Wren

“Wren, Wren, wake up.”

The hand shaking my shoulder dragged me from the nightmare clinging to me. The dream had haunted me for years after my mother died, but at least five years had passed since I’d last experienced it. Wetness streaked my cheeks, and I lifted a hand to wipe it away. I was appalled to discover tears.

I couldn’t recall the last time I’d cried, probably while I’d been under that sink. Tears had no place in this world; they were a weakness, and weaknesses got a person killed.

I blinked away the wetness as I tried to take in my surroundings, but blackness engulfed me. For a second, I had the disconcerting notion my tears had caused me to go blind. I almost bolted to my feet before I recalled what had happened and where I was.

I’m exhausted, and I should have avoided that street, that house. That’s why the nightmare has returned now, why my mother is on my mind so much.

Exhaustion had allowed the memory to slip back in, and going by my old house yesterday, or whenever it was, hadn’t helped. I should have made an excuse to take another route to the gateway, they all would have believed me and followed me, but my old road was the most direct way to get to where we needed to go.

Plus, if I made an excuse to avoid my old house and something happened and someone was hurt or injured because of it, I would never forgive myself. Determined not to be weak and refusing to hide from what couldn’t be changed, I’d sworn to myself that seeing my old house wouldn’t affect me, but it had.

Now I was paying for it.

However, I couldn’t have known I would see what I’d seen there. I couldn’t have expected that years wouldn’t have erased some of the horror of what occurred there. I still wouldn’t have taken a different route if I’d known, but I would have prepared myself better and I wouldn’t have looked.

I jerked my shoulder away from Corson’s touch as fresh tears welled in my eyes. No crying!

“Are you okay?” he inquired.

It’s okay; it’s okay, my mother’s frantic voice whispered through my mind again. But it hadn’t been okay; nothing had been okay since that day.

“No,” I whispered before realizing I’d spoken the word instead of thinking it. “Yes!” I blurted. “I mean yes. I’m fine.”

I realized I’d slumped down when I’d fallen asleep against the wall. I pushed myself into a seated position. Now that I’d stopped moving, the cold earth of the wall felt far cooler as it leeched the warmth from my body. I leaned away from it and drawing my legs against my chest, I wrapped my arms around them.

“You were having a nightmare,” he stated.

“We humans do dream, so it happens,” I replied more casually than I felt.

“We may not require as much sleep as you, but demons dream too.”

“Interesting.” I pushed back the strands of hair sticking to my damp face. “I’ll take watch now.”

“What was the nightmare about?”

“That’s none of your business, demon.”

I didn’t have to see him to feel his anger over me calling him demon again, but I had to keep my distance from him. It was because of him my mother was dead.

No, not him, I reminded myself, but things like him. The ones who had ripped my mom to shreds had the snouts of dobermans and crocodile tails. They’d looked nothing like Corson or the other demons I’d come to know, but they’d all originated in Hell.

I lowered my head into my hands as I tried to regain control of myself. The nightmare had torn apart my restraint over my memories, and now I couldn’t hold onto one thought or emotion. Part of me wanted to climb into Corson’s arms and sob out my grief in a way I never had before. The other part wanted to kill him for what he was. It was irrational, I knew it hadn’t been his fault, but I felt anything but rational right now.

I knew demons weren’t all bloodthirsty monsters, but I still shouldn’t be yearning to touch one as badly as I did Corson. It was a betrayal to my mom, my dad, and all the other people slaughtered that day and over the many following days. It was a betrayal to the Wilders Randy had ordered to follow me, and it was a bigger betrayal to Randy.

I released a choked sob. Corson rested his hand on my shoulder again. When I didn’t push him away, because I simply didn’t have the energy to, he slid his arm around my shoulders and drew me against his side. The warmth of his body enveloping me made me feel secure in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

His fingers wiped away the lingering wetness of my tears. “What was the nightmare about?” he asked again.

I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business again. Instead, words tumbled out so fast I barely processed what I said. I told him every detail about cookie day, my mom’s laughter, and later her screams. Told him about my dad’s boisterous shout for his lasses and his bear hugs.

I revealed how my mom died, what they’d done to her, and how cramped my legs became beneath the sink. How I’d shook when I heard the whistling sound of the bombs plummeting from the sky. I’d never seen the bombs, but somehow I knew what they were before I heard their explosions. I’d held my breath and waited to burn alive or blow up, but that never came. I told him how the sun set and rose all with me under the sink, too scared to move.

I shamefully admitted I’d had more than a few accidents under that sink when my bladder couldn’t contain its contents anymore. Revealed how I became so hungry my stomach knotted and it became so hot that my sweat pooled around me. Then, how I’d vomited the meager contents of my stomach when the stench of my waste and my mother’s decomposing body permeated the air, and all the while, I remained under the sink.

