Pain presses on my eyelids but I'm in fact still breathing so that's probably not a bad thing. Footsteps echo around me, I play coy attempting to keep my breath steady as one does in sleep. I feel sheets between my fingertips and the rough material of a woolen blanket underneath my chin.
"Finn, It's just me and I know you aren't asleep by the way. You should really work on your acting." Peter flops down on the matress beside me as I open my eyes peering around the bright room.
"Where are we," my voice doesn't even soiund like me. It's gravelly like an old man's and cracks on the vowels of my words.
"The cabin." I try to sit up but fall back to the matress with a cry of pain as my shoulder lights up like a flame,"You don't want to do that, the wound in your shoulder is pretty nasty. I got the bullet out but it hit your shoulder blade and pretty much shattered it. It's going to be some time before you can move it again and I have no idea if you'll ever get the same movement out of it since I'm obviously no doctor." He shrugs and gets to his feet, the boards beneath his feet creaking as he walks to the big picture window. Peter pulls back the slick, expensive looking, silk curtains letting in an even sharper light into the room. Black spots crowd my eyes and I have to close them. "Whoever it was didn't pursue us after I got you into the house. It was weird. I saw the bullet hit you and then the firing stopped instantly. It was as if they thought that was good enough."
"Maybe they didn't see you," I suggest though the knot in my stomach tells me that's not true. Peter was right behind me, we stepped into the clearing within seconds of each other. The assasin would've heard him screaming too. Why didn't they fire at him? The question lingers in my mind as Peter sets a pack of gronola bars in my lap twenty minutes later.
Between bites he tells me that I've been out for three days and he thought I was dead for two of them. "Peter, what if they don't know?"
"Who and what are you talking about?" He looks confused with a chunk of gronola hanging from his lips, forgotten.
"What if they were the Radicals from camp? They know about you being Pure. What if they don't know about me? We always assumed they did, they seem to know everything. You escaped from their camps so they have records of you but I'm just a roamer. They wouldn't care if I lived or died, I'm worth nothing in their eyes if I'm not labeled Pure. That would explained why they didn't even pursue you."
"Finn, we aren't actually sure that's who blew up the camp. It was just a good guess, could've been anyone, thugs or rebels.. And if you know you're Pure they probably would too. Plus they wouldn't have just let me go after all that work. That's a big waste of ammunition just to let me slip away."
"That's not true, my whole family died from the disease and it didn't effect me, that's how I know Peter. And what if they didn't just let you go. Maybe they knew they hadn't killed me and we'd just be sitting ducks here because I obviously can't leave and it's probably a good guess you wouldn't leave me here to die all alone. They've set up the ultimate pig pen. We'll just be here until they're ready to cart us off to the slaughterhouse!" My voice is growing louder and more hysteric as I continue but I can't keep calm, the knot in my stomach has bowled through my inner organs, turning them to mush, "Peter, we're dead. This is it."
"Finn, please calm down," he's looking around nervously and brushing the back of his neck with his fingertips, a habit I've learned he does when he's stressed out. My words have definitely rocked him but they haven't shaken him as bad as they have me. My heart is racing and can't stop rubbing the sweat off my palms. I fell like screaming crying all at the same time. We fell right into their hands. My paranoid ears hear the russling of leaves outside of the window like someone is moving to look in at us- to enjoy our panic.
The next few days are quiet as we tiptoe around the truth. "Peter!" I call him from my prison in the upstairs bedroom. I hear his heavy boots thumping up the steps as he comes to my aide. "What's up Princess?" He's decided on the sarcastic name on the account that I can't do anything on my own at the moment, and I mean anything. I cringe at the memory of him witnessing me naked as he bathed my dirt clogged body. Heat rises to my cheeks and I shove the memory as far away as possible. He sees the color on my face, " Been running lately," he teases. I stick my tongue out in reply making him laugh.
"No! That's not the point. I know you've been going through everything in this house the past few days, you aren't exactly being quiet about your pilaging."
"Yeah, so?" He sits at the edge of the bed fiddling with some twine in his hands.
"So you knoew about the family who lived here first?"
"Yes, I found some journals and photographs. They documented everything."
"Could you read some of them to me?"
"Why.."
"I'm tired of being couped up in here with nothing to entertain me and I'm kind of getting the creeps thinking about a ghost I don't even know what to call watching me wallow in their bed. It's like rolling around ontop of a grave. Just weird."
He shakes his head but he's smiling at my comparison, "Sure, whatever," he starts towards the door to retrieve the books.
"Oh and Peter," he stops in the door frame and turns,"one last request."
"What more do you want from me woman,"
"Promise you'll do the voices?" I pull out my biggest puppy eyes but it's ruined with the smile I can't hide.
A full grin has broken out across his face,"Your wish is my command Princess," he bows with a hand drawn across his middle like a well trained butler.
When he returns there's a leather-bound journal in his hands. And as he promised, each character has it's voice. The book is the property of Arthur Milligan, as it states on the inner cover. It starts in October of last year, when all hell started to break loose.
