“Okay.” Holly stands from her bed, ignoring the cards. If I want to sleep in a card-less bed tonight, I’m going to have to play a round of 52 Pickup. “Willa needs a walk first.”
I grab her leash from the desk. Willa knows what that means, and she allows me to clip it to her collar, then happily trots toward the hall.
“I’ll do it,” Jesse says to me.
“I want some air anyway.”
Holly rubs her arms. “I don’t. It’s wet and freezing.” She points at Jesse. “Protect her out there. I’ll set up Life.”
Jesse salutes Holly and follows me onto the covered patio. Willa makes her way into the grass to begin her ritual of sniffing and spinning. We watch in silence until I say, “You never told me what you meant. About your mom wanting to get rid of Willa.”
I keep my eyes on the yard, though I see the rise of his chest when he takes a deep breath. I imagine being close enough to feel the heat off his skin, his lips closing in on mine. And that, right there, is why I stay clear of him.
“My dad hasn’t been doing so great. You know, with the drugs.”
I face him, shocked. “What? I thought he had four years or whatever.”
“More like four months, and I think it’s more like none.” Jesse crosses his arms and exhales a plume of breath fog. “Holly doesn’t know. You can’t tell her.”
Of course she doesn’t know, or I would, and she’ll be crushed when she finds out—if she ever does. If Ethan is gone, it won’t matter. “Why didn’t your mom tell her?”
I can answer my own question. When Ethan’s addiction came to light in high school, Holly was sick with worry. Although by all accounts he was sober when it came time for college, she insisted on attending the University of Oregon despite Rose urging her to choose Penn State, which was a much better fit for her pre-veterinary major. Holly said the East Coast was too cold, that she’d miss everyone too much, but I knew it was because she didn’t want to be far from home, just in case. She absorbs tension the way Rose does, as though she thinks that if she sucks it all up, it’ll disappear. If they’d told her about Ethan, she probably would’ve moved back home and slept in her parents’ bed.
“Mom didn’t want to upset her. I caught him with his pills, so she couldn’t lie to me. He’s relapsed, like, a dozen times or something in the past three years.” Jesse shrugs, though I’m sure he knows exactly how many times. I see the worry around his eyes, and his frustration in the way his fingers strum his biceps. “As you can imagine, it hasn’t helped their marriage any.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I always thought they were so perfect together. The memories I have are all of them laughing, or him cornering her for a kiss, or things like that.”
Jesse’s lips move up the tiniest bit. “Those are some old memories, or you’ve been here on a good day. It hasn’t been that way for a while.”
“God, if your parents can’t make it work, whose can?”
“Yours did.”
Mom and Dad got along, loved each other, which is more than you can say for many couples, but they talked about bills and business, which everyone’s parents discuss. They didn’t have that playful easiness I so admired in Ethan and Rose. They didn’t listen to music together or stay up late binge-watching television or smack each other’s butts as they passed.
I stop thinking about Mom when the hollow feeling in my chest threatens to spread out and take over. “Yeah, I guess so. I always wanted to find someone like your parents, you know? It was either that or nothing serious. All or nothing.”
“You’re good at the nothing serious.”
He might be joking, but my eyes prickle with tears at him voicing aloud what he thinks of me. Maybe I was fine with it before, but I don’t want to be that girl anymore, and I never wanted to be her with Jesse. I move away a few feet and watch Willa spin. “Thanks. Should I put on my scarlet A now or later?”
“I was kidding.”
“I know. So was I.” I wasn’t, and we both know it. He clears his throat and says nothing. I fill the silence with, “How was school going?” I say it in past tense and almost correct myself, but everything seems past tense. Everything good, anyway.
“Fine. I really liked my professors. I was working on my thesis for music.”
“Let me guess. Some obscure musician and how he singlehandedly changed the music world though no one but you and three goateed music scholars have ever heard of him?”
“Pretty much,” Jesse says with a laugh. He can laugh at himself; all the Winters can, and it was always refreshing coming from a house where Dad never did. “How about you?”
