by Keri Lake
“I get bitten, I still turn. I’m no safer out there.”
“You risk a snake bite every time you walk to the garden. A lion every time you climb a mountain. Wolves and scorpions, and thirst and hunger. There are dangers everywhere, and you still venture out into the world.” He sets a hand to my cheek, thumbing the tear that escapes my eye. “You have to survive, Wren. You will.”
“Alone.”
“Sometimes, that’s the only way to survive.” He jerks his head toward his desk. “Fetch my journal from the top drawer. And the gun beside it.”
A new horror washes over me, and I shake my head. “I’m not ready yet.”
“The infection has accelerated. In a few short days, I won’t know your name. You’ll care for someone who views you as a stranger, and soon after that, a food source. The weakness that keeps me bedbound will subside, and hunger will eventually take over.”
“Then, I wait until that happens.”
“I won’t. What do you think it does to me, knowing that I could possibly forget you?” The sight of his eyes glistening with tears forces me to look away. I’ve never seen him emotional this way. “I need something to take with me when I leave this world for the next.”
“You don’t believe in Heaven. Or God. Remember?”
“God gave me a second chance when he brought you into my life. I’ve decided to return the favor. Please, fetch my journal.”
I do as he asks, rifling through the top drawer until I find a black leather-bound book wrapped with a rubberband, and return to his side with it.
“Everyone has a story, Wren. This book is mine. It has my notes, my findings, my observations. A lifetime of thoughts, for the most part, but you may find some useful. Things that are easier to write than say.”
His sentiment strikes me like a punch in the heart, and the ache pounds against my ribs. In the time I’ve known him, he’s kept his emotions buried deep below his skin. So much so, that at times, I’ve wondered what I mean to him. The thought of reading his journal frightens me more than never knowing, at all.
“Just don’t read it until after I’m gone,” he says. “Some of that shit’s embarrassing.”
A burst of laughter cuts through my tears, and I lift his hand to my lips, kissing the back of his palm. “I’ll stay with you. Until the last beat. And if you try to do it yourself … I’ll join the Daughters, and you’ll be sorry.”
“Daughters.” He sighs, rolling his head on the pillow. “You’ve always been a stubborn child. Besides, I can’t see you spending two seconds in those ridiculous dresses.” His gaze falls to my wrist before I can cover it up. “The bugs again?”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t let this world eat you alive, Wren. It will, if you don’t keep your wits about you.”
“I promise, Papa.” Another kiss to his hand, and I smile. “I brought you a gift. From Jessie.”
He rolls his eyes and turns his head away from me. “She’s relentless, that one.”
“Probably wouldn’t have hurt to take her on a date one time.”
“No doubt, she’d have come on to me. ‘Sides, I’d have only disappointed her.”
“You’re never a disappointment.”
“Same goes for you.”
My time with him feels as if it’s slipping between my fingers, and the thought of soon being completely alone carves a hollow ache in my chest. “I’m scared.”
He thumbs the tear at my eye and gives my hand a squeeze. “Bullshit. You’re the bravest thing I’ve ever met. Only girl that ever escaped Calico.”
“Because of you.”
His lips thin, brows pinching with uneasiness. “Leave this place, Wren. It won’t be safe for you here after I’m gone.”
“Where would I go?”
“East. There’s another community, much like this one. The map is in my journal. I’d planned to go there myself at one time.”
“Before you were bitten. Because of me, you never left.”
“I don’t regret a thing.” He strokes his palm along the length of my hair and cradles my head. “When the time comes, you must go. Do you understand? Go where you’ll be safe.”
“Safety is an illusion, remember?”
“Yes, you’re right. But survival is reality.”
Chapter 26
Heat blankets my face, and I open my eyes to a blinding flare of light that forces me to shield my eyes from the sun peeking in through the curtain. A fuzzy, garbled noise captures my attention, but more than that, memories from the night before slam into me. I lift my head from the floor of Papa’s office, where I fell asleep the night before, and flip over to check on him.
A red splotch of blood stains the cushion of the now-empty couch he fell asleep on.
I jolt to my feet, ears piqued, listening for any movement as I search the house. All the rooms on the upper level stand empty. The kitchen. The bathrooms.
The truck sits in the driveway where I’d parked it the night before.
I slam through the back door, racing across the dry dirt toward the pole barn, and search inside.
Not there.
Exiting the barn, I look around for any other place he might’ve ventured off to, and I glance down to a dark splotch at the corner of the concrete. It trails over the grass in dribbles of red, which I follow to a row of three trees at the back of the property. A body sits propped against the trunk of it, and I blow a sigh of relief as I approach.
“Papa, you can’t just take off like that.”
I round the tree, catching sight of a deep red halo of blood mostly wicked by the dry sand.
My hands fly to my mouth when I finally catch sight of him.
My blood turns ice cold.
I can’t breathe.
Slouched against the tree, he carries the gaping hole of a bullet wound at his head that glistens where the flesh has torn away, and in his hands, the cold steel culprit. I kneel in front of him and reach out a trembling hand to lift his chin.
