“It’s them. Get in the truck.” Georgia jogs to the passenger side and climbs in. I let Hunter jump in first and then climb in behind the wheel.
“How long were we out here? Ten, fifteen minutes tops?” Georgia squeals.
“Twenty seven,” I respond. “Take a deep breath, George. We’re going to find them.”
“How do you know where they are?” she says strangling her rifle. “It’s not like we have a GPS implanted in the back of our heads!”
“They were heading south from hunting grounds two,” I say peeling out of our hunting spot. “We’ll start there—”
“Do you think they were killed?”
“No,” I respond. “But they might be in trouble at the very least. Just keep your eyes peeled.”
The engine roars against the silence of the cabin. Hunter pants loudly in my ear to partially drown out Georgia’s sobbing. I wind through the woods on the dirt roads that were made by us at the house.
“Hello,” my radio calls.
“Nikia?”
“No, it’s—it’s Zachariah,” the voice responds.
“Zachariah, where’s Nikia and Two?”
“They’re stuck in the lodge out here,” he says. A couple clicks of silence make my stomach sink. “I’m hurt.”
“No!” Georgia cries. She covers her mouth with her hands.
“How hurt?” I say. “Can you walk? Were you bitten?”
“Nikia was teaching me how to track. Turns out I was really good at it,” he responds. “I found a black bear. We were lucky that we had the right weapons. I put three of them right between his eyes.”
“How did you get hurt?”
“Well, I slipped and fell on the mush into a bear trap. Go figure right?”
A sigh escapes Georgia’s mouth, and she starts laughing. “He’s ok. They’re ok,” she whispers to Hunter.
“We’re almost there,” I say. “Just hang tight for a little longer.”
“I’m not finished,” Zachariah says. I listen to a couple more clicks of silence; my heart racing just a bit faster with each second. “They got me out of the bear trap, but wendigos came. They smelt my blood. I limped into the fallout shelter because that’s where the others told me to go—that’s when we got separated.”
“You said they headed to the lodge?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if they made it,” he responds. I tap the corner of the radio against my forehead and take a deep breath in and out. “Xavier, I’m scared.”
“You’re safe, Zachariah,” I say. “Stay calm and control the bleeding with your leg. We’re about two minutes out.”
“Copy,” his voice says. I put the radio in the cup holder attached to the dash.
“What are we going to do?” Georgia says looking at me from around Hunter.
“We’ve got to kill the wendigos and get them all out of there,” I answer. She nods her head and checks her rifle while wiping her eyes. “Just like target practice. Think of it that way. It’ll get easier with time.”
I was a murderer. I was a killer. I’ve been covered in someone else’s blood just because it was easier. But those things were necessary because I chose survival.
* * *
When we get to the hunting grounds, everything is hushed. Hunter hops out of the car with the hairs along his spine standing straight up. Georgia leaves her door partially open and looks around the deserted grounds.
“Hunter,” I say. “Stay close.”
He lets out a low rumbling growl and stalks forward. Georgia comes up on my left with her rifle gripped the way I taught her earlier. She checks around us. “Clear,” she says.
“Clear,” I respond. “Don’t let your guard down though. They’re here. I can feel it.”
She nods her head and tightens her grip on her rifle. We make our way across the barren grass towards the lodge. Its brick siding has seen much better days, but the structure still stands tall. I raise my rifle to my shoulder. My finger clicks off the safety and licks the trigger; Georgia mirrors me.
I press my hand onto the wooden door and push. It stops when I get it open about an inch. “Nikia? Two?” I whisper into the open doorway. “It’s Xavier and Georgia—”
“Jesus Christ,” someone responds. “I thought we were screwed.” A metal scraping noise echoes throughout the stone overhang, and the door swings open the rest of the way.
“We need to get Zachariah,” I say. “He’s in the fallout shelter.”
“We have bear meat in the truck,” she says. “He took a one down—”
“I know,” I respond. “He has your radio too.”
