by Alex Apostol
They stayed low and moved as fast as they could while crouched. They crept down the sand dune towards the placid water. The air was completely still, which made the lake look like a thick sheet of glass that they could walk out on forever, away from the world of chaos behind them.
Lonnie kept waving everyone forward, but the only one who seemed to pay him any attention was Rowan. He mimicked Lonnie’s every move.
Gretchen’s heart pounded as they moved out into the openness of the lakefront. The sound of sand and stones crunched under her feet and seemed to echo out for everyone to hear, if there was anyone around to hear.
Lonnie held up his fist and turned to make sure they followed his order. “On three we make a break for the water. Big Bertha,” he said as he smiled at Gale. “It was nice knowing ya.”
She held up her middle finger and he chuckled.
“One…two…”
Gretchen couldn’t breathe. There was a relentless pounding in her head and a queasy turning in her stomach. All at once she didn’t want to do this. She didn’t care how thirsty she was. She wanted to turn around and run away, from the lake, from the group, from everything. What had she gotten herself into?
She looked over her shoulder and saw three lumbering figures in the dark on the very spot they’d just been sitting. They stumbled as their unresponsive feet got caught in the weight of the sand. She turned back to the black lake with her lips parted, her eyes perfect blue circles.
“Three.”
X.
There was a flash of white light. Gretchen couldn’t see anything, but she kept running forward to the water’s edge as fast as her legs would carry her. It was as bright as day as beams shone down from several of the houses and the surrounding lifeguard towers. The silence of the night was broken by the sounds of gunshot and the beating of Gretchen’s racing heart in her ears.
She looked back to see Gale still standing where the tall grass met the sandy beach, hidden from the houses, the three figures growing larger behind her. Someone from the group screamed. Gretchen turned and ran back into the safety of the trees when the fresh water was just several feet in front of her. The rest of the group seemed to have had the same idea as they, one by one, came to a halt next to her heaving through their gaping mouths.
“What the hell was that?” Rowan yelled as he doubled over and tried to catch his breath.
Gale stood with her hands on her hips. “That was exactly what I said would happen. That was people defending what they believe is theirs.”
Out of nowhere, Lonnie drove into Gale with his hands on her shoulders and pinned her to a large tree trunk. “You were supposed to go out there like the rest of us!” He roared in her face. “Someone could’ve died!”
Gale didn’t squirm or show an ounce of discomfort in her stone-cold face, even though her head throbbed where it slammed into the hard bark. She was grinning. “And you were hoping that someone was me?”
He gave her a good shove as he backed off and scratched at his head. He threw his hands down to his side as he paced in circles, breathing heavily from his nose, his nostril flaring wildly. All at once, Lonnie threw the rifle over his shoulder and aimed it in Gale’s direction.
Before anyone could move to put a stop to it, he fired openly.
Gale ducked down and raised her hands to cover the back of her head. Multiple shots whizzed by her and landed with quick thumps as the bullets penetrated something hard. She’d pushed Lonnie too far. The kid was a grad-A jerk, but she never thought he would actually try to murder her. She swore to herself, right then and there, that if she made it out alive, she would rip him apart with her bare hands.
When the gunfire ceased and silence was restored, Gale raised her head slowly. She looked behind her and saw three motionless bodies lying in a heap in the tall grass, black blood oozing from the bullet holes in their heads. Lonnie had saved her…again.
“Well, we need fucking water and we need it right fucking now so what do you suggest, Big Bertha? Since you think you’re some kind of apocalyptic survival genius, you tell us where to get our fucking water!”
Small moans and whimpers in the distance broke up the argument. In the openness, Mitchell lie in the sand with Lee by his side. Slowly, as the arguing subsided, everyone turned and gathered to see what was going on with the youngest member of their group.
Mitchell couldn’t seem to keep still as he rocked side to side. Lee was trying to unlace his tennis shoe to remove it, but kept losing his grip with every jerky movement.
“Hold still!” Lee grumbled. His face was stiff and his jaw was clenched.
