She knew that in a few minutes she would have to leave the cabin—to take out her frustrations on someone she could justify the anger with. The Stricken didn’t feel a thing when she ripped them apart anyways, so that made her feel a little better at least.
And so she left, without another word to her daughter. She couldn’t think on Alex now for the pressure on her heart was too great.
There were only the dead now, waiting for her in the snow.
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
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“Why? What is your thinking?” Samantha asked patiently. Alex could see her mother’s chest swell for a moment, but it then deflated, as if she merely had to release a bout of hot air. She had another chance.
“It’s…It’s best to protect the area of exposure.”
“Is there something you would do first?”
“No.”
“I’m not sure.”
“YOU WASH YOUR HAIR!” Samantha roared, her voice echoing across the valley. Alex didn’t know what was sadder. That she couldn’t remember such a basic concept, and one that her mother had told her several times before, or that she didn’t even jump back in surprise anymore whenever her mother exploded. Either way, she knew her part in the next scene.
Stay quiet and obey.
1.) For law had been declared.
“Wash it out,” Samantha replied. Alex nodded her head as soon as she heard the right answer declared from her mother’s lips. She still couldn’t look her in the eyes though.
“I forgot,” Alex whispered.
“Mm-hmm,” Samantha replied, but then she took a quick breath and continued. “When we get back to the cabin, make sure that you do exactly that, and then come join me at the table. We can talk about improving your technique for next time.”
Alex nodded again.
“I’ll remember next time.”
“Thank you.”
“I will help you wash the flesh out if you like,” Samantha offered as they started for the cabin. Alex was surprised by the offer, and she also knew that she dared not decline.
“Sure,” she said, and the atmosphere felt a little lighter.
They walked on in silence, but Alex felt no hostility from her mother. And so, her mind was able to wander without worry. She admired the tall cypresses they strolled past or gasped whenever a squirrel leapt from one branch to another and it seemed as if he wouldn’t make it. It was true what her mother had said: Death was everywhere, and for all living creatures.
They entered their three-room cabin and stomped off as much snow as they could by the door. Samantha kicked off her shoes and walked across the creaking wood to light the iron stove in the left hand corner by the door. Alex watched her for a moment, and she found her eyes falling upon the two daggers her mother kept sheathed at her sides, sitting in two holsters on her handcrafted leather belt.
The way her mother moved with those blades in her hands…it was like watching visual poetry; unspoken, but as majestic and beautiful as the first snow of winter. She had a question for her, but she wasn’t sure how probing she should be. Her mother tended to shut down when their conversations got sentimental.
“Will I ever be as strong as you?” she asked.
“Should we clean our weapons now?” she asked.
Samantha finished her mission of lighting the stove first, blew out the match in her worn and leathery hands, and then she turned to face her daughter.
“No worries, Alex,” she said, her face as stoic as ever. “When I was your age, I made many mistakes. The only reason I am the best is because I never gave up. It isn’t wrong to wish you had my abilities, but you have to remember that you’re still a child.”
“How long will it be until I’m not a child anymore?” Alex asked. She had meant to sound meek, but it came off bold. To her surprise, Samantha showed no reaction.
“That is up to you,” her mother replied. “When I was a child, I didn’t make so many mistakes. I had to grow up quickly to survive. You have it good. You live a life of luxury.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t become as good as you,” Alex said, feeling more confident. Her mother was in a rare mood—answering her questions instead of shutting them down.
“Then stop making mistakes,” Samantha replied.
“Out there in the wilderness…children don’t last very long.”
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
Stricken
Now available for Preorder: HERE
Samantha nodded and crossed her arms.
“Good. Now go do it.”
“Good. Now’s let’s go home.”
The rare compliment caught Alex off guard and nearly made her brush with death worthwhile. Like a mother giving birth and holding her baby for the first time, the pain of the past few months became distant memories, on the line between numb and forgotten.
She ran her fingers through her hair while trying to kill the grin crawling up her face.
Samantha’s eyes were averted, however. Focused solely on her daughter’s long dark hair—the hair of her father. Samantha scowled.
“We should cut your hair when we get home,” she said through sharp, icy breath.
Alex’s grin died.
“We can’t,” she pleaded, her hands slowly falling from her scalp. “I don’t want to. Can’t I keep my hair as a reward? As a job well done?”
Samantha sighed. She wasn’t sure if she should
Push to cut the hair
Or not
“We’re going to cut it,” Samantha said adamantly. She reached up to pull at one of her strawberry curls. “Mine as well. It gets in the way of what we have to do.”
