by Laila Blake
Annika nodded; her expression didn’t change. She covered Aaron’s arm with bandages from the very box he had carried into the house only a few days before, and the two women hefted him up, grunting under his weight. The shed was down under the shade of the coffeetrees, and though the reddish evening sun had broken through the clouds once more, neither of them noticed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emily glimpsed Song through the slit in the door as she climbed up the stairs to fetch Aaron’s old military-issue sleeping bag. She was drenched, smelled and looked dreadful, but she put on a smile, shaky and green as it was.
“Hey baby...” she whispered but then held out her hand and he stopped in his motion. “I have to clean up, I don't want this stuff on you, okay?”
Song’s bottom lip quivered.
“I promise, I’ll be right back, and then... I’ll tell you everything?”
She dashed into Aaron’s small room before Song could start to cry again. Her legs wobbled but she got hold of the sleeping bag, a pillow, a new shirt and a book, and almost tumbled down the stairs when she hurried outside. It seemed cold in the shed after the afternoon's rain. The roof had leaked in places, but they had propped Aaron up against a dry hay bale. Annika was looking him over, her forehead a landscape of worry-lines.
“Did he wake up?” Emily asked when she entered; Annika shook her head. He’d tried his best to use his own legs when they'd dragged him to the barn, but the moment they’d set him down, his strength had given in. Emily shuddered at the sight. He was so white he might as well have been dead already.
Trying to push the thought away, she squatted down beside him but found herself halted by the conundrum of how to put the shirt on him without inflicting more pain.
“We have to keep him warm, though, right?” she asked, looking up at Annika.
Numb, the other woman could only move her head in agreement. The shed wasn’t insulated, and the nights were still cold; Aaron’s jeans were caked in mud, and his chest and arms were bare. If he stirred, the sleeping bag wouldn’t be enough.
Emily brushed the back of her hand over her eyes. She wanted to lie down right there with him, wanted to pull her arms around him and keep him warm. Instead, she picked up his shirt and scrunched it up until she could stretch just the neck-hole and pull it over Aaron’s head. Momentarily, the motion reminded her of Song when he was a baby, and she fought against the wet feeling in her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered under her breath, then. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She lifted his good arm first but he still groaned without waking up as she threaded it into the sleeve. She capitulated with the injured one and just pulled the shirt down his torso, letting the sleeve flap there as though Aaron was some veteran with his arm shot off. The image made her swallow hard and look away.
Annika helped her to her feet. In her hand, she had the keys to the lock that secured the shed—there wasn’t much to protect, normally, but for tools and Lani’s bike they'd brought all the way from Ohio. And now Aaron.
Emily looked down at him, the prisoner, the treasure they’d lock away. She did her best to stuff the sleeping bag around him like a blanket, the zip pulled all the way open but he still looked cold and lonely.
“I have to go... Song,” she whispered in explanation even though Annika required none and Aaron didn’t look like he was taking anything in.
“I know.” Lani would need her own mother, and Annika moved woodenly as they shut the shed solidly, pushing the lock into place and securing it. For a moment, they both hesitated, staring at the old door, before they headed for the house. They didn't speak, it was too much, but they walked up the stairs together and Emily gave Song an exhausted smile when she found him waiting for her at the top.
“Come on,” she whispered and walked with him to the bathroom.
He was silent as she kicked off her shoes, turned on the tap in the bathtub. The water came in grey at first, as it always did, and he poked his finger in the stream for a moment.
“Is Aaron dead?” he asked, finally.
Emily shook her head, fighting against the lump in her throat. She pushed down her shorts but not her panties and she did the same to her shirt, turning away from Song. “He... he’s just... he's fighting.”
With her arm across her chest, she heaved a sigh and looked at her son. “He’s not dead.”
“Is he gonna die?” Song sounded old, too old, eons old, and he looked it as he sat on the closed toilet, eyes weary. Emily couldn’t blame him. He, too, had done this before.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, and ran her free hand over his curls, gently parting them at the place where she always thought they should, and pulled away. The water was cold but she stepped into it anyway, wanting to hurry as she reached for the soap.
“I think...” she started at seeing Song so dejected, but it was hard to say, “I believe he'll make it, baby. I have to think he’ll make it.”
“I don’t want him to die.” For a beat, he sounded more philosophical than scared, and it made it impossible to look at him, as though she'd done him a disservice, to give him another person to adore and let go, turned it into an expected experience rather than a trauma.
“Neither do I,” she said quietly, numbly.
Washing was a quick job. She didn’t have the physical or mental fortitude just then to withstand much of the cold and she scrubbed her legs and arms and chest with soap, then quickly rinsed off. She got out and wrapped her still stick-like body into a towel, then washed her hair over the sink. When she looked at Song again, he was still sitting there in the same position. She took hold of her clothes, pinching them with the tips of her fingers to dump them into the soapy water at the bottom of the tub and then finally, sank to her knees in front of Song.
“Hey...” she whispered.
“What’s gonna happen now?” he asked. He still sounded weary to her ears, resigned rather than afraid, and she was torn between a desire to hug him, or shake him, equally as hard.
