Ophelia

by Briana Rain

  He didn't look at me when I approached, but now he was standing, and staring with furrowed brows and a sad look in his eyes.

  “Oh, yeah.” I continued in my fake cheery voice, “I suppose it is. Must've happened when a Crazy popped up outta nowhere and threw me around like a rag doll. But, whatever. I took care of it. Thank you so much for expressing your concern, Clyde.”

  I hadn’t noticed it until I was ready to head back to the river, but the bullet wound under the duct taped patch was, unfortunately, leaking blood. Again. I had stopped at the river on the way here to rinse my face off, and then followed it here to get to Clyde.

  When I was done with my rant, and I felt a total of three main emotions.

  1) Embarrassment. I supposed that maybe, maybe I went a tad overboard. I just… well, I’m just going to pin it on exhaustion. Not physical, but mental.

  2) Guilt. I could tell that he felt just as bad as I did, only I was the cause of it.

  3) Relief. It felt good, even if it was for only a second, to get that quick anger out. I couldn't imagine bottling up my irritation.

  I pressed my lips together and stared at the rocks, not moving. They were very smooth.

  Clyde let out a long, deep sigh. I took that as a sign to look up at him.

  His eyes were closed, and he ran one of his hands down the front of his face, which I thought was pretty gross, considering that I interrupted his fish gutting process.

  “Thank you, Ophelia, for coming out here with me, and then going out by yourself and bringing back firewood.” He sounded strained.

  Out of the two of us, he was really good at being the bigger person and taking responsibility.

  Great. Now my guilt was doubled.

  “I'm… sorry. I shouldn't’ve snapped at you like that.”

  “It's… I understand. Getting caught off guard by a Stick… I get it. But… do I really sound like that to you?” He cracked a smile, and it was that much easier to maintain eye contact with him.

  “No… I just can't do a southern accent.”

  It was a small lie, but a believable one that didn't really matter. In fact, I was pretty okay when it came to accents. I could do a decent Irish and Russian one, and after knowing Clyde and Addeline, I bet that my southern one had improved tenfold.

  He nodded once, then went back to tearing out the unwanted insides of the fish. I also went to the river, but it was just to rinse off my arm, and pick the splinters out of my hands. Luckily, there weren't many.

  I went to wipe my hands dry on my pants, but after one look at them, I registered this as a bad idea. My black jeans were darker in most places because of unknown stains and caked dirt.

  I settled for my tank top.

  With dry hands, I slowly lifted a piece of the bandage… and quickly put it back down. I didn't want to mess with whatever was going on under there.

  Today's the day. Today, we'd get there. We'd get clean, and water, and a safe place to sleep, and they'd treat us for the million and one injuries that we'd accumulated.

  I looked over at Clyde, and we both realized that he was staring.

  Later.

  Chapter 45: James

  “Mommy, please.” Vi begged.

  We had been walking all day. It was somewhere in the afternoon, and after seeing Clyde’s bare wrist, I had shoved my watch in my bag, because its only use at this point was irritating my skin when water got underneath it. I had no idea what time it was. Clyde, aka Mr. Outdoorsman, probably knew based on the sun's position.

  “Vi… please. We've already taken too many already.” Mom sounded out of breath as she denied Vi’s request, as Addeline tripped and put most of, if not all, of her weight on my mother. Throughout the day, the two had walked side-by-side in the front of the group, with Mom catching Addeline whenever she lost her balance, which was a bit more often than I was comfortable with. James and Clyde stayed at the back, with Clyde supporting James almost nonstop, not just physically, but emotionally as well. Even though I was just a few feet ahead of them with Vi at my side, I pretended not to hear their conversations. I tried many times to tune them out and actually not hear them, but, like I said, I was just a few feet ahead.

  “Mom…” Next to me, my sister slowed, and dragged her feet.

