by Isla Jones
Vicki didn’t answer right away. She helped me into my chair and set the crutch to the side.
As she sank into her own seat, she whispered, “There aren’t many women here. Including you, me and Lisa, there are six of us, and around twenty of them.”
That was not comforting. I always thought the world—before and after—was so telling in that way. In an apocalypse, one man would be thrilled to be stuck with ten women. One woman would be terrified to be stuck with ten men.
One of the soldiers pulled away from his group across the table. A crooked, somewhat goofy smile brightened his face and I found that he didn’t intimidate me in the slightest. That might’ve had something to do with his cammo uniform. Somehow, it seemed lower than the all-black.
“That’s Lotan,” whispered Vicki. She reached forward and grabbed two plates. “He’s all right.”
I nodded just as Lotan pulled out a chair a few down from Vicki. To see him, I had to lean forward a little, which wasn’t the most wonderful position for my newly-stitched wound.
“Hey.” Lotan grinned at me. I know men and I know their grins—I can read them with a single, curt glance. Lotan’s was sincere, if a little naïve. “You’re Winter, right? We’ve been waitin’ for you to wake up.”
Like always, my smile was forced, and I wondered if I would ever know a true smile again. “I was tired,” I said. “If you ever go out there, you might understand.”
Lotan’s smile faltered. His cheeks burned and he shifted awkwardly in his chair. I got the feeling I’d just kicked a puppy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I was making conversation, that’s all.”
Vicki flicked her hand, like she was dismissing a servant. “Don’t mind her, Winter’s just grouchy this morning. Can you pass the bacon?”
Lotan’s practically tripped over himself to fill her plate with bacon. I watched, perplexed, as he loaded all sorts of food onto her plate, then even started on mine.
“He’s nice,” I said. “And I’m an asshole.”
Vicki snorted. “You’re guarded, and a little bitter. There’s a difference.”
We were stuck with Lotan for the better part of an hour.
A couple of his fellow soldiers, Mason included, slid down chair to chair until they reached us and formed a small group.
I loathed it. The first day—awake—in the CDC was not the day I wanted to spend getting to know the soldiers. What I wanted was to see Summer. Not strange new faces all around me, grinning like they were toddlers and it was Christmas morning, making jokes and cheering each other on.
Though, their company wasn’t terrible enough to battle my appetite. I devoured every scrap of food on my plate, and even started to lick my fingers when Mason pulled it away from me.
He levelled his gaze with mine.
Moments before, he’d been hollering over another soldier’s recount of a rally race they’d had in the west wing. Apparently, Mason had lost by a few seconds, but Mason objected to this version of the story—the other solider had cheated, according to him. And now, he’d slipped back into his statue soldier costume.
Ms Miles,” he said. “Leave room for the cheesecake.”
The others laughed. Even Vicki smiled, though it was tainted with the horrors that stayed with us both—Mac and Summer.
Mason was trying to be friendly. I know that. Still, I wondered what it would feel like to stab a fork in his thigh. A thought I only entertained for a moment, mind you.
Oblivious to my simmering anger, Mason reached for the cheesecake and cut a generous piece for me. I watched the knife sink in and thought of how I’d used knives like that to kill rotters, how I’d never used a knife like that to cut up my food. Not since the end, at least. The most I’d done with a knife and food was spend ages stabbing a tin to loosen the lid.
Just watching him cut the cheesecake flared up so much rage within me that my hands shook on the table.
I curled my fingers and dug my nails into the table.
“Winter.” Vicki rested her hand on mine. “Winter, come on.” She pulled me up from the chair, her grip tight. “I have to show you something.”
At Vicki’s cluck, Cleo hopped off the chair beside mine for the floor and abandoned her mostly devoured hunk of chicken breast.
“Oh, come on!” Mason put the plate in front of me, but I just towered over it, a hot sensation whirling around my heart. “She hasn’t tried it yet. It’s no patisserie cheesecake, but it’s—”
It happened before I could stop it.
