Frost

by Isabelle Adler

  When Finn tried forcing himself to think about anything else, his mind readily presented him with images of Siobhan, cold, lonely, and miserable, curled up in her blankets in front of a weak fire.

  The possibility of her getting worse terrified him. That was why he’d been willing to risk both their lives by coming into the city for the sake of trying to score some new meds before they completely ran out.

  Finn sighed and fussed with the covers. Letting his thoughts stray in this particular direction was a bad idea since there was absolutely nothing he could do except wait for dawn and hope for the best. God, it was going to be a long night.

  Coming to terms with the realization that he wasn’t going to fall asleep any time soon, Finn tossed off the covers and sat up on his pallet. A shiver went through him, and he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders as he got up to feed some more kindling to the fire—just enough to keep it going.

  That also made the room a little bit brighter, but it wasn’t enough to wake Spencer, despite Finn’s concern. The other man’s even breathing didn’t falter as Finn moved quietly about the room, and once again, he marveled at his host’s willingness to trust someone he’d so casually picked up on. Maybe Spencer had seen something in Finn, just as Finn had seen in him a promise of decency and candor. Or maybe he just wasn’t entirely right in the head. Watching your world collapse could have that effect.

  But as much as Finn tried to be cynical, he couldn’t quite hold on to it. He made himself look away from Spencer’s face, which looked so peaceful at rest, almost youthful. Instead, Finn walked over to the bookshelf, the blanket trailing behind him, and picked a book at random.

  The silhouette of a tall ship was etched in white on the worn blue cover, right under the title Treasure Island. He flipped through the close-typed pages, yellowed with age. Finn had only read it once, when he was about sixteen, off an e-reader, not an actual paper book. He remembered liking it, too, despite how hopelessly outdated it had seemed to him then. It resonated so much deeper now, with every one of them, the struggling survivors, trying desperately to fool fate while searching for any scrap of treasure they could find. Only now, it wasn’t gold or jewels, but things infinitely more precious.

  Finn wondered if Spencer had read it, too. He must have, if he kept it in his small collection. Perhaps it was a favorite of his—a story that had kept him company on those long, lonely nights, without another soul to talk to. Finn retreated to his sleeping pallet, settling once again under the covers. There was still enough light to discern the text comfortably, so he opened the book at the beginning and started reading.

  HE WOKE UP to someone gently shaking his shoulder. Finn jerked upright—or at least tried to, as he fumbled with his blanket.

  “Rise and shine,” Spencer said. “Thought you might want to get an early start.”

  “Ngh,” Finn managed to push out. He’d never been a morning person in the best of times, and he certainly wasn’t now, when outside temperatures made lingering in bed, even a moldy one, that much more appealing.

  Spencer moved away, going through his morning routine while Finn looked around, bleary-eyed, as memories of yesterday filtered through his sleep-addled brain. The fire had died out a long time ago, and while the morning was predictably chilly, the blizzard must have subsided during the night because translucent light was spilling through the cracks in the window. The book was lying on the floor next to his pallet, still opened where Finn had dozed off.

  The apartment looked shabbier in the morning, but surprisingly, lost none of its cozy charm. In fact, Finn could only now appreciate how well kept it was. This was a home, not a shelter or a temporary abode—much more so than the place Finn and Siobhan had claimed as their own. Warmth that had nothing to do with temperature seemed to fill the air, an intangible mix of the aroma of cooking and the lingering echo of laughter.

  Finn shook his head at the notion. He yawned widely and stretched, throwing off the covers. Spencer was right. He really should be leaving as soon as possible, taking advantage of the rare sunlight and the early hour to make his journey home. And yet, a part of him—no small part, if he was completely honest—was sad that he had to go.

  He took a piss in a bucket that was tucked away in the bathroom and washed his face with water from a chipped pitcher. When he returned, the fire was going again, lower this time, and Spencer was boiling water. He turned as Finn came into the room, a smile lighting up his face.

