I wasn’t right and knew it now.
Nothing good had come from leaving him. Nothing at all.
I slipped my leg through the loop of Callie’s leash, giving her a bit of freedom, then turned the headlamp back on and decided to take a closer look at my backpack. Each unzipped pocket produced something new—a cigarette lighter, a package of M&Ms, a bag of granola, and a piece of paper folded into a tiny square—none of which I had placed there.
He must have shoved stuff into my pack when it sat outside the garage door, but how? The sun had fried me; it would have blistered and boiled him. Despite the logistics of it being impossible, I was grateful to know he’d been close by.
It also saddened me. Had we been together, we might have been able to help Dylan.
No more crying.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes for a moment, pushing aside thoughts of my reckless decisions leading to reckless results. Knowing there might have been a chance, however slim, would always haunt me.
I hadn’t eaten anything since my meal with Dylan, but didn’t feel like stomaching any of the snacks Cole had snuck into my bag. I shoved the food items and cigarette lighter back in my pack, but held onto the folded piece of paper. It drew my interest more than any of the other things he’d given me.
I carefully opened it, making sure not to rip the paper, and aimed the beams on the headlamp to make out his scrawled handwriting.
Tess,
I’m sorry.
I’m nearby if you need anything. I’m nearby if you don’t.
I’ll leave it up to you to let me know.
-Cole
I undid Callie’s leash from my ankle, hooked her to my backpack, and scrambled to my feet. White light from my headlamp swiveled as I turned in a circle, searching the darkness for any signs of him. What did he mean by nearby? How nearby was he? Please be really nearby.
He could say insensitive stuff to me. He could call me a kid, and do dumb things like push me around in a cart and throw chocolate bars in my direction. I no longer cared. I just wanted him here with me.
“Cole!” My voice carried in the cool air. I waited and listened for his response, expecting him to clamber from the shadows at any moment. Bushes and trash rattled around with the breeze, and I turned my head with each movement, ready to have him back... wanting him back.
But every noise left me disappointed.
I snapped off the headlamp and strained to catch any sound indicating he had heard me. “This is me letting you know!”
Still nothing.
Where is he?
Callie meowed and rubbed against my ankles, but I ignored her. I held the letter in my tight fist and called his name again. He’d given me a lifeline I didn’t deserve—childish behavior he had every right to ignore—and I wouldn’t abuse it this time. Please don’t ignore me.
I thought I could leave him, leave Dylan, and do this all on my own. How had I ever thought I could find Dad without anyone’s help? Dylan’s death had destroyed my resolve, and shattered my false bravado. At one time, I may have been able to do it all—climb the mountain, save Dad and Toby—but now, I doubted it.
My anger and ego seemed to get me into unnecessary trouble.
I waited and watched. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes started piling on top of one another, ticking by. Callie scratched at my leg, demanding attention. She meowed and clawed at me until I gave in.
I sighed. “He’s not coming back, is he?”
She stood on her back legs and stretched up. I scooped her into my arms, dug a piece of dried meat out of my pack, and then tucked her and the treat inside my jacket.
I’d stood there long enough, knowing I should go, but still looked around one final time. “Please, Cole,” I whispered. Tears rimmed my eyes, but I bit my lip and refused to cry.
I’d made this stupid choice, leaving him behind. Now I had to live with it.
I grabbed my pack and slipped my arms through the straps. It felt so much heavier than when I had carried it before, but I shifted it to a more comfortable spot on my shoulders, and started walking.
The sun would rise soon, and I needed to find a place to stay until I knew the rays wouldn’t burn me like before.
Callie snuggled inside my coat, my backpack hung from my shoulders, and Cole’s note remained crumbled in my hand.
I couldn’t let go of it.
Over half the derailed train lay toppled on its side. A large portion of the connected cars slid down the hill and the first few in line disappeared into the ravine below—a domino effect that only seemed to end when the engine hit the river’s bottom. Maybe broken train cars wasn’t the safest place to hole up, but given my options—which were none—I chose to call it home for the day.
A few cars remained upright on the tracks, and I refused to think about how little it would take for the boxcars below to shift and tug the others off the rail. Yeah, I tried not to think about that at all.
The sun revealed itself over the top of the distant mountains, and its rays highlighted everything to the west, crawling toward me as it grew higher in the sky. The rickety train would have to shelter me, so I removed my pack and tossed it in through one of the open doors before gripping the ladder.
Callie screeched from inside my jacket, the lucky feline riding in comfort as I walked all night, and I shushed her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” I gave her a reassuring pat.
My shoulders ached from carrying the backpack, and when I reached from one ladder rung to another, a burning sensation rocketed across my shoulder blades. In shape people, who worked out in gyms lifting weights and drinking protein shakes, should be the doomsday survivors. They had it going on. Not people like me, who enjoyed TV marathons and used sweatpants for pajamas. Somehow this was all backward, but despite the pain, I managed to work my tired body into the empty train car.
The left side doors slid closed easy enough, but the ones on the right side wouldn’t budge, which was probably for the best since it allowed some light to enter, instead of casting me into stifling darkness. I dragged my bag to one end, as far from the doors as possible, and flopped down with my back against the wall. I’d never been so tired.
