I nod and go to stand by Fluffy. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open and her tongue lolling out. She’s still, yet I still expect and hope that she’ll move—but of course she doesn’t. When I place my hand on her side, she’s still warm, her fur soft under my hand. I swallow before speaking, feeling sad and uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, aware that Stormy and Achillies are in the room listening to my every word. “You were a good dog. You’ll be missed.” I clear my throat, my gaze shifting down to Achillies, who is still watching me with a sad expression on his face. He whines again. “I didn’t know you long, but I’m grateful that I got to meet you, Fluffy. Thanks for being—” I stumble on my words, not sure what to say. “Thanks for being awesome.”
Stormy comes to stand by my side, and Achillies sits up. “You should hug her,” she says softly. “I bet her spirit would like that.” She smiles. “And Achillies, he’d like that too, wouldn’t you, boy?”
I look at Achillies again. His ears are pricked up as he listens to us talking. “Oh, yeah, sure,” I reply.
“Be careful of her bandages, they’re still wet with blood,” she says sadly, avoiding my gaze.
I feel like I have no other choice, so I nod and lean over, awkwardly pressing my cheek to the soft fur near Fluffy’s back end. I hear the door open and Phil walks back in. He smiles at seeing me hugging Fluffy, and then his smile grows even wider when Fluffy lets out a noxious fart that has me jumping back in surprise and gagging as the stench fills my nostrils. I look at Fluffy’s face, watching as her eyes open and she groggily pulls her tongue back into her mouth.
“She’s not dead?” I ask, waving a hand in front of my face to get the stench of fart away from me.
“No,” Stormy laughs, “as if I’d let Achillies’s girl die. She’s just recovering.” Stormy pats me on the back and Achillies jumps up at the table and begins licking at Fluffy’s face again. “She’ll be fine after some rest. The bite wasn’t too deep when I got down to it.”
“But you let me think…” I let my words trail off, knowing that it doesn’t really matter. Hell, I probably would have done the same thing.
I can’t even pretend to be mad, because I’m just so happy that Fluffy isn’t dead. I’m just so damn happy to see Achillies and Fluffy licking at each other, happy that they’ve both survived another day, together.
I take a step back from the table as Fluffy lets out another fart, my gaze going to Phil. “I thought she was dead,” I say to him.
He laughs and pushes his glasses up his nose. “Yeah, I figured that when I walked in and you were hugging her backside.” He laughs again. “It’s never a good idea to be at her back end, dude.” He strokes her fur gently and she quits her kissing of Achillies’s snout and looks over at Phil, her long tail making a slow thump thump on the table.
“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I say, smiling. And for the first time in several days, the smile feels real, not the fake show that you put on for others to make them quit asking questions. I’m genuinely happy for Phil and Achillies and Fluffy.
They’ve made it through another day, another drama. We don’t all get that second chance, and it makes me realize that we should be taking life by both hands and holding it close to us, not pushing everything good away.
Life is for living. And sometimes our life isn’t very long, but we have to live it as best we can, while we can.
That’s what Nina did. She loved and helped, and gave and survived, until she couldn’t. But if I knew anything about Nina it was that she wouldn’t regret a single second of what she did. She never did anything by half measures; she was an all-or-nothing girl. That’s just how she worked. That was one of the reasons I loved her so much. But it was also one of the reasons she ended up dead.
I’m still not ready to forgive her for sacrificing her life for ours, but I understand it, and I can respect her for it. And I won’t let it be for nothing.
I’ll find Adam, no matter what the cost, and I’ll make her proud. I’ll live this life, this second chance that she gave me. I won’t let it all go to waste.
I walk out of the doctor’s room and back out into the street and keep walking, needing to clear my head. I walk the outskirts of the entire community, getting a real outline of this place in my head. I pass other members of the community, and each one waves a hello and offers me a smile. Each one of them is happy to have me here, happy to have another fighter, another protector. Because that’s what this group is. We are all protectors of each other.
And the best part is that this community knows my bullshit and is still ready to stand by my side. They aren’t frightened of facing the Forgotten, if that’s what it takes, and they will support me no matter what. For the first time in my life I feel fully accepted—not just for the good things, but for my faults also. It’s a good feeling. Especially after feeling so many bad things for so long.
“Hey Mikey.”
I turn to see O’Donnell standing on the front stoop of her house. She’s leaning against the front porch and smiling at me. Her jacket is off and her hair is down. She looks so much like Nina that it takes my breath away.
“What?” I ask as I walk over to her. I climb the three steps so that we are both standing on the porch together, and she smiles again.
O’Donnell takes my hand. “Come on,” she says, and begins to pull me inside her house.
She looks back over her shoulder, and I know I should say no, that I should tell her that my heart is broken and I don’t think it will ever be fixed enough to allow anyone else into it. That I don’t really ever want it to be fixed, because I don’t want to ever get over Nina. But that I want to live and make this life mean something. I want to do something good with whatever time I have left here.
And more than anything, I want to hold onto this happy feeling for a little longer. Because after feeling so full of anger and hate and resentment for so long, I had been worried that I would never find my way back out of that blackness.
