Ophelia

by Briana Rain

  I poured thick globs of the disinfectant into my red-stained hands. Because of that whole interaction with Clyde, I never did get to wash my hands, or rinse out what was in that bag, which was probably my shirt that I gave to Mom and Vi at the police station.

  I leaned against the rail while Harrison inspected his brother’s gunshot wound near James’s abs, which I totally haven't noticed until now.

  “Did you guys find anything?” Mom asked. “And where's Clyde?” She looked up from a pale Viola, who was leaning against the seat the same way that James used the wall as support, and an opened pack she was repacking.

  “Clyde’s not here?” Addeline said.

  Lucky looked at me, and I looked at him, but neither of us said anything. He shrugged, as if to say, “it's none of my business”, and looked back down at his hands, where he absentmindedly rolled the dollar store ball around.

  “No,” Mom said. “I thought he was with—“

  “Hey guys.”

  Clyde was right behind me.

  How he snuck up so soundlessly, I had no idea, but I'd place my money on that criss-cross walk. Damn that criss-cross walk.

  “Jesus Christ!” I yelled. “What the hell Clyde?”

  I'll admit, him suddenly being right behind me did startle me a bit… Okay, it was more like two bits, considering that I dropped the bottle. If I still had it in my hand, I would've knocked him over the head with it.

  I picked up the bottle, taking half a second to mourn the spilt cleansing liquid, and watched as Clyde ever-so-smoothly hopped the metal rail. It was like he was showing off. Again.

  Addeline looked like she wanted to slap and hug her brother. She just hugged and scolded him. There were a lot of “yes ma'am”s and nods from Clyde.

  At the same time as Clyde's lecture, which I didn't find humorous at all, Harrison was inspecting James’s oozing wound.

  I feel like, somehow, I didn't help that much.

  While wiping my moist (ew) hands on my jeans, I walked towards my family. Mom had not one but several packs, one being mine, that she was repacking and Lucky was holding his twin’s hand. I felt like I should be there, and felt guilty that I hadn't been.

  But before I could reach them, Clyde blocked my path and pulled me aside.

  “Thanks for not telling anyone…” he said. “Especially Ads.”

  His eyes were really brown. Really, really brown.

  I ever-so-suavely answered his sincere thanks with a shrug and air blowing out of my lips, kinda like a “pssh” noise, but much, much worse. I blamed my lack of sleep, because right then and there it seemed like I hit The Wall.

  But he continued, “No, it just… it means a lot. She's got enough to worry about without me being thrown into the mix.” He looked embarrassed, and almost uncomfortable. That made two of us, buddy.

  “Okay.” I answered, then booked it.

  The sincereness and emotional vulnerability made me uncomfortable, and paranoid that the others would hear something or think something.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  I would've hugged Vi, but I was too afraid to touch her shoulder. Instead, I settled for giving her and Lucky’s hands a squeeze.

  “It hurts.” Viola’s face was pouty and her sleepy eyes were tearing up.

  “It's okay.” Mom reassured her. “You'll be okay, sweetie. See? You're not even bleeding anymore.”

  She tried to comfort her daughter by putting a positive spin on the situation, but the attempt was made in vain. Vi still had tears of pain in her eyes and on her face.

  I leaned in closer to Vi, so that Mom definitely couldn't and Lucky probably couldn't hear me.

  “Hey, seriously, you're handling this really well. I mean, did you hear that guy?” I jerked my thumb towards James, over the seat, “He was wailing like a baby.”

  I kept my voice quiet, because it was kind of a mean thing to say, but I deemed it worth it when my little sister cracked a small smile. She tried not to, but it was still there.

  Then, my stomach growled very, very loudly. I also still had to pee.

  The Apocalypse: where your basic human functions are ignored, you're uncomfortable 24/7, and you cry a lot.

  Ha. That sounded a bit like high school. Ha ha ha. I'm hilarious.

  And sleep deprived.

  Unfortunately, Mom noticed my stomach. What was even more unfortunate, was that I noticed the look on her face, and knew exactly what she was thinking. A lot of our food was gone when we left the basement, which was a big reason as to why we left the sanctuary in the first place. We thought that, with rationing, we'd have just enough to get the four of us to Washington. Well, that four went to six, and was now at eight. Eight people, and if one of us were to eat, then the rest would have to too.

  “Vi? Where'd your bunny go?” I didn't want her or I to say anything, or either of us to keep thinking about it.

  “Right here.” She reached behind her and pulled out the ancient, stuffed, rabbit-resembling thing. I, personally, was never a huge fan of the thing. It had oversized buttons for eyes and looked like a rejected Coraline concept.

  But she loved it, and it made her feel better.

  “Good. That's good, Vi.” I said, as I tried not to look at Mom.

