The kid grabbed a newspaper off the coffee table and waved it up and down in front of Otis’s face. Measure by measure, Otis cooled down. His heart beat slowed to a more normal pace, but the grating, agonizing pain in his knee remained every time he so much as he twitched. He kept his eyes closed and his ears open, but as far as he could tell, the kid didn’t do much more than step out onto the balcony.
Otis supposed he drifted off to sleep. When he came to, he smelled a hint of kerosene in the air, layered with the scent of baked beans. The kid was cooking. Useful, at least. It had been a while since anybody cooked for him. He dozed off again, and this time slipped into a dream where Mia sat by him on the couch, painting her toenails and yammering away on the phone. He could smell her shampoo and the harsh odor of the fingernail polish.
They were the sweetest things he’d smelled in a year.
* * * * *
The apartment was bathed in moonlight when Otis woke up. The afghan from the back of the couch lay over him. He heard soft snores coming from somewhere in the room. Laboriously, he sat upright and peered around. There he was, that kid, snoozing on the floor with a throw pillow under his head. He had what looked like a baby’s receiving blanket over just his arms.
When he met Mia for the first time, she’d been swaddled in a yellow blanket, one of those thin, cozy ones. His son and his idiot wife left the blanket when they returned home, so Otis kept it, put it away on a shelf in his closet. If he inhaled deeply enough, he swore he could still smell Mia’s baby-scent.
The kid on the floor stirred and shifted just a little. Just enough for the moonlight to reflect off a whole bunch of shiny brown hair.
So the kid was a girl, not a boy. He squinted at her, eyeing her face. She looked real young, maybe around Mia’s age. Fourteen, fifteen at the most. Way too young to have to survive this mess on her own.
Maybe she wasn’t completely alone. He vaguely recalled her saying something about her little brother being sick, back at her camp. Whatever the reason, she was too young to be on her own. Otis watched her sleep for a long time. He wanted to take her a real blanket, but the slightest movement had him biting his tongue to keep from crying out in pain like a little sissy bitch.
Damn knee. Damn, damn knee.
* * * * *
The girl woke up late in the morning. She shot straight up, eyes wide, breathing heavy. She had a wimpy little Wal-Mart special hunting knife in her hand and a half-spoken question on her lips.
“Relax, you’re fine,” Otis said, dismissing her fear with a nonchalant wave. “Ain’t nobody going to hurt you here.”
Once she was fully awake, she settled down and stuffed her little yellow blanket into her bulging, ripped backpack. She fluffed the throw pillow and put it back on the couch. “Thank you for letting me sleep here last night.”
“Wasn’t nothing. We all need help once in a while. Speaking of help, I’m gonna need some getting down the hall to the latrine.”
She nodded and helped him stand. The pain was enough to make him nearly black out. Once the spots faded from his vision, he directed her to the door. “It’s the apartment at the end of the hall. It ain’t no place for a young girl, though. Once we get to the door, you just let me hobble in and wait for me in the hall.”
She flushed and nodded. “Where can I…ya know?”
“Go up a floor and take your pick of any of those apartments. Toilets don’t flush, but you can do your business in peace and safety. You go on up and by the time you get back down here, I’ll be waiting for you here.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right? Your knee seems to be really messed up.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She headed down the dark hallway, one hand trailing along the wall. She seemed like a sweet kid. Scared, of course. Definitely guarded. For the first person he’d seen in months, though, she was just fine.
He finished long before she came back downstairs. She was probably plundering through the apartment. Otis felt a twinge of annoyance, and then decided it was just fine. He had it good here, and he highly doubted she’d had nearly as much luck as he had. Judging by the ripped seams of her backpack and faded, ill-fitting clothes, survival was tooth-and-nail for her.
Otis figured he could get breakfast started while she was otherwise occupied. The longer he was up, the more accustomed to the grinding, raw pain of the inner workings of his knee he became. Walking was enough to make him grind his teeth and recite every curse word and holy prayer he knew, but he made it back to his place without passing out.
He staggered in the door and limped to the bathroom. He pulled the box out from under the sink and plundered through it, looking for anything to take the edge off the pain. He didn’t want anything that would incapacitate him. He settled on an arthritis pill.
The girl’s flapping, too-big shoes gave her presence away. She was waiting in the living room when he made his way out of the bathroom. Stupid, his cat, made an appearance from the master bedroom.
The girl grinned. “I thought I dreamt about a cat last night!” She knelt and scooped Stupid up. She nuzzled his face and kissed the top of his head. “I had a cat, back before---everything. I hope she’s okay. I had to leave her behind.”
“Hard to travel with a cat,” Otis agreed. “You hungry?”
She couldn’t disguise that. “I’m always hungry. There’s never enough food at camp.”
“Hard times. What’s your name?”
“Lissa.”
“I’m Otis. Why don’t you go sit on the balcony and keep watch on the street while I rustle us up some grub.”
She looked down and shook her head. “I have to find medicine for my brother, Mr. Otis. He’s really sick.”
“Did he get bit?”
Lissa shook her head. “No. He’s just coughing real bad and running a fever. One of the other people in the camp says it’s probably pneumonia. She was a nurse or something.”
