I reach for the shotgun and unload three rounds; two hit his abdomen, the other takes half his face with it. He makes a gurgling noise before his body falls to the ground. I whip my gun around and point it in the direction the rest of the men were coming from.
Isha stands in the middle of a pool of blood. The rest of the cannibals are on the ground with their heads smashed like jack o’ lanterns.
“Isha—”
“Are you all right?” he says in between heaving breaths.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Did they bite you?”
I shake my head.
“Scratch you? Did any saliva get in a cut?” he says. “Anything like that at all?”
“Isha, why are you asking me—”
“Answer the question!” he says. His nostrils flare with each breath while his eyes hold a wild look. “Please,” he says after my silence goes on for too long.
“Nothing got on me.”
He inhales deeply and nods. His arms drip blood in a steady stream. In the morning sunlight, I see the indentations of several bite marks, and I expect the worst.
“Isha, what happened to you?”
He sighs and looks up at me from under his furrowed eyebrows. “I was bitten by them,” he says. “I’m infected.”
Control
“Infected?” I say pushing myself from the ground. “You mean like your conspiracy theories? The ones you told to me before you left.”
“Yes,” he says, his shoulders slumping forward. “Mad cow disease decimated thousands of cows and took down a good amount of people before scientists and doctors saw what was happening and corrected it.” He rubs the back of his neck and winces in pain. “Let’s just say this is much worse than that.”
“You’re telling me that a cow started all this?”
“No, well—in a sorts—yes. The same idea was used and adopted by our government. They molded it, sculpted it into a fast-acting virus that makes you go mad.”
“Isha—”
“Let me finish!” he says. The veins in his neck pulse rapidly and a slight trembling in his hands gives him the appearance of being on vibrate. He breathes deeply and the shaking slows to a twitch. “The government snuck the virus into all the important buildings for months prior to the food removal.”
“So they—my father—everything—”
“Was planned and executed by our government,” Isha says. My mouth falls open. The government, my father, the cannibals—everything wasplanned.
I shake my head trying to dispute Isha’s theory. My father lost it before Xavier had to kill him. He said he screamed that this was the time of the wendigo, but this isn’t a supernatural occurrence. This isn’t some scary story you tell your children to get them to go to bed on time. This is real. Our government is unleashing a war on its people—but why?
“If this is true, Isha,” I say. “That means they had to have a motive for it. What would compel them to turn their country into a war zone?”
“I do have a theory on that,” he says.
“What?”
“Population control,” he says.
I’m speechless. I lower my eyes from Isha’s gaze. Our entire existence is being turned into a bloody number generated by a calculator. Nolan runs over to me gripping me around my waist. I can hear his tears of relief. I follow Aisley as she runs into Tristan’s arms. The folds in his shirt pinch under the grip in her fingers. This is what they’ve
turned us into—a few hugs until someone or something tear us from each other.
“I know—” Isha calls out. I turn my blurry gaze to his face. The tremor in his arms has returned. “This is nothing to bring them into.”
I choke down a sob and nod my head. I wrap my hands around Nolan and squeeze him tightly.
“You left us!” Aisley says. Tristan pulls back on her arms and holds her tight against his chest. “You left and brought nothing but suffering to our entire family!”
Isha grabs his head and backs away from us. His arms tremble so violently, his shape seems to blur around the edges.
“Aisley—”
“No!” she yells at me. “You don’t even dare try and stand up for this asshole!”
“Miss Aisley, you must believe I never intended any harm on your family,” Isha says through gritted teeth.
“Hayley was tortured formonths because of you!” she yells wrenching free from Tristan’s grip. She marches up to Isha and punches him in the chest. “You ran with your family and ours took the punishment.”
“Miss Aisley—” Isha says before collapsing to the ground.
“Isha!” Marieska screams. She runs to his side and lifts his head. A thin layer of sweat covers his face; his skin grows paler by the second.
“Jesus, Aisley! He’s injured! You didn’t need to punch him that hard,” Tristan says.
“I didn’t hit him that hard!” Aisley says.
How long did Isha say it takes for the virus to show symptoms? I don’t think he ever did. I look at Isha and see the answer in his dilated pupils.
“Marieska, get away from him—”
Isha turns and rips into her throat with his teeth. She lets out a gurgling scream before the forest’s silence takes over again.
If I
One shell left.
If I do this, I’ll be killing the only other good person I met at the Fort. I think I owe a huge part of surviving without Xavier to the man in front of me.
I look into his ocean eyes and feel nothing but hurt. His pupils retract to their normal size. He looks around at all of us—most of our faces contorted into looks of horror.
“What happened?” he asks looking at us for an answer. “How did I end up on the ground?” His eyes find Marieska with blood pooling from her throat and collecting underneath them both. “Marieska! No!” Isha says. “Who did this? Did the cannibals—”
He pauses when he spots the blood on his arms. He furrows his eyebrows following the trail to his clothes. His hands reach for his face and finally, his mouth. He looks at the bite mark on her neck and grazes it with his fingertips.
