Every Dark Little Thing

by T. S. Ward

  I swallow the lump in my throat, start to stand up, and fall back when he pulls out a gun and cocks it.

  “What do you want, Eli?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t heard about you, Squirrel.” He tosses the knife onto the far end of the couch, the gun unwavering. “You’re a deadly little shit, working for that bastard.”

  “Are you trying to kill me again?” I ask, ready to lunge for that knife. “Or is there something else? I’d love to get this over with.”

  He nods slowly. “Reckon I’ll only kill you if you’re a problem.”

  “You’re fucked.”

  “Listen here, you little shit. My brother’s the only thing I’ve got in this world. You think Pops treated us as nice as he treated you? No chance in hell. I protect my brother. Now,” he motions with the gun for me to get up and start walking. “You, you’re gonna take your shit and leave.”

  I do what he says carefully, cautiously. “And why would I do that?”

  “Because I’ll put a bullet in your head and make it look like you did it to yourself.” He pushes me forward. “When Lou wakes up, he’s gonna find you gone. That’s how it’s gonna be. Everyone else, they’re planning on kicking you out for all the shit you did for Ezra, and I know Lou ain’t having none of that. We’ve worked too hard to get here. You won’t screw it up.”

  “Why don’t you just let them kick me out, then?”

  He barks a laugh. “Lou would fight to go with you. Can’t have that, now, can we? It’s safe for us here. We’ve got friends. We’re straight. It’s what I always promised him, when we was kids.”

  I stare at my jacket, hanging on a peg by the door, with that hole ripped into it. He prods my shoulder with the gun, right on the stitches that don’t have that absence of feeling now that the whiskey has run its course. I close my eyes for a second and breathe out the pain, and then I grab my shit.

  “Fine,” I say, hoarse and quiet. “Fine. You win.”

  Eli scoffs. “Yeah. I know.”

  “I’m better off on my own, anyway.”

  He opens the door and waves me out. “Yeah. You are.”

  YEAR FIVE

  Day One Hundred

  I thought I’d learned to prefer being alone.

  But, every now and then, I find myself wandering back to that old farmhouse. Five years since the start and still, I keep coming back, with no idea what I’m hoping to find. I don’t know if I want Soldier to walk through the door, or if I want this horrible feeling in my chest to keep crushing me the way it is.

  I don’t intend to stop there. I don’t really know what I intend—I just know that it’s close, and it’s a necessity, and I need some place where I know the walls will protect me.

  There’s a horde on the road. There is fever taking hold.

  I park the truck along the trees between the house and the road, the part of the driveway that curves in and can’t be seen from either side, and get out. My pack is light. There isn’t much left. But these woods are good for hunting, and there’s all that honey a little hike through the trees along the brook.

  My feet sink into the mud. Out of everything, spring is my least favourite season. All the mud and the brown. At least there are flowers cropping up here. Little purple things poking up on short green necks along the sides of the driveway.

  That, at least, is a lovely sight. Especially after this last winter, which felt particularly long this year. Long and cold, the supplies being eaten up twice as fast—focus.

  As I walk up, I make a mental list of all the things that’ll have to be done. Chopping wood for the fire, cleaning out the woodstove, water from the little stream, double check all the windows and doors are secure. It shouldn’t be too hard.

  I’m so far in my own head that I don’t really notice anything. I don’t really react.

  As soon as I open the door, there’s a screech like some barn owl coming at me, and something about the same size as one. Only, it’s stamping over on two chubby legs rather than flying.

  I don’t even recognize the thing as another human for a few seconds, until it stops dead when it sees me. She. A little girl, with long, curly hair. She stares at me for a while, unblinking, and then a cry that’s louder and harsher than that screech is tearing from her.

  I stand there with one hand on the door and one foot over the threshold and look up, look around, and I think my heart stops beating.

  It’s like I’ve just walked into a room full of ghosts.

  It’s like all those damn horror movies, but real.

