“Sounds good.” I smiled at him. His simple plan was exactly what I would’ve gone with, had I been on my own, though I would’ve worded it without the accidental double entendre…
“If it’s quiet enough, supplies. Be ready to run,” he added.
I’d been pretty comfortable with Renee, but not in this way. We hadn’t needed to do any life-or-death problem-solving. We hadn’t saved each other.
A twinge of guilt. I couldn’t have saved her.
My smile faded, but Eric was again checking that the wire was secured properly, and I was glad he didn’t notice.
“There are moments when everything goes well; don’t be frightened, it won’t last.” Jules Renard
We climbed down to the 44th floor. I was grateful Eric didn’t have a problem with heights—climbing down the sheer side of the building was hairy, harrowing, and harder than I’d anticipated. We had no safety measures, our “rope” was smooth electric cable with a few knots tied in it, and the building’s side was so hot our skin sizzled against it. (Okay, it didn’t literally sizzle, but we got some amazing burns.) I focused on the knowledge that Eric had affixed the climbing cable carefully. I let that thought fill my mind even as my hammer and I shattered a large window to reenter the building. Eric climbed down to join me, then we paused to rest in rolling office chairs for a moment. I resisted the urge to check my injuries.
We went out to the empty stairwell and headed down for the street. The side of the building we exited from was quiet. Most of the rotters had been attracted to the air horns, and were still hanging around out front. We ran past them and out to a sprawling sporting goods store near the city’s edge. Rotters staggered our way, but they were all pretty slow, they were still far off, and numerous obstacles were in their paths. We had a few minutes before the first would arrive.
Someone had left a pickup truck filled with gas in an alley beside the store. It had a flat tire, but that seemed to be the only thing wrong with it. I was going to hot-wire it, but I found keys behind the gas tank’s fill pipe access flap. I enjoyed that things were going right, and tried not to worry about what might go wrong. Unbelievably, the store was still fairly well-stocked. We hurried to grab anything that seemed useful. We found head lamps, clean new apparel, tons of shoes, a pile of tents, a camp clothes washer, and many more treasures. We loaded them all in the back of the truck.
Eric found a canister of Fix-A-Flat and I used it on the bad tire. Then we headed down the road a few miles, putting some distance between the city, the rotters, and ourselves. I kept checking my body for signs of rotter infection, discreetly. Nothing.
es, this was certainly an absolutely amazing cat!” Twink, “Pussy Cat.”
Eric pulled over at a small rest area. We got out and stretched, grateful for the peaceful setting. I made use of the surprisingly clean public restroom and returned outside to sit on top of a picnic table. I sipped at a bottle of tea and Eric opened a pull-top can of food I’d given him. I passed him a spoon as well.
“What’s up with your shoes?” he asked, shoveling beans into his mouth.
Damn. I’d hoped he wouldn’t notice I had untied them. “Ankle’s swollen,” I replied, wanting that to be the end of it.
He knelt and gingerly removed one of my Art Company boots. I didn’t know why I was allowing him to do this. Seeing my foot was fine, Eric glanced up, then took off the other boot. He delicately removed the sock from my swollen ankle. His breath whistled in an odd gasp as he surveyed the damage. I gazed stoically down at the bluish-blackish flesh.
“How can you even walk on that?” he exclaimed.
“Just a sprain,” I mumbled. Early on, I’d learned the best way through pain was to bear it silently. It was easier on everyone that way.
“How did this happen?”
I ducked my head in embarrassment. I’d kicked Rob, and the handrail, hard in my struggle to get away. Rolling my ankle later was the result of the damage, not the cause, though it probably didn’t help.
The thought of blood and teeth flying from Rob’s mouth filled me with shame for a few seconds before a new thought crept in: he had deserved it. Rule #1: Protect yourself. Don’t hesitate and don’t apologize for it. Especially, don’t feel guilty about it.
