Broken World | Novel | Angus

by Mary, Kate L.

  “You decent?” he called.

  “Yup.”

  Angus pushed his way through the bushes, and the stream came into view, as did Naya. She was sitting on the ground with her back was to him, staring out over the water, but she’d cleaned herself up completely, even rinsing out her long, dark hair. It was braided but still wet, and hung to the middle of her back, the tip leaving a dark spot on her shirt.

  Angus dropped the cat on the ground in front of her. “Got this.”

  Naya looked at it for a moment before lifting her gaze, and her eyes widened when she saw the cut on his arm.

  “Oh, my God!” She jumped to her feet, hands out. “What happened?”

  “Bastard got me.” He tried to wave her concern off. “No big deal.”

  “No big deal?” The girl looked at him, confused and scared and uncertain. “It looks like a big deal to me.”

  He pushed past her, traveling toward the river. “It’ll be fine.”

  The cuts throbbed when he pulled his jacket off, tossing it to the ground and kneeling next the water.

  Naya was at his side a second later. “Let me help.”

  This time, Angus didn’t try to stop her, but instead watched in silence as her brown hands scooped up some of the cool water, using it to wash the blood from his injury, and a strange sense of déjà vu came over him. They’d done this before, hadn’t they? He shook his head, knowing they couldn’t have. He’d only met her yesterday. But someone had. Who?

  The memory was deep inside his brain and begging to get out, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find the key that would release it from its prison. It had been locked up for too long and was totally trapped, the chains keeping it prisoner now rusted, the keyhole useless. Still, it wouldn’t stop knocking or begging to be set free.

  “You could probably use some stitches,” Naya said. “Too bad we don’t have any way of doing that.”

  “It’ll heal,” he repeated. “Trust me.”

  She looked up, her expression curious, but didn’t ask. “At the very least you’re going to need to wrap something around it.” The girl got to her feet. “We’ll worry about that after you’ve cleaned up, though. In the meantime, I’ll gather some wood for a fire.”

  Angus didn’t protest when she knelt at the tree line and started gathering sticks, her back to him—probably to give him some privacy. He removed his shirt, tossing it with his jacket, then stood so he could kick off his boots and pants. When he was wearing nothing but his threadbare boxers, he knelt beside the water once again.

  Angus scooped up a handful much the same way Naya had and used it to wash his face. It was like ice but refreshing because it had been so long since he’d bothered to clean himself. He’d forgotten how good it felt to have water running over his skin. How nice it was to wash the sweat and dirt from his body.

  Handful after handful, he cleaned himself. Washing his arms and legs, his torso, even his hair and beard. Once he had, he felt different. Better. More human.

  The clouds had shifted by then, blocking out some of the sun’s bright rays and allowing him to see his reflection clearly for the first time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d bothered to look at himself, and the image staring back startled him. Decades had passed, but he seemed to have aged very little. He had more wrinkles around his eyes, and there were freckles on his nose from hours of walking in the sun, and more gray hair dotted his beard, but otherwise, he didn’t look much different than he remembered.

  He shifted so he could get a better look at himself, running his fingertips over the scars on his neck before looking down at the others. Teeth marks by the dozens riddled his body, all different shades. Some were old and faded, while others were fresh, but they were all human. All inflicted by the dead or one of the hybrids.

  There were other scars, too, though. In the crooks of each arm. Marks left over from the hundreds of puncture wounds he’d had to endure during his twenty years as a prisoner in the CDC. Those he studied longer, running the tip of his finger over them as he remembered the experiments. The pain. The years of uncertainty.

  Footsteps crunched behind him, and Naya gasped. A rattle of wood dropping to the ground followed, and he turned to find her staring at him, her mouth open and the wood gathered at her feet.

  “You really are immune.”

  Self-conscious about his near-naked state, he grabbed his pants and put his back to her. “Didn’t believe me?”

  He pulled his pants on one leg at a time, zipped them, then turned to face the girl.