“We’re gonna... make some food,” she whispered, not sure she could dredge real sounds from the heavy, aching thing that her chest had become. “And wait. The zombies got him, but... but we think we stopped it. But we won’t know until tomorrow so, so we have to wait.”
Though Song had never been a patient child in the before, he nodded then, letting her smooth his hair with her clean hands for a moment before she straightened up again.
“He likes you,” he told her, the silence in the room broken suddenly by his tired little voice. Emily focused on him again, her eyelids flickering for just a second.
“I know. He likes you, too.”
“He likes you,” Song repeated, as though she just didn’t understand the words. “Aaron likes you. He—he looks at you like Daddy looked at you.”
Emily closed her eyes while she breathed against the pain in her gut. Like Daddy. And like Daddy, he might die that night, except she had locked him in a shed and she would have to kill him. She managed not to cry when she looked back at Song, but there was a similarly numb age in her own eyes.
“How I do look at him?” she asked the boy before she could stop herself.
He seemed to consider the question, and their eyes locked after a moment. “Like you don’t remember. What it’s like.”
It was too much and Emily looked away. She counted the breaths she managed to squeeze into her tight lungs; her hands contracted into fists and released again.
“Come on, you need some food and I need some clothes,” she finally managed. Their things had been stored in a different room while Emily was painting—the house seemed to have an abundance of them, made for a far larger family. This one was further off the other rooms, and not quite as well-maintained as the rest of the house. Their things were in boxes and Emily picked out a pair of tights and a long shirt, wrapping her arms around herself even when she was covered again.
Song followed like a duckling, and when they went downstairs, Lani and Annika were at the
now-clean table with tea and the thick, buttery biscuits that Annika had baked that morning and warmed again on the stove. None of them said much, and they all munched at their biscuits with small bites, savoring little mouthfuls, even the adults, and watched the flickering candle in the middle of the table. They all burned down so fast, yet it seemed slow that evening.
“I... I should go check on Aaron,” Emily finally said when the silence became too pressing. “If he's awake he should at least drink something.”
There was the hint of a question mark on her face, as though all of it would be easier to do with Annika’s blessing. The woman nodded before standing. She gathered up another biscuit in a cloth, and readied a bottle of water.
“Thank you,” Emily said quietly, with a little more emphasis than she usually would have. She leaned over Song, kissed his curly hair and promised him she’d be right back. He looked like he wanted to come along but he didn’t ask, and Emily didn’t wait until he could gather his courage.
She grabbed the axe that was leaning in the entrance and one of the LED flashlights that were still working. Down at the bottom of the porch, three rotting corpses still lay in the mud, and Emily climbed over the side railing to avoid them in the darkness, holding her breath as long as she could.
“Aaron?” she asked in a careful whisper, knocking against the shed door, fumbling for the key.
There was no sound while she worked the lock open, but he blinked against the light she carried when the door swung in. He hadn’t moved since they placed him on the ground, and, to her eyes, he looked even paler than before, shivering a little under the sleeping bag.
“Hey...” she breathed, fingers tightening around her axe in spite of herself. “I brought you something to eat and drink... how are you?” Standing there, in the little pool of light her flashlight created, she remembered his fear of the cellar, his fear of the dark, and felt somehow more guilty.
“Okay.” The word had lost meaning for the most part, and he even chuckled, a little, lurchingly, at that. “I... I'm okay. You okay?”
She leaned her axe against a hay bale and knelt down on the ground by his side.
“Yeah,” she managed, gently pressing the back of her hand against his forehead to feel for fever. It made little sense: he was hot and she had no idea how warm he was supposed to be. In the end, she just cupped his cheek and held up the bottle while he drank.
“Worried... I guess.”
He panted a little with his breaths, and it concerned her for a moment, before she realized he was trying, with very little success and a lot of effort, to shift upright. With his wounded arm and the cramped quarters, she didn’t know how to help him, but neither did she want to urge him to give up.
Aaron managed a few inches, face slick with sweat. “Everyone else okay?”
“Yeah.” She hesitated for a long moment and then pushed the concave of her nose against the curve of his cheek and breathed in the cold and clammy smell. “Are you terribly uncomfortable? Is there anything... anything you need?”
His only response was to turn his head to chase the sensation of her touching him. She could feel him suck in another breath over her chin and mouth, and then the slight upturn of the muscles of his face. He was smiling.
“Song’s worried about you, too. We all are,” she whispered not letting go, kissing his cheek. It didn't occur to her there might be danger in that too, not when it was the only comfort she knew how to give.
“I’m sorry.” He had nothing else he could say, but brimmed with apologies, with guilt.
“Shut your face,” Emily crooned, fingers in his hair. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
He sucked in another breath, but shook his head—not much of a shake, to be sure, but a movement, small, his sweaty hair catching on her fingers.
“Thanks,” he said, finally, voice hoarse, throat raw.
Even as he said it, Emily wanted to ask again and again until he would relent and let her do something, but each time he moved or managed to talk, it seemed to take so much out of him, she finally stilled, pulling away just enough to look at him: just look and fill her eyes on him while he was still alive.