I relayed the incident to Eric, and when I looked up, he was grinning that Cheshire Cat grin. “Good for you. Three teeth?” His laughter echoed off the metal roofing overhead. “You’re all right, Kitten. You’ve got claws!”
Anyone else would’ve gotten slapped for calling me “Kitten.” It rubbed me the wrong way; it was condescending. He didn’t intend for it to be, but I still made a face, feeling talked down to.
“Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I was awake all night on the roof,” he said, confirming my worry that I’d been out longer than I’d hoped. He looked tired and frustrated with himself. “Sounded like something my old man would say. That’s got to change real quick.”
“Let it go,” I told him. He’d had a far rougher night than I had.
Eric finished eating and shoved my spoon in a pocket so he could clean it properly before returning it. I thought that was sweet.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yup.”
He scooped me up before I could stand. Before I could protest. Then he grabbed my boots and sock and carried me back to the pickup. There was something easy and comfortable about being with Eric. There was a palpable safeness around him, not just because he was well-suited for this life. (At least, he was when other people weren’t screwing things up.) As Renee had been, he was unlike anyone I’d met before.
We returned to camp, and I tugged my sock and boots back on. My entire body ached as we pulled into the vehicle yard. Eric came around to open my door, but I hopped out before he could touch me. He looked like he wanted to stop me from walking on my injured foot, but I wanted to ignore it, and he let me. We made our way toward the common area together.
Thom and Matthew had recently returned from hunting and were furious at Jeff and the scouting group. They were making preparations to search for Eric even though they’d been told it was pointless. They ran over, hugged their brother, and then hugged me as well. I forced myself to be still and accept their embraces. When Jeff showed up, my foul thoughts at him boiled under my skin. How could he have been so asinine as to let people get left behind? To his credit, he admitted he’d been cowardly and hadn’t planned well. Still, when he turned to address me, I walked away.
Eric, Thom, Matthew. Eric was the eldest of the brothers, Thom was the youngest. They were attached by an unbreakable bond. It was foreign to me, people dedicated to one another in a way nothing could set asunder. My large family had been nothing like theirs. Not in that way, I mean. There was a cord of synchronicity which bound our lives, in our rough pasts. But the brothers had been able to lean on each other and help each other. I’d been pretty much on my own. The farmer and his wife were good to me, but they were undemonstrative. They’d never once tried to hug me. I wouldn’t have been able to stay with them if they hadn’t been that way.
Ever since the city, I’d felt bonded to Eric, but this connection was merely a shadow of how Thom and Matthew were bonded to him. I tried not to think about it too much.
After the day we returned from the city, I often noticed Eric within my field of vision. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was following me. Matthew would joke that Eric was trouble. He even called Eric “Trouble” often. I didn’t believe he was trouble, but I did believe trouble followed me.
My right shoulder ached with a dull pain that pressed on without pausing. It bothered more than my ankle, which seemed counterintuitive. It’s not like you have to walk around on a shoulder. Then again, my ankle was so swollen it felt fairly numb. Eric encouraged me to dangle it in the cold water of the lake a few times a day. I did, because it was easier than putting up a fuss.
I rubbed my shoulder, wishing I could escape into my mind as I had when I was younger. But this ache
wasn’t intense enough to trigger that mechanism, or I’d lost touch with how to dissociate from the pain.
Thom sat down. “Here.” He handed me some pills. “Just ibuprofen.”
“Thanks.” I tossed the pills back into my mouth, following them with a handful of water from the lake.
“Eric mentioned you’d dislocated your arm somewhere along the way of going back for him,” Thom said. He didn’t mention the ankle, but I saw him glance down at it. He didn’t mention the concussion either.
“Rob did, actually. Yeah, Eric reset it for me when I got up to the rooftop.”
“He used to do that for Mattie and me too. When our father…” Thom searched for the words. “Our father was mean. He was even meaner when he was drunk.” He shifted on the rock, trying to get more comfortable. “Eric had it figured out, though. He could always haul us back together like it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Seemed like he knew what he was doing.” I waved my foot around in the water. “He said something, and then he said he sounded like your dad? It seemed to really bother him.”