“Isha, you did it,” Aisley says.
“No, no, no, no—” he mumbles and sobs into Marieska’s chest.
“Isha—”
“Kill me!” he says. He looks around at us with wild eyes. “Please! The disease has progressed too far. Just kill me!”
Nolan buries his face into my leg. I look at Aisley, and she shakes her head. Tristan pulls her into a hug and slams her into his chest. He looks at me and nods his head once.
I turn towards Isha and raise the shotgun; my finger trembles on the trigger. If I kill him—my only friend from the Fort, the only person who made sure I was safe there, the only one who looked out for me—will I ever be the same again? The government already has us fighting each other in an all-out bloodbath. If I pull the trigger, will he just be another statistic in their books.
“Hayley,” Isha calls out. I look down the barrel at his watery stare. “Don’t stop looking for him.” He pulls a roll of paper from inside his jacket and places them on the ground just outside the puddle of blood.
I nod my head, blink the tears from my eyes and squeeze the trigger.
Dusk
The walk to the hotel is silent. We didn’t bother burying Isha and Marieska; the fear of infection was greater than the will to do a proper burial. Tristan was kind enough to light the matches that consumed their corpses in flames.
I clutch the papers Isha gave me before I—yeah, before I did that—to my chest. Nolan clasps my sweaty hand as we make our way into the hushed hotel lobby. We climb up the concrete stairwell to the second floor where Xavier, Aisley and I found our first bit of peace so long ago.
“Find an adjoining room,” I say. “We’ll spend the night here then hike to the highway.”
“To get a car?” Aisley asks.
I nod my head. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. We overstayed our welcome here when Xavier was with us. I’m
assuming Isha and Marieska were hiding out here for quite some time before the cannibals caught their scent. No—I’m not letting what happened to them, happen to us.
We all try to find a room with a door that’s functional. It proves to be much more difficult than we anticipated. Most of them are broken, the locks smashed, chains cut—some don’t even have a door on the hinges.
By the time I reach the end of the hall, I feel like we’d be safer in a burning house rather than here. I push open the last door before the stairwell and feel a pain in my chest.
The beds are still left in a patterned disarray. A pair of shorts hang over the armchair facing the window. Candy wrappers litter the floor in front of the television. I lean on the doorframe for support, and a soft whimper escapes my lips.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Nolan says tugging on my pant leg.
Nothing’s wrong because it was allreal. Every bit of it—all the running, all the fear, falling in love—everything happened. I walk past the doorway and breathe in. I can smell him, Xavier—it’s like he’s everywhere.
“Mommy?” Nolan says again.
“We’re safe here, Nolan,” I say. “Go get Aisley and Tristan.”
He smiles and sprints down the hallway leaving nothing behind except the echoes of his footsteps. I sit on the edge of the bed and breathe in the scent of burnt wood.
“Xavier, we’re coming for you,” I say. I look around the room and spot Xavier’s jacket hanging in the closet. I frown—he would never leave that behind. In fact, now that I think of it, he wouldn’t leave the weapons buried where the Four Runner was. At the very least, he would take some. Maybe he got lost in the woods. It seems ridiculous that he would get lost, but you never know.
I continue to look through the room for any leftover food when I spot two folded pieces of paper on top of the dresser. I make my way over to them, my knees wobbling the whole way. I unfold it to find my name in Xavier’s chicken-scratch handwriting at the top of the paper:
Hayley,
I never thought I would be writing a letter like this to you. I always had a vision of both of us being together, old and wrinkly, sitting on the beach in Florida. Ok, maybe not that exact picture, but you get what I mean.
I laugh. This is definitely Xavier. I smile and continuing reading on:
I’m so sorry I let you down. I never meant to leave you alone, you have to know that. Never did I think I would be leaving my best friend in a world where you can barely even trust what your eyes see. The dream I had the day before we gazed at the stars on the roof of the hotel scared me. It hit me that I had never even thought of the possibility of me dying before we ever made it to Fort Ticonderoga. But that dream was so real that—it seemed more like a premonition than something fake.
You were pregnant, Hayles. I knew it was mine, I couldn’t even be happy because you were standing next to my tombstone. But if this dream was a premonition, then you survived and that’s all that matters.
If you find this letter, I’m gone. I didn’t make it to the Fort with you and Aisley. But I don’t want you to give up. I know that if you are getting this letter, I made damn sure to get you to that fort safely. You’ve got to keep each other alive and healthy. Please.
Everything that we’ve been through would be for nothing if you died or tried to off yourself because you were sad. I remember what you said to me at Cassie’s funeral. You were hurt, almost broken beyond repair, but you didn’t cry. I told you it was ok if you did and you said this: I won’t spend my whole life crying about losing her—it will never bring her back, so what’s the point?
I need you to be that Hayley. I need you to be strong like that and be there for Aisley. I’m begging you to not give up. I’ll always be there for you when you need me.
