Five O'Clock Shadow: A Standalone Dark Romance (Snow and Ash)

by Heather Knight

  “The towers?”

  “That’s question number five.”

  She heaves a sigh. “What about the towers?”

  “The National Guard encouraged everyone to get to the towers because they could hold more people and they could defend them better. Then someone set off poisoned gas through the air ducts and killed everyone in all twenty-five buildings. The National Guard soldiers died too.”

  She twists her lips. “Nonsense.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Every survivor here knows about it. Witnessed it. Even the cannibals. Is that the real reason you’re killing us? So we can’t tell?”

  She cocks her head to the side and frowns. She works her jaw like she wants to say something but can’t figure out what. It occurs to me that she really doesn’t know.

  “I snuck out of Charlotte a week after the bombing stopped. I tried to find another town that would take me, but no one would. They only wanted people with skills. Engineers, doctors. Ballet prodigies and junior high students weren’t on their list.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “I don’t know. Months. Not a year, though; it was less than that.”

  “And then what?”

  “By the time I returned, the towers were empty. There were hundreds of thousands of bodies when I left. It wasn’t the cannibals eating them. If you only look at it like they were poisoned meat, you would see why. They still wouldn’t have, though. Eating the tower people would have violated their code. Everyone’s code. No one disturbs the fallen. No one goes inside the towers either. Someone took the bodies away, but they’re all still tombs.”

  She shakes her head like I’m lying. “How do you explain how they got rid of so many bodies?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t talk to each other. It’s too dangerous. Before Jackson I hadn’t spoken to another person in years.” I deliberately leave out Charlie. Who knows what they’d do to him?

  Blonde Hair blinks at me and sets down her pen. She clears her throat. “I think that’ll do it for today. Thank you.”

  She gets up and leaves, and it occurs to me that this is the first time she thanked me.

  That afternoon when they take me to Jackson, he’s alert and they let me into the room.

  I fly to his side. I squeeze his hand and clap my other hand over my mouth. “Oh my God, you’re awake!”

  Just barely though. “Hello, little dancer.”

  “You’re going to be okay. I made sure they’d help you.” My eyes water as I kiss his cheek. I sniff. “I refused to answer their questions until you’re on your feet again.”

  He shakes his head and gives my hand a feeble squeeze. His lips are dry and flaky, and when he tries to speak, his voice is weak and raspy. “The best chance you have is to give them what they want.”

  “I’m giving them some, but I’ll only answer a couple questions a day.” I smile, but it’s not a happy smile. “Then I stop until they let me see you’re still alive.”

  The corners of his lips lift, but he closes his eyes. I think he’s fallen asleep, and I’m about to let go when he opens them again. “They’re not good people, babe. They’re food and protection, though. Answer their questions and act like you’re happy to help them. It’s your only chance.”

  I scrape my nails across my palms. “But what about you?”

  “I’ll be all right. Just some healing.”

  I pick at my hangnails. They’re super short, but I do it anyway. “Jackson, I meant what I said. I—”

  “I’m sorry it had to end this way,” he interrupts. “It was time, but I wanted to do it nicely, not like this.”

  My stomach churns. “You were going to break up with me?”

  He shakes his head, and his eyes are sad. “It was never a relationship. I took you, and I used you like I said I would. It was time to let you go.”

  “Oh.” Cold sweeps through me, and my stomach turns to ice. I swallow back the world that grinds to pieces in the back of my throat. “You got bored.”

  He squeezes my hands again. “Don’t worry, little dancer. They’ll take care of you. Just give them what they want.”

  He drifts off to sleep then, and the guards take me back to my cell. They bring me food again. It looks like ham and sauerkraut. I eat the sauerkraut, but then I throw it up again.

  He was planning to get rid of me. He let me feed him strawberries, and the whole time he was thinking how he no longer wanted the little girl from the gutter.

  I don’t dream at all that night. I don’t sleep either.

  Blondie comes in on day four and plunks a thin folder down on the table. She takes her seat with a sigh, draws her finger down her list of questions, and frowns.

  She looks discouraged. I don’t know why I care. Misery loves company is my best guess. “When I think about you, I call you Blondie. What’s your real name?”

  She straightens her spine and frowns. “Why are you asking me that now?”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter.” Nothing matters. I trace my hand along the wood grain. “It just seems rude calling you that.”

  Her lips soften. “Elizabeth VanTyne.”

  “Are you in their army?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m part of the screening process for the survivor intake program.”

  I nod. “The internment camps.”

  She presses her lips together and refocuses on her sheet of paper.

  “Is that all the questions you have?”

  “I only get five,” she answers acerbically.

  I stare off for a moment. “That was just so you’d give Jackson medical attention. I didn’t want him to die.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “He’ll live.” I fiddle with a lock of my hair. “That’s all I cared about.”

  She stares at me with furrowed brows.

  “Ask me your questions,” I tell her. “I don’t care anymore.”

  Her eyes go intense, and she sits up straight. “Give me one moment.”

  She leaves and returns a few minutes later with a recording device and several pages of questions.

  She sits down and offers me a bright smile. “Okay then, since you’re cooperating now.”

