by P. J. Post
His dark eyes are wide — alive, his breath wheezes as bubbles form and pop along the edge of the wounds. He wraps his hands around his throat.
His eyes are like saucers.
“That’s how I did your brother. Not Sam, never Sam,” I whisper to him.
The hall is silent as we watch Allen bleed to death.
It doesn’t take too long.
After a few minutes, I stand and turn my attention back to Keats and Brenda, to my family — to the kids. Casey is still crying, but she’s standing with Holly, protecting Jem and Emily.
Pixie is guarding Sam.
Sam just looks beaten and sad as she stumbles into my arms. “I’m so sorry…” she repeats over and over as she runs her fingers over the white bristle growing out of my head.
I don’t think she gave a shit about Allen, life’s turned pretty fucking ugly as of late, but she knows what this shit does to me — with every kill I feel myself falling further and further away from her, and she’s holding on with everything she has.
And I need her to.
Shinji is crying, he’s scared and traumatized all over again as he realizes his father is dead.
The other kids are still hiding at the far end of the hall, terrified and crying too.
“Happy, Brenda, is this what you wanted?” I ask.
She’s cowering against the far wall, her rifle on the floor, refusing to look at me.
Keats looks stunned, but mostly just sad, resigned.
My girls look sad too, but also wary — ready. They may never forgive me, and I don’t know how to deal with that, not sure I can, but they aren’t deserting me either, not yet anyway.
I clean Emily’s knife as I walk it over to her.
She returns it to its sheath and hugs me, while Jem stares at me, her face blank.
Jem’s voice is little again. “You think I forgot, you think lots was happening, you think I wouldn’t remember, not with the dogs and the rain and Jackie, but I do — I remember killing Abby. I didn’t mean to, but she wouldn’t be quiet…I had to protect Jackie, I had to…” Jem looks up, her cheeks are wet, and now the look in her eyes is beyond her years.
I hear Sam gasp softly behind me.
The end of the world is full of secrets.
Emily and Casey just hug Jem, holding her tight, threatening to never let go.
I bend down and grab Allen’s .45. Sam’s spit and blood are on the barrel.
I check the chamber and magazine and wipe it clean against my stomach.
And then I turn and shoot Allen in the head.
The gun sounds like a canon in the enclosed hallway.
It’s very quiet after.
I feel my eyes narrowing as I turn my attention back to Keats. “Look, I really don’t have a cure, but still, I see no reason why we can’t discuss this like civilized people. Never fucking did. And, Brenda, I told you if you ever pointed a gun at Jem again, I’d kill you. Remember?”
“Please, I’m sorry, I fucked up, please, don’t kill me, please, I thought …the cure…I thought…” Brenda whimpers as she holds her hands in front of her face.
Killing someone in cold blood, up close and personal is a lot harder than it looks, not many folks have the stomach for it, not even now, at the end of the world — no, not many.
“Keats, she’s going to make me do it, sooner or later, you know she is. Am I going to have to kill you too? I don’t want to, I really don’t.”
“Lane?” It’s Sam. She shakes her head.
“Shinji, how about you? You ready to call it quits?” I ask as I level the .45 at his face.
Something has changed in Holly, she’s not standing with Shinji anymore — it’s pity I’m seeing now, which is shocking considering she’s the one who lost an arm less than two hours ago.
He can’t look at me and shakes his head.
“We’ll take precautions tonight. We’ll tie Jem up, just in case; no one wants any surprises in the middle of the night. Brenda, it’s your job to make sure she lives through the night, even if she turns — if it comes to that, I’ll put her down myself…in the morning. Got it?”
“Yes.” Her voice is still broken, unsteady.
“Brenda, look at me.”
Red rimmed eyes meet mine.
“I never wanted any of this, please, don’t make me kill you.”
She nods vigorously.
“You good with that?” I ask Keats.
He nods too.
“Wasn’t that easy, and no one else had to die.” I spit on Allen. “Brenda, Keats, before you two get comfortable, drag this piece of shit up to the roof and throw him off. And Brenda.” I grab her by the jaw and make her look at Allen. “This is your doing.”
Sam kneels and pets Pixie’s neck as she looks around at everyone — maybe she’s taking special note so she can remember it for later, get it all down on one of her postcards.
Tonight was close.
Too fucking close.
I try to catch Pixie’s attention, wondering what happened exactly — how I could see everything like I did, how I could almost feel Jem releasing the knife.
Whatever’s in us, it does more than heal.
I watch Jem walk over to me.
“I forgive you, whatever you did, I think I get it,” she says twisting her finger against her temple, and then she looks at Pixie. “You know?”
Pixie barks and then bounds over to us, her little pink tongue hanging out as she pants.
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Do you forgive me?”
I scoop her up and hold her, and try not to cry. She needs to hear it.
“Yes,” I whisper.
§§§§§
The sounds of Freemont creep inside my head again as I feel a tug on my coat collar.
It’s Sam.
