Frost

by Isabelle Adler

  Like most of the other structures that were left standing in the city, the once posh high-rise which Spencer led him to was dilapidated, its roof gone and the upper floors crumbling away. Finn held his flashlight close to the lock while Spencer undid it, struggling to handle it with the thick gloves. They slipped inside, and Finn helped the other man shut the door against the powerful gusts.

  The sudden silence rang in his ears. Finn threw back his hood and looked around. The hallway was deserted and stank of piss and rot, not unlike the entrance to almost any other building. Spencer undid the striped scarf that was wrapped around his head and led the way, past the dead elevators and up the stairway, lighting the way with a flashlight of his own. He had a thick mane of shaggy blond hair, a few shades lighter than his beard, and when he turned around, Finn thought that his eyes were blue.

  They stopped by the first door on the second floor, and Spencer opened the lock with another key he produced from his coat pocket. When they entered, he set the flashlight on a side table and undid the shotgun holster. He hung the weapon carefully on a large wooden peg on the wall before shrugging out of his long coat and shaking off the ice that clung to it. He then made straight for the large fireplace in the living room.

  As Spencer stoked the fire, Finn looked around curiously. Once the flames took hold over the kindling, it gradually became warmer and brighter, though the light didn’t quite reach into the farther recesses. Unlike the dingy hallway, the apartment was neat and tidy. The furniture was sparse, and the windows were taped with old newspapers and boarded with wooden planks, but it was indeed dry, as Spencer had promised.

  A threadbare rug covered the living room floor. Kindling for the fireplace, mostly broken pieces of old furniture and flooring, occupied a shallow niche that once must have housed the TV stand. A dozen or so books and a few piles of glossy magazines sat on the shelves. A sleeping pallet, made up of a single mattress and some ridiculous floral bedding, took up a corner of the room closest to the fireplace. It figured that sleeping there would be more comfortable than in the much colder bedroom. The fireplace, which must have been mostly decorative in an apartment building like this, was now utilized for cooking—there were several dented pots hanging above it. It gave the apartment a homier feel.

  “Have you lived here long?” Finn asked, removing his gloves. Despite the overall coziness, he couldn’t make out signs of anyone else staying here besides Spencer. At least Siobhan and he had each other for company, and sometimes weeks went by without them seeing another living soul.

  “A couple of months.”

  “It’s a nice place.” Finn walked to the window and peered through the gaps between the boards and glued newspapers. He couldn’t see anything for the whiteout, not even the outline of the other buildings across the road. Thunder rolled, and the glass vibrated beneath his fingers. The storm was now in full swing. Siobhan should be fine, though; she would know to get down into the basement when the wind picked up. Neither of them liked it, since the damp aggravated her asthma, but it was the safest place to stay during blizzards, or when gangs occasionally roamed the neighborhood. Thankfully, the latter was a rare occurrence. They’d found shelter in Carmel Township, once an affluent suburb of Indianapolis. It was half-obliterated, but unlike the city, pillagers rarely disturbed it.

  “There’s no use fretting,” Spencer remarked. “It’ll be at least a couple of hours till the storm passes. Might as well wait it out.”

  Finn sighed and joined him by the fire. He warmed his hands over the flames, relishing the wonderful heat that spread through his fingers. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Spencer got up and reached for one of the pots. The other man was tall and broad-shouldered, but not thick enough to appear beefy. He exuded strength, which was strangely reassuring rather than menacing.

  “What were you doing in that hospital?” Spencer asked as he poured water out of a plastic jug into the pot and placed it over the fire. He looked at Finn then, his eyes so impossibly blue. Maybe that was what the sky had looked like before everything went to hell.

  “Looking for antibiotics.” Finn turned back to stare at the fire to hide his blush. He had no business thinking of the man’s eyes. They were nothing but strangers, thrown into each other’s path by chance and circumstance for a brief time before they went their own way.

  That wasn’t entirely true, of course. It was Spencer’s choice to defend Finn against his attackers. He didn’t have to do that; in fact, he’d have been risking his own safety had there been more of them, despite his being armed. And Spencer certainly didn’t have to invite Finn to stay as he waited out the storm.

  “You don’t look sick.”

  “It’s not for me, it’s for Siobhan,” Finn said without thinking and then paused. He didn’t like talking about her to other people, only too aware of the danger she would be facing if anything should happen to him, but it was too late to backtrack now.

  “That’s an unusual name. ‘Shiv-on.’” Spencer repeated it haltingly, like someone would a foreign word, unsure of the correct pronunciation. “Pretty, though. Is she your girlfriend?”

  “My sister,” Finn said. “She’s been sick a lot lately. And, um, I don’t have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.” He wasn’t sure why he added that.

  Something like interest flickered in Spencer’s eyes, but it was gone so quickly Finn thought he must’ve imagined it.

  “Would you like something to eat?” he asked. “You must be hungry.”

  Finn shook his head. “I can’t take your food.”

  “Why not?”