  “Mommy, I need to pee.” Vi announced and carefully slid down from the seat and onto the ground.

  “Okay, sweetie.” Mom crouched down and grabbed her pack. It was much more like a hiker’s compared to mine, which would've blended in a school locker, which was where it was used to be before all of this.

  “O, stay with the Jeep.” She gave me an intense look, as if it was life and death and this is the biggest responsibility that had ever been bestowed onto me in my entire life.

  “I have to pee too.” And by saying that, I ruined things. I didn’t know what exactly was ruined, but I did know that I was responsible for it.

  She looked conflicted. I felt stupid for not knowing what was going on, because when it came to my mother, it should have been obvious. I mean, she's my mom. We'd known each other for over eighteen years, and then some.

  “You take her, then.” Mom said. “Just don't go too far into the trees.” She plopped her bag back on the ground and turned to walk away, towards the others, but I gently grabbed her arm, and pulled her away from the twins.

  “Mom, what’s wrong? Is something wrong?” My voice was low. Quiet enough so that Mom could hear, but not the others. Not even Vi and Lucky. The flicker of her eyes from me to what was past me said yes.

  “No.” What a good liar.

  “Mooooom.” I groaned and rolled my eyes like only an experienced eye roller like me could. I didn't like her feeling like she had to lie to me. This wasn't a chess game, or politics. This was us. Family.

  She looked again at Harrison stitching James, at Clyde having another serious talk with Addeline, then at the Jeep.

  “Do you think they're gonna take it? Mom?”

  “Driving off when nobody's watching is a lot easier than wrestling the keys out of my hands.”

  She looked so… serious. Like this was an actual concern that she had. Like… we really couldn't trust these people. I understood the not trusting James and Harrison, after all, we did just meet, and that was a very unfortunate meeting. But Addeline? And Clyde? I couldn’t see those two, especially Clyde, screwing us over. At first, yes, but not now. There was a certain bond that formed when you save each other from death multiple times.

  No. I refused to believe that that could happen.

  Even though I refused to believe that that scenario would play out, my hand still brushed against my pocket, to see if that gun was still there.

  It was.

  So, I guessed that I trusted Mom on this one, even though guilt consumed me as I did it.

  Unfortunately, I had to walk past the southerners, and stand next to the brothers as I got half a roll of toilet paper out of the trunk.

  “Your attempts at stitches suck.”

  What?

&
nbsp; “What?”

  Harrison's voice was much deeper than his brothers, and in turn much quieter. I didn't quite get what he said, even though he was kneeling right next to me.

  “You tore up the skin even more than it already was. I had to start the stitches over.” He didn't look up as he concentrated on not killing his brother. I saw that the needle was more curved than when I had it.

  “I've never stitched anyone up before… I've never even sewn anything before. Like, I wasn’t even a Girl Scout.”

  Well, your stitches came out, although, James is probably more at fault than Harrison for this one.

  “It shows.”

  I grabbed my bat which was leaning against the Jeep and continued my journey.

  I looked back after “hopping” the rail and James was laughing, weakly. He looked like he was going to pass out at any second.

  Mom went up to Addeline and started talking to her. I strained to listen until I was too far away that the words didn't seem like words anymore.

  “Did you and Harrison find anything?”

  “We think there's a pileup up ahead, but by the time we could see it, we had already been walking for a while, and it still seemed a ways ahead. We didn't want to bury a bull ask Pam on this day.”

  Hm… I somehow felt as though some of those words weren't right, and that I was too far away to hear them correctly.

  Vi wanted to hold the roll. She was a big girl, so I let her.

  Hey, did she realize that it was her birthday today?

  I hoped not…

  I looked down at my sister, who looked nothing like me, but acted nearly identically to me when I was that age. I looked down at her and hoped that she wouldn’t remember that the day she got shot was her birthday.

  “Where's the bathroom?” She asked.

  “This is it.” I waved my hand, gesturing to the trees.

  “This isn't a bathroom.” She told me obviously, I was playing some sort of trick on her.

  “Vi…” I paused, thinking of the most gentle, logical way to explain this to her. “You know how sometimes guys pee on things? Like trees?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, now it's our turn.”

  She still wasn't convinced.

  “But O… boys and girls don't… pee the same way.”

  Such an intelligent child.

  “I know. I know, but we're still gonna do it anyway. C’mon.”

  I walked a couple feet into the woods, and the atmosphere changed completely. I could smell the bodies Vi wasn't aware of, only a couple yards away. The trees blocked out a majority of the morning sun, darkening the view with its tangled limbs and unkempt foliage.

  Viola followed, though she obviously didn't like it inside the trees, where it wasn't bright and she couldn't see Mom. I know this because she voiced this aloud.

  “…and there's nothing to sit on. We're girls, O.” Like being girls was the worst thing that could've possibly happened to us in all of our lives.

