by R. K. Weir
And find me he does. A soft thud on my stall door tells me his hand is against it, and when it doesn't swing open under his touch, there's the rumble of a laugh. "Little girl, little girl! Let me come in!"
My hand slides down my leg, into my boot where I hope to find my switchblade. But it isn't there.
"Or I'll huff!"
Where is it?
"And I'll puff!"
Then I remember I buried it in his eye socket.
"And I'll bash your head in!"
The door shudders violently, a long crack splitting down its middle. He must have thrown his whole body against it to generate so much power. Another hit or two and he'll be inside. I'm debating my options, but I must be concussed or something because my thoughts come to me far slower than they should. I have no weapons, I'm too sick to lift my head and my thoughts are delayed.
I may as well be dead already.
Just as that thought comes to me, Peter throws himself against the door again and it splits down the middle completely. The two halves cave in on top of me, along with a spray of tiny splinters. My head is still between my knees and one half of the door slams down hitting the top of my skull. I don't have the chance to push it away before it's being pulled off me and hands are gripping at my shoulders like talons, hauling me up and out of the stall.
There's a strange sense of weightlessness before I'm thrown to the floor. I manage to hold my arms out in time to catch most of the impact, to prevent my head from sustaining anymore blows. I roll over and look up at Peter. For a terrifying instant, I'm certain I must be trapped in a nightmare.
The switchblade I dug into his eye socket is gone, and so is his eye. In its place is a gaping hole, scarlet blood spilling out of it and cascading down his cheek. Streams have seeped in to the scars that run along his face, making them look like they've been split open. But this isn't even the most horrifying thing about him. It's his expression that makes me want to slink away. The unfaltering smile on his face. The mad gleam in the one eye he has left.
What I've done has enraged him to the point of insanity. This makes me smile with a small sense of triumph.
An act that infuriates him more. Before I can pull back, his hands are reaching for me again, heaving me up from the floor and holding me an arms-length away. "You like my new look?" he hisses. Then he hurls me across the room. "Cause I'm thinking the girl who did it kinda botched the job!"
I don't understand how he can have so much strength left when I have so little. He's actually managed to throw me through the air. My body collides with the mirrored wall, shattering it completely. I collapse atop the marble counter beneath, fragments of the mirror raining down on me. The row of basins along the counter have collected some of the shards, but most of the pieces have found themselves either on the floor or embedded in my skin.
"Actually," I huff out, my voice sounding far away, "I think it suits you . . . really brings out your eye." I can't help smiling at this, something I know will earn me more pain. But since I'm in no shape to deal physical blows, I'd rather jab at him mentally than die without fighting at all.
"You're just full of wit, aren't ya, darlin'?" He crosses over to me and pulls me up so that I'm sitting on the counter, at eye level with him. "I can't wait to cut it out of you."
"Make sure you cut the right thing," I wheeze, "you probably have depth perception now." My words have an instant effect on him. He pins me harder against the wall, his other hand moving to squeeze at my throat. My own hands are pushing against his chest uselessly, my legs kicking out but doing nothing to stop him.
"Maybe I'll just strangle you instead," he seethes, fingers tightening around my neck. "That way I'll never have to hear your voice again."
I'm glad that he's choking me to the point where I can't speak, because I can't think of any snide remarks to retaliate with. He clamps down harder and my view of the world starts to blur. Death has always been something I've feared, but how I would die has never actually entered my mind. Thinking back on every close call – almost being shot, stabbed, torn apart by the infected – suffocation doesn't seem like the worst way to go.
I'm resigned to my fate, darkness creeping round the edges of my vision, when something to my right flashes up at me. With his hands so firmly clasped around my neck, it's nearly impossible to move my head, but I can tilt it forward just enough to see the broken shard of mirror reflecting my bloody face back at me.
