“Yeah. Okay. Just…”
“What?”
“Don’t die, okay?”
“No way. I’m too awesome to die.”
He gives me a smile. Why does it feels like my heart will jump out of my throat?
Looting with Peter doesn’t feel like looting at all. The dark corridors aren’t all that scary now, instead they are perfect to hide my constant embarrassment. We make silly jokes about the store’s mannequins, play with some toy lightsabers and race to the clothing store. I feel kinda lightheaded.
I find some nice shirts and a winter coat. He waits outside the changing room then gives me thumbs down or up, according to what I'm wearing. It's silly and dumb, but I laugh anyway.
“What about you?” I place my new clothes inside the backpack. “Don't you want some new pants?”
He shakes his head as we leave the store. “I've got loads of things already.” He indicates the backpack on his back. It's looks way heavier than mine. “I'm planning on going deep into the woods, you know? So I brought some camping equipment.”
“But what about food? Do you know how to hunt? I mean, if we stay in the cities, we can find food in supermarkets and stuff.”
Peter frowns at my words, and I notice my use of "we". What’s the matter with me? I don't even know if he's a good shot or won't abandon me the second a dead thing appears.
“I guess. But…it's safer in the woods. The less people, the less risk, right? That's what my…”
He stops walking, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Before I can ask what's wrong we hear moaning and biting. At the end of the corridor, in front of us, a group of those monsters eats something on the floor. They look like stray dogs fighting for scraps, pushing each other to reach the food first. I turn to Peter, but he's already gone, running in the opposite direction.
When I catch up, he's supporting himself on his knees, breathing fast with his back to me. I bite my lip, unsure of what to do. I hear a sniff, and his sleeve goes over his face. I place a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
He shrugs me off, standing up. After a second or so, he turns, trying to look calm, but the red eyes prove he was crying.
“It's just so gross, right? The…The way they eat.”
I nod, watching him carefully. “We should go back to the movie theater. It's safer.”
He sighs and nods. I let him lead the way. I can loot more things on my own, since it's pretty clear he's going to be useless if we find any more of those monsters.
We don't talk or tease anymore. He's pretty shaken up and we didn't even have to kill anything. A part of me wants to leave him behind. I don't want to die or watch him die.
Our screening room is just as we left it—empty. I check between the rows just to be sure no one wandered in, but find nothing. Peter sits on the first seat he finds, leaving his backpack on the floor. I do the same, but making sure the distance between us is three seats. Something tells me he needs the space.
“You know…I had someone with me,” I say after a long time of silence, playing with a strand of hair. “She saved my life back at my house, after my…I was alone and she helped me. Told me about what was going on, taught me how to kill those things.”
Peter turns his head to me, slowly, but quickly goes back to watching the floor.
“She died.” It's hard saying all this out loud, it hurts. “She…. She ended up bitten. My fault.”
I dry my eyes with my new t-shirt's sleeve. I can't believe I'm still not over it. Crying doesn’t change anything.
“What happened?" Peter's voice is low.
“Nothing really. I was stupid. I just slipped, fell in a ditch, got stuck. She helped me up, but a thing bit her. She asked me to…” I stop, shutting my eyes. “Anyway, she died.”
The silence lingers. Peter's leg shakes for a while, then he sighs. I wait, because I know he needs the time. “That… The body those zombies were eating…I knew him. He…”
I sit next to him, letting him talk.
“That was my dad. Yesterday some… Some weird guy in uniform found us and tried to take our things. Dad… He was shot. I left him. He said I needed to leave. He was bleeding a lot…”
Peter cries for a long time. At first, I don't know what to do, and then my hand finds his shoulder. Somehow we end up hugging. This time I'm the one patting someone's head. We stay like this for a while.
“S-sorry,” he murmurs next to my ear. “I'm such a wimp.”
“No, you're not. It's okay. I'm sad too.”
We separate. He looks at me for an instant before standing. My cheeks feel hot.