“I decided to major in psychology, much to my dad’s delight. He wanted economics or business.”
“Seriously? Does he know you at all?”
“I don’t know me at all, which is why I decided to major in psych. I thought I could get some therapy while I figured out if I had any skills whatsoever. You have music, Holly can draw and get straight A’s in organic chemistry, and I, apparently, have nothing serious locked down.”
Willa kicks her hind legs enthusiastically, ripping grass from the ground three feet away from where she pooped. If she’s trying to hide it from predators, she’s doing an awful job. She walks back, blinking in the drizzle that falls.
“Good girl,” I say, and her curled tail wiggles.
I turn for inside, but Jesse’s hand on my arm stops me. “I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “It’s just…We usually kid about this stuff, but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was trying to be normal.”
I stare up at him. He’s like his sister, who I love with all my heart—just in a package I want to sleep with. “Do you feel normal?” I ask.
“Not at all.”
“So let’s try a new normal, whenever we figure out what that is.”
“Okay.” He tugs at my sleeve. “Clary Sage, just because you can’t play music or draw doesn’t mean you have no skills.”
His gaze bores into mine so penetratingly that I look away. “Well, when I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know. We should go in.”
He follows me through the back door. Willa takes off for the front of the house. When we arrive at the dining area, she stands on her hind legs pawing at Rose, who sits at the table with Holly and Mitch.
“Fine, fine.” Rose lifts Willa into her lap and scratches behind her ears. “I don’t know why this dog likes me.”
“Because you’re her mama,” Holly says. Her head is down, and she doesn’t see the wrinkle in Rose’s forehead. Now that I know why it’s there, I want to give Rose a big hug like the ones she gives me.
“It’s probably because I feed her,” Rose says. “Speaking of which, we’re running out of dog food along with people food.”
“We’ll go to the school soon as these are gone,” Sam says from the window. I can just see where he sits on one of the breakfast counter stools and peers out the glass.
“If someone else hasn’t gotten there first,” Dad mutters. He’s on the couch, separate as usual. He’s been that way since they returned. Anger simmering and rising to a boil every now and again, especially where I’m concerned. I’ve never done anything right, pre- or post-apocalypse.
“If they have, we’ll find somewhere else,” Rose says. “The houses we passed might have something left.”
Dad frowns, grunts, and then picks up a book from the coffee table. Rose shrugs, letting his ire roll off as I can’t. She’s gone through so much, is still going through it, and she isn’t bitter. I want to be more like her, and I decide to start right now. “Hey, Dad. You want to play Life with us?”
He sets down his book and stares at me from under his lowered brow. “Do I ever want to play board games?”
“No.”
“Then why would I start now?”
There are so many reasons I could name: Because the world is different now, because I’d thought he was different now, because you do things with the people you love, especia
lly now. Instead, I say, “I guess you wouldn’t.”
He doesn’t blink an eye before he picks up his book. Rose squeezes my forearm and smiles, though her frustration is plain. Maybe it doesn’t roll off as much as I thought.
21
Craig
No one has come. No rescue choppers, no tanks, no TV buzzing to life with promises of rescue. But I have water and food. I can wait them out. I can wait as long as it takes because it shouldn’t be too much longer. It can’t be.
I brush my teeth, swallowing the rinse water, then go to my front door for the first thing I do every morning. My hands tremble as I look through the peephole at the opposite apartment’s front door. I hold my breath and listen for the ones in the dim hall. They have to die at some point. One morning I’ll wake up and they’ll be lying there, their horrible noises silenced forever. My knee clunks into the door when I twist for a better view, and I freeze at the shuffle of feet in the hall.
This is not that morning.
The sound is joined by more feet, then a hiss and a groan. I shiver at their approach, though I don’t think they’ve located the source of the clunk. Apartment 4B, the guy with the little dog, limps past with short snuffling noises. 4C, one half of a newlywed couple, follows, her brown hair matted with dried blood. 4F, an older man who practiced piano every night at seven o’clock sharp, brings up the rear. He turns sideways as he passes, regarding my door with dead eyes.
