“Hey! What are you trying to say? She went with Henry and Hank. They stopped to get her cot so she could sleep over. I know where my kid is!”
“It’s ten p.m. Do you know where your children are?” Nelly says, like the gloomy voice in the old PSA. Penny sighs when we roll around in drunken laughter.
She bids us goodnight, and we lie on the blanket and talk until Nelly begins to yawn. “Today sucked,” he says. “God, it sucked.”
“That’s why we’re drunk.”
“Uh-huh. And that’s why I’m going to bed. Tomorrow’s another day.”
“What? Don’t leave me.”
Nelly sits up. His smile isn’t his usual smirk. “Don’t worry, there’s someone waiting in the wings. He has been all night. Good night, darlin’.”
He kisses my forehead and slowly rises to his feet. I’m about to follow when Dan appears next to me. I take the full cup out of his hand and swig.
“Haven’t you had enough?” he asks.
“Nope,” I say. “I’m just getting started. The fun has just begun.” Except it comes out as hash jusht begun.
He nods, straight-faced, and I push him. “You’re right. Okay, I’m done. Do you want your prize?”
“What prize?”
“I got you a prize today. Don’t get too excited, though. It’s not that great.” He stares at me without blinking. “What? Is that weird?”
“No, it’s not weird. It’s nice.”
His whole face shines. It makes me wonder if I should have said anything, and I try to play it down. “Well, like I said, don’t get too excited. It’s in my cabin. Walk me to get it?”
Dan pulls me to standing. I walk beside him, chattering about everything and nothing, partly because he’s so quiet, and partly because it keeps my mind off of Caleb and Toby. I run to the cabin to grab my leather jacket and meet him at his tent. The tent floor trips me on my way in, and I giggle when I sprawl on the ground.
“You are very drunk,” Dan says.
“I am very drunk. Are you?”
He looks down at his feet. “Sober as a judge. I didn’t feel like drinking.”
“I didn’t feel like sobering,” I say, which gets a small laugh. “I don’t want to think. It’s a night off from thinking. Hey, it’s a slogan—Drinking: a night off from thinking!”
“I like you this way. Maybe I should get you drunk more often.”
I hold out my hands for him to pull me up, but instead he hooks his arms under my knees and shoulders and hoists me onto his mattress. I scramble to a sitting position and pull his prize out of my coat. “Ta-da!”
He holds the Red Sox baseball cap in his hands and turns it over carefully, like it’s made of china. “Thank you, Cass,” he says softly.
He looks so pleased, and while I want him to be pleased, I don’t want him to think of it as anything more than a friendly present. “It’s just a hat. I know how much you miss the Red Sox, and when I saw it in the store today I thought of you.”
“Thanks for thinking of me.”
“Sure.” I drop on my back. There was a lot of wine consumed tonight, and I’m starting to pay for it. The room has begun a slow rotation that is kicking into high gear. I turn on my side and close my eyes to stop the spinning, but it throws it even more off-kilter. “Not feeling very good. Have to sleep.”
“Okay,” Dan says, and strokes my hair. It slows the spinning and gives me something to concentrate on.
“Don’t stop,” I say. “It makes the world straight.”
“I won’t. You’re a funny one, Dingbat.”
And then I remember nothing, until Dan climbs under the blankets and pulls me to his chest. I only wake for a second, but it’s long enough to hear him murmur, “Love you.”
Now I’m the one who’s sober as a judge. I don’t love him back. I won’t ever love him back. I stare into the dark until his breathing is deep, and then I gather everything, including my spare toothbrush and jeans that live in the corner of his tent, and return to my cabin.
CHAPTER 64
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I say to Nelly.
He brushes his hair back and glances to where Zeke waits in the tanker truck. “I was thinking that I could convince Adam to move here.”
I grab his hand and jump up and down. “What? Really?”
He forces me to a stop. “Calm down, you. That doesn’t mean Adam will say yes. Even Zeke was talking about combining Safe Zones this morning at breakfast. Which reminds me—why were you curled up on the loveseat when I left?”
“You were hogging my bed.” It’s not the answer he was looking for, and he waits expectantly. “It’s over. Not a big deal, okay?”
“Something happened.”
“You have to go,” I say, and give him a friendly push. “Go get your stuff and move back. We’ll talk more then.”
He steps backward reluctantly. “It won’t be right away. Before winter, though. Are you all right?”
“Of course,” I lie. “I hate you, a lot.”
“I hate you more.”
With a light heart, I watch the trucks rumble down the driveway. Nelly’s coming back.
***
I’ve switched with Liz for guard tonight. It’s been difficult to avoid Dan all day, but I’ve managed it by working in the garden picking tomatoes and eating dinner in the cabin. I’m on the east fence with George, an older guy with thinning hair and a beer gut that must be caused by something other than beer these days.
“I went to the zoo the other day,” George says. “There was only one dog in it. It was a shitzu.”
I laugh even though it’s ridiculous. He’s been telling me terrible jokes for the past thirty minutes.
“I have one. It’s my favorite,” I say. “Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting cow.”
“Interrupting co—”
“Moo!” I whisper-yell.