Mitchell took one quick look at the broad man’s narrowed, dark eyes and stopped moving instantly. His whimpering changed to sharp outbursts of air from his nostrils as he clamped his mouth shut. His fingers dug into the sand as he moaned.
Lee tossed the shoe aside and removed his white tube sock slowly. There was a circular blood stain on the outer side. When Mitchell’s foot was finally exposed, Lee held it close to his face. He tried to inspect the wound, but it was too dark to see. “Gimme a light,” he said, holding out his hand.
Rowan reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. With a few taps, brightness beamed from the camera’s light on the back. Lee took it and held it close to Mitchell’s foot. His nose was just inches from the pinky toe. He made a few approving and disappointing clucks while everyone else huddled around to get a good look.
“Right,” Lee said, setting the phone down in his lap. He reached deep into one of the pockets of his khaki cargo shorts. He pulled out a small bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and a roll of medical gauze. “The bullet just grazed da side of ya foot. You’ll need ta keep it clean and covered for a few days. You’ll be fine,” he said in a thick accent.
Mitchell sat up, his lips neither turned up in gratitude nor turned down in pain. “I didn’t know you were Irish.” The curls on his head bounced as he gave a few small shakes of his head. He looked to the others as multiple eyes rolled in his direction.
“There’s a lot ya don’t know.” Lee poured a few drops of the Peroxide onto the open wound. It fizzed on contact and Mitchell took a sharp intake of air between his teeth and released it with a long sigh. Lee wrapped his foot quickly and stood up when he was done.
“Thanks,” Mitchell said as he pushed himself to sit up. He grabbed for his shoe and put his sock on slowly and carefully. Blood was already starting to show through the layers of white gauze.
“Think you’ll make it, Mitch the Bitch?” Lonnie asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before he turned away again. “Good. Great. Back to business. What do you suggest we do now, Big Bertha? What’s your awesome plan to keep us alive?”
“We find supplies and shelter, like we’ve been saying.” There was less acidity to her voice.
“There’s a Walmart not too far from here,” Gretchen offered. “I know it’ll probably be cleaned out, but I bet we could still find a few things we need that we haven’t been able to get from the houses we’ve been to.”
Gale smiled at Gretchen. “Great idea, hon. Good thinking.”
Gretchen smiled back with all her teeth and her brilliant blue eyes lit up her face.
Lonnie’s gaze shifted between them as he scowled. “Oh no, Big Bertha, don’t get any ideas here. You’re not turning this one into some rug muncher.”
“Actually,” Gretchen spoke up. “I am gay.”
Lonnie’s mouth dropped wide open. His head started to spin. It couldn’t be true. “You gotta be shittin’ me,” he said flatly. He couldn’t catch a break. “Just my luck, man, another fucking dyke.”
Gale took a few bounding steps toward Lonnie with her fists clenched, but Gretchen put a hand to her shoulder to stop her. Lonnie stood rooted with a grin on his face red face.
“It’s OK,” Gretchen whispered.
Gale fumed. Her shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths. The sight made Lonnie chuckle as he shook his head.
“Well, come on then,
Big Bertha, you and your girlfriend are leading the way.” He had his gun in his hands and used it to point them in the direction of the trail that lead away from the expansive lake.
“It’s already late, everyone’s tired and scared, Mitchell is hurt,” Gretchen said with a sigh. “Let’s just rest and head over in the morning.” She looked around at the restless faces of the group instead of Lonnie.
Gale nodded, but no one else made a move. They avoided eye contact with either side.
Lonnie swung his gun around his back again and shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you want, pretty little lady.” He winked at Gretchen and walked further into the trees to find a good place to make camp for the night.
XI.
The small fire Lonnie built smoldered close to the ground while everyone sat scattered around it. With the thick, hot air no one wanted it for its warmth. It was merely a comfort to be able to see in the dark. Lonnie instructed Rowan on how to disassemble his rifle and clean it. Both their fingers fumbled clumsily over the small parts.