“There were so many of them,” Two’s voice says from the darkness in the lodge. He opens his mouth like he is going to say something else, but instead shuts it into a thin straight line.
“Let’s go,” I say turning from the lodge. The fallout shelter is more or less a concrete hole in the ground. I’m sure it had some use back when the majority of people hunted animals, but Nikia and I made it into a kind of last-ditch safe house if all else went to hell.
We inch our ways towards the doors embedded into the ground and tug on the rusted handles. “Damn rust,” I mutter. I kick on the hinges hoping that will loosen them up a bit.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
With one last tug, they swing open. A gun shot rings out, and my blood runs cold.
Zachariah
“Oh god,” a voice says.
At first, I think it was me who was shot. The sound of the round going off made the forest come back to life. Birds began chirping again. The wind picked up speed. I take a couple steps backward and grab at my chest; the familiar panicked thump of my heart beats against my palm.
“Xavier,” Georgia’s voice says. I turn and see her clutch at her stomach. Blood flows through her fingers, and she collapses backwards.
“George!” Her body thumps against the dirt creating a small dust cloud around her. I scoop her up and carry her back towards the truck.
“Xavier—”
“Get him out,” I yell. “I’m taking her back to the house. Hunter!” Within seconds, I hear his heavy trot match mine.
“Please don’t let me die,” Georgia cries in my arms. “I don’t wanna die.”
“Hold on, George.” I lay her down in the backseat of the truck and reach for my book bag. The gauze gets tangled in the blood on my hands. I grab four gauze pads and place them on her gunshot wound. “Keep pressure on this—”
“It hurts, it hurts—”
“I’m not giving you anything that could knock you out,” I respond. “Stay with me. Keep talking to me. Doc will fix you up.”
Hunter climbs in the front seat. I close the back door and climb in behind the steering wheel. I take a glance into the rearview mirror—Nikia and the rest are climbing into their truck.
The growling starts. I turn the engine over and slam on the gas. Hundreds of wendigos appear in the clearing. They sprint toward us.
“Xavier—”
“Hang in there, George,” I yell over the roar of the engine. “The wendigos smell your blood. I’ve gotta lose them first before heading back.”
“There’s so much blood.” I look over my shoulder and see a constant stream of red soaking into the fabric; most of the floorboard is a mixture of dirt and crimson. I rip more gauze out of my book bag and press it down on her wound. She lets out a screech.
“Press down on this. Press downhard.” Her hands graze mine before applying the same pressure on the gauze.
I return my hands to the wheel and take a hard right towards the house. I grip the radio and turn it to the right frequency. “Doc,” I say.
A few clicks later, his voice says, “Go ahead.”
“Hunting has been compromised. George has a gunshot wound to the abdomen, Zachariah had a bear trap tear apart his leg. Requesting immediate medical assistance upon arrival.”
“We’ll be ready,” he responds. “Wendigos?�
��
“Yes, but I’ve lost most of them.”
“Copy that,” he responds.
I throw the radio back in the cup holder. “How you doing kid?”
“I think I might be in shock.” She starts laughing—it starts out as a giggle then turns into a manic, panicked-filled cackle.
I make out the gate in the distance. Gunshots light up the lookout rooms we set up. The growling begins to die down. In my rearview mirror, I see Nikia’s truck slide into the driveway and start gaining on me. I fly through the gates and come to a screeching halt. Hunter barks at Doc who runs from the house with another youngin’. I hop out of the car while they set up a homemade gurney.
Georgia still laughs, but it’s quieter now. She looks at me with dark eyes before I lay her down on the gurney. I can feel my failure wash over me in a vicious wave. Doc and the other youngin’ take off towards the house in a blur.
“Xavier,” someone’s voice says. “You need to go through inspection.”
I move aimlessly to the concrete steps outside of the front door. Hunter walks next to me with his head hanging and ears back.
Things will be ok, Xavier.
