Born (12 page)

I look down at Leo, who turns his face in
the light of the fire and whines. I pat his head and look to where she's
walked. She drops my clothes in a basket and points to a bright orange glow in
the woods across the camp. "Come to the fire. We sing and play
guitar."

I pull on the dry clothes and wrap my
arms around myself. Leo and I follow her through the woods to where a large
bonfire is burning. I can hear the music faintly in the crackle of the flames
and embers. It's folk music but better. It hits me with a wall of emotion.
Everything lifts away from me. The music becomes embedded in my soul. I haven’t
heard music since before. I feel like an outsider but the people at the fire
smile at me. Someone shoves over on the log in front of me to make space. Leo
sits and watches me sit in a crowd. He doesn’t know how to respond to this. He
whines a little.

Heat waves rise from the huge fire making
it hard to see across where the musicians are. The logs are built higher than
the people sitting. I can make out a man with a small guitar. He's old and has
a beard. A man starts singing with the soft guitars. His voice is incredible.
It's raspy and sweet. I am in a trance. I sit and close my eyes. The music
brings back something soft and sweet that I never realized I was missing. It's
return aches in my chest. The sweet voice makes my skin shiver and my throat
thick with unfelt emotions. We sit in a huge circle, warmed by the fire and the
raw human emotions inside of the song. It's about love and sacrifice. A woman's
voice accompanies the man's and the guitars. She adds softness to the song his
raspy voice doesn’t have.

This is the greatest moment of my life. I
have experienced nothing like this, even before. Time passes. I don’t know how
much. Songs are sung. Whiskey is passed. I drink and sway my body with everyone
else. My guard is not only lowered but it is destroyed in the camaraderie of
the people at the fire and the song in our hearts.

In the light I can see Mary. She sings
and laughs and drinks. Her eyes sparkle vibrantly in the orange glow.

Slowly
people trickle away from the fire. Leo has crept up and is lying on my feet.
The pile of logs and lumber on the fire has burned down to ash and in the
embers I see something I never expected. Will's the singer with the haunting
voice that has me lit up. He feels the music. I can see that. His eyes are
closed and his fingers gently stroke the guitar. He finishes the song and I
can't help but see him differently.

He
walks to where I'm sitting and sits beside me.

"You're
a good singer."

"We need to talk."

Sitting beside him makes my insides
crawl. He doesn’t look sweet and soft like Mary does. He looks annoyed and
angry with me. I feel intimidated by him. He doesn’t seem like the goof Anna
described. He is intense.

"I know."

His long legs seem huge compared to mine.
He is thick and strong looking. His face is handsome like Jake's, but more
commanding. I want to listen to him for some reason. I feel like he could keep
me safe, like he does everyone else here. I don’t know why I think it's him
that does it, but I do.

"So where are they?"

I shake my head and try not to watch his
mouth. "I don’t know. They were at my farmhouse last time I saw
them."

"How did they look?"

I gulp, "Great. Jake was hurt a bit
but I got him medicine. They were fine when I left though."

"Where did you meet them?"

"First my cabin." I start the
story at the beginning and try not to stare at his lips as he processes what I
have to say. I want him to sing to me some more.

I wake with a wolf foot in my face. He
kicks slightly in his dream and scratches my cheek.

I push it away and look around. I'm more
comfortable than I've ever been, since before.

Meg is passed out with her arms around
Leo. He loves to snuggle when he sleeps. I smile thinking he's met his soul
mate.

The light of day is filtering in through
the canvas of the tent. It's a small and cozy tent, so the air has grown stale
with three of us breathing it.

I look down at my feet and amazed at how
much they’ve healed. The scabs are flaking away and the sores are tiny compared
to the scars. Leo kicks at me again. I sigh and climb out of the tent before I
end up getting a paw in the head again.

I stretch and realize what I'm wearing.
It's a tight t-shirt with the word rock and then a star below it. It's bright
purple and too long for me. I'm also wearing jeans with tears and holes in the
knees. I feel a bit of breeze in the back and feel my butt to discover holes
back there as well. I frown. I need my pants back.

"You're up finally."

I turn around to see Will smiling at me.
He is beautiful. I can't stop myself from gawking at him in his baby blue
t-shirt and dark denim jeans. His eyes meet mine. He has noticed the way my
eyes traveled his body. I blush.

"How come you get jeans with no
holes?"

He laughs, "We only have so many
clothes. The last trip to a mall was three years ago. We share
everything."

I glance at Mary snuggled into a guy and
holding the little brat, "Everything."

He turns and sees what I'm watching. He
laughs again, "No not everything. She is really friendly Emma. She is like
that with everyone. But if you're interested we have a few girls who are
single."

I frown, "What?"

"If you're interested."

I shake my head, "I don’t know what
you mean." He laughs at me. He is in a joke that I am not.

He sighs, "So want to go over the
map with me?"

This makes me laugh, "I told you
last night I don’t know maps. I know where I've been by remembering the
woods."

He frowns, "Well back to the
farmhouse then?"

"Okay but I need a favor." I
say.

"What?"

I point to the tent, "I need her to
stay here and be protected. She's fifteen. She's lived a hard life. Her mom was
a prison warden."

He makes a face that makes me laugh,
"Yeah I figured she was staying. Wow a warden?"

I nod, "Her mom and aunt just died.
Her other aunt was taken to the breeder farms."

His blue eyes sparkled, "She is just
our kind of girl then."