George chuckles. I lean back in my chair and drum my fingers on the armrest. Guard is boring, but I don’t feel like testing out my new sleeping arrangements.
Dan appears in the lamplight. “Hey.”
I mumble a greeting and look away with my chest thumping. He and George talk for a few minutes before Dan looks at me. “Can I talk to you?”
“Well, I’m on guard. I can’t leave.”
“Oh, go ahead,” George says. “I can hold down the fort. That trench has almost made guard a waste of time, not that I’m complaining. I’ll think up some new jokes while you’re gone.”
“Thanks,” I say, although I want to bonk him on the head with my spike.
“We’ll be in the school if you need us,” Dan says.
I follow him to the little building. He lights a lamp and turns to me. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I repeat. “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
I fix my gaze on the projects hung on the wall of the reading area. The self-portraits came out great. Bits has drawn herself dressed like Ana, but with a tiara and fairy wings.
“You left last night,” he says.
“I always leave.”
“But you don’t take your toothbrush and avoid me all day.”
“Well, it has been three weeks,” I say lightly, although this moment is anything but funny.
He looks dumbfounded before he realizes what I mean, and then his shoulders harden. “I didn’t ask you to leave. In fact, I don’t want you to leave. So, what’s going on?”
“I just think it would be better if we didn’t see each other anymore,” I say. “I need some time.”
I finger papers on Penny’s desk. Dan moves closer and touches my arm. “Maybe I can help. I don’t want to not see each other. Talk to me.”
I’m going to have to tell him. I take a breath and say, “I heard what you said. Last night, when you got in bed.”
He stares down at his boots before he looks me square in the eye. “It’s true.”
“You can’t. It’s only been a
few weeks.”
“I’ve known you since last summer.”
“That’s not what this…thing is about,” I say.
“So what’s it about? You using me as a sleeping pill? Thanks for that.”
His tone is sarcastic, and his mouth settles into a hard line. I thought what we were doing was pretty clear. He’s changed the rules on me, and now he wants me to feel guilty about it. I don’t need one more thing in my life to feel guilty about.
My laugh is unkind. “Using you? This is what you do. What am I—girl number four, six, eight?”
His face is red, but he takes a deep breath and says, “It doesn’t matter. You’re the girl I want.”
“I told you I couldn’t do this. That I wasn’t ready. You said we were just having fun.”
“I lied.” His glassy eyes meet mine for a long moment before he breaks contact. “I lied because I thought you might have feelings for me, but you won’t even try.”
“I won’t try? I shouldn’t have to try, Dan. Feelings are either there or they aren’t.”
“You won’t let yourself have feelings. The minute we get close, you back off. I can see it happen.”
He’s trying to argue me into this, and it’s not going to work. I don’t know why he won’t let me off the hook. Of course I back away from feelings; the person I thought I’d spend my life with has been dead for a few months, and all of that died with him. I’m angry at Dan for putting me in this position, but I can’t help feeling sorry that his pained expression is because of me.
“I like you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t feel that way. It’s not you. I won’t ever feel that way about anyone. That’s why we shouldn’t do this anymore.”
“All right. Fine.” He gives a humorless laugh and spins to the door. I breathe a sigh of relief that we’re done, but then he turns. “Are you sure?”
This is torture. He’s torturing us both. “Yes,” I whisper.
He slams the door behind him. I’m only telling the truth. He made me tell the truth. And although I know I did the right thing, I wonder how satisfying it’ll be to sleep with a ghost for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER 65
I don’t have to avoid Dan because he has that covered. His name has been erased from the schedule and put on shifts where I won’t be. It hurts my feelings, which is ridiculous, since I don’t want to be on the same shifts either. But knowing that he’s purposely steering clear of me makes me feel worse. He eats dinner later and at a different table. I didn’t realize how used to him I was, how much he was a part of my day, until now.
I haven’t done much guard the past week, anyway. Caleb and Toby’s deaths have made us more careful, more afraid. We haven’t done any patrols except a local trip to salvage some lumber and blueberries from one of the abandoned farms. We have plenty of fuel, and the garden must be tamed, so I’ve spent most shifts canning the produce we don’t eat.
My fingers are stained purple from the blueberry jam I’ve been making the past two days. We’ve set up two cookstoves in the gravel lot, and I stand at one stirring the blueberry pulp. It’s hot labor, but nothing compared to what it would be in the kitchen.
“We ran out of pectin,” I explain to Meghan. “Which means you have to cook the fruit longer so it will set up in the jars. We could add apples, if we wanted. They have a lot of natural pectin.”
Meghan bobs her head and lifts her spoon to check the thickness of the fruit. “I don’t think it’s done yet.”
“A few more minutes, it looks like.”
She sneaks a glance at me. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod, but I don’t like the look on her face. It’s the look of someone who’s going to ask you something personal.
“Are you and Dan still seeing each other?” she asks.
“Nope,” I say, and bang my spoon on the pot’s edge.
“I was just wondering. You know how we saw each other for a while?” She giggles. I hope she gets to the point soon. If she doesn’t, she might end up wearing a pot of blueberry puree. “Well, I thought maybe we would again, but I didn’t want to get in the middle of anything.”
