That sounds awesome, but… I gotta protect—oh hell with it. I’ve been running at 110% for months. “’Kay.”
“Be right back.” He pulled the door shut behind him. “Pee outside unless you can hold it for like an hour.”
“Okay,” said Jonathan.
Harper sat on the toilet, her left—non-bloody—hand pressed against her abdomen, and wished a thousand deaths and painful tortures on whatever entity designed female anatomy. Having Cliff look at her while only half covered by her gossamer nightie and dealing with ‘girl stuff’ should have mortified her. She barely had the energy to care, as blasé as Lorelei streaking the pool. Then again, her hormones had strangled the conductor of her emotional train and drove it off the tracks into a lake—of magma.
Two soft knocks came from the door. Cliff walked in, head turned away to give her some privacy. He set a bundle of T-shirt, jeans, and undies on the sink. “There.”
“Thanks.”
“You got it.” He started to leave.
“Dad?”
He paused. “Yeah?”
“It’s never hurt this bad before. Do I have like uterus cancer?”
“Uhh… I’m not exactly an authority on girl stuff or cancer, but it takes a lot longer than eight months. People who develop cancer as a result of radiation exposure usually go a couple decades before symptoms show up. You wanna go to the doc?”
“Maybe. Right now, standing up hurts too much.”
“Okay. I’ll stick close. Holler if you need anything.” Cliff patted the doorjamb twice and ducked out, closing the door behind him.
Harper sat there for a little while until disgust overpowered pain and the lingering feeling of apathy. She flushed, then grabbed the edge of the sink cabinet for help standing, peeled her nightie off, and stepped into the tub.
Within seconds of her turning the water on, the door opened. Madison and Lorelei darted in and raced each other to the toilet with much grabbing and wrestling. Apparently, neither one of them wanted to water the fence in the backyard like the boy had. Despite their arguing making her headache worse, the normalness of it surprisingly made her feel better. Everyone being so overly nice to each other created a constant sense of gloom, as though even the children knew they were all going to die soon. The girls fighting over who got to pee first made it seem as though they’d gotten past the dread, that they had some hope.
Madison won.
Lorelei stuck her head past the shower curtain, behind her. “Dad says you didn’t get shot.”
“I didn’t.” Harper leaned her face into the warm spray, thanking the powers of the universe that the electricity had worked all night, saving her from a blast of icicles.
“Where’d all the blood come from?”
“She stubbed a toe,” said Madison.
“Nuh-uh,” chimed Lorelei. “Stub toes don’ bleed.”
“It’s just something that happens to us,” muttered Harper. “We start bleeding every four weeks or so. Don’t be afraid of it. But, you’re too little to worry about it yet. I’ll explain eventually.”
Lorelei stuck her hand in the shower, smiling. “I bleed sometimes too.”
“What?” Harper twisted to stare at her in shock. No way does a six-year-old…
“Whenever Mommy got mad and hit me inna nose,” said the girl without losing any bit of her smile. “She’d get mad at me if I put blood on the rug. An’ hit me more.”
Madison gasped. “Bitch.”
Lorelei backed out of the shower and hopped on the toilet as soon as Madison got up. “Mommy’s friends used to call her that a lot. They called her other stuff, too, but I’m not ’llowed to say those words or I get hit for it.”
“Oh, Lore.” Harper choked up, near to sobbing again due to her damn out of control emotions. “That woman will never hurt you again.”
A Madison-shaped blur hovered close on the other side of the shower curtain and whispered, “Hope she’s dead.”
To Harper, that felt a bit extreme, though she did wish the woman experienced some sort of karmic payback for the way she’d treated Lorelei. She couldn’t desire her dead over it though. “We can’t fix problems by killing everyone.”
“I know,” muttered Madison. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah just… you know. Monthly issue.” Mom already had ‘the talk’ with her. I’m going to have to play mom and explain life to Lorelei someday.
