She turned around and went back to sitting on the bed. She picked up several long strands of grass and started braiding them together. Jim came in and shut the door.
“You makin’ a wreath?”
She nodded. He sat down in the upholstered chair to the left of the bed. He kept his hands in his pockets, trying to keep them warm.
“What’s up, Ange?”
She stopped fiddling with the grass and looked at him without turning her head.
“What do you mean?” She looked down at her hands but kept them still.
“You seem off. I know life is sucking pretty hard lately, but you seem different tonight. Is something wrong, aside from the world coming to an end?”
She snorted and mildly shook her head, still looking down at the grass she was holding. She started fiddling with it, not braiding it as she was before, but just rolling strands between her fingertips.
“It’s hard, Jim. We still don’t have any clue about what’s going on. I think part of why I’ve been able to block out the horror of what happened to Denver is because I can hope that it only happened there and that our family and friends at home are still okay. But I don’t even know. Everyone we care about could be dead.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t bothering you so much earlier today, or yesterday. What changed?”
She turned her head to look at him. She rolled her lips inward and inhaled deeply through her nose. Her exhalation was a long sigh.
“You’ll think it’s stupid.”
Jim bit the inside of his cheek and waited.
“I know this doesn’t make any sense, so please, don’t tell me how stupid I am, okay? It’s just… I think it’s the windows being all boarded up. I hate it.”
“You don’t have any matches, do you?”
“No. I used up the few I had getting the lamp lit. There’s a bad draft in here.”
Jim took his hands out of his pockets and cracked his knuckles by interlacing his fingers and extending them away from his body.
“I know. It’s freezing in here.” He looked at her for a few seconds to see if she’d get the hint that they should go back to the lodge with the huge fireplace. But she said nothing. “Why do the boarded up windows bother you so much?”
“I’m not sure. I just know that’s when I felt different - right after we got back from stealing people’s stuff.” She looked at him, waiting to see if he was going to correct her again on the difference between stealing and scavenging. He didn’t, so she continued.
“The lodge looks condemned, you know? It was a lot easier to not think about how awful things were while we were sitting on a beautiful mountain top, at a ski resort, which is a pretty nice place to stranded. It’s a place for fun, vacation, getting away from it all, and so on. When you’re sitting by the fireplace, listening to the wood crackle and pop, looking out the window at the snow falling – you can just – I don’t know, not think about the reality of the situation.
“But now it’s like we’re living in a building that has been officially condemned; designated unsafe by a city inspector or something. Like it’s going to be torn down. No more lodge. No more skiing. No longer a place where people go for fun. It changes everything here. And now all I can think about is how it’s just like our lives. They’re shut down; condemned; not fun anymore.” She looked at him for a moment. “Things are really fucked up, Jim.”
Angela tore the grass she was holding in half and started to cry. Jim got up at once and sat beside her, putting his arm around her. She turned toward him and put her arms around his back and laid her head on his shoulder, muffling her cries in his jacket.
Jim bit his lip as he held her and stared at the wall on the other side of the room. He had a million things he wanted to say to her, but he said nothing. He wouldn’t allow himself to. He reached up with one hand and softly stroked her hair. Angela was surprised to feel Jim doing something so gentle and affectionate. She lifted her head up and moved back a few inches so she could see his eyes.
“Now that I told you my stupid feelings about the boarded up windows, maybe I should tell you my other stupid feelings.” She looked at him with something like hope in her eyes.
“Anj, you can tell me anything you want and I’ll never think you’re stupid.” He understood what she had said about the lodge looking and feeling condemned now. He didn’t like it either, but if it made them safer, they had to do it.
Angela moved her hands up from Jim’s back and locked her fingers together behind his neck. She took a deep breath. She never thought she would ever say what she was about to say. There had never been any point in it before. She had always liked Jim romantically but he had never shown any interest in her, so she just acknowledged her feelings for him, and told herself that her feelings didn’t matter. They weren’t something to get worked up over.
But for the time being, there weren’t any other people around. And the population in general might be drastically reduced for all they knew. Now her feelings for Jim had become much more significant to her, and she thought that under the circumstances, he might have started to feel something for her too.
“Jim, I really like you a lot, and I have for a long time. I’m sure you know that. I’ve been wondering if… God, now I feel stupider than ever, so I’m just going to spit it out. I want to be with you, Jim. Do you ever think…? Do you have any…?”
She gave up on trying to find just the right words that would be the least embarrassing to say out loud and quickly moved in and kissed him. It was the first time they had ever kissed and it was just how she imagined it would be. He acted like such a cold and uncaring person, but his lips were so soft and warm, just like hers. She took his bottom lip between both of hers and relished the feeling. She had wanted to kiss him for so long. She felt a desire she’d tried to ignore for years awake inside of her and she felt her dark depression start to lift.
