by Laila Blake
“I don’t know that I’ve been ‘on that,’” he said, touching the tip of her nose with his thumb. “Just... for whatever I said, you know, it’s not because of you. Alright?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you or... I don’t know what I did. Make you feel bad? I never wanted any of that, I promise...”
“Hey.” His hair was a mess over his forehead, nearly in his eyes, but they were warm and steady on hers. “You—you didn't do anything wrong. That’s what I’m saying, okay? If you’re fucked up, I’m fucked up. Plenty.”
“You’re not….” she whispered feeling soft and worn out, that vague and tired triumphant smile on her face as though this somehow proved something, “Normal reaction, I think.” But his closeness was welcome, more than she knew it should have been. She reached up, finding his tangled hair with her fingertips, smiling a little. It would need a wash before she could cut it, the way she promised.
Like a puppy, he drove into that touch, just a little, forehead nudging against her hand, and, as if by pure accident, that was when he kissed her. Her lips tasted salty with her tears, and her eyes closed, eyelashes brushing against his cheek. She didn’t pull away, hesitated, then moved her lips against his.
It wasn’t a deep kiss, nor all that long, and he rested his forehead against hers when it broke, neither of them really out of breath. Shivering a little, afraid to pull back, her hand slipped down from his head, to behind his ear and down his neck until it rested on his shoulder. Her heart beat rapidly and she tried, desperately tried, not to think of anything at all.
Finally: “I... you okay?” He didn’t have anything else to come up with, and so it was back to the very first question, the one that seemed safest, and not at all.
This time, she nodded, forehead rubbing against his.
“Okay.” A pause. “Good.” He didn't move to kiss her again, just stayed there, and listened to them both breathe.
His fingers went to her hair, smoothed it over her skull, and settled his hand, warm and heavy, at the back of her neck. She easily tucked back against him, his shoulder and chest, back at the dampness of his shirt, and his steady breathing under it.
Silence was simple, left room for the language of skin and hands. Her breath was calm against his chest and she suddenly felt the weight of all those days and weeks, pushing down on them like bricks. Felt tired and pliable against him.
“You feel good,” she whispered against his shirt.
He smiled over the top of her head, suddenly very weary.
“Thanks.” Then: “You too.” And she did, but there was a sense of caution in saying that, in admitting anything. Words were strangers, and dangerous between them; they had both learned that. This time, they were more careful with them, afraid to cause another reason to jump apart.
They sat like that for a long time until they were both yawning, smiling at each other guiltily.
“Can I... stay here?” she asked, more quietly than before. “For just… just... a little while?”
“Sure.” It was out before he could think it and, truly, letting go of her was a strange proposition all of a sudden, that small bit of warmth, someone clinging to him, awakening a reaction that, while not unlike what had happened several nights before, was different, too.
They leaned back, in careful little movements, until they were lying on his narrow bed with her back pushed against his chest. She would have to get up early, be back with Song before he woke up, but just that one time, she allowed herself to let go, and fall asleep in safety.
Chapter Nine
Water dripped off the overhanging trees like rain under the bright, full sun. The streets cleared in the early spring warmth, and, for a stretch of time, it was like before: calm and sunny and with the promise brought about by the shift of the seasons.
The spot left empty by the McKellys’ delivery was restocked with eggs in padded cartons, bread and jars of fruit, and a box of cookies for Song. As always, there had been a pull to give in, to stay, but Aaron had his list, and Emily and Song were his companions now. And so they'd loaded back up and headed out, with only a small sense of regret.
Bill had also given Aaron a can of coffee, and another box of bullets, which Aaron stowed in the van’s console. He’d refilled the gas tank with one of his containers, but was on sharp look-out for another station with a hopeful reserve—it was the one factor he could never really account for, and, though he’d never say it out loud, it made him nervous.
