Chapter 1 #4
She had the back door propped open, a grill smoking in the doorway where she was cooking some kind of meat, probably deer, over smoky coals. She had a pot of water beside her, boiling what he thought were probably the last of their potatoes.
Leftovers from breakfast were still scattered on the yellowed vinyl counter. He snagged a can of peaches with a pop top, stuffing it into his jacket pocket before tossing a cold hot dog onto a plate and a dollop of oatmeal that hadn’t quite congealed into a brick yet.
Food was hit or miss. It largely depended on what they could scavenge.
Tommy and Irving were working on plans for gardening, but nothing could be done until after the ground thawed.
There were a few farms around, but most of them were still occupied, and as desperate as they were, they had a moral code.
So old hot dogs and oatmeal it was.
Biting into the hot dog, he grimaced at the texture. Everything tasted like smoke. It filled his mouth; the fatty cylinder of meat getting stuck between his teeth. Maybe Tommy had the right idea.
Saving the oatmeal for Graves, he grabbed some coffee. It was hot, unlike the cold instant stuff they’d drunk in the basement apartment all those months ago. They’d come a long way—Blake just wasn’t sure if it was forward or not.
He’d never admit it out loud, mostly because he thought it would make Tommy cry, but sometimes he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to let the aliens take them out. The movies and books always made survival out like it was some kind of big, noble concept. Survive because we must.
But survival was ugly. It was horrifying and stark. It was blood in his fingernails and ash in his mouth. It was loneliness and indignity. It was making choices that would never scar, just keep bleeding.
Knocking back half his coffee, he held the ceramic mug up to his cheeks and tried to leech some of its warmth.
He’d been so busy with Graves, trying to stuff years' worth of med school into a brain which was better suited for pop culture trivia—that he hadn’t been eating much, and his stomach cramped painfully as it began digesting the hot dog.
Looking down at his mug, Blake realized he’d been slacking off. It had been a long time since he’d boiled water or washed dishes. It was the little things that kept this place going, and he should be pulling his weight.
If Graves was still sleeping, he’d go get some more firewood later. Or maybe help clean the grill or something.
As he was leaving, juggling his coffee cup, plate, and trying to tug his beanie down over his ears, he nearly ran into Alvarez as he strode into the building. The man didn’t even break stride, his dark eyes casually glancing at Blake before nodding once, tersely.
Blake took a step back, waiting a breath before Beaumont appeared, a little breathless but right on Alvarez’s heel, as usual.
Beaumont smiled at Blake, light blue eyes crinkling as he shuffled a step back, holding the door open.
“Thanks,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder to see what Alvarez was doing.
The dark-haired soldier’s back was straight as he rounded the reception desk to pound on Irving’s office door. He didn’t wait, pushing in. Over Alvarez’s shoulder, Blake could see Irving look up; surprise only evident in the twitch of one of his eyebrows.
Alvarez had been at the motel nearly as long as Blake, Tommy, and the rest of Team Oh Shit.
He’d come striding in wearing hiking boots and a scowl.
Through the grapevine—Tommy mostly—Blake had found out that Alvarez was a career soldier.
He’d been on leave hiking part of the Appalachian Trail when everything went down.
By the time he got out of the woods, his base had been destroyed.
He’d followed the smoke to the city and then to a refugee center.
He’d formed the same opinion of the place as Irving and Gabriel and then ended up here.
He was a handsome man, his face smooth from years of not smiling or making any kind of expression besides mild distaste. Judging by the Cuban flag tattooed on his bicep, Blake assumed his family was Cuban, though his accent suggested somewhere north, maybe Philly.
“What’s that about?” Blake asked Beaumont.
The thin man shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
And you followed him anyway. But Blake didn’t say that.
Alvarez was an open book—easy to read if you knew where to look.
But Beaumont? He was interesting. The fluffy-haired blonde followed Alvarez in from a mission one day, trailing behind him like a loyal hound.
And he’d stayed there, ensconcing himself as Alvarez’s second.
