I Hope You Find Me (6 page)

“Oh, almost forgot.” He got up and returned
to the kitchen, and gestured at a bowl near the stove. “Can she
have this?” He asked me.

“Sure.” I watched as Zoey flew off the sofa
and trotted into the kitchen and began licking at the food. Before
Connor sat back down the bowl was half empty. The heat of his
partially naked leg radiated through my jeans again, but I didn’t
want to move away. His warmth felt comforting.

The first bite was delicious. “It’s very
good. Thank you.” I said to him, after my second swallow. I pushed
my bangs out of my eyes as I leaned in for another spoonful. I was
unusually comfortable around Connor already, but the meal still
felt awkward in a way.

We ate in silence for a while, sipping our
wine in between bites. Half way through the meal Zoey stretched out
along the top of the sofa again, lying on her stomach with all four
legs dangling over the edge of the cushions and within seconds she
was snoring. I offered to clean the dishes but Connor joined me
near the sink and towel dried as I washed. Twenty minutes later and
the kitchen was clean and the small talk was over.

Connor disappeared into his room for a bit
and returned to announce the clothes were in the dryer. “Should be
ready in an hour or so.” He was wearing a loose fitting white
cotton shirt and sweats.

“Thanks.” I smiled in his direction and
topped my glass off with wine before crossing the room to sit down
on the couch opposite from Zoey. I didn’t want to disturb her,
since she seemed to be getting the best nap she’d had in weeks.

Connor did the same with his glass and
surprised me by sitting down next to me. He sat at an angle, with
one of his legs on the coffee table, and the other bent at the
knee, resting on the cushion not far from my feet. I wasn’t sure if
I should move away from him, or stay still.
Don’t you dare
move!
A small voice inside me screamed.

“So,” he began after clearing his throat,
“You want to leave the City and go where exactly?” He was staring
at me, sipping his wine. His hair was dry now, his waves tousled
and a bit wild looking. The darkness of his hair contrasted with
his fair skin and clear blue eyes. He blinked and I jerked my gaze
away.

“Yes. Well, that’s the million dollar
question isn’t it?” I thought to myself for a moment and then
added, “I called my friends and family, and some of them live out
of State. I think this, whatever it is, spread out all across North
America.” I risked looking in his direction.

He was nodding, and said quietly, “It’s not
just North America. It’s overseas too.” He shifted a bit, settling
further into the cushions and took a long drink from his glass
before continuing.

“The last time I spoke to my family was
almost two weeks ago. My parents, who are in Dublin, were on their
way to the Hospital. Everyone I spoke to in London was sick.” He
paused there, as if considering what he said. “There were others I
couldn’t get a hold of. I don’t know what happened to them.” His
words came out heavy and soon he seemed lost in his thoughts.

We sat there, unconsciously listening to the
dog snoring. After a bit I broke the silence, “So are you from
Ireland, or London? I can’t quite place your accent.” I took a sip
of wine.

“Me, I’m from Dublin,” he said.

“I thought so, but your accent’s very faint.”
I waited for him to explain further, and when he didn’t I continued
on. “I’m Irish too. Not directly, but a lot of my ancestors were
Irish.” I smiled at him. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Is that so?” He asked, and smiled back at
me, looking first at my blue eyes, and then to my blonde hair – as
if sizing me up.

“Have you ever been?”

“To Ireland?” I snickered softly, “No, I
haven’t been out of the Country. I planned to go there, but I think
deep down I knew if I did, I would never come back
here.”

Connor laughed long and hard, and tossed back
the rest of his wine. “Maybe one day.” The words hung in the air as
he stood up, and with his hands on his hips he stretched his back.
We said good night to each other and retreated to our separate
bedrooms, with the exception of Zoey, who was still asleep on the
sofa.

***

I left my door cracked open for the dog. I
knew eventually she would wake and go looking for me. So in the
early hours of morning when I felt the gentle pressure of the
bedspread move next to me and a body snuggle up against mine I
wasn’t alarmed…not until an arm slid over my side and a hand rested
on my stomach. Startled, I yelped and pushed myself up in bed and
banged into the wooden headboard loud enough to make Zoey bark at
the echo from the other room. She came running into the bedroom
growling, and Connor came rushing in behind her a moment later,
looking a bit dazed.

