Worth Saving (17 page)

A nice fire engine red paint would do an excellent job. My face cracked into a smile as I painted LEAVE NOW Six feet high on a store front I knew they’d have to pass. Then I used two cans of ‘Sun Burst Yellow’ to paint, ONLY COWARDS ATTACK CHILDREN Further down the street. After I emptied the cans of paint I set some snares and dead falls. I doubt it’d hurt anybody. It might make them think about what they got themselves into. I wanted them tired, pissed off and questioning why they were here.

Finishing the last snare, I stood and stretched my lower back and realized I’d forgotten to connect the previous deadfall to the trip wire. My vision began to blur as I became dizzy and my legs got all rubbery, like they weren’t going to be able to support me much longer. I was pretty sure the last of my energy reserves were running out. I’d been operating on little sleep and food for three days, plus the beating I’d taken. I hated the idea of letting up on them but I couldn’t hand it off to someone else. I need rest before I started again.

Taking a deep breath, I accepted the inevitable and started walking towards Claire and the others.

Chapter Twenty One

Claire’s Diary

Day 2080

Jenny continues to get better, she has a fever but it hasn’t gotten any worse. Her wound is clean. I don’t want to close the holes. I think we want to let it heal from the inside out. I hope I am right about that. It’s not bleeding but looks raw and very painful.

Ellen is doing fine; she is helping Susan clean up after dinner.

Kris - ??? Where are you? We heard gun shots again last night, did that mean he was alive. Please god. My stomach hurts all the time now. I can’t sit down and snapped at Margaret for no reason. What am I going to do?

We’ve posted a lookout on the roof and everyone gets a turn. But no one has seen anything other than distant smoke over by our old home. I thought about what we had left behind. It wasn’t only the things we’d made, but the things we’d brought to the library. Personal things like my suitcase of pictures. They were the only thing Ellen had left of her mom. The only things I had left of mine.

We have about two more days of food until someone is going to have to go out and find some more. I will go tomorrow. I should be honest; I hope to get some idea of what’s going on with Kris, maybe I could find him.

I didn’t know a person could feel this way. We haven’t really talked about it, but I think Kris feels something. Is it like what I feel? How can a person be so sad and so happy at the same time? I wish there was someone I could talk to, I miss my mom a lot. I miss a lot of things, but my mom most of all.

.o0o.

The street looked quiet with no sign of life anywhere except for a few trees in a small plaza on the next block. Big square tan brick buildings lined the roadway for several blocks in both directions. The street looked like every other one in the city. The sidewalk curbs were crowded by dead useless cars sitting on flat tires. But still, I didn’t move from the shadows.

I wasn’t going to move until I was sure that it was safe, No way was I leading them back to Claire and the others. After thirty
minutes, I stepped out on the street and watched for movement. Schick surprised me when he stood on the apartment’s roof, waving his arms before disappearing from view.

He’d looked happy and unconcerned. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I walked up the concrete steps trying to figure out what I was going to say to Claire. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, and dreaded what more needed to be done, the thought of her looking disgustedly at me made my insides shake. I didn’t think I could keep it from her.

The front door sprang open and Claire flew into my arms, forcing me to grab the railing to stop from being knocked over.  The smell of coconut and honey engulfed me and I knew I was home. She paused and looked a little confused when she heard me grunt in pain stepping back to search my face.

“Kris are you Okay? What happened?” She asked. Her concern warmed my heart.

I held her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. How many times over the last few days had I thought about this moment and worried that it’d never happen.

I remembered standing next to the old man lynched from the lamp post. God it felt good to be home. I wanted to pull her into a never ending hug and let her strength fill me up. Smiling, I said, “I’m OK, let’s get in off the street and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She gingerly slipped a hand around my waste opened the door with her other hand guiding me into the buildings entryway and then to the same door she’d slammed in my face days before. I smiled thinking about it. She saw my smile and smiled back, recognizing my memories.

“Claire, it’s not over, I’m going back. I wanted you to know about it upfront,” I said with a questioning look.

