"I didn’t mean it like that, sis." Suddenly on the defensive, I held my hands up in front of me as though to ward off a physical attack. "I just mean, you know. I hadn’t thought about it. Don’t worry about it though, we’ll teach you."
"Yes, we absolutely will." Dr Cross’ voice cut in, surprising us since he usually spent our mealtimes in silence. "You shall join Madeline’s lessons immediately. So much of human history is now only available in the written form; it is critical that each of us understand it so that we can keep our language and our history alive. The written word is the only reliable way that we can preserve our history for our children, and our children’s children."
Skye was speechless for once in her life and sat staring into space for a while, with her hand rubbing protectively over her swollen belly. I could see that the doctor’s words reached her – particularly the very last of them. Finally, she nodded.
"Okay. If nothing else, then I’ll learn for the baby’s sake."
"And don’t forget the cookbooks." Ryan chipped in helpfully. Someone kicked his ankle under the table, and he yelped. I wasn’t sure if it was Skylar or one of the men, but either way everyone laughed.
***
The day grew hotter and hotter as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I paused in my work to wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, and then peered upwards.
It must be February, I thought absently as I considered the heat mirage that radiated off the ground and the roof of our building. February was the hottest month of the year, and with all the time I spent outside I had a good sense of the rise and fall of the seasons even if I didn’t know the exact dates. This was by far the hottest day that I’d felt all year.
With a group effort, we had managed to clear the biggest weeds from the garden before the sun climbed high enough to reach our courtyard. The men had strained and strained to pull them out; some of those weeds had grown into small trees over the years. Eventually, we won the battle, and then we combined our forces to lug the unwanted greenery away.
Digging out the smaller weeds was going to take time, though. I was on my hands and knees in the dirt with a trowel, digging them out one by one. I twisted out one rampantly overgrown dandelion and flung it over my shoulder without looking, in the general direction of the pile on the concrete behind me.
"Hey!" A voice yelped. I glanced back and saw Michael brushing dirt off his trousers from where the plant hit him. He kicked the weed into the pile, and then joined me in the dirt. "Geez, attacking me with weeds now? What did I do?"
His voice was only teasing, so I smiled and tilted the wide brim of my hat back to look at him. "You were clearly trying to sneak up on me, so it was self-defence."
With a grin, he grabbed one of the little gardening forks we’d scavenged from around town, and set about helping me to gouge out the verdant weeds. My gaze lingered on him a moment longer, admiring the way his broad shoulders glistened with sweat in the sunshine. He’d ditched his shirt at some stage and was clad only in dirty jeans. It was a pleasant sight – until I realised that his fair skin was starting to turn red.
"You’re getting sunburnt," I warned him. The combination of his ethnicity and the length of time he’d spent living underground made him even more vulnerable to the sun than I was, but at least I was smart enough to wear a hat.
"I know." He sighed and absently rubbed a hand down his arm, then shrugged and gave me a sideways look. I noticed the bridge of his nose was red as well, as was his forehead and upper cheeks.
"Get inside, you. You’re getting roasted," I scolded him and shook a dirty finger at him. "We’ve got enough things trying to kill us without adding melanoma to the list."
He mumbled something inarticulate and yanked out a weed. I leaned over and snatched it from his hand, then tossed it aside. "Oh no, you don’t. Inside, right now."
He gave me a sulk that made my innards quiver, but I wasn’t going to let him injure himself for the sake of pride. In the time I’d known him, I’d learned that the biggest danger to Michael Chan’s health was not zombies or food poisoning, but his own stubbornness. I knew that he considered our safety and health far above his own, and tended to ignore his own condition until it was almost too late.
I hauled myself to my feet and dusted my knees off with my hands, then stripped off my dirty gardening gloves. I dumped them at my feet, put one hand on my hip and offered the other to him.
Loathe to admit his own weakness, he stared at my hand for a second, and then pointedly looked away.
