by McBain, Tim
The sidewalk bent up toward the sky to climb the final hill between him and the traps. He wiped the back of his hand at the sweat beading on his top lip.
He knew it would all be empty, but he went through the motions anyway.
Erin
Avella, Pennsylvania
261 days after
Erin squinted into the light streaming through the window, illuminating the unfamiliar room. A bandolier of Mardi Gras beads were strung over the mirror of a dressing table, a scatter of makeup and hair styling products reflected in the glass. Where the hell?
She inhaled, blinking rapidly, trying to get her half-asleep brain working. Her tongue was adhered to the roof of her mouth, and she swallowed against it. The room smelled wrong too. Like when she’d used to let a friend borrow some clothes and get them back stinking of their particular blend of laundry soaps and softeners.
Erin stretched a leg out, felt the soreness there and in her butt cheek. Ah yes. Sore and stiff from hours on the bike. They were on the road. Camping out in the little house off Route 50 for the night.
The sleeping bag rustled as she flipped to her other side to get a look at Izzy.
Except that Izzy’s sleeping bag was empty.
The zipper of Erin’s sleeping bag jammed, caught on a fold of fabric. She fumbled with it, but the combination of sleepiness and panic made her fingers clumsy. Finally she resorted to slithering from the bag, like a seal dragging itself over an ice floe.
At the bedroom door, she paused.
“Iz?”
The house had that eerie quiet, that unmistakable silence of emptiness.
Where would Izzy go? And why?
What if she’d been taken in the night? Erin knew it didn’t really make sense, but she couldn’t stop the thought from creeping into her mind and taking up residence in one of the darker corners.
The bathroom down the hall, the place Erin thought the most likely spot to find her, was empty. The same went for the other two rooms upstairs. She was heading downstairs when movement caught her eye from the window on her left.
She stepped closer to the glass, brushing a lacy curtain to one side.
Her heart sped up when she saw it, knuckles going white from gripping the banister.
Her first thought was that she was still asleep. Still dreaming. But she knew she wasn’t.
Her second thought was: How?
Teddy
Moundsville, West Virginia
261 days after
His favorite trap was the one in the Dairy Mart. The store was ravaged like all the rest – picked clean, trash everywhere, windows bashed to bits that littered the scene like oversized pieces of glitter. He’d left a six pack of Coca-Cola on the shelf, placed in a spot that would be visible from the street. And on the floor just in front of that six pack, under cover of wadded up papers and tattered cigarette posters, was a steel bear trap – one of the big ones that snapped ankles more often than not.
It was empty now. Untouched.
He trudged past the Apache foot traps he’d set up and down Wheeling Ave, finding them equally undisturbed. One of the camouflaged holes was exposed, so he recovered it with leaves. So far these had barely been worth the effort — first digging the hole and then whittling sticks to sharpened points. He’d caught two deer in them, at least, but no humans. It was good for a few meals, but most of the meat rotted. Next time, he’d be prepared to make jerky out of the bulk of it.
In any case, everything was empty. Even the old zombie traps, which he didn’t care much about these days, came up blank. He turned to head back.
Blood beat through his flesh, vibrated in his eyelids, slugged in his neck. He could faintly hear his pulse, feel the red juice spurting all through him.
Times like this made him feel all the way alone, like maybe the world had finally emptied out entirely. He knew it hadn’t – he had heard a car on the highway earlier – but it felt like it.
Erin
Avella, Pennsylvania
261 days after
The sun was an orange smear on the horizon. The golden light gave everything a yellowish hue and stretched the shadows into long columns. Erin watched her shadow sway over the driveway as she walked and thought that this was probably what the light was like on Mars.
They heard her approach, the scuff of her feet on the concrete. Izzy turned toward her, curls backlit by the sun.
“They found us!”
“I see that,” Erin said, watching the squirrel circumnavigate the trunk of the tree. “I told you they would.”
She didn’t know how the hell they’d done it, but they had. Marcus and the damn squirrel had found them. Well, probably Marcus did most of the finding, unless squirrels had some kind of bloodhound-type abilities she wasn’t aware of.
There was something stranger than that, though. She was kind of glad to see them. There was a sense of relief after her dream, the one where the three of them turned their back on her, and shut her out.
That gladness died when she looked at Marcus, saw the way his mouth was set in a straight line. Izzy might not know, but Marcus did. He knew she’d tried to abandon them. The same guilty feelings she’d been feeling the previous day returned.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi.”
His voice was flat, unemotional. Not a trace of anger or annoyance. Cool, as always. Something about that made her mad. Really, who was he to try to make her feel guilty? She didn’t owe him anything. If anyone owed someone something, he owed her. She saved his life, damn it. And then he followed them after it was abundantly clear he wasn’t wanted. No, she had nothing to feel guilty about. Not a damn thing.
She watched the squirrel for a few moments, hopping from one branch to another, pausing to peer through the leaves, taking off again in the other direction, tail bouncing behind. At the base of the tree, a bike rested against the trunk. It was a bike she recognized from the barn.
