by Connor Mccoy
Cheryl’s face remained red. “I guess I didn’t come off as gorgeous as you say I am.”
Criver reached for her chin and gently propped it up. “Well, I guess it’s their big, big loss.” Then he reached over and kissed her forehead. She then leaned into him. Criver wrapped her arms tightly around her.
“Tom?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
Cheryl nuzzled up a little, then coiled her own arms around him and held on. Criver got her message. He stood there and held his warrior woman tight.
She felt so warm. He even could hear her heart beating. He caressed her wet skin. It was smooth. His hands ran across her shoulders, then down her back, then even farther. No matter where he touched her, she never voiced one objection. She just moaned with an occasional whisper, most of which he couldn’t hear, but once he was sure he heard “Tom.”
He didn’t let go of her, even as night started to give way to day.
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey.” Cheryl shoved a small berry between the trees. “Breakfast?” she asked with a smile.
The pair just had left the brook. The morning sunbeams were drying off their skin. Criver held up a hand, blocking Cheryl. “Oh, I don’t know. I remember what happened the last time a naked lady offered a naked man a piece of fruit in the forest. It didn’t end very well for the world.”
Cheryl narrowed her eyes. “Oh! You!—I’d throw this at you if we didn’t need it to eat!”
“That’s payback for scaring me about the leeches.” Criver chuckled, then reached out and grabbed the berry. “Well, I guess I’ll take the risk this time.”
As Criver chewed on it, Cheryl quickly said, “If you don’t remove the skin first it’ll burn when you pee.”
Criver slowed his chewing. “You’re kidding, right?”
Cheryl mischievously narrowed her eyes. “Gotcha back! Of course I’m joking. That berry’s fine. Actually, we need to fill up on some plants before we head out. I scouted last night and we hit the mother lode.”
“Perfect.” Criver finished chewing, then walked around the tree.
Cheryl shook her head. “Get dressed first.”
“What? We can’t wander around the forest like this? I’m starting to get used to this.” He spun around in a circle. “Who’s going to see us? Are we going to get arrested for indecent exposure?”
Cheryl laughed through closed lips. Then she said, “No. I’m more worried about the animals.” She narrowed her eyes. “Some of them may have an appetite for nuts.” She then strolled to the tree where her clothes hung.
Criver sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s talk about something under than man parts, please.”
Cheryl’s boots crunched on the dry grass as she walked, with Criver behind her. “It’s time for Survival 101. I’m going to show you how to live off the land.”
“My mom always told me not to snack on anything in the wild. I’d either drop dead or I’d know what everyone at Woodstock felt like.”
Cheryl laughed. “Don’t worry. Actually, a lot of things that grow out here are edible. You just have to know how to treat them. If you cook a lot of this stuff, it’ll get rid of the toxins and anything that can make you sick.”
Cheryl slowed her pace as she approached a growth of tall green plants. “Curly dock.” Small leaves grew from the stems, which, in turn, germinated little fruits.
“Is there any Larry dock or Moe dock around here?”
Cheryl chuckled. “No.” She leaned down and plucked one of them from the ground. “Good. The leaves on here are small. If they were too big they’d be too bitter to eat.”
As he watched Cheryl in action, Criver’s attention started wandering. The events of last night were wondrous, but after seeing Cheryl in all her glory, he couldn’t quite believe some of the things she had said in the brook. It nagged at him so much he had to say something.
“It just amazes me that no one’s ever called you gorgeous before. I mean, someone had to call you pretty.”
She shook her head. “Only my parents, but that’s a given.”
He leaned a little closer. “So, no one at school had the hots for Miss Cheryl Dennis? Why do I find that extremely hard to believe?”
Cheryl came to a stop and pointed to a batch of green leafy flowers. “Stinging nettle. We mix these with curly dock, you can brew together some medicine if you need it.” She picked one and held it up for Criver to look at closely. “Got lots of Vitamins A and C, also iron, protein and calcium.”