His body slides to the side, and I recoil at the pale, stony expression on his face.
Clutching my stomach, I bend forward, tucking my head against my bent knees. And I weep.
Sweat coats my body, as I shovel the last bit of dirt onto the mound, alongside the Juniper tree, where I already set the cross. I slip the bracelet he gave me years ago over the erect piece of wood, and twist it so LOVE faces outward.
As I sit there a moment, rubbing my hand over the scar left bare on my wrist, my mind slips into suppressed memories.
I open my eyes to glow of white walls and the soft flutter of a curtain, through which the moon lends a dim light. Something tells me it’s all wrong, a dream, or the place people go just before they’re judged. I lift my hand up, catching sight of the bright red stain in my palm and along my forearm. In my other hand is a scalpel.
“Now deeper.” The voice reaches me from across the room, and I lift my gaze to see Raymond standing in the shadows. “For Wren.”
Realization filters in, like waking from a dream. I stare down at the shallow cut along my forearm. Blade to my skin, I press down. Tears gather in my eyes, distorting the gash, as the metal tears into my flesh and flames trail behind. “For Wren.” A cool numbness chases after, and I drop the scalpel onto my stark white nightgown.
The room spins around me. Faster and faster. Sickness churns in my stomach as I try to hold onto something, to stop the swirling before my eyes. Everything is blurry, spinning, until my sense of direction is skewed, and I don’t know where I am anymore.
The world flicks to blackness. I reach out.
Everything stills.
When I open my eyes, a man is staring down at me. Dark hair. Sunken eyes. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear him. There’s a familiarity about him that I can’t pinpoint, but I’m certain I’ve seen him before.
He lifts me from the bed and holds me to his chest. A distant sound hammers over the pulse of blood in my ears. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
His heart beat drums a steady rhythm.
I lift my gaze to see tears in his eyes, as he carries me across the room. His movements are frantic. Mine are slow.
“Who are you?” The sound of my voice is frail and dry.
“Josef,” he says, and looks down at me. “Your Papa.”
He wasn’t my true father, but a father just the same.
And this is the place where I came to understand how much he was willing to sacrifice for me.
Setting my hand atop his grave, I bow my head, allowing one more tear to slip down my cheek. So many have fallen in the last few hours, I’m surprised there’s anything left.
“I’ll catch you on the other side,” I whisper and straighten to a stand.
Staring through the window of my bedroom, I lie with Papa’s journal beside me, not daring to open it. Someday, I’ll read it, but for now, it’s a small piece of him that I can take with me. His voice, trapped behind the rubber-bands that secure it closed. I roll over in the bed and open the drawer of the nightstand, my hand hovering over the notebook tucked inside.
It’s been years since I opened it, but the heart can only stand so much pain at once, and at the moment, it’s brimming with the loss of Papa. So I slide the notebook out, exchanging it for the journal. Cracking it open reveals the pages of lessons with Six. Scribbles that, at one time, were so agonizing to look at, I had to tuck the notebook away, where it sat forgotten for years.
Flipping through the pages, I read over the random letters and words scrawled in pencil, noticing their progression from one to the next. On the last page, I find full sentences that describe a feeling, or thought, and below them, my name.
What does love mean to you?
I’m convinced the heart is a masochist. Some call it an organ of fire, but I have to believe mine has turned to ash, as many times as it’s been burned and broken throughout the years.
I’ve also come to realize that pain doesn’t strike at once, as one might think. It’s organic. From the moment you fall in love with someone, your pain begins. You just don’t feel it yet, but it’s there. The silence beneath your laughter. The shadows behind an embrace. Tranquility before the storm. The deeper you fall in love, pain follows like a ghost, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Could take an entire lifetime, or just a couple of short months. Pain has no concept of time, and when it arrives, you’re never ready for it. But it’s always been there, hiding behind a mask of denial, deceiving you into thinking there’s such a thing as eternal happiness.
I know better now.
Falling in love means you have to be brave enough to accept the pain when it comes to stake its claim. Whether it’s the love of a father, or the love of your life, pain is inevitable.
And the heart is forever drawn to it. Or maybe that’s just mine.
I trace the letters across the paper and smile at the memory of that day.
The page comes to life as I tear it away from the notebook, folding it up into a small square that I tuck inside Papa’s journal.
As I lie in bed, staring up at the sky through the window, I search for the brightest star, reminiscent of Six’s striking blue eyes. So many nights, I talked to those stars and sang myself to sleep, with tears in my eyes for him. “Goodnight, Six.”
Chapter 27
I nab the four bottles of water I filled from the counter and stuff them into my pack, giving one tight twist to each, to make sure they don’t leak over Papa’s journal set beneath them. The jerky meat I purchased, some figs and berries, and two jars filled with soup should be enough to hold me over a few days. Alongside those are my sling, bolas, and a bag full of smooth rocks.
I peek into Papa’s office one more time, and the static noise I ignored before draws my feet toward his desk in search of the source. Pulling back the drawer, I lift a military-issued walkie-talkie from inside. As long as I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve rifled through damn near every drawer and cupboard in this house. But it looks just like the ones Arty and the other guards carry around.
