Fending Them Off

by Max Lockwood

  She hadn’t checked if Felicia was around and suddenly became worried. What if she was supposed to be out patrolling the fields? Her mind scrambled to try and remember the rotation, but since everyone did as they were supposed to, she hadn’t been paying too much attention to the schedule. She probably failed in her job as leader, but it didn’t bother her nearly as much as the body in her arms.

  Their only alternative was Alice, and, though Clara would have preferred Felicia, Alice would be of some help. Only Clara didn’t know where she was, either, and she couldn’t help but curse.

  Luckily, though, Felicia was around. She came running when she heard them, and Clara almost smiled when she saw her. If she didn’t feel so much like crying, she would have.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes falling to the body in Clara’s arms, then she stilled.

  She was shocked to see the child in Clara’s arms, who was woozily coming back to consciousness. She stopped running towards them, instead standing there and gaping at them, and Clara felt impatience stir in her chest.

  “Felicia!” she called out, frantic, her voice sharper than she intended, getting the other woman’s attention. “We found him and he passed out,” she said quickly. “Something is seriously wrong with him and we don’t know what to do. I need you to look him over.”

  Felicia snapped out for her preoccupation. Clara knew she was a good nurse, and, more than anything, she cared about the comfort of her patients. Her face firmed into the grim face she usually had when she was concentrating hard on what she needed to do.

  “Get him upstairs so I can examine him and hopefully help to make him better. I don’t have anything I can give him, but if we’re lucky, he won’t need medication.”

  Clara nodded, hoping for the same, and moved. “I’ll explain everything later,” she promised.

  Upstairs, Cooper opened the door to their room, and Clara went in without question. He had rushed ahead of them into the house, and Clara shot him a grateful look as she passed. Carefully, she lowered the boy onto the bed, feeling her breath hitch once he was out of her arms.

  She hesitated there for a moment, the urge to pick him up and hold him close still there. But then Felicia was there and Clara was moving aside. She needed to let the other woman examine him, though it was still hard.

  Clara stood aside as Felicia examined the child as best as she could. She might have been standing a bit too close, but if Clara disturbed her work, Felicia was nice enough not to mention it and tell her to move out of the way. Clara didn’t know what she was doing, even though she’d played nurse with Felicia at a makeshift hospital back home for a time. She saw Felicia run her hands over the boy’s chest and press a little on his stomach and sides.

  Clara bit her lip. Then stopped that, fearing she might actually break the skin, and started chewing on her fingernails instead. She held back the urge to demand Felicia tell her all that she was doing. She knew the other woman would do her best and speak when she had something to say, after she arrived at a diagnosis.

  But they didn’t have any equipment here. They didn’t have anything, so if there was something wrong with the boy internally, there might not be a way for them to tell.

  What if he’d gotten sick? Felicia had brought some drugs along, but Clara didn’t think she had anything on hand that would cure whatever the kid could have gotten, unless painkillers were enough for that. And even those were getting pretty low.

  “I really wish I had better facilities,” she finally sighed, pulling away from the boy and standing up. “But wishes don’t come true and this will have to be enough. There’s nothing more I can do for him right now. Did you find him unconscious?”

  “Uh, no, he was hiding when we found him. He came out of his hiding place, and I was trying to talk him into coming with us when he collapsed.”

  “That’s good, then. It would have been a problem if you’d found him unconscious, because then we wouldn’t have known how long he’d been in that state. You guys came at a dead run, so it couldn’t have been a half an hour.”

  “Do you think he’ll wake up soon?” Clara asked, her tone almost desperate.

  Felicia nodded thoughtfully. “He should in a little bit. Though he is incredibly weak… I can’t tell if he’s sick with something or if it’s just hunger and exhaustion.” Then she frowned. “How did you even know this boy was out there?”

