I nodded my agreement, my fingers clenched as I fought the urge to retrieve more food from the bag. I was eager to move again, eager to get to the gas station, eager to be doing something once more. Now that I was awake again, I felt vulnerable out in the open, and exposed here. A soft rustling drew my attention back to Cade. He was digging amongst the bag. I closed my eyes, turning my attention away from him.
“Bethany.” Cade was kneeling before me when I opened my eyes. He was holding a granola bar, an apple, and a bottle of water out to me. I shook my head, my gaze darting to Abby’s slumbering form. “We all ate earlier, you need to eat more.”
“I’m fine.”
“There’s enough to last a couple of days if we’re careful. Hopefully, by then, we’ll have found some more food, or rejoined the others.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we will cross that bridge when we get to it.” I shot him an angry look, nowhere near as amused by his words as he was. He grinned at me, his eyes slightly brighter with the merriment that filled them. “You can’t keep her safe if you don’t have the energy to do so.”
I could have continued to protest, but his sound reasoning and the loud rumbling of my stomach were my undoing. I offered a grateful smile as I took the food from him. He rose to his feet, studying the forest as he stretched. “I want to scope out the area, see if I can decide the best way to go.” My eyes shot to him, I paused with the apple halfway to my mouth. “I won’t be long, but now that you’re awake…”
His voice trailed off. All I could do was stare at him. Finally, I swallowed heavily and managed a small nod. We would be fine, he would be fine, but I couldn’t stop the overwhelming vulnerability that suffused me. “Of course. Yeah, I’ll keep watch.”
He watched me for a long moment. “I won’t be gone for long, no more than an hour.”
It was going to be a very long hour. “Stay safe.”
He flashed that charming, damn near heart stopping grin. “Always.”
I watched him go; worry filling me as he slipped from sight. He would be fine, I repeatedly told myself as I munched down the food and took a long drink of water. It was warm, but it was still delicious. I stood slowly and walked away from the others. The sun was starting to set, it would be dark soon, and we would be moving out again. I was stunned to realize that in the past few days we had become nocturnal. The only good thing was that I was once more aware of the wildlife as animals moved about the forest.
I walked a little further away, peering into the trees as two squirrels leapt eagerly through the branches. I smiled softly as I watched them jump and play, it was such a normal, everyday sight, and yet it meant so very much to me right now. I inhaled deeply, trying hard to just savor in this moment; I probably wouldn’t get many more like it any time soon.
When I turned back around I was startled to discover that Cade had returned. He moved with such stealth that I had not heard or sensed his approach. In the hour or so that he had been gone, he seemed to have regained some of his vigor. The color was back in his face; his mouth was not as tight. It must be the light, or perhaps I had merely imagined the exhaustion and tension enveloping him earlier. I had just woken up, after all I had still been groggy. I didn’t think that was the case, but whatever he had discovered while he been gone had definitely put some life back into him.
He was staring at me. His expression which was usually hard, and composed, was neither of those things. Now it was soft, lax, with a longing to it that left me breathless and trembling. I didn’t understand how just one look from him could have such a profound effect on me, but it did, and I found that in that brief moment it was enough to make me feel almost normal again. His smile was soft, warming, and so beautiful that I could not help but return it.
My attention was torn away from him as Abby began to stir, groaning softly as she stretched her arms and back. I sighed in resignation, not at all looking forward to the next leg of our journey, but knowing that we had to go. And soon. Abby sat up as Cade strode over and began to gently shake Jenna awake.
***
We struggled to clamor over top of the hill. As much physical activity as I had been doing lately, I was still panting for breath, and my legs were shaking by the time we reached the top. I rose to my full height, surveying the slope of the hill as it fell sharply toward the highway. I was struggling to just breathe through my mouth. It was not working though, the scent of garbage and rot was strong, repugnant, and inescapable in the hot sun of the humid day. None of us had wanted to make our way through the dump toward the highway; unfortunately it had seemed like the safest option, and we could move through the day instead of having to stop again. The awful stench of the trash would mask our scents, and make it difficult to follow us, if they did happen to track by scent. There were also numerous places to hide amongst the heaping mounds of awful refuge.
