by Tara Brown
When my feet touch the ground again I smile at Leo, whose gentle yellow eyes confirm my findings. We are alone. I drop to my knees to greet him as he bounds toward me. The large timber wolf licks my face and lifts his massive paws up to hug me. I hugged him so often when he was a baby that one day he hugged back. He's done it ever since.
Sometimes you just need a hug. Sometimes I just need to cry. He understands that.
I have not seen much good since it all ended, not in people anyway, but the animals are still good. They live the way they always did. I wish we spent our time trying to be more like them, instead of trying to survive this new world.
I wish I could be more like them and need less of the world.
Leo nuzzles me softly and nips at my arms. I rub his huge soft ears and stand. I pat him gently on his huge grey head.
"Ready?"
He tilts his head and I know that means he is, so I pick up the heavy pack and adjust to it being on my back again. The walk home will take the entire day if I can manage to keep a solid pace. Leo starts the walk home by heading past the old broken oak tree.
Our meeting place.
Chapter Two
The cabin is a sight for sore eyes and sore feet, but I don’t have time to sit. I hurry to the garden and rain barrels, grabbing the bucket and loading it with water. Leo sniffs and searches like he has a scent, but his ears aren’t back and his sloppy wolf face hasn’t left.
That’s how I know we’re alone.
The rain barrel isn’t as full as I thought it would be but the garden is still green and lush. I’m too tired to worry about what is possibly responsible for that, as I pull a carrot and shake my head. They are twice as big as they were this time last year. At least the growing season is longer with the heat. So long as it rains some.
I dust the carrot off and eat it, surprised it’s not as bitter as it should be. After I drop my pack at the door, I grab a huge armload of wood and put it in the holder by the front door. I grab a second load and top the pile off before heading to the well. I rinse and fill the buckets, listening to the sounds of the forest around us. Nothing is off.
I put the water pails down and sit on the front stairs to watch Leo do his rounds. His nose stays to the ground, leading him into the woods. My gaze narrows but he finds his way back to the yard. I dump water in his dish and place it down. He comes running, lapping and splashing everywhere as I run my hands through his coat, feeling for ticks. The hot spring weather has made for less and less of them each year.
He lifts his muzzle and shakes, blowing water all over me. I sigh and carry everything inside.
The house looks and smells exactly as it did before we left. The peace of home starts seeping in and bringing back the humanity I always seem to lose on the road. The emptiness of the cabin can be unbearable, compared to the life I used to have. Our house was filled with neighborhood kids and my granny was always baking and cleaning and watching her shows.
I can’t help but look around and wonder if this is it. Is this my life? Is this maddening silence worth the cost of always being alone?
The answer sits in the maddening silence I trust more than I trust anything else.
A bitter smile crosses my lips as I head out of the house with my knife and head for the spot where I know I’ll find dinner. If I wait too long, the sun will be going down and I will be hunting in the dark. Leo creeps along next to me, walking silently and scoping out the woods. I dig my bow and quiver out and run my fingers along the string, testing the tension.
My bow makes me feel strong in a way my guns can’t. I made the bow. I make the arrows. The weapon is part of me.
I pull back the first arrow and sight in the woods around us before releasing, and scaring a flock of wild turkeys out of the bush they’re hiding in. The second arrow is out and in one of the turkeys before I have taken a third inhale.
Killing the turkey isn’t what makes me smile; it’s the efficiency with which I am able to hunt. Memories of my first couple years with the bow still make me cringe.
Leo collects our turkey, biting a little too aggressively. His eyes avoid mine in guilt. I clear my throat and he drops it at my feet, taking one last lick of the blood.
“You are just not a bird dog.” I put my bow and quiver back and head for the cabin to start cooking.
After dinner we sit by the fire. I am lost, zoning out in the low burning flames as Leo sits and presses against me. Our dinner bowls are still sitting next to us, so clean they could go back in the cupboard. I know I should clean them but I’m beat.
I run my fingers through his dense fur and twitch with exhaustion.
It’s gone the moment his ears perk up. My aching feet twinge, begging me not to follow through with my instincts and stand, but I watch Leo. When his hackles rise, my inner hackles do too. He makes no sound. I have to guess that he has picked that up from me. He never announces himself with a growl like a dog. Instead, he hides in the shadows, waiting for his prey to make a move.
He creeps to the door of the old cabin. I pick up the rifle with the scope and silencer I stole from a military base. Strangest sight you ever did see—dead military personnel everywhere and a thirteen-year-old girl stepping over their bodies and looting the place.
I creep along low, just as Leo does.
We sit in the dark, waiting for a noise or a movement. Something has fired Leo up and I am praying it is another animal. We are too far for it to be a person, I hope. I never turn the lanterns on. I rarely use fuel for anything. If anything is here, it's followed the smell of my smoke. It has to be an animal—maybe another wolf or a bear or a mountain lion. We see them sometimes. They scare me with their silence.
But I am wrong, dead wrong.
I know that the moment there is a sound outside.
