by Fitch, E. M.
“So, you’re stretching chain link across all the windows?”
“Yeah, but not just the windows,” Jack said, nodding. “Andrew’s securing fencing and steel plates behind all the walls and throughout the undercarriage. Even flipped over, nothing’s getting inside this thing unless it’s let in!”
“I had no idea be could do all this,” Kaylee murmured. Jack shrugged, eyeing her thoughtfully. Kaylee smiled at him in an attempt at reassurance. She wasn’t sure she was successful. His head whipped to the left when Quinton called out.
“Break’s over, I guess,” he murmured, using the fingers he had yet to let go to tug Kaylee closer. “Cards tonight? Emma’s been bugging me.”
Kaylee felt breathless at his proximity, her chest fluttering as his warm fingers caressed hers, his breath gently touching her upturned face.
Pine and rain and fresh air.
Kaylee nodded. Jack kissed the tip of her nose and smirked at the catch in her breath before turning to run down the aisle towards Quinton.
Kaylee turned to find Andrew staring at her. His empty eyes returned immediately to the motor home and Kaylee sighed as she walked towards the limp and drifting rope ladder to get back to work.
~
The game of cards was exciting, but short-lived. Anna had joined them because Andrew had refused and she proved to be a much better player, even beating out Jack a couple of times. Kaylee’s hopes of getting some time alone with Jack were dashed when Quinton broke up the game looking for him.
“We still have things to adjust in that fool Hummer of yours. Dinner’s over.” Jack rolled his eyes at Kaylee but jumped up to follow Quinton. Kaylee immediately noticed Anna’s eyes twinkle as her lips twitched and, more to avoid the teasing that was sure to come than out of any desire to work, she rose to her feet.
“C’mon Em,” she said, kicking her sister lightly in the side. She rolled over to her back from where she lay on the floor and blinked up at Kaylee with a sleepy scowl. “We must have something left to pack.”
“I don’t wanna,” Emma mumbled, throwing her arms over her face. Anna started to smirk.
“Fine, I’ll just go check the pantry you finished packing then,” Kaylee said lightly, thinking fast as she headed for the exit. As she knew she would, Emma jumped up.
“I’ll come too,” she huffed, waving goodnight to a disappointed looking Anna.
“You didn’t finish packing it up, did you?” Kaylee whispered when they reached the hall.
“I got busy,” Emma answered evasively. “How’d you know?”
Kaylee ignored the second question. It really wasn’t much of one, she just knew her sister. “Busy with what?”
Emma fidgeted but looked straight ahead as she answered. “Quinton had to show me something.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?” Kaylee answered dryly, figuring it must have something to do with guns. Quinton had gone back to treating Emma like Emma, not like an infected. Kaylee had even seen him pat her on the arm the other day after Emma helped him lift a crate down the stairs. But then a sickening thought flashed through her mind.
Emma wouldn’t.
She couldn’t…
“Em, it’s not, not anything to do with—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake Kay, you can say the word gun!” Emma rolled her eyes as she yanked open the pantry door.
Most of the shelves were bare, but a few were still cluttered with foodstuffs. Emma kicked an empty milk crate to the center of the space.
“That’s not what I meant,” Kaylee answered stiffly, following Emma in and closing the door behind them. She smacked a flashlight into use and the beam swept Kaylee’s face.
“How’re your hands?”
“My hands?” Emma asked, probably not even aware she was flexing her fingers straight. Her eyes followed Kaylee’s and she curled her fingers into a fist before handing her sister the flashlight and shoving both hands in her pocket. “They’re fine.”
“Em, what you said before, to Quinton and Dad—”
“About killing me?” she supplied in the pause. Kaylee started. She knew what it would mean if Emma turned, especially now, when they were leaving the safety of the firehouse. How could she not? If Emma turned out there, there was no other option. But to have it said so bluntly, so coldly, it terrified her.
“Em, please stop saying that.”
“Kay.” And it was the way she said it, soft and gentle, not at all like Emma, that made Kaylee’s eyes burn with repressed tears. “I’m so sorry, Kay. I really am.”
