“Yeah, you’re...I mean, he’s probably right.” He didn’t open his eyes. “I guess I kind of hoped when I saw your cat things were getting better.” He looked up then, startling me a bit. “You know, a sign?”
What do I say to that? “I’m... sorry.” I couldn’t think of a better response.
He shook his head. “Not your fault. It’s mine, actually. I keep expecting things to get better, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon, does it?”
“Maybe it’s not going to get better here, not for a while anyway, but somewhere it’s better than this. That’s where the animals are. That’s where the people are. And that’s where we should be.”
A smile broke out on his face, but it wasn’t sincere—sad, really. “You still planning to go to Rockport? Look for your dad?”
I sensed a trap, but nodded anyway. “Yeah, I am.”
“What happens if he’s not there? What are you going to do then?”
I scooted forward on the couch with my butt on the edge. “Why does everyone assume he’s not going to be there? Why does everyone have to be so negative?” Everyone meaning him and Cole.
He mimicked my movements and sat on the edge of his chair. “Did you get a phone call or a message? Something that told you to meet him there?”
Where is he going with this? I nodded.
“How long ago was that?”
“A couple of months.”
“And you’re just going to check it out now?”
I owed him nothing, least of all an explanation. “I couldn’t before.”
He got up from the chair, crossed the room, and knelt in front of me. He grabbed my ankles in his hands. “I’m from Denver.”
Denver? Jeez. That was like... what? I didn’t know, but Denver was a long, long way away. Lots of miles.
“My granddad left a message on my phone, too.” He slipped a small knife from his pocket and flicked it open, then positioned it under the plastic strap around my ankles and cut me free. “He told me they’d wait—him, my uncles, my aunt, and two of my cousins. No matter how long it took. They were safe, and they’d wait for me. As long as we were together, we’d be fine, he’d said.”
“That’s great.” I moved my ankles in a circular motion, to work out the kinks. “Where are you supposed to meet them?”
He took my wrists, his dark hands holding my pale ones, but he didn’t cut the band as I expected. His eyes focused on mine. “You’re looking at it.”
“You were supposed to meet them here?” The family pictures strung on the walls adopted a more ominous feel than ever before, and I searched for him in the frames amid the strangers and the smiling faces. The house evolved and became dreadfully real—a painful possibility.
A sense of heaviness weighed me down, more mental than physical, though I sank deeper into the cushions of the couch.
He sliced through the plastic band around my wrists, but instead of releasing me, he ran his thumbs over the indents in my skin. “Next door, actually, but...” He shook his head. “You saw what it looks like out there.”
Of course I did. The barrenness, the emptiness, the destruction—I’d seen it all. A sigh pressed through my lips as I tried to process what his revelation meant, and what he expected me to do exactly. Give up looking for Dad and Toby? Never. “I’m sorry your family isn’t here, but it doesn’t mean my family is gone too. They might still be waiting for me.”
He nodded. “If I had a clue to where my family might be, or even a hint they might still be alive, I’d probably be chasing after it too. I get that, but I have to warn you, it hurts like hell to get to your destination only to wind up no better than when you first started out. Believe me, I know.”
Of course those thoughts had plagued my mind—I wasn’t naïve or stupid. It had been over two months after all, and of course I’d wondered why Dad hadn’t come back for me in all that time, but his message to me was all I had to cling to. Thinking anything different, expecting the worst, would crush me into nothingness.
“What’s your plan if you get there and they’re gone?” He continued to massage my wrists while bruising my confidence.
I shrugged. “I don’t have one.”
He studied me for a moment. “Yeah, I kind of figured you didn’t. You should probably have one though. You need to stay at least one step ahead of this. Two or three is even better.”
I jerked my hands away from him. “I don’t want a plan B! If I allow myself to give into doubts I may never attempt plan A! I’m not good at this survivor stuff, I’m not, but this is all I have. This is it for me. So, stop it, okay? Just stop.”
He stared at the floor while turning the broken plastic band around in his hand. “Okay.”
I didn’t care whether the whole idea was foolish or not; I would climb that damn mountain. I would! “What’s your plan now, huh? What are you going to do since your family isn’t here? What’s your plan B?” Tough questions could go both ways.
He turned the piece of plastic over and over in his hand, increasing the speed before finally dropping it at my feet. “My plan B changed.” He stood, brushed off his dirty pants, and looked down at me. “You’re my plan B.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” I clambered from the creaky couch and positioned myself in front of him. “No way. I don’t want to be your plan B. I don’t want to be anyone’s plan B! Go and do whatever you were planning to do before I showed up, okay?” I couldn’t believe I’d actually said that, but I’d said a lot in the last couple of days I wouldn’t have thought possible. Logical? Heck no! But I no longer cared. Cole had ruined that for me.
“If I hadn’t shown up, what were you going to do? Where were you going to go?” He’d drilled me on having a second and third plan in the back of my mind. Now I wanted to know his plans.