  “Vi, listen to me. Girls can do anything guys can do, even pee in the woods. Just like we're about to do.”

  I put the bat in her hand, spun her so that she could see if anyone was coming, and put the roll in her hand. Then I dug my shoe into the ground to form a hole, because I was pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do.

  Maybe?

  “You just drop your trousers…”

  I wasn’t sure why I used the word trousers instead of pants, given that I have never, in my entire life, used the word trousers. Not even ironically.

  “… squat, and pee.”

  I did as I said, but found it easier said than done, especially considering that I'd never done it before.

  It was also very, very gross.

  “Can you hand me the roll?”

  She reached her arm back, but still looked straight forward.

  “Okay. Done.”

  She turned around while I pulled my zipper up and used the toe of my shoe to cover the hole.

  Vi followed my example with the hole, and made hers a couple feet away. I stood in front of her and got out the half full sanitizer bottle that I had shoved into my pocket, the same one with the gum, and I prayed that none of the cleansing liquid got onto the minty luxury.

  “O?” Both the bat and the toilet paper were tucked under my arm.

  “Yeah?” I popped the bottle back into my pocket.

  “How do I not get pee on my pants?” This… was a good question. I managed not too out of sheer luck, but not everyone is as #blessed as I was.

  “Um… don’t?” Yeah. Don't get pee on your pants by not getting pee on your pants. Great advice. “I mean, you could try and take them off? Or maybe just take them off of one leg? Then you'll only have to squat a little bit?” Hopefully?

  Obviously, I was no expert in peeing in the woods, but advice had worked! No pee running down her leg or getting on her clothes…

  It was a miracle indeed.

  With that out of the way, I gave her some of my cleansing liquid, and we headed back, victorious. Masters of the pee. She proudly held the roll in both of her hands and I even carried my bat over my shoulder, like true champs.

  Chapter 26: Unfortunate

  Harrison and Clyde were out getting the gas. I think it was some sort of Alpha Male thing, the way that they both volunteered to do it.

  In the meantime, I had tried talking to Addeline, asking her where her bow was. Sadly, all possibilities of getting on her good side started and ended with that question. I knew this when she answered “they took them” and I knew instantaneously who “they” were. I walked away after that, the conversation as dead as…

  …Well, let's just say it was dead. The conversation: dead.

  Now I was sitting in the back sipping water next to James, our feet hanging over the side.

  “James…?” A sudden thought came to my mind, and I started asking it just as suddenly, not thinking about the water I was drinking. I choked on it, and unfortunately endured a coughing frenzy.

  James did nothing to help, but laughed at me.

  Ass.

  “How did you and Harrison know to come get us when you did? From the station?” I didn't use their names. I didn't say from Roger or from… Just the station. And I didn't need to. He got it.

  He took a long swig of water then held the dangerously opened bottle in his lap with both hands, not putting the cap back onto the precious resource.

  I looked away, and saw the two men coming back, with about six dollars of gas in one can. It wasn't great, but it was enough to get us to a new location.

  “We were on the perimeter… and we heard the screaming.” James said. “Then the gunshot.”

  Addeline. Then Sparkplug.

  I looked away.

  “Oh.”

  “We… Harrison and I… and… well, we saw a lot of people go in there, in the station, and…” He had put the open water bottle next to him and was now holding something green in his lap. Turning it over, and over, and over…

  “And for all those people who went in, we only saw women, and a few kids, come out. They… were tied up and blindfolded and… gagged and… thrown in a truck… and…”

  I felt dizzy. Really, really dizzy, really quickly. I hopped out of the back, an action which I instantly regretted, and stumbled straight ahead to the median of grass, where I puked my guts out. Well, considering I haven't emptied my insides for at least twelve hours, I guess that I was long overdue.

  Luckily, my hair was in a fresh braid from last night, so none of my it got in there.

  What luck.

  I felt tired and dizzy, and I didn't like it one bit, so I sat down. Right on the side of the dirty road. I leaned against the front tire of whatever car this was, closed my eyes, and started breathing through my mouth.

  What James just said... That would have happened to me. That would have happened to me. That would have happened to me.

  And Mom. And Vi. And Addeline. Nobody… no person… no one deserves t
hat. What “that” was specifically— I didn't know, but I knew that I didn’t want to find out.

  It was sick. It's all sick. Everything was sick. Even I felt sick. I hated it. I hated it all. I just hated everything.

  Why did the smell of puke have to be so strong?

  What James just said… unfortunately explained the blood in the jail cells that Clyde and I found, and why Sparkplug got so freaked out and angry about us finding it. But not much else. I mean, Needles used actual medical supplies on my ear. They gave us all food. Wires spent over an hour laughing with and entertaining the twins.

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