Before I’d realised that the rage had blinded me, had consumed every piece of me, the cheesecake went flying through the air.
I’d whacked it off the table with one harsh hit.
Mason leaned back. The entire table hushed into a tense quiet.
And I shook. My shoulders shook, my hands shivered at my sides, and I’m sure my heart trembled most of all.
“Seven months,” I hissed. “Seven months and you’ve been down here, eating cheesecakes and roast chickens … laughing and making jokes …” I paused to suck in a deep breath, if only to stop the tears of anger from rolling down my cheeks. “Seven months you’ve all been living it up,” I spat, my lip curling. Shouts ripped through me; “And people up there have been dying! Ripped apart while you argue over who won a fucking rally race? What is wrong with you people?” I heaved a horrid, hoarse breath and pushed away from the table. “You have no idea what it’s like out there, not a damn single one of you, you pathetic little—”
A hand on my shoulder cut off my words.
Before I could turn around, I felt the familiar hand on me, the nostalgic warmth. The mere touch had my eyes drifting shut and a shaky breath crawling out from my throat.
Tears leaked. After all that, tears escaped the corners of my eyes and I swatted them away like I had done the cheesecake splattered all over the floor.
With a sniff, I turned around to face him.
Castle kept his hand firm on my shoulder. The familiar gleam of his eyes drew me in and held me there. “Let’s take a walk.”
I shrugged him off and grabbed for my crutch.
Vicki snatched it for me and hooked her arm through mine.
“Let’s not,” I hissed and barged past him.
Cleo followed us, and so did every pair of eyes in that room.
TEDIUM; MY WORST ENEMY
ENTRY SIXTEEN
Vicki’s room was opposite mine, two doors down. Room Seven. It was a complete copy of mine, from the basket of toiletries (including everything period-related) and the women’s underwear in the cupboard.
They must’ve had specific rooms prepared for guests or employees who worked nights. Before the end, at least.
In the corner, Vicki scrubbed another wee-patch Cleo had left for her. I watched from the armchair. It wasn’t as though I could help. As I watched, I wondered if there might come a time that we could build a small garden for Cleo, with fake grass and plastic flowers.
Somehow, that bud of an idea didn’t strike me as a priority to the others.
“Have you met Dr Wong?” I asked, picking at the woollen blanket draped over my legs.
Vicki stopped scrubbing the floor and threw the cloth into the warm tub of water. Some soap suds splashed back at her. “I had a check-up with her last night. She did an ultrasound.”
My finger froze, hooked through a loose thread. “And?”
“And she confirmed what the tests said.” Vicki threw a look at the nightstand beside her bed. “The pills are in the drawer. I’ll take them tonight after dinner.”
I managed a casual nod and pressed my lips together. She was in for a hell of a night. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but neither is an unwanted pregnancy.
Vick washed out the bowl in the bathroom, then laid out a towel for Cleo. For a while, she pointed at it and looked straight at the indifferent Chihuahua. “Wee-wees,” she said and patted the towel. “Toilet, here.”
Amused, I watched t
his go on for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Cleo did what she wanted, wherever she wanted. After all, she was born a stray, raised herself, linked up with me—a fellow stray—and then in a blink of an eye, the rotters were upon us all. Toilet training hadn’t quite happened before the chaos.
Still, Vicki didn’t give up. I liked that about her. I’m a quitter, she’s a tryer.
Tedium didn’t settle over us for another hour or so. It was then that Vicki forced me back out of the dorms and through the corridors. I refused to go back to the dining hall, so she took me to the ‘communal room’ a few corridors away from our own. Vicki seemed to have a sketched map of some areas near the dorms in her mind.
֍
I wandered in behind her. There were no cheesecakes in here. A small cabinet was tucked in the corner with a kettle, some ceramic mugs, and a sink. On the other side of the room, three couches and a television made a square—the piles of DVDs at the bottom of the TV unit were all open and strewn about the floor. I hated that. A nostalgic pet-peeve from the other days.
