I tuck the car under some brush a little ways from the hotel and throw it in park. “It doesn’t look like much, but the guy I spoke to in the woods said it was the safest place he knew besides the fort.”
“Xavier,” Hayley responds looking over my way. “It looks like a crack house.”
I take a second look at the hotel and partially agree with her. But I have a good feeling about this place. It’s just far enough off the beaten track that these “scavengers” wouldn’t think someone would be hiding here. The building looks completely trashed which will only help us stay hidden in the long run. The highway is only about a mile and a half through the woods and there’s enough brush surrounding the parking lot of the hotel to hide this big ass car under. That guy was right—this is the safest place out here.
“Listen, I know it looks really bad, but no one would even think someone was hiding away in here.” Hayley looks at the hotel and scrunches up her nose and then nods her head. “We just need to stay here until we get our strength up so we don’t look like walking skeletons,”
She nods her head again.
“Especially you.”
She frowns when I say it. Oh come on Hayles—don’t play dumb on me now.
“What are you talking about,” she asks.
Aisley pops her head up from the backseat. “He’s talking about you giving me half of your meals,” she chimes in. “You know, like you do every breakfast, lunch and dinner?”
Hayley shoots her a look and squints her eyes—I guess that was supposed to be their little secret.
“Every meal, Hayles? You’ve been gathering on an empty stomach for how long? You could’ve passed out while you were in the woods leaving you for those monsters out there!”
“Aisley is nine!” she yells back. “I’m not letting her suffer anymore. She deserves a childhood.”
“And she’ll get one,” I respond. “With all of us there. You don’t need to sacrifice your own health to do that. What if one of those people, those things, got you while you were out there because you couldn’t run away!”
Hayley clenches her jaw and turns her head out the window. I know what that means—this fight is over. Her sister used to do the same thing when she thought she was right in an argument.
“What people,” Aisley asks.
“Nothing Aisley,” I say. I open the locks and pull the key from the ignition.
“What’s the plan,” Hayley asks. Her voice is flat. She’s not happy with me or this place.
I look out the window past Hayley to the dilapidated welcome sign of the hotel; with a couple of letters missing, it reads “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” I wonder if the offer still stands.
“We’re going to leave the rifle and bow buried in the ground outside the car. Don’t leave anything in the car. Make it look as if it was abandoned or looted already—”
“Who’s gonna take the handguns?”
“I will and you will, Aisley. You’ve got the knives, Hayles.”
Hayley nods her head. It still gets me that a nine-year-old has a better shot than someone three times her age and size.
“All right, I’ll bury everything. You girls know what to do.” I grab the rest of our weapons and wrap them tightly in a plastic bag, tying them with shoelace strings. I find the softest ground I can and start digging with my hands. I fit the weapons under about three inches of dirt. I throw some dead leaves over the top of the turned-up soil and mark the tree next to it with our initials—it was something I used to do as a kid with Hayley and Cassie.
Whenever we wanted to meet up, we would write our initials in the snow or with chalk on the sidewalk outside of our houses; that meant this is where we’ll meet and you better show up. Although sometimes it would rain or the snow would melt and then we would never get the message. Most of the time I would just walk through the weather to go hang out at their house—hence engraving it on the tree.
I meet up with Hayley and Aisley and stalk towards the hotel. “We should split up,” Hayley says when we reach the front doors.
“No.” I can’t afford to be away from them—not after everything I learned within the last four hours.
“Xavier, it’s a ghost town out here,” Hayley says pointing behind us to the empty parking lot. “Nothing is going to happen from here to the other end of the hotel—”
“You don’t know that,” I spit out. I clench my fists and release them. I need to keep my calm. I don’t need to freak either one of them out right now. “Just, please, listen to me on this one. I don’t need to hear you scream a hundred feet away and not be able to reach you in time.”
“All right. Fine,” she says folding her arms across her chest.
