by T. S. Ward
He raises an eyebrow. “A wet rock, huh?”
“Exactly.”
He looks at me for a while, so intently that it makes me squirm. His hand is still on my knee. I almost wish I could feel it—knock it off, idiot, you pitiful child.
He takes his hand back and stands. “You’re covered in banshee.”
I watch him walk away.
He grabs a rag, soaks it under the tap, and starts on his way back, but I’m already lying down. I’m curled on my side with the jerky held close, asleep before he gets back.
—
I stand shivering under the cold water. The air makes it worse.
This camp has sinks inside the cabins, but the showers have to be outside. Of course. Because that’s the experience. That’s what camping is all about when you’re a rich family of four who have never lived a day without wi-fi and all your friends and family think it’s a great idea to pack everyone up and try it out.
At least it numbs the feeling of absolute fucked-up-ness in my back. In all of my muscles in general. It numbs the swelling of my spine.
I stand there and suffer and just get more annoyed, but I get the forest off my skin and out of my hair. Get rid of every last bit of wailing siren banshee. Get it all out and gone and washed away.
Once I’m done, I pull the towel over the metal privacy screen. It catches on a sharp bit and rips a few threads out.
I make a mental note to be more careful with my clothes. I really don’t need to be walking back across camp naked and cold and wrapped in a torn towel. Although it would be peak Ghost for that shit to happen. It would be just my luck.
I’m just about dried off when a scream rips somewhere in the forest. It chills me beyond the surface of my skin. There’s something else, too.
Something big.
I can feel it thumping against the earth. Or, maybe not an it but several its. A herd of, hopefully, animals.
I get dressed as quickly as I can and slip out from the shower stall, walking back out into the main camp. Another scream shudders through the trees.
Soldier walks out onto the porch of his cabin just as I reach mine.
He looks around, frowning. “That more of your banshees?”
“More, and something else.”
“What’s the something else?”
I stop on the step and look back at him, gesturing vaguely to the woods. “I don’t fucking know, but you’re welcome to stand out here and find out.”
He chuckles. “You know, we could clear them all out, figure out where they’re coming from. Live here in peace.”
“That’d make it too easy,” I say, walking inside and letting the door fall shut behind me.
Easy gets you comfortable, and comfortable gets you killed, and getting killed turns you into whatever the fuck I’ve become. A ghost, or someone who’ll do whatever it takes to survive.
Maybe that’s not so bad.
Or, maybe, there’s a limit to it that turns it bad after a certain point. Maybe that point is somewhere between my uncle and his friends almost killing me, and John Ezra’s men. Or maybe it’s the point between John Ezra’s men and almost getting myself killed out of the sheer desperation to stay alive. But. Either way.
I am alive.
And I will try my best to stay that way, whether I mean it or not, because it’s the animal instinct, the monkey brain, that says live, you fucker.
At this point, all I’ll have to show for continuing to live is a vague amount of skill at doing fucking yoga on the floor of a cabin in the woods. Yoga, and some strength building.
Soldier bursts through the door when I’m in the middle of a pose. “Found out what it is—how the hell do you do that?”
“Don’t even ask,” I sigh.
“It’s pigs, by the way. If you don’t like it why—”
“Pigs? Like, wild boars? Are you kidding me?” I jump up and run past him, barefoot, for the door. “After all the luck spending days chasing down one deer and nearly dying over the asshat, the goddamn actual bacon shows up right on our doorstep and you aren’t out there rounding them up? What the fuck, Soldier!”
A group of boars runs back and forth between a couple cabins, squealing, snorting, and stamping their little hooves.
I set up a trap for them the first few days we were here, in case one wandered in. I saw their prints in the mud and figured they’d come for the food left behind by irresponsible campers. They certainly look like they’ve gorged themselves on trash.
I figure all I have to do is piss off the boss and they’ll come running, so I grin at Soldier. “Watch my back, will you?”