Peter goes to his backpack, unzips it and searches for something. He takes out a map and turns his phone on to show it to me. “That man kept talking about a town. He said it was safe, fortified. That everyone there was fine.”
“How?”
“I don't know. Someone knew what was going to happen, I guess. The town's name is Redwood.” He points at the map. “See? It's not far. We just need to follow north and cross the forest. We can make it.”
I bite my lip, passing hands over my arms. “We?”
Peter's expression changes to a frown, casting his eyes to the floor. He closes the map. “Sorry… I just thought that… It's okay if you don't want to come with me. I know I'm not… I froze back there. I get it.”
What am I doing? Why am I hesitating? Just say you’re sorry, Laurie. Just leave. You can't stay with him; you need to be quick and can’t stop for anyone. Stay alone.
“Okay. I'll go with you.”
His smile makes me blush. We spend the rest of the day just talking. Neither of us mentions anything else about the outside world, about what happened or might still happen.
I try not to regret my choice and ignore the nagging feeling his plan is going to get us killed. It's hard, but eventually I decide being alone might be safer, but it’s also harder.
The Hunter's Daughter III
December 7th, Monday, 2 pm
I clench my teeth, suppressing a scream, but nothing stops my eyes from watering. My aim shakes, but I press the trigger anyway, letting my arm fall after. The shot misses the bottle, hitting the tree behind it. I shut my eyes, angry.
“Again,” Father says, sitting at a fallen trunk and carving a wooden spike. “You need to keep your arm up longer before shooting. Don’t waste bullets, they don’t last forever.”
My lungs fill with air. I don’t want to do this anymore, the pain makes me dizzy and the sweat all over my face distracts me.
I lift my arm once more.
“One. Two. Three,” he counts, taking his time. “Four. Five…”
I start to hyperventilate, arm trembling and the usual pain racing from my injury to the tips of my fingers.
“Keep it up. Six, seven… Eight.”
My arm falls.
“Again.” His voice causes anger and frustration to rise inside me. “Ten seconds. You can do it.”
Obeying him, I lift the arm again, but this time my injury-free hand holds the handgun as well.
“No. You need to build strength on your right arm, Lily. We talked about this.”
I want to scream, tell him to go to hell. I’m tired, dirty, dizzy, and have a fever. Instead my left hand lets go of the gun. The countdown starts again. Ten seconds never seemed to last so long. I don’t shoot, knowing wasting a bullet to vent isn’t practical or reasonable. He stops counting, I’ve done it. It’s over.
“Good.” Father gets up, taking the gun from my hand. “That was good.”
“Can we stop for today?”
He raises an eyebrow. I regret even speaking in the first place, because I know what’s coming next. “Are you giving up? Do you think the world is going to wait until you are in a good mood?”
These are not trick questions or guilt trips, I know he’s dead serious. He doesn’t need to shout to make me feel terrible. I lower my head, letting out a sigh.
He gives me a rifle, satisfied wit
h my lack of arguments. “Keep at it.”
My arm can barely lift a SIG Sauer, much less his hunting rifle, but I do it, for four more hours of excruciating training. I feel every muscle from my shoulder scream at the attempt. There’s no need for a mirror, I can imagine my bandages soaked in blood. All the while he points out my every mistake and questions my determination to stay alive. I’m fourteen again, waking up before the sun to do push ups and rounds around the house.
What he doesn’t tell me is that he’s sorry. We don’t talk about the factory at all. We don’t talk about his pleas for me to stay alive, his curses at my painful screams. Nothing happened, no prayers were made. He didn’t clean the burn, removing piece by piece of plastic from it, while enduring my yells and crying. I guess I also didn’t call him daddy and begged him to stop the pain.
The cabin feels small now. No matter what I do, be it reading, doing the dishes or trying to sleep, Father’s presence haunts me. I can’t look him in the eye anymore. I don’t know why, but I fear if I do, my wall will break itself in pieces.