Aisley reaches for my hand. “I got your back,” she says.
“Good. Let’s go in,” I say and open the front door while trying to keep my breathing under control.
Safety
The hotel lobby looks completely untouched. To be honest, I’m shocked. We walk with only the slightest noise from our feet. The lobby is covered in a thick layer of dust. I hold up my hand for Hayley and Aisley to stay put and make my way further into the hotel. I don’t hear anything. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m beginning to lean towards the better of the two.
I turn into the breakfast area. The electric buzzing of a burned out light bulb forms a headache somewhere beneath my skull. A red light flashes on a counter top. Is that a camera?
I walk up closer and nearly drop dead. Food. There’s so much food. Muffins, waffle mix, yogurt. Everything is running and working.
“Hayley! Aisley!” Hayley comes barreling into the room and nearly falls over when she spots all the food. Aisley is close on her heels and runs into her.
I reach out and grab a honey bun package. “Is it real?” Hayley asks breathless.
I open the package and take a bite. It tastes like—god, it tastes so damn good! I nod my head and hand her the package. She bites into it, and her eyes go wide. I laugh and watch Aisley have the same reaction.
“Well,” I say. “Let’s eat!”
Hayley and Aisley dive into the pile of food on the counter. I open a Sara Lee muffin—banana nut. I think if Heaven had a taste, this would be it. This is like—a muffin made by God himself! I scarf it down and open a second one.
Hayley makes waffles for Aisley and herself while both of them eat honey buns like they’re air. I listen to Hayley laugh as Aisley jumps up and down on the ground. She peeks over her shoulder and flashes a smile. Looks like I’m forgiven for yelling earlier.
I lean back in my chair and fold my hands behind my head. I think I’m going to pretend that we were just on a vacation that went down the shitter real quick. Yeah—that makes everything so much better.
I bite into a stale bagel and chew. It’s a little rough with missing teeth, but it still tastes so sweet and good. Better than the plants that we had to eat along the way.
“This is amazing,” Aisley squeals as she takes the waffle from Hayley’s hands. She grabs close to 10 packets of syrup and rushes over to the table I’m sitting at. She dumps one packet after another onto her waffle until it’s a puddle of mushy waffle and buttery syrup soup. “Want a bite,” she asks holding out a forkful.
Before all this, I would have winced and said no, but it looks so amazing that I chomp it right off her fork. “It’s delicious,” I say. “My compliments to the chef.”
Hayley laughs softly and fixes her own waffle. She comes to the table holding her fork in her mouth while balancing her waffle in one hand and three cups of orange juice in the other. She dumps close to the same amount of syrup onto her waffle as Aisley did and takes a bite of it. “Oh my god,” she mumbles through her full mouth. “I forgot how good syrup was!”
“I forgot how good junk food was,” I respond. I smile and laugh. She leans across the table and kisses me on my cheek leaving behind a trace of sticky syrup.
“Thank you for
convincing me that this was the right place to go,” she says. She kisses my forehead and whispers, “Thank you.”
I’m definitely forgiven.
I brush her hair out of her face and smile because it’s really all I can manage to do considering I can feel the word vomit trying to break through. I guess I’m really out of practice with girls and dating—haven’t been ‘in the game’ as they like to call it for a while now.
“Can we all have separate rooms?” Aisley asks. Syrup completely covers her face, but she just munches on an apple like nothing is different.
“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea,” Hayley responds.
I look at her—separate rooms? A nine-year-old with her own hotel room? End of the world or not, I still feel nervous about that.
Hayley catches eye contact for a split second and winks. Oh—separate rooms. I get it. I smile at her, and her cheeks turn red before she starts eating her waffle again. Maybe her wink wasn’t exactly a wink. Maybe it was more of a twitch or something.
I could be imagining things—or be on the verge of a food coma.
