The Beginning at the End of the World: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Series (The Survivor Diaries Book 2) (24 page)

He lit the candle, and I jumped towards him. “Stop, you’ll asphyxiate us.”

“No, not with a few candles. That’s only if we build a fire,” he explained.

I realized that his voice sounded worried. I had never heard him worried before, even with all that we have been through.

He started heating the ice with the candle while he watched me. “Laura, you’re not breathing. Breathe.”

“Okay,” I said stupidly. More cracking happened right next to my head, and I moved closer to him, right into his flank, as a matter of fact.

“Good. It’s melting. See?” he held the cup up to me.

I nodded and took it from him, even though the ice hadn’t all melted yet. He pulled it away from me just before I got a sip.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s for you to use to get the pills down. And it needs to melt more so that you don’t freeze from the inside out.”

I nodded, “Rrrrriiigghttt. The, the pills are right here.” I showed him my fist again.

He looked at me for a moment. “I am going to just talk to you until this is melted, okay? And I want you to just listen to my voice, and don’t think about anything else. It’s just you and me and the sound of my voice.”

“The walls are breaking,” I told him.

“That’s just your tacky-phobia,” he told me earnestly.

“Taphophobia. Tacky, tacky-phobia must be a fear of ugly clothes,” I told him, equally as earnest.

Jackson’s laughter started as a low rumble. When I thought about what I had said, I even chuckled.

“Okay, here’s the water,” Jackson said, handing me the cup. “Take your pills, and drink it all.”

I did as he told me. The water helped wash down the burning of the bile in my throat.

“Now, I am going to take care of the body, but I don’t want you to watch me. Promise you won’t watch.”

“I wo… won’t,” I said.

I closed my eyes and rocked back and forth. Jackson began to hum the song that he sang at the Christmas party, but he couldn’t cover the sound of the tarp dragging on the ice.

“Laura?” he said, as I heard the sound of him picking away at the ice again. “Are you still breathing?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Just keep focusing on your breathing, or you will pass out,” he told me.

“You can stop that. I don’t need any more water,” I said.

“That’s not what I’m doing. Just keep breathing.”

“Stop telling me that. I get it, breathe. Wh, wh, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to make a groove in the wall to tuck the body into so it freezes.”

“Why are you freezing him? Don’t, don’t freeze him.” My voice hit a high pitch that I couldn’t control.

“Honey, he can’t feel it anymore. He’s gone. I just want to keep his body from excreting an odor when I figure out how to warm it up in here, that’s all.”

“Okay,” I said.

It was then that I noticed how cold it really was. I must have been shivering for a while, because my stomach muscles were clenched and aching. I looked down at my clothes and noticed that my shirt was crusted with now freezing blood. I gasped and flinched at the realization.

Jackson looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Bleeding,” I said.

“You’re not bleeding, that’s his blood. You are okay. I won’t let anything more happen to you.” He stopped what he was doing and began to look around again. “Hallelujah,” he proclaimed.

He brought over some towels, rubbing alcohol and a snow uniform and handed them to me.

“Here’s what you are going to do,” he told me in a melodic tone. He went back to scraping the walls. “You have to take off everything you are wearing, including bra and panties. Okay? Put the blankets around you. Then you need to clean all of the blood off of your skin. Okay, darlin’? Dry yourself with another blanket really good. Put on that uniform when you are all done. Okay, honey? Do you need me to help?”

“Okay,” I said. “No, I, I can…”

I put the camera on a chair and turned it to face a wall. I still wanted to get this all on record, now more than ever. I kept picturing the archeologists in that very snow cave, hundreds of years from now, discovering this scene and my camera.

I pulled off my shirt and bloody icicles that were now attached to my skin tore as I peeled my shirt from my body. I cleaned the top half of myself exactly as I was told. My shoes and socks came next. I was startled to see that even my socks were bloody. I systematically continued until all that was left was my hands. I had no clean socks, so I tucked my body into a sleeping bag, but I was still so cold.

“Ja, Jackson,” I said through chattering teeth. I couldn’t say anymore.

He tried to run to my side, but slid on the bloody ice floor and landed right on top of me.

“Smmmooottthh,” I said.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he told me, but I suspected that he was trying to convince himself that I was okay.

“Bbbblllooooood,” I said and pointed to his shirt.

“Not as much on mine somehow. There are more uniforms over there,” he said as he started to rip the Velcro closures of his shirt. He toweled off his muscular chest and started to pull off his pants, so I turned my head. I assumed he was going to change into a clean uniform, but he started to undress me, next.

I went to slap his hands away, but as soon as I pulled a hand from under the sleeping bag it froze in the air, and I tucked it back under.

“Nnnnoooo,” I said.

“FUCK,” he screamed. “I am not going to let you die of hypothermia. No. Not you. Not now. This is the only way.”

He climbed into the sleeping bag beside me and finished undressing me.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do,” he said, pulling me into his warmth. I never thought him capable of being so uncertain. He always had the answers.

“Laura, what you did out there was real brave,” he said, voice almost trembling. “Please don’t hate me.”

I wanted to cry, but the tears must have frozen in my eyes. I was there when the life left Rolette’s body. I didn’t blame Jackson. He saved everyone. I wished I could tell him that, but I couldn’t even get out a frozen stutter anymore.

The only way that I could communicate that I didn’t blame him about any of it was to push myself closer into his naked body with my own. I could only hope he understood what I was trying to relate to him.

He reached out to the candles and lit them. “They might help some. God damn it, this cave wasn’t built for people. It’s too big. Maybe we should risk it and try and get to a smaller one.”

“Nanana,” I said, shaking my head.