“Why would they send a little girl out to find medicine?” Otis put his hands on his hips, angry at the so-called caretakers of the camp.
“Everybody looks out for their own. I’m responsible for my brother. I have to find all our food and medicine and stuff we need.”
“Who’s taking care of him while you’re out here?”
The girl busied herself with checking her backpack. She plunged her hands inside, but he couldn’t make out what she was doing, other than fumbling with the contents. “I paid one of the men to watch out for him. Make sure he had water and to make sure none of the zombies got him.”
Otis scowled. “You paid him? With what? Money ain’t worth noth—“
It didn’t take a genius to figure what the girl had bartered with. “How old are you?”
“Fourteen. I got something somebody always wants.”
“Good God, Lissa.”
She was silent, shamed, and uncomfortable. Otis’s heart ached. He thought of his Mia, trading her young body for the things adults should have willingly given. It made him sick inside, to think of somebody hurting a child who needed help. Otis turned away and plundered through the cabinets over the stove. He plucked out a can of SPAM and some canned peaches.
Otis got the gas-fueled camp stove going and sliced the SPAM. He fried it in a small cast-iron skillet and served it with the sweet, syrupy peaches. Lissa hadn’t said anything else, and he didn’t know what else to say to her.
After she’s eaten everything he served her, and then his leftovers, she cast her big, sad eyes on him. “Is it all right if I look in the apartments for medicine? I’ll only take what I need.”
“You are more than welcome to look.” Otis tapped his fork on his plate. “How far away is your camp, Lissa?”
“About a day’s walk down Highway 17. We found an old Winn Dixie and we’ve been staying there.”
“Out in Deland? I know where that is. You think you can get your brother here?”
“I don’t know. He’s a big guy, and he’s so sick he can’t walk real well.” She
looked up at him. “You would let us stay here? What would we—I—have to do?”
He hated that look on her face. It made her look like an old woman, and old, scared, worn-out woman. He hated the world for making this beautiful little girl into this broken, frightened thing. “Not a damn thing, except indulge an old man with a little bit of company. I’ve got enough food and stuff stashed away for all three of us to be almost comfortable for a while.”
“Mr. Otis, really? We’re strangers. You don’t know us at all.”
“I know you’re a fourteen year old girl with a sick brother, and you need somebody to look out for you. You need a chance to be safe and have a full belly every once in a while, and your brother needs a chance to get better.”
She stared at him like he was a genie out of a lamp. Her eyes bored into his. He knew she was trying to figure out if he was lying, or trying to trick her, or if he had ulterior motives.
“What if we drove a car about halfway there?” he suggested. “Could you get him a mile or so down the road?”
She thought about it. “If he hasn’t got any worse, probably. You’ll really help me?”
Otis smiled. “I will really help you, Lissa. You remind me of my granddaughter. I couldn’t help her. I can help you.”
The girl came around the table and gave him a tight hug. Even though she could use a long soak in a tub with lots of soap, he smiled and hugged her back. For a moment, she was Mia, and he was Grampa again.
* * * * *
It would never work. Lissa shouldered the smaller, newer backpack she’d found in the guest bedroom in Otis’s apartment. He told her to take whatever she could use. Mia didn’t need any of it anymore.
Lissa didn’t want to mess with any of it, since it was obviously a shrine to Otis’s granddaughter. She gazed around the room, taking in the Justin Beiber posters taped to the walls, the dresser littered with makeup and perfume and books. A Twilight poster hung on the wall by the dresser, but Bella’s blank face featured a mustache and beard, and Edward had an eye patch and hook for a hand. Lissa touched the remainders of the other girl’s life reverently. Here, a note from a boy who hoped she’d go to a dance with him. There, a tube of strawberry lip gloss. Lissa slipped it into her pocket, a talisman against the evils outside this room. Here, she could pretend she was just fourteen, just a kid. Not a survivor of the end of the world, not desperate to save Dylan’s life.
The old man trusted her, and she hated it. They had Dylan, the men in the camp. He really did have pneumonia, but he would have a few new bullet holes if she didn’t come back with more information about this place. They’d passed through late at night, two weeks back, and had seen how empty most of the apartments were. Several were newly constructed and didn’t even have carpet. Four of the six buildings were like that. Only Otis’s fortress and the building next to his had signs of life.
Otis’s building was a veritable fortress. The metal shutters over the windows were just about impossible to remove—the men had only managed to bend the frame on one, after hours of prying at it. The doors were metal, and then sealed shut. The first night, some of the men tried to chip out the stuff sealing them shut, but it took too long and made too much noise. Every time they turned around, a new zombie was lurching towards them.
They watched the building for days and, finally, somebody spotted him moving around on the balcony. He was three stories up, and there wasn’t any way they could easily reach him. Markus, Vinny, and Sal swore he must have food stashed, as well as guns and ammo and drugs. They wanted the drugs more than anything else. Old people had medical problems and had lots of drugs, they reasoned. If they had the drugs, they could trade with the other survivors they came across—and then take anything they had of value.
She and Dylan had survived just fine on their own until he got sick. It slowed them down, made them easy to become prey. The men had saved them from a pack of zombies, but that had been the last nice thing they’d done.