Hearing Hayley’s voice makes my feet stumble. I steady myself on the front door and squeeze my eyes shut.Her voice is not real. It is something you created to cope with the reality of the things you’ve done. You hear her voice when things begin to be too much.
“Hey,” Nikia says taking hold of my shoulder. “Get yourself checked out. She’ll be ok.”
I wonder how easy it would be to believe that.
* * *
The door to Doc’s office is closed. I push it open to whimpering. Georgia’s friends sit around her holding hands. Zachariah lays on a cot closer to the door. His head turns towards me when the door clicks shut.
Tears well up in the corners of his eyes. His leg hangs elevated from the bed wrapped in gauze. It takes everything in my power not to strangle the life from him.
When I saw his pistol pointing up at us from the fallout shelter, I could see the fear in his eyes. He wasn’t ready to be out there. I should’ve trusted my first instinct, but I didn’t. I was tired of losing friends, and I knew it would happen again if we didn’t get more youngin’s trained. He shot Georgia because he was scared. Because he showed weakness. What could Nikia have possibly seen in him to convince me he was ready as he’d ever be?
“This wouldn’t have happened if One was still alive,” he whispers. He looks out of the corner of his eye at me. “How am I supposed to live with myself if she dies?”
I clench my jaw and turn away from him. Doc comes over in silence and pulls gloves from his hands. “The only good thing out of this whole mess is that bear Zachariah got,” he whispers. A long sigh escapes his lips, and he leans in closer. “She’s bleeding internally—I think. If she isn’t, the bullet is still somewhere in there doing all sorts of damage that we can’t see.”
“I shouldn’t have agreed to bringing two of them out there today,” I say. “This is on my shoulders.”
“Xavier, you couldn’t have foreseen the wendigos being out there—”
“Of course I could have,” I respond shrugging away from him. “You seem to be forgetting that I lived a year in the woods with them. I knew they were coming for Georgia and I.
Nikia may not have as much experience around them, but I should’ve known better, Doc. I should’ve known.”
He takes a deep breath in. “I’ve never met someone who puts all the guilt on his shoulders like you do.” He looks at the two youngin’s and shakes his head. “This didn’t happen because of you Xavier. It happened because we’re expecting kids to be cold, ruthless killers. We’re training them to survive but at what cost?
Someone getting shot and killed or eaten or kidnapped is an everyday occurrence here. I’ve never had to be so conscious of death before. Christ, I was a dentist. I was kids’ and adults’ worst nightmares most of the time. Now—” He looks over the room of youngin’s again and sighs. He turns to me and grips my shoulder tighter than before.
I want to shrug it off and tell him to stop giving me pep talks. Three years of these same talks aren’t doing any good. What he’s saying is garbage. It’s how everyone thought before the food went missing. No one ever took responsibility for anything. Global warming? Oh, it’s China’s fault. Coffee burned me? Better sue the restaurant.
I refuse to let this burden fall on anyone else’s shoulders but mine. I said it would be safe. I promised Georgia that. And because I promised her that, I promised all her friends that. Now she’s probably going to die because I made a bad call.
“I need some air,” I say and slide out from under Doc’s grip.
I walk out into the humid summer air towards the farthest corner of the grounds to the woods. I wonder if the wendigos can hear my heart pounding from here. I make it to the fence and lean up against it. It truly is beautiful in this area, but I’ve never had the chance to appreciate that. I take a deep breath in through my nose, smelling all the normal things—trees budding, pollen floating invisibly in the air, sap that drips off of bark.
“I don’t want to bring you guys back to this,” I say to Hayley and Aisley. I assume they’re still listening. Whether it be from the fort or somewhere between the veil of life and death. Either way, it feels good talking to someone other than the people here. “I can’t see any other way for us to be together though. The world isn’t safe. The woods are where we’ll die—”
“What are you doing out here?” I turn and see Nikia with Hunter. “Your spot at the table has been empty for hours.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to eat food after all that’s happened. I’m just trying to pretend that things are getting better.”
