I was standing in the middle of my mother’s garden, sneaking sweet peas off the vine, instead of weeding as I’d been told to do. My tiny hands were having trouble cutting off the peas. I was making quite the mess and even worse I was leaving evidence that would surely lead to my conviction. I could taste the sweetness of the peas as they crunched in my mouth. Nothing had tasted so fresh in a long time.
The sun was warm on my face, the birds were singing, everything was perfectly serene. I yanked another one off. “Caught you,” a familiar male voice said to me. I turned around, expecting to see one of my brothers, but instead there was Jack. I looked down at my hands holding the peas, they were bigger now. Not the childlike one’s from my original memory.
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. It’s your dream.”
“It’s more of a memory,” I replied, looking down from his eyes. I felt the heat flooding my face. This time I couldn’t blame it on the fever.
Jack snatched one of the peas out of my hand and shoved it in his mouth. “Memories, dreams, they all seem to collide don’t you think? We could analyze it, or we could just go with it. It’s your…whatever…you decide.” I looked up at him shyly and smiled. “You’re about to analyze it, aren’t you?” He laughed.
“I can’t help it. My dad was a councillor. I grew up around that stuff.”
“So then,” he said picking another couple peapods off the vine, with finesse. “What do you think I’m doing here?” He handed me one and I nibbled on it slowly.
“Well, this is home for me. It was safe. I often dream of home when I’m scared. Then there’s you, a stranger. Somehow, I feel safe with you. Maybe you remind me of home?” I said tentatively.
Jack smiled back at me. “I like that answer. Let’s go with that.” He moved in closely, dropping the pea from his hand as he cupped my face and leaned in to kiss me. I stood there shocked, bracing myself for the impact of his lips, but they disappeared along with everything else from my dream.
There were voices arguing. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was very clear. I was positive that at least one of the voices was April. But then that was an easy guess. She was rarely calm with strangers. Did she have to wake me already? Surely, I deserved a little rest after almost dying, and it had been such a long time since I’d had a good dream.
I took in a deep breath. It hurt a little. My throat was sore, but at least there wasn’t a tube down it anymore. My eyes were too heavy to open. With them closed, I tried to figure out where I was and what was going on. My leg still hurt, but not like it had. It was more like a constant ache. My head was resting on a fluffy pillow; my hair was out of its bun resting beside me. I never had my hair down anymore. It wasn’t safe. It was too easy for someone to drag me down by. But having it loose felt so nice, like a weight was taken off me. My body lay on an actual bed. Not the metal table I had been on for the surgery, but an actual bed. Perhaps not as comfortable as the one I had back home, but it was certainly more comfortable than anything I’d slept on lately. I wondered if we were still in the bunker.
I tried to open my eyes slowly. Through my lashes, I could make out soft sunlight in the room. Not a lot, but just enough to light up the place. Around me, were curtained partitions. Just like I’d seen in the old hospital back home, every time I ended up there with an asthma attack. Thankfully, I’d outgrown those. If I hadn’t, I probably would have died a long time ago. How long had I been unconscious? I let my eyes fall closed again and just listened to the sounds around me.
I heard my sister’s voice, grumbling away from the curtain. Her heavy boots stomped against what sounded like concrete. She always was one for the dramatics. If there had been a door to slam, I would have heard it. The curtain swung open. “Seriously you’d think the girl would be grateful, after all we’ve done,” said Billy as he pulled up a seat beside my bed.
There was a chuckle from the other side of my bed. “You don’t think she reminds you of anyone?” It was Jack. He was still by my side. My cheeks burned, just as badly as they had in my dream.
“What are you talking about?”
“You, ya idiot. You’re just as stubborn. Especially when it comes to me. If the roles were reversed, you’d be just as pigheaded.”
“I would not. I’d be grateful.”
“You’d be ordering everyone around and you know it. Besides, we don’t really know anything about what these two have been through. We’ve been sheltered in the safety of this village for five years. They’ve been out on the road for the last six. You know as well as I do, the stories that have come from the other survivors. It’s a completely different world out there. You’d be paranoid too if it had been you.”
Billy’s only response was a grunt.
“How long until you think she wakes?”
“Not long. That’s why I wanted April to go get some rest while she could. Ungrateful…”
“Seriously, let it go.”
“You should go get some sleep too. You’ve been up for the last two days.”
“I’m fine here. I don’t even feel tired.”
I tried to keep my lips from moving into a smile. He wanted to be my side. It was just where I wanted him to be. Did he feel this strange pull for me, the way I felt for him? It was crazy to feel so connected to a stranger. It was dangerous. I should have been like my sister, questioning everything, but when I heard his voice, I couldn’t help but trust it.
Billy let out a puff of air and then I felt the blanket covering my leg pulled aside. He started to pull at the tape that was holding my bandage down. I let out a moan and instinctively flinched away as my eyes burst open. There was no more sleep for me. The pain was no longer dull.
I cringed as Billy let the bandage go and moved towards the head of the bed. His eyes looked red. His curly black locks stuck to his skin. I think he was the one in need of some rest. “How are you feeling?” He asked as he stuck an old school thermometer under my tongue.
