What Little Remains (The Fallout Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

“I just find it odd that you aren’t bringing any people back
anymore,” I say, sitting down at the table.

His back is to me so I can’t see his face. “People have
already settled at this point,” after a pause he continues. “Look at us.”

“True,” I say, biting my lip. “But then why haven’t you run
into anyone yet? If they are out there, why haven’t we come across them? Or
them us?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs, rubbing his hand on the back of
his head.

“But—,” I start.

“Charlie,” Ricky cuts me off, spinning around. “Drop it.”

I was just wondering what was going on, and he bit my head
off. Talking to him about his mood proved to be a bad move, so I just left it
alone.

He apologized that night, saying that he was just stressed,
and I brushed it off. Looking back, now I’m not sure that was the best
decision.
 
There was a twinge in my
stomach for the longest time after we had that fight, but I eventually forgot
about it. I was so wrapped up in my own stuff, and, after he shut me down, I
just couldn’t bring myself to ask anymore. It wasn’t something that absolutely
affected the little bubble that I was living in. And then his mood started
improving, but the number of people he started bringing back was decreasing to
none.

I push away my suspicions, trying to enjoy the day.

“I think it’s odd,” Nicole continues. “And even if he’s not
bringing other people back, isn’t it weird that he hasn’t run into any other
groups of people?”

I shrug my shoulders, trying not to let the sinking feeling
in my stomach ruin today. “I don’t know. But right now, it doesn’t matter.
We’re having a good time. No more talk of Ricky.”

“No problem,” Nicole agrees.

We find the clearing around midday, and it is beautiful.
Tall weeds overrun most of it. Some of the weeds are beautiful yellow
wildflowers, others are thorny-looking purple flowers, and some small white
blooms pop up every now and then.

Nicole and I both stand at the edge of the field in awe. It
couldn’t be a more perfect day. The sky was a vibrant blue with fluffy white
clouds. The sun was soft and warm with a cool breeze. The field rose to a slight
incline on either side, trees surrounding the field like Mother Nature put a
fence around it.

“Wow,” she says finally, stepping into the field. Grass
folds under her feet, flowers bowing down to her. “Beautiful.”

I nod my head, not wanting to step out onto the flowers. I
didn’t want to destroy this bit of beauty that survived the ugliness that
happened seven months ago. Nicole looks down, seeing what happened to the
flowers, and steps back.

“Picnic here?” she asks, gesturing to the edge of the field.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say, dropping my backpack to the
ground. Nicole does the same, and we settle on the grass under the shade of a
large tree.

“I know we said we weren’t going to talk about him, but
could you tell me what he was like before?” she asks, sitting back against the
tree.

I roll over on my stomach, thinking about the question. I
rest my chin on my arms, looking out to the meadow.

“In grade school, we were good friends. He was gangly and
awkward, especially around girls. Things changed when we entered high school. I
got busy with soccer and met a good group of friends. Ricky fell in with a bad
crowd and got suspended from school for fighting. We were still friendly but
not really friends. He was always great with Danny,” I say, a lump coming up in
my throat at the thought of my brother.

Nicole gives me an encouraging smile.

“When he saved my life, a bunch of thoughts popped into my head.
The first: out of all the people in this town, I get stuck with Ricky McQueen.”

None of my high school friends could believe that Ricky and
I were friends. He was attractive, even back then, but that was his only appeal
for most girls my age. Getting involved with a boy like him would end with a
pregnancy, dropping out of high school, and spending the next eighteen years
begging for child support. It happened to a lot of teenagers. With nothing else
to do, why not be with the bad boy?

Only, he wasn’t the bad boy. He put on one hell of a show,
but he was smarter than most people gave him credit for. He had to be. His
father was a drunk and became a violent drunk after Ricky’s mother passed away.
The older Ricky got, the worse his father became. Ricky would come to school
covered in bruises. Most teachers pretended not to see. Those who took notice
couldn’t get Ricky to tell them anything.

Ricky wasn’t living with his father his freshman year of
high school, but I don’t know where he moved to. He didn’t talk about it, and I
knew better than to ask. When we were little, he would stop talking to me if I
asked about his dad. So I just stopped asking.

No matter what his bad boy exterior alluded to, when I saw
him, one memory would always come to mind.

I was five or six at the time. It was pouring rain outside;
my soccer practice was cancelled because the field was turning into a lake.

 
My mom picked me
up and was driving past the school when I saw him. His brown hair was sticking
to his head as the rain continued to pour down on him; his clothing clung to
him like a second skin. His shoulders hunched forward, and his arms cradled his
backpack.

I pointed him out to my mom, and she stopped. She left the
keys in the ignition and grabbed a blanket off the front seat that she had
brought for me. She ran outside and wrapped a blanket around him and put him
into the car. She got back in her seat with Ricky tucked away next to me,
looking so small in such a big blanket.

“He was just running late,”
Ricky
whispered, looking out the window in the direction of his house. “He was
supposed to pick me up from school.”

I knew that school ended two hours ago, but I nodded my
head. When we got home, my mom gave Ricky a hot bath and a good dinner before
she called his father. I stayed with Ricky and we played, but we both heard my
mom yelling at his father when he got there. His father came crying into the
room, saying he was sorry. Ricky clung to his neck as his father took him home.

I never will forget the look on Ricky’s face as his father
carried him away. I couldn’t think of words that described it, but my mom
explained it well as I overheard her telling my dad about it.

“He looked like a man who has seen something beyond himself
and lived to tell about it. It was like he forgave his father, but still
expected it to happen again,” my mom said.

