Chapter Six #2
As I kneel beside Everett’s still frame with the medical supplies, his long, dark lashes flutter.
I press a wet compress against his temple, and he leans his stubbly jaw into my hand, nuzzling into me there.
I freeze as the sensation of his warm, spiky skin slides against my palm.
The gentleness of the unconscious affection makes my belly flutter involuntarily.
Scoundrel.
His eyes flicker open, unfocused and disoriented, before fixing on mine. They widen as he realizes whom he’s nuzzling. It’s sad, watching his reality crash down on him in real time. Remembering who I am, where we are, the whole collapse of American society.
And, apparently, what we were fighting about.
“Widowed,” he rasps. “I’m widowed, Maisie. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He gingerly takes the compress from my still-frozen hand and presses it against the wound, then slides up onto one elbow, glancing from me to his groin, where Chicken’s transformed into a lush gray shoebox. “You found my cat.”
“The zombie was trying to eat her,” I say stiffly, the word widowed bouncing around my chest, as if unsure where to land.
A corner of his mouth quirks up, and a dimple appears. “Then you saved my cat,” he corrects himself. “I’m forever indebted to you. Thank you.”
I bite my lips in, but the question comes barreling out anyway. “When did she die? Your wife, I mean?” I clarify unnecessarily.
“Three years ago.” Everett eases up to sitting, careful not to disturb Chicken.
He begins to stroke her fur, watching his hand as he does.
“I know it looks bad, keeping all her things…I wanted to box them up, and I’ve tried so many times, but I just—can’t.
It feels wrong to erase her, even though it’s absolutely suffocating to be here. ”
Then I feel it. The weight of all the sadness he wears.
How trapped he must feel by this house, her things.
How helpless. I knew how that felt, once.
After Mom died, the weight of her mental illness and all the extreme decisions she’d made on our behalf crushed me beneath it, trapping me until I finally got the courage to leave.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice quiet. “For yelling at you.”
“No, don’t be. It’s my fault.” Everett finally meets my eyes, sheepish. “Last night was the first date I’ve been on since I met my wife ten years ago, and I completely bungled it. Not exactly Dreamsdate material, huh?”
I snort, but it’s more out of sympathy for this poor, sad professor than anything. “More like Doomsdate.”
Everett laughs. “You know what? I’d watch that.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, it’s not the worst date I’ve ever been on.”
“Our date ended with the zombie apocalypse.” Everett raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “How can anything be worse than that?”
“One time, I met a guy on Craigslist.” I breathe in deeply. “He brought his tuba.”
“To play?”
“To sell. To me.”
Everett laughs, a delightful huff completely at odds with the grimness of our situation. The smile that sneaks onto my face feels like a traitor. I haven’t decided to forgive him yet, but…maybe I have. “Here, let me see your head.”
He removes the compress. Tentatively, I reach and push a lock of his wavy brown hair behind his ear, the move somehow more intimate than anything we did last night.
I swallow roughly and lean closer. The bleeding’s stopped, but the cut’s longer than I thought.
After I clean the wound, I riffle through his first aid kit until I find some butterfly closures.
“These should do.” He winces as I begin to gently seal the cut closed, his warm breath skating across my neck as I hover over him. “No stitches necessary.”
“You can do stitches?” He glances up at me, his reverent face framed between my arms as I work, and I struggle to maintain my balance. Nobody’s ever looked at me this way, and there’s something about seeing him beneath me that…
I breathe in, training my focus where it belongs. “Stitches on humans? In theory. Oranges? Absolutely. I took an online EMT course.”
Everett smiles with a wince. “I’m honored to be your first non-fruit patient.”
I lean back on my knees, already missing the aura of warmth that surrounds him like a force field.
Everett’s tall and strong and seven years my elder, but sitting here all bandaged up with his back against a couch he didn’t pick, petting his little cat, he looks like a boy.
A scared one. The idea of leaving him here with barely any food and a head injury tugs at my heart.
If this really is a full-blown zombie apocalypse, he’ll die on his own.
How long can he last when he’s this unprepared?
What piece of furniture will take him out next?
“What’s your game plan, Everett?”
He blows out a long, defeated breath. “Kind of playing it by ear.”
“Well, you can’t stay here. You don’t have any food.”
“That is going to be a problem, yes.”
“Do you have anyone nearby that can take you in and help you?”
He shakes his head sadly.