I draw back with a gasp, then throw my hand over my mouth. I can’t do it again. Can’t bear another two days of pounding on my door like the last time I made an accidental noise. They were close that day, and they zeroed in on my location immediately. I ran into my bedroom, took a precious Xanax, and got under the covers with my hands over my ears.
Thankfully, they pass by. I carefully move away from the door. Next is my daily phone check. I press the button and it comes to life, all glowing apps and normality. No service. Fifty-two percent battery remaining. I read Rose’s message quickly, though today it doesn’t make me smile. Today it makes me want to leap from my balcony. I power the phone down and set it by the couch.
My big pitcher now holds coffee. I’d call it cold brew, but lukewarm brew is a better description. Still, it’s coffee. The last of my coffee. Another few days’ worth. I strain it through an old shirt until I have half a glass. Then I add sugar and stir.
“Should we enjoy this on the veranda?” I whisper. It’s a sure sign of crazy to talk to yourself. But I’m afraid if I don’t say a few words every day, the silence will drive me crazier and I’ll be out of my gourd when rescuers arrive.
I pull on a coat and head for a chair outside, sipping at the brew in the cool, damp air. Sometimes I sit and ponder what Rose and Mitch might be doing. Other times, I imagine being brave enough to leave my apartment. I usually bring a book, though I end up staring into space more often than not. Listening. Hoping.
I most want a book at night, when it’s scariest. But my one flashlight would be dead in days if I used it to read, so I remember stories, go through movie plots, and listen to virtual songs until I drift off. It’s in the dark that I get up the nerve to say I’ll leave in the morning. I’ll make it to California’s border and into Oregon. Into safety. I won’t sit on the balcony waiting all day, I won’t give in to my fear, I won’t be what Dad said I was.
Every morning, I don’t do it. I can’t.
The sound of metal crashing to pavement echoes in the distance. Zombies knock things over all the time. By now, I’m used to it—if used to it means I jump silently rather than jump while yelping in surprise. Footsteps shuffle below. They always shuffle, never run or trot like live people. I watch three bodies round the corner, heading toward the noise.
The city is desolate. I haven’t seen a single live person. Sometimes I think I’m the last human for a hundred miles. Maybe all the way to the border. Sometimes I wonder if the rest of the world has only walking bodies and blowing garbage and strange noises in the dark. And that’s when I make myself stop wondering. Oregon was fine—I have Rose’s message as proof—and they must be waiting for the virus to die out before they come.
When the sun hits the top of the tall building three blocks down, it’s lunchtime. I move inside and pour a glass of water, then set a half cup of granola, four macadamia nuts, and the second half of the canned soup from last night on my table. After two weeks, I know I’d rather feel semi-full for a short while than eat one lousy nut and obsess over the next until it’s time.
I have another two weeks’ worth of food before I’m out, if I ration carefully. Enough water for a little longer. After that, I’ll have to make a decision. But, for now, I eat until every morsel is gone and then return to the balcony.
22
Rose
Insanity, some say, is repeating the same thing over and over while expecting different results. But you don’t need to expect different results to feel like you’re going insane—repeating the same thing over and over is enough.
Breakfast, cooked in the RV. Watch the windows. Pull water from the well, which, thankfully, is behind the house. Cook and eat lunch-dinner, now one meal to save on food. Watch the windows. Bedtime. Watch the windows, if it’s your night. Wake up and begin it all again. The endless loop of emergency broadcasts on the radio has disappeared. And though I didn’t put any stock in its promises, the fact it’s now dead air is disheartening, to say the least. The waiting, the uncertainty, is enough to drive you bonkers.
The zombies have been outside our fence for days. Keeping quiet has become a full-time struggle. I’ve never wanted to scream so badly in my life, just because I can’t and, possibly, because the food is dwindling. Seven people eat a lot. More than I imagined. What seemed like so much food was not nearly as much as I thought.
