“Go on.” My voice was hoarse. My throat had gone dry. Nevertheless, I told him more about how my stepfather’s “art” sessions had gone.
His hand continued. He couldn’t see what he was touching now, and didn’t try to. I thanked him silently for that. I knew he wanted to look. I didn’t think I could handle a Touching Of and Telling Of and Looking At all at once, not quite yet.
Over my hip, Eric paused again. The etched branches and thorns spread out in that portion, around the front of my body, over and beneath the flare of my pelvic bone. He stretched a finger across it, testing to see how far the offshoot would go, unsure whether he’d seen the end of it before. He found the bottom edge, low on my torso, near the bend where my leg begins. Then he felt how it spread across my middle, then curled downward slightly farther. His fingers lingered a little too long, not having quite reached the end of the line. They’d been there before.
Instead of feeling upset, which is what I’d expected, I felt a little braver. I undid the shirt’s buttons so he could see what he was touching. I stopped offering up information about it, though. Eric pushed his head close to my skin, wrapped a hand to the side of his face, and squinted. It was just dim enough for him to make out the faint light radiating from the rose etching.
“That’s Angel’s Glow…” he murmured, trailing off as he realized what I’d been trying to tell him that afternoon on the ledge, before Matthew sidetracked us. His warm breath tickled my torso.
“Yep. Pretty gross, but sealed in.”
He shook his head about the first half of my sentence. “How have I not seen this before?”
“It comes and goes. It’s not something I advertise. It’s a big part of why I always wear my gloves. One more freakish deformity courtesy of my stepfather’s demented sense of aesthetics.”
Eric kissed along my side and lay down behind me. He slid his left arm under my neck. I pulled my hair up in a swirl so it wouldn’t tickle his arm and annoy him.
“Want a break?” I asked, half joking.
“Mm-mm.” He shook his head.
I felt his breath on the back of my neck, like a tiny swiveling fan blowing air around.
Onward his hand ventured, pulling the shirt’s edge between us, out of the way. His hand moved up over my pelvic bone, down the curve of my waist. Then farther up, along the edge of my chest. Eric followed the flowers that crept forward under my breast, not just along the side of it. I wondered what the tactile sensation was for him. He leaned in again, to look as he touched. I waited, still as a petrified baby rabbit, my heart rate climbing far higher than his had been. Streaks of light sparked in my vision.
Eric tugged the shirt’s fabric off my shoulder and halfway down my arm. The flowers blossomed out to the back top edge of my shoulder, then trailed down the inside of my upper arm. It stopped a bit above my elbow, and he stopped there too, knowing he’d seen the true end of it when I was working under the truck.
He kissed the back of my neck and slung his arm around me, then tucked his hand under my left hip. He whispered. His words were a susurration of sound near my ear and a breeze on the hairs of the back of my neck. He embarrassed me by Telling Of the beauty he perceived in me, a thesaurus of descriptive terms flowing from his lips out along my shoulder.
Thom and Matthew clomped onto the deck and read the sign.
“Aw, come on, guys!” Matthew called in.
“Sign’s null now,” Eric told them. “Come on in.” We’d scooted apart and hastily refastened the shirt’s buttons when we’d heard them on the trail, and I’d pulled a blanket over myself, even though it was unnecessary. I felt so exposed.
They entered and got ready for bed.
“Should’ve just hung a sock out there,” Thom muttered good-naturedly.
I smacked him lightly on the shoulder as he settled into his spot beside me, and he grinned.
Thom found me in the woods late at night. The moon shone down on me through the trees. I sat on a bed of pine sprills. I turned my phoenix knife over in my hands and the pale moonlight flashed across its blade. Thom got onto the ground in front of me. After a minute, I held out my knife and he accepted, turning it in his hands and examining it.
“Buck’s?” he asked.
“Mine now.”
Thom handed the knife back.
“You know Angel’s Glow?” I said.
“That stuff’s pretty cool,” he commented.