Sometimes Blake wondered whether Beaumont stayed so close to Alvarez because he liked him or because it was safe.
Because Beaumont had a secret. One Blake would bet he needed protection from.
Blake never asked him about it—he didn’t care. As far as Blake was concerned, Beaumont was the guy who beat Judd at cards and helped Tommy make shelters for all the strays in his little Snow White cult. Beaumont pulled his weight and didn’t cause trouble.
Irving’s voice carried across the lobby, and Blake looked back in time to see Alvarez throwing his arms up, storming out of Irving’s office to breeze past Blake and out the door. Beaumont just shrugged before following him.
In the quiet of the lobby, Blake met Irving’s gaze.
He looked pristine, as usual. His clothes starched; his mustache trimmed above his upper lip.
He looked like he was in his forties, maybe, but Blake was pretty sure an age would constitute personal information, something Irving didn’t do.
He’d probably break out in hives if someone had the audacity to ask where he was from.
Blake knew, of course. It was in the way his carefully curated accent skated over vowels. Even in the brand of wheelchair he preferred. Irving knew he knew.
And he hated it.
Shooting him a quick salute, Irving frowned as Blake walked out of the lobby and into the freezing air, clutching his coffee close to try and protect it.
Tommy was still messing with his chickens when Blake stopped by to give him the can of peaches. He smiled, letting his chickens peck at the can. “Want some?”
“Nah.” Blake shrugged him off. “Don’t give it to those fuckers, either. They can hunt their own food.”
Tommy flipped him off. He’s been hanging around Judd too much.
With his pockets lightened, Blake stepped around the pool and back toward the conference room. He refused to call it a Med Bay or Infirmary, because it wasn’t.
The room was only marginally warmer than outside, but it felt good.
He shook out his fingers and set his food down so he could slip off his thick outer jacket.
It didn’t really fit. They’d scavenged it from somewhere.
Blake couldn’t remember. There had been so many houses and shops that they all started to blur together.
Hanging his jacket off the back of his chair, he moved to pick up his coffee when he noticed how still the room was. A certain unnaturalness that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Blake’s heart rate picked up as he glanced at Graves. He was still under his mound of blankets.
“Graves?” Blake called, taking two steps over toward him. The blankets were over his head. Not unusual—it was fucking cold. But something was different. Blake ripped them back to find Graves' face pale, his eyes bulging, and his lips blue.
“Fuck! Tommy!” Blake screamed, his voice sharp like a clap of thunder. He heard chickens squawk before falling to his knees, reaching for Graves' pulse. It was pounding so hard he could feel it before he even pressed down.
Graves' breaths were shallow and squeaky. He couldn’t breathe. Was this the infection? No. It couldn’t be. Not that fast. He’d only been gone a few minutes.
Tommy came skidding into the room, his eyes falling to Graves. “What do you need?”
“I don’t—” Blake’s knee hit the antibiotic vial beside the bed. It clinked to its side, rolling against the baseboard.
I’ve never even broken a bone before.
Oh God.
“Anaphylaxis!” Blake shouted, and before the last syllable left his mouth, Tommy was darting to the back of the room, ripping through the tackle box.
Blake ripped Graves’ heavy shirt away from his neck. His throat was distended, breaths turning ragged as he lost consciousness. His skin was hot under Blake’s hands. “C’mon, stay with me, Graves.”
Tommy returned with a fistful of medication. “I have Benadryl.”
The pills clattered in the plastic jar like they were mocking him. It wasn’t enough. “He can’t fucking swallow!”
“There’s an EpiPen, but—”
Blake snatched it from Tommy, twisting the safety cap off and stabbing it into the meat of Grave’s good thigh. It would take time for the medicine to work through his system. Time Graves didn’t have.
“You’re going to have to crike him.” Tommy’s voice hitched.
Blake blanched.
There was a time he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d done them before. But then he’d had help. A Cricothyrotomy kit. Intubation tubes. Oxygen. A backup plan if it failed. Hell, he’d had a doctor only a radio call away.