I once loved to cook, but after the tedium of two decades’ worth of nightly dinners, I swore off cooking unless I was feeling inspired. As it turns out, not starving to death is pretty inspiring. I try to stretch our food, to be creative, but there’s only so much you can do with nothing and a fuck of a lot of crackers.
Tonight’s dinner is macaroni and cheese, since the cheese will soon go bad. I stir the pot of sauce, grimacing at its gloppy consistency. You need a roux and milk to make a decent cheese sauce, and I have no milk. Too late, I remembered making cheese fondue with wine, of which we have plenty, but to add it now will likely make this concoction worse.
The last of the fruit (apples) and the last of the vegetables (cucumbers) sit sliced in bowls to eat with our meal. Mitch crunches an apple and perches on the edge of the RV’s table. “It smells good.”
I lift the spoon and watch clumps drop to the pot. “It looks like puke.”
“Now I can’t wait for dinner. Are you going to eat some of this meal?”
“What do you mean?” I turn off the burner, giving up on creamy or smooth cheese sauce.
“I mean I see you not eating, woman.”
I haven’t stopped eating, but I don’t eat as much. Instead of focusing on the lack of food, I watch the kids eat and think of how it’s worth it. It usually works, until mealtime is over and I want to eat everything in sight. “I was on a diet, remember?”
I smile at Mitch, who does not smile back. In fact, she crosses her arms and glares. “I’ll tell Jesse and Holly what you’re doing. Or your dad.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“Then you’re an asshole.”
Mitch appears thoughtful for a moment, then nods. “Agreed. I’m an asshole.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
“That, too.”
“Seriously, don’t. I’ll eat more. But a box-and-a-half of pasta for seven people isn’t enough to count for two meals. It’s just not.”
“We’ll find more food.” Though her voice is determined, Mitch’s glance toward the front of the RV—the zombies on the road—is dubious.
“I wish I’d bought ten times as much food at Costco. Soon I’m going t
o be pouring salad dressing over crushed crackers and calling it a casserole.”
“But you’ll make it taste good,” Mitch says. “Imagine if I were cooking?”
I groan. Mitch hates to cook, and it shows in her meals—she can ruin cereal. “At least I got toilet paper and butt wipes at Costco.”
“I am appreciating the butt wipes, so thank you for that.”
“Holly and Jesse would die without them. One of these days, we’re going to run out, and those kids have never wiped their asses with just toilet paper.”
“Are you crazy? I love butt wipes.”
“Me, too.” I lift a fist. “But, as children of the ‘70s and ‘80s, we managed to wipe our butts without them.”
Mitch lifts hers in return. “We were raised on benign parental neglect, scratchy toilet paper, and processed foods. We’re ready for anything.”
“Amen.”
Tom enters the RV, takes in our smiles and fists, and his expression flattens in disapproval. “They’re moving.”
“The zombies?” Mitch asks.
“Of course the zombies.” Tom stops short of an eye roll, but his annoyance is clear. “What else?”
Mitch stands tall. Though he has inches on her, she’s close to six feet, and she knows how to use it. “It was a simple question. I’ll be in the house, Ro, so I don’t throat punch anyone by accident.”
She picks up the cucumbers and apples, then leaves the RV. I glance at Tom, who looks after Mitch with a frown. “What’s her problem?” he asks.
I stir the cheese glop, contemplating how to answer his question politely, then dump the sauce over the pasta. It forms strings and clumps, but it does smell good. “She doesn’t have one,” I say. “Like she said, it was just a simple question.”
Prolonged exposure to Tom has cemented his place as one of the most infuriating people I’ve ever met. I’ve spent years trying to be nice, to make conversation, to make him feel welcome, and he’s almost always the same—detached and aloof. Still, I tried, in part because I’m nervous around strangers, and Tom wasn’t a stranger. But he is a stranger, and he’s the worst kind: a stranger by choice.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 16