“I have some.” I spoke the sentence simply, matter-of-factly. I saw concern creep up on him anyway. “Not something to worry about,” I assured him. “It’s from Before. Part of my stepfather’s signature.” I wasn’t sure why I was sharing this with him. I lay back on the pine needles and Thom watched, curious. I stretched my arm past my head and pulled my sleeve to my armpit so the roses on the underside of my upper arm showed. My arm glowed pictures from pinpricks of blue light trapped beneath my skin.
Thom stopped himself from reaching to touch it.
“Go on,” I gave permission.
He didn’t hesitate, touching before I’d finished speaking.
“How?” he asked.
“My stepfather was a sick genius. Amazing brain. He mutated the stuff which causes the glow, photorhabdus luminescens. He embedded it in portions of my carving and my palms. What he did to make it continue its glow is a mystery—not only the fact that the bacteria still glows after all this time, but that it can even survive. Usually the heat of a live, healthy body kills p. luminescens off. No medication seems to make it go away. It’s usually faint. Its glow isn’t constant. Sometimes my palms show it, but not tonight.” I lifted my shirt a little, showing the dim glow of the roses along my torso.
Thom’s eyes were shining in the faint moonlight. “It’s…” he said, but he never finished the thought.
I sat up again. “I was going to cut it out,” I said softly, pulling my shirt back down and getting it resituated.
Thom fixed his deep, dark eyes on mine. “Don’t ever.”
ric took me into a town we’d driven past on the way to the city but I’d never actually stopped in. Supplies were spotty, as usual, but we collected new bedding and pillows from a store. Rotters were around, but we were on alert for them and didn’t have any big issues. We didn’t have any trouble with the truck this time, either. We left the truck and our bounty behind an abandoned convenience store, and trotted down a trail Eric had picked out. He brought along a large bag, claiming it was a picnic lunch. He wasn’t lying: our lunch was in there. But it wasn’t the only thing he’d carried out.
We stopped in front of a large concrete pool. All its edges were rounded. It was drained, dry, and clean.
Eric pulled our roller skates and a CD player from the picnic bag.
I made a squeal of excitement, a ridiculous noise I’d never made before, and Eric laughed at me and tossed me elbow guards, knee guards, and wrist splints. We secured our skates and our gear, then dropped in without wasting a second.
“Where’d you learn to skate like this?” I finally asked when we stopped for a breather. It’s something I should’ve asked him long before.
“It was a guaranteed way to get away from our dad two nights a week. I had a part-time job, which allowed me to save up money for skates, and to take Mattie and Thom skating every Sunday and every Thursday.” Eric smiled, remembering. “I built a half-pipe in our yard, and we’d stay out back of the house skating on it the other nights until it was time to wash up and go to bed. Didn’t solve the problem, but it helped. For a time.”
I’d frequented a skate park, back when I lived with the farmer. I’d actually been allowed to learn to skate at a young age through school functions. My physical education teacher had even let me roller skate in the school’s gym, as long as my skates didn’t leave marks on the floor. I told Eric these things when he asked.
We skated until our legs cramped, took some Advil (“I’m old!” I muttered. “I’m old!” he groused back), ate our picnic lunch, and started walking back to the tr
uck, trying a shortcut from the marked trail.
We happened by a school, and a few classfuls’ worth of rotter children headed toward us.
“Well, here’s a fine group of crotch loaves,” Eric grumbled as the first of them arrived.
I didn’t even bother trying to count them all. They straggled our way in small groups. These kids weren’t a threat to us.
“Never much liked kids,” he said, jabbing a knife into one small head, then another.
“No, me either.” I held one at arm’s length and watched it snarl. “These make nicer noises than the live ones, though.”
He chuckled.
Then I added, “I can’t have any. Kids.” Might as well get this talk over with. I hadn’t been looking forward to it.
“Why’s that?”
“The crash. After I was crushed, they said my body wouldn’t be able to handle it. The doctors unhooked and removed some things to make sure it would never happen.”
