Another night approaches, marking day who-knows-what into this ginormous disaster that's just as bleak as it appears. Night two with Ash. Night five-thousand (or so it feels) without Carter. So many nights marking the painful reminders of what life will never be again: peaceful. Happy. Beautiful. But while tonight marks another night being trapped under the stars with a broken world and walking dead, it also marks my first night sleeping at a boy's house. My parents would flip right now. Too bad I'll never have the chance to engage in that argument with them.
"I'm such a bad person." My voice sounds hollow. My words slur, but I haven't had a single drink. Fatigue tugs at my eyelids, but I don't want to sleep tonight. Sleep leads to nightmares I'd rather not have, memories I'd rather forget. So many deaths, so much blood, too much numbness. My head pounds from it all.
"That makes two of us." Ash steps over my backpack to pass me a steamy mug of coffee. I'm surprised he actually listened. Earlier, I voiced how I wanted to pull an all-nighter with caffeine and unwritten stories. Without speaking a word, he heated up a bottle of water in a pot over the stove, the old fashioned way. I can't deny the gesture sparked a warming emotion in me, especially as I watched him stand over the stove with his back towards me. His fresh, dark-gray shirt shifted over his back muscles as he reached into the cupboards, set things down, dug through drawers. From my position on the floor next to the pantry, it was actually a pretty heartwarming sight.
"I don't know, I shouldn't have joined Keilah and Robert's camp to begin with. Maybe they'd still be alive. And then we stole everything they had on them instead of giving them a proper memorial. I mean, they killed themselves. Probably out of hopelessness. And I'm still alive."
"Survivor's guilt. That'll kill you sooner than your already predestined death. It's a waste of time to worry about. You've acknowledged you're a bad person; not much you can do. We might finally be on the same page here."
"Yeah, but I actually care about being a bad person. It makes me feel...disgusting. You on the other hand don't care. You just accept it like it's in your nature."
"Maybe because it is."
I narrow my eyes up at him over my cup. "See? You don't even care. You don't want to change it."
He grabs a bottled water from the table and sits on the kitchen floor across from me. The only light in the kitchen comes from a few candles Ash lit and set up around the counters, table, and floor. The two of us made a mutual agreement to sit on the floor rather than the table in case someone passes by and peers through the windows. At least Ash brought blankets to cushion the wooden floors. "Why should I change a behavior that's keeping me alive?"
The cup burns my hands, but I don't set it down. "Because. What's the point of living if the person you become is only a metaphorical version of the monsters walking the streets right now? Does it really mean anything then? Morality dies with the living and rots with the dead. So even when you're alive, you're still not really winning."
"Holy crap Scarlett, what drugs are you on?"
I glare at him. The orange lights flicker, leaving dark silhouettes beneath his eyes. The corner of his lip tilts up into a smile, making him look a little crazy with a dash of charm. Wonderful. "Don't worry, I didn't steal the secret stash you keep under your bed." I roll my eyes and take a sip of coffee. Wow, he even added sugar and cream to it.
"Oh, so you did prowl through my room. I suspected you might. Too bad the good stuff's not hidden under my bed."
"I didn't prowl through your room. I just walked in and walked out."
Ash's smile widens. "God Scarlett, you're so defensive. I know you didn't rummage through my things. I honestly wouldn't care if you did anyway. There's not much in there. I don't do drugs. That would've been an immediate suspension from the SWAT Team if I did."
I blow on my coffee and take another sip before setting it on the floor beside me. The radio sits on my opposite side, almost between Ash and I. "Yeah, well marijuana counts as a drug, in case you didn't know."
"I don't use marijuana."
"Huh, that's funny, cuz I felt like I was getting contact-high just by standing in your doorway."
He shakes his head and leans back on an arm. "My buddies come—came—over to smoke it all the time. Didn't matter if anyone else thought I smoked it, either. When I really think about it, I know I wouldn't have been kicked off the team."
I tilt my head and examine his expression closely. His eyes are trained on the small candle sitting on the floor between us. "What makes you say that? You're just oh-so elite and better than all the others cuz you've got those...ocean-blue eyes? Automatically entitled to everything..."
His smile disappears and he shakes his head slowly. "Nah. Remember what you asked me last night? In the truck?"
"I asked you lots of things. Can you be more specific?"
"You asked if I was too young to be on the SWAT Team."
"Oh yeah. You are, aren't you? But you're on the team anyway..." I pause so he can fill in the blank.
"Yeah, my dad sort of...made arrangements with people, paperwork, circumstances...to get me on the team."