  The simplicity of that question threw Finn off. After all, food was the most prized commodity, made by necessity more precious than alcohol, batteries, or clothing. Finding anything edible in the frozen wasteland of the crumbling urban landscape required supreme effort, and finding safe venues for trade was a challenge of its own, as plenty of survivors would as readily try taking something by force as barter for it. Food was never given or shared freely, as it had been in the past. It was always bargained for.

  When Finn failed to answer, Spencer opened one of the cupboards, displaying an array of canned foods. There must have been at least a dozen tins—chili, baked beans, sweet corn, ham. Finn almost gasped. It was a veritable treasure trove, and he couldn’t believe Spencer was so carelessly acknowledging its existence to some random guy he’d just met. Granted, Finn was unlikely to wrestle it out of his hands, given their difference in size—he was shorter by nearly a head and noticeably leaner—but still, such level of trust was inconceivable.

  “As you can see, I can spare a can or two for you to take home for your sister,” Spencer said. “I keep enough traps around to live on rat stew.”

  Finn smiled wryly. Rat stew was rather delicious, when he was lucky enough to catch the main ingredient. Rats were another species that seemed to have adapted fairly well to the climate change, most likely feeding on all those frozen corpses. But he didn’t have anything of value on him, and he doubted Spencer would consider a few packs of gauze a fair exchange for baked beans. The opportunity was too good to pass on, though.

  “What do you want for them?” he asked bluntly.

  He thought he had a pretty good idea of what that might be, if the spark of interest he’d spotted earlier was anything to go by. Finn probably wouldn’t even mind so much. Once, he’d blown a guy for two cans of tuna (though he refrained from telling Siobhan this detail). At least Spencer had the decency to offer a trade-off instead of taking what he wanted by force—and he was kind of handsome. A bargain was a bargain, right?

  There was a pause as Spencer considered him with an expression Finn was hard-pressed to decipher.

  “Nothing,” he said finally. “Let’s call it an early Christmas present.”

  “What?”

  “An early Christmas present,” Spencer repeated patiently in response to Finn’s confusion. “If you celebrate Christmas, that is. It’s in two weeks.”

  “Is it?”
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br />   Spencer nodded. Finn had no idea if that was true or not. He tried to keep track of the passage of time, counting months and years mostly to be able to check on expiration dates on various found goods. He knew he was twenty-three, and Siobhan was twenty-six, but other than that, he’d long given up on remembering any holidays. It wasn’t as if they had anything to commemorate anymore. It was always winter now. The days bled into one another, colored white and gray and black, and Christmas was really no different than any other day. But it was kind of sweet that Spencer remembered it.

  “Thank you. Yeah, we used to celebrate it back then.”

  He didn’t know what else to say. Everything about Spencer baffled him. He was clearly capable of violence, as his actions earlier in the hospital suggested. And yet, so far, he’d been nothing but kind and decent. Far too decent for what Finn had come to expect from people. It made him uncomfortable, as if they were playing a new game, the rules of which were a mystery to him.

  He retreated to sit on the worn rug and watch as Spencer prepared the rat stew he’d been bragging about. Apparently, he hadn’t been kidding about the traps, because there was some actual meat going into the pot, along with a few pieces of dried vegetables. Soon, the tiny apartment was filled with the smell of cooking that made Finn’s mouth water.

  He thought back on the time when he was little. His mother used to cook up a storm on Christmas Eve, with his father helping to peel and chop up the leeks and carrots to go with the roast pork.

  Finn shook his head, firmly shutting those memories away and swallowing the bitterness that welled up in his throat. It was silly and unproductive to dwell on the past. Coping with reality was so much more difficult afterward.

  “So, you’re here by yourself?” Finn asked, just to fill the silence and drown the noise of the storm outside. He couldn’t help but worry, but it was as useless as reminiscing about the good old times.

  “Yeah. My cousin used to stay with me for a while, back when we were still living at Southport. He died of radiation poisoning two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said.

  Spencer shrugged. He tasted the broth with a long wooden spoon and then added a few pinches of salt from a tin that sat on the mantelpiece with the rest of the cooking utensils. “We’re all gonna die sooner or later.”

  Finn understood the sentiment, but couldn’t wholeheartedly agree. To do so would be to admit defeat, and he was too stubborn to do that. For sure, none of them were going to live forever; any of them would be lucky to survive for more than a handful of years hence. But he was damned if he was going to just give up, especially when he and his sister depended on each other. He would keep her, as well as himself, alive for as long as possible.

  It occurred to him that despite the proclaimed fatalistic approach, Spencer must have been feeling the same. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered to stock up on food and keep up the maintenance on the place.

  “Are you always this glum?” he asked, trying for a lighter tone to steer the conversation to less serious topics.

  “Only when I’m hungry.” Spencer smiled suddenly. He placed the lid on the pot and sat down on the rug beside Finn, leaning back on his arm, enjoying the warmth and the respite.