Vicki strolled to a bookshelf behind the long, grey couch and picked out a book at random. On the bottom shelf, some board games and playing cards were piled neatly. They didn’t look too used.
As I followed Cleo around (she was on carpet sniff patrol), I asked, “Did you get a tour or something while I was asleep?”
“Sort of,” she said, her back to me. “We’re allowed anywhere in the residential wing. Mostly, it’s just the dining hall, the dorms, and here. There’s a gym too.”
Neither of our expressions sparked much excitement for a gym.
Vicki apparently wasn’t keen on the black-covered book she’d picked. She stuffed it back into the shelf and huffed. “All of these are action novels.”
“I have a few in my bag—” I paused, my brows knitting together. “Well, when they give me back my stuff, you can read what I have.”
The offer wasn’t a grand one. All that my collection of five books would do would be to fill up hours dotted around Vicki’s days until she’d finished them. Then what? My gaze shifted to the DVD boxes. Con Air, Mission Impossible, Day of the Dead.
My face turned grim.
“There’s a pool.” Vicki clicked her fingers as if remembering something super important. At my lit-up face, she deflated. “There’s something wrong with the pump, though. Someone is fixing it, but it could take a while. When it’s open, you should use it—swimming would be great for your physical therapy.”
I stretched a tight look over my face—it was meant to be a smile, but it sure didn’t feel like one. With a sigh, I turned my back on her and leaned against the window (through the drawn curtains were wedges of clouds and trees. A painted backdrop).
So this was it, I thought. The safe-house. The sanctuary. The end of the road. I’d been there all of five minutes and I was already bored.
Dr Wong cornered sometime after dinner—a dinner I refused to attend. She found me in the communal room, nibbling on stale cookies.
Someone had told her about my outburst in the dining hall. I suspected Castle once she recommended sleeping pills to help me “transition”. Her word, not mine.
Transition.
Maybe that was what I needed to do. Maybe it was a matter of shock and the pills would help me fight off my “phase of depression”, whatever that means. I took them. I took the dosage she told me to.
Still, the numb anger in me didn’t dissolve, and the boredom stayed victorious.
I slept.
MY OTHER HALF, MY HALO
ENTRY SEVENTEEN
I drifted in and out sleep, unable to hold on for too long at a time. Before a dream could suck me in, I was yanked out of it by the loud quiet around me.
No one snored or played with cards, there was no Castle opposite me, no Vicki to check my wounds. Cleo had been snatched from me for the night by Vicki, so I didn’t even have her to hold onto as my anchor. There was nothing.
Just me, alone.
There was something the matter with those pills Dr Wong gave me. They made me drowsy, a bit out of it, dazed. I’d expected them to sink me into a sleep so deep that, when I woke up, all would be right within me.
I guess that’s not how it works, not in this world or the one before.
Sometime during the night, there was a sound that creaked through the room and stirred me. I peered through the only eye I could manage to pry open. A shadow stretched up the wall opposite, then vanished with the light from the corridor.
“Vicki?” I groaned. “Is that you?”
Footsteps drew nearer, soft and hesitant.
Then came her whisper of a voice; “It’s me.”
My heart stopped. Just for a moment, it froze and dropped right into my gut. Squinting into the dark, I tried to push myself up but the pills dragged me back down.
The shadow inched closer to the edge of the bed.
Each step stirred the bubbling pit of emotion within me. Then, the moment she slipped into the blankets with me, my entire face twisted and the bubbling pit couldn’t be contained any longer.
Summer guided me down beside her.
Brown eyes, so unlike my dull ones, sparkled through the shadows at me. They glittered with unshed tears and awe, boring straight into my own.
“Shhh,” she hushed me gently, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Go back to sleep, Winner. I’m here.”
Winner…
“It’s really you,” I breathed, eyes drifting shut.
Was it her, I wondered? Or was it the pills? The thought shot a surge of panic through me and my hands shot out for hers.
