The two sleeping bags together shared their warmth. But Cadence felt awkward lying that close to someone else. She wished he hadn’t done this and had started to get up to undo it when she felt a hand on her side. She froze, not knowing what to do. Adrien put his hand under her shirt and slid it up to her nipples. She hadn’t begun puberty yet, and her father thinking she wouldn’t need the information for a few more years at least had put off telling her about it or sex. So, when Adrien pinched one lightly and kissed her neck, she had no idea what he was doing. Cadence tried to squirm away but the sleeping bag wasn’t that big and Adrien was stronger than her. His arm pulled her back against him. “No. Let me go!” She said forgetting for a moment that he was def. His hand kept at her nipple, pulling or twisting. Then his other slid down to touch her underwear. She suddenly felt small and scared. Cadence had a bleary memory of being tiny and a man touching her the same way. She pulled his hands away and sat up. Pushing at him as she did so. “STOP” she signed, but it was already dark and with no windows no moon light found its way in. Adrien grabbed her face and kissed her; she had liked it the first time. But she was not liking it now. He tried to get his tong in her mouth, put his hands back on her body pulling at her clothes. Struggling all the way she managed to get to her feet and then to the door. Chest pounding, tripping over the sleeping bag, she pulled on the door. When she was not within reach Adrien finally got out his flashlight and shined it around the small shack. There had not been much room, and the sleeping bag took up all of the floor. And Cadence was having trouble with the door.
Adrien banged on the floor, when Cadence turned around to look at him, “where are you going?”
“Out! Away from you!” she finally got fed up and kicked the bulky sleeping bag away, yanked the door open and went outside. The sky was dark, except for a streak of white and yellow. But even as she watched the colors changed, just like her found items. Every color filtered across that light. The key to the hut was still in the door and she saw it too caught the shimmer when she went to turn around. Adrien was leaning in the doorway. “Why did you touch me like that? I was pushing you away and you kept trying to touch me.”
“I thought you would like it. I like it, I do it to myself, other people have done it to me, and I’ve done it to other people. It's fun. Feels good. I wanted to do it with you. I like you remember?”
“And when I pushed you away? When I tried to get up?”
“You don’t know that it feels good. I thought once you figured it out, you’d let me.” Adrien shrugged and stood up. “Come back to bed. Let me finish showing you how fun it is.” Neither of them had heard the word rape, or had real understanding about sex. Adrien like many kids had an uncle with bad thoughts and feelings. His uncle didn’t care that Adrien was a boy on the inside, only that he was a girl on the outside. If the world hadn’t ended worse would have been in store for poor Adrien than hands where they didn’t belong. “Please?”
“No. I didn’t like it. I don’t want to.”
“It’s ok. Just…”
“NO!” she shouted as she signed “IT IS NOT OK! Take the sleeping bags apart! Now! I am not coming back in there until they are as they should be. I don’t care what you think that was. I was not having fun!” Cadence sat on the ground where she was to emphasize her point. Adrien leaned back against the door frame again.
“Fine come back in and I’ll take them apart if you want. Just let me show…”
“I said no!” Adrien shrugged again. Straightened up and walked into the hut. He looked back out at her from the gloom and for just a moment Cadence thought she saw a red tinge to his eyes. ‘It’s just the light from the coals or from over-head.’ But when he closed the door on her and left it there, she began to question that thought and the state of her friend. ‘Is madness catching?’ Dog sat to the left of the door, there hadn’t been enough space Adrien had said, watching the exchange. He got up went to her side and leaned against her. She instantly wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his fur. ‘Something is wrong with him’ Cadence felt another of those universe pulls against her chest and got up. It led her to the door, but not through it. She turned the key, pulled it out and slipped it in her pocket next to the pond stone. ‘But do I let him out in the morning?’ Cadence pulled the wagon around between her and the shack, built up the fire and laid down to sleep with dog snuggled comfortingly beside her.
