Jake and the Other Girl: A Tor.Com Original (2 page)

An O who’d been exposed since the spill was not as big a threat—knowing this made Jake smile a bit.

Made his chances of making it to Denver better, if that’s what he ended up doing. Too soon to tell, and he would go wherever he wanted.

17285. 17325. Yes—17355.

Lindsay’s house had a broken window, but he saw plastic sheeting fluttering near the hole. The sign had said,
Mommy, come home,
right? There was a chance she was there.

He went around to the back, turning on his headlamp now. If there was anyone hiding around back, he’d rather get a glimpse of them before being attacked.

“Lindsay?” he called softly. “Linds?”

In the backyard, their love seat swing thingy was overturned. Jake stepped on something, a broken rake, and it swung to the side and hit the house.

Then he heard Barksly. Jake smiled. He had forgotten Lindsay’s giant, dopey labradoodle.

Barksly loved Jake and Lindsay loved Barksly and, somehow, that she put up with a dog so sloppily enthusiastic had made Jake feel more confident around her.

The barks were coming from inside.

Jake stepped up onto the back porch. It looked exactly the same as he remembered it, down to the scuffed soccer cleats and shin guards discarded next to the door.

“Barksly,” Jake called. “Where are you, boy?”

Inside, the dog went nuts.

Jake knocked. No one answered. Duh. He tried the door and the knob turned easily. That seemed very bad to Jake and he prepared himself to be about to find Lindsay dead with her family.

If that was so, he’d rescue the dog and be off to Denver, then. No need to go to his own house. His dad would be long gone already—he worked in Denver. Would have been there on the day of the spill.

Would be good to have a dog. Would warn him when monsters like that O guy came out of nowhere.

“Lindsay?” Jake called, entering slowly. “Barksly?”

The dog was in the basement. The door was right in the kitchen. Jake could hear the dog scratching at it and trying to throw himself at the door—but tumbling down the stairs in between hits.

“Take it easy, Barksly!” Jake called.

The handle was locked.

Jake looked around. He’d get the dog out first and then explore the rest of the house. If there was anything horrible, the dog would find it first.

He opened a drawer and found a meat tenderizer—the kind with a big metal cube that was flat on one side and covered with little pyramids on the other.

Didn’t take Jake more than three strikes to knock the handle clear off.

Barksly was going insane.

Jake stuck his finger into the hole from the door handle and pulled it open.

Here, he realized he’d made a mistake, because as Barksly tried to push through to Jake, Jake realized the door had been sealed in sheets of plastic.

“Get back,” he told the dog. Instead of letting the dog come out to the kitchen, Jake pushed through, pulling loose the tape on the side of the plastic.

He entered the basement and grabbed the dog’s collar and tried to pull the door closed as quickly as he could.

He had breached the air.

That could be deadly for anyone downstairs, if there was anyone alive downstairs.

Barksly was all over Jake. “All right! Down, boy. Yeah, it’s me, but get down.”

He had to get off the stairs or the big, dopey dog would make him break his neck.

He came down the stairs and saw, now, that the space was inhabited, for sure.

Jake had been in the basement before. It was a big room with a mirrored wall running on one side, some exercise equipment, and one of those highly padded leather sofa sets for watching the bigtab that hung on the opposite wall.

No windows = a good place to hole up.

Now there were candles lined up against the mirror, and dark plumes stretching up the glass from candle soot. The exercise equipment was all pushed to the side and on it, and on the floor under it, Jake could see boxes of food, canned stuff, and a few dishes and cups. Some trash.

“Lindsay?” Jake called.

There was a laundry room off to the side. Lindsay had insisted on washing his sweats during lunch one day. She’d said he smelled like a goat. They’d gone at it on the floor of the laundry room, carpeted, and then he’d got her up on the washing machine during the spin cycle.

Barksly was acting strange now. Moving toward Jake, who was at the bottom of the stairs, and then toward a pile of blankets in the corner, stuffed in the square of empty space between the couch and the love seat.

Jake’s heart was pounding. Was he about to find the corpse of his lunch buddy in the corner?

Maybe Barksly had been gnawing on her. That would be hard to take.

And then Jake heard music.

