by Connor Mccoy
“Still, seeing you naked is wonderful.”
Ordinarily, Cheryl would playfully slap her husband, but now all she could do was smile.
Holding his wife, Tom took great care in helping her into the tub. He placed her in the rear end of the tub, so her head and neck wouldn’t hit the faucets. It took quite a few minutes, but soon Cheryl Criver was lying in the tub, her feet reaching all the way to the faucets. Tom then took the first bucket and poured it in.
“Whoa!” Cheryl suddenly yelped.
“What?” Tom quickly withdrew the pail. “Are you okay?”
Cheryl’s breathing quickened. “Yes. Yes. No, it was just a little sudden. It’s better now. Just be a little gentle when you pour.”
Tom’s heart slowed. Fearful of doing anything to harm his wife, Tom gently poured in the rest of the bucket and then the next one. “Not too high,” Cheryl whispered.
Tom stopped after the third bucket. “You’ll have to watch me,” Cheryl said, “If I get too weak, my head could dip into the water and I might drown.”
“This isn’t too hard on you, is it?” Tom was starting to wonder if bathing his wife was a good move.
Cheryl smiled a little. “Oh no, it’s wonderful. This water is just so soothing. I guess bathing me is going to have to be a two-person job.”
“Hey, I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“Good, because at this rate, me using the toilet is probably going to be a two-person job, too.”
With the soap and a few cloths, Tom started washing and cleaning his beloved. Cheryl occasionally closed her eyes and seemed to go in a trance. Clearly, she was enjoying this. As Tom pulled back the cloths, he looked at the brown residue on it and grimaced. He had pulled off a ton of body oil, grime, dead skin and other residue from Cheryl’s skin. She must not have bathed in more than a week.
He dropped the cloth in the “need to clean” bucket. Fortunately, he had plenty of clean cloths.
As he reached for Cheryl’s upper shoulders, he noticed Cheryl scratching her left hip. “Hey,” he said, “Is it the rash again?” Tom pulled her hand off. She had scratched a new red mark on her flesh. “You have to resist that. You’re just going to make new rashes.”
“I know,” Cheryl said, “But I really need to scratch this itch.”
“No, you don’t. You have to fight it.”
“But it’s agonizing. I just need to pick this one itch.” She reached back for her hip.
Tom grabbed Cheryl’s arm. “No. Leave it alone, baby.”
Cheryl cringed. “Tom, this is driving me crazy.”
“Hey, didn’t we pack some anti-itching powder? I think you can use it for a bath.” Tom then looked to the door. “Damn. It’s in the living room.”
“Then go get it.”
“Yeah, but you’re still in the tub.”
“Don’t worry.” Cheryl grabbed the nearby soap holder and used it to hoist herself a little higher.
“Run and grab the pack and get it in here. That’s what, twenty seconds? Hey, I’ll do a count. You’ll hear me. You’ll know I’m not drowning.”
Tom peered into the tub. The water was fairly shallow, and Cheryl took up much of the tub. It seemed ludicrous that Cheryl could fall over and drown, but she was very ill. No, he and Cheryl were right to take every precaution.
Cheryl clung to the soap holder. “Okay, go!”
Tom stood up and hurried out of the room, down the hall toward the living room.
“One…two…” Cheryl began.
Tom reached the living room. But there was little light, and it was hard to distinguish his pack from Cheryl’s. Which one held the powder?
“Three…four…five…”
He finally picked out Cheryl’s. The pack was heavy and too big to bring into the bathroom, so he unzipped pouch after pouch. Quit panicking, he thought. Cheryl will be fine.
“Seventeen…eighteen…”
Finally, he had found one of Cheryl’s medicine pouches. It took some effort to pull it free from the pack. In the near darkness of the room, he couldn’t see what was inside.
Wait, isn’t Cheryl supposed to be counting?
“Twenty one…”
That was too long a pause, he thought. You got the pack. Move your ass!
Tom double-timed it back to the bathroom. Cheryl still was sitting up, but her head was bowed as if the effort was exhausting her. Even her next words came out slurred, though Tom was sure she had reached twenty-three.