She looks serious. Her scarf is down, her goggles somewhere else.
Casey is nestled in tight against me on one side and Holly on the other, her wounds bandaged fresh again.
I gently slide out from between them, laying their heads down on the blankets that surround us while they murmur in their sleep.
Sam takes my hand as soon as I’m clear and leads me down the hall to the stairs.
We stop long enough to look in on Jem. She’s sleeping next to a radiator, one foot duct taped to it. She was so tired she didn’t even care.
It’s not necessary, it never was.
She’s scratching her stomach in her sleep, like she’s got poison ivy or something. I need a kid handbook or maybe a Pixie Dust manual. I wish I knew what this shit was, not that I’m complaining, not dead is working just fine.
Emily is sleeping on the other side of the room.
They’re both wrapped in sleeping bags.
Brenda is leaning against the far wall. She glances up at me and then returns to a book she’s reading by flashlight.
I locked them all in.
I don’t really trust her, but she’s scared shitless of me. And that I do trust.
Through the large windows at the end of the hall, I can see Freemont burning in the distance. The fires are noticeably closer.
Sam pulls again and I let her lead me to the stairs. She skips down them, refusing to relinquish her hold on my hand.
Down one floor…
I follow, curious, almost worried, but mainly just tired.
And then I match her steps down the last flight of stairs to the ground level.
We stop near the front door.
I can still hear the Button Eyes banging around on the other side.
Freemont is taking a long time to die, well, that’s not true — it’s already dead, it’s just taking a long time to come to terms with it.
We stop near the desk where we first cauterized Holly’s arm. It’s covered in black, congealing blood — the room still smells like a barbecue gone horribly wrong.
Sam stops, turns and looks up.
And all at once, the thing with Allen, the fight of the last few days, the week
s and months of heartache, of pain, of terror, catch up with her. Tears run down her cheeks as she frowns, lips quivering and it all comes out in great heaving sobs.
“I can’t…” is all she gets out before collapsing into me, her knees weak, taking us both to the ground.
I wrap my arms around her, feeling her body convulse against mine.
I understand what she’s going through. There’s a fine line between doing what we have to and going batshit crazy. Humans weren’t designed for this shit. I know how close to the edge I am, but that knowledge doesn’t offer up any words of comfort.
What’s there to say?
So, I hold her and stroke her hair while the anguish pours out.
“I just…I can’t go…not…I thought you were dead, I thought, I thought…”
She’s not making any sense and yet she’s making complete sense.
I remember kneeling before Jen up in that clearing, surrounded by the dead brothers and fathers of her group. Her brother. Her father.
And yet…
I remember mentally planning the sequence that I was going to kill them in, a bunch of defenseless women and children — to stop the revenge, to end the fighting — and I remember feeling the barrel of my own .45 pressed against my forehead, Jen’s pleading eyes, begging me not to turn her into a murderer.
I remember Sam pulling down her scarf.
I remember seeing an angel.
I remember wanting to die so badly…
I run, I fight, I kill, again and again and again…but I can’t escape the boy I was back under my kitchen window, the coward that killed Lisa. I can’t redeem myself, can’t forgive…
But then Samantha…she did it for me.
I still hate myself.
I don’t deserve her, not her company, not her forgiveness and sure as shit not her love, but I’m holding on like she’s the last breath of air on the planet.
I can’t go on without her.
So I hold her, and stroke her hair as her body convulses with each heaving sob.
She looks up to me, her face wet and snotty, red eyes — hopeless.
Used.
Done.
She searches my eyes.
I’m not as lost as she is, because I have her. I can’t imagine being alone…
And I feel my own tears now.
“Sam, promise me, promise me you won’t leave me, I’m not sure I can make it without you, please, you have to stay with me.”
She almost manages to smile through the sadness, wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face into my neck.
“You couldn’t get rid of me even if you wanted to,” she whispers, her voice thick.
“Say that now.” I sniff.
“Don’t cry, not for me.”
“If not you, then who? Besides, I kind of lose control like that when you’re around.”
“We’re a mess, two cry-babies.”
“We have a lot to cry about.”
She doesn’t respond right away. “Do you know what day it is?”
“December something.”
“This isn’t what I thought Christmas was going to be this year,” she sob-laughs.
“Yeah, well, least it snowed.”
“White Christmas.”
I squeeze her tighter.
“Lane, I love saying your name…Lane.”
I pull her close, as she nestles deeper under my chin.
“Now you’re responsible,” I whisper.
“I’m looking forward to it, keep you out of trouble, even if you are a lot of work.”
“You know King Arthur and destiny and all that shit, from school?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“I think you’re my destiny. You always were.”
“Kind of sucks the whole world had to end, though, huh?”
“You’re worth it.”
“That’s a seriously fucked up thing to say, thanks.” She laughs again through the tears.
“I’d give anything for you to be safe, back in Jersey, back in high school, back…wherever, but if the world had to go, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather watch it die with.”
