* * * *
By the time we make it back to the bunker the sun is barely visible anymore. Things have taken longer than expected when Travis decided to swing by a few other places in search of insulin for Rhett. That turned out to have been a waste of time because we weren’t able to find it anywhere in town.
“Looks like we made it back just in time.” I say pointing at the sun that’s disappearing behind the tall trees, out of view.
“Yeah, let’s get inside.” Travis says.
After ushering Ty to climb down the wall first, we keep a lookout – staring past the trees surrounding us. The wind whistles while it blows the branches gently. Once he’s nearing the bottom I flip my legs over the wall and begin my short climb down. My hands and feet move quickly down the uneven bricks. After making sure that we weren’t seen or followed Travis lowers himself into the well too.
When I get towards the bottom, Ty scoots over just barely enough for me to open the trick wall. The door clicks before popping open to the sounds of a boy sobbing. I slide in feet first. My boots make a loud thud sound as I drop to the floor. Before I can stand up I find Rhett lying face down in a pool of his own blood. At his side Cano sits tall, guarding his master’s body. My eyes search the room and follow the sobs to where Billy sits on the other side of the room.
“What happened?” I cry out.
Rushing over to where Rhett is still bleeding out from a head wound I flip him over to his back. My bloody fingers press against his warm neck to check for a pulse. After a few seconds I realize it’s too late. He’s dead.
“He kept saying that he was thirsty, so I got him some water. But right when he went to take a drink, he began to shake.” He looks down at the ground his voice becomes even more unsteady, “When his head hit the floor I saw the blood coming out and I didn’t know what to do. I tried to help, but I just didn’t know what to do.”
I can feel his blood on my fingers, dripping into my bandages. I stare at his body and try to make sense of what has happened. But before I can gather my thoughts Ty’s feet make a soft thump sound behind me. In an effort to shield his corpse, I spin around with my arms out to both sides. He’s seen corpses but nothing so fresh. And, no one that we knew.
“Close your eyes Ty.” I say, making eye contact with him.
Without question, he squeezes his eyes shut. I walk him over to where Billy is squatted up against a wall, using my body to block the view the whole way over. Once I know that he won’t be able to see Rhett I move back to where his body lays. My fingers dig into the bottom of the green sleeping bag, preparing to cover his body with it. As I shake off the blanket, Travis jumps in behind me.
When he sees his friend’s dead body lying on the cement, he drops his bags and darts over to him. Loud, but still calm, he asks, “What happened?”
I repeat what Billy told me while Travis checks for signs of a pulse or breathing. Even when he finds no heartbeat he remains calm. Instead of giving up, Travis begins to perform CPR on Rhett.
“Wha- What’re you doing?” Billy speaks up, his voice still unsteady. With wide eyes he watches Travis pump Rhett’s chest.
“CPR, what does it look like?” Travis says irritably.
“Is that going to work? He’s been out for at least ten minutes.”
As he walks over, he continues to focus on Travis, who is working hard to revive him. He continues for another ten minutes before finally giving up, accepting that Rhett’s body is refusing to respond. His back falls into the wall behind him as a disappointed expression comes over his face.
“Ahem,” Travis says, clearing his throat. Through tear filled eyes he says, “We need to do something with his body before it starts to stink. Corpses will only attract unwanted visitors to us.”
“I’ll help.” Billy volunteers and reaches his hand down at Travis.
He looks at his hand and replies, “Okay. While there’s still daylight let’s get him moved out of here.” Ignoring the gesture, he helps himself up off the floor.
“What’re you going to do with him?” I ask, staring at the body in the center of the room.
“Since we’re short on time we can put him in the creek behind our house for tonight. That way the scent won’t be as strong for the Grey Ones.” Travis replies.
His arms become covered in blood when he lifts Rhett off the floor. With a single swoop he throws his limp body over his shoulder and begins to walk towards me. Behind him, Cano whimpers loudly as he watches his master being carried away.
“Aren’t you worried that the creek is too close?” My voice cracks while he walks towards me. My hand grips his rifle and picks it up from next to the entrance. Through blurry eyes I stare at him.
“It’s the best option for tonight.” Travis replies firmly.
With a nervous sigh, I say, “Okay.”
He grabs the rifle and says softy, “We’ll be fine for the night.”
“Are you going to use the tunnel?” My eyes dart over to the steel door across the room.
“Yeah, I’m not going to try to carry him up the well. We need to hurry though. It’s going to be too dark soon.” He replies.
With the key from earlier he unlocks the door quickly. He marches into the tunnel, disappearing a few yards in. Billy follows closely behind and shuts the door behind them. Once the door clicks loudly, I return to the thick pool of blood on the floor.
As I mop the blood with the green sleeping bag, the puddle smears from side to side. It takes a few minutes to get the mess cleaned up. Once it is, I ball up the bloody bag and toss it into the corner.
“Mom, can we make something to eat? I’m starving?” Ty begs.
“Yeah, sure.”
After digging through the back, I decide to make peanut butter crackers for everyone. We use a plastic spoon from the supplies to scoop chunky peanut butter onto the salty crackers. As I spread it over I try not to think about what just happened.
By the time Travis and Billy get back inside we’ve already begun scarfing down the snack. They don’t see the food sitting out when they walk past. They’re too busy discussing when they’ll go out to dig a grave near the creek.
“Mom, can I have more please?” Ty asks with a mouthful of his last cracker. With everything that’s been going on he hasn’t had much to eat in the last couple of days.
When Travis left us to go hunting yesterday, it was because we were almost out of food. Not scheduled to return to the food storage for a few more days, we knew that we would need to find something else to eat. Food gets scarce in between food storage visits, but in order to make what we have last we have to improvise.