I had thought I was filthy and smelly before, it was nothing compared to now. Not to mention the gut wrenching, horrific bugs that we discovered amongst the overwhelming mounds of waste. What little food had been in my stomach was now gone. I continued to dry heave, but there was nothing left in me to lose. Abby had been crying softly, but she was now eerily silent. We were not so fortunate when it came to Jenna. She hadn’t stopped complaining since the moment we’d scaled the fence into the dump.
“I want to go home. I can’t… I can’t. I just want to go home.”
“You have to Jenna. There is no home to go to anymore,” Cade said softly, and not for the first time.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to break down and beg to go home too. I wanted to flee down the mound, bolt out of the dump, and breathe fresh air again. Though I was certain I was never going to get the stench scrubbed off of me, or rid myself of the squishy, crawly, creepy feeling of bugs climbing and slithering over me. I shuddered, my gaze traveled down the massive mound.
At least it was downhill from here.
Jenna began to cry again. Cade wrapped his arm around her shoulders, looking to soothe her, but it wasn’t working. “My parents,” she whimpered. I tore my attention away from the endless garbage. It was the first time she had mentioned them in a long time. There was so much sorrow in her voice, so much misery in her small body. Pain ripped through my heart, my throat burned with tears. “They’re probably dead.”
We had also lost our mother but Abby, Aiden, and I had survived such a loss before. It didn’t make the loss any easier, but we were better prepared to deal with it than Jenna or Bret. And now Jenna’s shock over this whole situation was wearing off, and in the middle of a massive pile of crap she was beginning to fall apart. She was starting to accept reality, and her grief was threatening to consume her. Unfortunately her breakdown threatened all of our lives.
“Shh Jenna, shush now, it’s ok,” Cade tried to soothe.
“It’s not ok!” she wailed. “It will never be ok again!”
Abby’s mahogany eyes widened, dirt and some weird ooze streaked her pale skin. Her lower lip trembled slightly, but tears did not fill her eyes. She straightened her delicate shoulders, pulling at the strap of her tattered tank top as it slid to the side. I gave Cade credit for the fact that he did not argue with Jenna, did not try to lie to her and tell her that it would be ok. We all knew that it more than likely wouldn’t.
Instead, Cade continued to comfort her as we struggled forward through the sucking, heaping, rotten mess beneath us. Abby made her way over to me, slipping her hand silently into mine. Jenna was weeping softly, her head buried against Cade’s chest, her shoulders shaking as they made their way forward.
I missed our mother, I wished things were different. I wished that we had been able to save her. I wished that we would have the chance to lay her to rest, and grieve for her the way that we had been able to grieve for our father. I couldn’t think about her remaining trapped beneath that rubble forever, it was too painful. It made me feel like a disappointment to her. But even more, I wished that Jenna di
dn’t have to know what it felt like to be lost, adrift, tossed about in the sea of mourning and anguish that opened upon losing a parent. We had never really liked each other, but the sorrow she was going through now was not something I would wish on my most hated enemy, even if I had one.
“One day Jenna, it will not hurt so bad.” Cade’s eyes met mine over top of Jenna’s head. They were not the same words he had uttered to me on that long ago day, but they were along the same lines. “One day the agony will not be so consuming.”
The words were true, but they did not hint at the gaping hole that the loss would leave behind. We stumbled, slid, slipped, and staggered our way down the garbage heap. I tried to use my shirt to cover my nose, it helped a little but the annoyance it caused was not worth the little aid it provided.
“Awful,” Abby whispered.
