by Fitch, E. M.
“Just the same,”Nick continued, now looking at both girls.“Maybe you should stay in your room tonight.”
“Why, what’s tonight?”Emma asked, looking up from the footlocker she was now pawing through.
“Nothing, really,”he answered evasively, his eyes darting from the door behind him to his shoes.“But it’s not really for you girls.”
“It’s a meeting, isn’t it?”Emma demanded, slamming the lid to her trunk and glaring at her father.
“Emma,”Kaylee whispered in admonishment.
“No Kaylee,”Emma growled, rounding on her.“This isn’t right, he does this to us all the time!”
“Emma!”
“We might be young, and we may be occasionally irresponsible, I wouldn’t argue you that,”Emma plowed on.“But we’re two eights of the remaining human population and our opinion counts too! You can’t keep cutting us out of this, Dad,”she shouted, pointing at him angrily,“even if you think you’re protecting us!”
“Emma that’s enough,”Nick said, his voice level and cold.“This is exactly why you should be kept in your room. You’re careless and rash—”
“I’m interested! And opinionated and I care about what happens to me! And,”she paused for breath before continuing,“and I’m coming tonight, whether you like it or not.”
“Emma,”Kaylee hissed, scowling at her sister. Nick was staring out the window, his expression blank but his jaw set.
“You’re not to talk to me like that Emma,”he said but his voice had lost its’edge; it was still cold but he was distant now, far away.“I’m still your father.”He looked back at the girls and his forehead was wrinkled beyond his years.“I’m glad you’re okay, Kay.”
And he walked out of the room.
“You push him too hard!”Kaylee scolded her sister once the door had shut behind their father.
“And you don’t push him hard enough!”Emma countered, exchanging her old sweatshirt for the tee shirt that she had clenched in her hand.“I mean, for heaven’s sake, did you not hear the conversation they were having about you the other day? Do you want them planning out your sex life with no input from you? Don’t you care?”
“You know why he’s like this,”Kaylee said softly, ignoring her sister’s outburst as she plopped down on her bed.“He’s terrified he’s going to lose one of us ever since Mom…”she trailed off as she saw Emma try to hide her cringe behind the folds of the hooded sweatshirt she pulled from a hook by her bed.
“I know,”Emma said. She rounded on Kaylee, pulling on the hoodie and yanking up the zipper angrily.“But how long are we supposed to play the helpless, little children for his benefit? You said yourself we aren’t so young anymore. We deserve a say in this! You know why he won’t even consider leaving this place?”
Kaylee had several theories about that actually. The most prominent one involved the fact that her father spent most of his days staring out the living room onto West 223rdstreet. He didn’t want to leave his wife.
“It’s not because of her,”Emma sneered, throwing a contemptuous look out the window.
“He doesn’t want to leave Mom,”Kaylee insisted, looking imploringly at her sister.
“That’s. Not. Mom,”Emma spat, her face twisting in disgust. Kaylee felt the muscles of her jaw clench in anger but she tamped it down.
“Then why?”she asked through grit teeth.
“It’s us,”Emma answered shimmying out of her sweats before sinking onto her bed and bending to pick her jeans up off the floor.“He doesn’t think we can handle it.”
“Or he doesn’t want to expose us any further,”Kaylee offered.
“Either way,”Emma allowed, shoving her legs into her jeans and standing to tug them up.“I’m sick of being an excuse for him. We can’t stay here forever. I don’t wantto stay here forever. Quinton and Jack are heading north. I think we should go with them.”
“Dad won’t want to.”
“I say majority rules,”Emma said, shrugging. Kaylee frowned.
“You should apologize to him, you know,”Kaylee said after a minute during which Emma brushed out her hair and pulled on her boots.
“I will,”Emma said softly.“But I’m going to that meeting.”
“Me too.”
Emma paused in the act of re-tying her laces to look up at Kaylee.“I really am glad you’re okay,”she said around a bit lip.
“I guess I haven’t thanked you yet for tackling Jack,”Kaylee returned, grinning towards Emma. There was a light flush stealing up Emma’s neck.
“Yeah, well that jerk deserves more than a split lip and a bruised hip if you ask me, or Andrew for that matter,”Emma muttered, frowning.
“Why’s that?”
Emma shrugged.“He just wasn’t as…I don’t know, concerned as I thought he should be. I mean, you were really out of it, mumbling and whatnot, and he was just prancing around.”
“I was mumbling?”Kaylee asked in a whisper, nervous now.“What did I say?”
“I don’t know,”Emma waved dismissively, sitting back on her bed.“Sometimes it was something about pine trees and other times you just kept repeating‘not from there.’”
“Oh,”Kaylee mumbled, lowering her eyes. She knew exactly what had been going through her mind then. Jack.