“Em, please.”
“It could happen, it could not. Either way, I’m prepared. If I feel it, if… Well, I’ll say goodbye, okay? Before I do anything, I’ll say goodbye.”
It was the weakest compromise, but Kaylee saw no other option than to take it. She nodded in the weak light and Emma did something she hadn’t done for years. She hugged her. Kaylee took the moment with Emma’s small yet strong arms around her to compose herself. Emma would be fine. Fine. And no one would have to shoot her. Kaylee needed to believe that.
“So,” Emma smirked as she gave one last squeeze and let Kaylee go. “How’s Jack?”
“Eugh! This is just what I was running away from Anna for!”
Emma laughed. “That’s why you dragged me in here? Well tough! Even if I have to work for it, you’re going to spill.” Kaylee grimaced at her sister as Emma began pulling items off the shelves that could be boxed for the trip. The last few sodas, two cans of pineapple, a sad looking canister of oatmeal, two months worth supply of bottles of vitamins.
“He’s fine,” Kaylee eventually offered begrudgingly. “You should know, you just played cards with him.”
Emma turned to make a face. “Not exactly what I meant.” Kaylee shrugged.
What was she supposed to say? Things were still a bit confusing. He kissed her, whenever he got the chance it seemed. And there were the little touches, the hands grazing and knees knocking lightly together when he sat close to her at dinner. And the smirking, that was still there and somehow not nearly as infuriating as it was before. But, so far, that was all. He wasn’t pushy or demanding. He seemed comfortable in getting to know her.
“So, I don’t have to move out of our room just yet?” Emma asked, squinting through the dark. Kaylee laughed.
“No, you and Anna can stay put for now. It may be a while before that.”
“Really? Why not now?”
Kaylee hesitated, bent over the old milk crate she had been filling with the items Emma was yanking down. The old answer played at the tip of her tongue, the reason she was taught to embrace, the reason that should have been enough for her, for Emma, for a long time to come. But that reason was taken away from her. And even though she thought she should feel silly for still clinging to it, she did. If she were very honest with herself, it still played in her child-like fantasies, fantasies that included her mother coming back to her and her father smiling again. But, marriage wasn’t an option. It never would be again. And she felt horribly foolish even thinking it, let alone mentioning it.
“I don’t know, Emma,” she whispered instead. “I thought the whole point of leaving now was so we wouldn’t have to with a baby. Sex isn’t really the smart thing to do just now.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Emma conceded, looking back to the shelf that only held empty canning jars. She didn’t even question Kaylee’s reason, just took it for the logical conclusion that Kaylee presented it as. “Should we bring these? Think we’ll need them?”
Kaylee didn’t see a possible future in which they’d have the time or resources to can and preserve their food. She doubted the road would be an accommodating place for such things. She shook her head. Emma shrugged in agreement before clicking the flashlight off and groping her way behind Kaylee out of the large closet.
Chapter Fourteen
“Shouldn’t it look different?” Emma asked bluntly. Kaylee’s eyes were sweeping their bedroom. They had only really slept there a handful o
f nights, so it shouldn’t make so much of a difference that even though they had finished packing everything they would bring with them, it looked so empty and yet still so the same. But it did. Other that Kaylee’s photo frame, which she held in her hand, and the empty shelf by Anna’s bed; everything else looked the same as it had days ago, right down to the pile of clothes Emma left strewn across her bed. There were no personal items missing, no posters or calendars, no pictures of friends, notebooks, post cards, or games, because there hadn’t been any personal effects there to begin with. The girls simply didn’t own any, not really, not in two years. There was something wrong, almost sad, about that.
“You don’t want to put those somewhere?” Kaylee asked, gesturing to Emma’s clothes. Emma shrugged.
“I don’t need them, we’ll stop to raid that mall outside town when we’re out. I’ll get more there.”
Kaylee nodded. She knew that, Quinton had told them. But still, it seemed wrong to just leave them, abandoned, like that.
Emma turned her back on the room and left. That night they were leaving, and while Kaylee had a moment to herself, rare in and of itself these last few days, there was something else she had to do before they left.