“Right. I’ll stay out of your hair today. If ice cream still existed, I’d go get you a big bowl.” Madison sighed, collected Lorelei by the hand, and left the bathroom.
Harper grabbed the soap, staring at the store-bought bar like some precious relic of an ancient civilization. Her mind went off on a tangent with a Tomb Raider type daydream of her swinging on jungle vines and running away from an Incan deathtrap to claim one bar of jade green soap.
Today is going to absolutely suck.
Curled up in a ball, Harper stared at the wall of her bedroom, arms wrapped around her pillow, hugging it to her chest. The intensity of the cramping had lessened somewhat, likely as a result of her not moving much since exiting the shower. Evidently, her uterus had decided to abandon its escape attempt and stopped trying to rip itself out of her and run off into the wasteland.
Children’s voices echoed from the backyard for the first hour or so. Soon after Becca and Mila came over, the kids decided to go exploring empty houses and wandered off too far away to hear anymore. Despite Cliff offering to watch them today, Harper felt compelled to keep an eye on them, but the thought of moving hurt. Hopefully, he would either go with them or round them up before they got into trouble.
Her white T-shirt and jeans looked—and smelled—in need of being washed, but she couldn’t care less about that at the moment. If she had access to any drug that would make her sleep for two days to escape the second nuclear war going on inside her abdomen, she’d take two.
Fortunately, she’d gotten out of bed in time to spare the mattress a new stain, but the rug caught some. Madison had done what she could to scrub at it before going out to play. Carrie brought her breakfast, and sat for a while talking. She didn’t seem to think anything overly alarming went on, saying ‘sometimes, they’re worse than others.’
The pain and wild emotions left Harper unusually surly, wanting to be alone. Carrie understood, sharing a brief story about an epic fight she’d had with her former husband one time the cramping got her in a particularly vile mood.
Doing nothing but laying there wishing that the agony would go away made for a slow, boring day. She thought about reading The Secret Garden, but that would require getting up to grab the book. So she sat there. Any activity other than holding still would piss off the little monster inside. For a couple hours or so, she felt normal, only slightly achy. Out of nowhere, she randomly started crying again, somehow associating the total silence in the backyard with all the children having been killed in another raid by unknown attackers.
They’re all going to die anyway. Why am I even bothering?
The door opened enough to admit a head.
Harper tried to say ‘go away,’ but only moaned.
“Harper?” asked Tegan. “Heard you’re having a fun day.”
Oh… Dr. Hale. She forced the urge to snap at people down deep and lifted her head out of the pillow she’d koala-bear-hugged. “A bit, yeah.”
“Cliff was a little worried about you. Asked me to stop by in case you wanted to talk.” She stepped in. “Is it okay?”
“Sure. I apologize in advance if I say something bad.”
Tegan pushed the door closed, then walked over to the bed. “He said you described it as unusually strong?”
“Yeah. It’s never hurt like this before. Or come out of nowhere like that. Usually, I’m ready for it, but this morning, I just exploded. And, I think something’s wrong. I’m having ridicu-mood swings. The littlest things get me crying or so angry I scare myself.”
“It might not be anything to be overly concerned ab
out. High levels of stress during menses can cause depression, crying fits, and even make the cramping worse.”
Harper laughed, grimacing at the ache in her guts. “Yeah… stress. Having just a little of that lately.”
“How do you feel now?” asked Tegan.
She twirled a hand in the air. “Not too bad. Just seriously considering going on a shotgun rampage and clearing the Lawless out of Lakewood. Only thing stopping me is it hurts to walk.”
Tegan performed a cursory exam, including gentle prodding of the abdomen while asking questions about how that felt. “You seem to be in good health. I don’t feel any swelling or unusual inflammation. You are most likely only having a bumpy road this cycle. Here, I brought a couple of Midol tablets that will help with the pain.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you actually had Midol.”
Tegan smiled. “While it’s basically a pain reliever, it tends to be the last one to go. The ibuprofen and Aleve go fast. Men don’t want to use that stuff for some reason.”