Yet now here I am, smiling like I don’t have a care in the fucking world. I need to go and see Joan, to fill her in on everything that happened today, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not right now. She can wait.
I’d like to say that it’s the stress of the past week or the high of my current emotions that makes me follow O’Donnell inside. But it isn’t. Or maybe it is and I just don’t know it. Either way, I should say something to her and walk away, but I don’t. Instead I follow her inside and let the door shut behind me. I glance back behind us as I click the lock on the door, seeing Ricky standing across the road and glaring at us. And then I turn away and let O’Donnell lead me up the stairs to her bedroom.
Chapter Fifteen
I wake to the early evening moonlight on my face. The curtains are still open, the window cracked just enough to let in a cool breeze. I can almost imagine that life is perfect—that this world never crumbled and that death never ventured upon my heart.
O’Donnell murmurs something and presses her body tighter against my side and I flinch, guilt creeping in on me. I blink against the sleep that’s trying to pull me back under, and I look down at the mess of dark hair that’s fanned out over my arm. My heart stutters in my chest for a split second until I realize that this isn’t Nina, and I work to calm myself back down. Betrayal washes over me, and the good feeling I had earlier is gone.
“Did you just see a ghost?” O’Donnell mumbles, her voice thick with sleep. “Your heart is pounding in my ear.”
“I need to go,” I say, pulling my arm from under her head. I sit on the edge of the bed and try to ignore the hatred I’m feeling for myself for what I just did. It won’t do any good, but I can’t stop it.
“Don’t go, not yet,” she says from behind me, her hand snaking around my waist.
“I need to,” I reply, my tone as foreboding as my current mood.
She lets go of me, as if touching me burns her fingertips.
The room is fairly dark, but not so much
that I can’t see the hurt expression on O’Donnell’s face when I turn back to look at her. Her eyes shine in the darkness, and she quickly sits up and pulls the covers tight around her body.
“Fine, go,” she says, looking away from me.
I reach down and grab my balled-up T-shirt from the foot of the bed. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s not like that,” I promise as I pull the T-shirt over my head despite already being far too hot and sweaty as it is.
She lets out a dry laugh. “Sure, whatever.”
“Seriously, it’s not,” I continue.
She looks at me, the hurt still there but anger bubbling below the surface, so I decide to come clean with her, lest I end up getting my ass kicked by her.
“I lost someone recently.” I look down at my feet. “Really recently, in fact. Like, just before I came to Haven. I like you, I do,” I say, looking back at her and reaching out tentatively. I expect her to slap my hand away, but she doesn’t. “I love her. Loved her,” I correct firmly. “She gave her life for me, to help me and Joan and Adam.”
“The little kid you’re trying to find?”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “Yeah, him. I didn’t mean to lead you on or anything.” I stroke my fingers down her arm and she shivers at my touch, her eyes meeting mine. “I really didn’t. The pain,” I say, clutching a hand to my chest as if I could reach in and grab my own heart and squeeze every inch of love out of it to stop it from hurting me any more. “It hurts so much, O’Donnell. She was everything to me.”
“She’s gone now,” she whispers, her voice soft. “You can’t be alone forever, Mikey.”
I let out a quiet, dry laugh, because as far as I can believe, this will hurt forever. I can’t imagine this pain not being here anymore. Every day it becomes more and more embedded in my skin. “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but it’s barely been a week. That’s just downright disrespectful to her memory, don’t you think?” I bite down on my bottom lip. The more I think about it, the more disgusted I am with myself. “What kind of man does that make me?”
“Then why bother even coming to my room?” O’Donnell takes my hand in hers and I look up at her. “Because you wanted to forget her,” she says, answering her own question. “You wanted to move on.”
I pull my hand from hers and shake my head, my words coming out forceful. “No. I just wanted to forget it all. Not her, but everything.”
The hurt look is back on her face. “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have come on so strong.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say with a shake of my head. “I’m all fucked up inside, and with Adam being out there, somewhere all alone,” I shake my head again, the words catching in my throat, “it’s fucking me up even more. I promised her I’d look after him, that I’d keep him safe. I’ve let her down if I don’t find him.”
We lapse into silence, both of us trying to control our raging emotions.
“So we’ll find him, Mikey,” she says, giving my hand a soft squeeze. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll set back out and we’ll find him. Ricky saw something, at the edge of the field.”
I look back up at her. “What was it?”
She shrugs. “It was a shoe.”
I let her words sink in for a moment, the image of one of Adam’s shoes at the edge of that field—a clue as to which way he’d gone staring me right in the face, and me going in the opposite direction.
“Why did no one say anything?” I ask, feeling sick to my stomach.
“He wanted to check out the house and barn, check for supplies, and for the kid, of course.” She looks away from me, guilt flushing her features. “I should have said earlier, I’m sorry. I thought we’d go into the field once we’d checked out everywhere else. I didn’t see it as a big deal.”
But I know she’s lying. She knows exactly how big of a deal it is by the fact that she can’t hold my stare. But now isn’t the time to get angry. It is what it is. We’ve both done things we aren’t proud of in the last twenty-four hours.