Eric continued killing dead children, giving me time to add, “It seemed like a waste at the time. My stepfather…”
Eric had gone still at this, waiting, holding a couple of little heads away from his body.
“My stepfather,” I continued, pushing a small bit of unsteadiness from my voice, “wasn’t going to allow me to live that long.” I added what I hoped was a brighter note: “Since then, I don’t even have a monthly bleed. So there’s a silver lining, eh?” Too much information? Eric was only quiet for a second, but I was unsettled and quickly concluded, “Anyway, not fertile ground, here.”
Eric surprised me by commenting, “Makes you the most perfect woman in the world for me.” Then he went to work again, dropping the conversation before I could be undone by it.
We’d returned home, and I was heading to the lake when I heard a commotion. Andrew and John fled past me, running away down the path. I didn’t know who’d done what, and didn’t find out right away, because the aftermath made the cause irrelevant.
I could hear Thom cursing loudly. I walked into the lake area and saw him kicking at a stump. It would’ve been a funny image if he hadn’t been injured.
“I’m gonna throttle that asshole!” Thom yelled furiously.
“Come on,” Matthew said, leading Thom past me.
I could see the skin of his hand, peeled back over his fingers. It looked bad. It looked like a baseball glove with a couple of fingers partially pulled off, and they’d gotten split and peeled a bit inside-out in the process. I followed the guys out to the picnic area, then dug into the bottom of my bag to retrieve some of the farmer’s wife’s painkillers for Thom. I didn’t stick around, though, because he clearly needed extra space.
Matthew put Thom’s hand back together, but the wound was a nasty one. In less than a day, two of Thom’s fingers were turning black.
I inspected his hand carefully as we sat near the water, and he didn’t give any outward sign of pain as I probed the wound’s edges. I realized his cursing fit hadn’t been about the pain of the injury at all. It had been over the likelihood of losing those fingers.
“I don’t think those can be saved,” Eric told him grimly.
“We are not chopping them off!” Thom uttered, but without conviction.
I got up, leaving them there to bicker. I waded into the grassy side of the lake, waiting until a few leeches ventured out toward my ankles. I scooped them into a red plastic cup and carried them back, sitting carefully next to Thom. He was so distracted by his brother, he hadn’t noticed what I was up to.
I patted my knee. “Hand,” I told him, neglecting to warn him about what I had in store.
Thom complied, setting his hand where I’d indicated, but when I moved to put a leech on the back of his finger, he freaked out.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” He pulled away sharply.
“Saving your damn fingers! Give them here.” There was no pity in my voice.
Thom hesitated.
Eric elbowed him. “I think you should listen to her.”
Thom grudgingly allowed me to put the leeches along his blackening fingers.
“They’ll keep the blood flowing through,” I told him. I held one until it latched on, then the others. “They’ll drop off when they’re done.”
He watched the leeches, looking creeped out.
I continued, “I’ll get you new ones later. We’ll need to do this for a few days.”
“You think this might work?” Thom asked, a sliver of hope in his voice.
“I’ve seen it work,” I told him. A promise. I’d seen leeches reattach a completely severed part of an ear. I’d seen them fix a hand injury that looked very much like this. I knew what they were capable of.
He stroked a finger down one leech’s back.
“Pretty, when you actually look at them?” I asked.
“I guess, yeah.”
“And they’re smart. They have thirty-two segments, and each segment has its own brain,” I told him as I walked away. “Be right back.”
I retrieved a red Sharpie from the lean-to and returned to draw an “X” on Thom’s undamaged hand.
After an hour or so, one of the leeches dropped off. I took it back to the lake.
“That’s going to bleed for a few hours,” I told Thom. “Let it.”
The other leeches finally dropped off. Eric and Thom followed as I carried the last one to the water.
“Where’d you learn this stuff?” Eric asked.