  I shake my head. “I always cooperated. So did you. That’s why we’re here now.”

  Elizabeth scowls and clears her throat.

  “This first set of questions concerns who you were before the event.”

  “You mean before the Ash.”

  “If that’s what you call it.”

  “It’s what everyone calls it.” These people know nothing.

  She narrows her eye. “Occupation?”

  “Seventh grader.”

  “I guess that answers the second question, education,” she says with a wry twist to her mouth.

  “British American School here in Charlotte, sixth and seventh grade. Fourth and fifth grade I went to school in Japan.”

  “Japan?”

  “My dad had to go there for his job.”

  She ducks her head and takes down some notes. “And before that?”

  “I went to school in Atlanta.”

  She nods. “What was your last address before the event?”

  “My parents got divorced. My dad went back to Atlanta. My mom, my brother, and I lived here in Charlotte. The house doesn’t exist anymore. I think the entire neighborhood’s gone.”

  “Fair enough. Do you know where others like you are?”

  “You mean survivors?”

  “Yes.”

  I rock my head. “You’re not supposed to follow others to their homes. It’s taboo, and whoever you followed will probably kill you.”

  She shoots me a wide-eyed look. “Why?”

  “The only reason to follow someone home is because you intend to kill them and take their things.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought this was supposed to be Pre-Ash stuff?”

  With a sigh, she flicks a glance at her list of questions. “Date of birth?”

&nbs
p; “June 12, 2005. Lucky day, huh?”

  For a moment she hesitates, but she writes it down.

  “Okay, place of birth.”

  “Boston.” I shake my head. “I just don’t get why this is important. Nothing exists anymore.”

  “You exist,” she reminds me.

  I swallow and pick my thumbnail. “I exist. She doesn’t.”

  She squints. “What do you mean by she?”

  “The girl I was before the Ash. Before they killed my family.” Before Jackson.

  She shifts in her chair and swallows. “Father’s name?”

  “Look. My entire family’s dead. They have been for years.”

  “What was his occupation?”

  “This is just stupid.”

  She sighs. “You said you’d cooperate.”

  Fine. What does it matter, anyway? All I really care about are Charlie and Jackson, and apparently he doesn’t want me. I’ll answer their stupid questions, but I’m leaving the first chance I get.

  “Dad was a molecular biologist at first. My uncle died, though, and he had to quit so he could run the family business.”

  “What’s this family business?”

  This I can’t answer. “It was a company. I was a kid. I have no idea what they did.”

  She exhales and marks that down. “Mother’s name?”

  My chest goes cold. I can still feel her hand in mine as it goes limp. “Harper Littleton.”

  “Did she work?”

  “Yes. She was a psychiatrist.”

  She raises her brows and nods. “How about any siblings?”

  “My brother, Matthew. He was in high school, but like I said, he died when they bombed Charlotte.”

  After ticking off a number of check-boxes, she pauses. “You still didn’t tell us your father’s name.”

  Oh. “Carleton Wester.”

  Her pen freezes over the paper. Her face goes red at first, and then she goes white. I mean, white.

  “And what’s your name?” Her voice is shaking. What’s up with her?

  “Amelia Littleton Wester.”

  She sucks in a breath through white lips. “Can you prove this?”

  I spread my hands and shrug. “Why?”

  “Answer the question!”

  “Sure. Let me go get my birth certificate.” Kiss my butt, Arc lady.

  So much for cooperating, but really, these questions are pointless.

  Elizabeth swallows. Her hand shakes as she runs her finger down her list of questions. She slumps, looks up, and lets out a shaky breath. “Excuse me.”

  She grabs her stuff and hurries from the room.

  Wow. What triggered that? I mean, my dad was somebody before the Ash, but he’s dead. You’d think I said I was Princess Charlotte. With the trust fund I had, I was probably richer than a princess, but the banks all collapsed. It’s like Jackson said; I’m just some homeless girl living in the gutter.

  Now if my dad was General Barry, I’d be worth something.

  The guards come and return me to my cell. I’m picking the tuna away from the rest of the casserole when my door opens. “Miss Wester?”

  My visitor is a heavyset woman wearing scrubs and a parka. I haven’t seen a fat person in years, and I can’t help staring at her.

  “Yes.”

  “Please come with me.” I push the disgusting food aside and follow her into the hallway. “Do you have a coat, dear?”

  “No.” I shrug. “This is fine.”

  She eyes me up and down and frowns.

  “I didn’t have time to stop at L.L. Bean.”

  She looks away and sniffs. “This way, then.”

  There are no guards. What’s up with that? She leads me outside, across campus, and into the hospital building.

  My heart pounds. “Is Sergeant Martell still here?”

  “I don’t know. In here, please.”

  She waves me into an examination room, the kind I remember from when I was a kid. Everything looks fresh and shiny. It blows my mind.

  “Please step on the scale,” she tells me.

  I step up, and even though I’m wearing my boots and about five layers of clothes, it tops out at ninety-seven. Shoot. I think I weighed more than that when I was thirteen. I wonder what I weighed before Jackson started feeding me?