“They are,” she says standing next to me. “And they will continue to get better if you stop putting this all on you.”
“I knew the risks, Nikia. I knew taking two youngin’s out there was a bad idea. But I wanted to believe in this place. I wanted to believe that all the training they had prior to this trip was enough.
I bet you when Zachariah took down that bear, he had this amazing look on his face. A look of pure happiness and proudness that your expression probably reflected. One moment where you both relaxed for once since the food went missing and now, we have two people hurt. One is probably as good as dead. I’m tired of burying friends.”
“Xavier, come inside. You don’t need to be out here.”
“I’d rather just be alone right now.” I stare into the forest and clench my fists.
“Ok.” Her footsteps thump off until they disappear altogether.
Hunter trots up next to me and lays down at my feet. “I’m glad that we’ve made this far Hunter. I don’t ever wanna lose you like I’m losing everyone else.”
Lament
Three knocks on my door cut through darkness. The handle turns with click followed by a groaning from its hinges.
“I need you in my office,” Doc says. “It’s George.”
Oh no. I swallow past dry mouth. Doc turns and stalks away from my room leaving me with a pain in my gut. The walk to the guest house was thick with a silent sadness. I already knew what I would be walking into. It was just a matter of what part during her dying I would be interrupting. My hand grips the doorknob, my palm sweaty enough that it slips off. The door groans open and sobbing fills the empty space around me.
I look into the room and see Zachariah standing on one leg next to Georgia’s bed. His hands are folded with his head resting on fists. “George, I’m so sorry,” he sobs. “Please, let me take it back. Let me take it back!”
I swallow and inch toward them. My hand reaches out, but my fingertips never make it to his shoulder. I listen to him sob over her body. She was gone—that I’m sure of.
“There was no way for me to find or stop the internal bleeding,” Doc says from the darkness of the guest house. “She went into shock. I used one of the vials of morphine you picked up from your last run
.”
I nod. It’s all I can manage to do while I watch Zachariah collapse on top of George’s body.
“We’ll need to salt and burn her,” he says after a couple moments of sobbing passes. “Can’t risk a regular burial with all the wendigos out there. They’ll smell the blood.”
“I understand,” I whisper.
Doc’s hand clamps down on my shoulder. “That boy needs someone to talk to, Xavier.”
I clench my jaw.
“There’s no one better than you to do that. You know that, right?”
“Sure.”
“He thinks this is his fault,” he continues, not removing his hand from my shoulder. “He’ll do something reckless if someone doesn’t tell him otherwise.” And just like that, Doc’s hand slips away. Now I’m this kid’s only hope to sanity after murdering his best friend.
Great.
It doesn’t feel like I’m walking toward them—more like gliding. My hand mimics Doc’s and grips Zachariah’s shoulder. My voice struggles to find the right words, but he speaks first. “Are you going to shoot me?”
The question catches me off guard. “No, why would think that—”
“‘Cause I’ve seen you do it before,” he responds, looking out of the corner of his eye at me.
You shot and killed a woman because she was bitten. She was sick. She attacked you. I close and open my free hand into a fist to suppress the memory of that booming shot echoing inside my skull. “It’s not your fault—”
“How could you even say that?” Zachariah yells shoving my hand of his shoulder. “I murdered her. I shot and killed her. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t attacking me. I was just a kid—a scared kid with a pistol and a nervous trigger finger.”
I swallow. I don’t know what to say. This was something I was never good at. Even before everything went to shit. My mouth opens and closes several times without a noise coming out from it. Hayley would know what to say. “Bad things happen Zachariah,” I croak. I clear my throat and swallow again, hoping the rest of my sentence makes it past my lips. “Bad, horrible and unbearable things will always happen. That’s what we live in. You’ll get past this. It’ll numb over time. But you’ll always remember her. That is the best apology you could ever hope to give George.”
Painted Red Page 17