“Hey! Hey!” Tom knelt down, his face near Cheryl’s.
“I got it.” Cheryl didn’t respond. “Hey, Cheryl!”
Slowly, Cheryl raised her head. “See? You…shouldn’t…worry…”
Tom cringed. “Damn.” He started digging into the pack. “Nearly gave me a heart attack.” Then he pulled out something in plastic.
Cheryl smiled faintly. “Those are my tampons you’re holding.”
Finally, Tom got the anti-itching powder and sprinkled it into the tub. It did the job, relieving Cheryl of her itchiness. The former soldier was too weak to get out of the tub, so Tom lifted her out, dried her off, re-bandaged her rashes and sores, and then garbed her in a soft robe he found in the house’s closet.
With Cheryl in his arms, Tom approached the home’s main bedroom. To his relief, he had discovered it had no leaks.
Gently, Tom lay Cheryl onto the bed. “You smell so much better.” He sniffed her. “Like oatmeal. If you’re not careful, I might sleepwalk and try to eat you. I might think you’re part of my breakfast.”
Cheryl giggled.
Karen sat in the diner booth, staring in the direction of the kitchen. Outside, the rain still fell, as it had for the past several hours. In the booth on the other side of the table, Cooper slept.
Lauren just had woken up. She strolled up to Karen and then leaned next to her. “You haven’t been like that all night, have you?”
Karen’s gun was next to her leg. “I can’t sleep,” she muttered.
Lauren grasped the top of the booth. “Yeah. I understand.”
This decision was eating her up. Should she really have forced those two to stay, knowing what their comrades had done to Karen, knowing what they had done to Eagleton?
Karen stiffened up. “I was wondering about Jamie. Will he ever be able to see again?”
“The disease probably damaged his optic nerves. It’s like meningitis . It can leave disabilities. Sometimes a patient can recover in time, sometimes it’s permanent. Someday, when we can go home, maybe I can try setting up a rehab for him.”
Karen nodded. “Thank you. What about Nadia?”
“She’s been asleep all night. Fever’s high. I’ve been trying to keep her cool. I think we’re going to have to keep her in the wagon for the rest of the trip, until she gets better,” Lauren answered, neglecting to add “If she gets better.” She didn’t even want to consider losing Nadia.
“Hey?” Karen asked, “Do you really buy their story? Don’t you think they’re faking it?”
Lauren puzzled it over. “I don’t know. But when you’re a doctor and you see people who have been through enormous stress, you get a feeling that they’re not faking it.” She sighed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.”
“Don’t take your eyes off them. And don’t turn your back on them.” Karen picked up her gun and laid it on the table. “I’ll make sure the first move they make is their last.”
Chapter Four
At first, Cheryl thought she was home again with her babies and her husband. The disease was nothing more than a bad dream. She was free to be with her family with no fear of separation from them.
Then, the walls rattled. She would race to the window. Trucks and Humvees would roar down Eagleton’s streets. The vehicles were filled with soldiers armed to the teeth. The rim of their helmets, plus the darkness of the outside, obscured their eyes, making them seem all the more like inhuman monsters.
Suddenly, the front door was broken down. The soldiers flo
oded into the home. Cheryl raced to her gun in her bedroom, but the soldiers beat her there. She tried to fight them, flinging chairs or any loose piece of furniture at them. But it was no use. The soldiers were not deterred by anything.
Then, Tom came rushing in, firing an automatic rifle. Shots rang through the air, yet it seemed not one of them felled an enemy soldier. The invaders turned and fired.
“Tom!” Cheryl shouted.
In a horrifying instant, bullets tore into the body of her husband, kicking out splotches of blood that sprayed the nearby furniture and walls. Then, he fell, never to rise again.
“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!” Cheryl roared.
She was absolutely helpless. The soldiers surrounded her like a wall. Several pairs of hands seized her by the arms and legs and then tossed her to the floor. A sea of shadowy faces hovered over her, none of which she recognized, except when one man stepped into view. It was Major Volhein, seemingly returned from the dead.