  They’re all staring at me, all frozen, and gaunt, and ghastly, and familiar. So I turn. I turn, and I start hoofing it back to the truck even though I know damn well it was running on fumes and probably won’t start again, but I just—I don’t really know.

  All I know is—I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, and maybe I’m having a heart attack or something, because there’s this ache in my chest that only gets worse and worse.

  It would be just my luck to have a fucking heart attack right now, wouldn’t it?

  I force myself to run the rest of the way to the truck, even though I just want to collapse in the mud and give up.

  They’re real fucking people! Humans! Living, breathing, not flesh-eating humans! Not beetles!

  That’s a miracle in itself these days, but all I can see are knives cutting into flesh. Blood dark and warm. A gun in the hand and a scream to rattle the teeth. I see Sadie. I see Adam. I see—I see Eli, standing over me, and Lana and her beetles forcing a deadly to bite my arm, sinking needles into my skin—

  I lock all the doors, listening to my ears ringing loudly as I start the truck. Why are my ears ringing? Why can’t I breathe? The goddamn tires spin in the mud.

  I slam my palms against the steering wheel, once, twice, over and over and over, a guttural scream bursting from my chest. It hurts, with that crushing weight bearing down against it.

  “Keely, open the damn door!”

  There’s a fist pounding against the glass beside me.

  “Don’t make me slash the tires on this shit wagon, punk. Get out here.”

  It’s Lou. It’s my dad.

  “Open the door,” he says, leaning his arm and forehead against the glass. “Please.”

  I’m breathing in gasps. In spurts. I lean over the steering wheel and tuck my head down. I want to scream again but all I manage is this tremor, this shaking that overtakes me. My hands, my lip, my whole goddamn body.

  When I look up, I’m sure I must have finally lost it. I’m sure this is a mental breakdown and I’m hallucinating and it’s only this vivid and real because of the fever. Because it’s not just Lou.

  It’s not just Lou.

  That’s Ben.

  Standing there a few yards back. Ben, in the mud, hair pulled back, beard long. That’s my Soldier.

  He steps forward, and I slam my hands down on the horn and hold them there. He stops, and I force myself to breathe through tightly clenched teeth.

  Lou smashes the glass, pulls the lock, and wrenches the door open. He rips my hands from the horn, and suddenly the cotton is back in my ears and they’re ringing so damn loud again. He drags me out and throws me down into the mud.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? There’s a damn horde on its way, for fuck’s sake!” He pulls me up and nods to Soldier. “Sam. Grab her bag, will you? I’ll bring her in.”

  Sam?

  Maybe it’s not him. Maybe that’s someone else, someone I’m just hallucinating to be him. Maybe that isn’t Benjamin Daniels and I just need to let go already—and I thought I did. I thought I gave up, until—

  But I’m just that much of a mess, aren’t I? I’m that much of a fuck up, completely fucking obsessed with someone I barely know. Knew. Because now, I’m just seeing things.

  “Sam!” Lou barks.

  He stops, holds me steady right in front of him, and I know it’s him for sure then. Those are his boots. I don’t know why I recognize his boots.

 
“Grab her shit before the ghouls come and flood this place. It’s alright. She’s with me.”

  “Let me take her in—”

  “My kid,” Lou says shortly.

  He keeps walking, one arm hooked around my waist to lead me forward. I don’t think the presence of other humans has fully registered with me yet.

  I hear Sam faintly. Lou does too.

  “My Ghost.”

  Lou stops and looks at me. “You know him?”

  I shake my head. And it hurts, it’s a knife right to the gut that I put there myself, but it isn’t a lie at all. I don’t know him. This whole ordeal is just painful as it is.

  I could have gone to the coast. I could have gone south. I could have gone to Mexico, or Canada, and been perfectly fine on my own. But I stayed. I stayed here, because what if I see them again? But it turns out that’s the worst thing that could have happened.