  They sat there together in relative quiet as the flames danced in the hearth and licked at the copper pot. Finn took the opportunity to study his host more closely. Spencer had tiny wrinkles around his eyes and a sort of haggardness to his face that came from hardship. That and the beard made it difficult to tell how old he was, but if Finn had to venture a guess, he’d say he was about thirty, perhaps a bit older. His slightly curly blond hair appeared almost golden in the light of the fire, reminding Finn of images of saints and knights on stained-glass windows he’d seen in churches. Spencer could not rival their beatific perfection, but it was his kindness and reserve, not his looks, that made Finn wish he could get to know him better.

  Spencer cleared his throat, and Finn quickly reverted his gaze to the flames, feeling a blush creeping up his cheeks.

  It was silly of him to indulge in such nonsense fancies. Even if he could for one second stop worrying about his sister being all alone and sick while he was here, safe and warm, soon he’d be going home, never to see Spencer and his little apartment again. There was no point in thinking about him as anything more than a friendly stranger extending him a helping hand, as rare and precious as that might be. It wasn’t like Finn deserved anything more anyway.

  “I think the stew is ready,” Spencer said and got up to check on it. Finn rose too and busied himself with fetching two bowls and spoons from one of the cupboards.

  Satisfied with the taste of the broth, Spencer divided the stew equally between the bowls. By an unspoken agreement, they opted to retreat to the rug instead of using the small dining table that stood in the far corner.

  “That’s really good,” Finn said around a mouthful of stew. It was much richer than anything he’d had for a long time, and he tried to savor the taste rather than gulp it down.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you use to be a cook?”

  “No.” Spencer smiled before taking another spoonful. “Actually, I had a small delivery company.”

  “Is that where you learned how to handle a shotgun?” Finn teased. “Being a delivery guy?”

  “I used to go hunting and fishing in the summer,” Spencer said. “Lots of camping trips, and my family also had a cabin on Lake Monroe. It all did come in handy, didn’t it.”

  “So, you were the outdoorsy type.”

  Spencer shrugged. “I liked nature. And the quiet. That time, just before dawn, when you wake up to see the mist floating above the lake and hear the birds beginning to chirp. It was nice to get away from the city once in a while and just…breathe. But it wasn’t something I did frequently. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like now, living out there in the wild, with no one and nothing around. What it would be like to survive solely on your own.”

  Finn tried hard to picture what Spencer was talking about, but couldn’t. He’d lived in the city his whole life. He knew how a lake should look, the trees around it green and fresh with morning dew, but the details grew fuzzy and slipped away before he could really focus on them.

  “What about you?” Spencer asked, bringing Finn’s attention back to the present.

  “I hated camping.”

  “No, I meant what did you do in life.”

  “Oh.” Finn chewed on the last bit of greasy meat and set his bowl aside with a satisfied sigh. Pleasant warmth now spread through his stomach as well as through his limbs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so full—and that brought yet another pang of guilt. “Nothing much, really. I was an undergrad at UIndy. First year, didn’t even have a chance to pick a major. My sister was there too, she studied Industrial & Systems Engineering.”

  Finn had actually considered majoring in criminal justice, but that hardly seemed worth mentioning now. Not like it mattered one way or another.

  But much to Finn’s surprise, they did end up chatting about his brief college experience and then a lot of other things. Spencer told him about his own post-college trip to Europe about ten years ago, and that his favorite hobby used to be building model planes. Which made Finn remember his own longtime fascination with remote control helicopters and the time he crashed the most expensive one through his neighbor’s window.

  It had been a long time since he’d laughed so much, or talked so much without having to think about it, that he just let go and enjoyed himself despite the occasional spike of worry. Finally, Spencer took their dishes away, and they both settled back in front of the fire. A companionable silence stretched between them. Finn chanced another furtive look at Spencer, his face cast in a warm orange glow. He seemed to be deep in thought.

  A strange feeling stirred in Finn’s heart, a tenderness he’d believed to be reserved only for Siobhan and the dimmed memories of his childhood. Was that what having a friend felt like? He c
ouldn’t quite recall, but it was somehow so…right.

  “It’s getting late,” Spencer said, and Finn nearly jumped, startled out of his musings. “I’ll make you a bed by the fire.”

  “Sure.”

  He got up and waited as Spencer gathered some spare bedding and spread it neatly on top of the rug where they’d been sitting, where the heat of the fireplace would linger after the flames had died out.

  Chapter Three

  SILENCE SETTLED AROUND the room, but it was far from complete. As weary as Finn was, he couldn’t quite tune out the wailing of the wind outside, the crackling of the fire, the little creaks of the floorboards, and the sound of soft snoring coming from the other “bed.” He huddled under the blankets that carried a faint odor of must, but sleep wouldn’t come.

  He was too wired to doze off. Now that he was once again alone with his thoughts, without the lively conversation to distract him, they kept circling back to his earlier narrow escape at the hospital. Every time he closed his eyes, he’d see the swipe of the metal pipe, stopping a fraction of a second before connecting with his face. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a dangerous situation, but he’d never been so absolutely sure he was going to die. The memory still sent surges of adrenaline through his body, making it impossible to relax, and his right arm ached dully from the hit. There was certain to be one hell of a bruise forming under his sleeve.