  Clara explained about the night she’d met the boy before Jack appeared and scared him off unknowingly. “I’ve been looking for him ever since that day. Felicia, I don’t even know if he’s eaten since then, and he looks absolutely filthy. He’s been staying in those woods for some time.”

  Felicia nodded. “I noticed scratches all over his body, and there’s some especially bad damage to the bottom of his feet. We’ll need to clean him up soon so they don’t get infected, that’s the last thing we need. He’s likely just underfed and will need to build up his immunity again in a warm, safe place.”

  Clara nodded, way ahead of her on that. “He’s staying with me. Cooper and I already talked about it, and it was his idea to take the boy in, initially.”

  Felicia looked curious, and Clara gave her a tired smile. Then looked down at the boy, and felt her heart clench.

  “I guess I feel a connection to him for some reason,” she murmured and held his hand.

  She noted how small and cold it was and got emotional, her mind jumping to all the “what ifs.” What if they hadn’t found him in time? He’d clearly been on the verge of collapse before they found him, and if he hadn’t moved when he did, Clara would have missed him entirely. There was a chance, in her frantic search, she might have overlooked him entirely, and he would have died out there. So much could have gone wrong, and she felt so glad she’d been able to find him.

  She blinked her tears away as his eyes fluttered open. His eyes met hers, some of the fear still there, but he mostly looked groggy. Though he became more alert when Felicia suddenly touched him.

  “Shh,” Clara murmured, squeezing his hand and ruffling his hair with her free hand. “My friend over here is a nurse. Your body hurts, doesn’t it? She’s going to take care of that for you.”

  His eyes left hers and landed on Felicia, who had stopped touching him when he flinched. His eyes drifted back to Clara’s, and he squeezed her hand back. Clara looked to Felicia and gave her a nod. His face tightened when Felicia touched him again, but he held himself still.

  She talked to him as Felicia tended to the broken skin on his feet, hoping to keep him distracted so he wouldn’t feel too much pain, and she didn’t stop even as his eyes fluttered closed again.

  “I’m going to care for you and make sure you’re okay. Would you like that? You won’t ever have to be alone and afraid again, I promise.”

  The boy woke up again when Felicia was almost done, and didn’t seem as afraid as before. His eyes moved from Clara to Felicia then back.

  “Can I have my teddy back?” he asked shyly, his voice low and scratchy.

  Clara presented it to him. She’d have to clean it, too, but for the moment, she couldn’t deny the boy the one comfort he had.

  He snuggled it, peeping at Clara from behind it. The move was too cute, and Clara smiled in spite of herself.

  “Hi,” he said, “My name’s Jackson. What’s yours?”

  Clara’s smile widened, and she felt like they were making some progress if he was talking to her on his own. Maybe he wouldn’t be scared anymore now. She was hoping that was the case, so they wouldn’t have to worry about him running away.

  She introduced herself, too. “Hello, Jackson. I’m Clara.”

  His eyes drifted over to Felicia, and she guessed what he wanted.

  “The nurse over there is my friend, Felicia.”

  She glanced over to the other woman to find Felicia finishing up on his feet and moving back. Clara gave her a smile in gratitude.

  “Why don’t you rest while I get you a good meal?”

  But
he wouldn’t let go of her hand when she went to stand, tightening his own little hand around it instead. The movement was so weak, she could have broken it easily, but she let him hold on to her. She looked to the others in the room.

  “I’ll call someone out to bring something,” Felicia said and moved toward the door. She stopped right outside, bumping into someone already out there. Clara listened to her giving out the instructions for a hot meal.

  “Clara?” Jackson called.

  She hummed, turning back to him with a smile. “What is it?”

  He blinked up at her from behind his teddy bear, and her heart melted all over again. “Will you read me a happy story?”

  “I don’t have any books, but I can make one up for you, if you’d like.”

  He nodded, and Clara settled down, sitting cross legged on the floor beside the bed. She’d aspired to be a writer once, it had been her dream, and she’d thought of writing children stories besides the novels she was interested in. Coming up with stories was her forte.

