by Bryan Smith
“I guess,” Aubrey said, shrugging. “Anyway, I’m not too interested in heading back to the road.”
Nick nodded, glancing at Noah and Linda. “What about y’all? Here or back to the road?”
Noah shrugged. “Here’s fine. We ought to get into one of those houses while we’ve still got a little light left.”
Linda indicated agreement with a nod.
With the matter settled, they resumed walking. Some of the houses they checked out were in a state of disrepair too advanced for safe habitation. Another one was notably better preserved than the rest, but it was so well boarded-up that getting into it would have required more work than any of them felt up to after a long day of fleeing dead things.
At last, however, a house in reasonable condition was located. Like its neighbors, it appeared empty. Getting in was easy. The last person to leave the house had firmly closed the front door, but it was not locked. A careful search of the interior verified that it wasn’t occupied. Soon everyone was shedding their packs and scouting about for a place to crash for the night. There were two bedrooms, a larger one with a perfectly made queen-sized bed and a smaller one with a twin bed that had obviously been a child’s room. This was evident in the Disney posters tacked to the walls.
Nick and Aubrey took the bigger room, while Noah did the gentlemanly thing by encouraging Linda to take the smaller room. The living room had a comfortable-looking couch. He stretched out on it as the others went off to their rooms for the night. For a while, he stared up at the dark ceiling and thought about all that had happened during that long and terrifying day.
Before long, though, these thoughts turned fuzzy and his eyes began to close. He was asleep within minutes of lying down.
30.
Noah’s eyes snapped open when he felt the light touch of cool fingers sliding up the length of his forearm. His head was still a little groggy from sleep, though he sensed he hadn’t been out long. If he’d been in a deeper slumber, he might not have reacted to the touch at all. At first he was afraid and disoriented. The darkness didn’t help matters. It took him a few moments to remember where he was and what he was doing there. A dim instinct—some old muscle memory from his pre-apocalypse life—made him grope for a lamp switch that wasn’t there.
From somewhere above him, someone made a shushing sound and lightly stroked his forearm again. Initially, this only deepened his confusion, but then he realized there was a note of the familiar in the sound. In a few more seconds, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and the shape above him came into faint focus.
He opened his mouth to say something.
But then her face dipped toward his and in another moment she was kissing him. Noah did not immediately respond in kind. His body went rigid as conflicting emotions swirled within him. Letting Linda kiss him was an act of disloyalty. His heart belonged to Lisa Thomas. The flip side of that was that the idea of his heart belonging to someone he hadn’t seen in seven years was ridiculous, a thought that triggered guilt as he pictured Lisa’s face in his head. But the thought was there and it wasn’t going away any time soon. Even so, he was nowhere near ready to admit it out loud.
As she kissed him, he felt the places on her mouth that had been penetrated by the old man’s sewing needle. They were these tiny nubs of still-healing flesh. As he dwelled on the sensation, it occurred to Noah what an act of courage this advance was on Linda’s part. After all she had endured, it would have been unsurprising if she’d opted to avoid intimacy with men for the rest of her life.
Noah began to kiss her back. Her fervency increased in response. Shortly thereafter her hand went to the growing bulge at the crotch of his jeans. He moaned into her mouth when she gave it a squeeze.
He started to say something when her mouth came away from his. She pressed a finger against his lips and shook her head. After giving his crotch one more gasp-inducing squeeze, she got up from her kneeling position next to the couch and extended a hand.
Noah took her hand after a slight hesitation, allowing her to pull him to his feet. She led him out of the living room and down a dark hallway to the former child’s room. The tread of his boots on the hallway’s hardwood floor made him cringe. He was walking as lightly as he could, but the sound still seemed huge to his ears. All he could think about was Aubrey and Nick hearing the sound from the other bedroom and immediately deducing what it meant. This caused a reflexive embarrassment, but then he wondered why he should care. He was a grown man accompanying a grown woman to bed. There was nothing to be embarrassed about.
Once they were inside the little room, Linda told him to sit on the edge of the twin bed. The window blind was open, letting in a soft glow of moonlight, which was more than enough illumination. Noah did as instructed and watched as she pulled off her shirt. In the faint light, it was almost possible to imagine the fading bruises left by the many beatings she’d taken weren’t there at all. But he could see the lovely shape of her slender body well enough as she removed the rest of her garments. She was entirely nude within moments and he still hadn’t removed a stitch of clothing.
Linda pressed him backward onto the bed, kissing him again as she angled her bare thigh between his legs and pressed it against his erection. By then there were no conscious thoughts of Lisa in Noah’s head. All he could think about was how nice this woman’s naked body felt slowly writhing away atop him. It’d been so long since he’d last experienced this feeling that he’d almost forgotten how incredible it was.
He broke the kiss and let out a breath. “I haven’t had sex in seven years.”
She kissed him again. “So let’s make this memorable.”
Noah had nothing further to say after that. The foreplay went on a while longer and then Linda began to help him out of his clothes. When she pulled off his pants and tossed them on the floor, his throbbing erection stood up like an exclamation mark. When she mounted him and guided that hardness into her exquisitely moist center, he cried out in something like relief.