I wanted to agree, but I couldn’t find the words to describe this miserable experience. The pile began to even out, leveling across the ground. The end to the sea of crap seemed to finally be in sight, though I was certain we would never escape the smell. I could taste its awfulness on my tongue. This place would haunt my memories until the end of my days. I shuddered, drawing strength from Abby’s slender frame as we picked our way through the smaller layer of trash.
I glanced toward the sky, surprised by the lack of seagulls and crows fluttering through the air. They always circled the dump, cawing and diving for food. In fact, even though we had trudged through a veritable mountain of wasted food, I was stunned to realize that we had not encountered any wildlife. No birds, no rodents, not even a few stray cats or dogs were hanging around looking to be fed.
I froze, scanning rapidly over the heaping mounds stretching around us. The birds had been singing this morning, and now…
And now there was nothing again.
I pulled Abby back, stopping her before she continued onward. “Bethany!” she hissed.
I shook my head at her, scanning the pristine sky again. It was hot; maybe the animals were seeking the sanctuary of the shade. But all of them? It seemed not only unlikely but nearly impossible.
“Bethy come on, I want to get out of here!”
“Shh Abby!”
Cade and Jenna had stopped walking; they were staring at me with confusion and impatience. “Come on Bethany.”
“Something’s not right.”
“No kidding!” Jenna retorted.
I didn’t rise to her snippy attitude; instead I released Abby and began to move slowly back the way we had come. “Bethany!”
I held up a hand to forestall Cade’s hissed words. One of the greatest things I had experienced in the past day was finally making the decent down this veritable mountain of crap, and now I was crazily clawing my way back up it. And it was just as awful, and exhausting, as I remembered. I struggled through the trash as it skidded and slipped out from underneath me, making the climb even more difficult. My legs ached, my lungs were beginning to burn again, but finally I made it to a small peak in the rubble.
I rose slowly, my gaze scanning over the hills spanning out before me. I glanced back toward the sky, but there was still nothing there. Across the tons of trash I spotted movement on the far side of the heap. And it was coming closer. I watched, straining my eyes to make it out, struggling to see what was across the way. The heat, and waves of decomposition rising off of the pile, made whatever it was blurry and hard to discern. It could be anything, it could be the missing animals, it could be more people, but a crushing sense of impending doom was beginning to descend over me.
Panic worked its way through my body; I didn’t need to see what was coming to know that it was not going to be good. I turned, fleeing back down the pile, slipping and sliding, skidding and tripping through the disgusting mess. My feet skidded out from under me, I cried out, losing complete control of my body as I plummeted, rolled, and bounced painfully through the disgusting filth.
Hands grasped hold of my arms, rescuing me from being buried within the mound as they pulled me from the filth cascading upon me. Crap was pulled off of me, brushed away, thrown to the ground in a useless attempt to clean me a little. “What is it?” Cade demanded his hands surprisingly gentle on my skin as his gaze trailed back up the mountain. “Bethany, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” I panted, trying hard not to think about the filth and bugs that I had just rolled and squished through. “It’s not good though. I think they’re still tracking us. We need to move faster. Now.”
Cade grabbed hold of my arm, running and jumping through the trash as we tried to move as fast as we could through the pile of calf high rubbish. We reached Abby and Jenna but Cade did not release me as he continued to drag me forward. I seized hold of Abby’s hand, tugging her along with me, my heart hammering in panic as the garbage seemed to suck and pull at us even more than it had before. We were never going to escape; the refuse was never going to let us go. It was going to mire us down until those things were upon us, until we were nothing more than useless bodies added to the debris scattered around us. We would be nothing more than garbage in just a matter of moments.
Rationally I knew that the trash heap did not have thoughts, and was not actually on the side of the aliens, but right now it seemed as much of an enemy to me as the monsters hunting us. I was convinced that it wanted our bodies to feed it, and it was doing everything it could to make sure we were trapped here to nourish it.