  “I didn’t know what to believe.”

  “Suppose that’s to be expected.”

  She stared at him a few seconds longer in silence, her gaze moving over his scars until the hair on his scalp prickled, then she cleared her throat.

  “I got wood.” Her gaze moved to the fresh cuts on his arm. “We should get that patched up so we can start the fire.”

  He looked down to discover rivers of blood running down his arm and over his hand to his fingertips, dripping onto the ground.

  “I got an extra shirt in my bag,” he said, moving to his pack.

  “I’ll get it,” she replied. “Sit down.”

  He did, once again struck by a sense of déjà vu. Why, though? What was he trying to remember?

  Naya unzipped his backpack and dug through it, pulling out a red paisley handkerchief only a second later.

  Angus was on his feet in a flash, reaching for it. “Not that.”

  She startled when he ripped it from her hand, her eyes wide. The expression reminded him of how people used to look at him. Back when he’d been an asshole who would cut people with his words without a second thought, always thinking he needed to hurt others before they lashed out at him.

  “Sorry.” He blew out a long breath and balled the hand of his uninjured arm into a fist, tucking the old handkerchief inside his palm so it was out of sight. “It just— It means somethin’.”

  “It’s okay,” she said hesitantly, but not sounding scared. “I thought it was the shirt.”

  His body was tense, his neck stiff, and when he dipped his head, it barely moved.

  Naya went back to digging through the bag in silence, only a second later producing his extra shirt. It was cleaner than the one he’d just taken off, and he hated the idea of ruining it, but he didn’t want to risk infection by wrapping a filthy one around the cuts. It wouldn’t kill him, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t knock him on his ass for a few days, and that was the last thing they needed.

  The girl pulled her knife and used it to cut the shirt into several strips, then twisted them so they were thicker and would be more useful in soaking up the blood. Once she had, she moved to his side and knelt.

  “I have things I’ve saved, too,” she said, not meeting his gaze as she wrapped the shirt around his arm.

  “I ain’t got much,” he replied, wincing slightly from the pain, “but what I got means a lot.”

  Naya’s eyes flicked up, big and brown and innocent, and pain throbbed through him. “I understand.”

  The feeling was there again, only this time he understood what his brain was trying to show him. Parv kneeling in front of him much like Naya was now, her gentle brown hands cleaning a bite on his arm.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed one day,” she’d said.

  “It’d be worth it if you live.”

  She’d looked up, smiling, but her gaze sad. “Don’t die for me, Angus. Please. I don’t know that I could handle losing someone again.”

  “You’re stronger than you was back then,” he told her.

  “But I love you so much more than I ever loved him…”

  Who had she been talking about? The doc, or Trey? The doc, Joshua, had been her husband for a bit while they were still in Atlanta, but Trey had been before that. He and Parv had been together when Axl, Angus, and Vivian picked them up on Route 66, traveling from New York. They’d been away at college when the virus broke out and had t
eamed up in hopes of making it home. The virus had beat them, though, and they’d taken comfort in one another. Then he’d died, and Parv had changed. She’d turned quiet and sullen, but she’d gotten stronger too. That was when Angus had given her the nickname Rambo.

  He found himself smiling at the memory.

  Naya finished wrapping his arm and sat back. “What are you thinking about?”

  “My wife,” he said, and to his shock, it didn’t hurt to talk about her. It felt good. Like balm on a wound.

  “What was her name?”

  “Parv,” he said. “Parvarti. She was Indian, like you.”

  Naya’s brows lifted, and she smiled. “That’s funny. Almost like meeting me was fate.”

  “All of this has to be for a reason, a purpose. Something bigger than all of us. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you see it?”

  She’d said that to him as she was dying, but he hadn’t believed it. Couldn’t because she was leaving him, and nothing—not even losing Axl—had hurt so much. Maybe, though, she’d been right. Maybe he was here for a reason.

