Anyone? (15 page)

He bolted upright, startling me from my restless sleep. He
didn’t move, but his wide eyes stared straight ahead. Focused. Intent.

“Cole?” I sat up too, whipped my head around, listening for
anything to indicate us having to make another run for it. My hands clutched
the blanket, twisting it into a gnarled mess in my indecision. “You’re scaring
me.”

His shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t say a word. The veins
in his neck throbbed and rose to the surface. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move.
His stillness terrified me.

When Callie rose to all four feet, arched her back, and hissed
in the same direction, the hairs on the back of my neck sprung to life. “What
is it? Do you hear something?”

He didn’t say a word.

Except for the rhythmic sound of the rain pelting the metal
roof and the soft hum of the generators, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I
strained to see what he stared at, but the RV was empty except for the two of
us and my bizarre cat. I might not have heard or seen anything, but it didn’t
mean I was going to go look either.

Fear kept me from crawling from the bed to investigate, like
some people would. I knew better. People died investigating weird noises. I’d
watched enough horror shows to know how it all played out. I also wore a t-shirt
and underwear, which meant instant death. Horror movies were clear about that
too.

I slid closer to him, our shoulders touching. “What’s going
on?” I leaned forward, trying to catch his eye, but he only looked through me. “Cole?”
I whispered.
What do I do? What do I do?

Not a word from my statuesque companion. Then I realized he
wasn’t even registering my presence.

How I wished I had my gun. Or a bat.
Anything
to make
me a little braver. I had only my blanket, my near nakedness, and a paralyzed
man at my side.

Gathering enough courage to kneel on the bed, I pushed the
curtains aside only a fraction. The limited light in the hanger revealed
nothing. The large doors remained closed and locked. Everything sat in its
proper place. I looked out each of the RV side windows, crawling over Cole to
do so, but found nothing strange there either.
What is going on?

Braver people would go check things out, but since bravery
wasn’t my strong suit and I sucked at most things heroic, I hovered near Cole
and waited. If I was going to die, I could easily do it sitting right there.

I kept my ears open and craned my neck from side to side as
I listened for our impending death, then slipped my hand over his.

His eyes remained locked in his weird trance, but when I
touched him, he gave one slow deliberate nod—
eerie
—before falling back
against the mattress as if all the air had been sucked from him.

Callie stopped hissing almost instantly, jumped from the
bed, and proceeded to use the litter box. Life as usual.

You have to be kidding me? What the hell?

I shoved him, but he only moaned in response.

“Cole.” I shoved him again, this time a little more
insistently. No way he was going back to sleep after scaring the crap out of me
with his wacky dreams, or whatever had happened.

But if it was a dream, then how was I supposed to explain
Callie and her hissing? I shook my head.
This is creepy and insane.

“Cole.”

He grunted.

“Cole! Seriously.” I slapped his shoulder.

His eyes fluttered open, and he barely acknowledged me
before rolling on to his side. “Hmmm....”

“What was that all about, huh?”

He kept his eyes closed, drew part of my blanket around
himself, and settled into the pillows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He dragged out his words as sleep seemed to lure him away from me.

“The whole staring off into space thing and freaking me out.
That
thing.”

“Tess, it’s late.” He used his foot to edge me from the bed
but I caught myself before plummeting to the floor. The jerk. “Go away,” he
said. “I’m tired.”

Ugh!
I yanked my blanket from him and gathered it in
my arms. “You’re an ass.”

He responded with a drawn out snore. Whether it was real or
not, I didn’t care. Of all the people in the world to end up with, why him?
Why?
He was just
so
... not normal!

Part of me wanted to storm out of the RV and go sleep
somewhere else, but I still had no idea what had happened or if evils lurked in
the darkness, so I made sure the RV door was locked, actually checking it a
couple of times, and crawled into my own bed.

I had always felt like a tolerant person, giving people the
benefit of the doubt, but now I wasn’t so sure.

I didn’t know how much more I could handle of Cole and his
weirdness.

My poor body must have been completely exhausted and I
succumbed to unconsciousness despite my brain reliving that night’s experience,
because I would have sworn I’d never sleep again. Not after
that.

Somehow, I had fallen asleep, and when my eyes fluttered
open, the RV was empty and the door stood wide open.

I sat up and looked around. “Cole?”

The echo of metallic sounds filtered in through the door,
and I removed myself from the bed and stretched my arms above me, taking a
moment for myself before investigating what Cole was up to.

Wow.
I actually felt good. Amazing how sleep, even a
little of it, could make a difference. My stomach growled its discontent, and I
couldn’t recall the last time I’d eaten—the stew back at Rite Aid, maybe—but
knew before I remedied my hunger, I needed to find out what the heck last night
had been all about.

He’d parked himself under the RV awning at the head of the mahogany
dining table and spread out before him was the George Forman grill, or what was
left of it. Tools littered the surface and he bent over the mechanical mess with
a soldering tool. A strange place to do work. Anyone else would have treated
the dining table with a soft hand and used it only for formal occasions. But
not Cole.