“Go for it,” I say brightly.
I’ve been able to sleep in the past week, but it’s not as nice as having someone next to me. And maybe not just someone—it’s nice to sleep next to Dan. I miss him, but I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t in love with him. That kind of love isn’t something I can do right now. I shouldn’t have jumped into anything in the first place.
“I think it’s ready,” Meghan says when the jam is thick on the spoon. I show her how to ladle it into the jars and place them in the canner.
“Now, we wait,” I say. “Then we take them out and—voila—jam.”
Ana walks up wearing a floppy garden hat and a dress. If it weren’t for the dirt up her arms, she could be going to a tea party. Normally, I would make fun of her outfit, but her face is tight. “Another Safe Zone’s gone. John just heard.”
“Which one?” I ask.
“Iowa.”
I picture a map of the Unites States. “That’s north. Maybe they’re heading north, like James said.”
“Yeah, but this one broadcasted. They said something about a giant pod before they lost communication.”
“They didn’t say how big?”
“No,” Ana says. “Whoever was on at Whitefield says they might have said ‘thousand’ or ‘thousands,’ but it wasn’t clear.”
My mouth drops. A thousand. Maybe even thousands—plural. The trench would never catch them all. The fence would collapse for sure. I’m cold suddenly, even with the heat of the cookstove and midsummer sun.
“What does that mean?” Meghan asks. She wraps her fingers around Ana’s wrist. “Are we safe?”
Ana pats Meghan’s hand. “We’re never safe, Meghan. Never.”
***
James has tried to calculate where the pod might be, based on how long it took them to get to Iowa. “Maybe halfway here, if some came this way. I wouldn’t send Dwayne out yet, not with his range of six hundred miles. Maybe next week.”
John and Ben nod. It’s after the dinner hour, and all the adults who were interested stayed to talk. Enough people were interested that it’s standing room only.
Mikayla sits next to Ben, hands in her lap. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her so still. “But that doesn’t mean they are coming here, right?”
James shakes his head. “We don’t know anything other than the fact that Iowa’s gone and they said a lot of Lexers were there. That’s it.”
People murmur. Josephine tightens her hand on her throat. I look to where Dan stands, Meghan beside him. He glances at me and then away in time to miss the smile I offer.
“There’s nothing we can do but wait,” John says. “And have our plan in place. You’ve all got a bug out bag in your assigned vehicle. If you don’t, see me after the meeting. The plan is to head north through Canada, to Alaska or Whitehorse. Everyone knows that, right? In case we get separated.”
John’s voice is steady, and the murmurs lessen. I’m not the only one he makes feel safe. After a few more questions, to which there are no good answers, everyone heads to bed. We walk into the night. Not knowing what lies in the darkness behind the fence is bad enough, but tonight’s discussion has made the night seem darker and more foreboding than usual. James guides Penny by the small of her back. She pulls away and glares at him.
“I know how to walk,” she snaps. James lifts his hands in apology. “I’m sorry. Guys, I’m scared. What if they come? I can’t run. I’m as big as a freakin’ house, and I’m not getting any smaller.”
“You won’t have to run,” Ana says, and puts her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “We’ll get you out of here. I’ll get you out of here. You and my niece. James, you’re on your own.”
James laughs. “That’s good enough for me.”
“My God, what has the world come to?” Penny asks. “My bratty little sister has to protec
t me from zombies.” She ignores Ana’s yell of protest and pulls me to her other side.
“The fact that Ana protects anyone from anything other than bad fashion is mind-blowing,” I say.
We cackle when Ana screeches. We’ve teased her like this since she was little. I tug on her hair, and she joins in our laughter. I may no longer have a brother, but I’m so lucky to have my sisters.
CHAPTER 66
I leave breakfast early to attend to the fall vegetable starts that will go in the ground soon. For the first time in my life, I wish it were December with a huge ice storm on the way. The farm has always had something of a nervous undercurrent running through it, which makes sense when you consider our circumstances, but now there’s no under about it. You can feel it, like the low hum of electricity through wire. You can see it in the nervous way people watch the south fence.
I duck my head when I pass Dan’s tent, but someone chooses that moment to exit the door. I will myself to be invisible and look straight ahead.
“Good morning, Cassie!” Meghan calls. She waves and heads for the other end of the farm.
I wave and speed to the greenhouse, where I busy myself watering the plants. It didn’t take them long. I know I can’t expect Dan to agree to an arrangement that doesn’t work for him, but I’m resentful that Meghan gets the uncomplicated relationship I wanted.
Dan clomps into the greenhouse wearing unlaced boots. His hair is messy, like he spent the morning in bed. Which he did, of course. “That wasn’t what it looked like,” he says.
I set down the watering can. “It didn’t look like anything except Meghan leaving your tent in the morning. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
He leans on my potting bench with an earnest expression. “She stopped by to say hi, even though she knew I was on guard last night. She woke me up.”
“Don’t you love when people do that?” I ask, to keep the conversation going. I don’t want to go back to not speaking to each other. “They say, ‘Are you awake? No? Well, I just want to tell you one little thing, then you can go back to sleep.’ ”
Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After Page 25