  It’s far better to dream about it, to dream about the happy reunion, because this—this is everything collapsing my ribs into my lungs and I don’t want to feel the way that it hurts me. I don’t want to hurt. But it’s all I ever get, isn’t it?

  Lou gets me in the house. He tells everyone to back off and sits me down in front of the fire. He wraps a wool blanket around my shoulders.

  I stare at the flames. I pretend these people don’t exist. I pretend I’m alone. But I can’t, not fully, because Ben is walking into the house with my bag, setting it down by the coat rack in the hall, and that little child is running up to him and I think I stop breathing.

  Vanessa appears then, picking the girl up, smiling at him.

  “Sam, this is Ghost,” she says, gesturing to me.

  “I know,” he breathes.

  “How do you know her?” Lou asks. He tries to be quiet about it, but in here, the voices carry like an echo. “She never mentioned knowing any Sam before, and I recall you weren’t there when she was with us.”

  He ignores the question and asks his own instead. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  They’re quiet for a few seconds before Vanessa says, “Two years ago. Macon kicked her out. Too much of a liability, he thought. I mean, some kid did stab her.”

  “So kick her out instead of the kid?”

  “That’s what I said,” Lou nods. “Besides, she took off in the middle of the night, before the final verdict.”

  “Quit talkin’ about me,” I mumble.

  They shut up and look to me. I wish the silence would last, but Macon bursts into the house with Jenny on his heels, with Fox and Viking following behind. The two of them push past everyone else to come sit on either side of me, grins on their faces as they wrap their arms around me.

  “Thank god you’re alive,” Viking laughs.

  “We missed you, Squirrel,” Fox says, “We looked for you.”

  I don’t say anything. I just sit there and try to not let myself wonder why it’s Ezra’s men who greet me like they care, when my own dad and Soldier are keeping their distance.

  Macon sinks down onto his heels in front of me. “I suppose it’s been long enough.”

  Fuck you. I want to say it every time a word leaves his mouth.

  “Everyone in our group who wanted you dead are dead themselves. Ezra still stands, but I thought you might have gotten around to it by now.” He tilts his head to hold my gaze, but I can’t stop myself from looking past him to Soldier, from seeing flashes of what it was like with him. “That wasn’t your only goal, I know that. You ever find who you were looking for?”

  I look Soldier in the eye when he says it, and then look back at Macon, eyes narrowed. He knows. The bastard knows.

  He looks down and freezes. “What’s that, on your leg? That blood?”

  I pull my legs back, wrap my arms around them, and shake my head. My voice is thin, broken, dry. Hoarse. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  He eyes the sweat on my skin. “You got bit?”

  Fox holds a hand up. “I’m sure she’s fine, Macon.”

  “Show me the wound, if it’s nothing.”

  Viking stands up as I push myself back. “Macon, she made it this far, it’s probably nothing.”

  Soldier is looking at me, like he’s about to say something or do something, but he’s struggling to do it. His arms are crossed over his chest. His face looks drained.

  “Charlotte!” Fox calls, standing up.

  He and Viking put themselves between me and Macon, but then Jenny dives at me from the side. She knocks me to the ground, onto my back. The girl isn’t that big but she’s damn heavy, and her hands are tearing my pant leg back.

  Lou pulls her away, but even he looks like he’s about to pass out.

  He comes back to me after dumping Jenny on the other side of the room, crouches down, and places his hands on either side of my face. He curses when he feels the heat coming off my skin. “Don’t lie to me. Are you bit or not?”

  I shake my head.

  He breathes out and leans his forehead against mine.

  “Just a scratch, really, but it’s fine—”

  “Fuck, Keels!” He pulls back and runs his hands over his hair. He’s cut it short, I notice then. “No, no, no, no, no—not from a ghoul, right? Not from—Keely Louise Finch, what the fuck have you done?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, kid. You can’t die. You can’t.”

