I ducked in, keeping low as I wove my way through the crowds. People I knew nodded my way, but I worked hard to avoid making eye contact. The last thing I wanted right now was to be stopped by some Chatty Cathy who would keep me from making my escape. I told myself that I would talk to Bryan before he headed out, but I just wasn’t ready right now. Right before patrol was a bad idea. I’d be too distracted to keep watch. Not that we really had anything to watch out for most of the time, but it was an argument that I convinced myself was valid.
The room was buzzing with conversation and the air was sticky with heat. The scent of whatever the cooks had managed to rustle up mingled together with the smells of dirt and body odor to create an aroma I had long ago gotten used to. It was strong, but familiar. It smelled like home to me now.
I managed to make it to the line without seeing Bryan. The odds were in my favor because we had a few hundred people living in the building and few people missed chow time. Within seconds the line of people waiting to eat had lengthened, wrapping me in a cocoon of warm bodies that made me feel momentarily protected from the prying questions Bryan would no doubt throw my way. Just thinking about it made my pulse quicken. It always did when someone asked me about the past, only this was worse because he knew things about me that no one else did. He’d know what to ask and he’d want details. He’d want to know what happened the day his brother died, which was something I’d worked hard to forget even though it was impossible.
The line moved forward and I practically pressed myself up against the man in front of me, who thank God was nearly a head taller than I was. He looked back every so often and gave me a glare that was full of questions. I’d seen him around and knew that he lived on the family level with a wife and two kids. How they’d all managed to survive the last five years I didn’t know, but he was a lucky son of a bitch and it made me despise him a little even though we’d never spoken. A detail I didn’t plan to change now.
I reached the front of the line and took my rations without so much as a thank you. The plate contained a handful of nuts that had no name since they hadn’t existed on this planet before the bugs came—although some people referred to them as alien nuts, which I found entirely too repulsive to even think about—and about a cup of magenta fruit, a staple these days thanks to how common it was. The slab of meat was no doubt rabbit, something that bred quickly and had been easy to trap in the early days. We had a few dozen pens brimming with the animals on the top floor of the building next to us, and we’d been fortunate enough to discover that they loved the vines now growing all over the city. If some of the other species that used to roam this planet had been half as eager to eat the new vegetation as the rabbits had been, more animals might have survived.
With my food safely in hand I shot toward the door, my sights set on freedom as I dodged the other people crowded into the room. I was less than ten steps from the exit when he popped up, his broad frame blocking the door like he’d been waiting for me all along.
I skittered to a halt. He hadn’t seen me yet, but I knew it was only a matter of seconds before he did. His back was as straight as a board and he extended himself on the tips of his toes, his neck craned like he was searching the crowd for something. That something was me and I knew it, but I also knew I was not ready to talk to this man. I needed an escape, and fast.
Too bad his eyes landed on me before I’d had a chance to duck away. I could actually feel the warmth from his gaze. It was like a laser zeroing in on me, and the heat from it grew more intense the closer he got. Just like earlier the hair on my scalp prickled, and I found it suddenly hard to look away. Hard to think.
“Diana,” he said when he stopped in front of me.
My name on the lips of a man who sounded so much like my husband sent a shiver shooting through me, and I found myself transported back in time. Back to that day next to the river when Michael had whispered that he loved me, his lips so close to my ear that the confession had felt like a kiss. It had been the most perfect moment in my life. Before things had gotten sordid and complicated, before the worry of how we’d take care of a baby had swooped in and threatened to destroy us.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, an intense hatred surged through me. It was unfair of Bryan to do this to me. Unfair of him to dredge up the past like it hadn’t been buried for the last five years. Why the hell had he come into my life now, on this of all days? Was it just so he could remind me of the happiness I’d almost had but lost in the blink of an eye?
“What?” I snapped. My hand gripped the plate so hard that it felt like it would cut into my skin even though the edge was dull.
He blinked at the venom in my voice, but that was all the emotion he showed and it made me despise him even more. Made me remember the way he’d treated me back when we’d first met. Like I was scum or a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
“I thought we could talk,” he said after a moment.
I shook my head. “I’m busy. It’s dinnertime, and then I have patrol. I don’t have time for this.” I waved my free hand at him, trying to mimic the disdain he’d shown me all those years ago. “We’ll have to do it another time.”
The look on his face said that he knew I never wanted to talk to him, and the next word came out sound like a plea, “Please.”
“I can’t,” I said again, and this time I pushed past him.
The lobby was nearly deserted, just like it usually was during chow time, and I since I found myself suddenly unable to take in a deep breath, I was thankful for the sudden break from the crowds. I’d grown so used to living in close quarters with other people that most of the time I barely noticed it, but right now it felt like a giant animal was pressed on my chest and I knew that if I didn’t get away, if I didn’t get some place private, I might suffocate.
