The Blood Will Dry

by Mary, Kate L.

  He nodded once to Sergeant Hendrix before turning away.

  The female sergeant gave me a once over like she wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to fall on my ass. “Lead the way, Foster.”

  “Diana,” I corrected her as I started walking, motioning for her to follow me.

  Hendrix only nodded, which told me that she wasn’t really interested in being on a first name basis. Not that it mattered. These guys would be in and out in a matter of days. This was just a pit stop for them because platoons like this had no permanent home. They traveled the country trying to infiltrate the now quiet hives that were set up all over the country, braving the new world we lived in. It was a noble thing to do because being out there was creepy as hell. Like stepping into a science fiction movie or through a portal to another planet. In the city it wasn’t too bad because they had settled in more open areas, but once you got out into what had formerly been farms and fields and forests, the world was a different place.

  The bomb that had destroyed the mall and my life had only been the beginning. The explosions had happened all over the state, all over the country, and probably all over the world. The craters that were left behind by the blasts had been huge, deep and wide and seemingly endless, but they hadn’t been the worst part. Less than twenty-four hours later things had started growing out of them. Foreign vines and plants that wove their way across the ground and over anything in their path, they’d covered cars and roads and buildings and continued to spread out while above us the skies grew darker. The clouds blotted out every inch of blue sky, making it impossible for even a single ray of sun to get through, slowly killing most of the plants that were native to this planet. The animals weren’t far behind. Species dropped left and right, dying when the food or people they’d depended on disappeared. That was why we lived in the city now. That was why we were crammed into office buildings instead of living in houses and enjoying the world. Because the world we had known five years ago no longer existed.

  The showers were on the first floor at the far end. We were fortunate enough that this building had installed a gym for its employees, and that some genius had figured out how to collect rainwater from outside and funnel it in. We had a pretty regular supply thanks to our new atmosphere—apparently these assholes liked to be wet—but we still had to ration it because we needed water to drink too. The showers weren’t hot, that was a luxury we’d probably never have again, but it didn’t matter. These days, no one would complain about the temperature of the water during their bi-weekly showers.

  The platoon didn’t talk much as I led them through the building, but I could hear Daisy’s quiet chatter at the back of the group and I knew she’d found her guy. When I glanced over my shoulder I could just see the top of her blond head. The guy at her side was her typical type: tall and broad and not white. Daisy was as white as the flower she was named after, but I hadn’t seen her hook up with a single white guy. Hispanic, Black, Indian, and Asian, yes. White, no way. I’d asked her once why and she’d simply told me that she preferred diversity in her life. Not that I cared who she slept with just as long as they didn’t give her anything or get her knocked up.

  We reached the locker rooms and I nodded to the door as I turned to face Hendrix. “This is it. Everything you need should be inside.”

  The sergeant nodded once before turning to her platoon. “Let’s get in and out so we can grab some shuteye. We have five hours until chow time and less than seventy-two hours until we head out again.” Her gaze zeroed in on the guy Daisy had latched onto. “I want everyone’s focus on rest.”

  The guy nodded, but the way his dark eyes focused on Daisy told me sleep was the last thing on his mind. He was around thirty, older than her but not by much, and I was sure that anyone who wasn’t nursing a severe case of heartache would have said he was attractive. He’d shaved his head and his jaw was just as smooth. Next to Daisy his skin looked dark, but it was just because she was so freaking pale, because his complexion would be better described as caramel than brown.

  “Foster,” an unfamiliar voice called out.

  I turned at the sound of my name only to find that the guy I’d mistaken for Michael had done the same. That’s when I realized who he was. Foster wasn’t an uncommon name and if I hadn’t already mistaken this guy for my dead husband in a moment of drunkenness I would have passed it off as nothing, but it would be impossible to now. Shit. He was Michael’s younger brother.

