She lowered her arm slowly, and let the remnant of the kill loose from her hand. It landed next to its body, almost looking like a pet curled up to its owner. She took the knife from her other hand and wiped it on her pants, then closed it and slid it back into her pocket. She never broke eye contact with anyone during the entire thing, and now she slowly made her way back behind the walls of the Block.
As she passed Laila she said, “So, it is real ignorance then.”
Most just gaped at her unblinkingly, but others, like Jack, Cara, and Charlie looked almost embarrassed. As she walked back to the door she looked at the building and saw a few faces staring out from some windows on the first and second floor. They watched her now with a look of uncertainty. She entered from the side door, and made her way back to the room they said was hers, for now.
No one followed her.
CHAPTER 4
The Fourth Floor
Jack clicked on the incandescent hand lamp that was hooked over head, shining light onto one corner of the floor against the far wall. There were tarps crisscrossed over each other covering every inch of the windows that faced out of the building, some so long they swept down and over the floor. As Jack made his way carefully in the dark to the opposite wall, they crinkled a bit as he softly stepped on them. It was long after sunset, so the light curfew was underway. At this point it didn’t matter since all but those on watch were asleep. No one was allowed to have a light on if the room had a window on the outside of the building. That pretty much left closets, some parts of the basement level, or the teachers rooms which viewed the courtyard. During the winter when the sun set so early, they’d gather around with the kids in the common room on the second floor or the gymnasium, and let them tire themselves out in the glow of fluorescent lightbulbs over head.
He clicked on the hand lamp that hung on the other side and took in the strip of space he just lit for himself. It was about forty feet, cement wall to cement wall. There was a clear path inbetween the frames of the unfinished walls where dry wall was never hung.
He slid the large cardboard box he found down in storage against the side facing the courtyard in the strip of cinderblocks making up the space around the windows. He had found piles of molded styrofoam that most likely encased the computers for the school, and had shoved as many as he could into the box. That would most likely stop an arrow, he figured, and if not, the cement wall would. He picked up his newly acquired bow and its handful of arrows, and started back to the outside wall. He sat down on a pile of unused stiff and crumpled tarps of plastic and cloth.
When he couldn’t fall asleep that night he decided he was going to make his new find useful. He went and found a book in the student library on archery. He flipped it open to the first page and already noticed it was for a basic recurve bow, like the one he used at summer camp, the only one he’s ever shot.
“Shit,” he sighed to himself.
Regardless, he figured he could get the general basic points, and apply them as best he could to the compound bow he now had. Nocking the arrow, proper hand and finger positioning, stance, drawing it back, aiming. Generic, basic foundational archery tips. He sat in the pool of light under the bright yellow lamp for a while. Flipping through pages, skimming the chapters at some points, fully reading other parts. Finally he felt like he had enough understanding to attempt a shot at the make shift target.
He stood himself up, legs stiff from sitting cross-legged for so long. The uncomfortable feeling of blood flowing back in to his limbs made him shake and bend them about. He limped a bit on numbed, prickly feet as he lined up to the stuffed box lit under the other lamp. He chuckled to himself. He already felt like a fool, and was very happy to be doing this alone and in the dark.
He bent down and picked up the bow and an arrow, then stood for a moment taking mental stock of the next few steps. What he gleaned from his reading suddenly felt very inadequate as he looked much closer at the device in his hand. He bent back down and picked up the book again, flipping back to the part about nocking the arrow. He read it again, then once more as he looked back and forth multiple times from words and diagrams to bow, and words to diagram to bow again. After a half dozen attempts to securely balance the arrow to the string and against the grip he finally felt like he could draw back the bow and try and shoot.
Jack steadied himself, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. He turned sideways then raised the bow up in front of him. He stilled his breathing, then went to draw back the bow.
The immediate resistance was surprising. At first he stopped and looked down at the bow to see if he was pulling the right string or if it was caught on something. A few more seconds of examination proved that there was nothing to blame the inability of the bow to pull back, so he tried again. He pulled harder this time and the string gave up about an inch or two to his straining muscles before he released it. The arrow wiggled at the tip as his arm went to jelly.
“Holy shit,” he said to himself shaking out his arm when it dawned on him that this was going to be more difficult than he thought, and that he was a lot weaker than the appearance of his arm muscles let on.
“A lot harder than it looks, huh?”
A voice from the opposite side of the unfinished level made him jump. The arrow fell to the floor. Jack looked towards the voice, eyes wide in the darkness, but couldn’t make anyone out. Any night vision he could’ve had up there was erased as soon as he had turned those lights on. Panicked he grabbed the hand lamp and pointed the face of it in the direction where he thought the person was. The light beam oscillated as he turned it right and left, over and over at the other side of the building. Still nothing. Then he heard something scraping against metal, and his fear rose. He gave the light’s beam a wider birth as he went from corner to corner, and then he saw movement.