I passed the supply and strategy rooms and headed deeper into the building, down a hall that led to a back door we’d long ago sealed shut. The hall was pitch black and empty, and the only sounds were the click of my feet against the floor as they echoed off the walls and came back to slam into me. Somehow it made me shakier, caused me to feel more claustrophobic.
But I kept going until I reached the end of the line. There I sank down and leaned my back against the wall. The floor under me was hard and cold and damp, and the chill that penetrated my clothes seemed to sink into me and coat my body in a layer of ice.
Bryan hadn’t deserved my anger, not the Bryan who was here today anyway. But faced with my ghosts I had found it suddenly impossible to hold the rage inside. Only it had nothing to do with the past and everything to do with me trying to keep the past where it was. I didn’t want to talk to him. Not today, not ever, but I knew as long as he was here he wouldn’t let it go. Three days. All I had to do was avoid him for three days and then he’d be out of my life. Sure his platoon might come back, but it was rare. Those guys traveled all over the place, the odds that they’d find themselves here the next time they were ready for R&R were slim. I just had to get through three days, and I knew the perfect person to help me dodge him.
Just like I thought, I found Daisy in the supply room when I finally made it there. She was just coming back from her patrol and was soaked to the bone—as usual. Her blond ponytail dripped onto her shirt when she pulled her poncho off and shook the thing out, and her pale skin was dotted in goose bumps. She shivered as she handed it and her gun back to Tania, the beefy woman who was in charge of our supply inventory.
“Raining?” she asked, her voice slightly hopeful. It was always wet, but we hadn’t gotten a good rain in a couple weeks.
Daisy shook her head. “Just a drizzle.” She spotted me just as she leaned down to unhook her holster and smiled. “Headed out?”
“Ready to do my civic duty,” I replied.
Tania snorted. “We all know the patrols stopped being worthwhile years ago.”
“You never know,” Daisy said.
Tania only shrugged as she checked the returned items off the
list and then started filling the ledger out for me.
Daisy turned my way. “You see Bryan?”
“No, and I don’t plan to.” I paused, unsure of how she would react after our conversation from earlier. She knew he was from my past, but that was all, and it wasn’t like Daisy to pry. There was no reason for her to assume that Bryan was anything more than some asshole I had gone to school with. “Look, he may be different now, but he was a dick when I knew him before and I have no desire to rehash the past. Especially not with him.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment before shrugging. “Okay. I’ll help you dodge him then. He’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
I let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing.” She reached back almost absentmindedly and twisted her wet hair around her hand. Water dripped to the floor. “Now if you’ll excuse me. It’s my shower day, and then I have plans with Tyler.”
“Tyler?” I thought of the beefy man I’d seen her with earlier. The name didn’t fit him. It belonged to little boys who played soccer and road bikes with the neighborhood kids, not a guy who looked like he could crush my head between his hands.
Daisy just smiled. “See you later.”
I waved as she hurried off, and then turned to find Tania ready and waiting.
“That girl is going to get pregnant,” she said as she pushed the M9 across the counter toward me.
“She says she’s careful.”
Tania snorted again, which I had noticed over the last four years was her favorite way to interact with people. “No such thing these days.”
I couldn’t disagree with her.
“Thanks,” I said as I loaded up and then swiped a damp poncho off the counter.
“Have fun out there,” she called after me.
Since the statement was ridiculous, I only nodded.
The city was as quiet as it usually was, but for some reason I felt on edge. Everything seemed to be sharper than before too, like I was really seeing all the details for the first time. The dark, nearly black clouds looked puffier than I remembered, and thick. They hung in a suspended state like Michelangelo himself had painted them. The vines that snaked their way across the streets and up the buildings seemed thicker and more threatening, their surfaces even more moist than ever before.
The drizzle Daisy had reported had lightened until it was nothing more than a fine mist. When it was like this it always made me think of amusement parks on a hot day, how they would have a misting station set up to help guests keep cool. I remember going to King’s Island as a kid, back before my dad died and my world had shifted for the first time, how I’d rush to join the crowd already gathered under the mist, fighting for my turn to cool off.
The air was as thick with moisture as it always was right before the clouds really opened up, despite how light the mist was. I could smell the rain on the air too. Not the pleasant odor that used to follow a storm in spring, but a sickly sweet scent that made me shudder. It reminded me of those first few weeks, back when we didn’t know how dangerous this new landscape was. Back when no one realized that some of these flowers were beautiful for a reason; that the bright pinks and purples and oranges were there to draw you in just so the aliens could take more of us down.
We were better prepared now. We knew what not to touch and what we could eat thanks to the rats and mice that had crowded the cities in those early days. We’d trapped them and used them to test out the flowers around us first, and then some of the other plants that had looked like fruit. With most of our native plants gone or dying, it was the only way to survive. Without the sun, nothing else would grow and we knew the processed food wouldn’t last forever.