She faltered for a moment then looked at me and nodded her head. “We’ll talk about it later. Calmly this time, I promise,” she said.

Before I could answer the door opened and we were surrounded by the group, everyone except Jenny. I got very concerned very fast. “Jenny?” I asked Claire, glancing over everyone’s head as they hugged me.

“She’s mending, I think she’ll get better,” Claire said.

Able to relax, I returned hugs and shook hands. Ellen kept jumping up and down demanding to be picked up. Kneeling down, I wrapped my arms around the little girl and pulled her in close. No one would ever be allowed to ruin her life.

I grunted a little when I stood and the room began to swim so I reached out and held the door jam. Claire told everyone to give me room and led me into the apartment then into one of the bedrooms asking Susan to prepare a plate of food for me.

I sat on the edge of the bed and Claire knelt down on one knee to start untying my boots.

“Claire…”

“Let me do this, please,” she said, looking up, her eyes pleading with me. “Where are you hurt?” She asked, returning to the boots.

“My chest, ribs, and stuff … Listen, we need to talk.”

She stood and said, “Later, let me take care of this first.” Here fingers were shaking as she unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it back. She gasped when she saw the black and blue bruises spilling out from underneath the ace bandages. If that surprised her, wait until she sees the rest I thought.

I watched her as she gingerly unwound the bandages. She tried, but couldn’t keep the shock off her face as she exposed the
S
burnt into my chest. The black/blue/yellow melody of color surrounding it added to the drama. Her eyes grew misty and a tear spilled out as her fingers reached out and gently touched the flaming red scar. “What … How did …?” she asked, looking up at me.

“I got captured the first night, you were right, well sort of, I got trapped by the wild dog pack and before I could get away the gunmen had me.”

“But who did this?” She demanded, pointing at my chest. I could see here emotions were swinging from concern to a deep anger. 

“Big Jake, he wanted to know where you and Ellen were, I don’t think they know about the rest.”

“Ellen, I don’t understand why they won’t leave us alone,” she said as she twisted the used bandages in her hands and paced back and forth.

At that moment Susan walked in with a plate of food she almost dropped when she saw my chest. Her gasp was louder than Claire’s had been.

Claire jumped right in and relieved her of the plate and asked her to get the first aid kit. “And Susan, keep everyone outside, okay? Thanks.”

My stomach rumbled at the site of the plate of burritos covered in a red sauce. Claire silently watched me devour the food until Susan returned with Claire’s first aid bag. A sports type bag, it had a gazillion pockets that contained everything from aspirin to Zoloft.

She leaned down and sniffed the ointment on my chest. “Here, this stuff is better,” she said, pulling out a tube of goop. Her attitude had turned all business as she administered to the burns. Susan quietly tried to reassure me with a smile as she watched Claire.

“Why do they want Ellen?” Claire asked.

I took a deep breath; we all cared for Ellen but Claire thought of her as her own. This was going to be explosive. “They think she may be the only one who can have babies.”

The color instantly drained from her face and her eyes got a big as silver dollars. Susan blanched, looking confused and upset. I didn’t want to go on but steeled myself and said “They said that
there aren’t any more babies being born and that Big Jake thinks that because Ellen was born after the plague, that only she might be able to have his heir.”

“What … She’s only a little girl for Christ sake,” Claire said.

“No babies?” Susan asked.

“They want to keep her locked up until she’s old enough, then Big Jake…” I said, I looked down at the floor not wanting to look at the two women. “They also said that girls that started puberty after the end of the plague might be able to have babies. That’s why Big Jake takes them first. So far, nothing.”

Claire’s face had changed from ghost white to cardinal red. I knew she was imagining the horror of Ellen going through that hell. Susan didn’t look much better. She stood there shocked and staring at me, her mouth open in disbelief.

“But they really want Ellen,” I said.

“That’s why they did that to you? To find out where we were,” Claire said, pointing at the brand.

“Yeah, and they hung Mr. Thompson from a lamp post, you know the old guy that lived by the Oak Leaf Mall. He didn’t know anything but they didn’t believe him, so they hung him,” I said, shuddering with the memory.