The sound at my door is worse than anything I've ever heard. This category includes women being dragged into trucks while their children scream on the side of the road, abandoned. Worse than listening to the infected eating people who are still alive. Worse than the sound clothing makes when greedy fingers tear it and take things that don’t belong to them.
It is a knock.
A simple, yet slightly quiet, knock. A timid knock.
It feels as though the person knocking is afraid to knock, but has no choice in the matter. It's like their failing bravery can only muster this tiny pathetic little tap.
In the same breath that it is pathetic, the knock is also more frightening than anything I've ever encountered.
It might as well have been one of the infected, clawing at the door and making the high-pitch moans they make. Either way, it means I've been discovered. It makes my stomach hurt like it used to before I found the cabin. Nothing has ever made a sound outside my door, except Leo. I don’t know what to do.
When my father told me the cabin was safe, I took his word on it. He had been right about everything else. But the knock proves his words are a lie and I am naïve. That’s not a new thing.
Leo looks at me. He too seems confused by the weak little knock at our cabin door. The very cabin where I found Leo outside whining and scared of everything in the world, just as I was. The cabin where we sat together hiding, hoping, and praying that we would be left alone.
I stand still, frozen and holding my gun, trembling. Ideas and escape plans run through my mind as the knock happens again. I glance around the cabin, looking for a solution. Instead, the cold hate settles in. The cold hate whispers things like this is my home and I made the mistake of loving it. The cold hate makes me want to fight for it.
Leo slinks into the shadows of the coat and boot closet. I slide up against the wall and take my breaths slowly.
I don’t move. I watch Leo's yellow eyes. They are hypnotic, the way they never move. They relax me with the way they wait, focused and calm.
I nod at him, which makes him crouch lower, ready.
I put the chain lock on, making no noise just like I've practiced on other doors in other houses.
/> I lift my hand to the knob.
I step back slowly and position my gun.
My finger slides along the trigger.
Commanding my hand not to shake, I turn the knob of the door and open it silently.
I've positioned one foot behind the door, in case whoever it is decides to kick the door open.
In the tiny crack of the door, I see two eyes—blue eyes. They belong to a girl, younger than me. She's maybe fifteen but no older. She has dark hair and a gaunt face. Tears clump her black lashes together, which makes the pleading look she gives me tremendously convincing.
"I-I-I'm s-s-sor-ry pu-pu-pu-lease d-d-d-on't hurt m-m-e,” her lips tremble. She is shaking in fear. She sniffles and I close the door, clicking the lock.
My stomach sinks. I know I'm in for the fight of my life.
She is bait. If ever I've seen bait, she is it.
Leo cocks his head, saunters to the door, and sniffs. I think about just opening the door and freeing him on her, but his tail wags. This makes me doubt his ability to eat the adorable girl.
His sloppy wolf face emerges and when I raise an eyebrow at him he retreats, moaning and looking more like a golden lab than a killer attack wolf.
"Please, miss. I need your help. Please,” she shouts, no longer stuttering. Her voice is desperate. She bangs on my door. “Please, he's dying. My brother is dying—please.” She is making a ton of noise. Fear fills me, scaring me like I haven’t been in a long time. The noise is too much. I don’t know what to do so I pace a little and bite my lip, but she doesn’t stop shouting.
I have walked away from children left on the road screaming. I've watched teenage girls get dragged into the woods, and been forced to listen. I've survived because I watched and listened. I've ignored everyone at every cost. Several times I have lain under a truck with my eyes closed and waited for it to end. Waited for the screaming to stop. I have prayed for a person to die so we can both stop suffering. I could wait her out too if she weren’t screaming at my front door—at the door I thought no one would ever find. I want to scold myself for loving something and fooling myself into believing in the safety of my house, but her voice trembles through the doorframe.
“Please, please open the door and come and help me. I can’t get him out. He’s too far down. Please.”
She is bait.
I close my eyes waiting, but the banging gets louder. If the others aren’t already here, they could be near and hear the banging and come.
Dejectedly, I open the door again, putting the tip of my gun through the door. I am ready to shoot. Again, the path of the coward is before me. If I kill her, the noise will go away.
She sniffles and wipes her face but her eyes meet mine with bravery I have never seen before. “If—if you kill me, please just go find him afterward. He's hurt. If the others find him, he’s dead. He's in a hole south of here. Please. Just kill me and go help him. I don’t care if I die as long as you swear you will help him after. But don’t leave him in the hole. You and I both know that the infected will smell the blood. Or an animal might."
Her words aren’t just a plea. She is resigned to die for him. She isn’t selfish or a coward. She isn’t like me. She presses her chest into the gun. Her eyes harden. “Kill me and save him. Don’t let him die in that hole. He is the last thing I have left in the whole world. My last good thing.”
I slump and pull the gun back and close the door, squeezing my eyes shut for a second and letting myself acknowledge that this is a bad idea. This is a risk. I will no doubt regret this moment, but I am unable to choose the path. My mind screams. Why her? Why would I help her?
But the look in her eyes and the determination on her face tells me why.
She is a better person than I am. She is good. She is something good that has made it in this world of evil.
Every fiber of my being tells me to stay inside. But I don’t listen. I open the door.