“It’s kind of hard…talk wit…in my mouf,” I mumbled. Jack laughed beside me. The pain in my leg slowly numbed.
“Well, your sense of humour is still intact, unlike your sister’s.” I gave him a half-hearted dirty look. He pulled the thermometer back out. “It’s down, but still higher than I’d like it to be. Jack, could you go fetch a couple of Tylenol from the med cupboard?”
I watched Jack leave from the corner of my eye. He had a cute butt. Not that I should have been noticing that right now. I was recovering from a near death experience, after all. I turned my attention back to Billy, hoping that he hadn’t caught me checking-out his brother. He was too tired to have noticed. He could barely keep his eyes open.
I tried stretching and found myself tethered to something attached to my hand. An I.V. Jack returned with a glass of water and couple white pills. He handed them to me and went to stand next to his brother. I smiled shyly at him as I took his offering. The pills stuck a little going down my throat. I had to cough them down.
“Your throat should heal up soon,” Billy said as he checked the fluid in my I.V. bag.
“You have real medicine?” I asked staring at my hand.
“In the village yes. The bunker only holds basic supplies, plus whatever we’ve recently raided. That’s the only reason we had antibiotics and morphine on hand. How’s your leg feeling?”
“Sore, but better. Thank-you,” I said trying to focus on Billy. He was easier to look at.
“You’re welcome. At least this one has manners.” Jack smacked his brother lightly upside the head.
“You have to forgive April,” I tried to explain. “She’s just really…” I searched for the appropriate word… “protective.”
“We understand,” Jack replied. Great, now I was looking into those eyes again. The heat felt like flames licking my face. I needed to return my gaze to Billy, but I couldn’t will myself to look away.
“Let’s just have a look at your leg,” Billy said changing the subject. I he
ld my breath as he pulled the bandage off. The wound looked a lot better. It was stitched together nicely. It would leave a decent scar, but I was alive. That’s what mattered. “You’re not going to pass out?” Billy asked, eyeing me with concern.
“Why?”
“I mean you don’t get squeamish with blood and wounds and such?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have survived this long,” I replied with a smirk.
Billy gently replaced my old bandage with a new one. “Well, it’ll heal. The antibiotics I’ve got pumping through you seem to be doing the trick. Unfortunately for the pain, all I’m allowed to give you now that you’re on the mend, is Tylenol. We save the good drugs for emergencies, like your surgery. And you’re probably going to need some physio to get your leg functioning normally again. Unfortunately, I needed to cut away some of the muscle to save your leg. You’ll probably be stuck with a limp.”
I’d been walking around on that injured leg for days, without any pain medication. I survived surgery with minimal pain management. Surely, they could tell I was tougher than I looked. There was no way I was going to allow this injury to hold me back. They didn’t know me. Instead of scolding them like April would have, I just shrugged my shoulders.
Billy tried to stifle a rather obvious yawn. “You should take your own advice brother and go get some sleep,” Jack said nudging Billy’s shoulder.
“I have a patient,” he replied sleepily, pointing towards me.
“I’m fine,” I replied in a more chipper tone than intended. I really didn’t want either of them to know just how badly I wanted to be alone with Jack.
“She’s fine. I’ll be here to make sure she stays that way. If you’re needed, I’ll come get you.” I liked the sound of that.
Billy didn’t argue any further. It was clear that he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone argue. I was both relieved and nervous when he left. Jack guided him out, making sure that he made it safely to one of the other beds. When Jack returned, he came baring gifts. Food and my old torn backpack.
As hungry as I was, I reached for the backpack first. “Thank-you,” I said gratefully.
“Weapons are confiscated when we enter the village, but personal effects are left in our possession,” he said as I scrounged through the pack.
I shrugged my shoulders. I hadn’t had much in the way of weapons anyways, just a Swiss Army knife and a slingshot for taking down small prey. “That’s understandable.” Jack laughed at that. “I’m guessing my sister wasn’t so understanding.”
Jack shook his head, laughing to himself at the memory. “I thought that the soldiers were going to have to fight her for them.”
“Who managed to talk her down? Normally that’s my job.” I continued to rummage through my pack, looking for the one thing that meant the most to me. It had to be in there somewhere.
“I did.” That shouldn’t have surprised me. He had a very calming influence. What was a surprise, was that my sister managed to fully calm down. “I think what you’re looking for is in the front pouch.”
How did he know what I was looking for? I looked where he said and there was my old iPhone. The power had drained out of it years ago, but I still clung to it. It had memories on it and if I focused hard enough on the memories, it made them seem more real.
I let the pack gently drop to the floor and held the device to my chest. With a sideways smirk in Jack’s direction, I said, “I know it’s silly. It’s dead, but when I hold it, I can almost remember what’s on it.”
“Are you sure it’s dead? Let me see,” he said with a mischievous smile. I handed it over to him, eyeing him suspiciously. He pushed the power button and the device that hadn’t lit up in years, sprung to life.
The tears fell down my face, without me even attempting to control them. I hated crying in front of people, especially strangers, but I couldn’t help myself here and I didn’t care. He handed it back to me and I started scrolling through all the old photos. The faces I had barely been able to remember, were there smiling at me. My family, my friends, it was so overwhelming.