“It no longer matters.”
He tried to walk past me, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him. “No, really, tell me. What were you going to do?”
“I said it doesn’t matter, okay?”
I refused to release his arm. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him, what words of wisdom he might hold, but if he knew something I didn’t, then he needed to spill it here and now. He had to tell me. Cole had taught me something important during my time with him—that I could be stubborn too.
He glanced at my hand clasped on his forearm and then back to me. “My plans seem to change every day.” He gave a noncommittal shrug. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Be prepared for anything and everything, because two weeks ago, I had decided to hole up here, make this place work for me, gather supplies, and wait this thing out. See if my family or anyone would come back. A week later when nothing changed, I tried fixing up an old motorcycle, thinking I would ride until I couldn’t ride anymore, but then this happened.” He paused as he reached up, his fingers hesitating for a moment as if rethinking his decision, before finally removing his worn beanie. He stared at the floor then squeezed his eyes shut.
My hand slipped from his arm. Jeez.
Patches of dark hair dotted his scalp, thin and wiry. Long pieces and short pieces mixed together, looking as though a toddler had gotten hold of a pair of scissors and decided to play barber. His smooth scalp peeked through the fine strands, and as he ran his hand lightly over his head, several clumps fell away like dandelion fluff, hardly attached at all. But that wasn’t the worst part—the healing scabs and open sores were.
He grabbed the discarded hat, and with shaking fingers, shoved it back on, drawing it down over the tops of his ears.
“Are... are you sick?”
“I have to be, right?” The circles I’d noticed under his eyes the day before—something I had attributed to exhaustion—stood out as another unhealthy sign. He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, but before all of this happened I was fine. I have a military physical to prove it, but whatever this is I do know it’s getting worse. Much worse.”
What does that mean? “You need to get to a hospital and
be looked at.” The suggestion came out of my mouth before I realized how impossible that might be.
He must have realized it too and gave a soft laugh. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“See? This is another reason why I can’t be your plan B, and why you need to stick to jumping on your motorcycle and trying to find a doctor.” He wanted to follow me and climb a mountain when he might be dying? No way. He needed help, and by the looks of it, he needed it sooner than later.
“Finding help was several plan Bs ago. Besides, whatever is happening to me is getting worse. I gave up on the idea when my vision went a little haywire and I crashed my bike. It’s ruined.”
“Then walk there if you have to.”
His shoulders rolled forward. “Walk where? Look around us.”
“You have to try.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
I stood my ground, forcing him to look at me. “That’s it then? You’re not going to search for your family or try and get any help for yourself? You’re just going to follow me and maybe die in the process?”
He let his breath out slowly and gave a single nod. “Yeah, I’ll probably die one way or the other, so I may as well do it trying to help you.”
“Help me? Why? Why would you do that?” Maybe his sickness had affected his brain too, because nothing he said made any sense whatsoever.
I felt fine. He didn’t.
His eyes watered, but the tears didn’t spill over. “Until yesterday, I didn’t know anyone else existed, from Denver to here, not a living soul. You’re the first person I’ve talked to in months, and that gave me hope. Before that...”
I waited for him to finish his sentence but after several seconds ticked by in silence, I nudged him on. “Before that, what?”
His eyes held a sadness I’d only seen one other time in my life—my father’s face after he was told my mother had been killed. “You said you weren’t a good survivor.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m not either.”
His words told me very little, but his hunched shoulders, the tears rimming his eyes, the small tremor of his bottom lip—something he fought to hide by biting it—and his overall defeated appearance told me exactly what his plan B had been. He didn’t have to say the words for me to know.
“Then why did you run away from us?” Understanding his motives was almost as complicated as trying to figure Cole out. “Why did you leave? We could’ve all worked together and tried to find some help.”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know what kind of games you were playing with me, so I planned to follow you to find out, except you ended up following me first.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t follow you, and I’m not playing any games.” Who the heck had time for mind games and weirdness at a time like this? Okay, bad question, because apparently Cole had, and this guy wasn’t turning out to be much better, but still.
“The guy you keep talking about? The one you said you were traveling with?”
I nodded. “Cole? Yeah, what about him?”
“I watched you... for a long time before I talked to you. At first, I thought I was seeing things, confusing you for a store mannequin or something. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again.”
I wanted to tell him me too, and that Cole had actually accused me of the same thing about seeing him—confusing a real person with a store advertisement—but the way he stared at me, the intensity and emotion in his eyes, kept me from opening my mouth. It wasn’t the time to speak.
“You kept saying ‘us’ and ‘him’ and ‘we’,” he continued, “and even now you keep saying it, but the only person I ever saw at the mall, the entire time I was there, was you.”
He can’t be serious? I tipped my head to the side, incredulous. Who was playing games now? “Cole was running around the mall, maybe you didn’t see him”—how could he not have?—”but you definitely heard him? He’s a big guy and he was pounding the floor pretty hard.”