This undoubtedly had a lot to do with all those sexless years that had gone by, but mostly it was all about Linda. He was absolutely captivated by the slow, rhythmic movement of her body. He loved the shape of it and the way her skin felt as his fingers roved over it. She winced a time or two as he probed areas still tender from the beatings. More than once he had to force himself to be gentler with her than he wanted. The longer it went on, the greater the urge became to turn her over and really ram it into her. She sensed this and told him it wasn’t an option. She was on top because it was all she could handle in her condition. Noah understood this and suppressed the urge. And any frustration he felt was soon wiped away as she did some things to distract him. This included varying her rhythm and shifting the position of her body in a way that at first seemed subtle but resulted in a significant increase in ecstatic sensation. As she pushed him relentlessly to the brink of orgasm, he understood he was being expertly manipulated by a woman far more experienced than the girls he’d fucked in his teen years. In particular, it exceeded his memories of sex with Lisa in every way. He didn’t even feel bad thinking that. It was just undeniable.
When it was over, she gingerly curled herself around him as he was still gasping for breath. After he’d recovered somewhat, he tilted his head and saw her smiling in the moonlight. He touched her hair and slowly ran his fingers through it, a thing he often did in those long ago post-coital interludes with Lisa. Lisa’s hair had been long and lush and incredibly soft to the touch. Linda’s hair was coarser, but the comparison was hardly a fair one. She didn’t have the luxury of showering on a regular basis. Years had passed since conditioner had last touched these locks. But brushing his fingers through them felt nice anyway. There was something soothing about it. And the way Linda snuggled closer against him suggested she felt the same way.
Linda broke a minutes-long silence with a question. “So…was it worth the wait?”
Noah smiled. “Definitely.”
Linda kissed his chest and smi
led. “Good. I’m glad.”
And that was the end of the conversation. They were both asleep within a few more minutes. For Noah, it was the longest and deepest sleep in recent memory. It was also the most untroubled. There were no dreams of Lisa, no visions of blood and decay. He did dream that night, but when he woke he could recall no images from his dreams, just a lingering sense of peace.
31.
The sun was shining through the open window blind when Noah woke that morning. It was bright enough that he had to hold a hand over his eyes to cut the glare. His instinct was to get up and close the blind, but Linda was still curled around him. Keeping his hand up to block the sun, he turned his head to study her face. Her eyes were closed. She was still asleep. Reluctant to disturb her, he shifted his body very slowly, angling it so he could comfortably turn his head far enough to avoid the direct glare of the sun.
He stayed in that position approximately another half hour. During that time, Linda stirred only slightly a few times, snuggling closer against him each time. Once he tried to kiss her awake and came close to rousing her, but she muttered the word “sleepy” and dozed off again.
When he heard Nick and Aubrey moving around somewhere else in the house, he decided it was time to get up. Snuggling with Linda was nice, but it was time to get the day started. Time to refuel with some food and resume the journey westward. But there was a more pressing need he would have to address before any of that could happen. His bladder felt full to the point of bursting. He needed to get outside and take a long piss.
As gently as he could, he disengaged himself from Linda and swung his legs over the side of the bed. After gathering up his clothes, he dressed hurriedly and left the bedroom, easing the door shut behind him.
Aubrey and Nick were sitting at a table in the kitchen. His sister was barefoot, but clad in her usual raggedy black dress. Nick was shirtless but otherwise dressed. Both were drinking from plastic water bottles and eating from bean cans. The smirks on their faces as he came into the kitchen were nearly identical.
Noah rolled his eyes as he headed for the back door. “Don’t give me any shit.”
Aubrey giggled.
Noah opened the back door and stepped out onto a small covered patio. As expected, the yard behind the house was overgrown, but there was a largish patch of ground adjacent to the patio where the grass had died. He ventured out to the edge of this area, unzipped, and groaned loudly in relief as he gave the ground a good watering.
While he urinated, he took a look around at the neighboring houses. One thing was immediately obvious. No one had lived in any of them for a very long time. A swath of destruction a ways off to the east looked like the work of a tornado. A line of houses in that direction had been reduced to rubble. Many of the houses still standing in the vicinity looked like they had also absorbed storm damage. Noah saw sagging roofs and blown-out windows. Houses closer to where they’d spent the night looked mostly intact but were obvious victims of long neglect. They had lucked out big time by happening upon a place as relatively well-preserved as this one.
He was zipping up when he heard the back door open and click shut again.
“Nice day.”
Hearing Nick’s voice didn’t surprise Noah. He’d figured the man would want a private word with him today. “Nice day. Shitty scenery.”
“Want a smoke?”
Noah shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
He had no real interest in smoking another of Nick’s stale cigarettes, but it was the sociable thing to do. After joining him on the patio, Noah accepted the pack of Camels. A pack of matches was wedged into the cellophane. Noah extracted it, struck a match, and lit up. After sliding the matchbook back inside the cellophane, he returned the pack of smokes to Nick.
For a while, they just smoked and stared out at the panorama of suburban decay in silence. Noah knew the silence was about to end when Nick glanced at him. “Something I want to talk to you about.”