The flame dies down from the candle, casting more shadows on his olive-toned skin. A weighted silence fills every room and nook and cranny of his house. "Really? Why?"
"He wanted something more for me, I guess. Consistency, maybe. Who knows? But I didn't have any plans after high school, so I figured...why not? I went to a military high school, not a cheesy drama-filled, friendship-based high school. That decision was partially based off my mom's death. Considering I was the boy in the family, my dad said I had to toughen up. So I did." He takes a sip of water and stares at the bottle. "I joined the police academy after graduating, once I turned eighteen. I had some experience, but I couldn't have gotten on board without my dad."
"How'd he do it?" I ask quietly. "You know, get you on the SWAT team?"
"Because," he says, setting his bottled water down and locking eyes with me, "my dad was the police chief."
The kitchen falls silent. Everything starts makes a little more sense...the pieces click; an entire picture within the puzzle starts to take shape. Ash's dad was the police chief... The chief, who manages the SWAT team. The one who calls all the shots and assigns everyone their tasks...tasks like bombing certain neighborhoods. But if Ash's only experience is military school, how could his dad even think of entrusting him with leading SWAT officers in the midst of a crisis?
"I shot my first gun when I was seven," Ash continues, staring out into the darkness plaguing the rest of the house. "But I didn't start shooting purposefully until I was thirteen. My dad taught me. He wanted me and my sister to be prepared for anything."
My mind wanders to my own dad and how he only wanted to take care of my mom and I. He always just wanted the best for us, no matter where we were going, what we were doing. He always knew what needed to be done, too. Especially when it came to survival and his final moments. My last memory of him will always be of the hoard he and my mom were caught up in. My dad was the one who fell. My mom was still standing as the zombies surrounded my dad and bit him over and over and over again. He died first. He died trying to save us. If only we had stayed in the house. His grand escape plan only ended in his fall, the explosion, their deaths...and me and Carter, standing alone on the street. Only now...it's just me.
"So where is he now?" I ask, hoping to distance myself from my own dark and damaged mind. "Your dad."
Ash inhales deeply and shakes his head, puffing up his cheeks as he exhales loudly. "I think you already figured out the answer when you first stepped through my front door."
He's right: I did figure, but that's not exactly what I want to know. If he's dead, what happened? Where is he now?
"How?" I manage.
"Same as everyone else, I guess." He bites his lower lip and watches the dying candle between us. "Death by bite."
"Did you see it happen?"
He shakes his head. "My dad was back at the police station assisting calls and sending out orders for the other SWAT teams. I wasn't with him, but we communicated through walkie-talkie. He assigned me and my group a list of neighborhoods to put on quarantine. We were group Elite, which meant our primary tasks were combat against a threat we didn't know how to take out yet. The other half of the SWAT team was group MED. They were required to drop survivors off at the Safe House."
A memory unfolds in my mind. Carter and I were confined to our rooms when things started taking a deadly turn. Carter wanted to steal food from the pantry, and he mentioned seeing SWAT officers in the lobby. They were taking cases of water... But it wasn't for them. It was for the survivors trapped in their trucks, since the Safe House got too full.
"Well, obviously a little bit of time went by and things only got worse. People were dying and quarantine did squat. Us SWAT officers were roaming the streets uselessly, resting at night and fighting through growing hoards and jam-packed streets in the daytime. My dad couldn't leave the station, and I still had a job to do. Once things died down, my dad ordered the Elites and I to stop by the Safe House to recruit survivors. We also hadn't heard from the MED's in awhile. So we went back. A few days ago."
I'm so captivated by his story, listening so intently, that I don't notice the static emitting from the radio until Ash breaks eye contact to stare at the radio. He leans forward and turns the volume up, but the static only intensifies rather than resolves itself.
"It always does that. Any announcements won't come on till about midnight. It's only..." I look up at the wall clock behind Ash. "Eleven-twenty. So then what happened at the Safe House?"
He leans back again, one leg out, the other propped up at an angle. "Well, I think you know the rest." Ash rubs his jaw tenderly, his fingers grazing the shadowy bruise I left behind. "We stopped at the gates because it was so bad. The place was overrun. I can't imagine how you even got out of that mess, but it was ridiculous. My dad radioed one last time that day. I found out from one of my teammates the police station was overrun and he was trapped in his office."
"Was he?"
Ash nods. "I still remember the last thing he said to me. He told me...to take any survivors. To bring them to our house because he knew we had the perfect security system, the perfect food storage, the perfect weapon stash. But I split from the group; told them to go home. I ventured alone, on foot, to try getting my dad from the police station. Took a couple days, but I got there. But by that time, it was too late. He was dead, as was everyone else at the station. So I headed back."
