Xavier’s cheeks turn red.
“And I made you blush! Cross that off my bucket list.”
“It was the only decent CD the owner of this POS had!” he responds with a smirk. “I was gonna stop at the next exit and try to hunt for something if you want to join.” I shake my head.
“I think I’ll just walk around the town to see if there’s any food anywhere.”
“Good idea. You should probably walk on flat ground with that knee of yours.”
It’s been about two weeks since we left Pine Bush. Most of the days blend together into one mess of a picture. It’s a little harder to keep track of what day it is and the time now, and I don’t really mind it.
“Yeah, I think it’s time to see what other music is in this car,” I say grabbing the pack of CDs. I comb through them and grab one at random shoving it into the stereo in place of the other.
“How’re you handling everything?” Xavier asks.
“I still see flashes of my dad with blood in his teeth,” I say.
Xavier’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” I start. “It’s just that, he was all over the place when he came back—like bipolar all over the place. I just wish I knew what happened to him.”
Xavier pulls the car off the highway and turns into the closest rest stop. “He was rambling a lot when I found him,” he says. “I didn’t catch most of it, but he said one thing that stuck out.”
“What was it?”
“He kept mumbling about something called a Wendigo. That this was the time of the Wendigo and everyone else was damned. Or something like that. Do you know anything about it?”
A Wendigo? I read stories about them while I was in college, when I was still interested in supernatural myths and folklore. “Yeah, actually,” I respond. “A Wendigo is supposedly the result of someone eating human flesh. The person was supposed to become or was believed to be possessed by this creature or something which made them crave the other other white meat.”
We both sit in silence for quite some time. “That’s absurd,” Xavier laughs.
“Yeah,” I respond.
But what if it isn’t? I can feel the fear sweep over me. What if everyone is losing their minds and starting to eat each other over the widespread hunger? Xavier and I haven’t eaten a decent meal in what seems like years, but in reality it’s only been what? Five or six days?
The past five exits have shown the same result—all the stores are empty of any type of food. The only reason we’ve gotten by is because Xavier hunts, and I help grab some plants we can eat. Cannibalism doesn’t seem so crazy of a thought when there’s no other food around. Some people are not as lucky as us. What would they do if there was nothing, and they were starving?
Survival of the fittest.
I shake off the theory though. Xavier’s right, people eating people for the means of survival is ridiculous. But what really bothers me is why my dad came up with that phrase.
This is the time of the Wendigo. Everyone else is damned. I don’t get it. My dad barely watched T.V. when he was alive let alone read a book. He would have never known what that meant.
“Do you think this could have been planned?” I think out loud.
Xavier looks over my way and frowns. “You mean the food thing,” he asks. He shakes his head. “I think it’s just people like us looting places a little further from home.”
“Five exits away though? Come on Xavier,” I say. “No way this is a coincidence.”
His grip tightens on the steering wheel. I already know he agrees with me without him saying anything.
A planned starvation—disgusting. I look out the window at the abandoned cars stretching for miles. There’s no way that looters did all of this. It had to have been diagramed all the way down to the last bloody detail.
Day Eighteen
The forest surrounding Route 17 is completely silent; I can hear my own heart thudding in my eardrums. Most of the plants I’ve passed aren’t anything that’s going to help us stop our stomachs from aching.
I find a small bush of cranberries, but have no clue if they’re edible. My brain is trying to recall some of the things I read years ago in a survival handbook, but all I can remember is that moss points to civilization. I think.
I grab a handful and toss them in a plastic bag we found in the car. I hear a whistle from behind me—Xavier got something. I rush back towards the parking lot and find Xavier holding up two rabbits.
“Not bad,” I say.
“Did you find something?” he asks nodding his head to the bag in my hand.
“Berries. I don’t know if they’re any good though.”
He opens the bag and breaks one of the berries open. “They seem good enough to me,” he says. “We can make a fire with some of the newspaper and matches I took from your house.” We collect a few pieces of wood and turn them into a makeshift campfire. Somehow, I turn out being better at keeping the fire going than Xavier. I laugh when his usually stoic face turns into a frown and then, into a full-blown pout.
“Oh come on, keeping a fire together is nothing compared to being able to hunt,” I laugh.
He skins and guts the first rabbit and shoves a stick through it. “Yeah, well I plan on teaching you that one day too, and then, you’ll be like Pocahontas,” he responds exaggerating his pout even more.
I smile and begin to roast the rabbit over the fire. It’s been getting easier keeping meat down. At first, the stomach pains I endured were horrible. I threw up on several occasions, but I’ve been pretty good since then—payback for being a stubborn child.
Xavier cuts into the second rabbit while I watch mine sizzle in the fire. I’m so hungry it hurts. We snacked on the berries before gutting the rabbits to hold us over, but the smell of the roasting rabbit is making my stomach growl. Xavier skewers his rabbit and sticks it in the fire.
“So how’s your knee feeling,” he asks.
I shrug my shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt that much anymore. Just sore from all the hiking today,” I respond.
“Good, we’ll try and keep it elevated the best we can in the car. All the ice has run out.”