I am confused by him, but don’t have time
to figure him out. I can't get the picture of him playing the guitar in the firelight
out of my head. It is almost like there are two of him inside of his body.
Sweet Will and Business Will.

Mary comes over carrying the monster.

"Andy what do you have to say to
Emma?"

He looks down at the ground and pouts,
"Sorry."

He fidgets with her blouse. She looks up
and meets my frown with a smile.

I nod, "Okay thanks."

Will and Mary laugh.

"Mary will you take care of Meg till
I get back?"

She leans in and hugs me. "Be safe
Emma and hurry back."

I hug her back. I still hug like an iron
rod. I notice the way she hugs like a person and I hug like a robot. She hugs
just like Anna. My heart hurts thinking about them.

I turn and open the tent, "I'm
leaving Meg. You need to stay here and help out okay. They need the extra
hands."

She wakes and instantly gives me a snarl,
"No. I'm coming with you."

I shake my head, "No you need to
stay and hang with Mary. I'm taking Will to the farmhouse. I'll be back in a
couple days."

She lays back, "Fine."

I look at Leo, "You coming or
staying?"

He stretches out on the sleeping bags and
snuggles into Meg who laughs sarcastically, "Ha. He likes me better."

I roll my eyes, "Traitor."

I zip the tent back up and walk back to
Will, whose eyes sparkle in the morning light.

"What?"

He shakes his head, amused by me for
something, "You're funny Emma."

xxxx

The walk back down the mountain is less
painful and considerably faster than the walk up. My feet don’t hurt and Will
keeps a fast pace. Unlike Meg, he never speaks.

When we make it back to the meeting tree,
we both take a pause and listen. I lead across the open field with a sprint.

We make it to the edge of the field. I
crouch down to look out for any signs of life in the driveway. The barn door
swings open and shut.

They're back. I know I sealed the barn
door completely when I left. I can hear Will's breath on the back of my neck as
I watch the house silently.

I turn and whisper, "Let me go look
first."

He shakes his head and points to the barn
door. I turn and look again.

I almost jump as I see them. It feels as
though they're watching me. As the barn door swings open and shut a pair of
eyes watch from inside. Stains of bloody tears streak the gaunt cheeks below.

My stomach twists and turns.

 
I back up but Will puts his arms on me to stop me from
running away.

"Stay still."

His words make my skin shiver, as his hot
breath lands on the back of my neck.

I don’t move. The barn door opens and
closes several more times. Then suddenly it opens and the eyes are gone.

I look up at the loft window to see the
thin figure pass by it. The window over looks the field perfectly. We will be
seen. Suddenly I'm on the ground, in the hay and wrapped up in Will's long
body. He holds me close to him.

The wind plays with the hay around us, it
whispers to us.

I can feel his heart beating against my
chest. We are face to face but my eyes dart around us. I hear footsteps. I hear
something else, it’s the way an exhale sounds when your throat is a ragged
mess.

The infected are near us. I want to pull
my shirt up over my face. I want to run. I need my mask but I've left it
behind. Another rule I've broken.

Will strokes his thumb along the back of
my neck, where his left hand lays. He's trying to calm my nerves, before I give
away our location.

In the gusts of warm wind and the calm
silence of the ragged exhales, I hear a sound I don’t expect. It's the
hollering of men and the high moans of the infected.

The footsteps leave the hay around us.
The moaning and ragged breath becomes harder to hear, as distance is put
between us and them. It's always us and them.

Will whispers into my forehead, "Oh
my fucking god." We lay in silence for a moment.

He peeks his head up to look around, but
I pull him back down, "One more minute."

He frowns but as I speak it the barn door
closes several times hard. A raucous noise fills the air, different types of
commotion begin after it.

"We need to leave now." I
whisper into his throat.

His jaw nods against the top of my head.

He pulls back a bit and looks at me,
almost through me with his intensely blue eyes. He tilts my chin with his free
hand and lightly feathers his lips against mine. His kiss isn’t intense like
Jake's was or soft and uncertain like Mary's. It's somewhere in the middle and
filled with more of everything. He kisses beside my mouth and whispers into my cheeks,
"We're going to crawl from here and then make our way to the forest on the
other side from where we came. We don’t want to lead them to the camp."

He kisses once more just along side my
lips and lets me out of his firm grip. He moves away from me and slithers
backwards, away from the farmhouse. I follow him. The hay slices along my skin
giving me small cuts. When we get to the halfway point between the forest and
farmhouse, he stands and walks hunched right over. I do the same listening
intently to every sound.

We make our way into the forest where he
breaks into a run. I follow him until we reach the bigger trees. He climbs one
of them quickly. I look around and start to feel uncomfortable. I don’t like
being on the ground without Leo. I climb the next largest tree. I scramble up
the branches until I'm as high as he is.

The farmhouse, my farmhouse, is nearly
the entire view. I can see the field I've crossed too many times to count. Pain
creeps around inside of me as I imagine my bunker and my rations and my clean
little spaces, all torn apart by the infected.

"So Jake and Anna were here with
you?" His voice betrays his lack of hope.

I nod.

I see a small cluster of men fighting the
infected like fools. They will get sick. They will become infected and maybe
they will die because not everyone is able to live with running sores and
bloody tears.

"God, they should have run."

I recognize one of the men. He is the man
who shouted the loudest when the man with the evil grin peed on the fire. The
man named John who pulled down my pants.