  Cooper and Felicia watched, smiling as Clara told him a story and he went to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Clara watched as Cooper helped Jackson eat his breakfast.

  It was a few days later and Clara was happy to be surrounded by her family. Jackson was quickly warming into the name, and it helped that he had dark hair and green eyes like Cooper, though after he got cleaned up, his skin was a lot lighter.

  He was, thankfully, not ill or sick. He didn’t get an infection from any of the cuts, and most of them had closed up pretty nicely. It still hurt him to use soap, but he’d told her just that morning that the pain had gotten less. He could even walk without wincing now, but his feet weren’t well enough to run around like the other kids.

  He was still shy around them, he was shy around everyone other than Clara. It hadn’t taken him long to get used to Cooper, though, because he was a natural with children of all ages. Even Dante, the ultimate dad, couldn’t get near the kid without him tensing up.

  “To be honest, though,” Dante’d told her, “having two daughters, I don’t know what to do with a boy.”

  But there was a way that Dante looked at him that made Clara wonder if he’d ever wanted a boy. She didn’t talk to him much, though they had been sleeping together for a while before the EMP attack. Clara didn’t actually know anything about him, she only knew a little more than she did about Cooper, and that was from observation when she went to their house, and the small talk they sometimes had between them before they moved on to other activities.

  She grimaced and put the thoughts out of her mind.

  Clara had thought about having a son of her own, and, in his own way, Jackson fulfilled the position perfectly. She thought Cooper felt the same way about him, because he was definitely acting like a father around the boy.

  She loved seeing it. Jackson wouldn’t go outside, not for long anyway, but he always clutched at either of them when he did. She knew Cooper had taken him out once while he worked in the fields, and the boy had bragged about it to her. She’d gotten back to find them both dirty and gone to clean Jackson while Cooper got them food.

  They were acting like a close little family, and her heart was content with it.

  Tessa came into the room and found them, and Clara smiled until she noticed the look on her sister’s face.

  Though Clara had convinced her sister to go out with them to get Jackson, once Tessa realize the boy was going to be fine, she had kept her distance. She didn’t stay in a room when Jackson walked into it. The behavior annoyed Clara, but she couldn’t exactly force her sister.

  Jackson, for his part, didn’t seem to mind Tessa. He had definitely recognized her as the person that scared him that one time when she saw him, but he didn’t seem scared of her. It did help that Tessa kept her distance, but Clara could tell his curiosity was piqued.

  She thought the little boy had some idea that Tessa didn’t like him. He might even know why. When he started opening up to them, Clara had come to realize quickly that he was actually pretty smart for a boy his age. Well, he would have had to be to live out on his own for as long as he had.

  That was another thing. He didn’t like to talk a lot about what had happened before he was in the woods. They were curious, but after she’d asked and he’d gone quiet, they had let it be. Clara had tried to talk to Tessa about him, only for her sister to quietly get up and walk away.

  It wasn’t the first time Clara had thought of being more considerate towards Tessa and found her sister’s behavior just wouldn’t allow it. All she could think was that Tessa was throwing a tantrum again, because her worries could be washed away if she just waited to listen. But she wasn’t interested in listening. Cooper had told her he’d even tried, but she wouldn’t budge for him, either.

  Again, Clara found herself wondering what she would do about her sister. Tessa was just too impossible to deal with when she didn’t want to be cooperative.

  Clara cared for her sister, but Tessa had her eyes narrowed on Cooper, and more particularly, Jackson, so Clara got in front of her and blocked them from sight. Tessa’s face just twisted in further annoyance, her eyes now on Clara’s.

  Her own became pinched as she waited for Tessa to pitch a fit.

  “I came to see what you’re all doing, and Jackson is getting all of the attention.”