When she felt Jim kissing her back, she took that as the answer to her question about whether he had feelings for her or not. He wanted her too. Despite everything that was happening in the world, she rejoiced in the knowledge that there could still be love. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and parted his lips with her tongue. Years of pent up desire for Jim was suddenly unleashed and she wanted to kiss him without ever stopping.
Jim drew back from her and gently put his hands on her shoulders.
“Angela…”
She smiled, gazing into his eyes. She couldn’t believe it. The look on his face was so serious. Did he actually love her? Jim, who hated just about everyone, was going to say, “I love you?” She couldn’t wait to hear the words.
“Yes?”
“I could never be with you.”
She froze. The cold air in the room went right through her clothes, through her skin and into her bones. She felt like her heart stopped beating and her blood stopped flowing. Her ears burned and her throat closed tight around a lump that suddenly grew and made it impossible for her to swallow. She thought she was going to choke on the lump if she didn’t vomit from the queasy sickness that was now roiling in her stomach and rising upward.
She finally breathed. It was a sobbing gasp of air that hurt as it went in. She pulled her hands away from him as if he was toxic and she moved away from the bed and looked around the room frantically as if she was going to panic. She had never felt more stupid in her life. A flood of tears gushed from her eyes as she ran from the room, leaving the door open behind her. She cried out loudly as she ran. She couldn’t hold back the pain. She didn’t care if he heard her crying. She didn’t know how she could ever face him again anyway.
“Angela, wait! Come back!” The sound of her crying diminished as she got further away. She wasn’t coming back. “Angela!” he yelled, getting up to run after her.
She was running across beside the parking lot, heading toward the two vehicles. Jim ran toward her and reached her just as she was grabbing at the door handle of the BMW.
“You can’t leave. Where do you
think you’re going?”
“Anywhere away from here,” she said. “Away from you.” She opened the car door and slid inside. Jim ran around to the other side and got in quickly before she could lock the doors.
“Angela, you don’t understand…”
“I understand, Jim. You hate everyone, and now I know that includes me too. I never should’ve told you how I felt. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot, just like everyone else you hate.” She hugged herself, shivering from the cold as she resumed crying with deep sobs that made it hard for her to breathe.
Jim reached over and pushed the start button, then turned the heat setting to its maximum.
“No, Angela. You’re wrong.”
She took a few ragged breaths and gained control of her voice for a moment.
“Okay. If you don’t hate me, then you tolerate me. Forgive me if that doesn’t make me feel any better. I could be the last girl on earth for all you know, but you could never be with me. That really says a lot.” She dropped her head to the steering wheel and resumed crying. He was hopeless.
“That’s not what I meant,” Jim spoke through his teeth. He grabbed one of his hands with the other and began wringing them. He bit at his top lip and looked around as if he hoped to find someone who could help him say what he felt but couldn’t find words for.
Without lifting her head from the top of the steering wheel, she asked through her tears, “Then what, Jim? What did you mean? You think of me as a sister? You love me like a friend and don’t want to ruin our friendship? I know all the excuses people use when they’re just not into you. Just spare me the humiliation.” She lifted her head and tried to blot the tears from her eyes with her arm.
“I could never be with you… because I’m not good enough for you, Angela.”
She took her arm away from her face and looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”
Now that Jim had found the words that explained how he felt about himself, the rest came easy.
“Angela, I can’t be with you because you’re too good for me. You’re the most precious thing on this earth. You’re the best person—the only good person I’ve ever known. Yeah, I really do hate people, Angela, but not you. You’re the one person I could never hate.” He looked quickly away, then looked back at her like he’d just quickly decided something. A tear rolled down from one of his eyes.
“I love you, Angela. I would give my life for you, and with the way things are going, I probably will someday soon, just to make sure you go on living so there will be one good thing in this rotten, fucked up world. As long as you’re in the world, then whatever crazy cosmic power there is out there will have to preserve it. You’re an angel to me. That’s why I can’t be with you. You deserve someone a million times better. Someone who’s not… completely fucked up.”
Angela’s tears stopped as she listened to Jim. The shock and pain she felt when Jim said he couldn’t be with her was replaced by a feeling of numbness. Jim loved her? He had always loved her?
“Jim, I don’t need or want someone better than you. I just want you.” She reached for him and he reached for her. They held each other, leaning over the center console and shivering in the frozen car. He whispered in her ear with his lips so close that her hair moved as he spoke.
“I’m messed up, Angie. You don’t want me.”
She took his head in her hands and moved it so his face was right in front of hers. She looked intently into his eyes.
“I do want you, Jim. I love you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
Jim moved his head back beside hers. He didn’t want her to see him cry. But she could feel him crying as she held him tightly.
Twenty-one
Monica looked around for help. There was only the house on the corner. The gravel road they were on ran between empty lots covered with weeds and snow. There was nothing behind them but the highway and the mountain. She climbed over the back seat and crawled through the space between the front seats.
She looked out of the broken window at the house for any sign that someone was home. There was a motorhome in the long, wide driveway but no other cars. And there was a man lying in the grass, unconscious and bleeding.