“What are you doing?” He groans, shaking his head.
I run toward the pigs, searching out the biggest, fattest one steering the herd, and start shouting at it. “Hey, bacon, bacon, bacon! Hey! Over here, fat ass, come on! Suuuuuey!”
It takes a hell of a lot more yelling to get the oinkers riled up, and then I’m yelping as I run toward the pen. I grab the rope tied to the makeshift stick gate and leap over the back fence.
The pigs come stampeding in, snorting and squealing, and I pull the rope. The gate falls shut. It isn’t perfect, but it’s sturdy, and it’ll do.
I double check that everything’s in place properly before going back to Soldier, a grin plastered on my face.
“I got the motherfucking, actual bacon.”
“Okay,” he says slowly, eyes scanning the woods. “So where are the banshees?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe they got their meal.”
“What happens when they’re done that meal and they hear your pigs and they come running into camp? We’ll get swarmed for the damn things—”
“Okay! Fine. Sorry,” I throw my hands up and turn around, stomping back toward the pigs to let them out.
“Uh, okay, hey, no. Hold on a second.” He catches up with me, taps his knuckles against my elbow. “All I’m saying is we’re going to have to pick them off as they come in. What do you say about that?”
I stop and look down, bare feet in the grass under me. The quiet snorting of the pigs figuring out their new home filling the silence.
I nod. “Yeah. Okay.”
—
It’s dark by the time we eat, make my coffee, make Soldier’s tea. We set up on the small balcony of the biggest cabin, on the loft level, half sheltered by the roof pitch.
The only sounds are the pigs, satisfied and snoring on full bellies of rabbit and venison and rotting apples, and the quiet rumble of the generator that the freezer is hooked up to.
We’re both in sleeping bags, wearing hats and gloves, sitting like cozy little slugs on creaky lawn chairs. Our guns lean against the rail. We eat the rabbit jerky from a shared bag. Not afraid to hold back on snacking with all the venison and pigs.
The smell of woodsmoke hits me. Something that’s always been comforting. Hunger inducing and yet warming.
“I was vegan for the first half of my life,” Soldier says, out of nowhere, and I am shocked for two reasons.
The fact that he’s talking about something to do with him, and also the fact that this man—this big ass man—was vegan.
It takes me a moment to say anything, and I can see the smirk on his face because of that. “I cannot tell if you’re serious or about to tell me a joke.”
“How can you make a joke out of that?”
I don’t bat an eye. “I don’t know, man. It just vegans and then it ends.”
He stares at me, unblinking, lips parted, and then he leans his head against his hand and starts laughing. An honest fucking laugh, one that crinkles his eyes at the corners, one that hits me right in the gut.
“You’re a fool, Ghost. An absolute fool.”
“More than you know,” I murmur, staring out at the woods. I think my joke was top tier hilarious, but there’s this lump in my throat and utter stupidity in my head that keeps me quiet.
I smile when he looks at me, and it isn’t quite as honest, but—limbo. Limbo, l
imbo, limbo. Bending over backwards just to avoid something that I’m certain will only be painful in the long run.
Would it? Would it really?
I think I am also afraid that he isn’t sitting in some kind of limbo state wondering the same shit. I might just be nothing more than an annoying little sister. A complete stranger.
You’re a fool. Knock it off.
“My mother was a vegan,” he says, filling the silence that’s grown. “Single mother, only child. And she was a vegan so that’s what I was, up until I was fifteen and got high at a friend’s house.”
I gasp involuntarily but still make a joke out of it, pressing a hand to my chest. “Benjamin, you heretic.”
He kicks his feet up on the railing, sleeping bag and all. “Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s shocking, whatever. But we were just sitting there and he had this bag of jerky and he was going on and on about how good it was. So I tried it. And he wasn’t lying. It was really fucking good.”