Callie poked her head out through the top of my jacket, meowed, and then licked my chin. So sweet. I kissed the top of her furry head. “As long as we’ve got each other, we’ll be okay.”
I had to believe that.
“You’re not sleepy anymore, are you?” I unzipped my jacket and placed Callie on her feet. She arched her back and stretched out the kinks in her limbs, then took a few tentative steps, exploring the confines of the train car. “I know you want to play, but I’ve got to get some sleep.” As if on cue, I yawned, proving the depths of my exhaustion.
I kicked off the boots from my aching feet and set them to the side. Marin Peterson wouldn’t want them back, not in this shape, but she’d be impressed with how well they’d held together. My feet were thankful for the release, and I wiggled my toes inside my dirty socks. I removed those as well, made a ball with them, and tossed it to my cat. She attacked it and batted it around. A sad smile curved my lips. She’d be fine.
Sleep pulled at my eyelids, so I rummaged through my pack, yanked out my sleeping bag, a bottle of water, and a packet of cat food. After setting Callie up with the essentials, I tied her leash to the pack good and tight and placed some newspaper in the corner.
“Sorry, girl, but if I don’t get some sleep, I won’t be any good for either of us.” I shook out the sleeping bag and crawled inside. No matter that the wooden floor wasn’t comfortable at all, because the very act of stretching out my body and being off my feet drew a contented sigh from my lips and I closed my eyes.
I hoped for dreams to come and carry me away from reality, but didn’t fully expect them to.
I hadn’t dreamt in a long time, and began to wonder if I remembered how.
Time, the realm of minutes and hours, no longer applied—only light and darkness and th
e space in between. When I opened my eyes, I had no idea whether the time was nine at night or three in the morning. It didn’t really matter, though I hoped I hadn’t wasted too many hours that should have been used to find my family.
My body and mind had needed the extended sleep so much that I’d experienced one of the best nights—or I should say days—of sleep in a long time despite the hard boxcar floor. But as I rolled to my side, my neck, back, and hips protested my sudden movement. Not good. I took it easy, sat up in the darkness, and stretched each of my limbs in turn to work out the knots in my muscles. It felt like I had literally not moved a muscle the entire time I’d slept.
Moonlight flittered through the open door, splashing over the wooden floorboards, but not enough to pierce the dark corners. I reached for my backpack to find the headlamp I’d discarded earlier, but my fingers brushed over Callie’s leash, reminding me of what was really important. The poor girl, forced to watch me sleep for hours. I planned to make it up to her with lots of love and a few extra treats. She’d been so good to not bug me, and deserved a showering of kitty-loving attention.
I whistled low and tugged the leash to draw her to me, but it didn’t resist as I’d expected and snapped toward me, empty of one cat and her harness. What? No!
I fought against my sleeping bag, struggling to maneuver my body from the tight confines, and felt around in the darkness until my fingers found the much-needed headlamp. “Callie? Hey, girl!” I clicked the small buttons, bringing it to life, and brightening the interior of the train car.
She’d disappeared.
I was all alone.
My heart plummeted to my stomach. How in the world had she managed to get the harness unlatched from the leash? Impossible, but obviously hours left unsupervised had given her time to figure it out. Damn it.
“Callie!” I scrambled to my feet, forgoing socks and shoes, and ran to the opening of the train car. I aimed the small light into the darkness, knowing she could be anywhere, but hoping her escape had been a recent one and she hadn’t gone too far. “Callie! Here, kitty!”
I climbed down the ladder, skipping rungs. My toes touched the cool earth, and I stood there unsure where to look first. “Come on, Callie. Don’t do this to me.” Please be here, please.
Not knowing quite what to do, I skipped from one upright car to another, casting light in the open doors and under each box car, but no cat meowed or stared back at me. Such a little thing, the vast darkness could easily swallow her up. I might walk right by her and never know it.
I berated myself for sleeping so long, for not paying attention to her, and not being a better cat owner during an apocalyptic situation. A harness! What a dumb thing to put on a cat! I should have bought a pet crate or carrier to keep her safe when not watching her. They had been right there too, on the shelf of the pet store back at the very beginning! What was I thinking? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
She’d been at my side the entire time, and to lose her now... “Callie!” I couldn’t let my mind go there, especially after everything with Dylan and ruining my relationship with Cole. I needed my cat. Hadn’t I told her as long as we were together everything would be okay? Where was she?
The train cars revealed no trace of her, and I attempted meowing, calling to her in her own language, desperate. I sounded nothing like a kitten—more like a screeching bat caught in death’s grip—but I did it several more times anyway, cupping my mouth to extend my calling farther. Please, please.
“Your impression of a cat is seriously killing me. Please make it stop.”
I whipped around and stumbled, barely keeping myself from tumbling down the hillside and ending up in the ravine next to the sunken wreckage. The unexpected voice in the dark stopped my heart and held me captive all at once. I couldn’t move, but I was okay with that—I didn’t need or want to.