“What…?” Connor mumbled, rubbing at his face
with one hand, the other holding onto the wine bottle we had
emptied earlier in the night.

“
Someone’s in here.
” I whispered. I
kept my eyes on the bed as I fumbled with the bedside lamp until I
found the switch. Light flooded the room but it still felt
dark.

Zoey stood at attention near the door, and
only when the light came on did she stop growling. She jumped onto
the bed and turned in circles sniffing the blankets and pillows.
Eventually she sat down near me and rested her head on my legs. She
whimpered at me and I absentmindedly began rubbing the top of her
head. My hand found her ears and scratched behind them. I was
trembling all over.

“No one’s in here but us.” Connor said, still
sounding sleepy. He put the bottle down on a small dresser near the
door.

“I swear someone was in this bed next to me.”
I looked around nervously. The only place someone could have gone
was into the bathroom or under the bed. I drew my legs up to my
knees, suddenly feeling like I was eight years old again. Zoey
shifted and laid her head on her paws and watched as Connor flipped
the bathroom light on.

“All clear in here.” He said, as he leaned
into the bathroom door frame, his arms crossed at his chest. He
made no attempt to cover a yawn.

He was obviously not going to check under the
bed. So I bent forward and rolled onto my stomach and leaned over
the side, slowly pulling up the sheet and blanket to peer under the
mattress. As my eyes adjusted all I could see was the carpet,
shrouded in night, but then the other side of the bedspread flipped
up and there were Connor’s eyes, looking back at me. A strangled
scream escaped my mouth before I registered it was his face and not
some intruder’s and I lost my balance and slid off the bed,
crumpling into a heap on the floor. I lay there on my back a
moment, breathing heavily while Connor sat on the edge of the bed,
laughing at my expense.

“Oh, shut up.” I said, half serious, as I
stood and straightened my tank top. “You scared the crap out of me,
what were you thinking?”

“Did you really think someone was under the
bed?” Connor replied, holding one of his hands up to his mouth to
cover his smile.

“Something
was
in here. I felt someone
lay down right next to me!” I stood with my arms crossed and an
indignant look on my face. I was half tempted to stick my lower lip
out at him in a petulant pout.

“You were probably dreaming.” He paused and
glanced around the room seriously. “I’ve had some strange dreams
myself lately.”

“I wasn’t dreaming.” I glared at him, aware
that my face was flushed with heat.

“Okay, you weren’t dreaming, but nothing is
here now. Except the three of us, of course.” He gestured around
the room. He stood and ran his hand through his hair, a move I
found more enticing every time I saw it, which immediately annoyed
me.

Connor moved toward the door, and turned to
face me. “You going to be okay in here?”

I rolled my eyes at him, and patted the space
next to me as I slipped back under the covers. “I’ll be fine; I’ll
keep Zoey in here.”

“Okay, good night then.” He smiled, and
closed the door behind him.

***

Connor lay still in his bed, resting on his
back with his arms shoved beneath the pillow, staring up at the
ceiling tiles. The room glowed slightly from the moon, making
everything around him the same dusty, bluish-grey color. His room
smelled faintly of detergent and wet dog as he replayed the day’s
events in his mind.

He had been startled awake earlier that
morning by a loud explosion that vibrated through the hotel. He had
seen the smoke in the distance and wasn’t sure but it looked to be
coming from near the airport and he wondered if a plane had tried
to land, and crashed instead. So when the smoke got worse instead
of better, he set out with a days’ worth of supplies in the
afternoon to see what happened. He had been to the airport just
last week. There were so many bodies inside and the runway was
littered with planes that even if someone was left to fly them,
they wouldn’t be able to taxi down the runway. He doubted a plane
could land at all but perhaps someone had tried anyway? Either way,
it was worth seeing what was going on.