I gave you that ring for a reason. It was a promise, right? A promise that we would always be there for each other. Just because I died does not mean that ring is garbage and that my promise is broken. You know me—I would never break a promise like that. Ever.
I will always be a part of your life. Don’t you ever forget that. I love you with all my heart, Hayley. Always have, always will.
-Xavier.
I let the paper fall from my hands. I feel like I’m suffocating—like the air in the atmosphere is shrinking and that it’ll keep pressing down on my chest until it crushes
me. I can’t tell if I’m losing my mind in some type of psychotic break, or if I’m just dry heaving my sobs. I fall to the ground, slamming my knees into the faded carpet.
Aisley cradles my face in her hands. I can see her calling out to me, but all I manage to get out is a hysterical cry of Xavier’s name. I raise my hand pointing to the other letter on the table.
I pull at Xavier’s jacket sleeve and curl up in a ball on the floor breathing in the only remnants of him.
All My Love
“Kill me!” a voice screams. “Kill me!”
I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, but judging by the rapid beating behind my ribcage, I can tell that I’m running. My feet are sluggish, and I bounce off the walls like I’ve been drugged.
“Hayley!”
“Mommy!”
“Hayles!”
Voices bounce off of each other and blend together. Nolan screams, Xavier shouts, Tristan calls out for Aisley like a mourning hymn all while Isha’s plea whispers inside my head.
It’s too much—the voices, the pressure; all the killing and blood is drowning me. I fall hard to my knees, and when I look up, Isha’s eyes are looking at me.
“Don’t stop looking for him,” he whispers.
“Kill me,” I say, and I pull the trigger.
Everything goes black.
* * *
“Mom!” Aisley says. Her hands shake my shoulders until I open my eyes. “You were screaming, ‘Kill me,’ in your sleep.”
I shake my head. “I—”
“Don’t explain,” she says. “With everything you’ve had to do the past couple days, you really don’t have to.”
I’m wrapped in Xavier’s jacket on the bed closest to the window. I breathe in the scent of the jacket and feel myself start to lose it again.
“Where’s Nolan?” my hoarse voice says.
“I told Tristan to take him into his room,” Aisley says. “I knew you needed time.”
We sit in silence for a while. I feel the pressure of her body weight crawl along the mattress. Her arm wraps around me, and her chin fits into the crook where my neck and shoulder meet. My body shudders as I try to stifle another breakdown.
“Do you think he’s gone?” Aisley whispers in a tiny voice. “Like, really gone?”
“A small part of me hopes not,” I say. She nods her head on my shoulder. “I never told you about when Gunnar kept me in Rehabilitation before I had Nolan. Part of it was because I didn’t want you to have to hear about it; I wanted to keep you innocent as long as I could before the youth
was sucked out of you. I know it makes no sense—you’ve seen people killed almost everyday of your life since the food disappeared.
Gunnar would tell me everyday that Xavier was dead. He would say it so many times that I would see the words float in front of my eyes every time I blinked. But I always said, I didn’t believe him. He’d shock me, whip me, burn me—whatever the punishment was that day. All he wanted was for me to believe his lie, just so he could take you from me and then Nolan when the time came.”
I take a deep breath in to slow my heart’s rapping against the back of my chest. Tears from Aisley’s eyes leak onto my neck. Talking about Gunnar’s torture only proves the fact that I’m filled with sensitive scar tissue. Unfortunately, the dam I built so high up is crumbling and the will to keep it together is declining faster.
“Xavier—” my voice cracks. I swallow down the painful lump in my throat and continue. “Xavier was the only thing I could hold on to. If I gave him up, I’d lose not only you and Nolan, but also myself in the process. Xavier was proof that the Fort ha
dn’t won. They could never break that part of me, and Gunnar knew it. I guess that’s why I could deal with everything else and why he was so persistent.”
“Mom—”
“Now, it just feels like it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have waited so long, but I was petrified that if we left—”
“I know,” Aisley says. “But you can’t blame yourself. The letters mean nothing, Mom. Xavier could’ve written them before he dropped us off at the Fort, just in case we ever came back and he didn’t—” she trails off.
“Yeah,” I say.
“If there’s one other person that could survive this—”
“It would be him,” I say. “I know, Aisley. I just can’t afford to get my hopes up anymore.
“I know,” she says.
I close my eyes and let the pain drown me to sleep again.
* * *
I barely catch an hour of sleep. When I open my eyes, the moon is at its highest peak. Aisley is curled up next to me sound asleep. I look across the room at the crumpled letter from Xavier. My throat constricts, but I swallow down spit regardless.
I bring his jacket sleeve to my face and breathe in. I fold my legs down on the barren carpet; it’s no use trying to sleep when everything is so raw. I stand, using the wall as support and make my way towards the double door. I push it open and see Tristan and Nolan passed out in the same bed. I look around the corner and see then chain hanging from its hook. Tristan’s going to hear about this one from me tomorrow morning. I walk over and secure it before returning to the other side.
If I Lose Page 17