It's lying atop a mound of other broken pieces at the bottom of the basin. I have no idea if I can reach it, am almost certain that I can't, but the sight of it has lit a fire in me, and suddenly I'm not so complacent on dying. Not when there's hope.
My right hand slips away from his chest while my left keeps up the act of a struggle. If he sees what I'm doing, he'll put a stop to it instantly, and I don't have much time left as it is. The tips of my fingers can just reach the shard, enough to brush against its smooth surface but not grasp it. A smaller piece is within my reach, but it's not big enough to achieve what I want. I don't want to buy more time. I want to end things for good.
And things are ending. The darkness around my vision is becoming more pronounced. I can feel my lungs in my chest, like they're balloons about to burst. I'm about to give up completely when his hold on my neck shifts slightly and forces my body to judder to the right. It's just enough. My fingers curl around the shard, its edges slicing my skin open as I clutch it as tight as I can.
Then I pull it up and jam it into his throat.
Shock explodes on his face. For a moment he just stands, staring at me, uncomprehending of what has happened. Then his hands fall from my neck and grasp at his own. Stumbling back a step, his fingers twitch and probe around the shard, unsure of whether to leave it in or not. Whatever his choice, I know he is dead either way. In the end he chooses to yank it out, a spurt of blood coming along with it. He stands for a second longer, a river of crimson passing through his lips before he collapses and drowns in his own blood.
I collapse with him, unable to keep upright, gasping for air. My vision fades in and out and I fall from the counter and onto the floor where I think more pieces of broken mirror cut into me. I decide not to take it personally considering one of the pieces that make up their body did just save my life.
Only, I'm not so sure my life has been saved. Nausea plagues me no matter which way I turn my head, and my fight to remain conscious is a losing battle. Stay awake, I command myself, because if I black out this time I don't think I'll be waking up again. But my vision only grows darker. It's almost completely gone when I hear sounds of movement.
Probably infected, drawn by the scent of blood and come to finish me off. All for nothing, I think, giving in to the darkness as hands pull on my shoulders. I hope to be gone before their teeth sink into my flesh when something slaps at my face instead.
"Stay with me kid! Come on!" The voice wards off the darkness more than the slapping. Soon, I'm brought back enough to see Logan's face hanging over me. Red, bloody and splotched with sweat. My eyes must flutter open a little because I notice his expression relaxing slightly. "You're okay, you're okay," he chants, more as a reassurance to himself than to me.
His hands are patting down my body, looking for more injuries. I try to speak, to tell him that it's just my head, but I'm only capable of producing a hoarse croak. He notices my attempt and tells me to stop, to just wait until my voice comes back on its own. My head is resting in his lap and I can't help falling back into the role of a child, faithfully following the words of an adult because they're the ones who fix everything. Although I don't think Logan knows exactly what to do. There's a certain panic in his eyes that he's working hard to repress.
"I'm gonna lift you up, okay? You need to stay awake." There's no chance for me to refute because his arms have already slipped under and lifted me onto the counter. He props me up in a sitting position, much like Peter did, but I try not to think of that memory. I'm still nauseas and slightly dizzy, but awareness is slowly
returning to me. Logan looks me over again, then pulls me into a hug.
I barely manage to lift my arms up and hug him back. For the first time in, I don't even know how long, I feel safe, protected. Until I spot the Gas Man standing over Peter's body. I'm frantically pushing Logan back, trying to wheeze out a warning. He takes in my distress quickly and looks over to where the Gas Man stands.
"Alive," I manage to get out. "Why?"
"That's a good question," Logan says. From over his shoulder I can see the Gas Man has now shifted his attention towards us.
"Please, you have to understand that I didn't want any of this to happen. Peter and his gang found out where I keep my supplies and they threatened to take it all and burn down the museum if I didn't comply with their demands," he tells us.
"I thought you said you had the power to defend yourself," Logan growls.
The Gas Man nods. "A fool's fantasy."
"And the people you killed?" Logan asks. "The one's who cleaned up Las Vegas. The ones you locked up in this building. What's your excuse for them?"
