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THE DOZEN.
viii. BLINDNESS
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THE SUN FAILED to illuminate this side of the neighborhood – or perhaps it was the grey clouds, muffling the fiery star's best attempts, Jasper couldn't decide. Not under Carson's intentional, judgemental glare, anyway. The older man critically watched as the "leader" gazed up at the dark skies, and that judgemental stare was what urged the younger man to enter the closest house. Yet, the dreary sky was one of the most beautiful sights he'd seen in what felt like forever and it was rather comforting to know that it was the same sky those in DC could've been admiring as well.
And, he thought, it was a rather hopeful view. Knowing that no matter what happened, the sun will still shine, even if the clouds obstructed the vibrant rays. In months Spring would grace whatever city they resided in; flowers would bloom, animals will freely roam the forest, and rain would love to do nothing more than wash away every blood splatter and cluster of dust.
The world would move on from whatever plagued him and his eleven acquaintances, even if they were stuck reminiscing about it.
Though Jasper would admit, he wasn't able to reminisce about anything when standing inside of a house that was more still than anything he'd ever seen. The stained walls were barren of any decorations, the rooms only encased disorganized furniture and a stench that seemingly had no source, as much as Carson and Jasper sought it. Empty cans littered the kitchen tile, with sharp fragments of broken plates and glasses resting beside them. The refrigerator reeked of the rotting food inside it: an odor strong enough to attract all of the roaches that scurried across the clear, plastic shelves the moment Carson opened the door to the fridge.
And that, the quick movements of roaches no bigger than an inch, was the only thing defiant to the utter stillness of the abandoned home.
Jasper appeared in the kitchen rather quickly, similar to the rushed motions of the roaches Carson had seen just seconds before, and simply stood in the doorway. Carson, swinging the refrigerator door shut, stared at the younger subject and quietly awaited a list of everything he had recovered from the upper floor of the house. Only after elongated seconds did Jasper finally realize he was meant to speak: "I found a bag," he stated shortly and then quickly brought the dark bag into view. "There's nothing in it yet, but I figured it would be good for when I actually do find something. That way, I won't have to carry whatever it is, you know, in my hands."
"Yeah," Carson replied with just a hint of sarcasm lying beneath his tone, "that's how bags work."
"Well, you don't have a bag," Jasper retorted. It was meant to be more of a playful response than anything, but then Jasper laid eyes on Carson's hands. Each finger presented a different pattern of dirt and blood stains, almost like small paintings - but none of the fingers were grasping onto anything. Neither of them had found anything in the unkempt house; that realization led to Jasper's weak sigh of, "You don't have anything, do you?"
"Of course not," Carson sharply answered, brushing past Jasper as he sauntered into the living room. "Family probably took everything of sentimental value, ergo the lack of pictures and decorations." Carson turned on his heel, gesturing towards the blank walls as he came face-to-face with Jasper once more. "As for the rest of it, I don't think we're the first people to come here. The family wouldn't destroy their own house."
"Yeah," Jasper mumbled solemnly, skimming his eyes over the destruction amongst them. "Well, there's gotta be something," he continued, darting his eyes up to meet that of the older man's. Carson only gave Jasper a half-amused, half-hopeless raise of the eyebrows, accompanied by a small sigh. "And when I find it, you know what I'm gonna do it with it? I'm gonna put it in the bag."
"Oh, yeah, that'll show me," Carson humourlessly replied, but he was standing alone in the house by the time the sentence was finished.
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Beneath the shattered glass, the motionless hands of the clock read 3:12; a number far too innocent that Adelaide wondered what exactly could've happened within its sixty seconds. The slight blood-stained watch was found sprawled across the littered floor of a vacant pharmacy; the glass was shattered, with only a few sharp remnants clinging to the edges of what once held it together; the hands of the clock were entirely still except for when the smallest of the three would twitch every few seconds, like the final beats of a dying heart that desperately attempted to clutch onto life. Whatever happened, Adelaide presumed it was tragic.
But everything appeared to be tragic now; the watch was of no significance or sentiment, nothing differentiated it from the thousand other items that once belonged to people but now rested on the ground like dirt. And like dirt, she tossed it aside and continued to search the shop, ignoring how the watch crunched under the weight of her sneaker.
"Plan B – no, Diovan – no... Excedrin, oh my god, yes, finally... Intuniv – ugh, no... I don't know how to say this one, but I know we need it, so... yes. This has the word hydrate on it so we're getting this, too—"
Had Parker known that Adelaide was in the midst of talking herself through scouring for the right pills, he wouldn't have even approached. By the time he stood beside her, unused teddy bear in hand, it was far too late and he was only left to suddenly speak, "I found a bear."
