“It’ll be fun,” I promised. It was true that for living on a farm, neither one of us got out much. Maybe it was the fear of coming in contact with someone who was infected or perhaps just the fear of the unknown, but neither one of us seemed to be able to go much further than half a mile away from the house. Despite the fact that I’d begged Brian to take me on an adventure, I was nervous about leaving the house during the day and on foot.
“Are you sure?” He asked, seeing through my broad smile.
“I’m scared,” I confessed. It didn’t matter because he could already tell. Brian had a way of sensing my fear and being able to calm me down, but he always encouraged me to be honest about it anyway.
“I know you are. That’s why I asked if you’re sure. We don’t have to go anywhere, Sweetie. We can stay here today.”
“I feel like a walk. Really. Let’s just go walk the property line. Maybe we’ll find something interesting or new.”
With a nod, Brian finally agreed. We each grabbed a gun and, locking the door from the inside, we sneaked out a window from the second floor. A large tree in the front yard was just the right height for climbing out of my bedroom. Once we’d slithered our ways down the tree, Brian asked me to give him a piece of my hair.
“What?”
“A strand of your hair.”
“Why?”
He rolled his eyes. “Just do it. I’ll show you.”
Grimacing momentarily, I yanked a strand of hair out and handed it to him, whining slightly as I rubbed my scalp. Ignoring me, Brian placed the strand carefully on the doorknob. He checked a few times to make sure it was in place, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. I didn’t understand what he was doing.
“Some sort of voodoo magic?”
“This way if someone tries to open the door, the hair will fall down,” Brian explained. “They won’t notice it and it’s not going to be obvious enough for them to see on the ground when it falls.”
I was impressed. “Pretty clever idea,” I told him. He smiled. “We’ll check it when we come back,” he patted me on the shoulder. “If someone decides to come by and scope out the place, we’ll know.”
Taking one last look at the house, we struck off toward the back field on our morning adventure. The walk would be fun, I told myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the strand of hair. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that someone would be so brass as to walk up to our house during the daylight hours and try to get in. After all, who does that? And what happened when they saw that we weren’t there? Would they try to break into the windows? Would they take one of the cars? What if they climbed the tree – which I knew wasn’t likely –and got into my bedroom? What if-
Brian’s touch cut into my thoughts as he grabbed my hand and held it tight. He didn’t say a word as we walked across the lonely, empty field, and he didn’t have to. Just knowing he was right by my side was enough. We would be okay. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me or our home. I took one final look at the house and, as we started walking down a steep hill, it disappeared from sight.
Chapter 22
There are many emotions I never wanted to experience in my life. There are many things I didn’t want to see, things I hoped no one would ever have to see. Then the virus came, and everything changed. My perfect world shriveled and my dreams disappeared. The things I wanted no longer mattered. The things I hoped for were gone. I held Brian’s hand as we walked openly down the road. We didn’t hide ourselves. We didn’t hide where we were. We didn’t stay in the woods or in the ditch so we could jump out of sight at a second’s notice. We just took a walk.
For a brief moment, the world felt normal. We didn’t say much as we walked, but it wasn’t the talking that mattered anyway. With each step, the gravel crunched beneath my feet and I was rushed back into a world where my parents used to hold my hands and walk with me in the evenings. We’d go to the end of the road and then back to the house. Round-trip it was about two miles and I was so proud of myself for being able to walk that far. When Brian and I got to the stop sign at the end of the road, I turned around without a word and began walking back.
I didn’t notice I was crying until I couldn’t see the road in front of me anymore. Where did the rain come from? I thought for a second. Then I realized it was coming from me. I would never see them again. I would never go on walks with them again. I wondered if this was how Brian felt about his grandparents. Was this how he felt? One moment I would be fine. One moment I would feel like I was okay in the world. Then all it would take was a word, a smell, a sound, and I would be overwhelmed with past memories that didn’t matter anymore.
And none of it was fair.
And none of it was okay.
“It’s going to be okay,” Brian’s arms were around me now. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He told me every day, it seemed, and I never believed him. Today I believed him least of all. Nothing about anything was “okay.” Nothing about your parents being dead was fine. Nothing about the world around you being decayed and overrun was fine. I glared at Brian through my tears and bit back my fierce pain before I started a fight. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t want to be dealing with any of this. After all, what kind of world was so shitty that you couldn’t even go play outside without fear of someone with a blue rash coming and killing you just through a touch? What kind of world was it where you were so scared of being murdered in your sleep that you barricaded your entire house? Did I really want to live in that sort of a world?
When we reached the house, I went up to the front door and reached for the doorknob.
“Wait,” Brian shouted before I touched it. “Check for the hair.”
With a sigh, I peered down and saw that it was still in place.
“Good,” Brian commented as he flicked it down. Caught in a gentle breeze, the hair floated softly down to the porch before we went inside. “Glad to know we were okay. Good to know no one came by.”
I nodded in response, but inside I was thinking he was crazy. Nobody ever came by. Nobody ever came to this place. After all, who would want to be a part of a world like this? Who would come to a lonely house in the woods? Who would try to find something useful in this dump? Who?