We sit for a while in silence watching the rabbits cook slowly over the flames. I take a sip from the canteen and hand it to Xavier. The fire feels nice against the cold night. I close my eyes and listen to the crackling of the flames. Xavier’s arms fall around my body. I lean into him, letting my full weight fall onto him. I press my ear on his chest and listen to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
“Things feel normal right now,” I whisper.
He laughs and squeezes me, “I think we both need that.” We sit quiet for a minute or two watching the fire. “Would things have been different if Cassie and I never started dating?”
I look up wide-eyed at him. “What?”
“Like, if I hadn’t dated Cassie,” he says, still staring into the fire. “Would you have stayed in Pine Bush?”
I sit in silence, whether it’s from shock or from not knowing what to say is beyond me.
“Hayles?” I look up at him and try to come up with something.
“I—I don’t know,” I say. “It wasn’t some rash decision or anything to move to Queens in the first place. But if you weren’t dating Cassie, things would have been—odd.” What the hell are you even saying, Hayley?
“Odd,” Xavier asks.
“You two were perfect for each other. Everyone always said how Cass and I were exactly alike, but I knew that you two were going to get together the minute we all became friends.”
“I was that obvious, huh,” he asks.
I nod my head.
“So it wasn’t just because of me why you left?”
I shake my head. “I loved both of you and as much as it killed me that you two were perfect together, I knew I didn’t want to screw that up. So yeah, I ran away trying to keep you two together and trying to kee
p myself sane.”
Xavier nods his head and stares at the fire. “I’m sorry I did that to you,” he whispers.
“It’s not your fault,” I respond. “You know, I thought I had it all figured out when I came back. I thought I was past having a crush on you and feeling awkward, but the minute I saw you in my living room—it was like I was a teenager all over again.”
He laughs, “Yeah, you’re still pretty awkward.”
I elbow him in his gut. He pulls his chin up to me and kisses my lips like he did in the cemetary. “I know it was hard during those years Cass and I dated, but I’ve always cared about you. I won’t let you push me away that easy ever again.”
Scavengers
Xavier falls asleep after the rabbit, but I’m wide awake in the back of the SUV. I haven’t been able to catch a wink of sleep since our conversation before dinner. As much as I wanted Xavier and I to happen, I didn’t wish for it to be under these circumstances.
It’s becoming more evident with each day we’re on the road that something cataclysmic is happening, I have no family, and Xavier just happened to be the person I was with before it all started.
I sit up and look out the passenger window towards our smoldering campfire; the wood burns a deep orange giving off the tiniest bit of light. I’m instantly hungry again when I think about the rabbit from earlier. I try to peer past the campfire seeing if I can spot any movement of another animal. I catch something out of the corner of my eye. I can’t see exactly what it is, but it’s moving towards our campsite.
“Xavier,” I whisper. I nudge him a couple more times before he wakes up.
“What?” he mumbles.
“There’s something outside.”
His brow furrows and sits up next to me. “What is that?”
We both watch the grey blob move slowly out of the woods when some voices next to our car make us both jump. “Those guys put up a hell of a fight back there. And they didn’t even have anything with them!” one voice says.
“Not even a chick for a good lay,” the other calls out. They both let a throaty smoker’s laugh escape their mouths as they move past our car. I notice the small glint of a knife in one of the men’s hands.
“Get down,” Xavier whispers. He pushes me against the floor of the car and covers me with a blanket. I hear the click of a gun cocking, and my heart rate rises through the roof.
The voices from outside grow louder, but still not loud enough to catch everything they’re saying. I hold my breath when a voice booms from outside the window Xavier is looking out.
“What about this car? The keys are in the front seat.”
“Is there anything in there?”
The guy turns and sees Xavier, and his eyes go wide. The sound of the gun shot and shattering glass shocks my eardrums leaving me completely disoriented. I hear a lot of muffled yelling and then, our car’s engine turning over. Xavier jumps the curb of the gas station’s parking lot and races back towards Route 17.
I brush the glass off of me cutting my hands several times. “I knew we should’ve quenched that fire,” he yells slamming his hand on the steering wheel.
I scramble to my hands and knees, but don’t dare and try to make my way into the front seat. Xavier weaves in and out of the standstill traffic heading west on the highway. The cars are going by so fast, it makes me dizzy.
“We’ve gotta put distance between us,” he yells over the roar of the engine. “Once we do, we’ll find another car and find another route north.” I nod my head.
Headlights fill the driver’s side window. “Xavier!” I scream. But it’s too late. I fly through the back window and onto the cold pavement below.
Tires screeching fill my ears before everything goes silent.
Butterfly
“Xavier,” I call out.
I lean heavily on an abandoned car. The bleeding from my side seeps through my shirt; a butterfly-shaped stain blossoms outwards. I pull a shard of glass from ribs and bite my tongue to keep my scream down. “Xavier,” I call out once more feeling weaker by each ounce of blood I lose.