I take a pill for the pain once a day; its effects last for about an hour. The other twenty-three I’m on my own, since we can’t waste resources to make me comfortable. The skin on my right shoulder is still raw, red with huge blisters, which makes the whole thing fucking hurt like hell no matter what I’m doing. A second-degree burn wasn’t going to kill me, but, fucking hell, it hurt. Any doctor would tell me to rest for at least three weeks, but not “Doctor Dad”. Not ever. You rest, you die.
“What do you want for dinner?” He checks the propane gas tank, lighting the stove. “We still have some deer left.”
“Deer is fine.”
I can’t rest my back against the bed’s support, so I lay down on my stomach, opening a Jane Austen’s novel. I don’t feel like reading Lord of the Flies anymore.
“We made progress today,” he says after a few minutes. The smell of gas and burning meat makes me nauseous. “Tomorrow we should hunt.”
Mr. Darcy is an idiot. I like him. Arrogant asses aren’t fun to date in real life, but can be fun to read.
“Lily?”
Lizzie shouldn’t complain, her family is way better than mine. At least her mother cares enough to want her to marry and be safe. I don’t see her father watching the neighbors with binoculars at four in the morning either.
“I’m talking to you, Lily.”
I’m acting like a child. Silence isn’t going to solve anything.
“I’m not ready to go hunting.” I don’t look at him, focusing on the white spaces between the book’s words.
“I think you are. You don’t have to kill a deer with the sniper rifle, but I need help with the traps and a lookout goes a long way—”
“Father. Stop.”
I face upwards and find him standing in front of the stove, pressing the meat against the frying pan, his back to me. He’s avoiding me too. We both want distance, but can’t admit it. It takes some time, but I gather courage to continue.
“I just can’t. I’m going to slow you down, make a mistake. I’m not ready.”
There is no answer, only the hiss of oil and meat burning.
“I’m sorry I’m not more… I wish I were better. Better at shooting, at running, better from this injury.”
He turns the stove off, placing two steaks on the plates set on the dinner table. He sits and starts to cut the meat. The fork goes into it, then into his mouth. He chews for a few seconds, before grabbing the salt.
“Why aren’t you talking? Say something,” I demand, still sitting on the bed.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
I let out a frustrated groan, but close the book and get up and to sit on the other side of the table. He passes me the second plate, without another word.
We eat and I’m not even hungry. Father takes our dirty plates and opens the tap. There’s still soap, but not much, in a month or two we’ll need to make our own if, that is, we don’t run out of oil.
After cleaning the dishes, Father arms himself and goes on the routine patrol. Our conversation is officially over, if it ever started at all. I occupy the rest of my evening by changing the bandages on my own. It’s a painful, complicated process; perfect to distract myself from the frustration I’m feeling.
I lay on the bed, pretending to be asleep when he comes back. My eyes open in the morning and he’s gone.
He’s gone a lot these days, hunting alone, building traps for any wandering infected still left. So I’m not worried, but relieved he didn’t force me to go with him.
At least, until afternoon comes. When he doesn’t show up for lunch, I pop my painkiller of the day, put on my holster, grab a hunting knife, throw a rifle behind my good shoulder and leave the cabin behind. Hunting could take more than half a day, it’s true, but persisting thoughts fill me with doubt.
What if he was pushing me hard not to prepare me for survival, but to help him survive? What if last week he barely managed to keep food on the table while I complained? What if he was hurt and alone?
His initial tracks lead me to a wide river that cuts the woods in two. Crushed foliage and broken twigs on the other side force me to cross its cold but shallow waters. I lift my hands, holding the guns up. My arm and shoulder hurt, but I ignore it to keep my handgun and rifle dry.
Something must have happened if he couldn’t delay the trip to find a way around the river. My walk turns into a jog.
Shuffling and moaning guide me to an infected woman hanging on a tree, trapped by one of our nets. The second she sees me, her arms start to flail, rocking the net back and forth. I search for clues of Father’s whereabouts.
