The Resurgent

by Blake Wilbanks

  “Well stop being so annoying and I won’t have a potential reason to kill you.”

  “Will you two shut the hell up?” said Demetria from where she stood at the top of the stairs. “I’m trying to sleep, but can’t because of you two idiots.”

  Xavier put his hands up in mock surrender. “It’s Tyler’s fault. I’m innocent; I’m just trying to make us some sandwiches. Because I thought that we could all go to a place that Tyler loves so much.”

  “Well that won’t happen for a few hours because I’m not getting up anymore until later,” she said, her voice filled with annoyance. “Now be quiet!”

  “Sorry,” said Xavier in a mocking tone, as Demetria turned to go back to bed. He then looked back up at Tyler. “Do you want another sandwich while I’m offering?”

  “Sure. I’ll take another.”

  Before they went to Tyler’s favorite part of the woods—the one with a stream—they had to stop at the store—the one that they had gotten ice cream from not too long ago.

  “After this,” said Demetria, through a mouthful of a chocolate granola bar. “We should go to the school and mess around. For no reason in particular, just for the sheer enjoyment of actually having something to do, even though it wouldn’t be much. At least it would be something.”

  “True,” said Tyler with a sigh. “But you’ve got to learn to make the best of everything. Just last night Xavier and I watched the stars, and that was fun. You could’ve joined but you were being petty for some reason.”

  “I wasn’t being petty. I was being tired and bored. Something that I’m sure we can all relate to because we’ve all experienced it. So, get it right, Tyler.”

  “Why are you eating? We have food at home. And you ate before we left,” said Tyler, a look of confusion on his face.

  “When you’re in a grocery store you can’t just resist food. It’s everywhere, and no one’s around to eat it. So it’ll go to waste if one of us doesn’t eat it. That and I’ve always been bad at resisting a good snack.”

  “Well give me one before you eat them all,” said Xavier, sporting a large grin.

  “No. Get your own box, there are plenty more two aisles down.”

  “You’re so stingy.”

  “You know it.”

  Xavier sighed and made his way two aisles down to where the granola bars were and got him and Tyler both a box, then handed one to him when he made it back. “Here you go,” he said, then proceeded to rip his box open and started eating one.

  “Pretty good,” he said, taking another bite of one and then putting it in the basket of the grocery cart that he had had Demetria grab for them. She was more than eager to when he had told her that they were intended to be shopping for things that they needed.

  Well, wanted in Demetria’s case. Because there was no doubt in Xavier’s mind that, no matter how hard he tried to scold her and tell her “no”, she would find a way to get whatever it is that she wanted into the cart. So he didn’t even try to reprimand her. He just let her do whatever it was that she wanted to do.

  It wasn’t long before the cart was filled with a variety of snacks that ranged from snack cakes to bags of chips. But Xavier didn’t even think about telling her to put any of it back because knowing her she would just get a separate cart and put everything that she wanted in it, just so that she could have her way. She was a very stubborn-minded person and she wasn’t to be fought with. Because she would always win.

  And she knew it. She took pride in the fact that she could get her way, and she used it to her advantage more times then she really should.

  After they put everything in the back of Xavier’s mothers’ car, they traveled back home and put everything away in its designated place then went to the school as Demetria had suggested earlier.

  They walked the halls of the school, just exploring the empty halls. All of the lights were on and lit the halls with a dull glow.

  “What exactly is it that we are supposed to be doing here?” asked Xavier, from where he sat idly on a wooden bench outside of what once was the principal’s office, but was now just an empty vessel, a memoriam of what it was once upon a time.

  “We’re just here to have a good time. We can’t just wait for fun to come to us, that isn’t how it works,” said Demetria, her face lingering on dangerously close to his. “You have to make the best of everything. Fool around and act like an idiot. No more fearing what people think of you, Xavier. There is no one left to judge and give you dirty looks. Come on get up and follow me—” she looked up and stared in the direction where Tyler was standing. “—you follow, as well.”

  She then grabbed Xavier by the hand and started running down the hall. Not long after they were all standing in the middle of the Gym and Demetria was laughing. “See,” she said. “This is the kind of place you come to have fun. I mean there is a park with a playground just a couple blocks down the road, but that’s for another day. This—” she gestured at her surroundings. “—this is the place to be. This is where we can have fun, release any kind of stress, nerves, or anger that we’re feeling and let it all out. Let’s make the most of it.”

  The room was silent.

  She turned to look at Tyler and raised her hands in the air. “What do you say basketball player, you in for a game of one-on-one?”

  Tyler shrugged his shoulders, then nodded his head a moment later. “I’d love to, actually.”

  Xavier watched them as they played. He was never much for sports. He wasn’t good at them, so he preferred watching, rather than embarrassing himself on the court—a place that he had no business being in the first place. Plus, he was no match for either Tyler or Demetria. Tyler was the captain of the basketball team, pre-apocalypse, and Demetria was someone that dabbled in a little bit of everything. So it was no wonder how she knew her way around a basketball court.