It was raining. Just a light drizzle that misted Kaylee’s face as she slipped out to the roof. This would be her last time on the slate and tarpaper surface. She ate her last carrot from these rooftop gardens months ago and didn’t even know it. Now she would see her high rise and count the windows to her old room for the last time. And it would be the very last opportunity to say goodbye to her mother. Because she’d never see her again, despite what her father might think. This was the last time Kaylee, Emma, or Nick would ever see her, see Susan, see Mom.
Raindrops spattered the glass of Kaylee’s picture frame. She pulled her hood up over her head, tucking her hair beneath its cover before squinting through rain. She wished she could have come at twilight when her mother would be slowing down, looking for all the world like she was merely resting on the curb, not growling like minutes before or face down in the gutter minutes later. But, she couldn’t guarantee she would have the time. She had time now. So now it had to be.
The night they had fled the high rise, Susan had been wearing red, a red shirt, plaid. It had bright red stripes and deep maroon contrasted against cream and white. She was wearing jeans and had pulled on a pair of Kaylee’s sneakers by mistake as they ran. And her Saint Jude’s medal, of course, always that. She was so recognizable. Back when she was first bit Kaylee could have picked her out in an instant. Now it took time.
Grey. It was all grey. The bright red, the maroon, the warm blue of faded denim, the white sneakers, even her skin, now all grey. Just like everyone else roaming with her.
When Kaylee finally found her, her stomach gave the sick, little flip it always did and Kaylee convulsively gripped her picture frame a little tighter. Her eyes could only bare the sight for a minute before she had to turn away, the grey and the wet and the cold. Someplace inside her wanted to tell her mother everything that had happened. How Emma was bitten but okay, how Dad barely talked to them anymore, how Andrew hated her and Jack loved her and how she loved them both but differently. But the larger part of her needed to turn away. Her one-worded goodbye mumbled from between numb lips and then she was gone, eager to meet up with Jack so he could remind her why she was leaving in the first place.
She found him in the garage. Standing next to the reassembled and, honestly quite impressive looking, motor home. A large smiley face with a stick mouth and stick tongue hanging off it decorated the side.
Andrew’s humor.
Jack stood facing Kaylee, both arms behind his back, hands lowered behind his butt. He looked ridiculous.
“What are you doing? And why can’t you do that in front of yourself?” she asked, laughing lightly as she peeked from around his Hummer. He looked up at her and grinned. She noticed his arms muscles clench and then he slowly brought his arms around to his front. In one hand he held what looked like pliers, though they were bulkier than any Kaylee had ever seen. In the other hand he held a small, long, shiny metal tube near the size of a pencil with a tightly wound, red rope dangling from one end.
“Because these, smart mouth,” he started, laying the objects down on a nearby workbench; there were several other long, metal tubes lying there and a coil of the red rope, “are blasting caps. They’re really useful. Come over here and I’ll show you how to set some up.”
Kaylee didn’t know exactly what blasting caps were, or how they worked, but now that Jack had supplied the name, she could guess that the length of rope hanging from that one was a fuse. “These will be used tonight?” she asked, stalling her approach to the explosives.
“Yup, tonight and any other time we need to blow something up. We’ll be using ANFO, it’s a relatively stable explosive, so it won’t go off unless you can set off a big enough boom before hand. Blasting caps will do that.”
“The big boom part?” Kaylee asked, eyeing the metal tubes distrustfully.
“Right, but we have to assemble them first. Quinton taught me how,” Jack said, reaching out and tugging Kaylee closer. He placed the tool in her hand. “These are crimpers. Once you line up the fuse,” Jack paused to neatly slip a blasting cap down over the length of fuse before handing it to her, “you place them just here, right near the top of the metal, and squeeze.”
Kaylee placed the crimpers but before she could squeeze, Jack brought her hands, crimpers and blasting cap with them, behind her back. He nodded the go ahead. Kaylee squeezed. She felt the metal dent to hold the fuse firmly in place. Jack grinned at her.
