Palimpsest (Book 3): Coins for Charon

by P. J. Post

  I move close, laying one bandaged hand on her hip, and she grasps my fingers with both hands and nods at me. Her eyes are encouraging, expecting…pleading.

  She’s so wet I’m inside her warmth before I have time to think about what’s happening.

  I’m trembling so much.

  I can’t control it.

  She tilts her head back, catching her breath, but she never looks away.

  I go slow, and she breathes in rhythm with each stroke, moaning softly, squeezing my fingers tighter and tighter, and then I pull her legs straight up with one arm as she shifts to her back; I wrap my arm around her knees, her striped socks and bloody boots against my face.

  I lay my other hand on her stomach; she shifts her hands to my pinky and thumb, pulling against them as she pushes her hips against me.

  She nods as I begin to go faster, now panting in rhythm.

  I want this to last forever.

  I don’t want Sam to die.

  “Lane, I love you…tell me…”

  “I love you more than life, Samantha, I’ll always be yours…always.”

  And then I feel everything constricting, the pressure building…

  She nods at me, like she senses how close I am, her eyes are so intense, they remind me of afternoon waves off the jersey shore, glistening in the sunlight as the storm clouds move in.

  She cries out and I come, pressing deeper into her, hugging her knees.

  She moans again, gasps, and then I feel her tremble against me, squeezing my fingers tighter still.

  I close my eyes and continue to hold her knees until I’m not inside her anymore.

  She slides back on the desk and straightens out her legs, her boots hanging over the edge, and then raises up on her elbows, watching me.

  I drop the condom and suddenly feel increasingly ashamed, standing here with my dick in my hands.

  She must sense something because she leans forward and shakes her head.

  “No, no, you were perfect, this was perfect,” she says so softly that it feels like I’m thinking it. “Hold me.”

  She slides off the desk and into my arms.

  Are we still kids playing at being grownups? ‘Cause this doesn’t fucking feel like playing at jack.

  We stand here for a long time, our pants around our knees, ignoring the cold.

  I don’t know what this means for Samantha, or why she felt it was so important, I mean now, especially considering what she’s been through — she knows I would have waited for her, but I know one thing for sure.

  She’s not crying anymore.

  §§§§§

  “You were right…all along, you know,” she whispers.

  “About what?” I ask, holding her tight.

  We found a corner to cuddle up in, our legs intertwined, her cheek against my shoulder. Through the second floor windows, the sparks and shadows are reflecting off the low hanging clouds and the plank ceiling.

  I don’t ever remember being this warm.

  “I was a cheerleader, popular, all that — everything you said. I wish I knew you then.”

  “Nothing to know, I was a stoner. You’d probably have called me a loser. You wouldn’t have ever…” I nod toward the desk.

  “You sure about that?”

  I laugh. “Pretty sure, I wasn’t…whatever I am now, I was just plain old Lane, lucky to get “Bs” in school and, as far as my dad cared, wasted way too much time down at the animal shelter.”

  “You haven’t changed, like I keep saying, you’re still rescuing kittens, kids, me…you just couldn’t be the real you, not in the old world.”

  “The real me is an asshole.”

  “Please, stop saying things like that. You’ve always done what you had to, even up on that hill. You kept your word after, you found those kids, Jem and Casey, Holly, and you saved them. The others didn’t, not Dante or Tammy.”

  “They didn’t have anything to prove.”

  “They still abandoned you and Jem, that wasn’t right — you’re better than all of them.”

  “I think you’re biased.”

  “Loving you doesn’t change the truth.”

  “The truth depends on which side of it you’re standing on.”

  “No, it is what it is, for better or worse, it’ll never matter which side of you I’m on.”

  “I’m nuts, you just can’t see it, you’re too close.”

  She shakes her head. “I know what you are, I saw you on your knees up in that clearing with that girl, I saw you down on the road — it’s the death wish…it’s the guilt that lets me know you’re not crazy.”

  I take her hand, caressing the rough dry skin. “Most of the people that are going to survive this, the zombies, whatever’s left over from the war, the end of the world — it’s the bad people, the fucked up people that we’re going to have to deal with — not the good ones.”

  “You’re protecting the good ones right upstairs.”

  “I’m creating little psychos, have you seen the way Emily and Jem hold a gun? I love them, but they’re already scary. What are they going to be when they’re our age?”

  “Great kids, that’s what. We can’t look at things like they used to be, everything is different now.”

  “That’s what I said, truth is relative.”

  “Were you on the debate club or something?” she asks, jabbing me in the stomach.

  The pain shoots across my abdomen.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry,” she cries as she sits up. “Are you okay?”

  My stomach wound is taking longer to heal than I thought it would. I wonder if the Pixie Dust is wearing off, or maybe it works faster on kids — or different somehow.

  I sigh and lay a hand along her cheek. “You ready?”

  “For?” Her eyes are questioning.

  “Becoming a vampire.”

  She laughs. “Sounds almost romantic when you say it like that.”

  “It’s kind of gross, actually.”

  “Is it too soon? Holly was only a few hours ago, and your stomach, can you go again?”

  “No, not tonight. We’ll do it in the morning, sneak off, you and the girls, get some privacy.”