And then, suddenly, the garbage released us. I stumbled forward, nearly falling to my knees as the waste gave out and pavement rushed up to meet us. Abby gave a startled cry but helped to pull me back to my feet. “This way,” Cade panted finally releasing me as he darted toward the right.
I didn’t know where we were going; I had never been here before. I didn’t ever want to return either, and I sure as hell did not want my final resting place to be here. I was surprised when we turned a corner of the mountain and a giant warehouse came into view. One of the massive garage doors was open, revealing the shadowed, barely visible interior. I balked against going inside as Cade plunged into the darkness. The last thing I wanted was to go in there, the last thing I wanted was to be cornered and trapped, and killed amongst the giant walls of darkness.
“Bethy,” Abby breathed when I hesitated. “Bethany please.”
Fear of imminent death outweighed my fear of being trapped within the cavernous building. I darted through the open doorway as Cade began to pull some ropes, rapidly lowering the massive garage door. “Wait!” I gasped, terror spurting through me.
“It needs to be done,” he grated, his jaw clenched tight and a muscle jumping in his cheek. He had been lowering the door so swiftly, and rapidly, that I hadn’t realized it was heavy and he was struggling not to let it crash down. It settled quietly into place with only a small clatter of metal on pavement. “This way.”
“How do you know where we’re going?” Abby asked quietly.
“I don’t.”
I shuddered at Cade’s words but followed silently behind as he led us through the building. There were small windows up high in the lofty walls, but they didn’t light much of the massive structure. It was hard to make out much within the shadowed interior. I could still smell the rotten stench of trash, but I saw no sign of it within the building. It was the four of us that were bringing that scent with us, a scent that would be easily traceable within these deserted walls. If I thought it would help to rid ourselves of our clothes, I would have gladly stripped from the offending garments, but the disgusting odor was engrained into our skin and hair by now.
We reached an area that had steel piping around five gaping holes in the ground. I leaned over the pipe railing, peering into the shadowed deaths. Something glinted within the sunlight, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. “Recyclables,” Cade explained.
That was why this building didn’t reek, I realized. Unfortunately the fact that this was where the recyclables were brought did little to aid our cause. It would have been better if they wer
e giant bins of trash instead of non-smelly recyclables. Cade moved swiftly past the bins, heading toward the shadowed back wall. Abby’s hand was tight in mine, her grip nearly bone cracking as Cade vanished from sight. Jenna followed swiftly behind and then Abby and I slipped into the small back room.
It was apparently the workers break room as there were two tables with five chairs crammed around them. A microwave, TV and radio, and four different vending machines were against the wall. Cade stopped, his head tilted as he studied the machines with narrowed eyes. Moving swiftly he tore his shirt off. I blinked in surprise as he wrapped it rapidly around his hand. I was confused by his actions, but I couldn’t help but admire the flex and play of his lean muscles and hard stomach as he stalked toward the glass fronted machine.
I didn’t quite process what he intended until he began to punch out the glass. I jumped in surprise, wincing as the glass trickled to the ground. It sounded as loud as gunshots to me, but I tried to assure myself that it was not nearly as loud as I thought it was. That, in fact, it was relatively quiet considering the circumstances.
He grabbed hold of the bag of guns, dragging it toward him. I hurried to help him as he unzipped the bag and we began to stuff it full of the chips, cookies, and candies stored within the machine. It wasn’t the healthiest assortment, but it was much better than starvation.
Cade zipped the bag tightly closed and sat back. I knew I should stop staring at him, stop watching the smooth play of skin over his lean muscles, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear my gaze away. There was no smug male pride in his gaze as he caught me admiring him. Instead, a fierce longing blazed to life with such intensity that I found I could no longer breathe. In fact, I could no longer recall anything except for him.
It was the feel of Jenna’s gaze on me that finally tore my attention from Cade. I did not look at her; I was too ashamed to as I ducked my head and turned back toward the doorway we had come through. I had to force my thoughts away from him as I strained to hear anything, but it was eerily quiet in the large building. Too quiet.