No signs of a struggle mark the clearing, so he must’ve come to check on the trap, perhaps hoping for a rabbit. I do wonder why he left the woman alive, or, well, moving. I’m still not sure if these sick people are alive, when they can withstand so much obvious pain and the loss of limbs.
A well-placed crossbow bolt into her head and the trap would’ve been armed again. So what made him leave before doing that? Another infected?
A shot rings, cutting the air just above my head. I turn around, drawing my handgun with the left hand. The clearing provides no cover—I’m out in the open with no backup.
This is not a trap for her, it’s a trap for me.
I can’t shoot anything with my left hand, but at least it doesn’t shake. Better to let the person out there think I’m ready and confident. My eyes race between the trees and bushes, looking for that brief glimpse of metal catching the sun.
Instead, I hear rope. Rope tearing itself apart.
Shit.
By the time I turn, the net has fallen on the grass, freeing the woman. I shoot, but miss her head by what might as well be the distance between the Earth and the moon.
With her black teeth exposed, she lunges forward, dirty fingers almost reaching me. Her left foot is broken, which evens the odds, but not by much. She throws herself against me twice, and I avoid it by being quicker.
I need to go on the offensive soon. Something else is lurking about, waiting to see who dies here first. If my upper body can’t get the job done, it’s time to rely on something else.
Instead of moving back, I sidestep her third attack, leaving my right foot behind so she trips, face on the ground. I sit on her hips, letting her waste energy thrashing her arms and legs around. I holster my handgun and ignore the pain while grabbing the rifle to bash the back of it against her skull. It takes four blows until she stops moving. I get up, breathing hard and shoulder in flames. This time, thankfully, not literally.
Another shot to my left. I make the mistake of rolling over to the right. My scream scares birds away. My wobbling legs can’t support me, and I fall on my knees, eyes watering.
Dust and earth scatter when the next shot almost blows my right hand away. I get up, stumbling for the cover between near trees. Bullets fly around me, hitting wood, buzzing next to my ears, while I trace their trajectory in my mind
.
Where’s this bastard?
Memories of Father’s survey map flash in my mind. The river. The clearing. There’s no place to hide. Where are you?
It has to be a sniper, perched up in some tree, right in front of me. Why can’t I see anything?
The shots stop. He’s reloading. Time to move. Crouched, I go cover to cover, trying to circle the bastard and flank him. He finds me quickly, discharging but hitting only trees.
Finally, I spot him, the black of his barrel protruding from a bush camouflage. His hideout towers me: the only way to reach him is climbing a tree.
This is it. I’m done for.
I can’t climb a damn tree. I can’t run either and risk becoming an easy target. What other options do I have? Talk? Trade? Plead for my life?
Never. I’m climbing that damn tree.
Catching my breath and calming down, I wait until he needs to reload again then bolt, going directly toward his perch. A sniper rifle is a slow heavy gun, beautiful for lining long shots, but lousy at point blank range. He can’t shoot at me if he can’t see me coming from below either.
The first branches are conquered by the initial surge of adrenaline. By the fifth, my fingers slip, my feet trips. The gasps and grunts announce my climb and ruin any chance of a stealth approach.
I’m almost at the top when a hand grabs me by the injured arm, lifting me like I am a rag doll. The person throws me to the side trying to make me fall six feet below. Instead, I swing myself forward, hitting him in the chest. We both lose balance, falling out of the tree.
He hits the ground, and I fall on him with a grimace and eyes closed. The painkiller wore off long ago. The advantage lasts only for a second: he pushes me off, and I try to avoid hitting my back against the grass and get up, moving away to gain distance to avoid another attack.
Strands of hair cover my face, free from the hair-band keeping my ponytail together. I’m out of breath, out of options, out of time. I take out the handgun with my right hand, lifting it up; it trembles, but not because of the pain.
“Father?”
He gets up slowly, dusting the remaining camouflage off his vest and pants.
Those Who Remain Page 14
