I cringe as it moves in my hands. The feel of its little legs and hard shell moving over the palms of my hands enough to make me gag. Phil slams the door shut behind me as I stand up and I have to force myself not to vomit as the little beast continues to move around in my handmade cage.
“Go put it away. Where was Zazz and Foxxxy?” Phil says, his head craning to see up the stairs at the sound of something moving around.
“My room, near the bed, and Foxxxy ran into the room next door to mine,” I reply as I head down the hallway to what I’ve now renamed “the room of creepy shit.” Lids are lifted off pretty much all of the cages and crates, and insects and animals are scattered around the room. I’m happy to see Lavender the skunk is still in her home. After dropping the cockroach into its tank and putting the lid back on top, I go over to Lavender’s hutch and close the door. She opens her eyes momentarily, stretches, and rolls onto her back before going to sleep again.
I can hear Phil moving around upstairs, but I decide to leave him to his two best buddies, and instead I focus on catching the easy critters like the cockroaches—which turn out to not be so easy. Those little guys are fast, and it turned out that the first easy catch was just a fluke.
Phil eventually comes down the stairs with Zazz draped over his shoulders, whispering sweet nothings to her, and I’m glad to see that he doesn’t seem as angry with me anymore. He moves over to her tank and carefully places her back inside it before closing the lid, and then he turns and surveys the disarray of the room.
“Did you catch Foxxxy?” I ask, knowing I’m not going back upstairs until he has.
“Not yet, but I know where she is.” He checks the lids on the other insect homes, making sure they are on securely before turning to me. “Did you see anyone last night?”
I shake my head no, feeling bad for him, and I guess for myself. I couldn’t deny that it looked bad, even though it had nothing to do with me. I mean, I turn up and all of a sudden his ‘family’, as he called them, get the ole’ heave ho from their homes and dumped on to the floor. It was shitty timing, but I was the new guy so I would be the one blamed. I knew how this worked.
“Okay, well, I’m going to grab Foxxxy and then I’ll be back and I’ll do a full headcount of everyone. Don’t want anyone to go missing, do we?” He leaves the room, his face etched with worry and concern, and my guilt intensifies.
Lavender has properly woken up now, probably at the sound of Phil’s voice, and she’s snuffling in one of the corners of her hutch. I go over to say hello, half expecting her to be wagging her tail like a dog, but she only stares at me with little black eyes and then begins to run in circles.
Phil comes back in. “Move the lid, dude,” he says, and I stand up and lift the lid of Foxxxy’s tank so he can put her carefully inside. He stands back up and puts the lid back in place, and watches her for several seconds in silence.
“Everything okay?” I ask. I mean, it’s obvious that everything isn’t okay, but he seems more concerned with Foxxxy than he did with Zazz.
“Yeah, I just don’t like these guys getting stressed is all. I’ve built up a lot of trust with them over the years. I’d hate to think all of that would end because of something like this.” Phil moves around the room, checking each tank and cage, crate and hutch, and eventually coming to stand back by my side. “They’re all here. None of them looking too happy about it though.”
“You mean at being locked back up?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. I think they enjoyed the freedom, but this is the safest place for them. Come on,” he says as he turns and walks out of the room.
I follow him and we go into the kitchen, where he starts making some coffee for us both. I’m glad for it: though the adrenaline is still running riot in me, I know I’ll crash soon enough. I pull out my painkillers and antibiotics and throw one of each to the back of my throat.
“I’m really sorry,” I say with a frown and a helpless shrug. I hate apologizing for something that isn’t my fault, but I have to say something to him.
Phil watches me for several moments, much like he watched Foxxxy; as if he was assessing if I was really okay. Eventually he nods and continues to make the coffee.
“Before all of this apocalypse stuff, I had my own critter business—Safari Phil’s Animal Adventures,” Phil begins, his gaze going far off. “I used to do animal roadshows, teach kids and adults alike how to care and look after animals and critters. Some of these guys have been with me since way back then. I managed to save a lot of them when I had to abandon my house.”