“I cannot imagine you as a scrawny little vegan kid. Especially not a high scrawny little vegan kid. I can’t even imagine you smaller than this.” I peer at him sideways and try to look past the short beard and serious eyes, try to think of him as a cute little kid.
I can’t quite see it.
“Believe it or not, I did not come out of the womb this handsome and muscular.”
“Oh, please, spare me, Narcissus.”
“Me? I’m not the one who had a shower today. I mean, who does that? Narcissists.”
I’m struggling to keep a straight face. “You want me to smell like entrails? Because someone has to put food on this table and it ain’t gonna be you.”
He laughs and chews a bit of jerky. “Why am I the housewife?”
“Because that’s the power dynamic here. Rabid squirrel versus golden retriever.”
I shake my head when he offers me jerky and sit there sipping my coffee instead, staring up at the stars, cursing myself for comparing him to the cutest breed of dog there is—something I’m sure I must have mentioned at some point. I remember saying something about it. If I ever got a dog it’d have to be a golden retriever.
Fool, fool, fool. Not even that. Just a complete idiot through and through.
I change the subject before he says anything about it. “Haven’t had to shoot anything yet. Kinda weird. We’re loud as fuck.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” he says, quiet now. “Maybe we’ll hike out of here pretty soon.”
“Thought you wanted to stay?”
He shakes his head. “No. It isn’t safe. And you’ve got family to find.”
Day Sixty-One
The banshees never made another sound. Nothing wandered into camp. Not that I’d have known, passing out the way I did. Soldier could have knocked a few rounds off and I wouldn’t have flinched.
I wake up in the same position—feet up on the rail, sleeping bag pulled up to my chin, sitting almost sideways in the chair. It sure as hell isn’t the most comfortable way to sleep, but it was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.
I sit up slowly, groggy, and stretch my back and arms.
What I don’t expect is Soldier, still sitting on his chair, asleep in the same way I was. He’s got his chin tucked down against his chest, arms crossed high, hands tucked under his armpits. And he looks peaceful. Relaxed. Not tense, not anxious, not constantly scanning everything around us.
I sit there. I sit there and I let the morning sun crawl through the trees and climb up the cabin. The mist rises like the dead and spreads out between each building.
For once I don’t want to get up and get running. I want to stay put.
But.
Staying put won’t get me to my brother and sister. They are the only reason why I get up, roll my sleeping bag up, and head downstairs.
Living easy gets you comfortable and getting comfortable gets you killed and I am not about to become chow for the animals and the bugs and the mushrooms just yet. I’m not about to, but if we don’t take care of these pigs…
Fuck.
The pen is broken. Torn up out of the ground. And all these damn pigs have made their way back into the woods.
I was looking forward to some goddamn bacon, but—we wouldn’t have been able to carry all the venison and a pig, so maybe it’s just a blessing in disguise, and I shouldn’t be too bothered.
Especially not when today is looking to be such a nice day.
Still, I am slightly bothered. That shit should’ve held. It shouldn’t have been torn up and tossed aside like that, as if someone had pulled it up.
I pause, double back to the pen.
There’s no damage to the dirt. No frayed edges on the rope—clean cuts. I stand there staring at it for a moment, and then this chill crawls up my spine.
I feel like there are eyes on me now.
“Weird,” I mutter, hurrying back to my cabin. “Weird, weird, weird.”
I pack all my shit up, salute the empty cabin, and walk right back out into the mist. It’s all quiet. So quiet that it’s a little eerie. I dump my shit at the cabin with the freezer and turn around, looking up.
Soldier isn’t on the balcony anymore.
I stand there for a minute, looking around, but don’t see him anywhere. Not in this thick fog. He doesn’t walk out of that cabin in the next thirty seconds, so I sigh, and haul my ass back across camp again. Only this time I’m slipping up the steps to Soldier’s cabin.
Voices stop me just before the door.
I freeze, panic thundering in my heart, and lean against the siding as I listen.
“…tangoes confirmed down, advise.”
“Wait for Delta. Over.”