**
I didn’t have to wait long for my answer. Less than two weeks after our walk, the snow had melted and the sun was shining. Brian and I both felt happier. We’d been spending more time outdoors, more time playing games in the yard, and more time trying to assemble some sort of a normal life. After a particularly rowdy game of catch, we were laughing in the kitchen, drinking water and trying to rehydrate. We were both covered in sweat and grime. The game had been a fun one, though, and we both felt more relaxed than we had in months.
So when we heard a tell-tale knock at the front door, we both stopped our laughing and looked at one another, as if to say “Was that you?”
But it was neither one of us.
A second later, we heard the same knock and both Brian and I dropped to the floor. We laid on our stomachs on the dirty tile floors in the center of the kitchen, hidden from site and not making a sound. Brian reached for his gun and held it in his hands tightly. He was steadfast and quiet, always ready to protect me. Always ready to take care of me.
“Open up! I know you’re inside!” The voice was loud. It sounded like a man’s voice, but I wasn’t sure. Neither one of us said a word. Brian held a finger to his lips to make sure I knew to remain silent. He didn’t have to tell me. There was no way I wanted to talk to this person.
“You think you can hide in there forever, but you can’t!” The man began to bang on the door as loud as he could. The sound of flesh hitting the solid wood was overwhelming. The sound resonated throughout the house with each bang. Part of me wondered if the entire house was going to fall over. Everything shook as he pounded on the door. “Let me in! I’m hungry! Let me in!”
We were silent in the kitchen. The person stopped banging and fo
r a moment, I wondered if he had left. Then I heard him at the back door. “All locked up but nowhere to go! Let me in, I tell ya! Open up! You can’t hide in there forever. Don’t you know people out here be needin’ help? You can’t just ignore the sick forever. We’re all gonna die if we don’t eat. Let me in. Gimme some food. I don’t want much. Just enough for my family. Let me in.”
The man continued to move from door to door, window to window until he had circled the entire house twice. Finally, I rolled to my back and stared at the kitchen ceiling, ignoring the man’s yells and shouts.
“Should you go shoot him?” I whispered to Brian, somewhat surprised at myself.
“Why?” He wondered.
“What if he comes back? What if he comes back and we’re outside? Maybe he’s seen us, Brian. Maybe he knows we’re here.”
“He definitely knows we’re here,” he told me. “And we should definitely leave. Is it really worth killing a man over, though? We don’t know if he’s armed. We don’t know if he’s sick. People get desperate when they get hungry, Paige. It’s just the way things work.”
“Should we give him some food?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I was just sayin’, if you want to be nice, is all.”
Brian rolled over and looked at me intently. Then, very seriously and very precisely he said, “Paige, if we give him food, he will never leave. He will go get his friends and they will all come back and they will take all of the food. Then, when there’s no food left to give, they’ll kill us. That’s what people do when they’re hungry, Paige. We don’t have much left as it is.”
He was right. We’d been rationing ourselves, trying to eat as little as possible. My parents had a food storage that was plentiful, but eventually all good things must come to an end. We both estimated that we had about 10 days’ worth of food left in the pantry. We’d made the mistake of boredom eating when we were tired or anxious, so most of the good food was long gone. Now we were stuck with mostly beans, and boy, was I sick of beans.
“I know. You’re right,” I told him. We couldn’t be nice at a time like this, but it felt so wrong. Everything I learned in church and Sunday school about helping those in need, about being kind to the poor, about serving one another, where was that now? What happened when you did all the right things but it was too late? What happened when you wanted to be nice to others, but the world was different? What happened when you were kind but you got killed for it? What happened then?
After another round of banging and yelling, the man left the house. I started to get up but Brian grabbed me and pulled me back down. “Not so fast,” he said. “It could be a trick.”
I didn’t know if he was right or not, but I stayed in place. Brian had never steered me wrong before so I refused to try to make my own way now. The kitchen floor was hard and uncomfortable, but after hours of laying on my back, I must have drifted off. Brian shook me awake and I jumped up with a start.
“How long was I out for?” I asked.
“Too long.” He thrust a backpack into my hands. “Take this,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?” I rubbed my eyes, trying to bring myself back into reality. Then I remembered the man at the door, the man with the scary voice who wanted to break into the house.
“Somewhere safe. We can’t stay here anymore. I know it’s your home, Paige, but all good things must come to an end. I’m sorry. We just can’t risk that guy coming back with friends.”
“I know. You’re right.” Brian handed me my hoody and my boots. I slipped into the combat boots, happily lacing them up. The rainbow laces made the ensemble perfect, at least in my mind. I slid my hoody on and zipped it. Then the backpack went on. I grabbed my .38 special from the kitchen cabinet. It might not have been the fastest gun, but it was my favorite. Brian had one gun tucked in the back of his pants and the other he held in his hands.
“Did you get-“ I started to ask but he held up a hand.
“I got everything we need, but we need to move fast. It’s dark now and the bastard’s probably long gone. If not, we need to get a move on while we have the advantage.”