  “Exactly what I mean, Dad—”

  “The barn. She can stay in the barn. I’ll keep an eye on her.” Soldier talks over us, looking Macon in the eye as Charlotte walks into the room. “It’s too late to remove the leg, so don’t even think about it.”

  They all start arguing. They all start shouting, and I can’t breathe with all these people. I can’t hear myself think. And there’s that crushing weight on my chest and in my head—I stand up, slip around all of them, and march right back out the door, grabbing my stuff on the way.

  I start toward the truck at first, but there are biters moving out of the trees, lumbering onto the lawn and the driveway. I turn to the barn instead and start walking, teeth clamped firmly together, skin burning.

  I’m not too sure if the heat under my skin is from the fingernail marks on my ankle, or if it’s from human interaction, but it’s there. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. The fever is what makes my heart pound gallons through my veins.

  Soldier is behind me. He pulls the door shut, and I hear the sound of a chain as I climb up into the loft, drop my shit off to the side, and sit down cross legged. I close my eyes and wait for him to come plead his case. And he does—sit down, anyway. He just doesn’t say a word.

  We sit there for a few minutes in silence.

  And then—there’s a hitch in his breath after a while, and my eyes snap open, narrowing when I see the tears shining on his cheeks. Why does it feel like such a stab in the back? Why does that hurt so much?

  “You’re gonna bullshit me like that?”

  He blinks. “What?”

  “You still care, after this long?” I look past him. I don’t think I can look at him, without breaking down, because I still care. After all this damn time.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t, because I…” He shakes his head slowly. “I do. I do, so much.”

  This fever grows hot across my head, across the back of my neck, only this—this is rage growing like a wildfire, until I’m shouting words at him that I haven’t fully thought through.

  “So why the fuck didn’t you tell them your real name? They knew, they knew I’ve been looking for you. You could have told them your real fucking name and it would have been fine. I would have been fine! I wouldn’t have been alone, but that’s just how it is for me, so why bother trying?”

  “Lana said she had you, I thought…” He shakes his head as he struggles to find words. “But I’ve been trying—fuck, Keely, why do you think we’re here? Why do you think this is the place I brought them to? I’ve been looking for you the whole goddamn time. I’ve been trying to get to Ezra, for Sadie—
”

  “Sadie is dead,” I whisper, and that shuts him up. “And I should have been a long time ago, yet here I am.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? You want to tell me you care, that you give a shit? Sure showed that, didn’t you? How am I supposed to know you didn’t hand me over to her?” I keep talking as he moves, as he comes to sit next to me. As pissed as I am, I think I’ve missed him more. I think I’m a goddamn fool. “God, I ruin everything I touch.”

  His arm rests heavy around my shoulders, his hand on my hair, pulling me close so he can kiss my temple. “No, you don’t.”

  I pull away and climb, dizzy, to my feet. I pace for a minute, and then cross the loft to lean against the frame of the small window, watching the shambling idiots flood the yard in an aimless yet forward-shifting way. They move like waves.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “So do I call you Sam now? Or what?”

  He breathes out. “You call me whatever you want.”

  One of the windows on the first floor of the farmhouse opens slowly, in short jerking movements, which makes me pause before answering. “I doubt there’s room in your life for what I want to call you.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he says, laughing. “Because I’ve been shaping everything in my life to fit around you and it’s goddamn difficult when you’re—”

  “What’s with the kid?” I frown, walking away from the window to pull the machete from its place in the elastics of my bag. My hand goes to my waist to check for the knife. “Didn’t exist when I was around.”

  “Noah,” he says. “Vanessa—”

  “Yeah, whatever, she’s climbing out the kitchen window.”

  I swing a leg over the window sill, duck my head down, and slide down the side of the barn with one hand gripping the edge. As soon as I’m as far down as I can get, I jump. It’s still a height, still a hard hit.

  My ankles and knees catch the brunt of it, and I stumble forward, shouldering one of these damn sheep away. I bring the machete around to slice its head in two. It collapses, and I take the next one with Soldier’s knife buried in the back of its head.