“But you escaped?” She said.

I dreaded the next part, it was eating up my insides. I had to tell her and get it behind me. “Yeah, I got away, but then …” I hesitated, looking first at floor then back at her face. “Then I went back and started hunting them.”

Claire looked at me like she wanted to strangle me. “Let me get this right, you got away, free and clear, and went back? Are you an idiot?”

Susan laughed and said, “I’d be careful how you answered that.” Still shaking her head she left us alone to finish the discussion.

“Claire, there’s more, when...”

“More, what did you do? Bake them a birthday cake, deliver them a pizza? What?” She said.

“I shot a man in the back,” I exclaimed. Finally getting it off my chest.

She looked at me a moment. I think she realized how upset I was because her anger slowly went away and her fists unclenched. “Did you kill him?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.” She said emphatically as she reached out and started feeling around my ribs until I winced in pain when she pressed the wrong spot.

“Does it hurt when you breathe?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled between clinched teeth.

“I can’t do anything about it except wrap you in bandages,” she said, turning and looking in her bag and giving me some time to regain some of my manly composure.  “And before I do that, you need to take a bath,” she said with a slightly embarrassed expression. At least she didn’t hold her nose when she said it.

Susan came back in and helped Claire set me up in the bathroom with a bucket of water the kids had gotten somewhere and some sponges and a brand new bar of soap. The girls left me and I proceeded to clean up. That lethargic feeling that’d been creeping up on me after I filled my stomach instantly disappeared when I started pouring cold water over my head.

I was finishing up when there was a knock at the bathroom door. I scrambled and snatched a towel off the rack and barely had it wrapped around my waist when Claire walked in. She momentarily froze and stared at my new clean self. I swear I think she was a little disappointed that I’d gotten to the towel in time.

She held out some clothes and put them next to the sink. She told me to hold off on the shirt until after she wrapped my chest. A secret little smile crossed her face as she turned and left. I was glad to see that her shock and anger wasn’t going to eat at her all night.

She’d brought me some pajamas, underwear and socks. I hoped she didn’t plan on trying to keep me here by limiting me to night wear. It hurt like hell to bend and step into those PJ’s.

Claire nodded her head at the edge of the bed while she dug in her bag. I sat down and tried not to grunt when I raised my arms above my head as she tenderly spread ointment all over my wounds and tenderly wrapped my chest in Ace bandages.

She offered to help me with the PJ top. I told her to hold off, that I’d sleep without it. I didn’t want to try squeezing into it. I slid under the sheets and blankets feeling my muscles relax and my eye lids grow very heavy. Claire sat on the bed and reached up and brushed my wet hair out of my eyes. “You need a haircut,” she said and laughed at the absurdity of her comment. She stared into my eyes then leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “Thank you for coming back,” she said as she turned down the storm lantern before leaving.

I woke up dreaming about bumble bees and palm trees. I was so content; I never wanted to move again. My arms were wrapped around a warm soft pillow, a pillow that smelled like honey and coconuts with soft hair tickling my nose. Claire! She was curled up next to me, in my bed. The soft female body felt like heaven. My body instantly reacted as I instinctively pulled her closer. She snuggled into me and whispered a small moan. I couldn’t believe it and was afraid to move. I was sure she could feel my heart pounding.

I think she became aware of my bodies reaction because she woke up and jumped out of bed, a look of surprise and a little curiosity on her face. She stood there in my pajama top, with long bare legs that reached all the way to the floor. Her face was beet red and she was the sexiest vision ever.

“I … Um… I didn’t want to leave you alone, I didn’t expect you to wake up first,” She stuttered, obviously embarrassed and unable to look me directly in the eye.

I smiled reassuringly and told her that it was the best sleep I’d had in a long time. She started for the bedroom door like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I sat with a grunt as my ribs screamed in pain. “Claire, stop,” I said before she could reach the door.

She turned and looked at me, waiting, her eyebrows raised in question.

“You might want to put on some pants. They might get the wrong impression if you walked out there like that.” I said, staring at her beautiful legs.