  “I don’t have any tea,” he said apologetically. “Or coffee, for that matter. But hot water works just as well for me.”

  Finn’s heart did a funny little flip when he saw that smile. It was so unfair, really, to have to part with the only person who had offered him any kind of solace in years, barring his sister. It wasn’t like Spencer and they were neighbors; Carmel was hours away, and trips to the city were getting increasingly dangerous, as yesterday’s events had shown. He couldn’t drop by any time he felt like having a friendly chat by the fire.

  Or anything more than a chat—but Finn stomped down that thought firmly. There was even less hope for that than there was for friendship.

  “Water is fine,” he said, accepting a tin mug and using it to warm his hands. “Thank you.”

  “Reading?” Spencer asked, nodding toward the discarded book. In the light of day, grayish as it was, Finn noticed the stray silver hairs in Spencer’s blond beard and on his temples, though they clearly weren’t a symptom of old age.

  “Yeah. Couldn’t sleep last night, so I picked it up. Sorry.”

  “No apology is necessary. You should take it, if you want to finish it.”

  “Really? But what about you?”

  Spencer shrugged. “I have more. Besides, there’s a public library not far from here. Folks don’t tend to pillage those except for kindling. There are still a lot of books left.”

  Finn finished his water while Spencer moved about the flat, tucking away the extra bedding and rinsing the dishes in a plastic bucket. Soon, all traces of Finn’s overnight stay in his home were gone. He was surprised to discover it made him a little pensive, and immediately felt silly for it.

  He got ready in silence—not that he had a lot of packing to do aside from stuffing his messenger bag with the book and the few cans of food Spencer had so generously offered him. Finn’s mission of scavenging for medicine had proved a spectacular failure, but at least now he had something else to bring home to Siobhan. Sometimes, a hot meal was just as important, and he was feeling much stronger and energized after the previous night’s meat stew and a good rest.

  Once he was fully dressed and packed, Finn stopped in the entryway, casting a last look at the apartment. Perhaps it was nothing more than wishful thinking on his part, but judging from Spencer’s expression as he came to unlock the door for him, Finn wasn’t the only one who was loath to part so soon. Maybe I could come back here sometime, a voice whispered at the back of his mind, sounding too hopeful for his own liking. When Siobhan feels better, and we need something again we can’t find in our own little neighborhood.

  “Look, Finn—” Spencer started, his hand still on the door handle, just as Finn said: “Spencer—”

  They both stopped, their awkward chuckles quickly winding down.

  “You first,” Finn offered with a wry smile.

  Spencer took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for something difficult or unpleasant, and Finn’s heart sank a little in apprehension.

  “I think I should go with you,” Spencer said in a rush. “You saw yesterday this area might be dangerous right now, and you may not be the only one to take advantage of the nice weather. I want to make sure you get home safe and sound to your sister. I don’t have to come in if you’re worried about bringing a stranger home with her there,” he added into Finn’s stunned silence. “I’ll walk with you and then be on my way.”

  Finn looked away, suddenly unable to bear all this kindness directed at him. He didn’t know quite how to handle it, not when all that
the last few years had taught him was to be selfish and mistrustful. It would have been easy to suspect Spencer of some nefarious motives for his suggestion, had he not extended his protection and hospitality the night before without any expectation of payback.

  The silence grew too thick, heavy between them. Spencer stepped back, making even more room for it to separate them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have offered. Just…be careful on your way, okay?”

  Finn finally looked up at him. Spencer’s expression was carefully neutral, as if he was shielding himself from the inevitable rejection. Why are you doing this? Why are you being so good when all the world around us is rotting away?

  But these were questions he wasn’t prepared to ask aloud just yet.

  “If you go with me, there’s a big chance you’ll find squatters in here when you come back, and all your stuff gone,” he said instead.