“Yeah, he was having some difficulty adjusting here. He’s been behaving in some uncharacteristic ways because of the stress. He’s getting it sorted.” Thom nodded, reassuring himself that Eric had whatever it was under control. “Saw him put his own shoulder back in a couple times,” Thom offered up.
I looked at my shoulder, trying to determine whether I’d ever be able to do that.
He added, “Probably helps that he has some weight to put behind it. He’d get his wrist into a loop of rope, lean back, and… I don’t know. Somehow he took care of it.”
I considered this, the vision vivid in my head. It fit. It sounded like Eric.
We sat quietly, watching some leeches writhe in the long stalks of the water lilies and lily pads. I pulled a leech from the water and examined its sections while keeping it from latching on. I dropped it back in the water and watched it and its friends dance around some more.
The truck had broken down in the road, in the middle of nowhere, while we were on a supply run. Rotters were more prevalent here, but still not much of a concern. We picked off a bunch of them to start, giving the truck time to cool down, and then took care of additional ones as necessary.
Eric was leaning over the engine, staring at it.
“That only worked for pretty women stuck on the side of the road, Before,” I told him, indicating the way he stood, looking helpless, with the hood up.
“Mattie’s the camp’s mechanic, not me,” Eric replied with a sigh.
I hadn’t known that. I decided to volunteer some time out at the vehicle yard—it looked like the campers were rough enough on things to keep a few full-time mechanics busy, and I found Matthew comfortable to spend time with, too. He was extremely popular with the women around camp, but he appreciated and respected them, and he knew enough to give me lots of space. He’d never made me feel uncomfortable. The thought was a revelation: none of the brothers had ever made me feel threatened or unsafe. I liked being around them. I wasn’t sure what to do with the feeling.
I looked down in at the engine. “We’re not going to find it here.”
“Find what?”
“The problem, of course! It isn’t with the engine.” I got down in the road and scooched partway under the truck. I had a pretty good idea what the issue was.
“So what was it that gave you the scar on your neck?” Eric asked my feet.
Somehow, being under the truck made it easier. I couldn’t see him. “My stepfather. You?”
“Father. I’m sorry again. About what I said the other day. I’m… really not like that.”
“I know.” Why was he still obsessing over this? “Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t want to be like him, anyway.” Eric moved away, toward the woods.
I located the problem. The accelerator cable had torn itself apart. I lay with my back on the asphalt, working out a solution. I could hear Eric putting down more rotters, in the background of my senses. I chose from the options: I’d rebuild the cable. My backup plan would’ve made Eric uncomfortable enough to require me to drive, and I was enjoying passengering.
“How long?” Eric asked as he returned.
“Shouldn’t take us long to fix.”
“No, I mean your stepfather. How long did he hurt you for?”
These weren’t questions anyone had bothered to ask me before. Too surprised not to, I answered. “I knew him for almost twelve years.”
This apparently wasn’t clear enough, or he wanted to be sure, so he repeated his question.
I made my reply shorter this time. “Twelve years.”
I pulled myself out from under the truck, and while I was getting freed from it, my clothing got rumpled and bunched. Eric saw more of the terrible marks left from life with my stepfather. Cutting off his questions, I straightened out my clothes while describing the sorts of garbage I needed him to look for on the side of the road. He moved away slowly, gathering offal that might work: a paperclip, some foil, a broken necklace chain, two short wires joined together with a wire nut. While he did this, I scavenged other bits from the truck, collecting parts we could sacrifice for our cause. The truck didn’t have a toolbox. There were two pairs of pliers, a ratcheting socket wrench (with no matching sockets), scissors, and an adjustable wrench to work with. And my hammer, of course. Not a lot to go on when you’ve broken down, but at least it was something.