His story lines up with mine—for the most part—now. He was coming from the police station when he heard the gunshots at the flower shop. The same day we were robbed was the same day he confirmed his dad's death, and the same day his remaining teammates went back to the Safe House in an attempt to rescue survivors. It was also the same day another group wearing hazmat suits searched the Safe House and got Ash's teammates killed. How is it all connected?
Maybe it isn't. But who went back to the Safe House wearing hazmat suits? And who—or what—were they searching for?
"So that's your story then," I finally say, breaking the silence. My throat is raw from not having spoken in so long. I don't know what else to say.
"Guess so," Ash answers in a low voice. "Doesn't matter anymore. Telling my story won't change the ending."
"Maybe not, but it fills in some of the blanks."
He nods stiffly. "Yeah. You know, when I pictured telling horror stories around a campfire, I never imagined the horror stories I'd be telling would be real."
"Yeah, well me neither." I pick up my coffee and guzzle down a few sips now that it's cooled down enough. Though, I don't really need the caffeine anymore because Ash's history has fired the neurons in my brain. I'm ready to find more answers.
"And if you're still feeling bad about being a bad person...don't. You're not a bad person. I can see it in your eyes, the way you stare at the lost, pity the dead, pause at random moments throughout the day. You're always lost in thought, but not over your own losses. But you're not a bad person. Yeah, we both stole Keilah and Robert's guns, ammo, and supplies, but they were dead. And they left you. You can't blame yourself for that. At least you don't have anyone's blood on your hands."
Something about the way he says that last part sounds...regretful. Does he really feel that way? How many people has he killed? How many more of them were healthy and innocent? But I push the questions away as soon as they form in my mind. Maybe all the people whose blood is on his hands were killed because they had to be.
I shiver at the thought. What's happening to me?
"So," Ash says, his voice lighter and more relaxed, "Where did you want to sleep tonight?"
I snap my head up suddenly and lock eyes with him. "I thought we already established this? Here, in the kitchen."
He narrows his eyes at me, but a ghost of a smile lingers on his bright-red lips. "Really. You're sleeping on the wooden floors?"
"Weren't we both going to?"
"Maybe you were, but I had something more comfortable in mind. Like maybe, I don't know, a bed?"
"I didn't think you'd want me sleeping in the beds of any of your family members..." I leave out the fact that his parents are both dead, like mine, and sleeping in a deceased couple's bed feels wrong...disrespectful. And his sister is gone, so how right would that look if I just impeded on sacred ground? Not to be too dramatic.
"You wouldn't. You could sleep in mine."
My eyes widen and I freeze with my mouth hanging partially open. "What? Um..." I clear my throat. "What?"
He lifts an eyebrow. "Is there something wrong with that?"
Well, you're a guy and I'm a girl, and we're not exactly even friends...so yeah. There might be a little bit of a problem. "So...where would you sleep?"
"Um, same room?"
Duh. "Yeah, I might pass up the offer. The kitchen is fine, thanks."
"What, you think I'll try something?" His words come out bitter, but he softens up once his eyes drop down to my sprained ankle. "God, Scarlett. I'm not that guy."
"I know you're not," I respond quickly, hugging my knees tighter to my chest. "It's still uncomfortable though.
"I'd suggest you sleep in my sister's room, but with us hardly knowing each other and trust so slim, I think it's best if we stayed in the same room tonight. We can keep an eye on each other. Make sure no one tries killing anyone in their sleep or drawing on the other's face with permanent marker." He winks—yes, winks—at that last part and smiles. "But also so we can make sure the other's okay."
I exhale loudly. He's right. It might not be that bad. This is the way of the world now, so I better get used to it. "Okay."
"It's not as weird as you think. Well, you might've made it a little weird now that we're talking about it this way, but it'll be fine. Trust me." He gnaws on his lower lip and looks up at me through his lashes, inspecting me like I'm a new species he's trying to garner details of. It's the same look he gave me earlier when he asked about my eyes. "You've never slept with anyone before, have you?"
His question startles me and my heart slams into my chest. "Excuse me? That's none of your business."
He raises his eyebrows suddenly before letting out a deep, throaty laugh. "Oh sorry, that came out wrong. I mean, actually slept in a bed with someone else. Another human being."
"Well, yeah," I answer, fighting the wavering in my voice and the heat flooding to my cheeks. "With friends at sleepovers and stuff. Never a guy, though."
"Mm." He nods seriously and tilts his head at me curiously, the way puppies do when they're trying to listen. "But based on your earlier reaction, I'm assuming you've never intimately slept with anyone, either?"