"I never killed anyone! That group of people moved out of the city weeks ago!"
"I found one of their journals!" Logan cries. "I read the entries! You picked them off one by one!"
Realization seems to dawn on the Gas Man's face. His eyes glaze over, lost in his own world, and then a pained expression creases his features. "No . . . I. . ."
"Why," Logan hisses. "Why did you lock them in here?"
"It . . . it was a project. I was keeping them all in here so that when a cure became available I could administer it to them, take down an account of their stories. History is all about stories." He pauses, swallows. "I wanted to go down as the greatest historian to ever live. The only historian to so thoroughly record the most significant event in human history anyway."
My mind takes note of the fact that he thinks a cure is possible.
"So then why did you have to kill them?" Logan asks, his words still sharp.
"I didn't!" The Gas Man says. "I— I—"
Maisie's words ring in my ears. He wants friends . . . That's why he buys them.
"You—" I croak out, only to stop because of the pain. I swallow and push through it. "You were giving the bandits . . . supplies in exchange for infected."
The Gas Man nods.
Understanding settles in Logan's eyes, expelling some of the hostility. "And the bandits conned the system, started turning people into infected so they could make more trades."
The Gas Man nods again. "I swear I had no idea! I never would have—"
Logan throws up his hand. "I don't want to hear it."
Another round of nausea and dizziness has hit me. The only thing keeping me upright is Logan's hand placed firmly on my shoulder. He turns to me. "Where's Rocket?"
Rocket? For one, blissful second, I actually don't remember. Then the memory flashes back to me, hits me square in the chest and has me deprived of air all over again. Physically, I can speak, but I'm incapable of muttering the words aloud. I can't tell him. Looking into his eyes, I think he already knows anyway. But I can't summon the strength to say it out loud.
"Where is she?" he asks again, but his voice betrays him, cracking at the end. He knows, and like me, he doesn't want to admit it. "Where is she, Stella?"
I can't stand it any longer. I manage a shake of my head, then fall against him, into a hug that neither of us are committed to. He's as stiff as a corpse and I imagine I'm the same, two hollow shells. I can't say it out loud. I can't tell him the truth. And so he will never know what really happened. He will never know that I could have saved her, but didn't.
He will never know that I killed her.
We stay like this for what seems an eternity, still as statues. I start to drift off again when I feel him carefully push me back against the wall. I just manage to catch a glimpse of his eyes, cold and lifeless, before he turns to the Gas Man.
"Where do you keep the gas?" Logan asks slowly, his words hard yet barren of emotion.
"I'm truly sor—"
"Where do you keep the gas?" Logan asks again, cutting him off. "We went through all of this for gas," his words are beginning to shake now. "So where is it?"
His hand leaves my shoulder so that he can turn fully towards the Gas Man and take a step towards him. I can't keep myself upright without his support, so I slide down until I'm lying atop the counter, my vision starting to fade again.
"Storage facility," the Gas Man says, "near the shopping center you went to."
What happens next makes no sense to me. Logan pounces forward, grapples with the Gas Man, wrestles something from his grasp and then shoves him to the floor with it. My eyes are barely open, slowly drifting shut, but I can just make out the shape of the shotgun now in Logan's hands. My foggy mind is struggling to understand why though. Didn't we just discover that the Gas Man acted under duress? That while his actions were despicable, he at least has a reason for them. A reason that I can understand.
Survival. The reason I left Rocket to die. The reason I've done a lot of things.
"I understand that you're upset about your friend—"
"Shut up!" Logan barks. The Gas Man is kneeling in front of him, the barrel of the shotgun aligned with his forehead.
Maybe Logan doesn't understand what a person is willing to do in order to go on living, how deeply rooted the greed for it can run. Or at least, he can't comprehend the full extent of such selfishness. I understand it, which is why I can't summon the anger to blame the Gas Man.