A radio. When did Soldier get a radio?
“Eyes on November?”
“Negative,” a few different voices repeat.
I grab the handle on the door, hand on my knife, and pull it open.
Soldier startles as he’s shoving the radio to the bottom of his pack. Alone. Completely alone, not held hostage by more psychos with guns. Just him, and a radio, and this feigned look of innocence.
I stand there, hands shaking. “What was that?”
“What?” He scratches the back of his neck and looks around the room. As if I didn’t see that. As if I didn’t hear that.
“Oh, come on,” I say softly.
It’s that smoke. That damn smoke from that damn fire I always find myself running into. It’s in my lungs. It won’t leave.
He leans back against the table, sits on the edge of it, nodding. “The radio. It’s military frequency. There’s army nearby. I kept it just in case—well. I don’t know why, really. I just hit the switch while I was packing—”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, sure. Sure.” My arms are crossed as I nod and back toward the door. Nodding. Nodding. Sure thing, Soldier, sure.
“Ghost. Come here. Come over here.” He waves me over as he shifts, planting one foot on the ground and letting the other dangle, toes tapping the floor. He holds his hands out when I hesitate, palms up. “No, I see you inching away. Come here and talk to me. I’m not chasing after you just to reassure you about this.”
I walk over slowly.
This whole situation has me on edge. It’s snapped my trust right in two. I feel like he’s about to pull a knife on me or something, so I stop just outside of his reach and hold his gaze. Unwavering. Ready to take flight. Ready to run.
He drops his hands to his knees. “I’m not lying to you. I won’t. Not about anything. It’s a radio, Ghost. I was in the army. That’s all. I don’t know what you’re scared of, but I promise, there’s nothing nefarious going on.”
“I’m not scared,” I say.
“You’re not scared?” He looks at me for a while, looks down, and then holds a hand up to me, a finger sticking up. “Tell you what. I’ll give you the most unbreakable vow in the world. A pinky swear. I won’t lie to you, Ghost.”
I narrow my eyes. “You know I’ll cut that pinky off if you do lie to me.”
&n
bsp; He smiles when I wrap my finger around his. His is basically the size of my middle finger, but he holds my hand there, pulls me closer to him. “I know. No lies, yeah? Not from me, not from you.”
“Sure,” I say, pulling my hand back to cross my arms again.
I don’t even know what it is about it that bothers me, but I am uneasy and my heart is in my throat and I don’t trust his little fucking pinky swear bullshit for the life of me. No lies from me—there isn’t a reason for me to lie. I have nothing to hide. Not like I haven’t blabbered about every little thing I possibly could.
“Do you trust me?” He folds his hands together.
I can’t look him in the eye. “Do you want to grab your shit and come split the venison so we can go? Only reason I came in here.”
“Did you trust me up until now? Is it different after that?”
Just stop talking about it, Benjamin. Let me walk away. Let me walk away. Just walk away, Ghost, just walk away—but I don’t. I should, but I don’t, and it fills me with this heated anger.
I run my hands down my face and back away. “What do you think? Of course there’s got to be something, right? This one tiny thing goes a little alright for me for once and something has to come in and kick it right in its perfect little teeth. I’m not surprised. Not really. Not at all, actually. This is just how shit is for me. This is how everything goes. I don’t trust you anymore, and I did, I really let myself fucking trust you. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing talking to the fucking military you say you left, but I don’t believe you. I don’t know what I want to hear. I don’t want to hear anything, maybe, I mean, how can the answer be that simple when you let the fucking pigs out of their stupid little pen—”
“I don’t know what to do then, Ghost. I didn’t touch the pigs, by the way. I don’t know what to say to you to fix this. You won’t believe a damn thing I say anyway. Do one stupid thing and fuck me, right?”
I back away. “You know, I’ve been honest every day of my life. It’s not hard. It’s not, not at all. Bring your shit and don’t talk to me.”
—