“So, I get my second chance to put you in your place,” he said, detached of emotion.
Then he whipped out a small switchblade knife. With the soldiers holding her down, he plunged it into the collar of her shirt without cutting into her flesh. He then cut her garment straight down without much effort, parting her shirt cleanly down the middle, exposing her chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cheryl shouted as the soldiers undid her pants. She was helpless to fight what came next.
It always ended with her trapped in that hell, under a sea of armed men having their way with her.
She awoke with a shout. Shaking, Cheryl grasped the sheets. She was conscious again. No, this was the reality, her being sick in bed far from her children.
Tom poked his head through the door. “Cheryl? What was that? I thought I heard you shout, but it sounded like a squeal or something.”
Cheryl steadied herself. She was so weak now that even her cries didn’t sound like much of anything. “It’s nothing,” she whispered, “Just having trouble sleeping.”
“You sure?” Tom gripped the doorframe.
“How about some warm tea? It might help.” Cheryl’s request might buy her some time to steady herself.
“Sure, sure.” Tom slowly left the room.
Cheryl lay back against the pillow. These dreams were making it impossible to rest for any meaningful length of time. If her body couldn’t get some real sleep and devote its energies to healing, these nightmares might end up actually killing her.
Lauren turned her head again. It was hard not to, knowing that Kovacs and Stark were right behind her. She should have felt better that the two men were pushing the wagon along, with Karen following behind them with a drawn gun.
This was the best arrangement Lauren could come up with. She could not have them march forward on this road, since she and Karen could not watch them while pushing the wagon along, and with Jamie Cooper blinded, he was in no shape to watch either the two men or the road. So, Lauren decided to stick him in the wagon with the sleeping Nadia. There would be no use having Cooper outside anyway. For one thing, he would be an easy hostage should Kovacs or Stark decide to make a move.
As for the two men, they didn’t make a big fuss when she told them to push the wagon. It may have made things easier, as they likely felt neither she nor Karen would be likely to shoot their source of manual labor. Plus the wagon’s momentum made it somewhat easy to push, so the two soldiers weren’t exerting themselves. In a sense, the task seemed to make the men feel useful again.
Lauren tried to keep a straight face. In reality, she was scared. She was juggling several balls in the air and she never knew when she could miss one and let it fall. She wasn’t a military leader like Cheryl Criver or a policewoman like Nadia. True, she had helped with the Eagleton resistance, but she wasn’t the one who had been coming up with the strategies.
She looked backward again, glancing at Kovacs. “What do you think? How far do you think we are?”
“We would be closing in on the camp now if we weren’t pushing this wagon,” he replied, “Probably a few more days if we continue as we are.”
It then occurred to Lauren that they were moving so slowly someone might pick up on their approach. “Do they have anyone coming back this way, like scouts? Do you know if they have any more business this way?”
“Not that I know. If Clark believes he has everyone, he will worry about stripping them of their supplies. He is not someone who wastes the time of his men,” Kovacs replied.
“This is really stupid to lug these two with us all the way,” Stark grumbled, “We’ll be sitting ducks if Clark knows we’re coming.”
“We’re not leaving our friends,” Karen said.
Lauren looked to the sky. “It’s getting late. We have to get off the road, make camp. We’ll get started again tomorrow.”
“First sane thing I’ve heard all day,” Stark said.
Tom gently fluffed Cheryl’s pillow with her head still on it. She was so weak she couldn’t lift her head. She hadn’t sat up since this morning. Outside, night was approaching. They had been in this house for three whole days. Cheryl had been going downhill each day.
By now, her eyes were closed, only occasionally opening to look at her husband. Her speech increasingly was slurred and difficult to hear.
“Hey,” Tom said, “Want some more to drink?”
He held a cup filled with an orange drink close to her face. In it was a straw. He slid in between her lips. For a moment, Tom wondered if she would drink it. Finally, she did. Three sucks on the straw. Then, she pulled away. The drink had important vitamins and electrolytes in it. If this stuff had helped her in any way, Tom couldn’t tell. He barely had persuaded Cheryl to eat a cup of applause this morning. Now even chewing seemed beyond her reach.