After blubbering for several minutes, I finally managed to smile at him and thank him. “How?” I asked.
“We have power here. We’re not really supposed to use it for these things, but I figured if you’d held onto it for all these years, that it was probably for more than just your playlist. Just don’t tell anyone,” he added, placing a playful finger to his lips.
I laughed. “I don’t think I’d want to look at the playlist. I was eleven. My music was all boy bands, Disney girl music.”
“I doubt it could be that bad.” I handed over my iPhone. He took it and started scrolling through my playlist, as I ate my lunch.
It only took him a minute before he said, “I take it back. You had terrible taste.”
“I told you. I was eleven. I didn’t have a chance to refine my tastes. I doubt you listened to anything better.”
“I can guarantee you that you wouldn’t have found one boy-band on my playlist.” I laughed. He continued to scroll through my iPhone, looking at all the pictures I had on it. It was nice to be able to tell someone about the people that meant so much to me.
On the road, we didn’t have time to recall memories, family, friends. It was all about surviving. No one asked about who you’d lost. They didn’t care. Everyone had lost somebody, that was just the nature of life and besides, getting to know someone was dangerous. You might start to care about them and that could put you at risk. You needed to be ready to leave people behind, to save yourself. Here it was obviously different. Jack was genuinely curious about my past and not at all afraid of getting attached to me.
“Who are they?” He asked pointing to the last picture I’d taken of my brother and his wife.
“My oldest brother Adam and his wife Kailey. That was their little boy Justin,” I said pointing to the little toddler in Adam’s arms. And that’s my brother Noah and his fiancée…or wife Ashley,” I said scrolling to the next picture.
“You’re not sure if they’re married or not?”
“Not really. The outbreak happened while they were in D.C. I know they were going to be married, I just don’t know if they ever made it to the chapel. I don’t know when D.C got hit. The news was so fuzzy at the time. So many rumours. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t.”
It had been a very scary time. The world changed practically overnight. The world had gone through chaos just a few years earlier. This new thing caused a fear that was so much worse than a couple nuclear plants going down across the country due to terrorism. It was bigger than the government falling apart. Bigger than World War Three, which thankfully, never reached Connecticut. This was an infection like we’d never seen before. It made a mother turn on her own child. Friends attacked friends. No one was immune. The only way to survive it was to not get bitten.
We started comparing our notes on the events as we remembered it. We were both young when the world fell apart. He was only a couple years older, barely fourteen, I was the youngest in my family, he the second youngest in his. He had the advantage of living on a military base as his father was in the army, but of course even those places didn’t stay safe for long. His brother had just joined the army to begin his training as a medic and so he and his dad left to take him to the base he’d be stationed at. They’d left his stepmother and stepbrothers at home, expecting to be back in only a couple of days.
The outbreak happened during his first day on base. Jack, his brother and father were able to stay there for nearly a year, until the base was finally overrun, and they were forced to flee. They still had no idea what happened to his stepmother and stepbrothers. Before the cell towers went out, they’d managed to connect and find out that their dad’s base had fallen quickly, and they’d been evacuated to a refugee site. But we all knew those sites never lasted.
They had no idea what had become of their father. When his brother’s base fell, they were both under orders to “Bugout�
�� as he called it, if that situation were to arise. They managed to make it to their grandfather’s cabin, which was only twenty miles from this village we were now in. It was while they were hunting in the woods one day that they met up with a team from the village and were invited to join and they’d been here ever since. The only time he’d ever seen the monsters in the flesh, was that night they escaped the base.
They were lucky. In six years, I’d had far more encounters with the creatures and even when I didn’t have to fight for my life, I still would hear the screeching at night. Sleep was a luxury. For the first three months, we managed to remain in our home. Our house had a large panic room, with enough supplies to last our family a month. With only three of us there, we managed to make the supplies last longer, but eventually we had to leave. Our property was on several acres of land and isolated, but we’d already had several encounters with raiders, and we were running low on ammo. April, Andy, and I set out to try and hopefully find the rest of our family in D.C.
“If you were heading to D.C,” Jack interrupted. “Then how did you end up in Montana.”
“We’ve been weaving up and down through state lines for the last six years. Every time we’d make progress, we’d get pushed back in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. And to be quite honest, I lost track of which state we were even in. Last year we pretty much stopped trying. Even if they are still alive, and I hope they are. The odds that they’re still in D.C aren’t good.”
Jack thought about that awhile. “Do you feel like they’re still alive.”
A tear fell from my cheek. “I honestly don’t know… maybe some, but not all,” I replied. I wanted to tell someone about my dad, but I doubted if anyone would believe me. I stared at the empty tray of food. Suddenly, despite sleeping for two days, I just felt so tired.
“You know I felt for the longest time, like my dad was still alive and then last year I had a dream. He came to me and told me not worry about him. That he was in a safe place. And I knew that he had died. I told Billy of course, but he doesn’t believe in…well much of anything anymore.”
Seeking Hope: Book 2 in the Seeking Saga Page 3