“We’re not soldiers,” Alex said, her face scrunched up and turning red—none of it from the bitter cold. “We don’t have to do any of this. The apocalypse is over. It’s been over. This hair…it’s the only thing I still have that’s mine. It’s all I have to remind me of Dad. When I look in the mirror and see this hair, I imagine what he looks like…what he would say if he was here, but if you take that away from me. I will have nothing. Fucking nothing.”
“Steel your mouth,” Samantha said calmly, her eyes twitching only for a second. “It has been decided, little girl.”
“We’ll see,” Alex replied with her fists clenched tightly. Samantha knew her daughter wasn’t stupid enough to attack her, but she was surely thinking about it.
What was sad to her was not her daughter’s rebellious attitude, but the kindling within her very own soul. She almost…hoped her daughter would fight her…so that she could prove herself as the alpha female and prevent any future dissention. And she knew this wasn’t good. She was not inflicted with the Stricken’s disease, but she had a virus within her nonetheless. It was sick. It was despicable. It was growing.
When she came to, Alex had already walked away, heading in the direction of the cabin. She wouldn’t be surprised if her daughter just kept on walking past the house and never returned. Hoping that wouldn’t happen, she shuffled behind Alex slowly, through the forest of cedars and redwoods, fallen branches, and off-white snow. Samantha took a breath of biting frosty air and crossed her arms.
In moments like this, there was only one way to take out her anger—to kill more of the Stricken…perhaps watching her daughter walk past the cabin would be worse than not knowing if she did. She would go home later.
For now, she would go where she belonged. To the dead.
And the snow.
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
Stricken
Now available for Preorder: HERE
“I’ll leave the decision up to you,” Samantha replied, and Alex tried to maintain her excitement.
“Why are you so happy?” Samantha asked with a scowl. “You have made your decision already? So quickly?”
“I have.”
“I will still be cutting mine,” her mother replied, fidgeting where
she stood. “Our hair gets in the way of our conflicts. Removing most of it will give us an edge in the future.”
“I like my hair,” Alex said with a straight face. “And it’s all I have to remind me of Dad.”
“We shouldn’t dwell so often on the dead.”
“That’s funny, coming from—” Alex cut off her words, but enough were said to get the message across. Samantha sighed heavily. She wanted to reverse her decision in letting Alex determine the fate of her long dark hair, but her word had been given.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked, trying one last time to promote reason. “You could think about it some more.”
“I’m all set,” Alex said happily as she practically skipped back toward the cabin. Samantha watched her as she slowly disappeared into the horizon, touching each cypress she passed tenderly, picking up pine cones and tossing them up and down in the air, laughing at the squirrels that leapt across the branches and even beginning to whistle.
“Kids,” Samantha muttered.
And then she made her way home.
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
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Alex huffed and sheathed her dagger into her leather holster, made by her mother and given to her on her last birthday. She found little sentiment within it. It was a necessary tool, with no love or emotion poured into its craft, just like her mother’s every action. Like her words now. They weren’t said to solidify their bond as mother and daughter. It was to make her feel more confident, so that she would be a better killer. A more reliable partner.
“I could have been killed,” she muttered, but Samantha wasn’t paying attention to her—it was on her hair.
“We should cut it,” Samantha said, more to herself than Alex. Alex’s eyes widened in alarm as she clutched her hair with both of her stained and aching hands.
“You can’t,” she said firmly. “I love my hair.”
“It’s a liability.”
“Can’t I keep it as a reward? For all the shit I just endured?”
“You didn’t do it all yourself.”
“Let me keep my hair,” Alex said one last time. Samantha wasn’t sure whether she should
Push to cut the hair
Or not
Alex stared at her mother, waiting for a response. And as the seconds ticked past, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing more and more. Eventually she shook her head and scoffed.
“Are you kidding me?” Alex shouted at her. Samantha glared back but her lips didn’t even tremble. Her eyes, distant and listless, might have well been two miniature mirrors—reflective, but no more than alive than the objects they were usually placed beside. Alex felt more alone with her mother than she did when she was actually by herself.
“Do you even care?” Alex scoffed.
Samantha sighed. She knew she should
Say something
Say nothing, no matter how her daughter felt
“I won’t always be there,” Samantha said. Alex crossed her arms as a breeze flew past them. Standing there was doing neither of them any good, and she could already feel the cold settling deep in her bones. But her mother had finally spoke, and she had to either seize the moment now or wait until she felt so inclined in the future.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t need you,” she hesitated for a second. “I’m not ready for you to leave me alone yet. My training’s not over.”
“It may never be over,” Samantha said, barely moving her lips to speak.