“Farmer,” I said, releasing Joe. I’d once told the farmer, in a moment of levity, that all leeches were named Joe. Couldn’t remember why I’d said it in the first place, but I told Eric and Thom now. We watched the fattened little Joe swim away.
Within a day, healthier color began creeping back into Thom’s fingers.
Sadie approached me by the lake.
“What’s wrong with your hands?” little Sadie asked me.
“Nothing. What’s wrong with your hands?”
“Nothing. But yours look different.” She pointed to her own palms, as I’d put mine flat on the ground.
I’d been working on putting the gloves away, for short stretches, after telling Eric and Thom about the Angel’s Glow. Their acceptance made me feel braver about others seeing my scars. They helped me face that my palms, my carving, and my Angel’s Glow are all part of who I am. That didn’t mean I had to talk about it, though.
I didn’t answer Sadie. She’d forget about asking soon enough.
“Wish I had a kite,” Sadie said loudly, more to herself than to me. “I used to have a kite with a unicorn on it, but Daddy made me leave it at home. I want to go home,” she concluded, her voice full of sadness.
Not wanting to deal with a sad Sadie, I aimed to distract. “Let’s make a kite, then.”
Sadie jumped about. “Really?”
“Really really.”
A butterfly landed on Sadie’s arm. She watched it fly away.
“I want a butterfly kite!” she yelled. Her excitement was catching.
We collected supplies. I instructed her to find some long, flexible sticks—and to stay around other people. I left her to her task and searched for the kite twine I’d seen by an old wooden fence days before. Someone had left it there, tied to a brick. That, I’d thought at the time, is the saddest kite in the world. I slipped the string from the brick and stopped by home to find my old Mylar emergency blanket buried inside. I spread it on the lean-to’s floor, then quickly drew a large butterfly on it and cut it out. I used spray paint to give the butterfly a rainbow of colors. I slid a roll of packaging tape on my wrist and grabbed the Mylar butterfly in one hand and twine in the other. I returned to Sadie and her ridiculously large pile of sticks. We assembled the kite and took it out to a clearing.
We’d picked the right day. A strong, steady wind blew across us. Sadie whooped as the kite soared up, up, up the string’s length.
I lay back on the ground and watched the kite. Sadie played with it all afternoon.
�
��Thought you didn’t like kids, KitKite,” Eric commented, settling beside me on the grass.
“I don’t.”
I’d been weaving pieces of twine together. I gave up on braiding. My fingers were already stiffening. Eric snagged a piece of twine and started winding it through my fingers. I watched the kite and Eric kept playing with the twine for a while, looping it around each of my fingers in turn and pulling it free again.
He finally sat back, with his arms propped behind him. One of his hands touched my shoulder, just barely. I knew it wasn’t accidental. Eric retested the bounds every time we were together, like he wanted to be certain I would stay. I shifted slightly, an answer. We sat quietly watching Sadie, with my shoulder resting on Eric’s hand.
I was lazing on a picnic table with Matthew. I loved Matthew Time. We had the most interesting conversations. Nothing was off-limits. We usually kept it light and goofy. He may not have been aware of it, but Eric benefited from my Matthew Time, too. It was easier to ask Matthew certain things—and he tended to be more helpful, replying with actual words (as opposed to Eric’s unconstructive grunts of contentment).
“What if…? Hey! I need your finger.” I was testing something out, borrowing one of his huge hands to shove his finger in my mouth, to the back of my throat. I tried to ask him a question without moving his finger out of the way, but that just got us laughing.
“Yeah, guys like that,” he teased. “Especially the talking part.”
“Oh, I don’t want to know where that finger’s been,” I tardily observed.
“It’s clean! Ish!”
“Okay, so I was going to say about gag reflexes…”
“Those are the worst,” Matthew declared.
“Yes. So help me find a way around them. Mine doesn’t seem as bad if… hrm. Can one condition a reflex away? I’m thinking yes. And there’s a positioning aspect to this thing. I’m sure of it.”
Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse Page 19