Noah didn’t say anything.
“It’s more along the lines of a suggestion.”
Noah nodded. He knew what was coming. “Say what you have to say.”
“Let’s have a sit,” Nick said, nodding at some chairs on the patio.
Noah shrugged.
The canvas deck chairs were on the filthy side, but then it wasn’t exactly a clean world in general these days. Noah tipped his chair to dump out a pile of dead leaves and other detritus before sitting down.
When they were situated, Nick eyed Noah in a speculative way. “Couldn’t help hearing you two last night.”
“Sorry if we disturbed you.”
A small smile touched the corners of Nick’s mouth. “Nothing to be sorry about. Hell, I’m happy for you. But this development raises some obvious questions.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, hell, you know what I mean.” Nick shifted a little in his chair, apparently uncomfortable. He flicked away his cigarette and glared out at the yard. “The whole reason we’re walking across the damn country is so you can hook up with this girl. If she’s alive.”
Noah sighed. “And if she still wants anything to do with me. Yeah, we’ve talked about this. You know my position. You and Aubrey can always head back east if you want.”
“Aubrey still isn’t going anywhere without you. As you damn well know.” Nick shifted in the chair again, grimacing as he arched and twisted his back. “Listen, I get what’s driving you. You’re looking for something to give your life a little meaning. Perfectly understandable. But maybe you don’t have to go to all this trouble now. Maybe what you’re looking for is right under your nose.”
Noah’s cigarette had burned down to the filter. He dropped it on the patio and slumped down in his chair. “Look, I know what a gigantic fucking burden making this trip is. I don’t blame you for trying to change my mind about it. To tell you the truth, similar thoughts went through my head last night.”
Nick did his best to maintain a guarded expression, but it was easy to read a tentative relief in his eyes. “So let’s do the sensible thing here, man. Take your new woman back to the mountain and make a life there with her.”
A sweat bee buzzed around Noah’s ear, making him jerk his head away and swat at the thing. “Look, I like Linda. Last night was great. But I hardly know her. We’ve talked only a little. Aside from her name, I couldn’t tell you a thing about her. Now, you tell me, how smart is it to bet my whole future on an unknown quantity?”
The little bee was buzzing around Nick’s head now. He didn’t seem bothered by it, perhaps because he was so exasperated by Noah’s response. “That’s the thing about the future, Noah. Nothing is guaranteed. Maybe you get back to the mountain and it turns out you two don’t click in the long term. You’re too different or whatever. It’s possible. But keep this in mind. This woman is real. She’s with you right here and now. You’re a smart guy behind your bullheadedness. I think you know that’s a better deal than this total unknown you’ve got us risking our lives for. At your say-so, this is all over. We turn around and head back home. Come on, man. It’s the right thing to do.”
Noah grunted. “Home, eh?”
Nick nodded. “That’s right. Home. Back up there on the mountain, where we could all live safely the rest of our lives.”
Noah lapsed into another silence as he mulled all this over. Nick was right, obviously. Last night had changed things. Maybe not to the point where he was ready to abandon the dream of an unlikely reunion with Lisa, but the fact that any part of him was willing to entertain the notion was a significant change. And there was no denying the man had a point about the risk in pressing forward. There was no way to know what potential dangers might be lurking out there for them if they continued making their way across the country. It was possible they would encounter other survivors. Maybe even groups of them. And some of them might be even more deranged and dangerous than the old man back in Crossville.
“Let me think about it.”
Nick’s expression a
gain conveyed tentative relief, but it was a bit more pronounced now. “That’s all I ask, man. Take all the time you need.”
“I do want to give it some thought. Not promising anything yet.”
“Understood.”
The bee was back. Noah took another agitated swat at it before abruptly standing up. “If we head back, we’ll want to be well-rested before hitting the road. And I’m guessing everyone’s still a bit worn out from yesterday’s excitement. This house is a good one. I’m thinking we should take advantage of having stable shelter and spend another day here while I make up my mind.”
Nick smiled as he stood up. “Sounds good, man. I know the gals will be happy to hear it. Whatever you decide, a day off from all that walking will do us all a world of good.”
“I imagine you’re right.”
Aubrey was still sitting at the table in the kitchen when Noah came back inside. She glanced up from the book she was reading—a paperback novel she’d found somewhere in the house—and gave him an appraising look. “You boys have a good talk?”
Noah shrugged. “We agreed to stay here another day so everyone can rest while I think about some things.”
Aubrey put the book down and rose from the chair. She came to Noah and threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said, her face pressed against his chest. “I know you’ll do the right thing, Noah. I love you.”
Noah hesitated only a moment before saying, “I love you, too, Aubrey.”
They held on to each other a moment longer before breaking the embrace. Noah then excused himself to go tell Linda the news. He opened the door to their room and saw she was still curled up on the little bed. He felt a twinge of guilt at the sight. The poor thing was utterly exhausted after days of being pushed to the breaking point. He looked forward to seeing her smile when she found out she’d be getting some extended relief.
Noah went to the bed and sat on its edge, smiling as he brushed lank locks of hair from her pretty face. “Linda?”