  Bryan Foster was just over a year younger than Michael would have been now. He and I had graduated the same year, although I’d gone to a middle-ranking public school while he’d been enrolled in a nationally ranked public school that may as well have been private. We’d had very different lives, very different friends, and literally only one thing in common: Michael.

  I’d only met my husband’s younger brother one time. Michael’s family hadn’t liked me, and even though he’d stuck up for me every chance he got, he had refused to subject me to their abuse after that one fateful visit. We’d been dating for only a few weeks when it happened, but ours was the kind of relationship that was serious right from the beginning. I had been creeping up on my seventeenth birthday and was a junior in high school, Michael had been a senior and about to turn eighteen. His parents had made a big deal about his birthday, throwing him a party at their gated home. It had been catered and they’d hired a band, had even bought him a BMW so he would have a reliable car when he went off to college. The whole thing had blown my mind.

  I hadn’t grown up poor, but my family had been solid middle class. At least up until the fifth grade when my dad had died of a sudden heart attack. That was when we’d learned that he’d had no life insurance, when my mom had been forced to get a job for the first time in eleven years, and why I’d found myself working a shitty waitressing job thirty hours a week during high school. But it was also how I’d met Michael.

  It had never bothered him that I didn’t have money, and I honestly believed that it hadn’t occurred to him that it would bother anyone else in his family either. But it had. His parents hadn’t been outright rude to me during the party, more like condescendingly sweet, but Bryan had been another story altogether.

  Nearly seven years had passed since I’d last seen him. He’d changed a lot since then, grown up and matured. He and Michael hadn’t really resembled one another back then, and now that I was able to get a really good look at Bryan, I had to admit that he still didn’t look much like Michael. They had the same blue eyes and the same golden blond hair, and occasionally as he talked to the man at his side he made a face that reminded me of his brother, but that was about it. Seeing Bryan Foster though, still left a bad taste in my mouth.

  “Hey.” Daisy bumped me with her hip when she stopped at my side. “What’s going on with you?”

  I could tell she was still drunk, but I was pretty sure I’d never been as sober as I was right then.

  “I know him.” I nodded to Bryan.

  “The blond guy?” Daisy lifted her eyebrows as she looked him over. “How?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She didn’t ask, but out of the corner of my eye I could see that she was still checking him out. “He’s hot.”

  I wanted to scoff or roll my eyes or even puke, but instead I said, “Even if he is white?”

  Daisy grinned. “You know me so well.”

  Someone bumped into me from behind and I stumbled forward a few steps. I turned to find Alex Harper behind me, grinning from ear to ear. When I scowled in his direction, his smile only widened.

  “New platoon?” Like Daisy, he eyed the men lined up on the other side of the room.

  “You’re so perceptive,” I said.

  Instead of acknowledging my condescending attitude, Alex hiked his medic bag higher up on his shoulder and remained focused on the group. He was a thin guy, and tall. Standing next to him like this always made me feel like I was on the verge of getting whiplash because I had to lean my head back so far just so I
could look him in the eye. I’d even demanded on more than one occasion that he give me an adjustment, not that he’d complied. He’d been in his second year of residency as an ER doctor when the shit hit the fan, not a chiropractor.

  “As much as I enjoy the distraction from normal life, I am forced to once again point out the fact that these guys are idiots.” Alex shoved his hand through his thick black hair and pursed his lips in disapproval. “No matter how much time they waste, they never seem to learn.”

  I looked back at the platoon and found Bryan missing. He must have headed into the shower. I wasn’t sure if he’d recognized me, or even if I wanted him to, but I was glad for the chance to absorb his sudden appearance in peace. If he did decide to approach me I wanted to be ready, and at the moment I had no idea how to react. This was Michael’s brother, his blood, and even though Bryan had treated me like crap seven years ago, I knew he wasn’t that person anymore. He was in the militia, which was something I never would have expected, and as much as I agreed with Alex about how they were wasting their time, it was still a brave thing to do.