  “Maybe,” he said then got to his feet. “’Course, if we don’t get us some food and water, we ain’t gonna live long ’nough to know if it’s true.”

  Naya stood, too. “I can butcher the cat if you want to get a fire going.”

  He gave her an impressed look. “You know how?”

  She smiled and lifted her eyebrows in a silent challenge. “Of course, I do. My mom taught me how to survive.”

  “Smart woman.”

  “Yes,” she said, her tone sad but brimming with gratitude and love. “Yes, she was.”

  Chapter Six

  After starting the fire and setting the water up to boil, Angus had scavenged a few more branches from the surrounding forest and fashioned a spit. The cat’s body was on it now, hanging over the flickering flames, and the air was thick with the scent of roasted meat. Even better, the animals had come out of hiding and the forest was once again alive with activity. He wasn’t sure if they’d been as shocked by the sight of the cat eating the creature as he’d been or if they’d simply taken cover at the presence of a predator, but either way, they were back, which meant he and Naya were safe. At least for the time being.

  “I think it’s almost cool enough to drink,” the girl said from where she knelt beside the brook.

  She lifted the kettle—which had been half submerged to allow the stream to help cool the freshly boiled water faster—and ran her fingers over the metal surface. Hesitantly at first, then a little bolder once she determined it wasn’t going to burn her fingers. When she was sure it wasn’t too hot, she stood, kettle in hand, and headed toward the fire.

  “If nothing else, it’s not going to burn us. And now we can boil more.”

  She stopped in front of him and put her hand out expectantly. “Give me your bottle.”

  “You go on.” Angus waved her off. “I can wait.”

  His throat was dry, his lips cracked, and just thinking about taking a drink of water—cool or not—seemed to magnify his thirst, but he didn’t need it to survive. Naya, however, did.

  The girl’s mouth turned down as she studied him uncertainly. “There’s enough for both of us. We split it now, and then again when we boil more.”

  Angus found himself smiling, which had been happening more and more over the last two days. While the feeling was still foreign to him, it was welcome as well. Too many years had passed since he’d had a reason to smile.

  “I’m gonna be fine,” he said, his voice gentle this time. “Go on.”

  Naya let out a frustrated sigh, hesitated for a moment longer, then shook her head and turned away. “If you keel over and die, don’t expect any sympathy from me.”

  That made him chuckle.

  Angus turned the spit, barely aware of the action because his focus was on the girl. She filled her bottle, being extra careful not to spill any of the freshly boiled water, then gulped some down. She drank almost the entire bottle before pouring more and replacing the cap. Then she walked back to the stream.

  She’d just knelt beside the water when the bushes to Angus’s right rustled, drawing his attention. A black nose poked through the leaves, sniffing at the air—or more accurately, at the meat. Angus swept a rock up off the ground and tossed it that way. It hit the ground less than six inches from the animal, and the thing scurried off.

  Before he’d had a chance to look back, Naya had returned with the kettle—once again full—and set it on the fire to boil

  The girl tilted her head toward the cat. “Looks like it’s close to being done.”

  The outside was charred black in places, and Angus’s mouth filled with saliva at the sight of the crispy-looking meat. He studied the animal as he turned it again, nodding.

  “Little longer,” he said. “But not much.”

  “Good.” Naya groaned as she lowered herself to the ground across from him. “I’m starving.”

  Angus’s only response was a bob of his head.

  After a few seconds of staring at the animal roasting over the fire, Naya’s gaze moved to the bandage on his arm. “How does it feel?”

  The makeshift bandage was spotted red from where blood had seeped through, but already Angus could tell the cuts were scabbed over—they pulled with every move he made—but she wouldn’t be expecting it to have closed so fast, and he shrugged rather than try to explain something he had no explanation for.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “You keep saying that.” Naya rolled her eyes, and the gesture made her look more like a teenager than she usually did.

  Again, he smiled, this time the gesture making his cheeks ache. “It’s the God’s honest truth.”

  The girl let out an exasperated sigh but chose to change the subject. “We’re probably not going to make it much farther today.”