In the light of his LED headlamp, the pile of blankets moved. A hand came up. Then the music got louder. Jake got it—earbuds coming out of ears and the music pouring out.

“Linds?” Jake called. “It’s me, Jake.”

And then her head popped up, her black hair falling away from her face.

“Jake?!”

“Yeah! I came to check on you.”

“How’d you get in?” Then, “The air!”

She scrambled out from her nest of blankets and groped for a fireplace lighter. She started lighting the candles.

And then BAM!

A hollow bang, coming to Jake’s left.

BAM!

“WRAAUGH!” from the laundry room.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Barksly whined and slunk behind the love seat.

“Help me!” Lindsay said. She threw Jake the lighter. He tossed his backpack down and started lighting any candle that had wax left in it.

“It’s my dad,” Lindsay said.

Lindsay picked up what looked like a bundle of twigs and lit it off a candle.

“Smudge stick. It cleans the air,” she told Jake.

Grunts and howls of rage came from the laundry room.

She brought the lit twigs over to the door.

Behind it her father raged. BAM! BAM! BAM!

“I think he’s got an old piece of pipe from the boiler. He keeps hitting the door,” she said by way of explanation. “But the door is metal.”

She waved the smudge stick along the space at the bottom of the door.

“I’ll check the seal,” Jake offered. He went back up the stairs and patted the duct tape holding the sheeting down around the door. It only held so-so. He pressed the tape down hard.

“Do you have more tape?” he asked.

“No.”

He pressed down harder.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay. I have to open it once in a while anyway because the air gets really skanky with me and the dog. I take out the trash. My dad goes crazy. Then he calms down after a while.”

Even now, Jake could hear that the curses from the laundry room had turned to moans and weeping.

“It’s okay, Dad,” Lindsay called. “It’s going to be okay.”

Lindsay looked at Jake and put her finger to her lips. Shhh.

Jake nodded okay, though he didn’t know why he was being told to shush.

He dropped onto the stuffed chair. Barksly jumped up on his lap. Jake scruffled the dog’s neck. The dog loved it.

Lindsay came over and reached behind Jake, into the nest of blankets.

She took out an old-fashioned boom box, the kind that played CDs, and unplugged her earbud jack. The room filled with the sound of Bruno Mars.

“I don’t want my Dad to know you’re here,” Lindsay said. She took the boom box and put it in front of the laundry room door.

“You don’t think he heard me already?” Jake asked quietly.

“He’s not himself when he’s O. But he’ll get back to normal soon and I don’t want him to know.”

She looked up at him, pleading with him for some reason.

“Sure,” Jake said. “I’ll keep it down. Fine.”

She was wearing a sweatshirt he remembered. It was cut so it would hang off her, showing neck and shoulder and that little bit of fat next to her breast. That delicious part of a girl between the armpit and the tit.

There it was. Lord almighty, she was maybe the only girl in the state of Colorado who could get his blood up.

“I brought something for you,” Jake said. He grabbed his backpack and rummaged through it. Every stupid thing was jammed in and in the way.

He took out the handgun and put it to the side.

He heard Lindsay gasp.

“Don’t mind that,” he said. “That’s not for you. Obviously.”

It didn’t exactly make sense, what he’d said, but she always made him feel nervous and awkward. Maybe it was the way her big, dark eyes watched him. Like they were watching him now.

“Here it is!” And he brought it out. A Snickers bar. Sized to share. How awesome was it that he’d chucked one in his backpack before leaving the store?

Sweet coincidence. Seriously.

“Oh, my God,” she said, and she started to laugh. She laughed and Jake’s face went red. Then she kept laughing and laughed so hard, she crossed over to the boom box and cranked it up all the way.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. The last spasms of laughter leaving her giggling, then serious, then giggling again. She collapsed onto the couch,

“God love you, Jake Simonsen. You braved the apocalypse for a booty call.”

Now that she was smiling at him, a grin on her face, Jake could chuckle, too. He knew he was still blushing. Probably blushing all the way to the scalp.

“You know my Dad’s in the next room,” she said.

“Yeah, well. I know now. I didn’t … obviously I didn’t, when I came. I mean … I didn’t know whether you’d be alive or dead or what.”

Lindsay drew up her knees onto the couch with her. Her sweatshirt fell off her shoulder just a little more.