“You should go,” he said, finally, even as his weight leaned heavily against her and he seemed to be in no shape to be telling anyone what to do.
“Are you sure? I... I could...” she stopped herself, thinking of Song. Leaning in to kiss Aaron’s temple, she tried to gauge his temperature again but all it did was alarm her more. “I’ll leave you the flashlight.”
“Don’t know that I need it,” he said, but he gave her another small smile. “But thanks.”
“Just. You know, if you need anything. You could flash Morse code or something. Army boys can do that right?”
“Ain’t used in awhile,” he replied, with a weak laugh, flinching at the pain it brought on. “I’ll try n’ remember.”
It was an odd moment to think how handsome he was, but it occurred to Emily then, the way his profile looked in the stark shadows cast by the flashlight— even weak as he was, he had that smile.
She didn’t want to go, but she finally pushed herself up when he told her a second time, reminded her of Song, all the things she knew, too. Once on her feet, she weighed the key in her hand and looked back at him.
“You know... what you said? Earlier? That you’d die for me?” She was blushing but the darkness hid it well. “Don’t? Please don’t.”
Aaron was able to tilt his head back and squint at her against the dim light. “Do my best. Promise.”
“Just... live.” She looked down, then quickly shook her head as though she’d said something stupid and retreated, locked the door and followed the dimly lit windows back to the house.
Chapter Twenty-Four
No one slept much. That was a given. Emily lay in bed with Song pressed up against her, the way he’d always slept as a baby and then again over the past cold year. Though he’d been fine alone for weeks, he now needed her arm draped around him, and her kiss atop his head whenever he stirred.
For the first time, though, Emily did not want to be there. She lay in bed and looked out the window; she couldn’t see the shed from where she was, but could imagine it—the creaking wood of the structure, the cold that filtered in through the chinks. She wondered if more zombies would come, wondered if they had a new one trapped in their shed.
By morning, her teeth had worried her bottom lip bloody. Her eyes were parched. She managed to wiggle away from Song in the murky light before dawn, pull on a big coat and pick up her axe to pad outside and over the cool, damp grass. The rain had mostly washed away the muck around the corpses, but she barely noticed them as it was. Her focus was keen, and though she’d not brought the keys to unlock the shed, she climbed up the firewood stacked there, carefully, like a goat, to peer in the small, dirty window.
Aaron was still there, on the ground. She wasn’t sure if zombies slept; he seemed still and quiet, but breathing, his fingers curled loosely over the sleeping bag that had slipped down around his waist. He looked younger and older at once, and Emily held her breath, thought of every night she'd not known what he looked like sleeping, not bothered to notice, and worried about his expression, the clench of his jaw and the circles under his eyes.
Annika resumed her patrol of the property with the old gun once more. She looked far more afraid than she had the day Emily, Aaron and Song arrived, and Emily tried to feel guilty, but couldn’t. She opened up the spelling books they had collected for the kids, and sipped listlessly at her tea. Song made a fair attempt on his worksheets. Lani was distracted, agitated, and simply sat, fingers twitching on her pencil, until her mother was back in the house.
Even then, there was no overt opposition from either Song or Lani but no participation, either. They were quiet and unfocused, staring into space or failing at the simplest exercises. In the end they all silently decided to call it a day and let Song and Lani scamper off—only in the house though, but the two didn’
t protest in the least.
“I want to clean the porch,” Emily said quietly but determined. “Before it gets too warm again.”
She didn’t ask for Annika’s help but both women needed something to do, and it was harder to fix their minds on something like food or storage or sustenance. All of it had to do with the future. Cleaning was easy, mindless and numbing. They put on plastic gloves, smelly old things that looked like they might have a half-life of a couple of centuries at least. Then they dragged what remained of the corpses onto an old door they’d found in a heap of garbage behind the house. It, too, was half rotted through but it held their weight as they dragged the vile cargo out and away from the house and towards the road. It would dry eventually and they’d be able to burn what was left.
They didn’t speak much but working together didn’t necessitate many words. It was decided, more or less silently, to just keep going. They scrubbed the stairs, sanded down rough spots, got rid of cobwebs and raked through the gravel path until long past noon, as though sweating in the midday sun was the best way to get any remaining death out of their skin and their pores.
Every so often, Emily would go check on Aaron, but he spent most of the day drifting in and out of consciousness. She helped him drink down some water, freed him from the sleeping bag when it got too warm; sometimes she just watched him sleep for a while—fitful and restless.
“I’m sorry,” Emily finally said to Annika’s back while the other woman was preparing some fritters from the potato harvest the year before.
“Don’t.” Annika’s response was automatic, and she rolled her lips over her teeth before she looked up from the cutting board to Emily. “You don’t need to be.”
“But I am,” she breathed, “I really am, Annika. I’m sorry I made you do that and I’m sorry you have to go through all this again. And if he doesn’t...” She couldn't finish that sentence, though, and looked away, trying to fill her lungs with air but they were resistant.