Sitting legs up on a dark tarp covered window sill, was Mac, eating a bowl of food. She didn’t even look up as he placed the light directly on her, she just spooned another mouthful in from the bowl resting on her lap. Her bad arm was draped across her stomach, and again if you didn’t know she was hurt, it would’ve just looked like she was keeping her food from falling over. He could see she still had the remnants of what happened outside on her face and neck. She was wearing the same clothes as well, and assumed if he moved closer to her the smell from the turned would’ve told him she was still wearing them even if he couldn’t see it.
No one had seen her since she killed all of the dead outside the wall, but then again, no one went looking for her either. They had just assumed she went to the third floor room, to clean up, and had stayed there. Now he knew she hadn’t done that, but had somehow went to the basement, made herself some food, and brought it back up to the fourth floor without being seen.
She reached down next to her and lifted a cup of water to her mouth for a long gulp.
And she got herself a drink too, apparently.
Jack didn’t know what to say to her partly, because his heart was still pounding in his chest making it hard to focus, and because he still hadn’t fully recovered from what she did out front earlier that day… and even maybe from what she did for them that morning.
She looked up from her oatmeal and filled the silence for him.
“It’s not you,” she gave a nod to the bow. She looked back down at her bowl, gathering up the remaining food, scraping around it. “That’s probably set at a ninety pound draw weight. Just lower it and you should be able to pull it back with much less effort.”
He still stood there, not sure of how to respond, especially because he had no idea what she was talking about.
He settled on, “Thanks.”
Her eyebrows raised and fell slightly in acknowledgement, barely noticeable in her heavily shadowed face.
“So are you a bow expert too?” he asked, relaxing a bit.
“I’m not an expert at anything. Just know a little about a lot of things,” she said, sucking on her spoon.
Jack took a few
steps closer to her, lowering the hand lamp so it wasn’t shining right in her eyes, while still lighting the space between them.
“I think you know a lot about a few, certain things,” he said directly.
She set down her bowl and picked up her glass, draining what was left of the water slowly. He looked at her, waiting for a response. She didn’t give him any, and set the empty glass inside of the empty bowl next to her with a soft clink.
“What else do you know about bows?” He thought if he gave her an actual question he’d be more likely to get a response.
“Nothing,” she said flatly looking him in the eyes. “Beyond that it’s a compound bow, and you have no idea what you’re doing with it.”
He tried to hide the slight smirk that formed from an inkling of embarrassment crawling up his throat.
“Well, you definitely are an expert then,” he joked.
“Like I said, I don’t know anything about bows beyond what I already told you. All I do know is someone who does know what they’re doing with one. And that’s not you,” she swung her legs slowly and carefully over the side of the sill, resting her feet back on the floor. You could see the fight going on in her face to not show the pain she was in.
“It’s pretty bad, huh?” he asked reaching across himself, and waved over his own shoulder and side.
She looked at him with an exasperated expression that insinuated he was already aware how it was going for her.
“I bruised a rib once, mildly. It fucking hurt.” He leaned against a nearby wooden frame that would’ve made up a door way if it had ever been drywalled.
She continued to sit there, arm across her lap, staring at her feet, “It’ll be fine in a couple weeks.”
She carefully lifted herself up, grabbed her dirty dishes, and started for the corner back stairwell. Jack stood straight again, and went to help her, then caught himself. He watched her as she slowly moved away, each step he knew was excruciating for her.
She was almost to the door to the steps when he said, “You think we’re stupid, don’t you?”
She stopped in her tracks, and took a moment before she turned around. Then she walked back to him, right up to the other side of the doorway he was leaning on. She looked at him with sad eyes.
“No, I don’t. I think you’re naive. I think you’re all fucking lucky as hell, that you’ve all been here for a year a half, in the middle of what’s happened, because of this place. I think you all have a lot to learn, and a responsibility to those kids to learn it and teach them. And though I think you all need to do that immediately, I know it will change this place. It will change all of you, and all that time you’ve spent here avoiding the turned, will come back at you with losses. And I’m sorry about that.”
That last part hung in the air between them for a while.
“Just so you know, we do kill them. We just try not to when the kids can see,” Jack said trying to explain what he now totally understood as a ridiculous display from the guards at the gate.
“I figured. You couldn’t have survived this long if you didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly, “but you can’t let them accumulate like that. You’re not helping anyone, especially the kids, that way.”
He nodded his head, and they stood there in silence again. He wondered if he should try and fill the awkward silence with awkward small talk. What, can’t sleep too? It’s starting to warm up out there, huh? Are you from around here? Everything seemed ridiculous in this situation, plus he pretty much knew all the answers to those question, and he figured she would just look at him like an idiot if this was his line of conversation.
He was sure she couldn’t sleep. She was in a new place full of people who were just playing fetch with zombies, and she had to be in much more pain than any strength of Tylenol could dull. Yes, it was warming up, because the Earth spins around the sun putting us at the beginning of spring. And no, he very much doubted she was from around here.