Erin’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“Nice bike.”
“Thanks?” he said, like it was a question.
“Where’d you get it?”
“From the barn.”
“So you stole it.”
The space between his eyebrows pulled into a wrinkle.
“Was it stealing when you took your bike?”
“No. It’s my house. My house. My barn. My bikes.”
He snorted. “Whatever, Your Majesty.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
They made their breakfast from the meager supplies they found in the house: a box of stale Cheerios and some jars of baby food that were several years past date. The more they scavenged along the way, the better. Erin’s bike, even with the trailer, didn’t allow for much to be brought along.
Marcus had at least chosen the bike with the rack on the back, which he used to tie down a duffel bag. But even if it was filled with food, she knew he’d left some behind. Just another strike against him.
As they rode through the chilled morning air, Erin’s mood went from annoyance to guilt to gladness and then back again.
Around noon they stopped to give their legs a break.
Izzy did a cartwheel in the grass and then let herself fall to the ground, stretching her arms and legs out like a starfish.
The kickstand on Erin’s bike squeaked as she lowered it.
“We’re going to go look for food. You wait here.”
Izzy barely acknowledged her, distracted by Rocky scurrying over her chest.
Erin avoided making eye contact with Marcus.
“We should split up. You take that one,” she pointed to a two-story house wrapped in white siding and black shutters with badly peeling paint.
“I think we should stick together.”
Erin massaged a tight spot on her neck, sore from sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. “We can cover more ground if we split up.”
“But if there’s trouble, two is better than one,” Marcus said.
Erin grit her teeth together. She was to
o hungry to argue.
“Fine.”
They found an unlocked window on the side of the house, and Marcus boosted her inside. Instead of waiting for her to go around and unlock the door, he hopped onto the ledge and slithered in after her.
Inside, Erin took the lead, being that she was the one with a gun. He didn’t ask for it, and she didn’t offer it. Besides, ladies first.
Their feet scuffed over worn carpet, barely a whisper. And then silence as they paused in front of a closed door.
Erin grasped the handle, turned it, and met resistance.
“Locked?” Marcus whispered.
She shook her head.
“Something’s blocking the door.”
He helped her push through the blockage while she kept the pistol aimed at the opening. When nothing happened, she gave Marcus a nod and slipped through the gap.
It was a bedroom, sparsely decorated with assemble-it-yourself wood veneer furniture and faded floral curtains. Erin skirted around the door to see what had been pushed against it and almost tripped over the corpse hanging from the doorknob by a belt.
She gasped and lurched backward, bumping into Marcus. He was so much taller, the back of her skull collided with his sternum. He steadied her with a hand on either shoulder.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“All good,” he said.
In the kitchen, they began the hunt through cabinet doors and drawers. Erin pulled out a bag of dry lentil soup mix. It would take too long for now, but she kept it for later.
“How about these?”
Marcus set three cans of tuna on the counter and half a sleeve of club crackers.
Erin knew the crackers were stale without even tasting one.
“That’ll do.”
While Erin opened the cans, Marcus scouted the kitchen for eating utensils.
“How did you find us?”
Marcus smiled a little then.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to asking. I bet that’s just been eating you up, hasn’t it?”
She exhaled loudly.
“Are you gonna tell me or what?”
He reached around her, sliding drawers open in search of silverware. There was a telltale rattle as he pulled the next handle. He scooped three forks from the tray.
“I put Rocky on the scent,” he said, and for a second Erin thought he was serious. “Did I not mention she’s a search-and-rescue squirrel?”
He leaned back against the cabinets, hands resting on the counter top. She saw the smirk he was trying to hide and realized he was joking, of course.
“Don’t tell me, then.”
She slammed the can opener down, a little too loud maybe.
Marcus sighed and jammed a hand into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled his fist free. When he opened his fingers, a cluster of crumpled balls of pink paper rested in his palm. She took one, already knowing.
The paper crinkled as she smoothed it out on the counter, trying to get the creases out. A hundred bucks in Mall Mania money. That fucking game.
“She’s pretty clever you know. I mean, at first I thought maybe it was both of you leaving the trail. Hansel and Gretel style. But then I realized that chewing gum and board game money was more Izzy’s style.”
There was a pause. The silence of the empty house enveloped them.
“Plus there’s the fact that you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want me around.”
There it was. He’d actually said it. She admired him a little for it. She didn’t think he had the balls.
“It’s not personal, you know. It’s just…” she couldn’t look at him, so she stared into the can of tuna.
“I know. The world is all full of bad people now. Scary people.”
Finally she found her voice.
“It’s not that exactly. You don’t seem bad. I don’t think a bad person makes friends with squirrels, for starters. That’s some Disney Princess shit.”
One side of his mouth curled up at that, and she smiled a little back.
“It’s just that… I don’t know. It’s easier when it’s just me and Iz.”