Must just be because he was the reason I was hurt.
“Not that it mattered,”Emma continued.“No one knew what you were on about and don’t you think he should have carried you from the start?”she asked, switching subjects right in the middle of her sentence, as she was often prone to do.
“Who?”
“Jack! Back in the cornfield. You were a wobbly mess and he set you on your feet to walk! Jackass.”
“Em—”
“Don’t tell me he’s not, Andrew thinks so too,”she said, as though the fact Andrew agreed settled the matter.
“He made me breakfast,”Kaylee murmured, not sure why she was even mentioning it.
“Andrew?”
“No, Jack. He had honey to put on the oatmeal,”Kaylee explained, looking down to watch as she twisted her fingers together.“We took it to the roof and ate before Andrew came to get us.”
“Hmm,”Emma hummed through her frown as she got up and grabbed the doorknob.“I still say he’s a jackass.”
And as she strode from the room Kaylee heard her say,“But I might take some of that honey!”
~
His grip was warm and calloused and very strong and his eyes had an intensity that pierced you right through, nailing you to the spot.
“Nice to meet you,”Quinton said, the words rumbling from him as he shook Kaylee’s hand. She nodded up at him and returned the pleasantries, his skin a pleasant dark contrast against her pale hand. He was tall, taller than Nick or Bill and when she stood this close Kaylee had to lean back to look into his dark eyes.
“So,”Bill pressed eagerly, the most eager Kaylee had seen him in a while.“Now that we’re all here, what’s your plans?”
This question was most obviously directed at Quinton, who had backed away from Kaylee and taken a seat at the kitchen table. The silence swelled for a moment as Quinton took in the group. Kaylee wasn’t sure if this was for effect or because he was nervous speaking in front of groups. It most certainly wasn’t lack of confidence in his leadership abilities. Quinton exuded leadership. Everything about him from his posture and stance, to his calm demeanor, to the way he spoke with absolute certainty shouted that he was a leader. Andrew was right, there was something about this guy that made you think he was in the military. And maybe just not in the military, but in charge, a captain or lieutenant or whatever they called the men that told everyone else what to do.
The entire group was there, perched in various positions around the kitchen. Nick, Bill, and Anna had joined Quinton at the table while Andrew and Emma had jumped up on the countertops. Jack was leaning against the back window, chewing through another apple. He looked up and winked at Kaylee. She started, jumping from her positi
on in the open doorway and quickly crossed the room to Andrew and her sister. Jack chuckled before taking another bite of his apple. Kaylee leant back against the countertop between Emma and Andrew, the latter knocking her with his knee and grinning.
He must not have seen Jack’s greeting, Kaylee mused, biting her lip after smiling back at him.
“Well,”Quinton started, his deep voice rumbling from him as he shifted in his chair and redirected his piercing gaze to the tabletop. Kaylee decided right then that though leadership truly suited him, he wasn’t all that excited about it.“Jack and I are going to Alaska. We’re starting over. We’ve been through the lower half of the United States. We’ve been making this country livable again.”
“By livable, you mean…”Nick trailed off though it was obviously a question. His features hardened as he spoke.
“Cleaning up the infected,”Jack answered, kicking off the wall and approaching the table. He pulled out a worn, dirty piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans. He threw the map of the Unites States, looking like it had been torn from a textbook and checkered with red and green and yellow squares, on the table in front of them. Bill understood immediately.
“You’re focusing on the places with the highest population densities?”he had asked, though the glint in his eye suggested he already knew the answer to his question.
“Yup,”Jack answered, shrugging.
“We were,”Quinton corrected.“Until we got the idea of Alaska in our heads.”
“So is there anyone there? What have you heard?”Anna had prompted, leaning forward across the table.
“Probably not much more than you. But think about it,”Quinton urged in a low voice and now his eyes lifted from the table to pierce the group around him. Kaylee noticed how each person, with the exception of Jack who was probably immune to him by now, had shifted forward towards Quinton.“It’s dark there for such long periods of time. And when the infection first took hold and spread—”
“October,”Anna whispered, eyes lighting in realization.
“October?”Nick asked, shifting his gaze from across the table towards Kaylee and Emma and back to Quinton. It was very obvious that Nick did not want this kind of talk in front of his daughters and that that desire was warring with his desire for information.
“The sun sets in Barrow, Alaska by November 19thfor two months,”Jack answered, grinning as he snatched his map back off the table.
“But is anyone there?”Nick asked, argument in his tone.“Just because it’s dark there doesn’t mean anyone’s left. They could have been eaten just like the rest!”Kaylee had flinched at her father’s angry tone and Emma’s eyes had widened in shock. It was becoming more and more often that Nick would lose control, even in front of his daughters. Kaylee had heard him scream before, heard him rant and argue with Bill, and on one horrible occasion heard him sob as he leant into the window overlooking their old street, but it had been the exception, never the rule. Lately he had been altering between periods of total withdrawal and over reactive anger.