Lissa sorted through the dresser and took out the things she thought she could use. She and Mia had been about the same size. She changed into clean blue jeans and stashed a pair into her backpack. She didn’t bother with underwear—just another layer of clothes to have to wash and carry around. The long-sleeved t-shirts would be very handy as the weather changed, and so would the tank tops. She pulled a sweatshirt out of the closet.
Everything in the closet smelled like her old life. She closed her eyes and leaned in. She could stay here, probably. She could become this old man’s granddaughter. She’d have food and water and a safe place to sleep. She wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry, or about Dylan getting any worse. She wouldn’t have to barter her body for the basic things they needed.
She wouldn’t have to suffer when the men didn’t have anything she needed, but took what she had anyway.
That would mean leaving Dylan behind.
Dylan is going to die anyway, that hateful little voice said in the back of her head. He’s been sick for two solid months. He can’t breathe. He can’t eat. He can’t get up and walk. You’ll be lucky if he’s even alive when you get back.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared down into the backpack. The knife stuck up out of the side pocket, ensconced in a leather sheath. Markus told her that her only job was to kill the old man, and then show them how to get inside. If she didn’t show up at the rendezvous point in three days, then they were going to kill Dylan. No, worse. They were going to leave him for the zombies.
Dylan, she thought. I don’t know what to do.
She took a long time in the bedroom, touching things, sniffing makeup and perfumes and reading a few pages out of the books stacked all over the place. She stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes, trying to remember what it was like sleeping in a real bed, every night, with air-conditioning and locked doors and televisions murmuring in the background.
She wept for her lost life. She cried until she was sweaty and her head hurt. When she was spent, she slipped out of the room and shut the door. She had the feeling it wouldn’t ever get opened again.
Otis was waiting on the couch for her, a big Rubbermaid tub on the coffee table in front of him. As she got closer, she realized the tub was full of orange pill bottles. “Holy crap,” she murmured, reaching in and inspecting the label of the first bottle. Markus would kill his own mother for half of this stuff.
“You take what you need for your brother,” Otis said gruffly. “I know I offered to help you get him here, but I ain’t going nowhere with this knee like it is. You get him back here, though, and I’ll take you two in. I’m eighty-six years old, so I ain’t gonna be here too much longer. When I go, you’ll have everything you need to at least have a chance.”
“Otis…” She sat down on the couch and clutched the bottle tightly. “I don’t know if Dylan will even be alive when I get back. He was so sick when I left.”
“You gotta try though, right, Lissa?”
“I don’t know if I want to go back.” She bowed her head and looked down at the bottle in her hands. “If I go back, they’ll know stuff is here, and they’ll come. They aren’t nice people, Otis. I don’t want them to find you.”
Otis patted her shoulder. The old man’s kindness left a knot in her throat. No, she wasn’t leading the men back here. She wouldn’t let them destroy what he had. They had destroyed so, so much, just in the few weeks she and Dylan had been with them. She gazed down into the tub of drugs and wondered if she could pacify them with some of the stuff here.
She sorted through looking for the drugs they sought the most. Narcotics were their favorites, obviously. They’d figured out that many people would pay anything of value for antibiotics, though. At the bottom of the tub, she found a Ziploc bag.
An idea bloomed. She extracted the bag and poured the contents out on the couch between Otis and herself. “I think I know how me and Dylan can get back here.”
“What do you need nicotine patches for?”
“It’s not n
icotine. It’s fentanyl. It’s a really strong narcotic, like a million times stronger than morphine. That patches don’t really kick in for a while, but these are the gel kind. If you smoke the gel, it hits really quick.”
Otis frowned at her. “How do you know this?”
“Internet.”
“All I have to do is wait until the men smoke it and then I can get Dylan out. It might take us a while, but I think we can get back here.”
Otis gathered up the patches and put them back in the bag. “You think that will work?”
“They want drugs more than they want food and water. It has to work. But you have to hide for a little while, Otis. You can’t use any lights or go out on the balcony or anything. They’ll know you’re here and they’ll try to get in again.”
Otis’s face showed his surprise. “Again? What?”
Lissa’s stomach sank. She’d said too much. “They know you’re here. They made me come and check things out.”
Otis drew back, eyes hard and his features dark. “You lied to me?”
“No! My brother is really sick. They made me come here, or they’re going to kill him, Otis. I didn’t even think you would see me.”
Otis pushed himself to his feet. He groaned and swayed. Hanging on to the arm of the couch, he glared down at Lissa. “I trusted you, little lady.”
Tears burned in her eyes and ran down her face. “You still can, Otis. I’m not going to tell them anything. You’re too nice to let them hurt you or your place here. Please, Otis. I won’t let them hurt you.”
“What can you do to stop grown men from doing anything?”
Lissa held up the bag of patches. “Trust me, Otis.”
He ignored her and limped toward his bedroom.
If he wouldn’t let her back in, then she and Dylan could find a place in one of those other apartments in the building across the road. Even if they couldn’t stay for long, it would be a safe enough place for Dylan to recuperate.
Still Dying 2 (Dying Days) Page 8