She kisses my chest. “You say the sweetest things.”
She feels so good in my arms, and under the filth, I can smell her…a hint of honey. I can almost imagine we’re somewhere else, another time, another us.
“Is this it? Are we going to die here?” she asks.
“Maybe, hard to say, but you’ll make it. I’ll make sure of that, one way or another.”
“I don’t want to, not without you.”
“When the time comes, if the time comes…I’m not going to give you an option.”
“Asshat.”
“Maybe.”
She laughs, and then her face gets serious again.
“Are you okay, I mean after Allen?”
“No, not really. It was too easy. It was like I was before, but…before, it was just to survive, you know? It was them or me. This was…this was different.”
“How?”
“Like, I enjoyed it.”
She just looks at me, neutral — no judgment.
“I was fucking pissed, what he did to you was…Brenda is lucky to be breathing, I came this close, you know? This close, to ending her too.”
“The last few days have been…really hard. Little by little, day by day, the universe is breaking us.”
“Not us, not you, not our girls.”
“Our girls?” Samantha grins.
“Yeah, you and them, you’re my family, they’re our kids now.”
“We’re kids, Lane.”
“They don’t have anyone else.”
“I know, I know, I was just reminding you, and we’ll have more soon enough, I’m sure. Feral kittens. You’re a good man, Lane.”
“I’m not a man, I’m a kid; you just said it.”
“No, you’re a man, well, you’re a kid, but you’re a man too; you’re responsible, strong…compassionate; you’re everything I need — everything I want.”
“Bullshit, I’m…”
She interrupts me, “Kind of cute, too.” And then she grins, her brand is finally healing.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she asks.
“We’ll get west, and south, away from people, find someplace to farm.”
“Since when do you know how to farm?” she laughs.
“We’ll steal some books from a library or somewhere, how hard can it be?”
“Don’t know; how did it work out for the Pilgrims.”
“We’ll make it. There’s rabbits out there, and shit, deer, we’re smart…”
Sam looks at me sideways.
“Smart enough…besides, we have a bunch of kids to work the land for us.”
“No child labor laws in your new kingdom?”
“Nope, King Lane has spoken.”
Sam laughs and covers her mouth trying not to be too loud.
I gently take her face in my hands. “We’ll make it, but if anything happens, just stay alive, I’ll find you, I’ll always find you. Just remember, you’re my destiny — we’re meant to be together, always will be.”
“Are you afraid?” she asks softly.
“Not for me, not like scared scared, I’m terrified of anything happening to you, to Emily, or Jem, Casey or Holly, but not for myself, not like that.”
“I am.”
I pull her to me again, embracing her.
Her voice is thick. “I thought Allen was…I thought I was never going to feel you again, I thought…”
“I…I’m sorry. I won’t let anything like that happen again, I won’t…”
She lays a finger over my lips, silencing me. “You can’t say that, I love your promises, love hearing them, but we can’t know what’s going to happen. You can’t save me from everything, for all you know your destiny is to bury me…or to have me bury you. I thought I lost you tonight — again. I’m tired of losing you.”
She stands and takes me by the hand, a
nd pulls me to my feet and down the dark hallway toward the back of the building, and into one of the offices.
And then she closes the door and turns on me, her fingers finding my face, her lips finding mine…soft kisses. I can taste her tears, her hopelessness and it’s all I can do to hold my own in check.
This isn’t how things were supposed to go. I wasn’t supposed to ever meet Samantha. She was supposed to be happy.
Her hands slide down my chest and stop at my belt even as her kisses become more urgent. Is this…not here, not…
As she pulls my belt loose, I cover her hands with mine, but she shoves my hands away and unbuttons my pants.
Her tongue finds mine, exploring and then caressing and then they intertwine, each of us searching for salvation.
I feel her cold palm over my hip, and I don’t want her to stop, but I don’t not want her to either.
Her fingers find my underwear and slip inside, reaching down…
I gasp into our kiss, pulling back.
She’s staring at me, watching me with dry, serious eyes, and then she reaches further and finds me…cold fingers warming us both.
Her eyes never leave mine and mine hold hers in return.
With her other hand, she slides my jeans down. Distantly, as if a dream, I feel the cold on my ass.
She looks down for a moment, watching her fingers at work as I get hard, and then she stops, pulls out a condom, rips it open with her teeth and rolls it over me.
I shake my head, questioning where she got a condom.
“Buds,” she whispers as she finishes.
She doesn’t even pause before unfastening her own jeans, shifting them slowly over her hips as if dancing in slow motion.
The firelight light from the high windows is just strong enough to highlight her eyes, sparkle off her lips — throw soft shadows over her stomach. Her pelvic bones are too pointed. She’s so thin.
I can’t stop my tears this time.
She pushes her jeans down over a layer of striped socks, and then hops up onto the desk, shoving notebooks, a thin computer monitor and coffee cups to the floor.
She bends her knees, raises her boots to the desk and then turns her hips sideways, enough to reveal herself.