We headed outside and Brian nodded toward my dad’s car. Without a word, he jingled the keys and opened the back door. I climbed in quietly and sat on the seat. Was Brian going to drive us somewhere? Then he motioned to the trunk and I understood what he wanted. He didn’t speak since he was afraid of being overheard, but we were going to sleep in the trunk tonight. A fine idea by me. It would prevent us from having to flash our lights while driving or risk hitting something – even a deer – in the dark.
Before Brian climbed into the car, I heard him sigh loudly. A little too loudly, I thought. After all, weren’t we trying to be quiet? Weren’t we trying to avoidbeing overheard?
“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t stand not knowing.
“It’s the tires,” he said. “They’ve been slashed. They’re all completely flat.”
I hadn’t even bothered to look at the tires when I’d come toward the car. The pale moonlight hadn’t been enough to notify me that there was a problem. I felt stupid for not noticing. I felt panicked. But I also felt something else. Suddenly, I felt a little less crazy and a little more scared. I always worried that I was overthinking things, overanalyzing. I felt like I made rash decisions at times that made no sense. Running away from a perfectly good house just because someone might want to hurt me seemed a little crazy. Now I felt much less paranoid.
“What do we do?” I asked him in a whisper. After all, our means of transportation had been cut off. Surely the tires on the other cars were cut, too.
“We’ll go on foot,” he told me. He didn’t sound happy. Brian’s thick brows furrowed together with tension. He looked more concerned than I’d ever seen him before.
“Tonight?” I asked. It was already dark. It was already late. If someone was out there watching the house, they would have the advantage. We couldn’t leave the car without someone spotting us. All the ways away from the house, be it through the woods or down the driveway, would leave us exposed, at least for a little while. In this world, though, a little while was all a killer needed.
“We’ll go in the morning. First thing,” Brian promised.
I nodded in agreement. We both needed sleep. There was no doubt in my mind of that. We both climbed into the car and somehow managed to get inside the trunk in the dark. Brian locked the back doors of the car and pulled up the seat so that it was almost all the way closed. It was a tight fit with both of us and our bags. Brian held his gun in his hands. Even in the dark I could tell he was alert, waiting. I couldn’t see anything in the dark. I blinked several times, trying to get my eyes to adjust, but it didn’t help. Finally, I just kept them closed.
I reached out to Brian, to touch his body in the dark. Our legs were intertwined, but it wasn’t romantic. It didn’t feel sweet or special. It felt raw. I ran my hand gently down his arm and I felt his body flinch. So that’s the way it was going to be. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. This wasn’t going to be a romantic evening. This was going to be a night of survival. I knew I could drift off to sleep and let myself relax, but I also realized that Brian would not be able to do the same. He would stay awake all night, watching for the man, just waiting to see if he returned.
I wanted to ask him how long we would stay here, but I figured it would just be until the morning. Then we would leave. Maybe he would want us to wait just a few hours until anyone watching the property had left. Really, we could leave soon. We didn’t have to wait until morning, but the longer we could wait, the better it would be. Who knew how many people the man had with him? What if he brought more people to the house? More importantly, what if they were waiting on the road for us to come out? I imagined strips of barbed wire, piles of nails, or gun shots to the car to make us unable to leave. It didn’t seem pleasant, but it was a possibility. There could be any number of people waiting to get us.
My e
ntire body felt stiff. That hadn’t taken long. I longed to stretch out my legs, to unwind my body, to be able to move around. The back seat was open just far enough to let air in, just enough to make sure we didn’t suffocate, but not far enough that I could see the moonlight or the stars. There was no way to see if anyone was coming, if anyone was near the house, if anyone was hiding in the dark. I wondered if there was someone waiting to get us.
But then I wondered, just once more, if we were crazy.
Chapter 23
Brian shook me awake long before the sun came up. The trunk was still dark and it was stuffy and hot in the small space.
“No,” I pushed his hand away. My legs were stiff and cramped, but I didn’t want to wake up. I was tired. Every part of my body was sweaty and gross and exhausted. I squeezed my eyes closed and rolled away from his touch.
“Paige,” his voice was urgent, “It’s time to go. We have to go and we have to go now.”
“Why?”
“Because they just burned down your house.”
That got my attention. I practically pushed Brian out of the way as I made my way out of the trunk and into the back seat of the car. From my position I could see that he was right. My parents’ house was engulfed in huge flames. I didn’t see any people around. There was no one dancing around the building, no screaming or hollering, no shouting. There was just the flames and the death of my home.
“But why?” The tears came fast and burned my skin. They hurt. This hurt. And I was tired of things hurting.
“Paige, they wanted inside and we wouldn’t let them in. Who knows what they’ve been through? Who knows how hungry they were? It’s retaliation. Plain and simple.”
Only, to me, it didn’t seem so plain and simple. To me it seemed like someone had swooped in just when Brian and I were finally starting to settle, finally starting to make a home and make a new life, and they had stolen our dreams. Granted, I had been bored. I had been lonely and tired and ready for something new, but I didn’t want it like this. I didn’t want to be forced out of my family home, out of the safety and comfort of residing in the house where I could still, when I closed my eyes, hear my dad’s laughter and see my mom’s brilliant smile.
Never Look Back: A Dystopian Novel Page 17