Leaving the shed and moving north they came to a road. She didn't know what possessed Adrian to look in the car. Maybe he had a pull for mischief like she had a pull for universe objects. But when he looked in and found the keys still in the ignition, he climbed in without thinking. The car didn’t start on the 1st go but it tried. Sound scaring cadence out of her skin. The world had gotten so quiet with no radios, TV’s or phones or even people going off. So, when the car started on the 2nd try, she didn't know what to do. She got in and clicked the seat belt tight. Dog whined and jumped in an open window into the back thinking ‘This is a bad idea.’ Adrien had been allowed to pull the car out of the garage once. He pulled the seat all the way up and still had to nearly stand to reach the peddles. When he shifted it into drive, they didn’t go very fast...at first. He got the hang of it and got into the road and around the other cars with minimal difficulty. In the back roads there hadn’t been enough traffic to cause any jams. The way was clear for the most part. He laid into the gas. The speedometer jumped from 10 to 40mph then up to 70. Cadence pulled the seatbelt tighter around her. The boy finally got a handle on the speed and settled for an even 50mph. They were traveling faster than they could on foot. They got through a whole state before the car died from an empty tank. It was then that Cadence remembered they had left her wagon behind. Adrien had been in such a hurry to play with the car. He may well have forgotten her if she hadn’t climbed in the car too. It was a miracle they hadn’t hit something or gone off the road, even more so where they ended up. A Walmart on one side of them and a hospital on the other.
Hospitals always brought Adrien a sense of peace and health. He had been in and out of them all his life. Either checking his hearing, talking about medications and treatments for his transgendered nature, or setting yet another broken bone. This destruction and disorder didn’t fit, didn’t seem real almost. Even with everything he had seen in this new world, this was wrong. He rubbed at his head; the ache was back. It started behind his eyes as if he were tired then would squirm ‘yea it squirms around in my head like its alive.’ up towards the top and just flatten itself around the inside of his skull. Adrien imagined it as a ball of living squirming putty amusing itself by biting his brain. The headaches had been happening more and more often. Every time they came across some strange phenomenon like the storm debris at the hut or some riot location, it came despite the baby aspirin he took. Here with all this chaos and disorder he could feel it trying to wake up. Each time it woke up it made him do things. At the hut he had grabbed Cadence but he can’t remember why. Then tried to bad touch her even though he hadn’t liked it when his uncle did it to him. The thing in his head liked pain, anger, suffering of any kind. Now it squirmed and bit as if it could smell the hatred and pain and fear that had happened here. He could feel it himself just looking around in the hallways they walked through.
Where there had been clean beds with white sheets, now the gurneys were twisted and soiled. Where the halls had been orderly and displays of holiday festivities were hung. Now was graffiti, feces, and most commonly blood. The one thing that didn’t change were the bodies. Bodies had been so absent from every other place they had seen; here they were in abundance. The patients, nurses, aids, doctors, janitors, maintenance. All the living beings that make a hospital run and have purpose were not absent. They had merely changed positions. Now they lay in heaps of dismemberment, or distributed in almost perfect poetic symmetry. Stretchers
’, body’s, trash, bandages, syringes, shell casings. The floors were littered with the signs of struggle and violence. All of the excitement must have happened a month or more ago judging by the amount of decay. Some looter had taken most of the bandages, alcohol and first aid stuff either during or not long after. Even office supplies and the nurse's personal belongings fell victim to the rioting. But the power hadn’t gone out by then, so all the electric locks had still been in effect. And all the big machines that held meds and patient supplies had still been sitting and waiting. But the glass had been busted into on many of them. Adrien and Cadence each found a cart and loaded up on what they could find.
“It will take days to search through this whole place. We need a base of operations.” Cadence signed and sighed. They chose a glass walled waiting room on the first floor. They could see and still had a wall closed around them. Room by room, floor by floor, they searched each place and added anything useful to their carts, brought it all back to base. As long as the sun was up, they wandered the hospital. Most days they each took a side of the hallway so as to stay together and to look faster. Without the elevators getting the carts up and down the stairs were trouble. But working together, they managed. By day 3 they had enough to start sorting and reading what books they found to determine what was usable. Piles were made and things sorted. Whoever came in after them would find pillaging far easier.
