Chapter 2 #2
The kid said one sentence and didn’t get flattened, and now she wants to talk his ear off while her mother is about to have a fit at the table trying to shut her up. One corner of his mouth quirks into a barely there half-smile. This is the highlight of his day so far.
“That’s right. ‘Cause I got ‘em. The woods are full of dinner. You should both learn how to catch a few things. You can’t go to the store anymore.”
Addison watches this interaction with a conflicted expression. Might be waiting for him to kick them out for being obnoxious. Or worse, for him to make some creepy comment and look at Emma wrong.
Wyatt knows what she worries about. He’s not dense enough to be unaware of the obvious. There are no rules anymore keeping the monsters in check, and plenty left willing to use the crumbling of society as permission to do some awful shit.
There’s nothing he can do to convince her that he’s safe aside from giving it time.
“I would appreciate learning how, but Emma will be staying in the house,” Addison replies evenly.
“I wanna learn—”
“No. You’ll be staying in the house.”
The kid nods with a frown.
“Alright. I only got enough supplies to last the next day or two. We need to head out and set some traps soon. If you wanna come, then come.” He finishes his food and drops the dishes in the sink. “The fence is up first. It’s not keeping anything out lying on the ground.”
Addison’s footsteps grow closer behind him as he aims for the door and steps outside, leading her to the shed for a few rolls of wire and clippers before they traipse out to the front pasture and find one of the dead stumbling through a gap.
He stabs it through the skull and then kicks it with a scowl. “You fucked my damn fence, you nasty son of a bitch.”
It’s only then that he notices Addison is still staring like she expects that thing to get back up.
“That used to be someone. A person,” she scolds gently, as if he’s forgotten that the rotters used to be doctors and farmers and school teachers.
“It’s not anymore. And he’s not coming back a second time. Grab the feet, and I’ll get the arms. Let’s throw him down the hill.”
Reluctantly, she does as he asks. The long side of the goat pasture sits a few feet away, filled with curious little animals that scamper toward the fenceline to watch them fling a dead body toward the ditch.
One by one, the goats tense and topple over as the rotter rolls past them. It’s a gruesome game of bowling and they’re the pins.
“Oh shit,” Wyatt winces. “You weren’t joking.”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Are they…okay?”
He’s never seen such a thing in all his life, and he’s mesmerized by the sight.
“They seem to recover surprisingly well.” She shrugs. “I’m not really sure what they’re useful for, to be honest, other than entertainment. They’re a bit too skittish for milking.”
“Huh. And I thought the rotters would be the strangest things I’d come across from here on out.”
Whatever Addison might have replied with is cut short by her stream of vomit all over the wildflowers.
Wyatt cringes. “It’s disgusting, but it gets easier. You’ll get used to dealing with the dead.”
“It’s not that.” She presses a hand over her belly with a grimace. “This baby hates everything I eat.”
Shit. He forgot she’s pregnant, and here he is asking her to do physical labor.
“You’ve gotta keep something down,” he tries.
“Salty things. That’s it. Chips, junk food, stuff from the gas stations we looted.”
“Kid’s already got good taste. Who doesn’t like chips?”
She makes a half-amused noise, straightening up again. “Okay, I’m fine. I’m good. Let’s get back to work.”
“Nah, I got it. Take a break.”
“I said I’m fine. I’m pregnant, not missing my arms or legs. If you need help, I can do it.”
That same fire that gave her the courage to think about jumping him in the kitchen has her trying to prove something now. He won’t be the one to tell her no. If she wants to work herself into the ground, that’s her own choice.
“Grab that post and bring it over.” He shows her how to secure it so a few stray rotters won’t crumble the entire setup, but he must have been staring because she calls him out.
“You wanna ask me something? Go ahead.”
“How far? How long until there are four of us?” He nods toward her stomach that still looks flat to him.
“Two months, I think. A little more, so not far along at all. It won’t be trouble for you or any extra work. I promise. I can still pull my weight.”
“That’s not why I asked. Just curious.”