I pulled the hood up on my poncho as I passed a gnarled old tree. The limbs hung bare and lifeless, like arms reaching up from a grave. It was just one of thousands of dead trees all over the city. Most of those close to our building had been cut down and used for firewood, and I knew this one probably wouldn’t last that much longer. It was a remnant of the past and a constant reminder of what we’d lost.
The rain picked up before I’d reached the end of the block. It changed from a fine mist to a light drizzle and felt unnaturally warm for such a cool day. The sun being so thoroughly blocked out had caused the average temperature to plummet, but the terraforming had been so complete that the atmosphere was now somehow cool and humid at the same time. Your skin could be moist with sweat and yet covered in goose bumps. The air could be cool like it was now, but the rain that fell was warm enough that it felt like the sun had heated it. Maybe it had. Maybe the sun beating down on those clouds was what made the rain so hot. Or maybe it was just how the aliens had engineered it to be.
I stepped over a vine that was as thick as my thigh. The ground at this end of the street was covered in an orange moss-like plant that felt spongy under my feet. It climbed the building to my right as well, and next to that was one of the many craters left behind by that first day. When I peered down into it, it no longer seemed endless, though. The inside was filled with vines that twisted together as they rose up out of the hole. Flowers, dozens of them in as many different colors, filled the spaces between the greenery, and the orange moss covered the walls and even the tops of some of the vines. It all wound together until it seemed to burst out and cover the street and surrounding buildings, spreading out thicker and thicker as it moved away from the city.
I stared down into the hole, counting the flowers. I stopped when I reached thirty, though. It didn’t matter how many there were when one of them could kill. If someone had the misfortune of falling into this hole, they might land safely on the vines because they were so thick and strong and seemed to thoroughly cover the opening, but it wouldn’t matter. The flowers would kill them within minutes, letting out their poisonous pollen the first time they were jostled too hard.
I looked past the crater but didn’t go any further. Beyond this point the world was too dangerous without a mask. We only patrolled a few blocks in each direction, and only as a precaution. The aliens hadn’t ventured this close to a city since the early days, which was why those of us living here were happy to leave well enough alone. In the city, you almost felt safe. Almost.
Our settlement took up three buildings now, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before we began spreading out more. The offices were crowded, but people had been content with the tight spaces at first because there was safety in numbers. Now though, after years of nothing, people were getting restless. The grumbles were becoming more and more frequent and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the other buildings on the street became occupied, and then the buildings on the next street, and then the next.
I turned my back to the crater and headed back the way I’d come. I spotted Alex at the end of the block, just coming out of the building. We ended up on the same rotation a lot, but only because he always made sure someone he knew was out when he did his required shifts. Every able-bodied adult was required to do two a week, and while some of us did more, there were people like Alex who stuck to the bare minimum.
He waved when he saw me and headed my way because he couldn’t stand being alone when he was outside. It had more to do with his need to socialize than any real threat he might run into. In the beginning we’d been jumpy and unsure, waiting for the moment when the aliens would swoop in and try to destroy us. Every moment outside had felt like life or death, but it wasn’t like that anymore. The aliens had ventured out less and less, and eventually gone quiet. Now most of us used patrol time as a way to get some fresh air—even if it was cold and muggy and wet—or to just have some peace and quiet. Which was my main reason.
“There you are,” Alex said dramatically when he skittered to a stop in front of me.
His poncho looked too small for his long frame, like a father at Disney World who’d bought the wrong size but decided to wear it anyway. Alex pulled the hood forward more in an attempt to block out the mist, but it was impossible because it didn’t fall s
o much as float down from the sky.
“Here I am,” I said, and then started walking. The longer I stood still the chillier I got. It was better to keep the blood flowing.
Alex trudged along after me. “So who was that guy? Bryan?”
I shot him a look out of the corner of my eye because I knew that tone. Alex liked picking through the soldiers that came in almost as much as Daisy did.
“Just someone I knew a long time ago,” I said. “He’s not gay.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Alex snorted. “Gay-dar is a real thing.”
“Sure it is,” I said. I decided not to point out the many straight guys Alex had hit on.
“Whatever. It just seemed like he was into you, so I was curious.”
“He’s not into me. He just wants to rehash some crap from the past and I’m not interested. I just need to avoid him for a couple days and then things can get back to normal.”
“If you say so,” he said.
We walked a few minutes in silence that wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it was when I was with Daisy. Alex was the first person I met when I arrived here four and a half years ago, and even though I would definitely call him a friend, he was too nosy for me to allow myself to get too close to him. He wasn’t exactly the stereotypical gay man, I’d never once heard him call me or anyone else girlfriend, but he did love a juicy bit of gossip. He said it helped him feel like The Young and the Restless was back on TV, which apparently had been his favorite show.
Thankfully, he took the hint and didn’t ask me too many other questions about Bryan. Instead he busied himself with talking about a heated debate he’d had with one of the guys from the militia about whether or not we should continue to try and exterminate the aliens. I was only half listening, but it didn’t really matter. Those kind of conversations only went one way.
The Blood Will Dry Page 4