CHAPTER FIVE
Jackson
“Look. A coffee shop. Think I can get a mocha latte?” Private Kellison steps over a pile of bricks and picks up an old cup cover, then flicks it into the empty window.
I grunt. I stuck Holub and Jacobs on a different team two weeks ago, and so far the new guys don’t irritate me. “While you’re in there, grab me a sandwich. Ham and swiss on rye.”
Kellison adjusts his helmet and takes in the surroundings. “This place is depressing as hell.”
I nod. “Looks like it took a good bit of the shelling.”
Today we hunt in Wilmore. It’s far from any of the places I’ve seen my dancer. I planned it this way. I’m not getting anything near what I wanted to accomplish career-wise, and it’s because she’s constantly on my mind. I plan every patrol by where I think I might see her. This isn’t how you get a promotion. I’ve been told better opportunities are opening now that they’re reclaiming Charlotte and Atlanta, and if I prove myself here, I could be considered for one of those. Stagnating like this is for losers. I should have been working on my PhD by now, damn it, and I’ve got to focus on myself, on my plans.
Querly picks up a femur. “Breast or thigh?”
Pig. “Show some respect. See these?” I indicate slash marks. “Those were made by knives. Someone carved this guy up, and not too long ago either. Shut up and pay attention.”
Corporal Querly tosses the bone and scowls.
Is that a girl’s bone or a guy’s? I never got past my freshman year in college, and I don’t know enough about human anatomy to identify gender. Not from a thigh bone anyway. Thinking about my dancer getting killed by these freaks makes my head feel like it’ll explode.
She isn’t my first obsession, but this time it’s far worse. I’ve always known there was something wrong with me. I obsessed about simpler things when I was a kid, but the second I hit puberty, it was sex and girls. Not any girl; I’d fixate on one and track her every movement, learn everything there was to know about her, and I’d fantasize about all the terrible things I’d do to her once I got her. Of course, sometimes this proved disastrous, like the time my ex-girlfriend got a restraining order. I was still in high school then so it didn’t remain on my permanent record, but the girl in college...Well.
In the past I tried psychoanalyzing myself. I used to think maybe I was so obsessive because of some event in my past, but there came a point where I realized it all boiled down to brain chemistry. It’s kind of interesting, to tell the truth. Being so fucked up myself, human behavior and mental health fascinate me. I guess that’s why I wanted to study cognitive neuroscience: to understand the monster in me. Perhaps even to perfect it; falling into an obsession gives me the highest of highs, and when you add sex into the equation, I can’t even describe the feeling. I wouldn’t change a thing about myself.
This is my first chance in six years to get at an unprotected girl, and Christ, I’ve got a woody the size of a baseball bat.
I keep a map of every sighting of my dancer; I’ve tracked the times, the duration, what she’s doing. I’ve filled an entire wall of drawings of her dancing, climbing over rubble, that perfect moment when her tits are outlined through her clothes. I’ve drawn her eyes, her hands; I’ve even got one where she’s kneeling in front of me, looking up at me with those gorgeous eyes as she sucks my cock. God. A glance at any one of those pictures and I have to jerk off.
It’s ridiculous. I’m not going to fuck a cannibal. Following her around is just plain stupid.
I peer past an old vending machine, and at first I see nothing. Then a figure pops out from one corner and darts across the street. Another follows.
I raise my fist. Kellison and Querly halt, and I point.
Kellison nods.
I raise my rifle, but I can’t get a clear shot.
I turn to Kellison, and out of the corner of my eye I catch movement. For half a second my instincts take over and I regrip my rifle. Then I see the high ponytail, the slender, graceful body, and I realize it’s her. Shit. She’s not being careful enough, even though she seems to look everywhere. Her eyes are always moving. It’s what they train you to do in war—always be on the lookout, look for your exits, look for places where you can be targeted. She’s no amateur. But we’re standing here, practically in her line of vision.
Damn it.
I point to the north, where the two other figures ran. “You two, follow him,” I say, keeping my voice low. “I’ll climb up into one of the buildings and see if I can get a shot from there.”
Querly nods, Kellison adjusts his helmet, and the two are off.