Song didn’t notice. He leaned against the front seats and demanded more games, and Emily was clearly wearying of coming up with them. She hadn’t slept much the night before, and some of her emotional exertions obviously still affected her. She looked to Aaron, as though she was too small and too sleepy a thing to be out in the real world, a butterfly in half metamorphosis, peeking out too early and trying her very hardest to pretend she could fly.
“Unfortunately,” Song drawled out, resting his chin on the seat just beside Emily’s head, “Aliens are going to take our underpants.”
“Fortunately, I’m not wearing underpants,” Aaron shot back, and Song erupted in laughter, falling back in a heap to roll around in exaggerated mirth. His reaction made Emily’s snort bubble forth into a full-grown laugh and she shook her head. Boys. Her eyes twinkled and she raised her brows at the two of them.
“Unfortunately,” she started, yawned and tried to shake the sleepiness out of her body before she rambled on: “if they can't get someone’s underpants they take... other things.” She tried to make her voice as ominous as she could, eyes wide as saucers as she grinned at Song on the backseat.
“Emily!” Aaron gasped, in mock horror, and Song exploded again, rolling on his side to bury his face in his blankets, entire body shaking hard enough that Aaron, looking at him in the rearview, thought he might just wet himself. Emily giggled sleepily and gave Aaron a wicked little shrug while they waited for Song to regain his faculties and take his turn.
“F... fortunately...” Song started, but then had to giggle again, hands flailing and punching the seats with excitement at their story. “Fortunately Aaron can shoot aliens!”
“Unfortunately, aliens eat bullets,” Aaron retorted, shaking his head in an almost tragic fashion.
“Fortunately, the bullets turn into candy, and they hate candy!” Song was endlessly creative, and surprisingly upbeat, considering, and Aaron grinned again.
“Unfortunately, it’s all Bit O’ Honey,” he drawled, even more tragic than before.
Emily watched the exchange, smiling weakly and guiltily glad. She pulled her knees up on the seat, yawned again, looked at her backpack with the loaded mp3 player she wasn’t listening to. Sullivan’s voice, which had grown vague and hazy in her memory over the past weeks, was now loud and clear in her head, singing over and over again the songs he wrote for her, calling her darling, sweet thing, baby doll. Never her name.
Her mouth opened when her turn came, but the sentence, all neatly laid out in her mind, vanished when she chanced a glance out through the windshield at the road—wet with melt water and patches of scrappy snow.
It was only one zombie, and clearly decimated, lurching along the road. It looked as though it wouldn't even be capable of putting up a fight, missing a limb, flesh and muscle quivering like jelly. Unlike the ones that had chased them a few days before, this one was alone and it looked ancient. The muscle and flesh holding it together was tearing and cracking with each painful, crawling motion.
Aaron’s gaze followed hers, and he sped up to pass it. It was easy to move around, and they left it behind then quickly. He found himself exhaling a breath he’d not been aware he was holding.
Song hadn’t seen anything, he was just looking from one of the adults to the other, unhappy he was apparently being ignored.
“Whose turn is it?”
“Yours...” Emily said quietly, but her face couldn’t quite arrange itself into the smile she was trying for. She swallowed, found her throat dry, and reached f
or the water bottle, feeling old and tired. It tasted stale, and when she put it down she watched Aaron’s profile for a moment or two.
“Go back,” she whispered.
He slowed the van, then stopped, but didn't turn around.
“Why did we stop?” Song asked, trying for a way back into the conversation, but Emily hardly heard him. She shivered.
“Because...” She couldn't really explain it. She hated them, she hated every single one of them, but at the same time, she would never really know whether Sullivan ended up as one or not. Whenever she saw one up close enough, she looked for his features, his tall, gangly build.
“Because... it's cruel. It's inhumane...” she stammered. She wouldn't leave an animal that was so grossly maimed to drag itself around the country until it slowly succumbed either.
Aaron remained silent, but nodded, and shifted the car into drive so he could turn it around and drive back the mile they’d just traversed. The zombie hadn’t gotten much further, and Aaron slowed again to a stop far enough away as not to attract its attention.