Carolyn sat nearby and leaned over to watch them closely. She smiled at Rowan whenever he looked up at her. Lonnie was too focused on keeping track of the miniscule pieces of his gun to notice their exchange.
Lee sat upright with his back against the trunk of a tree and his eyes closed. No one knew if he was really asleep or only pretending, and no one cared. He was never good for conversation.
Mitchell took to keeping close by Lee. He made a pillow with his bent arm and lay on his side on the warm, hard dirt and leaves. His injured foot lie separate from the rest of him, sticking out awkwardly like a broken tree limb. Every now and again he let out a small whimper in his sleep.
Gale and Gretchen sat close together, further from the fire than the rest. Once again, Gretchen didn’t want anyone to overhear their conversation.
“What’s Lonnie’s deal?” Gretchen asked in a sour tone as she sat on a fallen tree trunk. “He still eyes me like a piece of meat, even though I told him I like girls.” As she said it, she snuck a peek through her eyelashes at Lonnie and found him looking up from his gun at her.
He gave a quick smile and wink before returning back to cleaning his gun with the bottom of his stained white t-shirt.
Gretchen couldn’t help scrunching her face in disgust. She’d never hated someone so much in her life, even if he did save Gale from those things. Without warning, the image of their grayish arms extended out, ready to clasp Gale with their bloodied fingers flashed in her mind. She shivered.
“Don’t worry about him,” Gale said with a wave of her hand, as if she were swatting away an annoying bug that buzzed around them. “Boys like that think they are God’s gift to women. The minute you told him you were gay, you became the forbidden fruit. It just as easily could have been me.”
Gretchen looked at her with crinkled eyes as she smiled big. She let out a few breathy giggles.
Gale laughed along. “Just don’t let him get to you. Before you know it, he’ll be fighting Rowan over that blonde bimbo, Carolyn.”
Gretchen let the laughter die and looked around before she leaned in close to Gale. “I’ve met Lonnie before, too.”
Gale stared at her with a furrowed brow and intense, solid eyes. They urged Gretchen to continue.
“At your bachelorette party. Lonnie was with someone other guy and they came up to me when Charlie left to get drinks. They tried to pick me up. The funny thing is he doesn’t even seem to remember. I told him that night I had a girlfriend. He even saw Charlie. They exchanged a few words…”
They both laughed quietly, each individually remembering the feisty fire of jealousy that used to burn inside Charlie, before they tapered off and were silent again.
Gretchen’s smile faded away at the mention of her girlfriend’s name. Toward the end, she constantly complained about how jealous Charlie used to get when anyone even looked at her with lust in their eyes, let alone talked to her. She would have given anything to hear Charlie tell Lonnie off one more time.
“Can I ask what happened to her?” Gale’s face fell into a deep-lined frown.
Gretchen didn’t say anything right away. She dug the toe of her designer combat boot into the tightly compacted dirt and broke it apart. Her eyes filled to the brim with tears, but she wouldn’t allow them to spill over and run down her cheeks. She sniffed. Her lips pursed so they couldn’t tremble.
“It’s OK,” Gale said. “We don’t have to talk about it. I don’t even like thinking about Salena anymore, to be honest. Hurts too damn much.”
Gretchen nodded her head and took another large sniff of hot air to clear her mind.
“Why don’t we get some sleep?” Gale suggested as she stood up to walk over to a clearing by the fire.
Gretchen stood as well, but stayed in the shadows. “I think I’m gonna take a quick walk around the camp, just to make sure it’s safe.”
“Here.” Gale tossed her a sheathed Bowie knife. “Just in case.”
Gretchen gave a weak smile before she walked off into the trees and was swallowed up by the darkness. No one tried to stop her. Her shoulders relaxed. She needed to be alone to collect herself and stop Charlie’s face from haunting her. It wasn’t easy to push her from her mind. The last time she saw Charlie plagued her thoughts as she walked through the shadows of the trees.
XII.