October 17th
This country can't survive another war, we'll all perish. Lacey came home from work today and as usual we sat together in front of the television for the evening news. Except this time it was different. People lay dying in the streets of Manhattan and fifty other small cities. President Burrundy has proclaimed war on China, as if that will repay the loss of the lives in the cities. There's rumors that the bombs were a cover for a Genetic attack, a deadly disease that was concocted in a secret Chinese lab. If it's true I don't know how long we'll be around after so I figured I might as well take up this stupid journal in case we do survive, it would make a popular book if we're all just sticking it out like a bunch of paranoid cockroaches. Holden and Sarah are just seventeen now, Lacey and I debated telling them and of course she won. I can't stand to remain silent towards my children. While they go out on Friday nights there's always the chance they might never return. I suppose Lacey's right, I can't kidnap their childhood, maybe the war won't happen at all and the scare would be for nothing, I can't help that feeling in my gut that says we're wrong.
December 2nd
The rumors are true. My neighbors, my friends, are dying in their homes and in the streets. They're calling it Nightshade because it kills just as quick. The twins aren't going to school any longer. Sarah has locked herself in her room and has cried since. Her boyfriend was the first casualty of the war on Fillmore, Texas. Lacey sits outside her door and weeps for her daughter, they were all very close. Holden is the opposite. His anger is anything but passive. I think he'd run right into a battle if there was a physical war to actually fight. He's broken three mirrors and his mother's favorite vase in the past week and nothing I say seems to help. People are dying so fast that there's no one to maintain the things we call ordinary life. There's no electricity and the town is running on emergency water towers. I found an old box of photographs from when the twins were young in all my down time. My favorite has become the one of Holden running down the beach. I remember his arms floating away from his sides like a bird ready to take flight. His screams of laughter as Lacey chased him down the edge of the water. The picture is my journal bookmark now. It reminds me not to take anything for granted because life is short and death is much longer.
Peter looks up holding a photograph between his thin fingers. The little boy, Holden, grins, his arms are outstretched as if to take the whole horizon within his tiny, chubby arms. Pale sand lies beneath his feet and the blue ocean reaches far and wide behind him. The picture is faded and frayed at the corners as if it has been handled one too many times. I can imagine this man, Arthur, holding the tiny photo in his weathered hands and smiling down at the young boy who's anger outgrew his body. He smiles because he knows that somewhere down the boy who held the world in his arms is still somewhere inside behind all the pain he has hardened around him now. I vaguely wonder what became of the boy. Is he dead like the rest of them or is he running like the everyone who is left. And what about the rest of the family?
Peter closes the book, wrapping the string attached around it to keep it closed. I guess that was the signal that he was done reading for today.
"How's the shoulder," he plucks at my shirt, pulling at the hem. Goosebumps rise against my back as the cold air hits the exposed skin. "At least it doesn't look infected." He says it like he's not really sure what he's talking about and that doesn't really comfort me much. He runs his fingers around the area of the hole in my back and pain seeps into my bones. I feel brittle, like one tap will shatter me into a million pieces.
"Peter." I'm biting my lip to keep from whimpering so his name comes out slightly butchered and more like "Peaver."
"Princess?" His eyebrows cock as he gently pulls my shirt back into place and fluffs my pillows comedically.
"First off, the next time you call me that I'm going to put my pocket knife through your eye, just warning you."
"Sassy today, are we? And maybe a little dramatic... If the shoe fits..." He grins and prances out of my reach before I can bust his jaw with my good arm.
"Second of all I need you to be serious. I need you to do something for me." And I really hope he does take this seriously because I've been mulling over it since I woke in this strange sandpaper bed this morning.
He stands still at the edge of the bed, all traces of play have retreated from his external features. "What is it?"
"I need you to leave." And run like hell, I think.
"What're you talking about?" He scowls and takes a step back as if to get a better view of my stupid request.
"I need you to get out of here, we're both going to die in this god forsaken house if you don't run. Chances are, since I'm not important, they'll leave me alone so you don't have to worry about that." I'm trying to reason with him but I know I'm losing the war as his face contorts with realization and then anger. I don't know why he's angry honestly but I don't bring it up.
"Finn, you actually think I would leave you here? Exactly because you're not considered important is the reason they would kill you immediately. Don't be so thick. This isn't a comic book, no one has to take the fall. We stick together or we don't do anything at all."
I fumble with the threads sticking out on the quilt. It was worth a try even if I knew what his answer would be as soon as my request left my lips. We're both going to die because he can't leave me behind and I'm the thick one. I drop heavily back onto my pillow forgetting the small chunk of shoulder missing from my body and I cry out in pain.
Peter's demeanor changes and he's standing up, leaning against the mattress trying to comfort me. I don't respond though tears are welling up behind my eyes due to the fire starting on my back. I wait until he's tucked me in and retreated from the room closing the door behind him before the tears are allowed to make their presence fully known.
I don't just cry for the wound keeping me in this stranger's bed but for my former life. I also cry for my family. We went to church every Sunday so I know by now I'm supposed to believe they're right by my side cheering me on as I pillage and plunder to survive. But in truth they've never felt so far away. Death has separated us not by mentality but millions of miles. I fall asleep pretending my father is sitting in the armchair diagonal from me reading the newspaper and my mother is holding my hands reassuring me that this hell is only a phase.