Normalcy
We make our ways up to our separate rooms as Aisley requested. I felt like an idiot when I asked if Hayley wanted a separate room. She responded, “Well, of course.” So I guess the wink wasn’t a wink after all—it was a twitch.
I find three rooms directly across from the emergency stairwell. It was the only way I agreed staying apart from each other. I open the door and dump my food onto the computer desk next to the air conditioner. I switch on the heat and flop down on my bed.
I’m sure if it were another time I would be complaining about the stiffness of the mattress and the other structural flaws, but right now, I don’t give a fuck what anyone says—this is the softest mattress I’ve ever laid my body down on. I sink into the stiff sheets and let my head melt into the white of the pillows. I hear a knock and Aisley pushes open the door.
“Can you help me with the bathtub, Xavier,” she asks. I give her a thumbs up and let my hand slam back down on the mattress of feathers. I let myself slump off the bed when I hear someone else at the door.
“I’ll take care of Aisley,” Hayley says leaning on the doorframe with a half-eaten apple in her hand. “You get yourself cleaned up.” She smiles and saunters away from the doorway.
I’m definitely almost sure that was her flirting with me. But I’ve been slightly missing the mark the past couple of times. Things were so much easier when the world wasn’t in shambles.
I spring up from the floor and race to the bathroom. I turn it as hot as it will go and jump in. The water beating on my head makes me feel like I’m in a rainforest hundreds of miles away. I close my eyes and breathe in the humid air. God does this feel amazing.
I take the hotel’s bar of soap and scrub at my legs. I watch as the water running below my feet turns gray then black as I continue to wash the grime off my skin from months of traveling.
By the time I’m done with the soap, about half of it is gone and the remainder is completely covered in a black bubbly film. Damn, I was gross.
I squeeze a handful of moisturizing shampoo and conditioner onto my head and scrub my scalp with my fingernails. I rinse my hair and shake like a dog to get the excess soap and water off.
When I step out of the shower, I finally look at myself in the mirror. Damn. Nearly every rib is pushing through my sides, my skin is a horrible mix of a yellow and white color that makes me nauseous. My hair comes down in a messy shag to about my ears. I tried to keep my facial hair under control while we were running, but I look closer to a lumberjack now than I did during No-Shave November in college. Maybe I can burn down the ends enough to shave the rest off. Wouldn’t be the first time I had to do it.
I smile and observe the off-colored enamel of my teeth—well, what’s left of my front teeth anyway. The gums around them seemed to have healed well; I guess the excruciating pain I endured from saltwater mouthwashes payed off. I grab the small travel-size toothbrush from the counter and squeeze a generous amount of toothpaste onto it. I scrub hard on my teeth hoping the months of stain will come off as easily as it came off my skin in the shower. I spit out straight blood and swish around a handful of water in my mouth.
I stand back from the mirror and shrug my shoulders—this is about as good as its going to get for now. I know Hayley is probably showering anyway, so I can at least lay down for a while. I grab a bathrobe from the closet and tie it around my body. I slump down on the bed and close my eyes.
* * *
It’s snowing. I’m standing by a pile of snow taller than a mountain in front of me. I reach into the snow expecting cold, but it’s not. It’s warm—really warm actually. I start climbing up until I reach the top. The wind is stronger up here, but the view is worth it.
I can see all of New York from Watertown to Buffalo to New York City. “Hayley, you gotta see this!” I say. I point over to the city and feel my heart stop when I see the color on my hand. What I thought was water from the snow melting, is a deep red. I look down at the snow and see nothing but blood under my feet. On the other side of the plateau, I see two bodies lying side-by-side, their hands clasping in the middle.
I can see a sweatshirt that reads Pine Bush High School: Class Of 2008. “Hayles!” I yell and sprint towards them. When I reach them I feel their necks for a pulse, but feel nothing but ice cold.
They’re dead—I let them die.
* * *
I shoot up in bed and Hayley nearly falls off the edge of the mattress. “Jesus Christ!” she whispers. “Are you all right, Xavier?” She touches her hand to my cheek, and I take hold of it.