Damn. Maybe I’m poking a little deep, Criver thought. She clearly wasn’t eager to keep talking about the past.
“Cook them or soak them in water and it’ll get rid of the stinging chemicals. After that you’re good to go.”
She knelt down again and started picking nettles. “Like I said, I probably wasn’t the gorgeous type. So it really doesn’t matter.”
Criver rested against a nearby tree. “I think you’ve wanted somebody to notice you for a long time,” he said softly. “Well, I say ‘mission accomplished.’”
She smiled. “You’ve very sweet.” Then she turned back to her work.
After she put her bundle in the pot, she sighed. “I learned not to care what other people think.” She stared at the remaining nettle. “You have to grow a thick skin when you grow up around a creep.”
That definitely piqued Criver’s interest. “Your stepdad?”
“My mother’s second husband. He was nowhere close to being my dad. I don’t want the word “dad” anywhere near him.”
“Okay, gotcha. What happened?”
“He would tease the hell out of me. He saw me at the gym, and I was throwing punches on a punching bag. I was just having fun. Well, he’d tease me about it. He wanted to have boxing matches with me. One time, he socked me good in the nose. I was bleeding, crying. He just laughed. He said I should take it like a man.”
Criver swallowed. Damn.
“He was always doing that.” Cheryl ripped a piece of nettle from the soil. “I’d play a little football, he’d always goad me into playing. He was always playing rough with me. He wasn’t trying to have real fun, he was just treating me like a joke.” She gritted her teeth.
“He was always making cutting remarks about my body. When I was thirteen it got even worse. He kept saying I should pad my bra or stuff my pants with tissue to make my ass look better so the guys finally would notice me.” She ripped out another nettle, tearing up a gob of soil.
“Okay, we probably should talk about something else—”
“Of course, he always was putting down my mother, making her feel she wasn’t pretty enough for him. She tried everything. Probably spent a fortune on new dresses and makeup.” At last, Cheryl got up, but her gaze was still ahead, away from Criver, into the recesses of her past that she was recounting. “She’d do anything for him and it was never enough.”
She turned and started hiking. She didn’t even pick up the pail of nettles. Criver snatched it up, now holding both of their loads. Before Criver could ask if they were done, Cheryl stopped at a batch of dandelions.
“Here. We’ll need these, too—oh!” She reached over and took her pail of nettles from Criver. “Damn, I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I got to get my head in the game. We have to get moving soon.”
“Hey, it’s my fault. I’m prying too much.”
“No.” Cheryl leaned over the dandelions. “Maybe it’s time I finally told somebody all this.” She picked off a single dandelion and turned the flower around, pointing to its yellow leaves. “Now, these are important. Dandelion leaves are rich with vitamins and minerals. You get your A, C, and K vitamins out of this, also potassium and iron. Some calcium, too.” She deposited the flower into the pail. “Even comes in handy with herbal medicines in case you get infected or have a liver problem.”
“I guess I know why you were so steamed last night.”
Cheryl turned back to the dandelion batch. “People who like to toy with other people’s lives
, they all do different things. My mother’s second husband liked to kid, but he was nothing more than a bully. The Coach, The Principal, they’re all really the same, even if they just do their shit differently. I know what it’s like to have your whole…” She raised her hands and shook them. “…your whole identity as a person just torn to pieces. So, God help you if you’re one of those assholes, because I will be your worst enemy. I swore that years ago.”
Criver just stood in silence, waiting for Cheryl to pick her batch of dandelions. Then she said they were done and marched back to the camp. But Criver still wanted to cap it all off by saying something.
After putting down her load of berries and flowers, Cheryl approached the tent.
“Cheryl…” She turned around.
“Just take it from a red-blooded, young American male.” He approached her. “After what I saw last night, I can say there’s no way you need any help looking beautiful.” Cheryl blushed.