And they didn’t die with him. As a paramedic, the best thing he could do for his patient was get them to the hospital. They were either dead or in his care temporarily.
Now there was no one. Only him.
Again.
Struggling to breathe, he barely noticed when their shouting had attracted attention. Alvarez and Beaumont came running into the room, their eyes widening when they saw what was going on. Alvarez said something, but Blake couldn’t hear him over the blood rushing in his ears.
He’d failed so many times. The bloody axe slipping through his fingers. That Grandma choking on her final breaths. The bodies they couldn’t bury because the ground was frozen. They’d all died under Blake’s hands.
Blake lifted a shaking hand. “Knife.”
Alvarez pulled a pocketknife from his pocket. Just before he handed it to Blake, he frowned down at it. “It’s not clean.”
He almost laughed. “You think anything here is sterilized?”
The knife was heavier than it looked. He flicked out the blade. It was slender and barely longer than a pair of nail clippers. Graves' lips were blue, his breaths tapering off from a squeaking wheeze to nothing. Tightening his grip on the knife, he adjusted himself beside Graves’ neck.
Blake didn’t know if this would work. His entire trachea could be swollen shut. But he had to try.
With his left hand, he palpated Graves’ distended throat.
The skin was tight and warm under his fingers.
For a hysterical moment, Blake thought it felt good against his frozen fingers.
Finding the telltale depression between the thyroid and cricoid cartilage, he brought the blade up in his right hand.
Steadier than he thought possible as he made a small vertical incision.
The skin began to bleed, but not enough to obscure what he was doing.
Pressing the tips of his fingers on either side of the incision, he pulled the skin apart and cut a second incision, this one horizontal through the cricothyroid membrane.
The membrane was fibrous, harder to cut through than the skin, but Blake knew how much pressure to use, and Alvarez maintained his blade.
Tommy appeared beside him, holding a syringe he’d cut the top off. Blake hadn’t even noticed him doing that. Dropping the knife, he took the syringe and tried to advance it through Graves’ trachea.
He’d read so many books with heroes. The kind that grit their teeth in the face of the impossible and dug deeper. Finding something within themselves, something stronger than their body, stronger than anything they fought against. They battled the odds to find another gear. To win.
But Blake wasn’t the hero here. Not when there wasn’t anything left of him to give. He could dig, and dig. But this wasn’t about strength. This wasn’t about the will to fight. This wasn’t about winning.
This was survival.
And Graves wouldn’t.
Blake tried. He tried until Graves went limp. Even then, he started chest compressions, but without a patent airway, it was pointless.
Graves died. Not from blood loss or infection. Not from his leg at all. But because Blake gave him medication he was allergic to.
Tommy was crying. Beaumont was patting him on the back, his face twisted. Blake blinked down at his bloody hands. He’d gotten used to seeing them like that. Sometimes he wondered if he should even bother to wash them at all.
Numbly, he pushed himself to his feet, picking up Alvarez’s knife. He shut the blade with a click, handing it back. The man took it, his face blank.
“We need to move the body,” he heard himself say, before turning to stumble toward the door. His feet felt disconnected. He tripped and caught himself on the doorway, hand smearing blood across the old paint. Blake didn’t notice, stepping out into the cold. It was like a slap to the face.
Behind him, Tommy said something around his tears.
He could still cry. Blake couldn’t. He couldn’t remember when he’d stopped.
Maybe when he realized he had no way to contact his parents, or that he might never see them again.
Or when Gabriel’s side of the bed was cold more than it wasn’t.
Or maybe when he had to leave another body in the woods, wrapped up in a blanket like that was enough.
He stared across the parking lot to the river. It was gray, the surface placid. It looked different than the day they first sailed on it—with the sherbert sunset and tentative hope in the air. They had a plan. They had each other. It had been nice.
Now, Blake was standing here with blood drying on his hands, wondering why he’d been stupid enough to think surviving DC was the end.