“At sunset on the second day, thirst drove me out from my hiding spot. When I nudged open the door and slid free, I couldn’t avoid my mother’s blood. It had spread forward to coat the area before the cabinets. I tried to touch as little of it as possible, but I was unable to get my cramped legs to hold me, and I slipped and fell into her blood,” I whispered.

“I lay there for a while, crying, before recalling I was supposed to be brave too. I forced myself to get up. Starving, I fell on the cookie batter and ate it all; then I threw it up. Some of it must have stayed down as after eating it and drinking some water, I felt stronger, but I still couldn’t get up the energy to go anywhere.

“So I sat there, staring at my mom’s body and listening to the nothingness my world had become. The screams had been endless in the beginning, and over the following two days, an occasional one still pierced the air, but hours had passed since I’d heard anything beyond the tick of the kitchen clock.

“The screams had been awful, and there had been so many of them, but the silence was worse. At least I’d known I wasn’t alone when I could hear the screams. Without them, I became convinced I was the last person on Earth and I’d never felt so alone. He found me the next day,” I said.

“Who found you?” Corson asked when I stopped speaking.

My fingers curled into my pants when they fisted on my thighs. “Randy did. He was going through houses scrounging for supplies. There were two other survivors with him. Both of them were disgusted when they found me sitting next to the sink, covered in blood, vomit, and waste. I’d have been disgusted too, but not Randy. He lifted me up, carried me into the bathroom, and set me in the tub clothes and all. He turned on the water and hosed me off the best he could before finding fresh clothes and telling me to put them on. While he waited outside, I did as he’d instructed and struggled to put the clean clothes on.

“He made me get up, made me continue, and refused to let me die when I would have been fine with that. There was no arguing with him; he wouldn’t allow it. But it was a long time before I argued with anyone as I didn’t speak again until months after that day. I’m not sure if I forgot how to talk, or if my voice became trapped beneath the screams I never issued while those demons slaughtered my mom.”

I couldn’t believe I was telling him these things. Later I could blame it on the dark and our circumstances. The ouro may be dead, but we were far from free of danger while in these tunnels. Everyone tried to unburden themselves before they died, right?

“Randy packed a bag for me and took me from my house. I never looked back,” I said.

“Did you know Randy before then?”

“No. He lived a couple of neighborhoods over from mine. He could have left me there, and most would have understood if he had. Few others would have dragged a traumatized eight-year-old around with them when the world was literally going to Hell, but he did, and he was only twenty-one at the time. It would have been much easier for him to leave me, but he kept me safe. He taught me how to survive and became like a father to me.”

“Where is Randy now?”

I leaned closer to the heat he emitted. Slightly warmer than a human, I realized. It didn’t make me pull away from him like it would have yesterday.

“I don’t know where he is,” I murmured. “He left to travel beyond the Rockies and explore more of the Wilds. We’ve never gone into or over the mountains before, and he decided it was time to check out some uncharted territory.”

“Why?”

“Because Randy still holds out hope there is a safer place for us in the Wilds, a place where we can stop moving and settle down. He’s determined to find it.”

“And you don’t believe there is such a place?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Anything is possible, right? It’s part of the reason why I decided to reach out to Kobal. None of us want to live at the wall, but I think Randy would have sought Kobal out too, if he’d experienced what I had with the king. Despite everything that’s happened, Randy remains a dreamer who is determined to give me, his wife, and the rest of his followers a better life.”

Randy may have gone to speak with Kobal, but he definitely wouldn’t have cuddled up with a demon like I was right now. I didn’t want to know what he or the rest of the Wilders would think if they ever learned about this.

While at the wall, some of the Wilders had gone to the tents where the demons resided on the hill. I knew some of them had had sex with the demons, but I was their leader right now. I was supposed to keep an eye out for the Wilders and keep my distance from the demons who might turn on us. I’d led them to the wall, and yes they were adults, but if something went wrong with the demons, it would be my fault.

“Randy divided his followers before he left so we weren’t all put in danger. He placed me in charge of the ones who remained. The Wilders agreed to my lead while he was gone, even though many of them are older than me, because he’s their leader and he raised me. In the beginning, I demanded to go with him, but he refused to take me. He insisted it was necessary for me to be in charge here, but there were others who could have done it. I think he left me behind to keep me safe.”

“Probably,” Corson said.

“We were supposed to meet up again in May, but that was before the seals broke. Now, I have no idea what will happen or if Randy is even still alive. We may also be traveling into the mountains to hunt for the angels before he has the chance to return.”

His palm ran over my hair, soothing me as much as the heat of him did. My hands unfurled from my clothes and edged toward him, one settled on his thigh while the other rested against his back. His head turned toward me, and his lips brushed my temple.