“Oh.” Her next question is softer as she points out the way he still favors his arm. “Did you put peroxide on that? There’s still some in the bathroom.”
“Cleaned it. It’ll heal. I’ve had worse.”
Before she can reply, she clutches her stomach and throws up a second time.
Is he supposed to do something? Say something? He’s got no idea how to handle someone who looks as miserable as her, and every time she dry heaves, his own stomach flips.
“I’m okay,” she gasps, looking like she hacked up a lung. “It’ll pass.”
He only nods.
They fix five panels until lunchtime rolls around, and when they get back, Emma is clutching a stuffed animal for dear life in the middle of the living room. She’s more relieved to see Addison than he’d ever been to see his own parents.
“Did you see Dad out there?” she whispers.
“No,” Addison replies.
Guess that means the husband is a real thing he’s gotta worry about. From the look of relief on the girl’s face, he gets the feeling they wouldn’t shed many tears if the bastard were dead.
Addison looks about ready to fall over after spending half the morning getting rid of everything she ate. Emma keeps staring at the kitchen like it’ll manifest a full pantry. It’s all enough to make him consider letting them in on a secret he planned to keep to himself.
One day in, and he’s already caving. What kinda selfish idiot would he be if he didn’t tell them about the second stash?
“Have you two been up to the attic yet?” he asks.
Addison shakes her head. “No. The steps aren’t safe, and the door wouldn’t open.”
“Those steps are a hazard, but they’ll hold. Come on.”
He leads the way to the back of the house, where a rickety old spiral staircase leads them to the attic.
He found this earlier that morning while they were sequestered in the bedroom, and he’d been getting a lay of the land. Took him a good twenty minutes to figure that damn door out, but something that tricky had to be hiding treasure behind it.
Addison tells Emma to wait at the bottom, and he can’t blame her for that. It is spooky as fuck. For all she knows, he’s leading them to some torture chamber. They don’t know yet that it’s the best thing this house has to offer.
He finds the right pressure points on the old door and shoulders it open.
The dark blue paint on the ceiling and all those little stars someone spent forever dotting across it prompt Addison to look up in wonder. She grins like she’s staring at a real night sky, and damn if she ain’t even prettier with a smile on her face.
“Emma, come look,” she calls down.
“It’s something, huh?” he says hopefully when the kid gets that same look at this unexpected reveal. “I dunno. That sorta thing was cool back when I was young. Maybe it’s not anymore.”
“It is.” Addison smiles. “And it’s not at all what I expected to see up here.”
“Not why I brought you up here.” He moves toward the back of the space and kicks a pile of boxes out of the way, shifts a broken mirror, and a crate filled with a weird old doll collection to reveal another door that he wrenches open. “The stash in the basement was a decoy.”
There are cans of food, paper products, and enough dry goods to last a month. More if it were only him, but it’s not anymore.
“Momma, there’s peas!” Emma reaches for a can before her mother pulls her back.
“Ask permission. Be polite.”
“Take the peas. Take whatever you want. We should keep most of it up here, though. Safer.” He pulls a cheap package of ramen soup off a shelf and hands it to Addison. “You won’t find anything saltier than that. Maybe kid number two will let you keep it down.”
She gives him a look he can’t read as she takes the orange packet of pure sodium. Her eyes go all soft, and it makes him uncomfortable. Despite the fact that he’s doing them a kindness, he is also continuously lying by omission. Every time that happens, guilt creeps up his neck and burns.
He blows past them both with a grumbled comment about not taking all day up here. He can’t escape fast enough. Not for the first time, he wishes this house were empty when he got here. At least it’s all temporary.
He told her this place belongs to him, and he meant it, but he left out the part about his residency being short-term.
‘Intending to stay’ is true, just not forever.
He’ll ride out the first wave of this disaster, heal from his wounds, and then move on.
She found this farm first. It belongs to her now, whether she knows it or not.
It doesn’t matter if the actual owner sent him here when those kinda rules don’t apply anymore.
The first one to kick in a door gets to keep the structure holding it up.
No, he ain’t staying, but they might, assuming her husband doesn’t come back.