He slowly wiped some sweat from around her face. Bags lined her eyes, and the skin was dark under her eyelids. Her cheeks were sunken. She had the worst of all worlds, someone who was exhausted, yet didn’t seem able to get any real sleep. Tom couldn’t figure why she seemed to have sleeping problems, and Cheryl wasn’t exactly ready with answers.
He looked down at her. She was wrapped in a thick blanket. The disease now had given her chills. The only upside was that feeling cold seemed to dilute her itchiness. She hadn’t tried to scratch her rashes again in a while.
“Tom…”
Cheryl hadn’t spoken in an hour, so hearing his wife say anything got his attention. “Yeah baby, I’m here.” He leaned in closer.
“Tell me…” She swallowed, painfully, her lip pulling in and a look of agony covering her features. “Tell me about my babies.”
“The kids? Sure.”
“Jackie…Kristin…how…did…they…do?” She paused before speaking again. “…when…I was…in…quar…”
“Well, they’ve been doing great. They made friends with Catherine’s two boys. They’re starting to branch out a little. You know how they’d keep to themselves a lot, but they’re hanging around with Alice more. I think I even saw Jackie without Kristin, talking to Irvin, by themselves. They probably even went off to play.”
“That’s good,” Cheryl whispered, “I think…Jackie…she’s coming into…” Then she exhaled with some pain. “She’ll be…a good mother…someday.”
After a moment, Cheryl asked about Annie. Tom talked about her. Cheryl asked about Alice, then Rinaldo, then every other child, until she got to Amir. Here, Tom paused to think. Amir was special. All their kids were special in their own way, but Amir was the first, the one who had led them all on the adventures that led to Tom and Cheryl finding the rest of their flock.
“He smiles a lot more now,” Tom said, “He’s starting to joke around a lot more, too.”
“You’re…a…bad…influence.” Cheryl even formed a smile on her lips, briefly, but it was there.
“Hey, I only teach him the funny ones. And the G-rated ones, too.” Tom chuckled before he got a little more serious.
“I did teac
h him how to drive.”
“Really?” Cheryl asked.
“Had to. I did it over a couple of nights. I also entrusted him with the keys to the car before we left. If anything major happened, he’d get the kids out of town.”
“Do you think…he can handle it?”
“Sure,” Tom replied.
“I’m just…worried…about…him. You know…how…it got bad…during…the…war…”
Tom nodded. “Yeah.”
Cheryl was referring to when Amir came after the NATO soldiers Tom was fighting with a rifle, mowing down soldier after soldier. The boy had been through his share of horrors, with the death of his birth parents, The Coach’s men hunting him through the city, and his eventual capture at The Coach’s hideout. Amir no had doubt tapped into something dark within himself to take up that gun and kill. Tom and Cheryl never wanted Amir to surrender to that darkness again.
“He can handle it,” Tom said firmly, “He will.”
Cheryl smiled again. “Good.” It was a short while before Cheryl spoke again.
“Give me…my card…from Jackie, Kristin.”
She was talking about the “come back soon” card the two girls had given her just before they parted. Tom dug it out of Cheryl’s pack and handed it to her. Cheryl held it up to her face, opening her eyes slightly. All the children had signed their names on the cardboard inside.
“Thanks…” Her body relaxed. “I want this…with me…It’s like…I have them…all…with me.”
She just looked at the card for a while longer. Then, slowly, she drifted off to sleep.
The men helped steer the wagon into the woods off the right-hand side of the road. Lauren started to pitch camp, with Kovacs’ assistance. Stark demanded a rest and some food. Lauren was fine giving it to him, figuring it would help keep matters calm. It didn’t. Karen hovered over Stark, her gun still drawn on him.
At first, Stark simply kept eating and ignored her. Finally, annoyance got the better of him and he said, “You’re going to suffer one hell of a hand cramp.”