  She was fair skinned, but the paleness concerned me. A few times throughout the day, Clyde and I switched people and he carried Viola, and Lucky once. It looked like now would be another one of those times.

  “Viola, we have to keep going.” Mom said, “We can't spend another night out here.”

  She was right. We needed to keep going, no matter how slowly. A step ahead, even a small one, still brought us closer to our goal.

  “Juliet… I think maybe we should stop too.” Clyde’s vote to stop surprised me. If he was caving in to a rest…

  I didn't like it. He was the strongest one of the group, physically. If something were to happen, now with Harrison gone and James not really being all here, Clyde would have to help Mom and I, because I wasn't too sure that Addeline would be up to the task.

  Our slow march crawled to a stop as Mom realized she was fighting a losing battle. Ahead of me, Lucky plopped on the ground right where he’d stood. The rest of the group sat down much more gracefully, with the exception of my mother, Clyde, and myself. We all remained standing, hands on our knees, but still somewhat alert.

  For the record, I was fully prepared to have Clyde carry my sister while I supported James. Just, for the record.

  The mint leaves, which Clyde had picked, because he apparently knew anything and everything about nature, had long lost their flavor in my mouth. While no one was looking, I awkwardly spit them out, and had to hook my finger behind my teeth to get all of it out.

  I looked up to see that James and Addeline were watching me with disgusted and concerned looks filtered onto their exhausted and in pain faces.

  It wasn't a good look.

  I quickly looked away.

  We all just kind of stayed there for a few minutes. There was no food to ration, no water to sip, all of our injuries were treated, and Mom knew where we were going, so she didn't need to check the map that she had completely memorized. I used my bat and a tree to keep me upright as I scanned the endless depths of the trees. They seemed to go on forever, but at the same time, limited my visibility. They—

  “What the hell is that?” Clyde muttered a few feet away, and peeled away from the tree he was leaning against. He leaned forward, took a few steps away from the imaginary line we were walking, and squinted his eyes at…

  … at whatever he saw that I couldn't see.

  “What?” My mother and Addeline asked him at the same time. The twins stood up, Lucky gripping his pocket knife.

  “Hang on… Just— wait here.” Solo Wilderness Man Clyde answered, before he stupidly, idiotically rushed into the trees. Alone.

  “Clyde! Clyde, wait!” His sister whisper-called, standing up. But it was too late, Clyde had already disappeared into the darkness. I saw something move ahead in the general direction he’d gone in, but it could’ve just been the leaves.

  “Addeline, wait.”

  “Juliet, please. He's my brother. We ha—“

  “No, we don't. We're not splitting up. Clyde knows what he's doing, and he told us to wait. So we'll wait.”

  And we did. For, like, five minutes. And when the only task that you were doing was waiting; it seemed to last forever.

  When he came back, he failed to alert us that it was him, Clyde, and not, you know, a Crazy or someone with not as honorable intentions as him. Like a completely sane person, he was silent as he approached from a direction that was not the one that he ventured off in, the only thing to alert us of his presence was a twig snapping.

  We all raised our weapons, myself included, even though I just had a bat.

  He came through some low branches, and looked surprised when he found us. He relaxed once we lowered our weapons.

  “You guys are never gonna belie
ve this. He said excitedly and waved us into the trees.

  As it turned out, I did, in fact, believe it.

  It was a house. A very nice, old-fashioned, log cabin. What Clyde had seen through the trees was the sun glinting off homemade wind chimes that were tied together, so that they didn't chime.

  I waited at the tree line, the thick branches blocking out enough sun to help me blend into the shadows and stood guard. I watched over the others while Mom and Clyde checked out the house. First, they walked the perimeter, looking through windows and whatnot. Then, they went in through an opened back door which led out to a very pretty deck.

  For several minutes, and I didn’t hear anything from the house. I mean, I guess it could be considered a good thing, because nothing happening means that there was nothing bad happening.

  Right?

