by Shelly Crane
"Mmhmm," she answered and people watched as I had done.
I pulled her face to look at me with a hand on her cheek. She looked up at me, her big brown eyes so trusting and waiting and honest. It took me back to another time and I grimaced a little. She frowned.
"Am I doing something wrong?"
"No. I was just…thinking." I cleared my throat. "Listen. Don't worry about all of these people, ok?" I glanced around to make my point. "We're here to save our family. These people can't be saved, ok?"
She nodded. "I already got the Don’t be the hero talk from Merrick." She smiled a little. "Am I that glaringly transparent?"
"Absolutely." I grinned, too.
"Look at them," she said sadly and watched a man and his wife enter the doors. They looked like neatly dressed zombies. "Can you imagine living like that? Just a sheep, a follower of something you didn't even understand or know about?"
"Or being aware of everything and having to witness it all and not be able to do a daggum thing about it," I countered.
"I don't know which one's worse."
"I do," I said. She looked a little quivery lipped so I kissed her forehead and wrapped her up in my arms. "In this case, ignorance is not bliss. They're miserable, they just don't know it."
"Yeah," she replied softly against my chest and sighed. "But they aren't hungry."
"True, sweetheart. True." I leaned back. "You ready to rectify that?"
She nodded and let me take her hand again. We reached the Enforcer guarding the entrance and I knew it had begun. No turning back.
We had arrived at the Lion's den.
"Ears!" she yelled loudly, and for a second, I had no idea what she was talking about. Until Sherry pulled her hair back to show that she wasn't a Keeper. Oh, yeah. That's right. I did the same and she waved us on with the disdain of any customer service employee.
The next one jerked Sherry's arm and said, "Smile for the camera."
She jerked her head to the monitor and told us to flash our IDs at it. We did and she pushed us right along.
It was exactly like it sounded. It was a big warehouse and they carried out baskets or buckets - most people had rectangle laundry baskets - and proceeded down the line. The attendant put one of her items in your basket for how many people you had, except for one thing. We didn't have a basket. We should've known to bring a basket if we were coming to the Need Warehouse. Crap.
One of the attendants saw us looking lost. She charged us with a frown that reached her black rooted temple. "Where's you basket?"
Sherry burst right into loud, girly tears. I gawked at her, but when I turned to see the attendant, she had softened like melted butter. "Oh, honey. Now what is it?"
"I'm pregnant!" Sherry blurted and hugged me around my waist. "It was my fault. I forgot the basket! I forget everything now. I'm so…" sniff, "forgetful."
"Oh, honey," the lady repeated. "You wait right there."
She ran to the wall opposite us. I looked down at Sherry. She winked through her pout. It took all of my strength not to laugh or smile. The woman brought us a basket and whispered, "You're not supposed to receive any food without a basket." She took a marker out of her pocket and marked "Wanda" on the side. "There. You tell them Wanda said it was all right this once."
"Thank you so much." Sherry sniffed again. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't you worry about it." She smiled at us as we began to walk away. And then, "Oh, miss?" We froze and turned. "Since you're pregnant, you get an extra ration. Remember to tell the attendants that you're pregnant."
We nodded and waited in line.
"An extra ration," Sherry mumbled. "Great. All of our problems are solved!"
"Hey, now, ho hum. We'll take what we can get. Especially considering that you're freaking awesome!" I spoke in her ear from behind. "You played her like a fiddle."
"I panicked," she said like an apology.
"You panicked good."
She smiled and then it was our turn. "I'm…I'm pregnant," she blurted out again. The lady rolled her eyes and smacked her gum as she shoved three cans of tuna into our box. I felt a little of my smile melt away. Crap, Sherry was right. It was something, but three cans of tuna would feed three people. And we had over twenty at the bunker waiting for us to put something other than rice and beans in their bellies. We needed to do something, anything.
I followed Sherry closely in line, listening to her say over and over again that she was pregnant, though I knew that would never be. I tried to think of a plan. She shopped and I plotted.
It was eerie and started the thinking process for sure. The fluorescent lights were so dark, they were almost blue in tint. The radio above was playing some crackly version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire and the windows above were so coated in algae and condensation that it was impossible to see or let light in. It was like they were purposely trying to set some depressing mood on everyone.
We went to our next attendant. Her apron was dirty and her nametag said Buffy. She caught me staring at her nametag and must've thought my gaze was directed elsewhere…in that general vicinity. She grinned, showing a golden side tooth and a Come Hither sway to her neck began as she nodded toward a door to the side. I imagined it was a closet.
I gasped loudly and put my arms around Sherry. "And in front of my wife!" I scoffed and pushed Sherry along the line. "I'm a happily married man!" I yelled over my shoulder and then tried to hold in my laughter. She flustered and covered her mouth, looking around to see if anyone else had seen. No one was paying attention to us which made it even funnier to me. I pressed my mouth into Sherry's shoulder from behind and smothered my chuckle.
She chuckled, too, and shook her head at me. "Poor girl never stood a chance."
"What do you mean?" I said, still laughing.
"You have this…" she thought and moved her hand in the air, "thing about you, Cain. You're catnip."