But I don't expect Logan to understand. He's the hero, always has been and always will be. Putting others before himself. Guilt tightening a noose around his neck whenever he does otherwise. My first impression of him has proved correct. That he's a dying breed in this world. Someone inherently good. Someone incapable of pulling the trigger now.
I don't believe the Gas Man deserves to die for what he's done, but I make no move to stop what's happening, because I know that Logan won't shoot him. And just before I pass out, he proves me right.
Logan doesn't shoot the Gas Man. He uses the butt of the gun to crack his skull open instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Logan
Do not feel bad.
The phrase echoes around the recesses of my mind. It's become like a chant now. My mantra. Something I'm so used to telling myself over and over. The words are probably etched on the inside of my skull. They've almost lost all meaning to me. Yet still, repeating them over and over is the only thing that offers me a sliver of comfort now. The only thing that can preoccupy my thoughts from straying elsewhere.
Do not feel bad. Do not feel bad. Do not feel bad.
It acts as a barrier, warding off any feeling at all. Occasionally though, one will manage to slip through the cracks. Despair. Self-loathing. Guilt. But why should I feel guilty? For killing the Gas Man? No, there's no guilt there. He got what he deserved. Even if he was trying to help us in the end. So what do I have to feel guilty for?
I shouldn't have asked, because now I've opened the floodgates to every other thought that's bent on tearing me apart. Do not feel bad, do not feel bad, I chant in an effort to regain control. But it's too late. My safety net has been breached and I don't feel bad. I feel terrible. Awful. Rotten inside and out. And I know exactly why too, but the safety net holding that thought away is far stronger. She has been repressed and will stay that way for as long as I can hold her back.
Stop thinking, I tell myself, just focus on what's happening now. I'm darting through the streets, keeping to the shadows, trying to be silent. The infected have dispersed throughout the city, but a few stragglers still sprinkle the roads around the museum. Stella is limp in my arms. I tried waking her but gave up. Since I didn't know when she would regain consciousness, I decided I couldn't wait. I needed to get us out of the museum.
So I'm carrying her to the storage facility. I know exactly where it is. We passed it on our way to the shopping center. It's on the same stree
t where I left Maisie and Gale. I hope they're holed up in a shop and didn't go running off randomly at the sight of the infected. If they did, I don't think I'd be willing to go looking for them. Getting back to the Jeep is going to be difficult enough now that the city is infested. Finding them as well will be nearly impossible.
I'm pulled from these thoughts when Stella's foot catches against a street lamp and dings loudly against its metal body. Two infected up the street swivel round in our direction. I duck down behind a trash can and hold my breath. During our time in the museum, the sun has set, its light lost behind the buildings now. It should be too dark for them to spot us, but I have the shotgun just in case. It's balanced between Stella's body and mine. A last resort. Pulling the trigger will bring a swarm upon us in minutes.
From my crouch I spot a street sign hanging above us. This is where I left Maisie and Gale. I peer around the bin and sure enough, I spot the body of the infected I killed earlier, crumpled up on the road like discarded trash. The two infected up the street have returned to their aimless shambling. After a few more minutes of waiting they're far away enough not to pose a threat.
My knees protest as I struggle to stand up. Stella doesn't weigh very much, but I've been carrying her for so long that my arms are beginning to burn. Just a bit farther, then I can put her down. I cross over to the middle of the road and start hissing Gale's name. I don't expect him to answer. If he's still here, he'll be tucked away somewhere in the back of a store. But after calling his name a third time there's the rustling of movement to my right.
It's Gale, Maisie hovering at his elbow. They look frightened but otherwise unharmed. This is difficult to admit, but seeing them is actually somewhat disappointing. A part of me was hoping they would be gone, so that I wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. Earlier, when I took on the role of leader, it felt like the moon had dropped on my back, weighing me down with the responsibility and burden of keeping everyone safe. Now it feels as if it has crushed me completely.