He put down his load next to hers. “There’s not a soul on Earth who has a right to tear you down as a woman or as a person, and if anybody does from now on, I’ll be their worst enemy. You can bank on that.”
She nodded, then turned back to the tent. Criver turned his attention to the plant life they had gathered, but his thoughts wandered back to his companion.
He wondered how they would be after they had rescued Amir. They started out as friends, even very close friends, but from the moment they left The Principal’s school, he believed they were becoming much more. Now he was sure of it. Tom Criver had no doubt how he felt about this woman. But did she feel the same about him? After last night, after sharing their bodies in the brook under the moonlight, how she could not?
Yet, he wondered if she still was running from her past. Would she, in the end, come to love him…as he now loved her?
Chapter Fifteen
Cheryl put down the binoculars. “I don’t see anybody.” She turned to Criver.
The two of them lay on a grassy hill overlooking a strip mall on the other side of the highway. A small cluster of trees shielded their arrival. This was the first real sign of human civilization they had run into since leaving the city. Criver wanted to rush right in until Cheryl urged him to wait and let her scout it from a distance.
“You need to treat any small town you run into like a wasp’s nest,” she had explained. “You touch it, some nasty insects could spring out to sting you on the ass. Survivors may be hiding in there, but you also could have gangs, anarchists or marauders that’ll rob anybody that even looks like they have supplies.”
So instead, Cheryl took note of the details of the strip mall, the parking lot, and the surrounding streets. Fortunately, the land was flat down below, with few trees and no hills, allowing them a good view of the surrounding environment. There were no signs of groups of survivors, or more ominously, gangs or terrorists camping out anywhere nearby.
Criver scratched the stubble on his chin. “Wouldn’t every mall be stripped clean by now?”
“Actually, they’d be the first places to be hit. But in the initial panic, people wouldn’t be looking for clothes or things like that. They want food and water. There’s probably a lot of things that they left behind. People might skip them if they think they’ve been emptied out.” Cheryl turned to Criver. “That means there might be supplies down there that nobody’s found. There may even be food and water they’ve missed. It’s worth taking a look.”
The pair began their search through the ravaged stores. Criver expected them to be an utter mess. Sure, these places all got ransacked. The front doors were busted open, some of the display windows lay shattered, and a few shelves lay empty, or on their sides. But not all the shelves lay empty, some still had items remaining.
Criver chuckled at some of the men’s clothes he discovered still on the racks. Apparently, nobody had a need for boxer shorts. A lot of men’s jeans hung on the shelves, especially all the big sizes. Guess no one’s going to count on having a size forty-four waist in this new world, where no fast food joints were open.
The sporting goods store next door held even greater interest. Criver quickly checked the fishing isles. Recalling that brook from yesterday, he wondered if fishing could be another source of food. But then he thought of something more important—firearm ammunition! Quickly, he searched for the gun isles, only to find they had been cleaned out. No ammo boxes, nothing. Damn! Well, that may have been too much to hope for. Along with food and water, defending yourself definitely would be on the top of any survivor’s list.
The soft sound of rolling wheels turned his head. Cheryl was pushing a shopping cart loaded with supplies and items she had found.
“You going to pay with credit or cash?” Criver asked.
Cheryl smirked. “You ought to get your own cart. Just load up anything that looks useful and sort it out later.”
Criver held up a fishing rod. “Are we really going to cart all this stuff to The Coach’s hideout?”
Cheryl pushed the cart toward the store’s entrance. “No, but we probably can barter with some of this stuff. You don’t know who we’ll meet in Westown. We may need supplies or information. Remember how The Coach scared everyone shitless back home? Nobody in Westown may be willing to stick their necks out to help us unless we provide some incentive.” She sighed. “It’s also to keep them from killing us and stealing our stuff. People still are going to be desperate. If they don’t have any hope…”
“That’s when the law of the jungle takes over.” Images of human beings torn of their civility and reduced to a feral state flashed through Criver’s mind. When survival was no longer a given, but something actively to fight for, people would do anything, if just to hang on for another day.