"Ahem?" I wiggled my fingers deliberately, until finally his shoulders slumped in surrender. With a long sigh, he took my hand and let me help him to his feet, then he trailed along behind me as I led him into the shade.
"I’m fine, really." He was still protesting when we found the doctor in the midst of organising one of the storage rooms. The doctor took one look at him, and then started scolding him like a naughty child.
Michael promptly put on his whipped puppy expression, but neither of us were having any of it. Between the two of us, we bundled him off to one of the bathrooms and bullied him into a cold shower.
"But I’m fine!" He spluttered beneath the chilly flow, sending cold droplets flying in all directions.
"You feel like it now, but you won’t in an hour." I gave him a stern look that told him I would brook no arguments from him. "Trust me."
"I’m afraid your lady friend is quite right, young man," the doctor agreed. "It may not look or feel so bad right now, but the damage is already done. You’re inside for the rest of the day, doctor’s orders."
Michael visually deflated and slumped in against the shower’s wall. "But what am I supposed to do inside all day?"
"Clear out one of the rooms for the hydroponics." I sighed and pulled off my hat. "I’m going to go this afternoon when it cools down a bit, and see what I can scrounge up. Right now, I don’t think any of us should be out there. It has to be 32 degrees in the sun."
"Mmn." The doctor made an inarticulate noise of agreement. "Go fetch them in, Ms McDermott. I’ll keep an eye on our good constable here."
"But I’m fine!" Michael was still protesting weakly, but he’d given up the fight.
"Sure you are, lobster-man." I chuckled, and reached over to trail a fingertip over his wet shoulder. The water felt so cool and nice I almost wanted to join him. "You seem to forget you’ve been living in a basement for the last ten years. Your skin has forgotten what the sun is."
Michael mumbled something inarticulate in return. The doctor caught my eye and rolled his, as if to comment on Michael’s foolishness. I smiled at him and then left them to it, content to know that my sweetheart was in good hands.
Luckily, the others were not half as stubborn as Michael was; they were already filtering in out of the sun on their own. When I caught up to Skye and Ryan, they were heading for the kitchen. Ryan plodded along contentedly behind my sister, his arms burdened by an old plastic washing basket filled to bursting full of freshly-picked lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans.
Skylar waddled ahead of him with her arms wrapped around an enormous watermelon, her gait awkward but determined. The melon was almost as big as her belly, so I hurried over to help her with it – or at least I tried to, but she refused to relinquish her prize.
"No, I’ve got this." She shooed me away, and vanished into the kitchen.
Ryan gave me an amused look and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Yeah, I tried that too. There’s no helping her when she’s got it in her head to do something."
I chuckled and nodded – I understood that stubbornness very well. It was a family trait. "What about you? You sure you should be lifting that with your arm?"
The youth looked down at his arm, which was still swathed in bandages, and then shrugged.
"Probably not, but I’m not letting her do it." He grinned and tilted his chin in the direction Skylar had gone. "It’s all good, though. We’re almost there." Then he adjusted his burden and followed
Skylar into the kitchen, with me trailing along in their wake.
"Salad for lunch?" I queried curiously, and reached over to snatch a juicy tomato from the basket when Ryan set it down on the table. I held it to my nose and inhaled deeply, enjoying the garden-fresh scent. There was nothing quite the smell of a freshly-picked tomato.
"A’yup, and watermelon." Skylar beamed with pride as she rolled the massive melon along the bench and up onto the chopping board.
"That thing is huge, Skye. Think I should get the axe?" I was only half kidding. The thing really was ridiculously enormous. She actually paused to consider that option too, before shaking her head firmly.
"Nah, I don’t want anything that touched that gross pig anywhere near my watermelon. Ry, come hold this while I get the knife."
"Oh god, I’m going to get killed, aren’t I?" Ryan laughed cheerfully as he trundled over to do her bidding.
I couldn’t help but join in the laughter. "Well, I’ll leave you two to it, then. Have either of you seen Maddy?"