Eric spoke again. “So he was like that the entire time? What did he do to you?”
I didn’t answer. Firstly, I was focused on working a couple of wayward zip ties out from underneath the engine—if I could reach them, they’d be useful. Someone had dropped them in there, and had been too lazy to bother with getting them out. Secondly, I didn’t want to answer. I kept working on trying to reach those zip ties, and I asked Eric a completely off-topic question to turn his curiosity elsewhere: “Have you ever heard of the immortal jellyfish?”
“Is this the same conversation; a Continuance Of?” he asked.
Ah! Gotcha! I pulled one of the zip ties out. I pushed my arm between the distributor cap and air filter, and fished around with my hand for the other one. My face was near the underside of the hood. I liked the distraction of smelling the engine’s fluids.
“Never heard of it. Immortal jellyfish,” Eric finally said, because I hadn’t replied.
“It’s pretty, but that’s not what’s so cool about it. They start life as fertilized eggs”—I felt the second zip tie, but couldn’t quite get my fingers to capture it—“and grow into polyps colonies, and then they grow up.” Got it. I pulled the second zip tie out. As I was pulling at it, I realized my time in the Programs held similarities to the jellyfish’s life cycle after all.
“And?” he prodded patiently.
I’d forgotten I’d been telling Eric something. “Oh yeah, so they grow up, and then they grow down.” I was still distracted, about the truck, about my stepfather.
“What?” Eric asked, confused.
“At any stage in life, they can revert to polyps. They can grow to maturity, and then revert to polyps again, and then grow up again. They can live forever.” I was standing beside him now, surveying the things he’d gathered for me. “This is perfect,” I told him, depositing Eric’s trash/treasure into a bowl from the back of the truck.
“So this jellyfish can live forever?” Eric repeated, following me around the truck bed.
“In theory, anyway.” I slid under the vehicle once again. And I tacked on the thought from earlier. “It’s not the same thing, really, but being in my stepfather’s Programs felt like that.”
I set to work patching the cable together. I’d probably replace it when we could find one close enough to matching, when we had more tools and parts. Or Matthew would. Or Matthew and I would.
Working under the truck and in the shade of it, I didn’t feel as apprehensive about satisfying Eric’s curiosity. “We’d be kind of okay, then we’
d know a Program was coming, then the Program would happen and we wouldn’t be okay. We’d heal some, and start the process over again. My siblings and I. Well, we wouldn’t all be okay, but that’s the general circle we were living in. Seemed to go on forever.” I abruptly reached my limit and announced, “That’s my Song About It.”
I reached out for the pair of scissors I’d left on the ground a few feet from the truck when I’d stripped a length of wire. Eric saw me reaching, so he moved to pick them up to hand them to me, and he saw the wild roses on the upper inside of my right arm. I tugged at my sleeve, and he passed me the scissors. I moved back under the truck.
“You must have more Songs About It,” Eric commented.
“And you?” I asked him, remembering what Thom had told me about their dad.
Eric talked about his family life in general terms for the next few minutes and I got the makeshift cable attached. He didn’t give specific examples, but he talked about what his father was like and it was already pretty clear what he and his brothers had been through. I wondered how they had pulled through it and come out so well-adjusted. So I asked.
“We’re still pretty messed up. The only thing that helps is talking about it. So Mattie and Thom and I talk about it, and try to be there for each other.” Eric looked down into my eyes as I crawled out from under the truck with the parts bowl and tools in tow.
I dumped it all in the back of the truck and slapped the side of the truck bed. “Let’s git.”
We got in and Eric started the vehicle. I pressed myself against the passenger door, to keep as much distance between us as possible. It wasn’t his fault; I needed space.
Eric put the truck in drive. “Onward, or turn back?”
“Let’s keep going forward. We’re closer to town than camp, and we need supplies. It should hold. If it doesn’t, I’ll fix it again.” I laughed, and it was a surprise to us both.
Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse Page 6