“Are you going to kill it?” He knew he should have been considering Song in that moment, who was staring at them both, but Aaron was watching the creature carefully in the rearview mirror, worrying .
Emily licked her lips, then looked back at Song. Finally, she sat up on her seat and turned around to him.
“Could you do me a favor, Ducky?”
“Uh?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Could you sit down on the floor and read your book for a little while? Just a few minutes?” Her voice was shaking ever so slightly, but she made a brave face.
Song frowned; since the illness had ebbed away, and safety was more assured and his stomach more regularly filled, he was slowly returning to the child he’d been before, and that child was his father’s: stubborn and obstinate, if charming, at every turn. He was, though, also Emily’s, and he finally gave her a grudging nod and wiggled his way to the van’s floor clutching the book that had lain ignored for most of the past couple days.
Aaron studied Emily for a moment.
“Do you want me to do it?”
She turned around again, looked at him for a long moment. His eyes were hazel with so much green in the bright, almost spring light. She could see fear in them, though she couldn’t quite read it. She shook her head and clasped the hand-axe stowed between their seats. It felt like her responsibility now, something she had to do because she had made him turn around for her already.
“I... it’s okay,” she told him, and for a moment her fingers found his arm. Then she opened her door and slipped out of the van, stone-faced as she approached it. Aaron climbed out in turn, gun in his hand.
The zombie started to zero in on her almost immediately, but it was slow, achingly so, and Emily backed away for a bit as she gathered her courage. It looked so pitiful, hungry and maimed, and once a human being. A girl, not much older than Emily was herself. Tears bubbled up in her eyes, but she lunged forward and chopped at her head. The flesh and bone gave way easily, and Emily, having overestimated the force she'd need, slammed the axe onto the asphalt underneath. She grunted out in pain, dropped the axe, and reached over with her bandaged arm to cradle her other wrist. She dry-heaved a few times and turned to Aaron, biting her lip hard and drawing in a shuddering breath. The creature had stopped moving. It smelled revolting.
Aaron’s eyes met Emily’s over the stinking, rotting corpse. He put the safety back on, tucked the gun in his holster, and moved around the mess on the road to gather her up in his arms. For a moment, he almost thought she’d push him away again, but she softened and let him hold her, leaning her cheek against his chest.
“It was a girl,” she breathed, in the voice Aaron had long come to recognize as her desperate attempt not to cry. “And she looked at me. She was just... hungry.”
It was the eyes that she couldn’t get out of her head—milky white and glazed over and hardly fixed in their sockets at all. And despite all of that, they had managed to look so desperately alone and afraid.
Aaron nodded, ducking his forehead against the top of her head. They had all been people, once, boys and girls, and mothers and small children, people who'd had lives and families and loves and interests, before a virus invaded their bodies and took them over, turned them into walking death. What was there to know about the hordes, and what was there to know about the one lone, shuffling creature with hair that had once, likely, been blonde and soft and flowing down over her shoulders?
He wanted to tell her he should have done it. He should have spared her having to look it in the eyes, he should have refused to come back. And he knew all of those were the wrong answer, because she lived in the same world he did, and it was almost unfair, and stupid, to make an attempt to hide it from her.
“I'm sorry.” His chin was tucked against his chest and he was talking to the top of her head, but as long as she held on, he'd hold onto her.
She rubbed her forehead against his sweater, taking in his rhythm of his breathing and his heartbeat; he was warm and solid, and he was good. And so, slowly, her breath became more regular: inhaling his smell, counting to five, and exhaling, and then again and again.
“I'm... I'm sorry,” she finally mumbled, muffled by his shirt, but she finally loosened her hold on him and laid her head into the back of her neck to look up at him with a little frown.
“Guess I'm not really as tough as I would like to be, huh?”