  She was one of those people that liked signing up for almost everything—academic and sports related.

  She shielded the ball from Tyler as he tried to work his way around and grab it, but Demetria was fast and could hold her own. When she deemed herself clear, and not at risk of getting the ball taken from her by Tyler, she dribbled it on the ground a few times as she ran toward the basketball hoop and took her shot. It circled around the hoop twice and then fell in.

  Demetria jumped up and down, skipping around the floor of the Gym in excitement. “Boom!” she exclaimed. “I just scored one on you so fast. Did little Ty-Ty get whiplash trying to keep up?”

  Tyler scowled at her. “Okay,” he said. “You’re on. He ran to the center of the court, grabbed the ball in his hands and threw it to her. “Check.”

  They started another round. But this time, Tyler won. But Xavier believed that it was only because Demetria tripped over her own two feet and he ran past her and scored.

  Xavier watched them from where he laid on the floor for a good few minutes, but then he got bored. He wanted to just lie there and forget about everything and sleep, but he couldn’t. The floor was too uncomfortable and he didn’t want to mess up his sleeping schedule any more than it already was. But that didn’t really matter.

  With a heavy sigh, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and slowly got to his feet. He massaged the sides of his head where his temples were, coaxing away a headache that was coming on. Then shook his head to will all thoughts of it away.

  He staggered to the storage closet that held all of the sports equipment and things like that. He was trying to find something for himself to do. Maybe there was a jump rope for him to play with in there or something. There was. But when he found one, he wasn’t really interested in it anymore. What he was interested in was what was beside the jump rope. A radio.

  He snatched it off of the shelf that it was on and ran back into the main part of the Gym where Demetria and Tyler were still trying to show each other up at basketball.

  “Hey! Look what I found!” said Xavier, holding the radio up by the ha
ndle.

  Tyler and Demetria looked over at Xavier and what he was holding. A flash of confusion crossing over their faces, and then disappeared just as fast as it had come.

  “How are you going to play music? The radio stations aren’t functioning. There’s no way that music is going to play.”

  “I know,” said Xavier in reply. “But there are these things called CDs and cassette tapes. I’m sure we can find something to listen to.”

  “Your dad’s CDs are in the car. We can rock out to some Metallica, Black Sabbath, or something,” said Demetria.

  “Or,” said Tyler, stepping in. “We could go to the Record Store a couple blocks down the road. They have CDs, Vinyl Records, and some old cassette tapes. I used to work there during the summer, just for a little extra cash to get some old comics that I wanted. We could just go there and listen to music and vibe.”

  “Of course you’re the type of person that would say ‘vibe’,” said Demetria. “Come on. I want to dance now that Xavier said something about music. Come on! Stop taking so long, I’m ready to go.”

  Xavier and Tyler chuckled, following closely behind Demetria as she skipped excitedly down the hall, like a child at the playground.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  THE RECORD STORE was a nice hole-in-the-wall place that Xavier never would have known about if Tyler hadn’t told them about it. It was the type of place that he could see himself going to whenever he was in the mood for something new. Just come in and look through all the different types of records while idly listening to the low hum of some indie song in the background. To him, it sounded like heaven. And he yearned for it. He yearned for it more than he had ever yearned for anything in the world.

  He closed his eyes and he could picture it. Everything from the image of him acting out everything that he had thought, down to the sound of the low hum of the indie song that he hadn’t even heard yet, and he smiled. The rays of the sun peeked through the glass windows and into the tiny little record shop, filling it with the smell of warmth and an unbridled aura of comfort in the air.

  Everything felt right and he never wanted to leave the comfort of its image in his mind. Now that it was there, he didn’t want it to be tainted. He was brought out of his stupor by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder.

  He took in a deep breath of air, closed his eyes to blink away the image, putting somewhere at the back of his mind in hopes of revisiting it later, then let it out slowly.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” said Tyler with a large smile. “This place used to be like my second home. I used to never want to leave here. But then the summer ended and school started back up again, but even then I still thought about this place. I don’t know why, but I think of this as like a safe haven. It was somewhere I was definitely my most comfortable, and the owner Alexander was really cool. He used to let me have some stuff free. He was definitely one of the coolest bosses that I ever had.”

  “I bet,” said Xavier.

  Just then a slow melancholic jam started to play, and when he turned to see who had put it on and he saw Demetria by the turn-table swaying to the slow and melancholy tune. He recognized it as a song that his mother used to play whenever she was sad, which wasn’t very often but had happened enough times for him to be able to instantly recognize it. It was “I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James. And it wasn’t long before he too was swaying along to the song with Demetria. Though it was sad and could put anyone who listened to it in a sad mood, it had become one of their favorites.

  He smiled as he swayed to it along with Demetria, his eyes closed. The rhythm took over him and his body and he was taken back to a time when his mother was playing the song and swaying along to it while drinking a glass white wine.