Thank god, it’s warm. I nod my head and lie back down. “Yeah—I’m ok now.”
She smiles and moves closer to me. I try and casually wrap an arm around her shoulder, but I instantly feel awkward and pretend to stretch instead. “I thought you were mad at me?” I mock trying to shake the image of blood from my head.
“I was,” she says. She leans her head back against the headboard. “But I’m over it.”
A nervous laugh escapes my throat.
“You wanna know something?” she asks looking up at me.
“What?”
“I—am so full right now, it’s absurd!”
I laugh and run my hands along my stomach. “Me too, Hayles.”
“And you know what else?” she says. She leans in and kisses me. “Aisley is asleep.”
“Uh—ok,” I say.
Somehow my hands start following her side down to her hips. She smiles and doesn’t stop me. Yes! I knew she was flirting with me. She pulls me closer by the back of my neck and kisses my lips in rushed movements. I run my hands up her sides, trying to ignore the crevices her ribs create. I’m breathing heavy now when I pull off her shirt.
“I love you, Hayley,” I say in between hyperventilated breaths.
“Oh god, I love you too.”
Our Fortress
Needless to say, I’m happier than a pig in shit right now.
I lay on my back with Hayley tucked neatly into the crevice of my arm and my body. Her skin is warm, and her face still flushed from before. I pretended to fall asleep just so she would close her eyes and get some herself. She breathes at a steady pace, her side rising and falling in a neat even pattern. She looks peaceful, and I just wanted to catch a glimpse of that.
I forgot how long I was living in misery. I spent day after night after day mourning Cassie’s death without even knowing it. I went through the motions and completely neglected everything that I had going for me. I admit, I’m completely oblivious to everything that happens around me concerning girls and feelings. I’m kinda a brick wall.
But Hayley is just perfect. She’s nothing like Cassie, but that doesn’t matter. In fact, this is the first time I’ve really thought about Cassie in what—months? And I’m completely ok with that. Before, any time another girl came and asked me out, I spent most of
the date talking about Cass. How I haven’t been on the dating scene because I lost my fiancé in a car crash. Most of the girls never called back, or they’d leave right there on the spot.
I never even thought of it as mourning. I always told myself every morning that Cassie was gone, there was nothing I could do about it anymore and I moved on. Or so I thought. It was Hayley that shocked me out of it.
I criticized her back in Pine Bush, trying to convince her that she hadn’t moved on and faced things when it was really me who was the stubborn one. I wasn’t giving anyone the chance to fill Cassie’s place. Yeah, ok, a part of me died that day with her. But that part of me needed someone to not rebuild it the way it was, but to change it.
I run my fingers through Hayley’s hair and feel nothing but completeness. Hayley is the girl I was waiting for to change me. To not only fill the hole where my old self was buried but to build more on top of everything that she already has done for me.
I kiss her on her forehead and breathe in the scent of her hair. I can hear the dull hum of Aisley’s television through the wall. I feel the warmth of Hayley’s skin against arm while the moon burns brightly behind gray clouds.
I never want to leave this moment. I guess I’m selfish that way.
Day One Of Safety
A knock at the door jolts me awake. I look next to me and Hayley is gone. I fling myself from the covers and throw clothes on. Aisley opens the door balancing something in her hand.
“Morning Xavier,” she says biting her bottom lip trying not to drop the food. She holds up a paper plate with a bagel and butter. “Hayley told me to give you this,” she says. Her breath reeks of butter; she must have already devoured her butter with a side of bagel.
“Thank you,” I respond and take the plate from her. I sit at the computer table and dip an end of my bagel into the butter and bite down. I can’t even remember how it felt to hate butter—this stuff is amazing! I lean back in the computer chair and chew on the stale but doughy bagel with as much force as my jaws allow.
Burn Our Houses Down [Book One] Page 12