  Spencer shrugged. “I’ll make sure everything is locked tight. And if someone breaks in, I’ll deal with them. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Thank you,” Finn said quietly. His eyes locked with Spencer’s, and this time, he held his gaze. “For everything. You’ve already done more than enough, and I can’t possibly ask for anything more of you. But…if you really want to come with me, I’ll be glad for your company. And, of course, you’re welcome to stay. I’m sure Siobhan would feel the same. You know, since you’d saved my life and all.”

  Spencer smiled. “Hopefully, she won’t give me an earful for keeping you away longer than necessary.”

  As happy as he was at Spencer deciding to join him on his journey home, the delay cost them precious minutes of daylight. The weather could change without notice at any moment, and they had to cover as much ground as they could while it was still relatively sunny outside. Not that they could see the actual sun through the perpetual layer of thick gray dust, but nonetheless it was there, a bright spot in the slate sky.

  Finn helped Spencer gather his things. Despite his proclaimed nonchalance at the prospect of intruders, Spencer meticulously packed the truly valuable things—the canned food, the rounds of ammunition for his shotgun, and some warm clothes—to take along in a large backpack. It was a load to carry, but Finn could well understand the desire to keep these items close. If anything, it made him more grateful that Spencer would go to all the trouble of hauling his stuff on a tedious roundabout trip for the dubious pleasure of seeing Finn home.

  “What was that you wanted to say earlier?” Spencer asked as he rolled a blanket and attached it on the top of his backpack. “I kinda interrupted you there.”

  Finn felt a blush creep up his cheeks. For some reason, he wasn’t comfortable admitting he’d wanted to ask for Spencer’s permission to visit him again sometime in the future. Now that they were going to stay together a little while longer, it didn’t feel right to add this particular factor into their relationship quite yet. They had to focus on their immediate needs without distractions that may yet prove irrelevant. It was entirely possible Spencer wasn’t even remotely interested in him in the same way.

  “It was nothing,” he said. “Let’s just get going.”

  “Right.” Spencer shrugged into his long coat and wrapped a scarf around his head and neck. Finn followed suit, putting on his gloves. Good weather didn’t mean it was actually warm outside. It was never warm anymore.

  Spencer slung the gun on his shoulder and locked the door after they stepped into the dim hallway. The lock certainly wouldn’t give much pause to a determined intruder, but someone looking for easy pickings probably wouldn’t bother with it. At least Finn hoped so. The last thing he wanted was to be the inadvertent reason for his rescuer’s place being burglarized in his absence.

  The street was empty and quiet. Finn looked around as Spencer put a lock on the main entrance door, but nothing was stirring as far as he could see. They started off, picking their way among the snow-covered car skeletons and piles of debris as huge icicles winked at them from the window ledges of the surrounding buildings, glistening in the muted light of the morning.

  Chapter Four

  THE PREVIOUS NIGHT’S storm had left piles of dirty snow and detritus in its wake. Fallen branches and pieces of broken masonry often blocked their path, making walking more challenging. Finn and Spencer kept to the sidewalks, keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings. Thankfully, nothing moved in the shadowy alleys, though sometimes Finn caught glimpses of faces in the windows, the weight of the watchers’ gazes heavy on the back of his neck. He hunched his shoulders instinctively, making himself as small and inconspicuous as possible, and resisted the urge to skulk along the walls. The sunny weather was welcome, but it made it that much more difficult to blend into the background and slip by unnoticed. At least Spencer’s presence offered some protection, and he was grateful for it.

  He’d been much less preoccupied with his safety on the way to the city, distracted as he was by the urgency to find something, anything, to make Siobhan better. But he couldn’t deny how badly he’d been shaken by yesterday’s confrontation at the hospital. The possibility of being nearly beaten to death certainly drove home that he had to exercise more caution if he wanted to survive to help his sister.

  But despite Spencer’s concerns, no one tried to ambush them as they traveled through the heart of the city. Finn supposed that Spencer, tall and menacing in his long coat and the scarf that obscured his face, would have been enough of a deterrent even if his weapon wasn’t visible—which it undoubtedly was.