She eyed the bear out of the corner of her eye, and then her entire body slowly turned to greet his own. She still remained crouched, but nonetheless, her eyes found their way to his own to reveal her own burning glare. "You're here to get toys?" she asked, letting out a half-exasperated, half-tired sigh at the end of her rhetorical question, her shoulders falling slightly.
"No," he answered softly, but then let out a sharp, sudden, "No! God, no. No. I'm not." Her eyebrows furrowed at his defensiveness, but she only raised them humourlessly and went back to sifting through the pool of pill bottles before her. She presumed it was just in an attempt to retain his masculinity, but she didn't consider him a very masculine man to begin with, so his attempts were futile. "I was gonna give it to, um... the little girl – does anyone even know her name?"
"I don't," Adelaide answered quietly with a slight shake of her head.
"Oh," he replied abruptly with just a hint of sadness. He only knew the names of a few of The Dozen, not counting Jasper for they'd known each other prior to the both of them being reduced down to a number. He sincerely wanted to learn the names of each and every one of them, but he could hardly handle casual conversations most of the time. Being that sociable was a pipe dream. "Um, anyway, yeah, I overheard that her parents, like, replaced her and had another kid, and that sucks, so I thought maybe this would cheer her up. Yes or no?"
"It's not my decision," she was quick to remind him, a small, polite smile playing on her chapped lips. "Personally, if it was, I don't think I would. She doesn't seem like she's six and into stuffed animals, and regardless it's not my place to coddle her, but that's just because I'm not all kind and selfless like you are. Do what you think is best."
"You're nice," he asserted in the most stern yet kind tone she'd ever heard, and with a hint of defensiveness lying beneath like her own self-condemnation offended him. "You're here. A lot of people in the group wouldn't have come just 'cause I asked them to."
"I'm just not worried about wasting time," she remarked, looking up into his reluctant stare. "DC isn't going anywhere and we can't guarantee anything about the city, anyway; the whole safety thing is just a big maybe. I'm not rushing to get to a maybe."
His face faltered in a slight way and his shoulders sank. She was right about the city being stationary; no matter the amount of time it takes to get there, they'd still get there. He just hoped it wasn't a "maybe." He quickly convinced himself that safety was a guarantee in Washington - that arriving there and being greeted by the local neighborhood-friendly military and being given shelter, food, warmth - would be the resolution to all of their troubles. Mentally reiterating his beliefs made them seem so childlike and over-idealistic, but he could only assume those two things were what made him "kind" and "selfless."
Deciding if his own kindness was worth the risk was never something he thought he'd even have to consider doing.
"So... what are you rushing to do?" he asked softly.
"Nothing," she answered coolly with a graceful shrug. "There's no reason to rush. Nobody's dying right now, especially not Ellie, and you and I are fine at the moment. I'm going to slowly enjoy the peace while it lasts because God knows it won't last as long as we want it to."
"It can. We–"
"It won't," she smoothly interrupted. "All the death, all the destruction... You can't get away from any of it. We've gone to two houses and each had dead people inside - people that used to think and feel and love. The church – even the church had a dead person inside of it. We've gone through three states and still couldn't get away from it. I appreciate the positivity, but there's a difference between optimism and blindness. Don't get them mixed up."
A solemn look washed over his face and he nodded slowly. "Right," he mumbled under the breath that escaped him languidly, the bear falling from his loose grip and crashing down into the bottle-filled basket beside her feet.
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The clatter of a clock smashing onto the hardwood floor was what attracted him to the room, though he'd admit that he was already in search of the little girl that everyone on the lower level just couldn't stop talking about. He placed himself right beneath the threshold, lightly leaning against the frame, and watched as the little girl placed the clock back on the bedside table, muttering a small, "Dang it."
She turned, ready to continue whatever it was that she was doing before his sudden burst of foremost presence as she finally laid eyes on the blond watching her from the doorway and could only stare back. "Are you okay?" he asked casually, as if catching up with an old friend, someone he'd spoken to a thousand times and presented general worry for.
Confusion shone in her dark, wide eyes and she harshly returned, "I don't know you." His soft eyes drifted to the two corpses rotting just behind her, to the bugs crawling in and out of every orifice, to the blood stained onto the planks beneath their still bodies. He gaped more than he consciously meant to. He'd heard about the replacement, but their suicide was unprecedented and quite chilling. "Yeah, I know," she spoke up, diverting his attention back to her small frame standing bold and tall before him. "I just... It's done. What they did is done. I can't change it, none of us can, so I'm not... worrying about it right now."
