No Shelter (#1) A Post-Apocalyptic Love Story

CHAPTER 3

  I sink down and bury my head in my knees. I should have listened to Isaac. I should have gone with him. Now I’m back where I was two years ago, but without Isaac to pull me out of the hopelessness.

  My hands and feet are going numb, but I don’t bother fighting it. I can feel the darkness closing in on me. All my memories are rushing by like rocketing time capsules.

  The night I slipped out of bed and watched my father’s car drive away. I traced the pattern on the velvety sofa with my seven-year-old fingers for hours wondering if he hated the tie I made for him out of construction paper… The day my mother bought her favorite blue scarf from the old woman at the farmers’ market. She told the woman it was her husband’s favorite color… The first time I saw Isaac in the cafeteria at Whitmore. Dirty and emaciated, but he laughed louder than all the others…

  “Whatcha doing down there?”

  I look up and see the vague outline of a face peeking over the edge of the hole.

  “Isaac?”

  I wipe the tears from my eyes and the face comes into focus. It’s not Isaac. His blonde hair is dangling from the bottom of a red baseball cap with a B on the front. He reaches down to offer his hand. I allow him to pull me up.

  “I’m Daedric,” he says, holding out his hand.

  I don’t shake his hand. My eyes skim the surroundings and find a dead cougar lying ten feet from the hole. A few feet beyond I glimpse a piece of Isaac’s head peeking out from beneath a pile of pine needles.

  I rush to his side and scatter the pine needles. His neck is slashed open, but the cut isn’t too deep. It’s the gushing wound on his thigh that makes my stomach clench.

  “He’s not dead,” Daedric calls out to me, as if this makes it better.

  “He’s right,” Isaac whispers. “I’m not dead.”

  “Shut up,” I say as I rip off his pant-leg and tie it around the top of his thigh.

  “Hey, watch where you’re putting your hands, beautiful.”

  “I told you to shut up. Just close your eyes,” I bark at him as I attempt to prop his leg up on a tree trunk.

  Isaac screams with pain as Daedric kneels next to me.

  “You need help?” he asks, but he seems too eager, almost cheerful.

  I need to get Isaac back to the cave. We have first-aid supplies and some antibiotics. But I don’t know if I can trust this stranger.

  “Are you stupid or something?” I say.

  Daedric appears confused. “What?”

  “Why are you wearing that stupid Red Sox cap? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Daedric smiles. “I found it hidden in some bushes back theh with a bunch of uddah supplies. I put it on ‘cause it reminds me of home. I didn’t think it would mattah out hee-ah, ya know, in da forest.”

  Great. He’s from the Eastern Sector.

  “Take it off and help me carry him,” I say, grabbing Isaac’s feet.

  “I can walk,” Isaac insists as he attempts to sit up, but a wave of nausea overcomes him and he heaves bright-yellow bile onto the forest floor.

  “Grab his arms,” I command.

  Daedric and I half carry half drag Isaac to the cave. When we enter, Eve is awake and sharpening her blade. She sees Isaac and tosses the knife aside to help us set him down next to the burned out fire.

  “What happened?” she asks in her small voice.

  “Cougah,” Daedric replies and the shock on Eve’s face at the sound of his accent is unmistakable.

  I shake my head at her. “Get the medical kit.”

  She scrambles to the back of the cave and returns with a small first-aid kit. I throw it open and pull out a roll of bandages and some iodine. I squeeze the iodine over the gushing wound. Isaac’s eyes roll back and the first thing I think of doing is rubbing his cheeks.

  “Wake up!” I yell at him.

  “It’s shack,” Daedric says.

  “What does a shack have to do with this?” Mary says as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.

  “Not a shack… shack. S-H-O-C-K,” he replies.

  Mary glares at me as if I’ve just invited the Guardians into our secret lair.

  “He’s helping me,” I say to her. “Bring me that blanket.”

  I wrap the blanket around Isaac’s upper body and continue working on his leg. We have a surgical needle and surgical thread to stitch up large cuts, but Isaac’s the only one who’s ever used them when he stitched a gash on Mary’s hand last month.

  I thread the needle quickly and ask Eve to sop up the blood with gauze as I work. The first time I try to pierce his skin with the needle I nearly pass out. It won’t go through. It’s dull and his leg twitches with pain. I suck it up and push it through his skin. He moans and I sigh with relief. He’s still conscious.

  I finish stitching and cleaning the wound before I bandage his leg. Immediately, blood seeps through the bandages. I didn’t do a good job.

  I move to take off the bandages but Daedric puts his hand on mine to stop me.

  “It’s gonna keep oozin’ for a while,” he says. “Don’t mess wit it.”

  I can’t help but gawk at him as if he’s from another planet. “Are you crazy? Why do you keep talking like that?”

  Daedric appears startled. “I figgahd it didn’t mattah hee-ah.”

  “You figured it didn’t matter here?” I say, trying to correct him and clarify his words at the same time. “Why would you think it doesn’t matter? We have a right to kill you on the spot, you know? You’re way outside your sector.”

  Daedric glances at Mary then back at me. “Ain’t she from the South?”

  Mary narrows her eyes at him as she pulls her knife from the sheath on her waist. “You want trouble, boy?” she asks, with no trace of her former accent.

  “I don’t want trouble,” he says, pulling his hat off and hanging his head. “I just thought you all could help me find my sistah.”

  “You thought wrong, buddy. Now go,” Mary says, pointing at the cave entrance with her blade.

  Daedric rises and exits the cave looking like a lost child. I watch as he tosses the Red Sox cap into a bush and walks off toward the forest.

  What am I doing? He saved Isaac’s life.

  “Wait!” I yell. “We’ll help you find your sister.”