He stepped around a fallen boxcar, out of the shadows, and my heart burst to life, beating beyond containment. The moon accentuated his features, his long wild hair in need of brushing, the smile in his eyes, and the curve of his lips. “That was the most pathetic sounding cat impersonation I think I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t sure whether to point and laugh or put you out of your misery.”
I barely heard a word he said—mumbled, foreign, unrecognizable. His presence, something I thought I’d never see again, kept me mesmerized, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t blink, but the grin on my face couldn’t have expanded any further.
“Your cat needed a break from watching your comatose body, so I took her out for a walk.” He held up a thin-coiled rope and I followed its length to find Callie attached to the opposite end. She rolled around in the dirt, content, kicking up dust. “I’d have taken the leash, but you tied it to your backpack like... jeez, not even sure what. A boy scout earning a merit badge maybe?”
One step.
Then two more.
Soon I was running, flying past broken train cars and skipping over rubble. My teary eyes focused on him. He’s here! He’s here, and he has my cat! The beam from my headlamp bounced around and he raised a hand to block it. He held the other out in front of him and his eyes widened. “Tess, wait a—”
“Cole!” I collided with him, knocking him off balance. He took a step backward but remained upright and wrapped an arm around my waist to steady the both of us. My arms wound around his warm neck, clinging to him like a baby monkey clinging to its mother. I stood on tiptoes so I could hang on to him even tighter, pressed my face into his shoulder and allowed the past couple of days’ events to burst from me in a torrent of tears and sobs.
I’m not ever letting go of you. Not ever.
“I... missed... you... too.” He sounded surprised, but I refused to be petty or picky. He’d come and that was all that mattered. Maybe his words didn’t provide the comfort and reassurance I longed for, but he held me—one hand around my waist and the other pressed against my upper back—hugging me to him and letting me know he had missed me, even if he couldn’t voice it without being an ass.
He allowed me to hang on and cry into his chest, taking turns patting and rubbing my shoulders and cupping the back of my head. His lips brushed against my ear and he whispered, “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t answer him. The answer would have to be no and yes. No, I wasn’t okay at all. Everything was a giant mess and I happened to be stuck right in the middle without a single clue how to fix any of it. And yes, I was better than ever—he was here now. No matter what else happened, he was here and that changed everything.
He smoothed my hair away from my face. “Looks like you’ve had a rough couple of days.”
That was putting it mildly.
“I have to say, I was hoping we might be able put our differences aside, but this is quite unexpected.” His arms tightened around me. “By the way, a guy could get used to this... even if he shouldn’t.”
I ignored the last part. Whatever this was between us—good, bad, or otherwise—didn’t matter. Right now, I wanted him to keep holding me and telling me everything would be okay.
“It’s going to be okay, Tess. You’re going to be fine.”
Wow. Did he just say that? I hugged him more, melding into him, feeling his heartbeat against my chest and his breath against my cheek. “You followed me.” I managed the three words, even though numerous questions begged to be asked.
“Of course.” He thumbed away a few of my tears.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
No, it really didn’t, so I let it drop. Any explanation he gave would probably lessen the impact of having him here. He had a way of ruining moments by telling me what a dumb kid I was or saying something equally mean. I’d already had that conversation with myself earlier, and didn’t need him reiterating it.
“Sorry about freaking you out about your cat. I was going to put her back before you woke up.”
“It’s okay, I’m just glad you’re here.”
He squeezed me tighter. “Really?”
“I thought you hated me.”
I pressed the palms of my hands to his back. “I thought I did too.”
“But now you don’t?”
“Well, maybe a little, but I’ll work on it.”
He kissed the top of my head, his lips lingered for a moment, and I closed my eyes, listening to his heart thrum against my ear. “I’m okay with that,” he said.
Not much had changed, not really. The world was still a mess, and I still had a long ways to go to find out why. But even though there was nothing safe about living amid the unknown and the dangers coming along with it, I felt protected wrapped in his arms, and for now that measure of security would have to do.
Still, I worried. “Do you....” Did I really want to know? Would it even change my decision to be with him if he said yes? Could I handle it?
“Do I what?”
Not knowing might be worse, so I asked and braced myself for the answer. “Do you feel okay?”
His shoulders rose and fell, lifting me along with his shrug. “I feel great. Why?”
I stepped back, but didn’t release him. My quick scan of him revealed nothing out of the ordinary. If he had been exposed to the elements as long as Dylan had, he’d be experiencing the same effects. “You don’t feel sick to your stomach? How’s your eyesight? Any bloody noses or hair loss?”
“Umm...No, great, and no.” His eyebrows pinched together. “What’s going on?”
“You feel fine? Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I’m pretty certain. Granola isn’t all that filling, and I could go for an apple or a slice of bacon right now, but otherwise, I’m good. Why the twenty questions?”
“I want to make sure you’re fine, that’s all.” I could have delved into it, told him everything about Dylan, but for some reason, I didn’t want to. Dylan’s illness might have been a fluke, and as long as I didn’t push matters, I still had that hope. “How did you get this”—I pointed to the headlamp—”and the other stuff in my bag without being burned?”
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