When her mother had ‘the talk’ with her at twelve, she’d used that exact phrase. Sometimes, it’s a bumpy road. Harper lost herself to uncontrolled crying again, heartsick for her dead mother as if the woman had only died a minute ago.
Tegan sat on the edge of the bed and comforted her until the abnormal emotional storm faded.
“I hate this. Everything makes me sad. My mom said the same thing about the road can be bumpy. I miss her so much. Thought I’d kinda dealt with it but I can’t stop crying today.”
“Grief isn’t cut and dried. It runs off and hides sometimes, then jumps out and bites you when you least expect it to. You’re under a lot of stress, and on top of your present condition… it’s rough.”
Harper sniffled, trying to fight off the unnatural sadness. “I gotta be Mom for Maddie and Lorelei. I gotta be GI Jane now, too, and I hate having to do that.” She let out a long, shuddering sigh, struggling to gather her composure. “I hate that I’ve had to kill people, and I hate it more that I know I’ll have to do it again and I’m not gonna wimp out. Why do people have to be shitty?”
“There have always been people like that. That hasn’t changed, but now, there’s no legal system left to stand between them and the rest of us. And desperation can bring out the worst in people.”
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up to sit and talked about Scott the barista and the dentist, Alan. Two once-ordinary guys who she came within a hair’s breadth of killing.
“I spoke to Dr. Butler. He’s really a dentist. Either that or he’s spent six thousand hours reading Wikipedia.” Tegan chuckled. “Didn’t seem like a bad guy to me. Says he didn’t hurt anyone. If he can convince Ned of that, they might let him stay.”
Harper raked her toes at the carpet. “Guess it would be stupid to kick someone with skills like that out into the wasteland.”
“You don’t want him to stay?” asked Tegan.
“I dunno. He makes me think about the farm attack… and Logan.” Sensing an imminent swerve from the emotion rollercoaster, Harper clamped her eyes shut and concentrated on not giving in to weird, random feelings. “He’s okay, right?”
“He’s doing well. Sadie told him he slept through your last visit, so he only wanted some painkillers today.”
She perked up. “He’s awake?”
Tegan nodded.
Harper dragged herself upright, clenching her jaw to weather the protests of her sore plumbing. “I’m gonna go visit him.”
“That will do you both some good, though you might want to put some shoes on first.”
“Yeah. And take these.” She gazed at the Midol tablets in her hand. “You little guys are going to keep me from committing murder today.”
18
Fleeting
Walking down Hilltop to Route 74 didn’t hurt as much as Harper thought it would.
Tegan accompanied her since she needed to return to the med center anyway. Near total silence—the absence of children’s voices—suggested Cliff took them on another woodland hike or they’d gone quite a ways off to rummage houses and buildings.
She found Logan sitting up in bed when she arrived at the patients’ room. Sadie had evidently gotten the green light to go rest at home. Only two of the injured farmers remained, the other four also missing.
“Hey,” rasped Logan, his voice weak. “Good to see you.”
It took a great deal of self-control for Harper not to jump on him with a hug. She hurried around to his right side—away from the drain and bandages—and took his hand in both of hers. “Logan…”
“Yeah. That’s my name.” He flashed a goofy smile… and proceeded to ramble about how much he disliked strawberry-flavored ice cream, milkshakes, and candy. “I mean, I don’t know why anyone would ever make chemical strawberry flavor. It’s so rancid.”
“Umm…”
He blinked at her. “Oh. I think I’m a little high. Dr. Hale gave me morphine. It came in a needle. They never bothered me, but Luisa always screamed at the doctor’s office when she needed shots. She hated needles. Dr. Hale gave me a needle of morphine. I never minded getting shots.”
“Wow. You are like super high.” Harper giggled.
Logan spent a few minutes wondering aloud about where the word ‘needle’ came from, and why people called them that. Then, he rambled about his little sister always messing with his stuff, mostly electronics. He laughed about the time she put her music on his phone or Mp3 player, used his computer all the time, and so on. She sat there, grinning like an idiot listening to him, not minding at all whatever random turns his conversation took.