  A figure appeared on the porch, leaning out of the screen door. It took me all of zero seconds to recognize that figure as my mother. She waved us over.

  “Go.” I whispered, gently pushing the twins forward. They led the way with Addeline, who Lucky stayed near, just in case she stumbled, even though no one told him to.

  “Come on.” I grabbed James’s arm and hauled him off of the ground. He shook his head.

  “Just leave me here.”

  What??

  “No.”

  He started to say something else, but I cut him off by repeating the word, only more deeper, and slightly more drawn out. No. No, I wasn’t just going to leave him there.

  Was he crazy?

  So we started walking, and that was the end of the conversation. Mom had gone inside with the others, and Clyde was coming down the porch to meet us halfway.

  I tried not to think about him.

  “I got him.” I let Clyde take the arm I had over my shoulders, the one on the opposite side from the where he was shot. I took the opportunity to get my bat out from between my back and my pack, and readjusted the straps.

  James looked… exhausted. Even though that was a huge understatement. He'd been in constant pain for the past few days, he wasn’t sleeping, and… and Harrison. As someone who'd lost more than a few family members, I could confidently say that I knew how he felt, and it wasn’t good.

  Mom opened the back door for James and Clyde, while I trailed behind, my bat ready for almost anything.

  I said almost, because if I said anything, then I would totally be jinxing the rest of my day.

  The cabin was nice. It was rustic, clean, and was clearly the dwelling place of someone who placed hunting at the top of their “Favorite Hobbies” list. The local taxidermist could’ve kept their business opened based on the income of this guy alone.

  Unless they did it themselves.

  Eck. I did not like that thought. Not at all.

  “I gotta use the bathroom.” I said quietly to the group, who had all found someplace to sit or lay down on the various couches recliners, and chairs scattered in the open layout of the cabin.

  “Ads is in the one down here, but there's a free one upstairs.” Clyde said.

  I nodded and went upstairs.

  There were two bedrooms and a closet upstairs along with the bathroom. I knew this because I managed to open every one of them before I found my destination.

  I put my bag against the door, like I did in the police station, and rolled my shoulders. There were a lot of cracks.

  A small bin next to the toilet had books and magazines, ranging from hunting and outdoor subjects, to celebrity gossip and popular fiction.

  I picked up one of the magazines. It was an old one, titled, Danny Horn: ‘My Struggle With Drugs & Lies’ An Exclusive. I was too young to remember that drama, so I put it back it the bin and finished so that I could get back to the others.

  If my shoulders had the ability to communicate, they would’ve been groaning right then. My hands were starting to form blisters from tightly gripping and using my bat so much.

  When I got back downstairs, the others groaned— much like I imagined my shoulders would— and stood up. James, however, remained lying down.

  “Okay, now that we're all here…” My mom started, looking more tired than the few days in the hospital after Viola’s appendix burst a few years back.

  She began to give assignments, starting with the twins. They were to start in this room, then go around the house and collect the weapons on the walls and such, including the knives in the kitchen.

  “And for gods sake,” she said, “only touch the handles and keep your fingers off the triggers.” James would accompany them, and help if something was too high for them to reach.

  Clyde, and I would raid the kitchen, and stuff as much food and water as the remaining packs could carry. The only packs left were mine, Vi’s, Mom’s, and Harrison's, which was now James's, but Clyde had been carrying it for him.

  Mom would search upstairs, and see if there were more backpacks, weapons, and anything else that could help us get to the safe haven. Addeline would join her.

  “Okay, then, break.” She finished, not as confident as when she first started. Even so, it sounded like a good plan, even if it was the only plan, and we were all too tired to think of a different one or make modifications to the one she proposed. We all dragged our feet to our missions, which clearly no one wanted to do.

  I didn't like that I was placed alone with Clyde, for obvious reasons. He was too distracting. Too… too Clyde.