Gretchen drove Charlie’s beat up, old Toyota Corolla away from the city of Chicago with her fingers intertwined to rest in Charlie’s lap. Tall buildings and gridlock traffic gave way to expansive, open highway. Small, run down houses transformed into larger, modern suburban homes once they crossed the state line into Indiana. Charlie looked eagerly out the window at the fenced in backyards and open fields of nothing but green grass.
“I still can’t believe I’m finally going to meet your parents,” she said as she gripped Gretchen’s hand in both of hers and held it to her chest. “What’d they say when you told them?”
Gretchen looked in the rearview mirror, then each of the side mirrors, then the rearview mirror again. “Uh, they said they couldn’t wait to meet you.”
Charlie squealed with glee and squeezed Gretchen’s hand harder. “I’m so freaking excited!”
“Look, there’s something I should tell you, but I don’t want you to get mad, OK? You can’t get mad.”
Charlie relaxed her grip on her girlfriend’s hand to let it rest in her lap again as her face fell into an apprehensive frown. “Oh, God. What is it now?”
“No big deal or anything. It’s just…my parents…they don’t exactly know that you’re…” Gretchen worked laboriously to spit out the last part, a pained grimace on her face. “…a girl.” She bit her bottom lip and waited for the inevitable outburst.
Charlie threw Gretchen’s hand back into her own lap. “Are you serious?” she screeched as she tossed her arms up in the air to let them fall with a slap against her thigh. “What the hell, Gretch?”
Gretchen shrugged her shoulders up until her neck disappeared. “I’m sorry. I told them I was dating a Charlie and we were coming home together, so I didn’t exactly lie or anything. I just let them come to their own conclusions.”
When Charlie didn’t yell, scream, or curse her out, Gretchen let her shoulders relax cautiously and looked at her through the corner of one of her eyes.
Charlie didn’t say anything. Her head was turned to glare out the window at the scenery passing by. There was a black and white cow grazing in the grass. She wanted to smile about it, but couldn’t bring herself to.
“Say something,” Gretchen prodded in a docile voice.
“What do you want me to say? There’s nothing we can do now. Let’s just get there and get this over with.”
Gretchen let out an exhale of relief. She’d been expecting more of a scene. Charlie could be so dramatic sometimes, which was the one of the many things about her that bothered Gretchen, about girls in general.
Unable to stand the silence, she turned up the radio. Fall Ou
t Boy blared through the three working speakers and it reminded her of high school when her life started to spiral out of control. A reminiscent smile pulled at the corners of her pink glossy lips, but she did her best to contain it for Charlie’s sake.
“We’ll talk about this when we get home,” Charlie said through her teeth at the window.
Gretchen rolled her eyes. She knew it’d been too easy.
Gretchen pulled into her parents’ driveway and turned off the car. The house looked the same as it always had, even when her grandmother was the one who owned it decades ago, with its slightly off white, dingy wood siding and tall grass that hadn’t been mowed in months. The two story house loomed over her like a monster from one of her nightmares. She hadn’t set foot inside since she left over ten years ago. Charlie had some masterful powers of persuasion. Gretchen’s throat was dry and it made it hard for her to swallow her dread.
“Are we going in or what?” Charlie asked with sting. She looked over and saw Gretchen’s pale face, hands gripped to the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. The tides changed inside her. Charlie’s voice normalized to its comforting, girlish nature. “Baby, it’s going to be OK. Don’t worry so much.”
The car grew hot as it baked in the summer sun. Gretchen pushed up the half sleeves of her light blue t-shirt. Every inch of her arms, from the wrist up, were covered in colorful tattoos, some brand-new and vibrant while others were faded from the harsh years.
“Come on,” Charlie said as she rested a reassuring hand on Gretchen’s arm.
Gretchen released the breath she’d been holding and pried her fingers from the steering wheel.
They got out of the Toyota and walked up the driveway. The gravel crunched under Gretchen’s black leather boots while Charlie moved in silence thanks to her tiny frame and delicate flats.