Leo walks cautiously to her, sniffing and circling.
"Please, just go to him. He's back a ways down the big hill. He's fallen in a hole and broken his leg, I think. He isn’t conscious. He’s bleeding though, and we both know what that means."
I watch her eyes. They never dart. Between that, and Leo acting like she’s his friend from way back, I have to assume she speaks the truth.
I grab the bundle of rope I keep on the storage shelf and close the door. The mean tries to settle back in to make me just shoot her, but I don’t. She isn’t afraid I will kill her. She is afraid something she loves will die. She’s stronger than me.
"My name is Anna.” She holds her hands together like I've saved her life. Her tears still pour down her face, but she doesn’t look like a regular girl crying. Not like she did the moment I opened the door. The sniffling girl at my door was an act. She stopped being that girl the moment she pressed her chest against the gun barrel. She is small and weak, but she is something else. She is brave and kind.
I look at her, choosing to ignore her and her introduction. After I have gotten her brother out of the hole, she WILL be on her way. They both will be.
Leo rubs himself against the girl, making me even more annoyed.
"He's not going to bite me?"
"He might. Let's go. Stay in front of me where I can see you."
She nods and tucks her long brown hair into the back of her jacket. She is thin. Everyone is thin, but she is thinner than anyone I've seen in a while. I frown at myself. Who have I seen in months? No one except the infected and the others, but I try not to get too close to them.
Her gaunt face tells me she and her brother have probably been alone since the beginning, like me. And Leo. I would bet no one takes care of her. I would bet she fights for everything she has. And that makes her my enemy. No matter how much respect I have for her bravery and selflessness, she is a survivor and we are always looking out for ourselves.
I know the exact hole her brother is in, if he is really in there.
I keep my ears sharp. Thankfully, she never speaks. I can tell she has common sense. She walks silently as I do. Her breathing is even.
As we approach the hole, I move to wait at the far side, assuming I am being led here to be pushed in. I have a bad feeling they will take my cabin and leave me to die. But I have a gun and a wolf, if he stops acting like a lab.
She gets onto her knees and crawls to the edge. “Jake?” Her eyes dart around, like she is checking the dark woods to make sure we are alone. I’m doing the same thing.
“Jake! Wake up.”
"Anna?” A guy's breathless voice rises from the hole. He groans and clears his throat. “Anna, is that you?”
She starts to cry but her voice is strong. “Jake, we got rope. I found her. She's back. Everything will be okay now."
My hackles rise at the words 'she's back'. I back up, pointing my gun instantly. “How long have you been following me?"
She puts a hand out. “Let me have the rope."
I take another step back as Leo takes one forward. He senses my agitation.
"Just let me have the rope, please. He's hurt,” she pleads.
I shake my head and point my rifle at her face. “How long have you been following me?"
She slumps. “Two months. We stayed in the woods outside the cabin. We needed the well water. We took care of your garden when you left. We were hoping to introduce ourselves to you differently. We never went inside, I swear. It was just so nice to be somewhere away from all the bad things. We’ve been on the road, running forever. We just got tired. We decided to head up here to find a place to build a life, away from it all."
I want to feel nothing, but I know—I know I'm lucky. She is skinny and desperate looking. Her life has been hard where mine has been strategic and planned. My father told me about the cabin in the woods his family owned. I knew I had somewhere to go when it all ended. They were, no doubt, left with nothing. This doesn’t take away the sick feeling I have in my stomach, knowing I have been spied on for two months. I glance
at Leo and raise an eyebrow. He slumps slightly under my scrutiny. He is ashamed but doesn’t know why. He just knows my looks.
They are the scent he kept finding in the yard and at the forest’s edge but wasn’t scared of. They are the reason my garden is lush after being gone for six days.
"We didn’t mean to scare you. We saw how many guns you had, and we knew you had the wolf. We wanted to leave you alone, but we had nowhere to go. And we figured since you were alone too—"
The voice speaks from the hole, “Look, don’t hurt my sister. Just pass me the rope and I'll pull myself out. We won't bother you again. I know you're scared but we really are just regular people like you.”
Like me? The sentence makes me think of my father's voice, It's us and them, Em, and remember there are no regular people.
But they seem regular. Leo doesn’t act like he does around other people.
A vision of the three of us flashes through my mind, living like real people did. It’s short and a little wistful, but it is the most thrilling thing I have imagined in a long time.
He speaks again from the hole, pulling me from my silly daydream, “Just tie the rope and toss it down. We don’t want anything from you. We don’t want to scare you. We’re scared too.”
The way he talks, and the fact he is in the hole, makes me think I can do one little thing to get them on their way. I can help this once.
It is my chance at not taking the coward’s path.
I lean my gun against the tree. Leo stands beside it at the ready, just like I trained him to. I don’t turn my back on either of them when I tie the rope around the tree next to Leo and me. I toss the remainder of the rope down the hole.
I make mental notes—like when they're gone, I will set up booby traps. I won't be caught by surprise again.
"Tie it under your arms,” I say toward the entrance of the hole. I can see the rope moving and hope it’s because he’s tying himself up.