“Does it matter?”Quinton asked, squinting down at Nick from where he suddenly stood.“We could stay holed up, ignoring the world around us, and letting humanity die out; or we could fight. Fight for our land and our right to live free from fear.
“There are places in this world where you don’t have to sleep through the day and live through the night, where tomatoes don’t grow on rooftops, and your daughters could go outside without the fear of being devoured.”
“They’re too young,”Nick snarled.“They’re too young to travel with no guarantees of what’s out there or how to get to it.”
“But there are places—”Jack attempted to continue but Nick cut him off.
“Yes, there are places. If there are still survivors left than there are places where my daughters would be treated as currency, not as people. Do you think I don’t know what the concept of survival could mean for them?”He stole a sideways glance at Kaylee and Emma, both of whom were watching him with carefully blank faces.
“We could protect them,”Quinton offered in a quiet tone.
“Like hell you could!”Nick shouted. Bill placed a restraining hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“Calm down, Nick,”he whispered.“Let’s listen to what they have to say.”
“This isn’t right. I won’t have them auctioned off to the highest bidder,”Nick muttered, pushing away from the table. He got up and paced to the living room. Kaylee knew his forehead would be pressed to the glass of the window, his eyes on the street but his ears still listening to the meeting in the kitchen.
“We’re not like that,”Jack muttered, staring down at his half finished apple, seeming to try to summon the desire to want another bite.
“Even if you’re not,”Anna spoke quietly.“Some will be. We’re not stupid.”
“I have to say I hadn’t really considered it,”Quinton offered in an even voice.“I suppose you’re right. It was never a concern of mine before. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t options and starting over will someday need to be a goal of all humanity, if we are to survive this.”
The noise of a chair being kicked sounded from the living room.
“We think so too,”Bill said, addressing Quinton.“But we know it’s impractical here. We’re just not sure exactly where we would go.”
“If you come with us, we’re—”
“No,”Nick insisted, rushing back into the room, his hands slamming down on the table as he glared towards Quinton.“Did you hear them, Bill?‘Taking out the infected.’”
“Nick,”Anna warned.
“What does that mean to you exactly?”Nick continued, switching his gaze from Quinton to Jack.“You’re killing them, aren’t you? They’re people and you’re killing them!”
“We’re not.”Jack said evenly, crossing his arms as he stared at Nick with distrust in his gaze. Jack’s jaw was set and his arms tense, the muscles standing in contrast.“Atlanta was the first and I’ll admit, what we did wasn’t right. But we’ve learned from that.”
“Wasn’t right,”Nick sneered, pushing away from the table and pacing the length of the kitchen once again, his eyes darting towards the living room windows.
“We destroyed it, every last part of it," Quinton said and his voice was cold and hard. It was the angriest he had sounded yet. "We won’t be doing that again but we will isolate the largest population areas. The hope is that the food supply will run out and the infected will die off naturally.”
Every eye was once again on Quinton; and Jack, sensing that Quinton had regained control of the meeting, leant back into the wall, his jaw relaxing.
“But let me understand,”Quinton continued, his voice a deep rumble once again.“You don’t kill them? Not ever?”
“They’re people,”Kaylee spoke into the silence of the room in a small voice. Nick spared her one glance before he stopped his pacing, his back to the group. Bill and Anna kept their eyes on the tabletop. Kaylee looked around the little group.“They are,”she insisted.“They’re sick. How is it our right to end their lives?”
Jack opened his mouth to reply but a look from Quinton quelled his response. The silence enveloped them once more.
“Well,”Quinton began.“We had come here for supplies and with your permission will take enough gas to get to the next town. We won’t take any food or medical supplies that we can get elsewhere. As I said, our goal is Alaska. Any of you are welcome to join us, but the plan is to continue isolating towns as we go.”
“What does that mean exactly?”Anna asked.“Isolating towns?”
“It means a lot of explosions,”Jack answered with a grin.
“We destroy all means of escape from each city,”Quinton clarified.“Bridges, major roadways, sometimes we demolish buildings to block the way. The infected are caught within the confines of the city and from there, the food sources dry out.”
“And anyone uninfected left in the city?”Bill asked. Nick scoffed and paced back into the living room.
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“We do a complete sweep first. We take all the supplies we can and leave a sign explaining when we were there and where we’re going—”
“Along with a few barrels of gasoline and some medical supplies,”Jack interrupted Quinton.
He nodded.“We leave all this in several stations along the perimeter of the cities. Just in case there are some survivors coming up from the south.”