“It’s me,” she said, fingers entwining with mine.
Summer and Winter Miles. Connected, once more.
With each stroke of my hair and hush from her lips, my eyes fought harder to stay open, to gaze into her shimmery ones.
We didn’t talk. We just held hands and looked at each other. I managed to stave off the pills’ effects longer than I’d hoped. But it was inevitable.
I lost my fight and sleep swallowed me whole.
I dreamt of Summer.
֍
I whined all year for that gift, and it was worth all the tantrums and tears.
I pranced around the living room, waving my glittery wand, wearing the costume that everyone at school talked about. The wings were lace and the white halo that stood on a spring attached to my headband was made of white feathers. Dad made the halo for me. Mum bought the rest from the toy store.
I was an angel.
At least, I was an angel until Summer snatched the halo from my head and snapped it in two.
“There’s no fun in being an angel,” she told me. “You should want to be a winner.”
Before I could cry and tell on her, Summer stuck two pieces of the halo on her head to make horns.
“See?” She grinned and handed me one of the horns. “Now we can both be winners.”
My tears were wiped away before they could even leak. Summer knew best. Summer was older, she was smarter, and she never dressed up as an angel for her birthday.
I wanted to be a winner. She wanted to be a sinner.
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A gasp tore through me.
I jerked up in the bed, eyes swerving to my right.
The moment my wild eyes found her peaceful face, I let out a harsh breath. Summer was there, asleep, beside me. It hadn’t been a dream.
I smiled and dropped back to my pillow. My gaze fed on her face. I had to study every wrinkle—she had one, from the way her face smooshed against the pillow—and flaw. Who am I kidding? Summer was flawless.
If alive, our dad would call her a ‘stunner’. He’d reserved that word for mum and gorgeous actresses like Michelle Pfeiffer and Sharon Stone. The beautiful blondes.
Summer wore mum’s face. She wore her fine nose, bowed lips, high cheekbones. And her hair. Silky strands curtained her heart-shaped face, a blonde so ashy that it seemed silver against the porcelain gleam
of her skin. The only tint of dad on Summer’s face were her eyes—the sparkly kind of brown with golden flecks.
I got dad’s freckles and orangish hair. ‘Strawberry blonde’ mum used to call it. Summer was just blonde—she won the genetic jackpot in our generation. The looks, the brains, the courage.
And, if I’m perfectly honest, there was only one part of that I envied to my core. Not her beauty or her bravery—I was most jealous of her brilliant mind.
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I screamed her name over and over, but they kept tearing us apart.
Mum and dad were dead. Grandmama couldn’t look after us, said the lady in the suit. Summer and me had to be ripped apart.
I fought it.
Every arm that caged me in and tried to drag me to the black car, I fought against. My legs kicked out, my screams tore down the street. Some of Grandmama’s neighbours watched, but no one helped me get to Summer. They were taking her to a blue car. We should’ve been in the same car.
Summer broke free.
She raced toward me, her satchel smacking against her leg. The mean suit-lady ran after her, but Summer was on the track team at school. She was fast. I know, because I used to watch her practice from the stands and cheer her on.
I was her number one fan.
Summer slammed into me. My hands grabbed for her, to hold on tight. She yanked something out of her satchel and shoved it into my hands. Then, she clutched onto my cheeks, forcing me to meet her gaze.
“Listen to me,” she said hoarsely. “It’s ok. It’ll be ok, Winner. It’s not for long—think of it like a vacation. Remember that time I went to summer camp and you missed me? But I came home, didn’t I?”
I couldn’t see her through the fog in my eyes. “But m—mum a—nd … da…ad didn’t—”
“I’m not mum and dad!” she snapped. “I’m Summer, and I’ll come back. Trust me. You have to trust me.”
She squeezed my hand. I looked down at what she gave me. A piece of the halo. Suit-lady tried to peel Summer away from me, but Summer stabbed her with a piece of her halo.