  That was when she had found out that a longtime friend of hers had died. She wasn’t good with expressing what she was feeling, but she was great at holding her emotions in. Which Xavier knew wasn’t good for her, but she would never talk to him or anyone when they asked her what was wrong.

  She just shrugged and brushed everything off nonchalantly, turn on her song, grab herself a glass of wine and sway along to her song for as long she needed to until she felt better.

  Sometimes she’d do it for hours, but Xavier and his father never questioned it. It was just her way of coping with something. It was what was normal to her, and had become normal to Xavier from the time that could walk.

  The song ended too soon and Xavier was instantly telling Demetria to replay it because he just had to relive it. It made him feel better and everything that he had been feeling since everything had started, felt as if it had washed away.

  The song started up again and Xavier listened intently. But he didn’t allow himself to get lost in it as he had just minutes before.

  “Are you okay,” said Tyler, stepping close to Xavier and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  And it was then that he noticed he had been crying, his cheeks streaked with hot tears. And he made quick work of wiping his tears away. He turned away from Demetria and Tyler and went toward the back of the store, and into the back room where only the employees were supposed to go, but no one was really there to tell him no.

  He hid behind a crate of undisplayed records and hid his face in his arms. He wasn't crying anymore. He just needed to be alone. To be able to breathe and think for a moment.

  He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and went to his camera roll, pulling pictures of him, his mother, and his father. In the pictures they all looked happy, smiling and just happy to have one another.

  He stared at the pictures for a while, just staring at them and basking in the memories that they brought on. Looking at the pictures, seeing his parents faces made his heart hurt. He sucked in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly, then threw his head back, resting it against a crate.

  He wasn’t one to dwell on things. But when it was the loss of one’s parents, one was allowed to dwell on it however long they liked.

  He hid his face in his arms and heaved out a long breath of air. He felt betrayed in a way that a song could make him cry, make all kinds of memories and thoughts race through his mind and become more apparent than they had ever been before. Even after he had tried so hard to push them as far back as he could, and force himself not to think of them or anything. In the distance he could hear the door creaking open and then the faint sound of footsteps, signaling that someone was approaching.

  He readied himself for which one of them it was going to be. Demetria, his best friend, who always worried about him whenever he got like this, or Tyler, the guy who is uncharacteristically selfless and always wants to make sure that everyone is okay. He could handle one of them on their own, but he’d be damned if it were the both of them that he had to deal with trying to comfort him. He’d never survive. They would prod and poke at him until he told them what was wrong. And he didn’t think that he was ready for that. He didn’t think that he would ever be. There were just some things that he liked to keep to himself. Some would say that he was bottling things up, but he wasn’t, he was just keeping some memories and thoughts for safe keeping. They were safer with him, in his mind, and he would like to keep it that way for as long as he possibly could.

  There was a shuffling of feet against the hard stone floor, and when Xavier looked up he saw Tyler staring back down at him with a curious look on his face, but it vanished just as fast as it had appeared. He sat next to Xavier on the floor, so close that their shoulders were touching.

  Xavier sucked in a deep shuddering breath, then let it out just as shakily as it had been taken in. “What do you want, Tyler?” he asked his voice nothing but a breathless sound of almost nothingness.

  Tyler shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied. “I’m not here to question you about anything, or see if you’re okay. Because I know you’re not. I can see it on your face. I’m just here to keep you company. We can just here, and if you want to
talk, then we’ll talk, but until then, we can just sit here in silence for as long as you need. . . . Or want.”

  Xavier took comfort in that, knowing that he didn’t have to speak unless he wanted to. It was a privilege that he had never had the luxury of before and he was going to revel in it for as long as he could.

  He mumbled a small thank you but didn’t receive any words in response. Just a nod of Tyler’s head, but it was enough. It spoke volumes that words could never reach in a moment like this and it was all he really needed.

  He closed his eyes, resting them. They were swollen and bloodshot from crying.

  Not long after Demetria came in, sitting across from Tyler and Xavier. She made no move to speak, which was a surprise to Xavier because when given the opportunity she could talk for hours on end. But he was grateful for it because he didn’t want this moment to end. He didn’t want it to be ruined by an utterance of a word, no matter how big or small.

  They all sat in silence, thinking, hoping, basking in the silence, taking it for what it was, a moment of clarity.

  “We should head home,” said Xavier after thirty minutes or silence. His voice was raspy from not talking. He cleared his throat and stood to his feet, Tyler and Demetria following suit. “Who’s driving, because I don’t feel like it?”

  Demetria and Tyler were downstairs, in the kitchen, cooking something for dinner. And Xavier was upstairs sleeping in his room. He threw out the chances of having a normal sleeping schedule and listened to Demetria and Tyler when they suggested that he head upstairs and rest for a while. It turned out to be something that he needed. The moment his face hit the pillow his muscles relaxed, stress ceased from his body, and all thoughts stopped. The train that circulated them around his mind broke down, and he hoped that the engine never started up again.

  But that was wishful thinking. There was no way that that would ever happen. And if it ever did, that would be the day that pigs started flying and the world was a better place.