Criver took Cheryl’s lead and fished out his own shopping cart. The next store was a home bedroom and bathroom outlet, even less looted than the other three stores. That meant they’d have a chance to load up on bathroom supplies.
Cheryl practically ripped the box of soap off the shelf. “Soap.” She pressed the box against her forehead. “Glorious soap.”
Criver found something that, in his opinion, was even better—a shelf half-stocked with toilet paper. He seized a roll and squeezed it. “I will never, never take this for granted again.”
Cheryl caught up with him, then patted his cart. “Load it up, soldier.”
“All of it?”
“See how much we can pack up later. That’s going to be real important if we run into anybody.”
“No shit.” Criver tossed one roll after another into the cart.
The pair now were pushing two carts out of the mall toward a pharmacy. Suddenly, Cheryl released her cart and whipped out her pistol. “Tom!” Criver immediately saw why—two bearded men in buttoned-up flannel shirts and dark brown slacks stood at the door of the pharmacy, pointing firearms at their heads.
The two men narrowed their eyes. “Wait!” Criver shouted, fearing a sudden provocation that would cause a trigger to be squeezed. With no time to draw his own gun, Criver held up his hands instead and hoped these two were civilized men not looking for trouble. “Easy. We’re not here to hurt anybody. We’re just looking for supplies.”
The tall man with the scraggly gray beard spoke first. “Everyone’s looking for supplies, Squirrel. It’s how you get them that interests us. You two look like you’ve seen a lot of action. What’s your story?” He asked it as if he expected an answer right that minute.
“We came from Eastown,” Criver explained. “This is Sergeant Cheryl Dennis, U.S. Army. We’re friendlies.”
The gray-bearded man’s eyes widened a bit. He might have been intrigued at hearing that an army veteran had arrived. Then he straightened up. “All right, Squirrel, let’s have that pistol lowered first and we’ll make nice and do likewise.”
Criver nodded. “Sure, sure.” Cheryl obeyed. The two men did the same.
“You can understand we’re a little jittery, Squirrel,” the man with the gray beard said. �
��We just don’t run into people off the street anymore. You never know what they’re thinking.”
“I know what you mean.” Criver holstered his firearm. “I’m Thomas Criver.”
The man walked forward and shook Criver’s and Cheryl’s hands. “Obadiah Stone. This here’s Hernando Ramirez.” Stone’s companion, a shorter, younger man with a small white beard, nodded.
“We’re Indiana boys, or at least we were. We had to flee down South after the blast hit. Picked up some survivors.” He nodded to the pharmacy behind them. “We’re kind of like a tribe now.”
“We?” Criver looked around Ramirez’s shoulder.
Sure enough, a small gaggle of survivors lurked behind the cracked glass panes. They were a mix of ages, some maybe Criver’s age, some a little older, and a few children. Some of them smiled, others hung back, but they all had the same haunted look – haunted and hunted. They had to have fled from all kinds of hell to have survived the riots, the food storages, and the breakdown of society.
Stone looked at the carts, then at the packs on Criver’s and Cheryl’s backs. “I don’t mean to impose, but it looks like you two are well-packed. We’ve got quite a few ladies and kids with us and we’re short on medicine.”
Criver gripped his cart’s handle. “Tell us what you need.”
Stone shared with Criver and Cheryl a rundown of their needs. They agreed to share whatever they found in the mall. Cheryl gave up some of her medicinal plants she found in the forest—she always could find more, and it was clear many of these people didn’t possess half of her survival know-how.
Cheryl and Criver also shared some of Cheryl’s canned foods with the survivors. The food helped brighten spirits among Stone’s “tribe,” from whom Criver started picking up stories. Almost all of them were from northern states, and quite a few of them barely escaped the societal collapse of the big cities. There were also no intact families. The horrors of the pulse had winnowed down parents, relatives or guardians, with the survivors pooling together under Stone’s direction.