"Not recently." Skylar shrugged, unconcerned. In the three days that we’d been in the area, we had yet to see a single thing that even remotely resembled a threat. "She followed us towards the garden, but scampered off while we were picking veggies. I figured she must have gotten bored and come home."
"Sweet as, I’ll go find her. Doc says it’s time to come in out of the sun." I waved to them both and headed out. My first port of call was to head upstairs and check her room, but when I got there the room was empty.
"Made-line?" I called as I wandered through our little fortress, sticking my head into each room to check for her. After a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that she wasn’t inside. Although I felt a brief stab of concern, I fought it back down and convinced myself that wherever she was, she was probably just fine.
She’ll just be off playing somewhere, I decided as I headed back downstairs to fetch my hat. The sun was so intense that I didn’t really want to go back out into it, but I had my orders.
As I crossed the threshold from the lobby to the street outside, the heat hit me like a wall. I lifted a hand to shade my eyes as I peered up and down the street, and called the girl’s name again. No answer.
If I were a kid, where would I go?
I thought about it for a minute, and ran over the options the town had to offer that would interest a seven-year-old. There weren’t many places to play here, except–
With a flash of cognition, I snapped my fingers and jogged off in the direction of the old primary school not too far from our base of operations. If I remembered correctly, the place had an extensive but overgrown playground in the yard. If I were a bored child, that was definitely where I’d go.
I ducked down a weed-choked walkway that ran between two houses, a pathway that had once been used by children as a shortcut to their school. The homes had big, old trees in the yard, with branches that hung so low that I had to duck beneath them as they tried to snatch away my hat, but the shade was a welcome respite from the intensity of the midsummer sun. At the far end of the corridor, I emerged from beneath the trees and stood squinting in the bright daylight.
Sure enough, there was a little figure playing on the swings. As I drew closer, I could hear her chattering away to someone or something I couldn’t see. Since there was no reply, I assumed she was just talking to her dolls.
"Hey, Maddy," I called to her as I crossed the overgrown field, following her path of crushed grass towards the swings. Surprised, she turned around to look at me. After a second she waved happily, and beckoned me over.
"Miss Sandy, look, look what I found. Look!" She squealed gleefully and pointed to a climbing frame nearby. I followed her finger with my eye and looked up.
Lo and behold, who was sitting up there but my little friend Tigger. She’d grown a lot in the two weeks I’d been gone and now lay basking contentedly in the sunshine.
"Well, look at that." I grinned, pleased to see the little housecat was fine. I may or may not have been a little bit worried about her while I was away, so it was a relief to see she had stayed happy and healthy in my absence.
"It’s so cute!" Maddy twisted on her swing, looking bright-eyed and excited. Suddenly she spun the swing around to face me, and stared up at me with enormous eyes. "What is it?"
"It’s called a kitten." I tried hard not to laugh; it wasn’t her fault that she'd grown up in a world without pets. I reminded myself just how limited her experiences were, and expanded on my answer for her benefit. "A kitten is a baby domestic cat."
"Oh, like Puss In Boots?" Her eyes were so wide I was almost afraid they’d pop right out of her head.
"Sort of, except real cats walk on four legs, not two." It was starting to get really hard not to laugh, her expression was just too cute. "I named this one Tigger when I was living here before. Like from Winnie the Pooh?"
"Ohh. Tigger like a tiger, because he’s got stripes?" She looked delighted by my childlike logic, and hopped off her swing. "Tiggers-Tiggers-Tiggers are wonderful things, their heads are made of rubber and their tails are made of springs!" She chant the old rhyme gleefully and bounced around the yard.
"Yes, yes they are. And Maddy-monkeys need to come inside for lunch." I grinned at her and offered her my hand. She bounced over to take it, and together we walked – and bounced – back towards our little fortress.
Behind us, Tigger stretched and rolled onto her back to watch us go. Just as we were about to leave her line of sight, she hopped up and scampered after us, to follow us back home.
