by T. S. Ward
“Search every building.” Fuck me. “Or whatever the fuck’s left of this place. Find them.”
Soldier looks at me. He nods, mouth a tight line.
I slip under the rubble quiet as a mouse. I am shaking. Terrified. I feel like a child hiding from the shouting in the next room. I feel helpless. And my only skill is in goddamn chain reactions. For fuck’s sake.
“I’ll count to ten before we start shooting everything that moves,” the man calls out.
Soldier passes me his pistol, butt first, and then he raises his hands above his head just as the man’s countdown is almost over. “Alright! I’m coming out!”
I close my eyes. Try to breathe. Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him.
I wait, silent, as he walks out.
“Well, well. Look at this strapping young man,” the guy drawls, and I can hear the smile stretching out his words. “Smart move, coming out. I am a man of my word, after all. What’s your name, son?”
Soldier hesitates. “Ben Daniels.”
“And I’m Ezra. John Ezra.” And then there’s silence. And then he’s talking quieter. “Listen here. Your little friend needs to come on out here, too. You know her well? Think she’ll protect you? I saw her hesitate.”
Soldier sounds nervous. “No, sir. Don’t know her at all.”
“So you won’t mind what happens to her, then,” Ezra says, and then there’s a short laugh. And a whistle. “No. No, I see you twitching, son. I see you. Go on, bring her out!”
A shadow falls over me, hands grab my ankles, and then I’m being dragged out across the debris. A boot kicks the gun out of my hand. Another stomps on the knife blade.
I kick up at them. The toe of my boot catches the person in their crotch, a grunt and a curse answering. They stumble against the broken wall. I grab the knife, slash at their calf, and get a boot in the ribs from a second person.
They grab me, haul me up by the jacket. Arms wrap around my neck and squeeze tight. My feet are off the ground. The knife is ripped from my hand again.
They’re dragging me out onto the street.
I grab at the arms, try to reach their face, and sink my nails into skin.
Soldier starts forward, but Ezra puts a hand on his shoulder. There’s a gun in his other hand. His finger is on the trigger. There’s someone else standing close with Soldier’s rifle pointed at his head.
I’m still fighting. Still struggling.
“Huh,” Ezra says, mouth half a grin as he looks me up and down. “Like some goddamn rabid squirrel. Tell me her name, Benny. She your sister? Your girl? You like ‘em small like that? I know I do.”
Soldier doesn’t answer. At least, I don’t hear him.
I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I can’t move my arms. Can’t move at all.
Day Twenty-Two
I don’t wake up disoriented. I wake up fighting.
My teeth bite down on a gag, tongue dry against it. A rope digs into the skin of my wrists and keeps me bound against something cold and hard. I am cold. Everything is dark.
A faint orange glow flickers with the sound of a crackling fire behind me, and the sound of raucous voices drowning it out.
I pull against the binds, work my jaw as I try to loosen the gag.
Panic floods warmth into my limbs, into my face, as I remember what that man said. You like ‘em small like that?
Something moves against my hand, brushes against my fingers, and I flinch. Twist. Try to peer over my shoulder. The back of Soldier’s head is there with a chain link fence between us.
He hums. I feel it in my back. A low rumble.
“Mmph!” I kick my heels into the dirt. Lean back against him.
He rests his head against mine and rolls it side to side. Saying no, don’t, be quiet, don’t fight. A warning.
I close my eyes and try to calm down. Focus on the sounds. Soldier breathing. A fire crackling. The voices.
I don’t know where we are. I don’t know how far we’ve gone off the path. I’m not even sure how long I was out for, or if they knocked Soldier out, but at least there’s a soft glow on the horizon that tells me the sun is coming up. If that counts for anything.
The fence rattles.
I open my eyes and look toward the sound as a couple scraggly guys stumble out to the edge of the woods. I make a noise of disgust and roll my eyes as they spread out, stand spread-legged, and start pissing. They mutter to each other the entire time.
Soldier works on the knot. I can feel his arms moving, his hands.
One of the men turns around. He looks me in the eye as he zips his pants up, not shy about it—even though he should be, fucking micro dick.
He elbows one of his friends and jerks his chin toward me. “Little squirrel’s awake. We tellin’ Ezra?”
His friend pulls a knife—my knife. Soldier’s knife. “You think he gives a shit? Come on. Give me a hand.”
“Ain’t she biter bait?”
“Not so long as Ezra ain’t here.”
Soldier is fighting hard as they start cutting the rope from my hands, shouting against his gag. I don’t fight immediately. I try to be smart, for once. Try to find an opening to do this right.
They haul me to my feet. I’ve got a sharp pain going through my spine.
“Come on over easy now, squirrel,” the one says. “No one likes a fighter.”
Fucking fuck right off. My stomach turns, drops with each word.
I slam my forehead against the guy’s nose, grab the arm holding the knife, and twist it. Push it forward somehow, some way, I don’t even know how. I’m just fighting in whatever way I can. The blade hits the other guy in the abdomen. It slides in too easily, blood pooling warm over my hands.
The guy starts screaming. He falls to the ground, clutching the knife. He pulls it out in his panic.