  Her face glows orange in the reflected firelight, her eyes are sparkling, happy, but the mileage isn’t as easy to overlook. Her eyes look sunken, the circles under them dark.

  I take her hand and raise it to my lips.

  “You’re pretty much up to date with me and the girls and our psycho wilderness adventure or whatever, it’s my turn…what happened to you and Emily?”

  I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my Zippo and a smoke. She looks up at the ceiling and absently traces little circles on my stomach as I light up. “So?”

  She sighs. “It’s better now, I found Emily again, and you. I didn’t know…I thought…”

  “I know, it’s okay, you’re safe now,” I say.

  She stops and stares at me for a moment, and then falls into a gentle fit of laughter. “Safe?”

  I was trying to be comforting and didn’t even think about how ridiculous I sounded. I shrug.

  “Okay, since I’m safe,” she begins, still laughing, and then her voice gets quiet…

  “Not that much to tell, it all happened so fast. I missed you; me and Emily stayed together, kept close to Cam. They hitched the Mom trailer to another one and brought them along with us. Cam didn’t really know what to do with them. He hoped that once you returned with their kids, they’d take them and go — you know? Just leave us alone. We didn’t expect you to be gone so long.

  “We didn’t expect...

  “Dante, Tammy and Paco caught up with us, but they didn’t know what happened to you. Paco took it all pretty hard, but he never said what happened, neither did you, not really. Is it true, about Jem, what she said upstairs?”

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was her niece, she didn’t mean to, it really was an accident, but…Christ, it was awful. I don’t know how she stayed alive, much less sane,” I say. �
��What about Jess and Jackie?”

  “Jess didn’t come back, or maybe she did, I never saw her. Jem mentioned Jackie too?”

  “Jem’s sister, Jess, they were all sisters. She’s maybe four.”

  “Sad.” She sighs and shakes her head, lost in some thought. “It was the same day that everything fell apart. The Cart People attacked us outside of Freemont. Someone unlocked the trailer during the fight, and I didn’t see the women after that. Not sure if it was us or the Carts. Maybe it was Jess?”

  “Maybe,” I say, thinking about having a handful of would-be assassins searching for me. “What then?”

  “We loaded up on guns and ammunition and tried to stay at the back, you know, away from the fighting. Cam was…Cam stayed with us…I could tell he was conflicted, like he thought he should have been up front, protecting his people, leading them, but I don’t think he wanted to leave us either, not really. I think he felt guilty, like maybe he was being selfish to worry so much about us, but he said he made a promise. I’m guessing you know something about that?”

  “Goddamned right I do.”

  She gives me a sympathetically disapproving look and continues. “Anyway, the scouts reported a school, said it was a better defensive position, up ahead. We were on our way there when we ran into another group of survivors, but they weren’t running from the Carts, they were tracking them, hunting them, they called themselves Paladins and they called the Carts Demons. I never asked why.”

  “I’m guessing too much Dungeons and Dragons?”

  She grins. “Maybe. They were tough, brave, I’ll give them that. They told us about the Demons turning into zombies and about the infection, the plague — and that only head shots would stop them. That was Keats’ and Brenda’s crew. They’ve been fighting for a while. We didn’t even get a chance to really introduce ourselves before the zombies…the Button Eyes showed up, lots of them…everywhere, all at once.

  “Cam picked up Emily and we just ran…there was at least sixty of us, had to be, kids and moms and dads racing through the neighborhood, past all of these empty houses, and finally we ran into a community center, but we couldn’t…we couldn’t hold it.”

  She looks up at me and cocks her head and then gets back to tracing circles.

  Her voice is softer now. “There was a garden path, we could see a playground through the trees…in the distance, so we knew the school was close. We decided to send the kids and some of the parents, while the rest of us held the monsters back, like a diversion.

  “I’m so sorry, Lane, I sent Emily with them. Please forgive me, I couldn’t fight and watch her...and if I didn’t fight…you know?” She looks away for a moment, like she’s gathering up her courage, and then looks me in the eye. “Please…forgive me.”

  “Nothing to forgive. It was the smart play. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen.”

  She just keeps looking at me, searching my eyes, and then she nods and looks away before continuing, her voice slightly detached.

  “They overran us, the zombies, and then the Carts were back. Everyone scattered. Cam was on the school side, I made him go after Emily. He shouted for me to forgive him. I thought it was stupid, you know? I just made him go, so why apologize? Anyway…then he left me, ran for the school, for Emily.

  “I was so grateful, I thought I could depend on him…wait, that’s not what I meant, I mean, I thought he’d make it…”

  “I know what you mean, it’s okay.”

  She shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear it. “We kept trying to circle back to the school, around the fight, but I kept getting pushed further and further out into the neighborhood, through houses and yards, until I didn’t even know where I was or which way the school was, where Emily and Cam were. Brenda and Keats, and their friends, they saved me. They nearly left me when I found the Dunkin Donuts, there’s one way back on the other side of town, anyway, I didn’t even care what they did, that’s where we said we’d meet, so I…”

  “Left me a message?” I pull the postcard out from my pocket and show her. “This is how I knew you made it this far.”