Since seventh grade, she’d considered roughly six boys to be ‘boyfriends.’ Granted, the first three had been little more than an innocent trip to the mall or movies, only hand-holding changing them from ‘friend’ to ‘boyfriend.’ Once in high school, she’d tried the kissing thing, but she’d never done anything more intimate than that. Not like her friend Darci.
That girl had been the first of her group of friends to ‘go all the way,’ though whether it happened during sophomore or junior year remained a matter of mystery. She freely admitted to having given a BJ or five earlier than that, though considering how often the girl got high, it might have been fuzzy memory or even exaggeration to seem like the ‘cool rebel.’ Christina and Andrea had both lost their virginity as well, Andrea over the summer before senior year and Christina a week before the nukes fell.
Her friends considered Renee the most prudish, having been relatively vocal about her intention to wait either for marriage or until she’d graduated college before doing it. The only real difference between her opinion and Harper’s had been that Renee talked about it. Though, Harper never planned on specifically waiting until she’d gotten married. She only wanted to wait until she found a boy she loved, not merely dated because her whole crew had boyfriends and she’d found someone she could tolerate being around.
But the more she listened to Logan ramble and thought about how he’d nearly been killed saving the life of a boy who’d spent three years hurling racist abuse at him, the more she feared she would die before ever knowing what love felt like. Too many books and movies had given her this strange expectation for what falling in love would be. Ever since she’d ‘noticed’ boys, she’d been expecting love would be an overwhelming, sudden realization of knowing she’d found the ‘right’ boy and there’d be fireworks in the sky, music from nowhere, maybe some doves flying by in the background… not constant gnawing doubt and guilt about her feelings being genuine. Not the dread that the instant she admitted she felt differently about Logan than any other boy, he’d go away.
“… puck went flying over the plexi and nailed the old guy right in the forehead.” Logan snickered. “I shouldn’t be laughing about that, but he’d been screaming at Zach the whole game, calling him a pansy or preppie boy. I think it’s when the codger told Zach he probably still breast-fed from his mom, he hit him with the puck. Claimed it was an accident.”
“Sure. Sorry. I’m on morphine. Whatever you want to talk about. Hey, why do you have a shotgun?”
“Because.”
“Oh, the war.” He wiped his face. “Right. Thought I dreamed that.”
“So, umm. I made you a promise the other day when you were sleeping.” She bit her lip, squeezing his hand. “You’re still pretty high, so maybe I’ll need to repeat it again once the drugs wear off. But, umm…” Heat rushed to her cheeks. “If you still want to kiss me when you can sit up…”
Logan made a goofy grin at her. She couldn’t help but think he looked like a small boy who’d gotten something he really wanted for his birthday.
The space inside her heart that once held all she loved had become like a room in an abandoned house full of cobwebs and disrepair. Her parents’ bodies, decayed to the point she only recognized them by the clothes they’d died in, lay sprawled on a faded rug in front of a cold fireplace, Madison cowering in the corner, afraid of her own shadow. The ghosts of her friends milled around, staring at faded paintings of her former home, friends’ houses, and other places she used to adore. Renee stood by the only door out as though she’d just stepped into that inner sanctum, coughing at the dust and waving a hand back and forth in front of her face.
Geez, Harp. You need to clean the hell up in here.
If she let Logan into that room, he could burn it down… but he might also start repairing it.
Oh, hell with it.
Harper stood, leaned over his bed, and kissed him. He somewhat clumsily reached up and brushed a hand over her hair, cradling the back of her head while they made out for a few minutes as gingerly as possible. Her emotional rollercoaster flew around a loop and shot straight off the tracks. In the span of two minutes, she went from not wanting to ever leave his side, to feeling like her life would end without him, to knowing for a fact that he’d be dead in days, to just wanting to curl up and forget the whole world existed.
The Lucky Ones (Evergreen Book 3) Page 17