  At least she wasn’t loud about it. Clara glanced at the other two, but Cooper only glanced up at Tessa before he was back to looking at Jackson. The little boy didn’t even look up. Clara sighed and went to her sister, hoping to keep things quiet. The last thing she needed was Tessa doing something to the child again.

  He was okay around her, even though he wasn’t around her a lot, and Clara didn’t want that to change. As much as Tessa was fighting it, she was family, and Clara wanted her to consider Jackson the same way, because she and Cooper already did. She did know, deep down, that her sister was just feeling insecure with the boy there, but Clara thought her behavior was reproachable, nonetheless.

  “Can you not start something with Jackson here?” she asked pleadingly, keeping her voice low. “I don’t want him to hear it and get upset.”

  Tessa just scowled at her, and scoffed. “What do you man ‘start something’? I’m not so petty I’d actually start an argument with a child.”

  Clara gave her a look of disbelief. Did her sister even realize what her behavior looked like to the adults who witnessed it? Or was she joking?

  “Tessa, be serious. If you’re here to start trouble, please just leave. I can do without your sarcasm right now.”

  “Who’s being sarcastic?” Tessa retorted. “I just came to spend some time with my family, and what do I find? It isn’t the first time. You guys are always around him or out now. I hardly ever see either of you anymore.”

  Clara could have told her it was her own fault. Of course she and Cooper were usually around Jackson while they were at the house. If Tessa didn’t keep disappearing, they would have spent time together, but with the boy present. That was the part that Tessa seemed reluctant to accept.

  Nothing could be done about it, since Clara and Cooper were the boy’s acting guardians. Everyone else was more or less happy for them, even Jack and Audrey, and Tessa was the only one left sulking.

  Clara didn’t know why Tessa wouldn’t just warm up to the boy like she had before with Cooper.

  “Do you realize what you sound like, Tess? Of course he’s getting attention, he’s a child. You don’t even like attention.”

  Clara was trying her best to be patient with her sister, but Tessa acting like a jealous sibling got old before it even started. Clara had found herself wondering if Tessa had been like this with their parents when Clara was born, before she grew old enough to start understanding things.

  Tessa pouted. “You still talk to him more than you do me, and Cooper is always with him.”

  “No, he isn’t. You know Dante and Michelle are the ones mostly staying back and
looking after the children. Cooper still puts in work around the place, and so do I.”

  “And I don’t, right?” she sulked.

  Clara rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you do while we’re outside, Tessa. You’ve never said, and I don’t ask. You have your own job, so I hope you at least do that?”

  She arched her eyebrows, and Tessa hesitated before she nodded.

  “Look, Tess, I know this is a new development. But it would make me really happy if you played with Jackson or something ... just look at him. He’s just a child, Tessa, and he’s been through way too much on his own. We’re trying to help him heal, not traumatize him further, you know.

  But Tessa scowled and crossed her arms over her chest, looking away. “I don’t want to.”

  Clara just sighed again at her sister’s petulant tone. “Come on, sis,” she persuaded. “He’s sticking around so you might as well try to get to know him. You never know, he might grow on you like he has me and Cooper.”

  She stayed stubborn, but after some persuasion, Clara thought she’d worn her down.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll tell him a story, then. You do that with children, don’t you?”

  She gave Clara an inquisitive look, trying and failing to hide that she was uncomfortable.

  It was just in time, as Cooper got up and came over to them. He looked curiously between the two of them, then turned to Clara.

  “I need to get out and tend the field, would you look after Jackson for a while? I know Dante and Michelle are trying, but he isn’t all that comfortable around them yet.”

  “I already know that,” Clara reassured him. “And it’s fine. But actually, Tessa was going to tell him a story.”

  His eyebrows arched in surprise, and he turned to look at her. Tessa, on her part, tensed up and held her chin high, like she was expecting some rebuke. But Cooper’s next words surprised her.

  “That’s good. He loves stories, as long as you keep them happy.” He leaned down and gave Clara a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you both later.”