I choked on the air I was laughing with. "Catnip?"
"Yeah. Catnip." She grinned at my grin. "Smirking catnip."
I laughed out loud at that. "Oh, boy. Let's get out of here before you get us into trouble."
"Well, my middle name is trouble," she mumbled sarcastically.
"Actually, you're middle name is sarcasm."
"Ha. Ha. Ha. I forgot. Trouble is my first name."
I smiled at her. She was in a better mood at least.
I hoisted our box at the end, and honestly, I wasn't impressed with the weight of it. Also we took the smaller box of 'necessities' they gave us. It contained toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo and soaps of all variety for the household. They literally gave you what you needed to survive the week and nothing else.
The thought just rammed into my brain out of nowhere.
I was certain the Lighters and their dead prince had stashed a nice amount of food for him. I was sure of it. And now he was dead. I wondered if the Mayor's mansion had been abandoned. I remembered Josh talking about the pantry when he was doing his search for Lily and Calvin that time. It was huge and full of food. Now it could be completely bare, but I was willing to risk it to take a peek and hope for the jackpot.
I slipped my arm around Sherry's shoulder while one-arming the box against my hip and tried to think of a way to keep her from freaking or whatever. I didn't want her to get hurt, but we had to do something.
I took her to the Jeep and put the box in the back. Ugh, we didn't even have a whole lot of room for much. A few boxes more and we'd be all full up. I beat my fist on the back door and groaned at the sting. It all just seemed so hopeless. We were just biding time until there was no more time to steal. We could only go one so long until the food ran out.
I was scrubbing my head with my hands and biting my lip ring when a conversion van screeched into the parking lot. It swung around and fishtailed until the back door was pointed toward the warehouse entrance.
I could only stare at first as three men piled out of the back, their faces covered with bandanas…and they opened fire on any
one who was between them and the food inside.
Taste Buds
Chapter 14
Ryan
The room was too hot. I rubbed my eyes and rolled over…only to find that I wasn't alone in my 'tent'. I didn't need to squint in the dark to see it was Ellie. I sighed.
We had not done anything since that day that I kissed her. Nothing in the way of 'us' anyway. We'd all been too busy. When we were together, there were twenty people in the room with us. It was bad timing for someone who might want to say something to another person.
Like say…that he wanted to kiss her again just to taste her. That he wanted to kiss her so hard that she clung to him for mercy. I didn't have any idea where the thoughts were coming from, I just knew that she was precious to me. Like a charge was for me, but more than that. And I wasn't really sure…what to do with her. Or if she even wanted me to think about her that way. So I kept my mouth shut and so had she.
But the looks across the room were unavoidable. If I caught her looking at me, then she knew I was looking, too, and vice versa. So why were we tip toeing?
"Ellie?" I asked, my voice hoarse from sleep.
She whispered, "Please say it's ok if I just lay here."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. I just…miss you. And my bed is right by the elevator and I don’t like it."
"Uh, sure," I told her, hating the gruff grate of my voice.
She lay down again. The only part of us that was touching was our knees as we lay on our sides facing each other. I could see her, but there was no way she could see me. I studied her face. She was so young. I knew my body was young, but I felt old inside.
I looked at her porcelain face, so pale, but in a way that made her features stand out and be beautiful. Her long dark hair, a curtain that worked perfectly for the shy girl. Her neck was smooth and… I felt my throat tighten. The notion that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in that human's head about me was infuriating.
She could have made any manner of conclusions, all of them wrong. Or all of them right and maybe that's why she kept her distance this past week.
The brushing of the sleeping bag I was laying on made me pause. She was leaning up and sitting on her legs. "You can see me in the dark, can't you?"
"Yes."
She nodded and seemed disappointed. With me? With my ability? I sighed in frustration some more.
"What?" she asked and squinted, hearing my displeased grunt.
"I just…don't understand you." Her face took on this fallen look that made me feel like a jerk. Was my statement offensive? "I mean that I just don't know…what you want from me."
Again that look, but worse. She rolled over and her breathing accelerated. Then she was up and out of my tent before I could even say anything else.
What just happened?
I lay there and tried not to listen to the sounds of everyone else awake on the other side of the warehouse. I wasn't in a mood for people right then, except maybe for Ellie. Though it was exhausting to be around her, and not know what was really going on, I enjoyed her company. I enjoyed her shy smiles and the way she seemed completely lost one second and then completely sure the next.
Ellie, my conundrum.
I wondered if it was prudent or dutiful to go after her. But if she left, she wouldn't want me to follow, would she? Unless she was a woman that wanted to be chased.
I sat up in the dark and gripped my hair in frustration. I was such an idiot! Of course she wanted to be chased! All human females had this need to feel wanted and needed. I'd snubbed Ellie with my own self consciousness without even meaning to. She thought I didn't want her, that I had rejected her, when in my cowardice, I was asking her the same thing.
Did I want her? Was the electricity that ran through my veins at the notice of her in the room enough to warrant that? Was it the fact that when I first met her, and she clung to me so violently, she needed me in a way that no one else ever had? She had chosen me to be her guardian that day. And all the silliness in between now and then was trivial. Was I in love like Merrick or Jeffrey? No. But could I see the potential within myself to be?