“You would rather die than risk their lives, wouldn’t you?”

I nodded, never losing eye contact with him.

“And you wonder why I’m in love with you,” he said.

My brain stopped at that.

“Okay, let’s go back to breathing,” he said as his chest rose to my back.

I wriggled away from him a bit.

“Don’t worry, it’s not some strange sex move. I was just demonstrating.”

“Nnottt ttthhhaaatt,” I said. Something had gotten my attention outside, but I wasn’t sure what.

A loud blast was going off.

“Oh, no, no, NO,” he said. His face muscles clinched tightly. “It’s Monterey.”

As my body began to warm, I was able to cry.

∞

I woke wearing only the uniform shirt, and I was surrounded by boxes. I was covered with so many blankets I could hardly move. A clothed Jackson was rushing around, arranging things.

I closed my eyes just before I felt him turn to me. I didn’t want him to know that I was awake. I needed to think first.

Even through my drug addled fog, I remembered everything. Monterey was gone, at least partially. And Jackson’s body had been the single most comforting thing I had ever felt. Was that because of my powerful fear? No, it was more. I never, not for one minute, forgot that I was married, but I began to question it all.

I opened my eyes. “Excuse me, sir. Does this outfit come in my size?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you went back to what you weren’t wearing before,” he said under his breath. I guess he thought I couldn’t hear him.

I felt a hot, calloused hand on my cheek as he sat beside me. “We are still here,” he said.

“It seems like it. Is it over?”

“I don’t know, but we haven’t gotten the signal. We need to stay here until we hear it or someone comes to get us,” he said. “It must be dark out now. Once in a while I hear helicopters. I don’t know what’s happening, and it’s pissing me off.”

“I don’t mind being down here anymore, I just wish that it wasn’t with him,” I said, pointing in the direction that Jackson’s voice was coming from earlier.

“I am sorry about that. The body is buried out of sight now, though.”

“Thank you, for everything. It was the right call,” I said.

He leaned back against a box, and his head rolled back to rest on it for support.

I stared up at him. I didn’t feel I needed to speak.

“Good,” he said.

I rested my head on his thigh. He stroked my hair. I felt at peace and something I hadn’t felt in a long time; desire.

I hoisted myself up and came to a straddling position on his lap, my face inches from his. I looked up at his eyes to see his reaction. He was shaking his head “no” so I swayed back a little, unsure of what I was doing, nor what he wanted me to do. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to me anymore. Maybe my malnourished, unclothed body had turned him off.

“You told me you loved me, and you also said that I would stop being mean to you when I realized how I felt,” my strained voice said.

As I was persuading myself to stop being such a fool, I felt his body respond to me in hardness. I looked into his eyes and saw a reflection of my own emotions of uncertainty and lust.

I moved slowly, giving him time to protest. He didn’t. I pressed my mouth against his in a desperate need for closeness. He grabbed my arms and pulled me closer. In that moment, I wanted to stay in that position forever. Moving forward was just as frightening as moving back, both in the physical space and a time continuum.

Had I fallen in love with Jackson and not realized it because I was too busy hating him? That’s what my heart was telling me.

Was following your heart the same as following your gut? The answer was no, and I didn’t care.

His tongue filled not just my mouth, but an empty space in me that didn’t have a name.

“I’m not wearing bottoms,” I said before I could self-edit.

“I am very, very aware of that,” he said.

In one fell swoop, he wrapped his arm around me and lay me down on the blankets. He took his time, slowly unpeeling the Velcro on my uniform top. I heard the zipper sliding down its track.

The candle light illuminated Jackson’s face as he opened my shirt, and gently pulled it off of my body.

The rest of this journal entry was never recovered. The camera’s lens appeared to be closed, but continued to catch audio until the words: “I am very, very aware of that.”

∞

A scraping sound followed by a rustling sound coming from the hatch woke us. Out of a combination of fear and embarrassment, I dove into the sleeping bag.

“Ahum,” said Fitzpatrick.

“Blow out the candle,” I whispered harshly from under the covers.

“It’s okay,” said Jackson. “It’s just Fitz.

“Umm, not okay,” I said.

“Fitz, turn around for a second.”

I stuck my hand out, and Jackson handed me my top and I scrambled to put it on under the blankets. He laughed.

“Fitz, what’s going on? Are we all clear?”

“Negative. We’re not sure, but it sounds like they are sending convoys up and down the trail,” Fitz explained. “I came to ask Laura what she wants us to do about the Villagers.”

My head shot out from my hiding place. “Why me? This is military stuff.”

“Sorry, honey,” said Jackson. “But you said that you handle all the decisions for the Village. This is your rodeo now.”

“Okay, Fitz, can you go from cave to cave and tell everyone about the convoys? But be gentle. Actually, take my brother, and let him talk. He’ll know what to say, and they will take it much better coming from him. Make sure there are no footprints. And deal with the military stuff the way you see fit.”

“And what do I say to your, um, Mark?” asked Fitz. “He’s having a cow over there. He wanted to come, but lucky for you, I ordered him to stay on the radios.”

“Tell him to stay put,” I said.

“How am I going to explain that you didn’t come back with me?” he asked.

I looked at Jackson. My brain froze for about the millionth time.

“You can’t lie, Laura,” Jackson told me. “But I can. Fitz, tell him that she twisted her ankle when she came down the rope. Say that she is fine, but she shouldn’t be moved. And she’s not having the tacky-phobia because she’s all doped up and has been sleeping almost the whole time.”

“Affirmative.” And with that, Fitz was gone. He probably wanted to get out of that stinking cave as fast as he could climb. For that, I didn’t blame him.