Among the books was a pharmacopeia reference book. Broken down for quick use. Adrien flipped to pain killers, he weighed himself at a nurse's station, sorted through the piles of drugs and found what the book said. Pregabalin was a pain killer, he found the smallest dose and popped one in his mouth. The squirming in his brain shimmered and squirmed but didn’t increase the pain. Within 20 minutes he couldn’t feel the floor let alone his head. He floated through the hospital like he was on a cloud. Smiling and laughing at everything. Cadence was concerned, whenever she said as much Adrien just said “I’m fine”. He hadn’t told her about the putty in his head, and now that he was high, he really couldn’t understand why he should do anything. So he lifted what she asked onto the cart, pulled or pushed as he was asked. All the time listening for the thing in his brain to move again. It was there, waiting. It couldn’t bite but it could still whisper at him. Everything was moving slow, and with the drug in his system he didn’t notice.
It poked at the dark side of his brain, at the irrational things he normally brushed away. He drifts back to the times with his uncle, sometimes his parents had just been down the hall. “Did they know about how uncle tucked me in? They had to know something. Or did my parents want him to do it? Did he ask them about it and they said sure? Maybe it was punishment for being deaf, for being born wrong. Or they were going to join in when uncle said he was done training me. Was it training? Why wouldn’t they wait ‘till after my surgery? That’s what it is! I was being trained so after I become a full boy, we can all play together!” Adrien tripped over himself while lost in thought and barely caught hold of the wall to keep from falling. “No. It’s this thing in my brain. The sludge is making me think like this. Where did it come from? How did it get in, or was it always there? Those pills kicked in; I don’t feel the head ache anymore. But I think it’s waiting, or maybe it is sliding around and making me think these things and I just can’t feel it now.” He looked up and Cadence was watching him. “She looks sssoo cute. Sshoo hheaelplesssss. I bet I could show her how to make me feel good like uncle doeessss. Hiisss fingers did feeell goood. And I didn’t evven mind touching hiss dick. Haha he sssaid I shhould know what one feelss like if I was going to have one of my own. Smelled funny. He thought I should taste it, but that was not going to happen. He thinks I’m a girl making up this boy stuff. That’s why he was doing it. I bet he wants to fuck me. Who knows maybe that will feel good to?” He tripped again, this time he sat down. Cadence walked over to him and when she reached out to him, he held her hand. When she let him do that much, he put it against his chest but she pulled it away asking again how he was feeling. “I just wanted to, I don’t know” repeating the hand holding and touching “Just touch me, it will feel good”
“I don’t want to. Why don’t we go back to base for now?” she turned around and headed back with the cart not even half full. Adrien was looking like he had at the maintenance hut. And this touching was disconcerting. She thought it would be best to not encourage him.
He stood up slowly and banged on the wall to get her attention. “I jussst want to hold your hand. Can I do that?”
“If that’s all.” She reached out a hand and he took it. But after a moment he pressed it to his stomach then slid it slowly around. “no.” she signed shaking her head and took her hand away. “Let's just walk back to camp and I’m going to do some reading.” She walked a little faster to get ahead where she couldn’t see if he replied.
Dog was searching with them. Every day adding to the ‘map’ in his head. New smells almost always got investigated completely. Often ending only when The Girl called for him. He loped back, didn’t run unless she sounded scared or if he knew the Other One had left her alone. The Other One still had that strange smell. It did have a small smell like those things that looked like men but killed everything, but it changed. Some days it was stronger than others. It worried Dog, but he kept an eye (and nose) on the Other One. So long as it didn’t turn hostel towards The Girl, he would allow it to stay close. It liked to put its hands on The Girl, and most of the time she let it. But when it got pushy or the girl said no and it didn’t listen, he would be there in a heartbeat to make it back away. He didn’t forget about the night he had tasted its blood. More information filed away from that. It was neither male nor female, had too much salt suffering from not enough good food. Maybe it should eat grass. But mostly he had tasted the fear and need to run. Was that where the madness came from? Or is that what it fed on?
When they got back Cadence told Adrien to lie down. And got him some water, making sure to stay at arm's length. After a moment of objection, he finally gave in and was out as soon as his head was down. Cadence read up on the drug he had taken and anything that related to madness.