  I dropped my bag in the middle of the kitchen, opened it, and then went for the cupboard that was obviously a pantry. Like Addeline’s food supply when we found her in Chicago, there wasn't really one. Two cans of green beans, which, I don't even like. Most veggies I can tolerate, but with green beans… there was this incident in kindergarten that I didn’t talk about. I just don't like existing on the same plane as green beans, okay?

  I made a face as I took the cans off the shelf and placed them in my bag.

  “How's your back?” I asked Clyde about his pain, mostly to take my attention off mine. Not that I didn't care, though, because I did.

  He closed the presumably empty cabinet at the end of the row and shrugged, then went to lean against the fridge.

  “Still working. How's your…” He looked at me and my face, and cringed, “Your…”

  He looked like he was struggling to pick an injury, but was doomed with focusing on my face, which looked awful, I knew. I’d caught a glimpse of it in the bathroom, and almost screamed. I'd always bruised easily, so even though it hurt a heck ton, it didn’t feel as bad as it looked.

  “Still working.” I answered his unfinished question to save him from having to finish it. He nodded quickly and looked away, then looked at the refrigerator that he was leaning against. He narrowed his eyes, and breathed out something that kind of sounded like, “what the”.

  Then he opened it, and said those words, only louder. The shuffling of James and the twins behind me stopped.

  The refrigerator was working.

  “How's does it… I mean—“ I was confused, surprised, and excited. Like, how lucky could we get?

  “We… we have to get out of here.” He reached in and pulled out a stick of butter and felt it.

  It was presumably cold, because he jumped.

  “What? Isn't this a good—“ He carefully placed the stick back in the exact position that he’d found it in, shaking his head.

  “No. No, because if there's electricity, then that me—“ He looked up at me, his hand still on the handle, and trailed off in the middle of his sentence.

  He dropped his hand.

  Behind me, there was the chik chik that was familiar to anyone who watched action movies.

  It was the sound of someone chambering a round in a shotgun.

  In responses to situations, most people think of fight or flight. Violence. Terror. But in this one, my mind and body froze. I couldn't move. I couldn't breath.

  No one else downstairs moved either. It was as if we were in a picture— frozen in this moment.
<
br />   Except for my mother and Addeline, who still searched upstairs for any survival loot that could be stolen from the person behind me, unaware of the scene unfolding just a floor below them.

  Speaking of the scene, I, myself, was not all that sure what was going on. All I knew was that across from me, Clyde stood tense, and still. His eyes darted around the room, at whoever was behind me, holding the shotgun. At the rest of the group down here. At possible weapons. At escape routes. At me.

  At least, that was what I would be doing. If my mind wasn't as frozen as my body.

  I really wanted to turn around, to see what was going on. My little brother and my little sister were behind me. For all I knew, the gun could be pointed at them.

  And that is so not cool.

  Then, like so many other times in this apocalypse, so many things happened at once. It was like we were all linked telepathically, and synchronized all of our distractions at once.

  I turned around at the same time I heard someone at the top of the stairs. Spooked at the sudden movement, the old man, whose left side of his face was red, raw, and blistering, swung the barrel of the gun towards me. The hair on that side was burnt off recently. He had been in some sort of fire. Then, less than ten feet away, he fired the shotgun, but before it could hit me, Clyde tackled me from behind. The pellets sailed over us, mostly embedding themselves in the wall behind us, but judging by Clyde’s cry of pain, at least one had skimmed him. The wind was knocked out of me, and combined with Clyde’s sudden weight, I couldn't get that wind to fill up my lungs again.

  From where I was on the floor, I could see James move across the room. He made noise, and the man spun around. James aimed his gun, the same gun that he jabbed my shoulder with days before and threatened to pull the trigger, at this man, and actually pulled the trigger. Clyde, who was in the process of getting up, flattened himself against me, pressing his hands against my head, and used himself as a human shield.

  All I could think about was Puck and Viola.

  The old man also pulled the trigger.