“Good. I didn’t tell you the tricky part though.”
“Which is the reason I’m standing like an idiot with my hands behind my back?” Kaylee asked, raising her eyebrows at him as she brought her arms back around. He took the assembled blasting cap from her and nodded.
“Yeah, see, if you set the crimpers too low, too far down the shaft of the cap, when you compress them, you could set off the explosive.” Jack answered, turning to put the explosive back on the table.
Kaylee felt her jaw slacken at the revelation. “So I could have—”
“I wouldn’t have let you,” Jack chided, shaking his head at her.
Kaylee nodded before a look on confusion shadowed her face. “So why crimp it behind you? Why not see what you’re doing, so you don’t make a mistake.”
“It’s precaution. Just in case I accidentally set it off.” Kaylee’s jaw dropped in a little ‘o’ of surprise. “Yeah,” Jack continued, rubbing the back of his neck, “it’d be an embarrassing injury but I’d rather an injury there than…” Jack trailed off as his eyes traveled to the front of his jeans. He raised an eyebrow at Kaylee who belatedly realize her gaze had followed his. She felt her cheeks heat. He smirked.
“I see,” she murmured her gaze now lowered to her shoes. Jack laughed and her head whipped up in a scowl.
“Right, so anyway,” Jack continued, obviously taking pity on her as he coughed through a laugh. “They’re pretty safe if handled correctly but some people make dumb mistakes. They’ll drop them or mislay them. I’ve even heard stories of guys crimping them with their teeth. It’s a pretty stupid thing to do, especially when crimpers aren’t hard to find, but you know how some people never learn.”
“What happens?”
“If you use your teeth? Well, if you’re really lucky, nothing. But if you bite too far down, you’ll set off the explosion. It could be fatal, it could not be, either way you’d be lucky if you could even drink from a straw after that.”
Kaylee didn’t laugh at his weak joke.
“But, c’mon,” he said gently, nodding to the workbench. “I have another set of crimpers and I still have a bunch to set up for tonight, you could help me.”
Kaylee did. And the time flew by as she and Jack carefully assembled the explosive devices. As she crimped the very last one, Jack gallantly saving the last for her, she glan
ced up and around the crowded garage. Tomorrow it would be empty and only in some of the areas, like Emma’s bed, would it even be obvious that they had ever existed at all. Kaylee’s eyes settled on Jack.
“So this is it,” Kaylee murmured. “Really it.”
Jack nodded, a glint of anticipation in his eye.
Chapter Sixteen
The rain had stopped, leaving the sky remarkably clear. The stars were brilliant, not so much pinpoints of light but whole sprays of them, scattering haphazardly across the inky sky. Now, it wasn’t hard too understand why they had once been seen as gods, as miraculous bursts of light that shone from the very heavens above. Kaylee felt a small smile tug at her lips when she picked out the ordinary patch of sky in which Jack had once traced a kite. That night felt like so long ago. The stars bathed the street in silver now, making the three girls’ skin shine white as marble. Even Anna appeared statuesque and she laughs lightly when Emma points it out. But the laughter was short lived and her attention was soon called back to the city.
The keys sat idly in the ignitions. All lights, save the headlights, had been disabled. They were ready to go. But first, they had to make sure none of the infected could follow.
They were lucky, in a way, because the northernmost border to the city was lined with water. No one had yet to see any infected swimming and it seemed unlikely that they would start. So, it was only three borders that would have to be destroyed. Highways defined two of them. In large cities that would have made it easy, lonely tangles of concrete and steel that wove over trenches and embankments. But here, the highways were just flat stretches of impossibly reaching pavement. Jack and Andrew had walked the whole perimeter in the days proceeding, Andrew pointing out landmarks that could be sabotaged to block any exit for Jack’s approval. Multiple high rises were rigged with explosives, the mall, a police station, one bridge, and the only tunnel leading out were ready to collapse. Tonight the men were poised on motorcycles on the edge of the city. Waiting, just as Kaylee and Emma waited, listening for that first signal that would precede that first blast, the destruction of their world.