The lights across the windows woke them up. The sound of a truck got them up from the floor and moving. Men, talking and shuffling around outside the walls. Cadence and Adrien had been sleeping apart since the incident at the shed. Now they held hands as they walked hunkered down under the windows. Her hand on dog’s tail and Adrien’s in the other, they made their way through the black lobby of the hospital. Dog led them to a stairwell where they could see the entry way but stay hidden. The lights and shadows danced across the windows in a ballet of confusion. A teen kicked in the door and strutted inside a shot gun in one hand and a hand crank powered flashlight in the other and looked around with a sneer.
“Damn it Travis! What part of quiet do you not understand! You just alerted any and all madmen in there. Ya know what get your ass back in the truck. Should have left you at the compound.” A man dressed in camo from head to the top of his black combat boots stepped up behind poor Travis and yanked him up by the collar of his plaid shirt. With just barely a turn of his hips he flung the boy back outside. A laugh rose up from the others outside when a loud metal thump signaled Travis’s contact with the side of the truck. The laughter of several men came closer as the raiding party move up to and then through the door. They began to spread out until someone saw the piles of meds and first aid parts on the floor. They shone flashlights around on the wagon and the sleeping bags.
“..What the hell?” the camo clad gentleman who had sent Travis to the truck turned in place. “Spread out” he ordered the 5 or 6 other men. Cadence new it was only a matter of time before they were found. She turned to look up the stairs. Tapping Adrien’s shoulder, she pointed up. “They will find us, we have to move” But it was too d
ark to see, she could barely see her own hands. So instead she pulled on his shirt and began to lead him up. Adrien being half awake, and in the dark, had no coordination. He tripped over his own feet and fell out of the partially open door. All lights fell on him. “Get ‘em!” A stampede of boots, and shouting pounded down the lobby. Dog leaped at the intruders, but one of them got a lucky swing and caught dog with the handle of his hand gun. He went limp and rolled across the floor to the left. Cadence didn’t know what to do. Too late to run, too small to fight. She fell to her keens and raised her arms.
The men lifted her and Adrien easily. The trio were tied and put in the bed of one of the 3 trucks. All of the supplies they had so laboriously gathered were loaded up with them. The men pillaged her wagon and added almost everything to their spoils. Travis had found the rock and key and cross cadence had put under her pillow. He felt a small tug on his heart, and snuck them into her hand when no one was watching. “Everyone needs something of their own.” he said with a half shy smile touching his own pocket.
CH
Walking through the gates of the compound. Being marched up the main road, mud squelching under her worn boots. Bits of glass and metal scattered and sunk into it. This ‘fortress’ was made of 3 buildings and some plywood tents. This part had once been a junk yard. Most of the walls had been made with the help of the doors and chassis that could be removed from the old hulks left from before madness hit. There was still bits of cars laying around, parts that weren’t useful now that gas was no longer being supplied. The ruler of this sad and desperate place called himself The Commandant. He truly believed he was doing the best for the people he found. His scouts and brutes snatched people off the streets, out of the woods, from other camps. Anywhere anyone was found they were brought to his compound. If they had useful skills they stayed and were given a place in the hierarchy. Those who did not have something marketable were instantly on the bottom. Forced into menial jobs or used for fodder against the Mad Men on scouting/supply runs. The men listed as ‘His men’ which equated to His private army carried a variation of a billy club. Most were just chair or table legs sanded round and smooth. Some had painted theirs or attached handles to them, some had carved their names or flames or what have you in them. Some studded, others smooth, wrapped in tape or wire or nothing. They all were round, wood and about a foot and a half in total length. Line keepers, they called them. As in keeping people in line. The ‘peace keepers’ belong to The Commandant and his two direct subordinates. Those were the only guns allowed out in the open of the compound. The rest are kept in what is called the armory, but it is just a walk-in closet in The Commandants office. No one liked His men, no one like him either. But it was always best to make sure no one else knew. The consequences of “misbehavior”, which meant anything they wanted it to, were bad. It could be as slight as a single blow from one person, a group beating, or as bad as an audience with the head man himself and possibly never coming back from that visit.
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