  “You never know,” I said, trying to defend them despite my own reservations. “They could learn something. They could be the difference if the bugs decide to attack.”

  “It’s been four years without a peep,” Daisy argued. “They’ve settled in. If we leave them alone they’ll leave us alone. End of story.”

  “All the militia is going to do is stir up trouble,” Alex agreed. “We just need to keep to ourselves and we’ll be good.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was true, but the fact that I was here instead of a member of the militia said that I must agree with him, so I nodded.

  We were still talking about the creatures and the hives they’d set up all over the country when Bryan came back out. He was no longer in full gear, but instead wearing a pair of army green cargo pants and a tight black t-shirt. I was surprised to see tattoos covering his left bicep, but even more shocked to see names I recognized entwined with the vines. His parents, and Michael’s. In fact, I was so surprised that I couldn’t stop myself from staring, which only drew Bryan’s attention my way.

  I wasn’t prepared when he stopped in front of Daisy, Alex, and me, wasn’t sure what to say or what I wanted him to say to me. He looked me over, his gaze moving over my ratty shorts and thread bare shirt just like it had that day at his house seven years ago, except there was no contempt in his eyes now. Only curiosity.

  At my side, Daisy stuck her hand out and introduced herself before nodding to Alex and me. “That’s Alex and Diana.”

  Bryan, whose blond hair was still wet enough that it dripped onto his black shirt, wiped his palm on his pants like he was used to it being filthy, then slipped his hand into Daisy’s. “Nice to meet you, Daisy.” His gaze went to me again. “Diana.”

  “We call them Double D because they’re always together,” Alex piped in. “Among other reasons.”

  Bryan lifted an eyebrow and heat flared up my neck to my cheeks, only I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to cross my arms, but that was dumb. I had nothing to hide. Seven years had changed me, and it had no doubt changed him too. It had changed everything.

  “How are you?” I asked because I could tell that he knew who I was.

  Bryan shrugged. “Tired.”

  The word came out like a sigh and I felt a little more of my hesitation slip away. This man was a link to my husband; one I never thought I’d have again. One that had never even occurred to me.

  “It’s been a long time,” I said. “I didn’t know you were still alive.”

  “I didn’t know you were alive either.”

  His gaze moved to my left hand and my scalp prickled. When he looked up, I could see the questions in his eyes. It was the first time since realizing who he was that I really wanted to run and hide, and I silently begged him not to ask, not to mention their names. I didn’t even know if he knew Cassidy’s name, but I knew that I couldn’t handle this. Couldn’t handle talking about them in front of Alex, who was the biggest loudmouth around, and Daisy, who was watching me with such a penetrating gaze that I felt suddenly naked and exposed.

  “How is it out there?” I asked before Bryan could say anything.

  “It’s like a whole new world.”

  We lapsed into silence. Behind him the last of his platoon was coming out of the shower, which was a relief. I wanted to escape, but I needed to show them the bunkrooms we had set up first. I wasn’t sure if Bryan had any desire to talk to me, but I knew that if we did have that conversation, the one that would wound me to the core, I needed it to be in private. This was about more than just the death of my husband and daughter. It was about that moment when the man I loved had needed support from his family but had been cast aside instead. It was about the pain he’d gone through, about how hard he’d worked to give us the things we’d needed.

  I tore my gaze away from Bryan and scanned the crowd until I found Sergeant Hendrix. She nodded and said, “We’re all good here.”

  “Okay.” I turned my back on Michael’s brother and started walking.

  Daisy and Alex followed and I could hear my best friend chatting with Bryan as we went. I tried not to listen, but I couldn’t stop myself. Up close he didn’t look much like Michael, but their voices were so similar that it made the hair on my scalp prickle. The more he talked, the more I began to feel like he had crawled under my skin. Like he was clawing his way through me, trying to get to my heart.