I got up from my pallet and made my mind up. Even if she refused me, at least we’d both know where we stood. I pushed my sheet curtain aside and made my way through all the pallets and boxes.
I found her speaking with Miguel. She was crying and he patted her back as they stood close. Some strange fire burned through my chest at the sight of them. I cocked my head to the side and felt my eyes narrow in a glare. Miguel looked up and caught my gaze. His eyebrows jumped and he nodded to me. He said something to Ellie and patted her back once more before nodding my way.
She turned. Embarrassed, red eyes met mine. I felt like the worst kind of scum. I made a swift path to her and looked around before grabbing her arm and pulling her into the designated bathing area. Her lips were thin and she let me pull her easily. Her face held this little defiant tilt that told me she was willing to fight if need be, but her willingness to come with me belied that.
"What?" she asked in a hard voice. One I'd never heard before.
Was it true anger or passion?
"Why did you run out? Why are you crying?"
She wrenched her arm away from me. "I don't need to stay where I'm not wanted."
"What makes you think I don't want you?"
She scowled and repeated my earlier words back to me. "I don't understand you. I don't know what you want from me."
"Those are valid questions," I said, but hurriedly added, "It's not all right for me to wonder about you?"
"That didn't sound like wonder," she muttered. "It's sounded like contempt."
"I'm not a human," I told her bluntly and blasted all of my worries at her. "Do you understand that? I'm not human. I'm thousands of years old, stuck here in a body that doesn't belong to me. You're in love with this face, not me."
"Not your face," she whispered and looked up at me. "When you held me in the van, I couldn’t see your face. It was you."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just continued on with the truth. "There's a place that Keepers go. The After. The closest human word to describe it is paradise, but it's so much more than that. Merrick and Jeff, they know they'll never see the After and they're fine with it. I'm…not all right with it. If I were to…fall in love with you, it'd make me want to stay." I looked her straight in the eye and said as clearly as I could. "The After is all I've ever wanted and when this is over, I will be going there. It doesn't matter what I feel."
Her chest started to shake with little sobs that I couldn't stand to hear, but she had to see that I wasn't capable of giving her what she wanted, not matter how much this body wanted it. "Don't make the mistake of falling for this body, because the person inside it is gone and soon, I will be, too. I'm sorry-"
She pushed away from me. "Why are you saying all of this? I never asked you to give up your paradise and stay here with me."
"But you did," I countered. "When you kissed me-"
"You kissed me!" she said and glared.
"All right, yes, I kissed you. The way you were looking at me-"
"You kissed me and I get blamed? And that suddenly means that we're going to get married or something?" She laughed humorlessly. "Wow, you're so arrogant."
"It's not arrogance, it's knowledge. I've watched women for years."
"Apparently not the right ones."
"I won't budge on this, Ellie. I like you a lot and I don't want to see you hurt, especially not by me. That's why this has to stop now. As much as I may want…
something more."
She reached her hand up. At first I thought she might slap me, but she touched my scruffy cheek. She smiled sadly. "I'm just sorry that you're not the man I thought you were."
"I'm not a man," I couldn’t stop myself from saying.
She let her hand slide from my face and turned as she said, "I can see that."
Well, I got my way. She was officially knowledgea
ble about my status on this earth and she walked away from me with grace.
So why did I feel like someone had kicked me in the guts?
Supper was served up by Marissa and Ann. Rice and beans. It was beginning to be a running joke. Ellie kept her distance and kept quiet, too. I tried not to feel guilty for what I had said, sparing her seemed the best thing for her. But looking at her now…was it? She looked silently miserable and even though it hurt, it also was a eye opener. She was upset about me which made my stupid human heart beat for different reasons other than keeping me alive.
So it seemed that my little chat to talk her out of falling for me was making me fall for her.
I tried to ignore her by filling my routine with Calvin and Frank. Frank was still slow moving around with Calvin practically his indentured servant. I remembered actual indentured servants. Calvin was a pretty good one, but Frank was a horrible master. I smiled at them as they played cards.
"Uhuh, it's twenty one, not three card poker! Keep up, man!" Calvin complained at Frank dealing.
"Right. Ok, ready to get spanked?" he said as he re-dealt.
"Ha! Bro, they totally don't say 'spanked' anymore."
"Who doesn't?"
"Anybody!" Calvin said and laughed. "At least not the cool peeps."
"No one says 'peeps' anymore, I bet," Frank rebutted sullenly.
"I'll let you have that one 'cause you're cripple. Deal, man."
He flung the card across the small table at him. "I'm not a cripple! It's just my wrist." He looked down and grinned. "Wicked scar, right?"
"It's sick, dude."Calvin leaned back in his chair all cool like. "If there were chicks here, they'd be impressed."
I shook my head as I tried to keep up with them.
"Can I join you?" I asked.
"Sure, Ry. Color the man up, Franky."
I asked quickly, "What does that mean?"
"It means it don't matter 'cause we got no money anyway," Frank explained….sort of. "Quit trying to be cool and show your cards, C."
He threw down a king and a nine. "Booyah!" He yelled.