He weaved through the streets, walking
briskly, with his hands shoved into his pockets. As he rounded a
street corner he stopped short as somewhere in the distance a dog
barked loudly. He stood still, holding his breath, listening. The
barking stopped as abruptly as it started, so he couldn’t pin-point
its location. The streets seemed hollow, and sounds bounced off the
buildings, making it nearly impossible to find the source.

He stepped off the curb, still moving in the
direction he thought was west when he heard a yell. It sounded just
as far away as the dog, and again, he stopped to listen. He turned
in circles, as the echoes vibrated down the streets and felt
confident it wasn’t coming from behind him. He broke into a run,
still moving west, and after passing through one city block the
yelling stopped. It sounded like a child or a woman, calling for
someone. He wasn’t sure, but he did know one thing, he wasn’t alone
after all.

He waited for more yells to come, even
whistled a few times, hoping to hear the dog, but all was quiet
once again, so he continued to jog down the streets, his pack
slapping against his back with each stride, but he ignored it. He
stopped only in the intersections to look down each street and
listen. He ran nearly four blocks when he saw the first glints of
the bay ahead of him. Though he was still almost a mile away from
the shore, far off in the distance he thought he saw a tiny figure
blotting out the sun for a second, before it passed behind a
building and was gone. He began to run again, this time at full
speed. He wanted to find whoever it was before they
disappeared.

A handful of minutes later and the street he
was running on merged into Harbor Drive. The bay lay before him,
old ships docked to his left, and larger, private and commercial
vessels intertwined with small floating piers to his right. He
looked down the street to the south, where the figure had
disappeared, and glanced up North Harbor Drive before noticing the
smoke in the sky. The airport had to be on fire.

“
Fuck.” He said quietly.

Out of breath, he stood frozen in place, not
sure where to go next, when to his left he heard a woman’s voice in
the distance. After crossing the street, he jogged half a block,
peering into buildings and around the boats. And then he saw her.
Down the street, and across a parking lot, at the end of one of the
piers he saw a girl jump into the water, and what looked like a
black dog jumping in after her. He crossed the road and ran along
the sidewalk, looking for a way down to the docks. By the time he
made it to the parking lot, he couldn’t see her anymore, and wasn’t
sure which pier she was near, so he paced the shore line, hopping
along the rocks that lined the bay, hoping to catch sight of her.
He could hear barking, but couldn’t see them, anywhere.

Frustrated, he retraced his steps through
the parking lot and jogged to the end, where a large commercial
pier stood jetted out behind a seafood restaurant. At the end, he
saw them swimming back to the pier.

“
Hey!” He shouted, and waved his arms…but
the woman didn’t respond.

He ran back down the pier and returned to
the smaller docks, until he found the one she was closest to. He
dropped his pack at the gate, and jogged by the boat slips, the
breeze above the water was cold, easily biting through his clothing
and chilling his skin. There were so many places in between the
boats that she could be, that it took him a full minute to reach
the end and in the middle was a bag next to a pile of clothing.

After looking down the side of the dock for
any sign of life, he saw the dog first, paddling around in circles.
He stepped to the edge and noticed pale white fingers holding onto
the edge of the pier, he looked down, and there they were, treading
water, several feet below him. An attractive long-haired woman with
dark blue eyes was holding on for dear life, wearing not much of
anything, and the dog splashed around her feet, clearly not sure of
what to do. After fishing them both out of the water he knew then
there was hope. Hope that others were out there.

He didn’t regret the rest of the day;
following them to the airport, even though he knew only the dead
were there, and that the place was most likely on fire. And he
didn’t regret inviting them back to the hotel for food and water,
and safe shelter, even though the invitation slipped out of his
mouth before his brain caught on. But he did regret lying to her,
to Riley. When she asked for his name, he froze. Everything was
different now, who he was two months ago didn’t matter, and she
obviously didn’t recognize him.

For years he wanted his privacy back, to
feel normal again, to be seen as normal, to be treated normally, he
just didn’t think it would happen because the world died, leaving
him completely alone. He didn’t think it would happen like this. So
he lied, and gave her his last name. He could be whoever he wanted
to be now and Connor was just as good a name as any other.