  She holds it in gently in her hand, shaking slightly. “I thought you’d know it was me with the whore thing.”

  “I did, I always said you were smart.”

  Her eyes are vacant now, I can’t tell the emotions playing out inside. I hope she can forgive herself for Emily and Cam; I’m not sure what else she could have done.

  “Anyway, we fought our way to the north end of town, around the other side of the river, and joined up with more of the refugees from the caravan, that’s when we met up with Paco and Tammy again.

  “When we got to the barricades, the townspeople were fighting with us, but they couldn’t let us in, they were afraid of being overrun, but in the end, it didn’t matter. The Carts and zombies overran everything.

  “That was yesterday afternoon. They tried to blow up the bridges, but it didn’t really work, just killed a lot of refugees. But we finally made it into Freemont.

  “And so did the Button Eyes.

  “The Carts kind of disappeared after that.

  “Didn’t matter, the townspeople never had a chance; they’d never seen anything like this, like the Button Eyes, not in real life. We stole one of the military trucks and started looking for friends, and then headed for the river, trying to get on a boat, escape it all. I just focused on helping anyone that I could, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Emily and Cam, and how I ran away.”

  “You didn’t run.”

  “That’s what it feels like. I didn’t know how to get back to the school, how to get back to Emily…I just didn’t know…”

  “I didn’t see Cam at the school.”

  “You didn’t? I thought you were just trying to spare my feelings…could he have made it?”

  “There’s no telling, though I wouldn’t get your hopes up, I liked Cam too, but this whole thing is just one massive clusterfuck from one end of Freemont to the other.”

  She nods, slightly unfocused, and then she’s talking again. “We’d made our way into downtown, that’s when I saw you outside the warehouse. I made Keats and Brenda come with me, but I don’t know what to do about her now, she’s nuts.”

  “She’s more afraid than crazy.”

  She shakes her head. “I think you know the rest. It was four days of meandering down that state highway, like everything was just fine, and then two days of…of horror.”

  “You made it, Emily made it. Together, we have a chance,” I say with as much encouragement as I can muster.

  She squeezes my hand and then leans against me.

  The warmth of her skin, our time together, her smile; it’s intoxicating, and I’m seized by a goofy happiness I can’t explain — I’m giddy.

  I’ll always forgive her, she’s brave — and she’s always thinking about what’s best for those around her. She never does anything from fear or selfishness.

  She may be the best person I’ve ever met.

  She’s just good.

  I think Emily has already forgiven her, if there’s anything to even forgive. Emily loves Sam. That I know. I think about our little group…

  We’d all die for each other, even Holly and especially Casey, she’s not nearly as tough as she thinks she is. We’ll have to do something about that.

  And then there’s Samantha.

  Loving someone this much has to be unhealthy, but I’m willing to take my chances, her hand in mine just feels like fucking Fate.

  We pull close, holding hands, our fingers intertwined.

  “I can hear your heartbeat,” she whispers.

  I feel her breath on my neck, her lips are so close…

  Suddenly, Pixie’s barking her ass off.

  Jem screams.

  And then I hear a gunshot.

  I pull Samantha to her feet and then release her as I race ahead, down the hall and up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

  The gun goes off again and again.
I’m painfully aware that I didn’t bring my own .45 downstairs.

  I try to control the rising panic.

  When I get to the third floor, Keats meets me in the hallway, his shotgun at the ready, the other kids are awake too; Holly and Casey are sleepy-eyed, but still right behind him. Shinji stays at the other end of the hall in a doorway.

  We stop in front of the glass wall of Jem and Emily’s prison.

  It’s a wreck.

  Emily is on her knees, still half in the sleeping bag.

  She’s holding her .38 with both hands.

  Her chest is heaving.

  Jem is off to the side, huddling in the far corner, her tether stretched as far as it will go.

  And Brenda…

  Brenda is all kinds of dead. Her brains are decorating the wall behind her, along with a couple of bullet holes.

  Pixie is staring at me, like she was expecting me.

  My head is buzzing — this new sensation is going to take a lot of getting used to.

  What the fuck happened?

  I shove the broom out of the handles and throw open the door as Samantha joins us.

  I go to Jem and she leaps into my arms, still human, still alive.

  “Em?” Samantha asks.

  She looks at Samantha, and lowers the gun. She’s scared but has her shit together. “She’s one of them.”

  Keats kneels down over Brenda and shakes his head.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Her eyes, they’re black,” he says.

  Samantha shakes her head just like Keats did — disbelief? “But it’s been hours? When it happens, they turn fast, like in minutes.”

  “This is something else, something new. What happened?” I ask.

  “Pixie woke me and then she…I mean Brenda, was crawling after Jem.”

  “I screamed when I saw her eyes,” Jem says.

  “And then I shot her, like you showed me,” Emily says.

  I reach out for her, and she falls into my arms too. “You both did good. How do you feel Jem? How’s the arm?”

  She looks up. “Doesn’t hurt so much.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Help, Lane!” It’s Carlson.

  “What?” I shout.

  “It’s Patty,” he says.

  “Stay here,” I say, handing Jem and Emily off to Sam. “Show me.”