“Sure,” I smile while pulling him into my side. My arm squeezes him close before letting go.
“Thanks.” Ty smiles. He reaches for more of the peanut butter crackers sitting on the table in front of us. The cracker breaks apart in his hand when Ty bites into it. When cracker crumbs covered in peanut butter fall at Cano’s large paws he stares at Ty, awaiting approval.
“Go ahead.” Ty says, still chewing on his bite.
Cano’s short tail wags excitedly while he licks the crumbs off the ground. I raise my voice to speak over Ty’s giggles, “Any luck over there?” My voice comes out louder than I had intended.
“Yes. We’re almost finished,” Travis responds. Billy shines the small beam of light over the radio where Travis tweaks the wires around.
With a smile, I glance at Ty and say, “Go sit down Ty, I’ll be over in a minute. I need to talk to your dad real quick.”
“Okay.” Ty nods. With Cano right behind, he walks over to sit on the sofa bed. Cano sniffs the ground as he waits for more crumbs to drop. Lucky for him, Ty is a messy eater.
As Billy stares, Travis uses a tool to tinker with the radio. I step up to his shoulder and lean in to kiss him on his cheek. When I press my lips firmly against his skin Travis stops what he’s doing and sets down the flathead screwdriver. His deep blue eyes stare into mine before pu
lling me in closely. Both of my arms wrap around his muscular neck as he kisses my lips gently. After only a second or two, Billy awkwardly coughs beside us. I had almost forgotten he was there. Travis kisses me once more before he releases my waist.
When he returns to the radio, my fingers graze my lips; where I can still feel his kiss. Speaking through my fingers I whisper, “Do you think there are still other survivors out there?”
“There has to be. I mean, Billy here is proof of that.” Travis says. He leans back to focus on the radio in front of him. With a proud smile he says. “I think it’s fixed.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Billy asks, wide eyed.
“Only one way to find out.” He replies. As his fingers twist one of the knobs, static erupts from the speaker.
“Yes! We did it!” Billy yells. His round framed glasses fall off of his face while he jumps up and down excitedly.
“Let’s see if anyone’s out there.” Travis changes the channels while playing with different knobs.
Billy picks his glasses up off the floor then takes the microphone from the holder on the side. He squeezes the button down and says, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Static.
“I repeat is anyone there?”
Static.
“Let’s keep trying. We can take shifts listening for other survivors. Here, I’ll take the fir,"- A long yawn escapes Travis’s mouth interrupting him mid-sentence.
“Nonsense, you guys have been travelling all day. I will take the first shift. You guys go get some sleep.” Billy says stepping closer to the old ham radio.
I look over at Travis and raise my eyebrows. It’d be nice to sleep on the sofa bed together. Usually one of us has to be awake to keep watch at all times so we don’t get nights like this anymore. Travis presses his lips together while he thinks it over. When he smiles at me I know he has the same idea because he grabs my hand before turning to Billy.
“Okay, but wake me up when you get tired. I want to make sure that one of us is always listening and trying to reach out.”
Billy nods and replies, “Of course.”
With Travis’s help I pull the three sleeping bags out from the tunnel for us. When I reach the pulled out sofa bed I unzip the thinnest one. The black sleeping bag will be our sheet on the pulled out sofa bed. Suddenly, Ty jumps on top, with Cano right behind.
“Tuck in me and Cano!” Ty says, grinning widely.
I use an unzipped sleeping bag to cover them both. After tucking them in, I turn around to face Travis. In his hands he already has the thick brown sleeping bag unzipped. His head tilts to the side as he motions at the bed for me to lay down. As I crawl in next to Ty, I watch Travis lay the sleeping bag on top of my body. After he kicks off his boots he climbs into bed, still wearing his jeans and shirt.
It only takes ten minutes of me tickling Ty’s back and telling him a fairytale before he drifts off to sleep. Once he’s in a deep sleep I flip over on my other side to face Travis. Before laying my head back down I peek over at Billy.
He’s busy twisting knobs and repeating, “Hello, hello, is anyone out there?”
Static is his only response.
I lean in close to Travis and whisper, “What if we can’t get a hold of anyone?”
“We’ll keep moving until we reach someone.” Travis whispers confidently.
“Are we going to help Billy return to his family?” I peek over my shoulder at Billy. He is rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. The poor kid is all alone out here. And I really don’t know how he’s survived this long.
“His family is probably dead.” Travis responds bluntly.
My jaw drops open in shock before twisting my head back so that I can see his face. Focused on the radio it seems like he couldn’t hear us. When I glance back at Travis he’s staring off at the well’s entrance. The dark circles and bags underneath his eyes make him appear exhausted.
“You don’t really think that, do you?” I ask surprised by his bluntness.
“Yeah, Belle. That’s the world we live in now.” He finally breaks his focus on the door to look me in the eyes. His head tilts into mine. The short beard hair on his chin tickles my face as he gently kisses my forehead.
I peek back over at Billy, who is whispering into the microphone, “Hello, is anyone out there? If you can hear me, please respond.”
I wonder if he thinks the idea of his family being dead is even a possibility. With an urgent tone, he continues to reach out. When he doesn’t get a response he mumbles to himself before twisting knobs and playing with the antenna. I wonder if he’ll reach his family, or if they really are dead like Travis thinks.
When I turn back to him his eyelids are flickering. That was quick. I smile to myself and bury my head deep in his chest. My nostrils breathe him in to the point that I can smell his sweat. I fall asleep to the thumps of his heartbeat that play like a soft lullaby for only me.