***
Lunch was a noisy affair that day, full of boisterous joy and happy mess. Madeline had never eaten watermelon before, and she was quick to announce it was her new ‘favouritest food ever’, to the amusement of the adults.
Since I lacked Madeline’s sweet tooth, the salad was the bigger treat for me. Skylar had even added some hard boiled eggs for protein, just the way Mum used to when we were little. I ate several helpings before I was satisfied, and then sat back in my chair to watch the others stuff themselves.
There’s going to be a few sick tummies tonight, I thought to myself with amusement.
The only one not joining in on the feast was Michael, who sat beside me in silence, picking quietly at his food without much interest. I watched him for a minute before I finally decided to check on him.
"Are you okay?" I asked softly, and reached over to stroke his knee in case my question was lost in the din.
The others didn’t notice, but he did and shrugged absently. I looked at him closely and noticed that the sunburn was getting darker as the burn settled deeper into his skin. I resisted the automatic ‘I-told-you-so’; just as we had predicted, he hadn’t realised how bad the burn was until hours after the damage was already done. Now, he was in pain.
I knew that pain well, and so I rose to fetch another bottle of cool water for him from the fridge. Without a word, he took it and drank deeply, then gave me a weak smile. "Thank you."
"Of course." I rubbed his knee softly, sympathy twisting my gut. Sunburn could be a terrible thing.
Finally, the doctor noticed the conversation and joined in. "I made him some aloe vera gel, if you want to help him put on another dose." He fished a jar out of his pocket, and offered it to me across the table. I accepted it with a nod and then looked at Michael, who rose from his chair without a word.
He followed me out of the kitchen and plodded up the stairs behind me to his room. There, I sat him down in an old wooden chair beneath the window. He slumped into it with his chin resting on the back rung, staring miserably out the window.
"Ah, you poor thing," I murmured as I knelt on the floor behind him to study his burns. He was in too much pain to have put on a shirt.
"Doc says it’ll take days to get better." He flinched as he folded his arms under his chin to give me better access to his burned back. He heaved a long sigh and murmured plaintively. "Make it better?"
"You know that I would if I could." I opened
the jar of cream to examine the contents. The gel smelt strange and pungent, but I scooped out a generous helping anyway and lathered it across his broad back. His sigh of relief just about broke my heart, and he immediately relaxed beneath my touch.
With gentle fingers, I spread the gel over his shoulders and upper biceps, then up the back of his neck. Even the tips of his ears were burned, so I added a dollop on each and gently rubbed it in.
"You should lie down for a nap," I suggested as I tended to him, to which he grunted inarticulately and didn’t answer. "I mean it. You’ll feel better, and it’ll keep you out of the sun."
He looked back at me with those sad puppy eyes. He’d already learned I was vulnerable to those kind of silent, appealing looks, but I was building up a resistance to it. Unrelenting, I helped him to his feet and guided him to his bed. I lay him down on his tummy and leaned over him to fluff his pillow. A hand tried to sneak up beneath my top while I was bent over him, but for once I pulled away.
"Sleep," I told him firmly as I disentangled myself, and he sighed sadly.
"I should have listened to you." His voice was muffled by the pillows.
"Everyone has to learn their own lessons." I ruffled his short hair reassuringly. "Sleep, honey. I’ll bring you some dinner later on and you’ll feel better tomorrow."
"Thank you," he mumbled and closed his eyes. I stood to leave him, in case I distracted him with my presence. I left the jar of gel beside his bed and I slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me.
When I turned to walk away, I almost ran straight into the doctor, who was waiting outside. I backpedalled to avoid running him down, then stopped and stared. There was a very strange look on his face.
"Ms McDermott, might we speak?" His voice was low, almost a whisper. He shot a glance back over his shoulder to make sure we weren’t being observed.
"Of course." I was a little bewildered, but followed as he turned and lead the way back towards his room. When we arrived, he closed the door behind us, and then he stuck his head into Maddy’s room to check if she was there. Evidently she wasn’t, because he returned a moment later with a deep frown on his face.
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 25
