Unraveling Thread
Solace
Much to my dismay, there was no dreaming of Jude. In fact, I slept like the dead, and dead was exactly how I felt. My mouth was so dry my throat hurt, and my vision swam. I’d slept much longer than I meant to. What little sun there was had already disappeared, and everything was swallowed in black.
After trying—and failing—to open most of the cars in the driveway, I moved from door to door, tugging handles, peering through tinted glass, hoping one of them had been left unlocked.
I almost missed the SUV at first, it was blacked out, and parked slightly apart from the others, half-hidden under the trees.
The door gave under my pull, and for a second, the rush of it actually opening was all my mind could register. Until the smell hit—rot and decay.
Inside were two small bodies. One slumped over in the passenger seat, head resting against the glass, and one in the driver seat, face turned toward the passenger.
Paul and Bridget.
My lungs gave out.
Easing in front of Paul’s decayed body, I peered around to Bridget.
My beautiful best friend. Not that you could even tell it was her any longer, but I knew.
Between them, their pinkies were hooked together, not quite in a full handhold, but the smallest possible reach for each other.
A tear slipped loose before I could stop it, sliding down my cheek inside the mask where no one would ever see it.
They were wearing suits like mine, but their masks were together forgotten on Bridget’s lap.
The car hadn't crashed, and from my view, there were no signs of violence. If I was being honest with myself, they’d probably taken off the masks, not realizing the invisible danger until it was too late.
They’d been gone for almost six years, and for six years they sat above me like buried headstones.
I don’t know how long I stood there. My throat burned, not only from my own exhaustion and thirst, but from my reality crashing in.
I had to get out of here.
I backed away from the SUV, careful not to touch anything, and closed the door gently. Lest an animal wandered past and took care of what was left of them.
No, I was going to pretend they were only sleeping.
After standing around longer than I could afford, I finally gave up and began the walk down Paul’s long-ass driveway.
The plan was to follow the highway into town, even though my chances of finding bottled water at a gas station—or even a grocery store—seemed slim to none, we were remaining positive.
Besides, there were houses in town. Lots of them. Someone had to have left a water bottle or two around.
I held the gun tucked against my waist as I walked the sloping drive.
I wasn’t naive enough to think that if I encountered another person they’d just hand me a gallon and tell me to drink up.
The days leading up to the fallout had been some of the worst days of humanity.
Keeping Paul’s gun on me was practical, even if I detested the thought of using it.
It was a last resort, and sadly, there were already a lot of those.
I busied myself with racking my tired and dehydrated brain for a new name for Patricia, because I refused to keep calling her that.
Even though seeing Paul’s deceased body made me less angry.
“What do you think about Lois?” I said, patting my pocket through the highlighter suit.
“Still kind of old-timey like Patricia. Or Agnes.” Yeah, I liked that.
I could call her Aggie. Less of a mouthful than Patricia.
The highway came into view as I stopped and reached through the layers for the gecko. “What do you think of Agnes?” I frowned and dug around in my pocket. “Agnes?”
However—she was gone.
“Patricia?”
Unzipping the suit I pulled my jacket open to search properly. She couldn’t have gone far. Maybe she’d climbed out of my pocket and fallen into the bottom of the suit. I shook my leg. Nothing. No tiny scrambling feet, nor little claws biting into my skin.
Then it hit me. I never put her back.
In my dehydration haze, I must have set her down on Paul’s desk when I stowed the pictures of Original Patricia away.
I stood frozen for a moment before sighing and turning around.
We’d made it this far. Despite the fact it was terrifyingly dark outside and I needed water, like yesterday, I had to go back for her.
And to think I used to judge those people who said their dogs were their children…
Well look at me now. Running uphill to save my best friend’s boyfriend’s gecko, which he named after his ex-wife.
By the time I stumbled through the broken front door of the house, my legs were as heavy as wet cement. I dragged myself down the hall and pushed open the office door again, sweeping my flashlight across the room.
“Patricia?” The beam caught her immediately.
She was perched on the windowsill, unmoving.
“Oh no—no, no, no.” I rushed forward and scooped her up with shaking hands.
Her little body was cold and stiff, and panic shot through me.
It was like when I discovered her lamp stopped working.
“Hey,” I murmured, cupping her gently. “You’re okay.
” I tugged my jacket open and slid her carefully inside my shirt, pressing her against the warmth of my skin. “Come on,” I whispered. “Warm up.”
A glint beyond the skeletal remains of trees caught my attention as I held Aggie to my heart.
It was faint, a shimmer of silver through the broken branches outside the window.
My first thought was moonlight catching on torn off roof flashing in the woods but it had gotten foggy through night's descent. The sky, the shade of muddied steel.
The glint came again.
Securing Patricia in my jacket I slipped the gun from my pocket before zipping up my suit.
The forest beyond the house was silent, not even a whisper of wind.
The glint moved closer this time, and I exhaled a slow shaky breath.
My heart was hammering as I ducked behind the curtains and made my way back through the house.
Was it an animal? Another person? Or people…
Were they looking for supplies too?
I wasn’t sure if it was my frayed nerves—from having found two bodies, but with shaking fingers, I fumbled with the safety.
They died of natural causes, not an attack.
Still, my vision pulsed at the edges. If I could make it out the kitchen door, I could hide in the woods until they got what they wanted and left.
Or I could decide if they were safe to approach for help.
I waited behind the door for a moment, listening, but I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears.
I twisted the knob open. Mercifully, it didn’t squeak.
I slipped outside and eased the door shut behind me, tiptoeing down the patio, and across the forgotten lawn until the shadows swallowed me whole.
Around me the trees appeared as black marks in the scratched glass of the mask, blurry dark shapes that jutted up to the sky.
I stood behind one, neck craned and listening.
A faint crunch echoed through the forest. It was moving closer.
Snapped branches and the rustle of fabric or leaves maybe. Then—
A crunch.
My grip tightened on the gun. The sound came again, closer and closer, and with it the sweep of a blinding light flickering between the trees.
My heart was slamming against my ribs and my stomach lurched with every noise filling the hollow of the forest. I raised the gun with both arms, trying to keep it steady despite the tremor in my body.
Peering around the trunk, the light swept closer, landing directly on me in a rage of white.
For a second all I could see was light reflecting off something silver and smooth. The beam shifted slightly, and suddenly the shape of him emerged from the dark—tall, broad shouldered, wrapped in some kind of suit that gleamed under the weak moonlight.
A gun was lifted in his hand and we stared at one another for a moment. My finger tightened on the trigger.
“Drop it,” the man said, his voice muffled through a helmet speaker.
Something about it made my chest twist, but then he went completely still and the gun in his hand lowered. Slowly.
“Solace?”
The shot exploded through the silence. Everything snapped apart at once—the recoil slamming through my arm, the sharp crack, his body jerking backward out of sight as the lights flickered violently overhead.
I think I screamed his name, but all I could hear was the ringing in my ears as darkness swallowed everything.
Ransom. He came.