Yeah, she did it for him.

Look, everyone knew that Jake lived for sex. It was his thing. He was handsome and popular and he talked about it—how sex ruled his life. People liked him for it; Jake knew they did because everyone laughed when he talked abut it, and not an uncomfortable laugh either, but a loosening-up, warming-up laugh.

He’d have rather had O type rage or be an A type who might blister up if he went outside. He’d have much rather been AB.

But no, the chemical warfare compounds that had leeched into the sky when the earthquake cracked the hull of Mount NORAD had taken Jake’s most important joy away—his ability to get it up.

Now, here was a girl who kindled that fire and that fact was reason enough to celebrate.

Jake threw the Snickers bar at Lindsay. She caught it.

“Eat your chocolate,” he drawled, with his lopsided grin, and she laughed. Jake plopped down on the easy chair. Barksly put his two front feet up on the chair and buried his face in Jake’s crotch.

“Down, Barksly, down.” Jake said. “Lord, this dog does not know the meaning of the word ‘down.’”

“I know it,” Lindsay said. “I’m glad to see you Jake. I can’t tell you how glad I am.”

She got up and went to the corner, where she had three plastic milk jugs filled with water. She poured a cup and brought it to him.

“We have a well,” she told him. “I get it from the laundry room sink when my dad’s asleep. It’s pretty yummy.”

It was pretty yummy. Had a cold, mineral taste. Jake gulped it down.

He had a feeling like a golden wreath around his heart. It was good he had come.

It was right he had left the others. They didn’t need him and this girl did.

Now came a sob from the other side of the door and a different kind of bang.

Lindsay got up and crossed to the other side of the room. She turned down the music.

“You okay, Dad?” she said toward the doorframe.

“I’m sorry,” he wept from inside. “You have to leave me, Lindsay. You need to go.”

Lindsay flashed a look at Jake. What was the look—maybe seeing how this looked to him? Jeez, he had no judgment about it.

“I won’t leave you, Daddy,” she said.

“You have to go!” he shouted.

Lindsay jumped, tears coming into her eyes.

“Please…” he pleaded. “Please leave me.”

“Shhh. You should sleep now. Go to sleep.”

“I’m kind of hungry.”

“I’ll put in more food when you’re asleep,” she said, checking again to see Jake’s reaction.

“What happened, anyway?” her father asked.

“I just had to take out the trash,” she lied. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you first.”

“You have to give me time to get myself tied up while I’m still in control.”

“Sorry, Daddy. The plastic around the door got loose," she told him. “But I fixed it.”

“The next time you go out, look for a chain and a lock. I’m not satisfied this rope will hold.”

Lindsay was looking at the floor.

“If I got loose, Lindsay…” his voice trailed off in a kind of a sob.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” she said. “I’ll be able to protect myself, even if you get loose.”

And here she caught Jake’s eye and held it.

“I got hold of a gun.”

*   *   *

Lindsay changed the CD in the boom box. Old-fashioned rock and roll.

Jake couldn’t place it.

“Thanks, sweetie. That’s nice,” said Lindsay’s father.

Lindsay turned it up pretty loud.

Then she came and sat close to Jake, on the love seat.

“Who is this, again?” Jake whispered, leaning in to her.

“U2. My dad’s favorite band.”

“What does that thing run on, anyway?” Jake asked.

"Good old-fashioned D batteries. Luckily, my mom kind of hoarded batteries. Along with candles. She had a fear of blackouts.”

Jake didn’t know what to say, exactly—with the blackout cloud over the area, Lindsay’s mom was flat out of luck.

Lindsay shrugged. “She never came home after the hailstorm. I think she must be dead somewhere.”

The lead singer of U2 was singing about a beautiful day.

“My dad killed our neighbors,” Lindsay said, looking at her nails. “The Cruzes. He would have killed me, too, only I got a rope around his neck and I choked him until he blacked out.”

“God,” Jake said.

“He wants me to leave, but I won’t. I go in there when he’s asleep or tied up and leave food for him. But sometimes he still attacks me, even when the air is okay. Something’s wrong with his head, I think.”

Honestly, Jake was waiting for her to start crying so he could comfort her. He couldn’t wait to get a hand under that sweatshirt.