“But not all?” I reply, watching his expression fall.
He shakes his head as the percolator bubbles and steams, and he grabs two mugs and pours us both a black coffee. “No, dude, not all of them.” He tucks his hair behind his ears and pushes his glasses up his nose, seeming even sadder. “Some of them I just had to open their tanks and let them go.” He goes and stands by the kitchen window and stares out into the backyard. “I still wonder about them now. Did they survive? Did they find a way to carry on?”
I think of the animals Phil has now, and I wonder how he picked which ones to bring with him. He treats them like family, yet if he had to choose which to leave behind, how did he make that choice? The weakest? The oldest? As much as I don’t like ninety percent of these bugs and animals, I can’t imagine having to pick which ones to save and which to set free in the hopes that they’d make it on their own. Especially since he viewed them as family.
“I honestly don’t know what happened last night,” I say regretfully. “I didn’t even come downstairs after you left. I went straight up to bed.” I think about last night and not being able to sleep, and then I remember the shadow I saw outside my window. “I might have seen something,” I say, not wanting to get his hopes up. Or would it be down? I’m sure. All I know is that someone sabotaged Phil’s animal room. I just don’t know why. Was it to hurt me? Or him?
Phil turns away from the window and looks at me. He tucks his long hair behind his ears and pushes his glasses up his nose while he waits for me to continue.
“It was just a shadow really. I’m not even sure if it was real or not.” I shrug again, knowing that I probably sound like an idiot.
“A shadow?”
I drag a hand down my face. “I know how that sounds, but I was tired, and annoyed and I couldn’t sleep. I looked out of the window and I thought I saw something—or someone, but then it was gone. So I could have seen someone I guess, or it could have been a trick of the light,” I sigh heavily, “who the fuck knows?”
Phil frowns as he thinks about it. “Okay, well, it is what it is. At least for now. They’re all back and we’ll just have to keep a tighter watch over things,” he says, chewing on his lower lip. “I’m heading out for a smoke before I go and check in on Fluffy and then I’m heading over to Aiken for today’s orders.”
Phil unlocks the back door and goes outside and I head upstairs to my room, my skin tingling at the thought of all those bugs running around the house, and wondering what Zazz would have done to me if I hadn’t woken up when I did. Did I look like a meal to him? Is that why he was watching over me? Or did he feel safe close to me and he knew that something
wasn’t right.
Or worse. Did someone purposefully put him there?
I search my room, even checking under the bed, and when I don’t find anything there I leave the room and shut my door behind me, making sure to click it closed, and then I head back downstairs.
Phil is back in the kitchen going through the cupboards. When he sees me he throws over an energy bar and I gratefully catch it. We head out, walking across the street toward the center of Haven where Fluffy is recuperating in the doctor’s office. I eat my bar as we walk, finishing it in two bites. Stormy is treating Ricky when we arrive, wrapping his arm with a large white bandage. He frowns and looks away as Phil and I walk in.
I think about him last night, watching me go inside with O’Donnell, and I wonder if he’s pissed about that. Maybe he has a crush on her or maybe they already had a thing going and he thinks I just moved in on his territory. There’s no easy way to bring that up in conversation, so I decide to leave it alone. If he’s pissed about something, it’s his choice to let me know so we can clear the air. And if not, I’ll just keep my head down and hope it all blows over. Besides, I already have to clear the air with O’Donnell at some point today, and things were a little rocky with Phil now, the last thing I wanted to do was add another name to the list of people I had to apologize or clear things up with.
In fact, fuck it, I’m going to bury my head in the sand on this one completely.
“Morning, dude,” Phil says to Ricky. “What happened there?” he asks, nodding toward Ricky’s arm.
“Nothin’,” Ricky snaps back, pulling his arm free from Stormy and sliding off the table. He moves across the room, his shoulder barging with mine as he leaves, but I refuse to rise to the bait.
“A ‘thank you’ would be nice,” Stormy calls after him.
Odium IV: The Dead Saga Page 13