  “Yup,” Angus said, nodding. “Took a lot of time to boil water and cook this thing.”

  “Worth it, though,” she said, tilting her head thoughtfully as she turned her attention back to the fire. “I can’t remember the last time I had cooked meat. Before we had to leave the shelter. After that, we were always on the move, which made it tough to hunt.”

  “It’s gonna feel like Thanksgivin’, then,” he said.

  Naya’s mouth turned down in one corner, her expression thoughtful. “What was that again? I’ve heard of it, I think, but I can’t remember.”

  For a moment, Angus couldn’t quite remember himself. It wasn’t like he’d had a whole lot of Thanksgiving feasts in his life—his mom hadn’t given a shit if her boys had food on a normal day, let alone a holiday—and the few times he’d been invited to people’s homes for turkey had been years before the virus struck—back in his twenties.

  Then, as if remembering some story from ancient times, an image of pilgrims and Indians came rushing back. No, not Indians. This girl was Indian, and Parv had been, too. Pilgrims and Native Americans. They’d gotten together for a meal for some reason, a gesture of goodwill on the pilgrims’ side, probably. That was before the white man had wiped out most of the tribes that used to inhabit this country. They’d called the indigenous people of this country savage, had thought it would benefit the Native Americans to adopt the white man’s ways. What a joke.

  Angus pushed the memory aside, not caring to recount the atrocities of the past when it didn’t matter anymore because all of them—the white man, the Native Americans, and every other race of people—were on their way to extinction. Maybe it was karma after everything they’d done to one another.

  “Just a day when people liked to stuff their faces is all,” he told the girl instead. “There was some history ’bout it, but if I ever knew what it was, I forgot a long time ago.”

  “I guess there were more important things to remember,” she said.

  “Forgot most of that, too.” He gave her a sad smile. “Some days, it seems like there ain’t much from the past that I can remember clearly.”

  “Th
at’s sad.”

  “Sure is,” he replied, letting a sigh out with the words. Then he said, “Let’s fill our bellies so’s we can get a move on. Gotta make sure we have a place to hole up before dark.”

  Naya nodded.

  They took shelter in an old one-story office building that night, finding a room in the interior that thankfully had a few old mattresses on the floor. One had become home to a family of mice, but the other two were mostly intact—although more than a little filthy. Barricading the door was easy since the room had clearly been a safe haven to some group or another at some point during the hell that followed the initial virus. Whoever they’d been, they’d installed a bolted lock on the inside of the door. Even with it thrown, though, Angus didn’t feel relaxed enough to lie down until he and Naya had pushed an old metal bookcase in front of the door. Once that was done, they settled in, eating the meat they’d cooked earlier in silence before finally turning in for the night.

  Usually, Angus found it easy to drift off to sleep the second he lay down—especially when he got lucky enough to find a mattress—but not tonight. Tonight, he stared into the darkness for hours, unable to get his brain to shut off. At his side, stretched out on the other mattress, Naya slept soundly, her breathing heavy in the otherwise silent room. Despite how soothing he found the quiet rhythm, it did nothing to help him relax.

  He couldn’t get the image of Parv out of his mind, couldn’t stop unraveling the memory from earlier in the day. Ever since Naya had knelt to clean his wounds, snippets of that long-ago day had been knocking at his mind’s door, and he found himself being able to recall more and more as the hours passed. Now, he could recollect almost everything that had happened, including the way Parv had smiled at him, how her hand had felt in his when she’d reached out to take it, and even how she’d smelled. Like the outdoors mingled with the scent of tobacco. It made him ache for her more than he had in a long, long time.

  They’d gone out scavenging. He couldn’t remember everyone in the group, but he and Parv had been among them. Axl hadn’t been there. That, he knew. He couldn’t recall exactly why his brother had been absent, though. If it had been after he’d died or if he’d been busy doing something else that day, but Angus knew with complete certainty that his brother had not been present.