Oh, God. The heat in my cheeks doubles and I'm sure I look like a tomato. I've never been so thankful for the electricity being out. "I already answered that. None of your business."
"Right. Sorry. But it's nothing to feel ashamed or awkward about. Everyone has their reasons. Everyone has their answers."
"What about you?" I inquire. "What's your answer?"
He laughs again, looking off to the side. "I've done the majority of the talking tonight. But I've got nothing to hide. The world has ended. Our secrets don't matter anymore." He meets my eyes again. Inhales deeply. "Yeah. When I was fifteen."
My eyes widen. "Fifteen? You were so young..."
"Yeah, well, I was dealing with a lot back then. Nothing made sense anymore. For me, everything lost its meaning even before the apocalypse began. So I just...gave it up. Like everything else. Thought it would make me feel better; give me a sense of control in my life. It was a choice I could make, and no one had any say in it. But of course, it changed nothing. I always felt the same bitterness and grief and depression afterwards."
I picture fifteen-year old Ash, his vibrant blue eyes wide and hopeful, his dark brown hair messy and free. So young and innocent, but always conflicted and angry. He lost everything. His mom, his sister, his childhood...and now, his dad. Who does he have now?
"It's not like I gave it up to a stranger, though," Ash continues, "I was dating a girl in the neighborhood back then. We only dated a year before I realized I wasn't dating her because I liked her. I was dating her for what she could do for me. I'm such an asshole. But it helped me survive that rough patch in my life. Like I said earlier...why change a behavior that's helping you survive? Different context, same idea." He sighs. "Doesn't mean I don't regret it, though."
"I'm sorry you had to deal with all that," I offer lamely. "Well, thanks a lot for delving into all that. Now I guess I kind of owe you a response, too." I force a smile. He smiles back. "Yeah I've never slept with anyone. I'm a virgin."
His smile widens and his eyebrows shoot up. "Not surprising. No offense... What are you saving yourself for?"
I shrug. "Maybe it's not so much about the what, but the who."
"Ahh, you've got someone in mind? That's definitely special. Maybe once this whole apocalypse is over, you'll get your opportunity. Who's the lucky guy?"
"No one," I answer as honestly as I can. "No one particularly in mind, but I just have this idea that the who is much more important than the what. I don't know. These things don't really matter anymore."
"Yeah. I feel you. But I wouldn't give up just yet." He pauses and crinkles the bottle of water in his hands. He focuses on the lid and peels back the wrapper, then twists and untwists the cap. "Who's Carter?"
My breath catches in my throat. "What?"
"When you fainted earlier today, you kept saying 'Carter,' you had to find 'Carter.' Who is that?"
Gosh. Just hearing his name spoken out loud shreds my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. I can somewhat ignore the pain by the utter embarrassment that masks it. I really said that when I fainted? And he heard me? Oh gosh. "He's... We got separated. The two of us were together on my street, then he drove us to the Safe House. He disappeared sometime before it got overrun. I don't know what happened or where he went."
"He wasn't one of the dead there?"
I shake my head. "I didn't see him. A part of me feels like he's alive, but I have no lead. Nowhere to look, no way to get there. We were supposed to stick together."
"So...you still think he's alive now?"
"Maybe. Yeah, actually. I do. I need to find him...he's kind of all I have left..." My voice trails off and I clamp my mouth shut before my voice cracks and I break down in tears.
"I see." Ash looks down and purses his lips. He sets his bottle of water down and links his fingers together before putting them to his lips. The way he stares into the tiny candle flame indicates he's lost in thought, but I don't have the slightest clue about what. I take a deep breath and loll my head back. Gosh Carter, why did you put me in this position?
"If—listening—please—"
My head swivels in the direction of the radio the same time Ash jumps back. Our eyes meet and neither of us moves, as if we'll interfere with the line if we so much as breathe.
"Was that—,"
"Shh!" I hold a finger up to Ash and lunge for the radio, hitting my elbows as I fall to the floor to adjust the antenna and dial. "Come on, come on..." I move the antenna slightly left and twist the dial ever so slowly...one notch...two notches...three notches...
More static...choppy voices....another notch...
"We offer everything. There's food—medical care—head straight—mountains."
"Holy crap," Ash whispers, watching over my shoulder.
I twist the dial a little more. And then:
"If anyone out there's listening, please come to Ostford. We welcome all, we offer everything. Food, shelter, water, and medical care. Head straight for the mountains. It is safe here."
I smile widely, my fingertips buzzing from excitement. "Bingo."