“Trey!” she shouted.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins and she burst into action, reaching for the door handle on the passenger side of the van. She hopped out and landed on the thin layer of snow and ran to Trey. She kneeled in the snowy grass next to him and looked at his blood-covered face. She could see the fog from his breath. He was alive.
“Oh God, I need help,” she cried out.
There was no one around to hear her. She stood up and ran to the front door of the one-story house. She grabbed the knocker with cold, shaking hands and slammed it down on the brass plate repeatedly, begging someone to answer the door.
“Please,” she moaned.
She let go of the knocker and pounded on the door with her fists, yelling, “Hello!” No one came. She looked at the RV and dared to hope as she ran over to it. She grabbed onto a chrome handle and pulled herself up onto the step below the driver’s side door and reached for the handle. It opened.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She climbed onto the driver’s seat and leaned over in search of the ignition and wanted to hug God when she saw it. The key was in the ignition. She turned the key and had never been so happy to hear the sound of an engine come to life.
She looked at the instrument panel to see how full the tank was and she watched as the temperature gauge rose rapidly to the halfway point. Someone had been running the engine very recently. And the tank was full. Monica figured the owner must’ve been planning a trip and would probably be back soon, but surely they would understand her predicament. It was an emergency. She wasn’t trying to steal anything.
She went into the back of the RV and to the side door, exiting and setting the door to stay open. Now she had to try to get Trey inside. She knew it was best not to move an injured person, so dragging one was probably really bad. But she had no choice.
She ran back to Trey and was relieved to see that he was still breathing. Small puffs of vapor briefly appeared in front of his nose. Even smaller wisps of steam rose from the blood flowing from his head. She had to do this quickly so she could stop the bleeding.
She stood behind Trey’s head, squatted, then hooked her hands under his armpits and simultaneously lifted and pulled as she started walking backwards. She was able to drag him, but slowly, and it required all of her strength. Trey was thin, but he was dead weight, and he was wet from the snow. Her frozen feet pushed hard into the freezing ground with every step. Her hands, arms and feet hurt from the effort but she didn’t stop dragging him until she reached the driveway. When the resistance increased from his waist scraping against the pavement, she gently lowered his head to the ground so she could rest.
She stood there breathing hard and willing her arm muscles to stop hurting. She looked behind her and saw the steady stream of exhaust coming from the RV’s tailpipe. Her lips stung where they were split. She licked them and tasted blood. She turned back and looked down at Trey. Still breathing. Still bleeding.
Two hours ago she was sitting in her warm and boring house wondering if she could make it into town for some shopping before the storm arrived. The forecast called for three days of rain and sleet. It was going to be a long, boring weekend. And now look at her. None of this could’ve possibly happened if Thomas had been here. She didn’t want her mind to go there. She told herself to focus on what was, not what could have or should have been.
Once again, she took hold of Trey’s inert body from under his armpits and dragged him backwards, careful to keep his dangling head above the ground as she pulled him across the driveway. She rounded the back corner of the RV and continued dragging him toward the side door. Her muscles screamed for relief, but she didn’t stop until she reached her goal.
Then she laid his head down again, exhausted and out of breath. “Now for the hard
part.”
It took longer for her to catch her breath this time and for her heart to slow down. The pain in her arms had reduced slightly, but wasn’t going away. She knew she had strained her muscles and the pain was only going to get worse. After a few deep breaths and visualizing what she intended to do, she straddled Trey’s body and slid her hands under his back. She pulled him upward so he appeared to be sitting while she hugged him in a kneeling position.
Holding on to Trey, she paused again to catch her breath. What a life. What a fucked up life. She’d thought about killing herself before and she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. She avoided going to hell in the afterlife, only to live through hell on earth. She looked around and said, “Hell on ice is more like it.” If she did decide to trade this frozen hell for a warmer one, it would have to be later. Right now someone’s life depended on her, so she needed to get off her ass and help him. Her father had always said she was fighter. Maybe that’s why she was still alive; she was too stubborn to quit, even when she had nothing to live for.
She took a deep breath and focused, sliding her right foot forward until it was flat on the ground. Then she did the same with her left. Now she was hugging Trey in a very low squat. She squeezed her arms around him as hard as she could. Using all of the strength she had, she stood up, pulling Trey up with her. Her arms were wrapped tightly around him, hugging him to her body. She fought to keep her balance as his weight tilted one way then another. She rotated her body until her back was to the door of the RV, then she slowly backed up a few steps until she felt the ridge of the floor against her butt, then she sat and laid down backwards in a barely controlled fall.
She felt like she had no more energy left in her to complete the job, but she pushed that feeling out of her mind, telling herself she could do this. She was almost done. Trey’s weight on top of her was making it hard to breathe. She had to finish getting him in. Resting wasn’t an option. She breathed as deep as she could and with her palms on the floor, forced herself to scoot backwards and out from under Trey. As she scooted past him, his blood dripped on her face.
In The End: a pre-apocalypse novel Page 9