  She jots the number down and shakes her head. “You young girls. Your BMI is far too low.”

  I control my temper with effort. “Well, there weren’t a lot of raccoons around, so I spent a lot of time just imagining food.”

  I’m gratified when she pales.

  She has me sit down, and she takes my blood pressure. I have no idea what those figures mean, so I don’t ask. She does the stick-down-my-throat thing, the stethoscope-to-the-back-cough thing, and checks my reflexes. Then she flips to a new page on her clipboard and takes a seat on the rolling stool.

  “First menstrual period?”

  I blush. “It was after I turned thirteen; I know that.”

  She glances up.

  “It was after the Ash, so I don’t know dates.”

  Her eyes flare with something like pity.

  “Date of last period?”

  I twist my lips. “It’s just different out here. There aren’t any calendars. There aren’t any seasons or clocks either. Time is yesterday, today, or tomorrow. It’s soon or a while ago. I guess you could say my last one was a while ago.”

  She winces. “Can you be a little more specific?”

  I suck in my lips and think. “I don’t know. A couple of years?”

  She shakes her head.

  I shrug. “It’s not the healthiest world out there. You probably won’t see many babies among the survivors.”

  She darts a look at my bony hands and shakes her head. “You’re half-starved. How long were you on your own?”

  “Since I was thirteen. My family died, so I had to fend for myself.”

  She lowers the clipboard to her lap. “How did you survive?”

  She’s the first person who’s looked at me like I’m a human being since I got here. She’s a little stupid and uninformed, but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have to live through the apocalypse.

  “You either do or you don’t. At first I scavenged. There was still some canned food out there for a while. For a couple months I lived in some survival nut’s cave. Apparently he never made it there, but when I found it, I sure was happy. I ate real food for like months. But that was a long time ago. He had some seeds, and I took them with me back to Charlotte. I made some batteries and rigged some lights, so every week or so I’d have a squash or some kale. And there are always rodents.”

  She looks at me like I just told her I ate poop.

  I sigh inside. They have no idea. After she takes a couple vials of blood, she leaves. A moment later a single guard comes in and escorts me to my cell. There’s a steak and a baked potato waiting on the chair.

  “Hey,” I call before he can close the door.

  He hesitates.

  “I don’t eat meat unless I see the actual animal die, get butchered, and handed to me. Do you want this steak?”

  He frowns. “That’s a perfectly good steak.”

  “How do you know it’s not some guy they shot last week?”

  He tucks his chin. “Because it isn’t.”

  “You don’t know that.” I shove the plate in his hands. “First lesson. Cannibals will eat meat if you offer it. Survivors won’t. Unless, as I said, they see the animal die, get butchered, etc.”

  He blinks at me and then closes the door behind him.

  The potato is cold. It’s not at all like the ones Jackson makes me with the cheese melted in the middle. As soon as I take a bite, I start to shake. I can barely swallow it, and I set the potato back on the chair. Just a week ago I thought I was happy. I had everything I dreamed of—a safe place to live, food to eat, and a guy who made me feel good and seemed to care for me.

  They’re probably going to kill me when they’re
done with me. Once Jackson’s healed, they’ll either discipline him or demote him. Who knows? He’s probably lying there kicking himself for taking me. Jackson, my sick, obsessive stalker. His obsession faded, though, and he’ll probably find some other girl to take. My chest goes tight, and I can’t breathe.

  I don’t even want to.

  Everything that matters is gone. I curl up on my bed and hug the thin pillow to my chest. I don’t cry, but the ache is so deep I can barely move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Amelia

  It’s been two days since my last meeting with Elizabeth. My nurse friend never came back, but the food that comes now either looks like an actual fish, is attached to wings, or it’s entirely vegetarian. When the soldier delivers my meals, I’m careful to be polite. To them I’m dangerous, fresh from the gutter pile, and I don’t need any enemies.

  “Remember,” I told him last night. “I don’t care how civilized these people seem. They killed hundreds of thousands in the tower massacres, and they’re out there silencing the witnesses. If that’s something you didn’t know, then they’re probably hiding other stuff. Don’t eat meat unless you can tell what it is. If there isn’t a wing on it, walk away.”

  He smirks, but his eyes are troubled.

  I wake up to find an old-fashioned digital clock staring at me from the plastic orange chair. Five seventeen read the angry red lights, and two alien eyes blink from the center.

  I’ve entered the world of time.

  I wrap the blanket tighter around myself and turn to face the wall, but I can almost hear the numbers blink. There’s no Charlie to purr into my shoulder, and at the ache this brings, I draw my knees to my chest. There’s no hot, persistent tongue capturing mine, no heat seeking my sheath, and there are no arms to pull me close and remind me I’m a person still worthy of happiness despite the hell I’ve endured.

  Much later a female I’ve never seen before comes to escort me to a shower room. The water is hot, and there’s real shampoo and conditioner, something I haven’t seen since I was a little girl. The soap is not the crusty scum I’ve shaved from the dirty tub at an abandoned house; it’s an unopened bottle of wash that gives off a strawberry-like scent. It’s nice, I suppose, but without Jackson all of this is pointless.