“Hayley,” I hear somewhere on the highway. I push myself off the car and stagger forward a few steps before crashing to my knees. I wince and bite my lip trying to muffle the cry that is fighting to get through. My knee is better, but absolutely not anywhere near healed. I pull myself to my feet and limp alongside our car, the hood releasing a think plume of smoke.
“Hayley!” I can hear the panic in his voice; he probably thought I was dead after being flung from the car.
“Xavier,” I squeak out. My throat burns dully, but I swallow and attempt to scream his name. “Xavier!”
I hear the quick shuffling of feet on gravel. My vision goes blurry and all I can see is a pinhole.
“Hayley,” I hear one last time before my vision blacks out completely.
* * *
I wake up to the sound of a car’s engine and a lot of shouting. I can’t open my eyes, so I listen harder trying to find Xavier. “Just give us the girl and we’ll leave you alone,” says a deep voice.
“Touch her, and I’ll fucking kill you!”
My eyes flutter open, but my eyelids are so heavy. Then I see Xavier and my heartbeat pounds. His eyes are wide, and he’s holding my dad’s handgun up.
When I tilt my head upwards, all five men surrounding us turn their gaze to me. “Look who’s awake,” one says.
I reach down and feel my side where I pulled the shard of glass from. The soft material of a bandage covers where the butterfly blood stain was coming from. I try and push myself from the ground, but I feel nauseous when I do.
“Xavier,” it’s barely a whisper, but it’s enough to make him turn. He smiles.
Everything switches to slow motion. A tall man comes from Xavier’s right with a metal pipe. I can’t scream, but I feel my eyes go wide. Xavier turns in time for the pipe to meet his face. His head snaps back too quickly, and he collapses to the ground.
“No!” I scream. I can feel the adrenaline flood through me. I push myself to my knees and crawl to Xavier. Someone pulls on my hair and tries dragging me by it. I feel something on my side under the bandage stretching. I scream and kick as hard as I can backwards.
My foot meets something, and I can hear the man behind me grunt and thud on the ground. I look up and see blood pooling underneath Xavier’s head. I can see the black handle of the pistol. I scramble forward and reach for it. When my hands close around it, I aim at the closest man to me.
“Back off!” I scream. Everyone stops and begins backing away.
“Ok sugar, we ain’t tryin’ to hurt nobody,” a fat one says.
“Great job at that one,” I yell nodding my head in Xavier’s direction.
“Hey, it was a mistake,” he responds.
“Make another one,” I say. “I fucking dare you.” God, I hope this gun is cocked. I vaguely remember my dad’s instructions on how to do it, but right now I can’t risk looking incompetent.
“All right sweetheart, we’ll leave—”
“Gary!”
“Nah, it’s cool. The little lady is obviously angry at us and there’s no need to make any unnecessary noise,” Gary, the fat one, says. “We’ll be back for you when you cool down honey.”
Slowly the five men move away from Xavier and I. I keep my gun pointed at the one they call Gary. Before they disappear, he turns around and says, “Just so you know, there are things out there a helluva lot more dangerous than us. They can smell your fear—sense it almost.” He looks at me up and down my body; I nearly gag. “You’ll come running to us if they find you.”
And then he’s gone, like a wisp of smoke into the never-ending sea of green that surrounds Xavier and I.
The Woods
“Xavier,” I whisper.
I place the gun down close to me and try to flip him over, but the stitches in my side tug on my skin, and I cry out in pain.
When I look
down at my side, the butterfly pattern is much bigger than before. Whatever bit of adrenaline I have left drains from me when I finally pull Xavier onto his back.
“Xavier,” I whisper into his ear. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you—I need you now.”
Besides his breathing quickening, nothing else happens. I look at his face where the pipe hit him—three of his teeth have been knocked out and it looks like his nose is broken. He probably has a concussion too, which means I’ll have to drive. I look down at the bandages once more; they’re already soaked in a deep crimson.
I look at the cars surrounding us, but honestly, I have no clue how to tell which one’s decent. Xavier knew all the tricks to pick the good ones—I’ve got nothing.
“Xavier,” I say, but I’m at a loss for words. I feel the tears forming, but I refuse to let them fall.
A noise from the woods grabs my attention. It sounds like a dog growling—dogs growling—wait no, it’s too—too—human. I frown at my own conclusion. If I say it out loud, I would sound crazy. Then I hear a twig crack, Then another. And another. I hear one more much closer than the first.
My heart leaps to my throat, and I start shaking Xavier. “God dammit, Xavier! Wake up!” I slap him hard across the face.
“Jesus!” he says with a lisp. Must be his missing teeth—or maybe I slapped him too hard.
He squeezes his eyes shut and stays like that for a minute or two. I look at the woods on either side and hear nothing but the odd growling.
“Xavier,” I whisper, my voice strained behind my shrinking throat.
His eyes shoot open, and he springs up. He puts his hand to his mouth and nose. “Fuck,” he mutters. “How long have I been out?”
“Only a couple of minutes,” I whisper. “Xavier, we gotta go.” He looks out at the forest, and I can tell he sees something, but when I turn to look, I don’t see what he does. All I know is that the noise is getting louder. “Xavier!”
Burn Our Houses Down [Book One] Page 7