I frown at him, feeling strangely frustrated at how isolated he is. I know I live my life that way, but Everett’s normal. He should have people; he deserves to. “What are you going to do?”
He tilts his head, eyes glued to the hand he’s using to pet Chicken.
“I had quite a lot of time to think in that tree, and the thing is, I have no clue what to do. Sandeep was the only friend I have here, and now he’s gone.
My sister, Gemma, is the only family that gives a damn about me, but she’s in Washington, D.C.
, and I have no way of getting there. I don’t have a car, and even if I stole one, I don’t know how to drive. ”
“You don’t know how to drive?” My pulse is beginning to anxiety-race on his behalf. “That is a basic adult skill in this country!”
“I lived in New York City until five years ago.” Everett’s voice drips with embarrassment. “Public transportation’s good here. It’s never been an issue.”
We sit in silence for a long minute.
“How are you going to survive?” I finally ask, my voice small.
“To be honest, Maisie, I wasn’t doing that great a job surviving before the zombie apocalypse began. I assumed I was going to die in that tree, but then that plan fell through, so.” He finally glances up and meets my eyes.
My chin dips. “Your plan was to just…die?”
“Maybe not a plan per se?” Everett’s shoulders slump. “More like an inevitability.”
I blink. We are not the same.
“But then you rescued me, bringing us to the present moment, where I am stuck here, with no food, out of options.” He tilts his head back and groans at the ceiling, sounding almost…dismayed? Like I went and screwed everything up by getting him out of that tree.
“Unless…” He cracks one eye open.
“Unless what?”
“Just spitballing here, but what if we teamed up for the ride north?”
My eyes widen. I fork a thumb between him and me. “Us? That’s crazy. You’re a total liability!”
“That’s fair.” He sighs.
I launch to my feet and begin to pace. “You can’t fight.”
“No, not very good at that.”
“You have zero food rations.”
“Also true.”
“You literally fainted at the sight of your own blood! You’re a horror movie expert—how can you be afraid of blood?”
“It hits different when it’s your own.” He shrugs.
“Look, you’re right. I’m pretty much useless.
But I do know zombie movies, and I was right about the zombie waiting to surprise us, wasn’t I?
Maybe my knowledge will be useful, and besides, how will you sleep without someone to stand guard for you?
What if you get surrounded? Who will have your back?
” His voice begins to pick up steam as he pieces his thoughts together.
I stop pacing to stare at him. “I don’t even know you.”
“It’d only be for a day or two, until you drop me off in D.C.”
“You want me to drop you off in a city?”
“Look. You rescued me, so that kind of makes me your responsibility, if you think about it.” He raises his eyebrows pointedly.
“What?!” I rake my fingers into my hair, thoroughly flummoxed by this grab bag of random arguments and persuasion tactics.
“It’s a big country out there. If you want someone by your side so you don’t have to be alone, I can do that for you.”
You’ve never left the state before, the little voice in my head says. You’ve never even left the county, and he’s traveled all over. Plus, he’s tall.
My head rears back. What does being tall have to do with anything?
He at least looks like he could fight. Good deterrent for other humans!
I roll my eyes, which Everett must think is in response to his arguments, because a look of feverish determination crosses his face, and he goes in for the kill.
He holds up the cat. “Think of Chicken!” He lifts one of her little kitty paws to wave at me.
“Save me!” he says in a high-pitched orphan’s voice, presumably hers.
It’s so ridiculous, I almost laugh, but then she mews, a tiny, precious kitten’s mew, her big amber eyes locking on to mine so plaintively my heart nearly breaks in half.
“I’ve always wanted a cat.” The words exit my throat in a raspy whisper, completely against my will.
“This is your chance to have one! For a day or two, at least. Until we get to D.C.” Everett shakes her gently at me, and she lifts both her front paws as if she’s reaching for me, and I am suddenly powerless to do anything but accept this sweet baby cat into my arms. She mews again, then nuzzles the top of her head against my chin and immediately starts purring as if I’ve saved her life already.
My god, Walter has nothing on this cat.
I hold her to my chest, burying my face in her fur. “This is the most manipulative thing ever.”
“She sure is,” Everett says with a small, proud smile.
“Oh my god, fine!” I belt it out so abruptly that Chicken leaps from my arms with a yowl. I point my finger at Everett, who looks just as startled as Chicken. “Call your sister. If she’s still alive—”
Everett visibly flinches, and I feel like an insensitive jerk.