I let go of her hand and stand up, reaching down to pick up my socks and boots. “I’ll see you in the morning, O’Donnell.”
She nods and forces a smile. “Yeah, I’ll see you in the morning.”
I walk to the bedroom door and open it, and I look back at her as she calls my name.
“Mikey, don’t beat yourself up too much, okay?” she says.
I don’t reply. Instead I walk out of the room and head down the stairs, listening as she speaks once more.
“A little sin of the flesh isn’t hurtful if you intend to follow it through,” she calls, grasping at proverbial straws.
I unlock the door and let myself out before clicking the door closed, and then as an afterthought I open it up again and shout up to her, “Lock the door behind me.”
I shut the door again and jog down the small porch steps. I have no clue what time it is, but I know I’m not tired. I need to walk, to jog, to fucking do something to expel the anxious feeling running through my blood.
I walk around the entirety of Haven three times over before I feel like I can settle, and I head back to Phil’s. He’s lying across the swing on his porch with one leg dangling, smoking and staring up at the stars. By the smell that’s hanging around him, I reckon he’s at least five drinks deep and two joints gone. He looks over at me as I climb the steps.
“Hey,” I say, sitting down on the steps.
“Hey, dude.”
“How’s she doing?” I ask, thinking of Fluffy.
He smiles. “She’ll be all right. She’s a tough thing. Women always are, though, don’t you think?”
I think of Nina and nod in agreement. “Yeah.”
“I mean, if I was ever in a fight, I’d always want a woman on my team, ya know? They can separate the good from the bad a lot easier than we can.” He reaches down and picks up a small bottle of liquid, and takes a swig before handing me the bottle. I take it without hesitation, glad to have the burn of alcohol in my gut.
“Women complicate things,” I say, handing him back the bottle.
Phil laughs. “Yeah, they do that.”
He drops the end of his joint to the porch and stands on it with the leg that’s dangling down, stubbing it out, and then he uses the same leg to swing himself gently. The porch swing squeaks softly on every third swing, piercing the silence of the night like a whistle. Phil’s blue Hawaiian shirt is hanging off the bench like his leg, and it swings back and forth. I turn away and from out of the dark I watch Aimee walk across to us. She waves hello as she gets closer, and Phil sits upright, allowing some space for her to sit.
She passes me, giving me a brief smile as she goes to sit by Phil.
“Hey, darlin’.” He cups a hand around the back of her head and leans in, kissing her deeply, and I look away, feeling awkward as the kiss extends into something with more intent than a quick kiss on the lips.
“Hey, you,” she returns when they finally come up for air.
“Anything happening out there tonight?” Phil asks her, and she shakes her head no and yawns. “It’s funny, don’t you think, how we ask about each other’s days, adjusting from ‘how was work’ to ‘any zeds out there making noise?’”
“Yeah,” I answer, agreeing with him. “How did this become the norm?”
Phil shrugs. “It’s a fucked-up world, dude. But I think we’re doing all right. We’re all getting by and making peace with our fellow man.”
“You two are going to make me gag,” Aimee interrupts. “It’s a fucked-up world, let’s just get on with it already and not read too much into the situation. Feel like heading over to my place?” she asks Phil.
“Always,” he replies, and they stand up together.
I move over so they can both pass me on the steps, and Phil looks back over his shoulder. “What did I tell you about strong women?” He grins. “They’ll rule the damn world one day.”
“More than likely,” I reply.
“Catch you on the flip side, dude. And hey, Mikey,
we’ll find the kid tomorrow.” Phil drapes an arm across the top of Aimee’s shoulders and they walk away.
I watch them until even their shadows disappear into the black of the night, and then I put my head into my hands and let my guilt and worry swallow me whole for five full minutes before I pull my shit together.
Adam is out there, somewhere. Probably frightened, possibly dead, or undead. God, I can’t handle that—the thought of him walking around as a deader for the rest of his eternal life. That’s no way for anyone to live, never mind a damned kid. He doesn’t deserve that. No one does, but especially not a kid. But then on the flip side there’s the thought that he had already survived this long, and mostly alone. There’s a huge chance that he’s okay, that he’s hunkered down somewhere and getting on with surviving, like he’d been doing well enough until we came along and took him away from his little safe spot in hell.
The fact that we didn’t find him today doesn’t mean anything either way—not really. I tell myself that lie to help myself breathe a little easier, and then I stand up and go inside the house before heading up to bed. The smell of Phil’s critters has soaked into the walls of this house, and I can’t blame Aimee for not wanting to live with him, or this smell. Yet I’m definitely getting used to it—well, at least after the initial slap in the face from the smell each time I come home.
Home.
No, not home. This place isn’t home. At least not yet. It’s a place to put my head down. To close my eyes and hope that tomorrow will be a better day. A safer day. A day without death. A day with food. And safety. And all the other things that come with living. Things we previously took for granted, but now they’re our bread and butter, the balm to our broken souls.
God, if I could just go back and live one more week before all this happened…hell, even one more day, I would never fucking let go of it. A day of walking down the street without carrying a gun or a hatchet or a knife. Or turning a tap on and fresh, clean water coming out of it.
Odium IV: The Dead Saga Page 12