I push the button, and the fuzz turns to momentary silence until I release it. Lifting the speaker to my face, I press the button again. “Hello?”
No one answers.
Exhaling a sigh, I set the walkie-talkie back inside the drawer and exit Papa’s office.
I don’t even know how long I’m planning to leave for, or if I’ll come back, at all. All I know is, in the three days since Papa passed, this house has grown small and suffocating.
I can’t stand it, anymore.
After tossing my pack, some candy, and two loaves of bread into the truck, I reach for the rolled-up tarp that will serve as a tent, and a heavy blanket for the dip in temperature at night. Behind the seat sits the portable charger and a folded canopy made of flexible solar panels to charge the truck.
The drive through town seems to take forever, and when I reach Arty at the gates, he peers into the truck and frowns. “Going for a couple days, kiddo?”
“Just need to get away for a bit, Arty. I’ll be back.” I muster a sad smile, and he reaches through the window to pat my shoulder.
“Your Pops was a good man. You watch yourself out there. They don’t call ‘em the Deadlands for nothing.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Okay, so I’ll miss a few of the people here, even if they’re ignorant to what’s really going on outside the walls. They’re not evil people. And I suppose the lies are easier to swallow than truth.
Once I’ve breached the wall, I drive through the maze of scattered tents, until an object leaps out from my periphery. Slamming the door of the truck, the familiar man urges me to stop, with all of his sons on his heels.
“What’s going on?” I set my elbow out of the window, eyes scanning for Zahra.
“They’ve taken her! She was playing with her brothers, and they took her!”
“Who?”
“Marauders! They went in that direction!” He points toward the left, where a dust cloud in the distance marks the path of a car speeding off.
“I’m going after her.” I slam the vehicle into drive and lurch forward, breaking immediately when the man rounds the front of the truck, slapping the hood.
He reaches the passenger door, throwing it open, and pushes my supplies toward the middle, ignoring the food and water. “I’m going with you.”
Hammering the gas, I push the truck to top speed, following after the vehicle that keeps about a three-mile distance ahead.
I glance over to Zahra’s father, noticing his trembling hands, and back to the road. “Eat something. You’ll need some energy.”
“I can’t. My stomach feels sick. The things they do to young girls is just …” He shakes his head, and I catch him rubbing his forehead in my periphery. “Please, don’t lose them.”
“I know this desert well. They’re headed toward the mountains. I’m guessing they have a camp there.”
It’s about thirty minutes before we reach the foot of the mountains, where I saw them turn. I slow the truck, pulling off to the side behind a large red rock, hidden from the vehicle parked ahead. Even from this distance, I can see it’s empty. Still, I nab my slingshot from the bag, and the rocks.
Zahra’s father glances down, and his upturned brows tighten with more anxiety. “You plan to fight them with a bunch of rocks? Don’t you have a gun?”
“Nope.” I slide out of the vehicle, pressing myself against the rock where we’ve hidden.
At the top of the mountain, about fifty yards away, is a man patrolling with a gun in his hand. I glance back toward Zahra’s dad, signaling him to approach quietly, and as he gets close, I urge him to move back.
Winding my sling, I wait for the man to change direction, turn his back to us, and the moment he does, I step out from my hiding spot, swing the pouch over my head, and release it.
The rock slams into the back of the man’s head, dropping him to the ground.
Whether he’s dead, or not, I hav
en’t a clue. I’ve only ever slung rocks at Ragers to know what kind of damage they can do to the human body. A hit like that would’ve knocked a decent sized bird out of the sky for sure.
I steal the opportunity to dash across the open space, and hide behind the car parked below the mountain. I peer around the corner, to a path where indentations in the sand lead up into a gap in the mountain.
Zahra’s father stays on my heels, as we slog toward the mountain, following the prints to a crest that slopes into an open canyon. I’m guessing water once passed through, but has since dried up. If they’re resourceful enough, they’ll have found a way to tap into it.
The canyon opens up to a clearing, and I can’t help but notice the many places an enemy could hide in the stacked formation of the rock, rife with crevices to stake out prey. Not to mention the patches of shrubs that dot the perimeter. I’ve spotted three exits in a matter of seconds—easy access for Ragers, or other predators. About the only advantage of this place is shelter from the sun.
Which tells me this camp is temporary.
Or they’re not too smart.
Below us, the camp itself is made up of four tents. Dogs sit tied to posts in the ground, alongside a fire-pit where three men, two dark-haired and one redhead, and two women laugh while they shuffle about. A young boy pokes at the fire, perhaps no more than Zahra’s age. A mound covered by tarp stands off to the side, and adjacent to that are a row of dog cages, three of them, in one of which Zahra sits clutching the wires from inside.
Her father lurches beside me, and I throw a hand out to stop him. Pressing a finger to my lips, I urge him to keep quiet and whisper, “Wait.”
A clamor of noise erupts from the right, and the man I hit earlier stumbles into the camp.
The three men shoot up from the campfire, nabbing the dogs and signaling for the women and boy to stay put, before they disappear out of sight.