“I’m sorry I was up here. If this is where you go, I’ll let you keep it.”
She had a much better conversation starter. He was surprised she initiated more conversation and was a little caught off guard.
“Oh, no. I do come up here sometimes. We all do if we need the quiet or space or kid free zone, especially at night. Here or all the way downstairs. I just thought it was a good place to try this thing,” he held up the bow. “You’re welcome to do whatever you need up here, whenever you need it.”
“Okay,” she gave him a nod then headed for the stairs again.
As she reached to open the door, he suddenly had a thought.
“Hey,” he called to her, and she turned back to him from the open doorway. “Were you here the whole time I was trying this thing, or did you come up at some point while I was here?”
She gave him a small smile, then turned and walked down the steps. The door closed quietly behind her.
CHAPTER 5
In Any Language
After two weeks of Mac being in the Block, people hadn't really gotten used to her as much as they just forgot she was there. She was rarely seen, and when she was, she was simply walking the grounds by the outskirts of the walls, inside and out. Constantly looking at the one partial collapse from a fallen tree that still had yet to be repaired. Or taking care of the wanderers that had made their way there. No one left the property for those days after the initial incident. Every one was a little on edge and suddenly unsure of themselves.
If Jack ever saw her, he would nod, and have it returned to him, but everyone gave her a wide berth. Except for the resident nurse, Christina. Every time she saw her, she’d scold her, and tell her to come to her office to get her shoulder and ribs checked on.
Mac was making her way up the main staircase one day when she was spotted by a little girl she had seen when she first arrived there. She was sitting outside of the second floor common room they used as the kids cafeteria during meal times. Her back was against the banister as she sat on the floor with a few books laid out in front of her.
“Bonjour,” her little voice said as Mac turned in the other direction toward the back staircase, not noticing she was there.
“Bonjour,” she greeted back, stopping and turning to face her.
The girl look absolutely delighted. “Parlez-vous français?” she asked with remarkable fluency.
“Oui. Comme tu.”
Suddenly the little girl began telling her a story about how she was so happy there was finally someone here to speak French with, and how much she missed it- in French. She didn’t skip a beat, or hesitate to find a word. Complete mastery of the language.
Mac on the other hand, hadn't used French since her boarding school days along with some Latin, and was slow to understand most of what she was saying. She did find she picked up enough to respond in plain English, “Well, I’m glad I could help.”
A giant smile spread across the girl’s face, “Do you speak any other languages?”
Mac walked back across the mouth of the staircase towards her, and knelt down by the little girl’s side. She saw the books spread out before her. They weren’t laden with cartoony pictures or coloring books, but ones on varying languages or just stories written in something other than English.
She looked into the little girls hazel eyes while trying to find a comfortable position to squat in at her level, “I do. Quite a few, but I have a feeling you know more than me.”
The little girl giggled, “My favorite is French, but I know Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Punjabi, and now I’m starting to learn German,” she said as she raised up the book she had on her lap to show a large size font and bold Deustch I on the cover.
Mac’s eyes went wide. “Well, you do know more than me.”
“Oh, and Liam’s going to teach me Elvish. That’s not a real language, but I really like it,” she said quite seriously as she looked back to her book.
“Wow, that’s very impressive. How old are you?”
“Thanks, I’m nine. My nam
e’s Susanna, what’s your name?”
“I’m Mac.”
The little girl giggled, “No! What’s your real name. Like everyone here calls me Susie, but my real name is Susanna Murphy. Everyone calls you Mac, but what did your Mommy call you when you were born?”
Mac looked at her and raised her eyebrows amused. She lowered herself down until she was sitting with her back against the poles of the banister right next to her. They talked, in multiple languages, for a half hour until the door to the common room opened.
“Susie?” a woman she recognized from her first day, the one who was always wrangling the children, was looking around the hall. Then she spotted her sitting with Mac.
“Susie, it’s time for lunch. Did you finish your studying?” the woman asked warily as her eyes stayed on Mac.
“Yup, she helped me!” she said pointing to her as she bent over to gather her books in a neat stack.
The woman came over and picked the tower up for her. Then, not so subtly placed her hand on Susie's back guiding her towards the common room, and away from Mac.
“Well, that's nice,” the woman said, still looking behind her nervously as they continued towards the large room.
All of the sudden the majority of the Block started coming down the halls and up the stairs. Each one of them eyed her anxiously as they passed. Mac got the hint, and didn’t want to bother anyone so she grabbed a hold of the banister, and pulled herself up. It only hurt half as much as before, but she still unintentionally let out a little groan as she stood up straight.
“You got it?”
She looked up and saw Jack standing next to her, and a boy looking curiously from around his back.
Evangeline, Alone. (Book 1): Evangeline, Alone Page 7