“Easier how? Don’t you think there’s safety in numbers?”
“I mean… when it’s just me and Izzy, I know where everything stands. I’m responsible for her, one hundred percent. It’s simple.”
There was a long pause again, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Marcus staring at the far end of the room, thinking. She could make out of the faint movement of his eyes blinking.
“Are you worried that I’m going to get between the two of you, somehow? That if it came down to it, she’d like me more? Choose me over you or something like that?”
“No,” Erin said, too quickly. Because maybe it was true. Maybe that had been part of it all along. “Maybe.”
He nodded, not laughing or sneering at her like she’d half-expected.
“Being on my own for a while, even with Rocky, it’s… lonely. Lonelier than you can possibly imagine. It makes you a little crazy, I think. So I get why you’d be scared of losing her.”
She could feel his eyes on her, but she couldn’t meet them. She felt too vulnerable. Too exposed.
“How about we make a deal? We’ll try it as a group. See how it goes. And if we ever come to that point, a point where you can’t have me around anymore, I’ll leave. If you tell me to go, I’ll go.”
He put his hand out to shake on it, and Erin took it. His skin was warm and dry, but softer than she expected. She always anticipated boys having rough hands. Calluses and whatnot.
“Deal?” he said.
“Deal,” she said, then added. “But only if you stop calling me ‘Your Majesty.’”
Deirdre
The Compound
9 years, 66 days after
The drums pumped below everything like a heart thudding along. The beat neither dragged nor seemed in a rush. It pulsed in that sweet spot between the two, the place that lulled people into the rhythm entirely, made them one with it.
She picked her way through the crowd, moving along the perimeter of the fire toward the killer. Staying right along the edge of the wood pile made keeping an eye on him possible as she advanced — for the most part, anyway.
For the first time during this whole ordeal, he didn’t seem like her prey, like her victim-to-be. Not exactly. Approaching felt more like approaching some animal in the wild, an unpredictable thing with teeth. He was an adversary now. She thought she should try to remember that.
Someone bumped her, and her punch got knocked over, a little of the reddish drink draining down the back of her hand while the bulk of it slapped at the grass. She tossed the mostly empty cup into the fire, watching it start to shrivel for just a beat before she moved on. The man who bumped her called out some half-hearted apology, but she didn’t look back. Her eyes stayed locked on the target, the man, in front of her.
She panicked a little every time the crowd ebbed in such a way as to block her vision of Isaac, but after a moment he came back into view like a buoy bobbing up to the surface, and she could breathe again. The fractured chin of his mask was recognizable even at a great distance, something she hadn’t considered upon damaging it – a happy accident, she supposed.
It didn’t quite feel real, closing those last fifty feet to get to him. It felt like a dream, like some fleeting thing that would be forgotten as soon she woke. The crowd shifted around her still, throbbing along with the beat of the congas, but the sound faded, the feel of the air faded, every detail seemed to drain from reality except for the image of the cleaved porcelain chin.
And then she was there, within arm’s reach of the killer. A fist clenched in her gut, and her skin went clammy all over her torso, but she didn’t hesitate. She leaned in close.
“I know what you did,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry. I won’t talk… for a price. Meet me at the guard post near the hole in a couple of hours. I’ll be waiting.”
She backed away quick
ly, pausing a moment upon exiting his immediate reach to try to read his expression through the mask. His eyes looked a little wet. Otherwise, she couldn’t tell much.
He nodded.
Erin
State Game Lands Number 232, Pennsylvania
261 days after
The road was narrow, not even wide enough for them to paint lines on it. An unadorned gray serpent winding its way through the green of the hills and trees.
Erin had chosen a route that led them through a section of state land, and it had been almost an hour since they’d seen a house. She liked the remoteness for two reasons: less chance of running into people — or so she hoped — and less chance that someone had come all the way out here to scavenge food.
Twice they came to downed trees blocking the road, trees that would likely stay there until they rotted away. There was no one to clear the roads now. She and Marcus worked together to carry the bikes over the fallen trees.
Erin guided the back end of her bike trailer as Marcus lifted the front. A bug buzzed around her forehead, and she blew an angry puff of air at it, hands too full to brush it away. With all the bikes clear of the roadblock, Erin sat back against the tree, the roughness of the bark digging into her shoulder blades.
Izzy stood on one end of the trunk, peering into the wilderness.
“We’re really in B.F.E. now. Right, Erin?”
Erin nodded.
“Absolutely.”
Marcus took a swig of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He narrowed one eye.
“Did you just say B.F.E.? As in Bum F-”
His eyes darted over to Erin, and he corrected himself mid-sentence.
“As in Bum Fudge Egypt?”
Izzy’s brow was furrowed, she looked from Marcus to Erin, Erin to Marcus. Here it was. She’d have to fess up for lying about it now. Just as she was about to explain, Izzy wrinkled her nose and chuckled.
“No! It means ‘Middle of Nowhere’ in French!”