I never mentioned it to Ricky again, and he never brought it
up to me.

I always wondered how that might affect him later in life,
if his father’s abuse and neglect was why he ended up getting kicked out of
school. I wondered if the lack of having a mom around made him rough around the
edges. I didn’t really understand the effect it had on him until yesterday. He
isn’t just rough around the edges, but deeply scarred by the actions of his
father.

If I am actually going to be truthful with myself, last
night wasn’t the only time I’ve seen that side of him. The truth is that his
dad comes out in him more than I care to admit. Anger flashes in his eyes
before a calm mask slips back into place.

“Do you think Alec is serious about a relationship?” Nicole
asks, bringing me back from that rainy day to the present.

The expression on her face makes it seem like she doesn’t
care about the answer, but the ways she is ripping grass tells a different
story. She bends the blades in her hands before tossing them away from her.

“Every guy you flirt with develops feelings for you. It is
way too early to tell if those feelings are love or lust,” I say. “However, he
seems to care for you. Just like you care for him.”

Nicole looks like I slapped her. “I never said I cared about
him. I don’t.”

I throw some grass at her laughing. “Keep telling yourself
that.”

A branch cracks in the distance, and I sit up. Panic creeps
into my mind. Another one follows it, and it’s too close for it to be a
coincidence.

Panic threatens to take over me. My gut tells me that it
isn’t Ricky. The alternative means that it’s scavengers. More than likely, it’s
part of the group that ran into Ricky just a couple days ago.

I push away panic, realizing that it isn’t going to help me.
I get to my feet and pull Nicole to hers.

“Grab your backpack,” I say to her, picking up my own.

We don’t have a lot of options. They are too close for us to
run. They would hear or see us if we tried. I don’t know how many there are,
and there could be more coming from a different direction. Running through the
field would be a dead giveaway that we were here.

“Where do we go?” Nicole whispers.

“Where no one ever looks,” I say and look up at the tree she
was leaning against. “Up.”

Nicole climbs the tree first, getting up a nice height. The
branches are thick, and the leaves are full. As long as they don’t look up,
they shouldn’t see us.

I climb up next, my body moving slowly because I need to be
quiet. The roughness of the tree bark scratches my hands and knees, digging
under my skin. The snapping branches get closer, and I make my body move
faster.

Nicole and I settle on different branches over ten feet
above the ground. They are thick enough to support our weight but not both of
our weights combined.

My heart is pounding in my chest and my ears strain to hear
someone stepping through leaves or on branches, but I hear nothing. Part of me
hopes that Daren found out I left and he’s found us. Daren finding me would be
better than any other alternative.

“This is pointless,” a voice cuts through the silence. It is
not a voice that I recognize. “We aren’t going to find anything.”

I stiffen, recognizing the weakness of my position. This was
such a stupid idea. If they look up, I not only got myself killed but Nicole as
well. They walk under the tree, and, despite my silent prayers, they drop their
packs and plop down on the ground.

The first voice belongs to someone in his mid-twenties. His
oily, thin hair is pulled back into a ponytail. He stands just a little shorter
than six feet.

His buddy is just a little shorter than him. His age is
probably between twenty and forty; I can’t see his face. His hair is grungy and
comes down to his ears. He walks with a limp and a scar starts at his chin,
disappearing beneath his shirt.

They both are wearing long jeans with holes and grungy
yellowish t-shirts that are darker yellow underneath their arms.

“Razor said to do this. So we do,” the second guy says,
sounding irritated.

At the mention of the name Razor’s name, my stomach drops.
These men are part of the group that attacked Ricky.

“No one has been here in ages,” the first voice says. “We
aren’t going to find McQueen anywhere out here. That rat lied to us.”

I look at
Nic
, the panic
rising
in my stomach matches the panic in her eyes. They are
looking for us. They aren’t that far from Fort Lee. Ricky and our best fighters
aren’t at the base right now. How many men are looking for us? Why are they
looking for us? How do they know Ricky?

“Why’s he even looking for McQueen? If the rumors are true,
McQueen is the biggest badass in these parts,” the first voice continues.

I look at Nicole who is staring down intently.
 

“No way all the stories are true,” the second man says in a
condescending tone. “No one with any ounce of humanity would burn down a whole
village with people still in it.”

“You saw what I saw,” the first voice says, defensive.
“McQueen even left his calling card.”

Nicole and I look at each other, and I feel something else
spreading in my stomach. Oh my God.

What is he talking about? It is too much of a coincidence
that they are in this area and that they are looking for someone named McQueen.
How many people with the last name McQueen could have survived in this new
world?

There is no way that Ricky could do something like that.
This has to be a mistake.

A sharp snapping sound fills the air. The first guy jumps,
his gun in his hand. The second guy smirks at his jumpiness.

“Relax, it is probably just a deer,” says the first one.

Only it wasn’t. The branch I’m on is splitting. I look more
closely at the end and see what I didn’t see before. Wood rot. I raise myself
off the branch, reaching above me for another branch. I glance up, but nothing
else is within my reach that is thick enough to support my weight. I slide
towards the tree. One foot
at a time, small movements
.
I barely breathe, afraid the weight might shift. My hand touches the trunk and
the branch gives way.

I scream as I fall, trying to clutch onto something. Nothing
can slow my fall. It’s one of those awful moments where it feels like I’m
moving in slow motion. Surprise turns to horror on Nicole’s face. I have this
terrifying but exhilarating feeling like I’m flying.

But I’m falling, not flying, and I hit the ground, butt
first and the edges of my vision go black, the world swimming before me.