She’s headed right for me. Adrenaline shoots through my veins, making me feel high. I crouch down. I listen for the men, but I also listen for her. Where is she headed? As I peer around the machine again, I see her disappear into a half-crumbled building. Pieces of the wall have fallen, and I catch glimpses as she climbs the side stairs. She stops at the fifth floor, tugs on the door, and it opens. She holds it, controlling the speed of the closure, and when it finally shuts, silence settles like dust.
What’s up there? Is she just scavenging, or is that where she lives? It’s a shitty choice, if you ask me. After maybe five more minutes the door reopens, and when she emerges into the street, her eyes are haunted. She peers around again, then sets out toward the southwest.
Usually her body language screams a mixture of determination and grace. This time, with her hunched shoulders and downcast eyes, she seems defeated. What’s wrong? Is something—or someone—missing?
My spine urges my feet to move, to follow her. My dick agrees, but my men will wonder where I’ve gone. It will not look good at all to abandon my post, especially when we have scraps in sight.
Once she’s safely gone and I’m sure she hasn’t gone in the direction of the soldiers or the scraps, I rise and head for the building. Maybe if I can figure out what’s so fascinating up there, it’ll help me understand her better. Not that it’ll do me any good, but it’s safer than showing my hand to the guys. To them, me being up there will only seem like I’m doing exactly what I said I’d do.
The fifth floor has five offices—or doors, anyway—on each side of the hall. There isn’t much to see in any of them, really. Broken chairs, computer monitors, files. Paintings too. What is art in the apocalypse? The fifth office on the right, the one that’s in the rear corner of the building—part of the wall is down and the ceiling too. Frozen remains of a middle-aged woman peek out among the rubble. Whoever it is has been dead a long time; the skin is waxy and sunken. Someone has taken rags and paper and twisted them somehow into a flower. It rests beside the woman’s head, as do four sets of folded paper.
My hands shake as I stoop and grab the top one. My stomach clenches as I find small, neatly printed words on college-ruled paper. It even has the ragged tabs on the left, showing it’s been torn from a notebook. Her notebook.
There are no more clocks, so I don’t know time. There aren’t any calendars, so I don’t know dates. There aren’t any seasons, so I don’t even know how much time has passed. I only know how much I miss you. I used to dream about you and Matthew every night, but you haven’t come to me in a long time. I wonder sometimes if you’ve forgotten me, or if it’s so much better where you are that returning even for a dream is painful. I will never forget either of you, or Dad either. I’ll never stop loving you, or missing you, ever.
I came to tell you that as soon as I find something to wear on my feet, I’m leaving Charlotte. Soldiers have come. I don’t know who they are, but they’re shooting everyone they see. Not just the cannibals, but us survivors too. They don’t seem to care that we’re untainted. Why they’re here is as big a mystery as when I came back from Greensboro and found that all the bodies were gone from the towers. There were hundreds of thousands of bodies, Momma. There aren’t enough cannibals in the world to eat that many people, not that they would. Something evil happened here, and now it’s come back. I’m going to try to take Charlie with me, and I’m going to leave a map for that Japanese lady so she can find my plants. It’s what you would do. Dad used to tell me no one could be trusted and I had to take care of myself, and you always told me to give back. This way, I’m doing both.
Greensboro is full of the tainted, so I’ll try Ashville and see if this time they’ll let me in. It’s a real city with a real army, and none of them are taints. Last time I was only thirteen and pretty much useless, so maybe now that I’m almost grown they’ll give me a chance. If not, maybe I’ll finally go to sleep, and then when I dream, you’ll come for me. There really isn’t much left here, Momma. Only Charlie, and I worry all the time that someone will take him from me.
Love you forever,
ALW
What does ALW stand for? God, it’s killing me. Amy? Alexandra? Amanda? I’ve got to know.
And she’s leaving. Shit. No wonder she so careless today. She’s probably upset, knowing this will be the last time she’ll see her mother. There’s a rope hitched to my guts pulling me along behind her. Somehow I know if the pull becomes too strong, it’ll leave a hole inside me that I know I’ll never be able to fill. I should let her go, but I won’t. She’s mine. I hate myself for it, but it’s the truth.
Stuffing the letters into my pocket, I fist my rifle and charge downstairs to find the others.
And who the fuck is Charlie?