“You said you were making the cookies for your father,” Corson said. “Did you ever find him?”

Closing my eyes, I lifted my hand from his thigh to rub my forehead as the world lurched precariously. “His body was on the porch when Randy led me outside. My dad made it all the way home only to be brought down by a demon at our front door. The blood soaking him turned his red hair and beard a scarlet color. There’s no red anymore. Now he’s all white,” I murmured as older memories gave way to newer ones.

“What do you mean?” Corson inquired.

I removed my other hand from him and folded them both in my lap. I clasped them so forcefully together that the bones in them grated. “We traveled past my house on our way to the gateway. It was the fastest way to get to where we’re camped now.” He stiffened beside me. “We made camp about a quarter mile away from my old home.”

“You should have led us a different way.”

“We all have painful memories. I did what was necessary.”

“Wren—”

“I did what was necessary,” I insisted. “I just wasn’t….” My voice trailed off as I twisted my hands. “I wasn’t expecting his body to still be there. Parts of him were missing, probably taken away by animals, but most of his bones remained.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I recalled the skeleton lying on the front porch. My father’s bony fingers remained extended toward the door, forever reaching for the family he would never see again. There was no more garish blood covering him, only the stark white of his bones.

Maybe seeing my old house again wouldn’t have been so bad if the red door hadn’t been faded and chipped, but the red color evident all the same. It hadn’t helped that one of my mom’s potted plants remained hanging from a hook. Nothing remained of the flowers, but the plastic pot had swayed in the breeze as we walked by. The porch sagged with age, most of the windows were broken, yet the house remained standing when many others didn’t.

For one split second, as I’d stood there gazing at my old home, the laughter and smells once filling it came back to me, and I’d been a child all over again. Not a frightened, waste-covered child, but a happy one with dreams and laughter.

Then, the past faded away and I was a woman staring at her father’s bones. A woman who hadn’t laughed in years, who no longer dreamed of the future, and who was well aware her time could come as suddenly as her dad’s had. I was certain my mother’s bones were still in the kitchen, but I would never climb those stairs again to see them.

That house and those bones were the reason the nightmare had returned and why I’d felt like an unsettled mess since seeing them. I will get myself under control again. I have to.

“We see bones everywhere we go,” I murmured. “There is no avoiding that, especially so close to the gateway.”

“You should have taken us a different way.”

“No. I shouldn’t have. The past is the past. It’s done. When I was a child, I tried to stop on that porch and sit next to my dad’s body. I think I would have stayed there with him to die, but Randy twisted his hand into the collar of my shirt, lifted me, and carried me away. This time, I carried myself away from it.”

“Where did Randy take you after you left your house?”

“Into the Wilds. I became a part of the woods, and I found a new family amongst the Wilders. There was no other choice for me but to accept my new life.”

“When the government evacuated the Wilds, you could have gone with the refugees to the wall. It wasn’t completed at that time, and some sections of the wall still aren’t entirely secure or sturdy, but you would have been safer there. You could have helped with the building of it.”

“You mean I would have been a safe prisoner there. The government didn’t allow the evacuees from the Wilds to travel beyond the wall. Most became the first soldiers on the wall and were kept away from the civvies who were fed the government’s lies. Those who knew the truth of what happened that day weren’t permitted to mingle with the civvies or to live their lives freely. I’d felt like a prisoner under that sink, and I would not become one again.”

“Demons and the human governments worked together to keep the threat from Hell contained and away from the outer areas,” Corson said. “The people on the other side of the wall were told those things to keep them from panicking.”

“They didn’t panic when the truth finally came out,” I retorted.

“No, but they’d also had fourteen years to adjust to their new lives by then. Lives that lacked most of the luxuries and stable food supply they’d once taken for granted. When the truth came out, they had no choice but to accept it and Kobal’s rule as the demons escaping the seals were spreading beyond the wall at that point, so were Lucifer and the fallen angels. What remained of the still-ruling human governments collapsed at a rapid rate, although some continue now.

“Kobal had established a leadership role with the human rulers before the truth became public knowledge, so it was easier for him to take control of the chaos. Demons have also become better at dealing with people over the years and are able to interact better with the civvies now.”

“Were we so difficult to deal with?” I asked.

“We weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms in the beginning. Many government officials distrusted us, and we didn’t establish a functional relationship with them until a year after the gateway opened. We had no say in the lies the governments initially created to keep their citizens safe. We also never planned to remain in this realm, so we didn’t care what lies they fed the humans, but things always have a way of changing.”

“I see. When the gateway closed, if things had gone back to the way they were before, would you have gone back to Hell?” I asked as I leaned into the warmth of him once more.