“Tougher than you look.” He believed that, as thin and wispy as she was, with her tangled auburn hair and freckles. She was tougher than most people but didn't seem to realize it, and his smile was crooked even as she frowned.
“I don't think being happy when you kill something means you're a better person. Probably means you're missing something. You're not missing anything.”
Emily looked down at her chest, for a moment unconvinced. To her, it seemed that she was missing many, many things these days. But she gave him a tiny smile anyway.
“I just... had to, you know?” she asked, frowning, “I would want someone to do that for Sullivan if...” She shook her head quickly, her throat closing up almost immediately.
He petted the back of her head, gently, but with a solid weight to it. “What happened to him?”
Emily glanced back to the car; Song was nowhere in sight and she tried to breathe. Her mouth opened, then closed, and opened again, and she licked her lips once.
“We got jumped, he pushed me and Song into some house. They got to him before I could help him.” The words came out hard and rough, as though her throat had steeled itself against their poisonous impact. “He was bit, badly. Got a fever... he left before, you know, the worst. When there was no doubt.”
He nodded, tightening his arm around her waist. He’d seen people attacked, and had killed enough infected to know the signs, but he couldn’t imagine watching someone you loved start succumbing to the infection.
“He saved your lives,” he said, after a long moment and Emily nodded, eyes wide and serious.
“I didn’t want him to go alone but... Song, so... I promised.” She cleared her throat and then pressed the cool backs of her hands over her eyes, extra walls to stem the pressing flood.
“And you saved Song’s life,” he replied calmly. “You did exactly what was right, and—and so did he. Okay?”
Nodding, Emily tried to smile. Sullivan wouldn’t have wanted her to watch anyway. Sweet and vain as he was, he wouldn’t have wanted her to see him cry and be afraid. She shook her head at the thought.
“And then you saved us,” she whispered back instead.
“I did what I needed to do,” he corrected her, smile fading a little, but he nodded at the van rather than say anything else. “Better get back to Song before he’s afraid something happened.”
Emily nodded. She stepped back without looking at the dead thing again. For a moment, the idea of a burial surged through her, but the ground was still frozen and they didn
’t have the tools. Many things that had once seemed horrifying were now rather commonplace.
“Thank you. For stopping and... you know.” She squeezed his hand and then walked ahead, working on her smile for Song.
Aaron veered to the right to walk a pace off, both in surveillance and to piss behind a tree. There was no definite place to stay, not in that stretch, and he didn’t know exactly how to break that to Emily as he walked back, brushing his hands thoughtlessly over his jeans as he approached.
Emily was standing by the van, leaning against it, wiping her eyes lest she let Song see her tearstained yet again. She watched Aaron’s hands as he approached, and remembered how his cock had felt in her own. On this day of all days it stirred a particularly toxic mix of desire, guilt, disgust and tenderness.
“Are we going to drive through the night?” she asked, licking her lips once he was closer.
His smile was at once sheepish and apologetic—they’d become a team, indeed, over the past couple weeks, and he shrugged. “We can. Or we can pull off and get a little shut-eye. Usually spend the night in the van this stage of the game.”
“You know what I vote for...” she told him wryly.
“Building a pillow fort?” Aaron offered, raising his eyebrows innocently as he opened the door to look down at Song, who managed a smile.
“I’d sleep in a pillow fort...” Emily replied, climbing into the van and pulling Song against her side until his head was resting on her hip. “Song is an excellent builder.”
Aaron swung shut his door and started the van up again. “Maybe we’ll find a way to test those skills, huh, buddy?”
Song smiled up at him, quiet now. Aaron reached over and mussed his hair before pulling the van back onto the deceptively clean and bright road.
Letters From Abandoned Places
Winter 2016, March
Lancaster, Ohio
Dear Sullivan,
Once, only once—I did it, too.
I never told you because I felt so ashamed. Not because I did it, but because of how pathetic it all was. I didn’t want to be that person and so I hid it somewhere in a sculpture and you never knew. But I did.