He kept his eyes on me, unfazed. “I know you were on your own, which is scary, and you didn’t know what I might do or if you could trust me, but now you know. If I had wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it already. So, you can stop pretending with me. No more games, okay?”
“I... what... I don’t.” I pushed his shoulder. He might be deathly sick, but that wasn’t an excuse for him to mess with me. “You stop pretending. You stop playing games!”
He raised his hand to stop me. “How long were you with him?”
“A few days.”
“And before that?”
“I was in a bomb shelter in my backyard.”
“Was he there with you, in the bomb shelter?”
“Of course not, it was just me and my cat. Why all the questions? This is getting really weird.”
His eyes narrowed and his brow pinched together. He stepped away from me, moving with calculated steps, until the plush chair brushed against the back of his legs, and he sank into it. “You really think someone was there with you at the mall, don’t you?”
No, not this again. What is it with these guys?
“I don’t think anything. Cole was there! He’s real! You can’t make up that kind of crazy, and I’m not losing my mind, if that’s what you’re suggesting. You may not have seen him and he didn’t see you, but that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe your sickness is starting to affect more than just your hair.”
Mean words, but this was going too far. He didn’t say anything, but stared at me in such a way it forced me to take a small step backward.
I raised my hands. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? Are you planning to tell me I don’t own a cat either or that all of this is a figment of my imagination? One big fat lie, a glitch in my brain?”
“No, I’m not. All of this is real, too real.” His eyes remained on mine, and he leaned forward. “But I do think you’re starting to get sick like me.”
“Nope! I’m not doing this. Cole told me you didn’t exist. Now you’re telling me he doesn’t, and I’m telling you you’re both nuts. This is the most bizarre experience I’ve ever had. I’m done. I’m done!” I knelt next to my bag and shoved my loose belongings inside. “I’m fine, by the way. I feel great, so I don’t need your help.”
He scooted to the edge of his seat. The faux leather crinkled with his movement. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, really? Telling me the person who stitched my arm, saved me from a beastly tornado, and who kissed me isn’t real, that I’m probably losing my mind and will end up with no hair on my head wasn’t meant to scare me? Then let me apologize. I’m so sorry for reacting in a way you hadn’t expected.”
I swung my bag over one shoulder, and as I marched through the kitchen on the way to bathroom to fetch Callie, I pilfered two bottles of Nutella from the open cabinet. “I’m taking these. I think I’ve earned them.” I shoved them into my bag.
He followed and did nothing to stop me. “Take whatever you want. I won’t be needing any of it after today.”
I spun around to face him. “Don’t you dare try guilting me into letting you come along.”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. I want to make it clear, whatever you do from this point on is on you, not me. Do you understand?” I didn’t want to think what he planned to do once I left. I refused to carry that responsibility.
“Of course.”
I inched the bathroom door open, squatted down, and caught Callie’s leash as she shot through the crack, trying to zip through my legs. She jerked backward, coming up short when the leash tightened. I gave her furry head a quick pat as a way of apologizing for knocking her on her behind. “I’m leaving, and I don’t want you following me.” I scooped her into my arms. “I mean it.”
“I won’t.” He shifted and made room for me to pass him in the tight space of the hall.
I stopped mid-movement, trapping him against the wall, my chest against his. “I’m doing this on my own.”<
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“Okay.”
“I just want to find my dad and my brother, and for all of this to be over.”
He offered a single nod. “I know.”
“We’re clear?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re clear.”
He followed me into the balmy garage, watching me in the same way Cole had when I’d left him. Why couldn’t I have found another female survivor? It would have been so much easier. No mind-games and nonsense, just hair braiding and drama—something I knew how to deal with.
I knelt next to the gap in the garage door, hardly believing I was about to leave another person in the span of two days. At one point, the idea of being alone would have put me in a panicked state. Now, I couldn’t wait to be on my own and away from these guys and their insanity. Last people or not, I couldn’t stand them.
But before crawling through the space, I stopped, turned around and looked at him again. “You said no one was at the mall, and I’m probably getting sick and that creating another person is my mind playing tricks on me. A symptom of being ill?”
He tugged on his beanie and leaned against the wall for support. “I’m only telling you what I saw and what I think might be happening to you.”
I waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, okay, but then by that logic, maybe you’re the one who’s not real. Maybe you’re the figment of my imagination. It’s possible my sick brain created you.”
I didn’t really think any of those things. Both he and Cole were real, very real. I had felt Cole’s lips on mine, and this boy touched and caressed the indents in my skin left by the plastic band. Minds could be tricky, but not that tricky.
I wasn’t delusional or sick—well, not anymore. My fever was gone and the antibiotics had cleared my infection. For the past several days, I’d felt physically fine. Yeah, I had suffered a mini-meltdown the day before—a panic attack—but I’d suffered them long before the world started to fall apart. Nothing new.
I was fine.
He shrugged. “Then by that logic, maybe I am.”
Anyone? Page 18