The other one reels on me, shoves me back against the fence. His fist slams against my nose. It’s immediately bloody. My vision blurs to black for a second.
There are more of them running to help. A few grab the guy on the ground, the rest grab me by the arms and the legs. They drag me into their little camp, and I catch a glimpse of Soldier on the way. Straining against his binds. He screams into the gag.
“Goddamn bitch killed him!”
I hit the ground hard, right beside the fire. A rock hits my upper back. Ash explodes upward and pours down on me.
A hand presses down on my mouth to stop me from screaming, and I sink my teeth in, right down to the bone. Keep biting, hard. The taste of blood floods my mouth. The crunch of bone rattles my brain. I spit out a couple fingers as the guy tears back and starts swearing.
More men hold me down. The first guy I headbutted stands over me and crouches down.
“You are a rabid little squirrel, aren’t you?”
I get a foot loose and bring a knee up under him, shout with all the air in my lungs as I buck up, twist, and use my knee rammed into his ass as leverage.
He falls into the fire. Writhing, screaming. The flames catch his clothes and whatever alcohol has replaced his blood.
They’re all drunk and lumbering. All but one of them stop to help the guy in the fire.
I scramble to my feet and put as much distance between me and the one guy as I can. He’s a lot younger than the others. Younger than me. Just a kid.
Soldier makes a noise. Gestures with his chin toward a small brick building. There’s a double barrel shotgun leaning against it. Our bags are there, too. I run for the gun, grab it, spin around.
The kid stops dead right at the end of the barrel and holds his hands up.
It’s not that I don’t know how to use guns, it’s just that I really don’t like them. I check it quickly.
It’s loaded. Two shots. Ready to fire.
One of the men starts toward me, and I don’t hesitate. I whip the barrel on him, shoot, and stumble into the wall with the kickback. I turn it right back on the kid. The others take the hint and stay back.
“Hurt that kid, you’re gonna have hell to pay,” one calls out.
There’s still screaming and moaning going on.
Soldier finally gets out of his binds with a grunt and rips the gag off. He stands up, hurries over to me and grabs our bags, his rifle. He aims it at the others as he collects the knife from where it was left on the ground.
“Bring the kid, Ghost.”
Why? But I nudge him backward with the smoking barrel, until we’re close enough for Soldier to grab him by the scruff. He pins him to his chest, the knife pressed against his throat, as he backs out toward the woods.
I stay close, breathing hard as we slip into the trees and the dark.
“You good?” He asks me.
I can’t find my voice. I keep the gun pointed at the kid’s chest as Soldier presses him to the tree, backs up, and then slams the butt of the rifle against his head.
The kid crumples to the ground.
Shouting follows us.
“Let’s go,” Soldier orders, holding a hand out and ushering me forward. He doesn’t touch me. He’s careful not to. Which is nice, considerate, but—I wish he would. I think I would feel better if he did.
We don’t look back. We don’t stop running. We don’t stop moving. It takes us hours before we’re well enough away, before we stop to breathe, and assess our damages and losses.
Day Twenty-Five
It takes another couple of days to get back on track and find the area my brother lives in.
I’m not even sure of an exact address. All I know is this is the way we came when he picked me up. That this is the neighbourhood I wandered around in a couple years ago when I lived here.
I stand in the middle of the road and try to piece together the place from memory. It’s torn up here, but not damaged too much.
Soldier is too paranoid to say much of anything lately. He’s scanning every corner, every opening, every shadow, staying close at times and a few yards ahead at others.
Adam’s house looks exactly like the other ones, but I remember that the front door is painted red and a neighbour’s is light blue. There’s a crab-apple tree in the front yard. A couple bushes. I remember it being small and overgrown, and a half hour into walking up and down these streets, I find what I think might be it.
It’s changed. The tree is just a stump. The door is painted white. But this is it, because there’s the sign I made with Sadie, hanging on the door from a bit of fishing line, that says wazzup! in pastels and sparkles.
My handprint is on it in yellow. Sadie’s on top of it in red.
I walk up the short driveway and step carefully up the porch steps. My heart is in my throat. It takes everything I’ve got left to find the spare key hanging on a string behind the beat-up old mailbox. The thing has reflective stickers stuck to it that say NEWELL. My mother’s name.
I unhook the key and work it into the lock.
The door cracks open and groans a little on its hinges.
I don’t hear anything inside, and I tell myself maybe they’re sleeping. Maybe they stepped out for supplies. Maybe they’re sitting in the backyard drinking homemade Shirley Temples and playing with water guns. Maybe they’re alright. But either way, the lack of sound is also a lack of moaning and groaning and gnashing teeth and wet skin.
I step inside, into the dark, and the light that follows me in highlights all the dust that stirs up into the air.
The place is hollow. Empty. All his shit is still here, all Sadie’s shit, but it just feels like it hasn’t been lived in for a while. And it’s bullshit. It’s complete bullshit.
There are still photographs. I don’t know who half the people are, but I’m in a couple. Younger, dumber, never with a straight smile, never staying still long enough to not be blurry. Destined to be forgotten all this time.