His mouth fell open, but no words tumbled out with the movement; after a moment, only a small, defeated sigh escaped him. The idea of a child actively avoiding the decaying bodies of her parents, postponing the awful feeling he knew would overwhelm her, just rubbed him the wrong way, in a way he simply couldn't delineate. "You can grieve," he slowly forced out after a moment of silence - almost saying it like it was a guess, an improvisation for the moment.
Eyebrows cocked, a small scoff left her mouth as she leaned back, acting almost as if she was genuinely offended. He could only assume it was because she didn't know him, as if that was her greatest concern amongst the ruins of the life she had once known, and that led on to his rushed maunder of: "I'm Nicholas, by the way, in case you were wondering; Seven, though, if that's what suits you. Last I checked I was nineteen, but that was probably ages ago, so don't take my word for it. I like dogs more than I like cats, I'm not a fan of large bodies of water, and my favorite season is Autumn. Now you know me, so now you can stop avoiding me when I ask: Are you okay?"
"I'm looking for something," was her distant response. "You seen a baby anywhere?" His head cocked to the side, much like a confused dog (which Subject One thought he looked exactly like), and he opened his mouth as if trying to find the words to respond to a question of such unexpectedness. "Before they did what they did," she continued to ease his confusion, gesturing back to the withered bodies of her parents, "they had another baby, because why not just replace the one you just gave away, y'know. Long story short, I can't find the baby anywhere. So," she stepped forward, "have you seen a baby?"
"I haven't, no," he answered. "Though, I don't think it'd, you know, still be alive. If you find it, all you'll find is its corpse."
"Well, obviously," she retorted matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over chest as she added, "It's either starved to death or... they killed it, too. I realize that. Closure is closure, as long it does what it's supposed to."
"I guess," he reluctantly breathed out. He was on the very verge of voicing just how uncomfortable her indifference was making him, but he knew that it was something she didn't want to hear. Maybe something she couldn't hear. Judging her grieving process would make matters worse. "I'll let you know if I find anything."
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"So, I sorted through all the medicine this place had," Adelaide spoke, loud enough for Parker to hear from wherever it was that he had wandered to, "and I got everything that could be useful. I think we're all good to go..."
Her sentence trailed off into nonexistence as she stumbled upon Parker, wide-eyed, staring at a pair of doors, bound together by a chain and padlock. An amalgam of worry, anxiety, and concern struck her in an instant as she gingerly stepped towards him. "What is it?" she softly asked, glancing back and forth between Parker and the doors he couldn't tear his attention from.
He didn't verbally reply, only nodded towards the lock. Eyebrows pulled together, she turned to face the doors; it was then that she noticed the fingers that crept into the space between the doors, grabbing onto the chains and attempting to reach the padlock. The fingernails were a cloudy blue color, from either faded nail polish or from decay, and the movements of the digits were stiff, harsh. "Do you think it knows?" he finally spoke up, his voice monotonous and flat, eyes glued to the spasmodic hand. "Does it know it's being locked out and that's why it's going for the chain?"
"Not sure," she answered after a moment of deep thought. Could it possibly know? Did it possess the mental capacity to connect the lock to its inability to get through the door? It led to an abundance of existential questions, though they were all just many variants of: Were they truly gone? "It might. I don't know."
"I wonder if it knows it's dead," he continued. "Well, not like... Not like dead, but... dead. Is it self-aware – like, is that person still there, they're just trapped–"
"They're dead, Parker," she softly interjected. "The guy back at the facility said it himself. Compound combined with death and whatnot."
"You remember that?" he asked, glancing over at her as she quickly nodded in response. "I don't. I mean, I remember getting out, obviously. But everything that guy said yesterday just... I was too busy freaking out, I think."
"It's understandable," she assured him. "I doubt if anyone remembers it word for word, they were all freaking out." He watched the slight sadness appear on her face the same way a grin would: slow, gradual, but then all at once. Her eyes had softened, her lips sank into a small frown, and she wrung her hands as if it was her only salvation. "I don't... I don't freak out," she finally spoke again, turning to look at him. "I can't," she slightly shrugged, but then all the negative emotions that painted themselves onto her face vanished without a trace and she lightheartedly added, "Which means that I'm probably the best person for you to be around; I'll gladly make up for all your freaking with all my involuntary relaxation. I got your back."
He broke out into a wide, toothy grin with a light chuckle escaping him. "Oh, man," he started, "I can't wait to go home and tell my mom all about how I made my first friend." She rolled her eyes, a playful scoff leaving through the smile she tried to hold back, and promptly spun on her heel, ambling down an aisle without waiting for Parker to tear himself away from the dead one.
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actual picture of me watching all of my happy children while knowing what i'm planning to do them
word count: 2974