  Clearly, it wouldn’t help them against the larger, more organized gangs. If anything, a lone man with a gun made a more lucrative target precisely because of the valuable potential prize. But these kinds of armed bands were rare. Spencer’s weapon (a hunting shotgun, Finn presumed, as he was hardly familiar with firearms of any sort) was not something an opportunistic pillager, or a bunch of them, would risk facing.

  The going got smoother once they left the ravaged city center behind and headed north, with Finn leading the way. The roads were broken, mostly covered with layers of earth and snow, but Keystone Avenue still ran straight like an arrow, and the route was easy to follow on foot. It would still take them at least four or five hours to get to Finn and Siobhan’s squat in Carmel, but the air was dry enough, with no indication of rain coming, and they were making good progress. They only had to circle back a few times, where the interchanges had collapsed, and climb back up to the overground portions of the road.

  With every mile they put between themselves and the city proper, Finn’s anxiety eased. He was still driven by the same urgency, but this morning, he was buoyant with renewed energy. The colorless sky seemed less oppressing, the ruined landscape not quite as desolate. His worry and disappointment about not finding any medicine to bring home was not going anywhere, but he allowed himself to indulge in the hope that somehow everything would be all right.

  “Do you miss your lake cabin down south?” he asked Spencer when they stopped for a rest. Finn took a handful of the cleanest snow he could find and stuffed it in his mouth. Usually, he boiled his drinking water, but now, he took what he could get. It was easier than lugging around heavy bottles, anyway.

  “Yeah.” Spencer sat on a broken concrete Jersey barrier and stretched his long legs. “I haven’t been there since the bombings, so I don’t know if it’s still standing. Once in a while I think it’d be nice to stay there, by the water, even for a short while. We used to have the most beautiful sunsets on the lake, and the fishing was great. But it’s too far to visit just for the heck of it, you know? Can’t be easy living in the woods now, too.”

  “Guess not,” Finn conceded, though he still thought it could be refreshing to get out of the city and see the wide wild outdoors, as much as he’d disliked them in the past. Nature was much more resilient to change than civilization, and there had to be some purity to living outside the reach of remnants of society. Granted, Finn didn’t have the first clue about how to live off
the land or forage for food in a frozen forest, but at least they’d be far from the danger that always came with being around other people.

  “Maybe it’d be possible to travel there one day.” Spencer was watching Finn closely, so perhaps he’d picked up on his daydreaming. “When the weather clears up a bit and it’s less volatile. Maybe we could go there together, if you want.”

  “That’d be cool,” Finn said. They shared a shy smile before almost instantly looking away.

  It was nothing more than a fantasy, something to talk about to while away the time. But Finn found he wouldn’t have minded it at all.

  FOR ALL THE delays that morning, they’d set out early enough for it to be just past noon as Finn and Spencer crossed Carmel city limit.

  The town center was all but gone, but surprisingly, a lot of the surrounding upper middle-class neighborhoods, with their pretty houses and carefully tended lawns, had survived mostly intact. Most of them remained perfectly fit for living even after being looted. Finn had picked a place in Overture—a secluded early 1900s-style bungalow, which was nice, but not lavish enough to attract robbers—for exactly that reason. But years of bad weather with zero maintenance were starting to take their toll on the better-quality structures as well. The roof was leaking, and the basement, in which they usually hid during the storms and the hard rains, was getting moldy.

  The first sign of trouble as they approached the street was the sight of the fallen alder and oak trees that had once decorated the lane. Some were uprooted and thrown across the snow-covered lawns, while others had lost their branches and were now no more than craggy stubs. The abandoned green two-story house across the road had lost its porch, and the portico had crumbled, half buried in a pile of snow. Apparently, the storm had hit the northern suburbs much harder than the city of Indianapolis, or maybe the damage looked so much worse where there were no high-rises to stem the vicious winds.