There’s one of me with Sadie when she was two. Half my face covered by her curly hair. There’s one of me with Adam when I was two, but something distracted me from the camera. I’m looking away, pointing.
Only one photo exists of me and him and her together. It’s in a small frame, but it has another picture stuck into the frame that obscures my face. Some girl with an older Sadie I don’t recognize.
I pull the frame down from the wall, take the photo out of it, fold it, and slip it into my pocket. My chest aches. I want to lie down on the floor and maybe scream or maybe cry or maybe sleep, but instead, instead, I walk into the kitchen. I search through the cupboards. I find out that the gas stove still works and throw the kettle on. There’s coffee here. There’s even a half jar of honey.
A quiet hum comes from the fridge.
I walk to it, reach my hand out to open it, and hesitate. A folded note is stuck to the door under a magnet in the shape of a peach, and all it says is K-.
I take it down. Unfold it.
Kel,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this, but I’m taking Sadie up north to see mum. You know how to get there. Hope to see you soon.
I love you.
- Adam
Fucker spelled my name wrong.
Did I just stop existing to him? After he fought for me for so long, it feels like he’s fighting to remember me now. But I stop myself, before I let it bother me too much, because it’s only two letters off, and maybe he was in a rush, and at least he bothered to leave a damn note.
At least there’s that.
I sit at the table. The afternoon sun filters through the old sheer curtains and falls across the junk on it. A box of papers. More paper, spread out. Sadie’s lunch bag sitting open with an old applesauce container inside. A detention slip.
Sadie Newell received detention for: telling another student ‘fight me, idiot’ and punching him when he refused to.
I start laughing, and then the tears start coming, and I drop my head onto my arms. I stay there until Soldier walks in, says something I don’t hear, and then the kettle is whistling and he’s pulling it off the stove.
“They’re not here, then,” he says quietly. I hear him pouring the water. “That’s alright. We’ll get there. We’ll find them.”
“He left a note,” I say, and shove the note forward without lifting my head.
Soldier sits at the table with me and sets down some mugs. He’s quiet, and then, “Who’s Kel?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Someone who might show up here?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know shit, apparently.”
He laughs softly. “Hey. Don’t worry. I’ll kick all their asses and let them know what they’re missing. Soon as we get there.”
I sit up, lean back against the chair, and run my sleeves under my eyes. He’s sitting there, cradling a mug in his hands, looking around at everything in the room. Another mug sits in front of me. Not coffee. Tea. Chamomile tea.
Soldier looks at me. “Figured it would do you better than caffeine would.”
He’s good at these things.
Even when the thought of tea instead of coffee seems like an offense. It means more than anything, the intent of it. I see that. It means I see you; I hear you; I am here for you. He is making it increasingly difficult to remain in limbo. He is making it increasingly difficult to remember that it hasn’t been long enough to step out from it and fully trust him.
But I do. More than I should.
“Thanks, Ben,” I whisper. Take a sip.
It’s not bad, to be honest. Maybe it’s the honey he mixed in, but there is something about it that’s different from every other tea I’ve ever had. Maybe I’ve just burned them, or steeped them too long. Or maybe it’s the honey.
He nods and picks up the detention slip, smiling when he reads it. “This your sister?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Almost thought it was you,” he says. He taps the name with a finger. “Same last name?”
I press my lips together and hum. Shake my head. “Why do you want to know so bad? Can’t I be a mystery?”
He looks down wit
h a small smile. “Tell me your name.”
“Tell me why you want to know.”
He doesn’t say anything. He stares into his cup and then looks around at the room again. “Because. You aren’t a ghost. Not to me.”
Not to me. Not to me. Not to me. Goddamn it, Soldier, goddamn—
I push my chair back, stand up, and walk out of the room. I leave the house. I stand in the front yard and try to breathe, try to calm down, to relax.
This feels like it isn’t real. Like it’s about to go up in flames. And I don’t know what I’ll do if it does.
I don’t know what I’ll do.
I run my hands through my hair, force out a breath, and then turn around and go inside. Soldier tries to say something to me, but I don’t listen. I curl up on the couch. I close my eyes until I fall asleep.
Day Twenty-Seven
I’m certain I’m awake well before Soldier is for once. Which is good, because there’s bacon in the basement freezer that I found yesterday that’ll be good to eat before we hit the road. It will keep us going until we can get out to the park and start hunting.
Something I’m familiar with, finally.
The smell of the bacon fills the house and it seems like the most magical and wonderful thing. I almost miss cooking actual meals. Almost miss the mundane, daily life I used to have, even if it was loaded with shit. Public transport, customer service, public transport, and dealing with family. But I sure as fuck miss the opportunity to have a life without it.
The opportunity to actually give Soldier a number to call.
So I cook, and I put on music, and I do my physio in between, and I drink three cups of coffee before everything’s done.
And I feel good. For the first time. For the first time ever, really, and I don’t know how long it takes me to notice that I’ve eaten half the bacon and Soldier still hasn’t woken up. I don’t know how long it takes me to notice that the kettle has gone cold and the music is repeating for the third time and he still hasn’t shown up.
I don’t know how long it takes me to fully realize that I didn’t wake up before him so much as he wasn’t here to begin with.