“What are you saying? That if something like that happens again you’re going to let me fend for myself? You’re not going to help me?”
“I might,” Samantha replied, and Alex closed her eyes.
“I get it,” she said.
“You’re sick.”
Samantha nodded at her daughter’s admission but Alex still wasn’t satisfied. All she did was appease her mother’s philosophy. Nothing would change. The conversation wasn’t finished. It was just put on hold until tomorrow.
“Come on, let’s go home,” Samantha said. Alex muttered an inaudible agreement. Before she shadowed her mother back home, she took one last glance at the violence they were leaving behind, soon to be swept under a blanket of white. A second grave for the nameless they had put down like a rabid animal.
She looked back at her mother and felt that she was at peace—which was sad, because how could anyone be comfortable with leaving their daughter in the clutches of death? What happened to her that could make her turn out this way? She wanted to know…but she was afraid of the answers, and what they would do to her mother if she remembered.
She took one last glance at the dead as they began walking through the forest.
This world isn’t for children, she thought to herself. Childhood is nothing but a dream.
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
Stricken
Now available for Preorder: HERE
Alex spat the words at her so fast and with such rage behind them that they hurt Samantha more than any fist could. She would have preferred it if her daughter had hit her actually. At least then it would turn into a wrestle of wills, but she didn’t know what to say now.
Perhaps she should have said something, but what could make it better? She was not one for words and she had long forgotten social etiquette and how to express her feelings. To fight the dead, she became just like them, knowing that dwelling on the past, what they lost, and how little they gained since the outbreak…it would destroy her from the inside out.
She watched her daughter powerwalk away angrily back to the cabin as she slapped her hand against the trees and kicked her feet through tiny mounds of snow. She was screaming on the inside and her fists were clenched tight but Samantha had no mind to address it.
She would get over it.
She would have to.
The world was already deadly for adults.
It was time for her to grow up.
There was certainly no place left for children.
Samantha and Alex’s story continues in
Stricken
Now available for Preorder: HERE
They walked toward their cabin with only the howling winds in their ears. Neither one said a word as Alex reached up and poked at one of the chunks caught in her hair. Disgusted, she picked it out with her thumb and index finger just as Samantha spun around to face her.
“When were you going to tell me?” she asked and Alex stammered to find an answer.
“Tell you what?” she mumbled, still collecting her thoughts.
“I knew from the moment it happened, but I was waiting to see if you would be honest with me. Some of the infected is in your hair.”
“If you knew the whole time, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I already told you why. What other reason would it be?”
“I was wondering if you even cared about what happens to me.”
Samantha turned to face her daughter. Alex was surprised to see her countenance full of concern and remorse. She took a mental picture, trying to store it within the vault of her mind.
Samantha blinked rapidly as she took a breath and said,
“Of course I care.”
“How do you think I feel?”
“Of course I care,” as she tried to hug her.
“If you do, you never show it,” Alex replied. Her body was rigid and it wasn’t because of the cold. She had poured out her heart to her mother before, but it was usually ignored or cast aside for a later time. For Samantha, feelings were a luxury, and sign of too much leisure time. There was only the preparation. There was only the Stricken. It was like they mattered to her more than her own daughter.
“I show it,” Samantha stated, but even the words sounded stale and forced.
“Not once,” Alex said, confident in her memories. “You tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong,” Samantha said, reaching out to give Alex a hu
g.
Do nothing.
Alex took a step to the side, as if her body was about to run away on its own, but she fought the urge. Closing her eyes, she allowed her mother to embrace her. It was a distant hug. The kind one received from a family member of the opposite sex. But at least she was trying. Samantha broke the embrace and stared up at her daughter’s hair.
“I’m sorry I ripped out your hair…let us go home and wash it. It’s dirty.”
Alex nodded, still in a daze over her mother’s affection and apology. As she walked back home, she barely even noticed the forest coming to life. A deer pranced away in the distance. The squirrels searched the holes in the trees for sustenance and a couple of birds flew past, scanning the area for a new home.
When they arrived at the cabin, Alex was about to stomp the snow off her feet when her mother reached out and
Lightly touched the back of her right hand.
“Let’s take care of your hair now. That can wait,” she said, and Alex was cast further into her dream state. Who was this woman? Samantha motioned for Alex to have a seat at the table and she obeyed, as her mother shifted around their three room cabin, grabbing the necessary supplies for a proper washing: the half-rusted aluminum basin, a bucket of water, a throwaway rag, a second basin for rinsing, and a bar of goat milk soap courtesy of Daisy, rest her soul.
The End of the Fantasy (Book #6 of the Sage Saga) Page 23