  Thankfully the bunkroom we had for incoming platoons wasn’t far and taking them there was the only thing expected of me. The men and women filed in, most of them passing me without much more than a cursory glance, but Bryan stopped at my side. It gave me a chance to see the tattoo on his arm better, and I realized with a jolt that the vines snaking their way around the names of his family were the same ones that had now taken over the city. I found myself wanting to reach out and touch them, to trace the one that encircled my husband’s name, but I held back.

  “Can we talk?”

  The sudden words made me jump and I found myself taking a step back. Bryan wasn’t looking at me, but instead watched the rest of his platoon file into the room—all except the man Daisy had already snuck off with.

  “I can’t,” I whispered.

  Bryan watched me out of the corner of his eye while keeping his face forward. “It doesn’t have to be now. But I need to know—” His voice broke and the sound was nearly enough to undo me.

  I took another step away from him. “Later. I just—” My own voice trembled. “I hadn’t expected this.”

  “I know. I understand.” He finally turned his whole head to face me. “Do you get why I need to talk?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, and I did, but I still wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle it.

  I’d been holding everything in for five years, and having him standing in front of me right now suddenly made me feel like I was going to burst. Like all the feelings I’d been pushing down were clamoring to get out.

  “Later then,” Bryan said.

  I walked backward, desperate to get away from him before the dam burst. “Yeah.”

  He was still staring at me when I spun on my heel and hurried off.

  By the time I made it back to my room I was shaking. I didn’t know why, though. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t want to punch Bryan or scream at him or call him names. It took me a few minutes of sitting in the darkness to accept what the problem was. I didn’t want to think about things. Before he showed up I’d been successful in suppressing my feelings. No one here knew anything about who I was before all this, but him being here meant there was another person who knew I’d had a husband and a daughter. There was another person in this building who remembered what Michael’s laugh had sounded like, and I hated that. Hated what it would mean for the feelings I’d been keeping in check for all these years.

  The next few hours found me tucked away in my room, hiding in the darkness like it was a protective cocoon.
I didn’t have a clock, but I could tell when dinner was drawing near because the stampede of footsteps outside my door grew louder. As much as I wanted to stay in my room for the rest of the night, I had to go. Not only could I not miss dinner—if you missed it you were out of luck until morning—but I had patrol right after.

  The whole way down to the mess hall I did my best to convince myself that the odds of seeing Bryan were slim. It didn’t help ease the tension in me, didn’t help me relax or stop me from trying to scan the faces of the men I passed in the dark halls. I was as jumpy as I’d been my first few days after the initial attacks, back when there had only been a couple dozen of us and we’d all been so shell-shocked that no one knew what the hell to do with ourselves. I felt like a totally different person now, not the scared eighteen-year-old who had lost everything and didn’t know how to go on. Now I was strong and capable thanks to the training we’d all endured over the last five years. I knew how to shoot a gun and defend myself. I was settled in, had friends and a new life. I’d convinced myself that I didn’t still feel raw and broken inside. Bryan was screwing all that up.

  When I reached the mess hall I stopped outside the door and tried to do my best to get a look around. It was brighter here than anywhere else, other than maybe the infirmary. There were more lanterns set up so the people who prepared our meals could work without tripping—if there was one thing we couldn’t afford to waste, it was food. But the crowd of people crammed into the room was thick, making it tough to see inside let alone spot the person I was looking for. Or hoping to avoid, depending on how you looked at it. I wanted Daisy by my side, but I knew she was out on patrol right now. Meaning I was on my own. There was no one else I’d trust to help me find Bryan in this sea of people, because anyone else would ask questions. Questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

  Since I didn’t spot him or anyone else in the crowd I recognized from his platoon, I decided to get in, get my food, and get the hell out. I could eat on my way to the supply room and then head out for my patrol early. It wasn’t like anyone cared when you headed out there as long as you pitched in and did your required number of shifts during the week. Which had never been a problem for me since I usually did twice as many as I was supposed to.