Interesting.
So, he wasn’t planning to grill food
after all. I felt a little better to know he wasn’t completely nuts. He’d
actually had a reason for the grill.

When I opened my mouth to quiz him on what he was up to and
quiz him about last night, he looked up at me, set the soldering tool aside and
lifted his safety glasses to the top of his head. “You can’t do that anymore,”
he said.

“What are you talking about?” Hitting him? Waking him up? My
brain had barely begun to function and his words confused me.

“Last night. You can’t be sleeping in my bed anymore.”

I scrunched up my face. “Don’t you think that’s the least of
our problems?”

“Where I’m sitting, having you sleep in my bed is a pretty
big problem. So don’t do it anymore, okay?”

Oh. My. Gosh!
“Wait... what are you... do you think
there’s something going on”—I motioned to him and then myself.—”That’s not at
all why I went and slept in your bed last night.”
Eeew, eeew, eeew! Yuck.
“I was a little scared last night. Well, a
lot
scared last night, but
that’s it. I swear!”

“Because you’re a kid and coming onto me, as flattering as
it is, would be wrong—”

“You’re grossing me out.” I wasn’t awake enough for this
kind of thing. “Knock it off.”

He stood and pointed to me. “You’re cute and I’m
magnificent, I get that, but even in an apocalyptic situation you can’t let your
hormones get the best of you. That would be wrong.”

“You
think?
” I threw my hands up. “Why are we still
talking about this? I can hardly stand you, so there’s no worry about me having
sex with you. Okay?”

He nodded and went back to his grill. “Good. I wanted to
make sure we were both clear. No touchy stuff.”

“Yeah, definitely.” I shuddered. “Not even if you were the
last guy on earth.”

He glanced up, looked around, and smiled. “Touché.”

I waved him off. “Are you going to tell me what last night
was all about? The crazy trance thing, because it really scared me and you
frightened my cat too, making her act all weird. I thought you might be seeing
ghosts or something.”

He shrugged, brushed the hair off his forehead, and placed
his safety glasses back on. “I slept like a baby last night up until you hit
me.”

“Really? You don’t remember anything?” Could he really have
been
that
asleep? Even with his eyes open? I tried to play the whole
thing back in my mind, but came back to the same conclusion each time—one of
those paranormal freak of nature kinds of things. Definitely not normal.

“Nope.” He bent over the pile that was once a grill and
began tinkering again as though we’d reached the end of the conversation.

We
totally
hadn’t.

“You’re not the least bit curious?” I climbed down from the RV
and came to stand at his side. I leaned closer and closer until I forced him to
acknowledge me.

He let out his breath. “What are you doing?”

I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to talk to
you about last night. It really,
really
scared me.”

“Tess”—he adjusted his safety glasses—”
everything
scares you. Tell me something new for a change.”

I grabbed those glasses from his face and tossed them to the
side.
“You
scared me, Cole.
You.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but took a deep
breath and settled more comfortably into his chair. “Are you sure you weren’t having
a bad dream? Yesterday could do that to a person.”

“I was wide awake! You sat up, stared intently at something not
there, then you nodded, which was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen, before lying
back down as though nothing happened. It was weird. Really weird.”

Maybe he really didn’t remember anything. People talked and
walked in their sleep all the time and had no clue they even did it. I didn’t
know him well enough to decide if this was a fluke thing or something he did on
a regular basis. Yet, I didn’t feel right brushing it off.

“So you’re telling me I sat up, stared at something, nodded
and went back to sleep?” He held both hands in front of him shaking them for
effect. “Oooo...that sounds horrifying. No wonder you were scared.” He grabbed
a screwdriver and waved it at me. “Have you always been like this? Frightened
of your own shadow?”

“What?
Ugh
... you are so frustrating—”

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual, Tess.” He gathered a
couple of screws and an on/off
switch in his hand, and started to walk away,
leaving me standing there.

I threw my hands in the air. “Forget it, Cole! I give up.
You win! Be a weirdo. Be a freak, I don’t care anymore!”

“Good!” He turned and waved his arm around. “I’m free to be
me! Now we need to work on fixing you.”

The damn rain continued to smack against the roof. In any
other situation, I might have found it lulling and beautiful, but right now, it
pissed me off. I had places to go and things to do, and being holed up in a
giant hanger, as nice as it was, messed with my plans.

I needed to get going. I needed to be on my way, because so
much time had already been wasted—
so much time.
I moved restlessly around
the hanger from one thing to another, trying to keep myself occupied without
talking to Cole. I was making a point of ignoring him, though it actually
backfired. He didn’t seem to mind, and kept right on adding overhead lights to
his garden, rigging up a water supply and timer, and running tests to make sure
everything worked. I kept silent. He kept silent. Everything was actually pleasant—for
once.

But after a soak in the hot tub, a bowl of fresh popcorn and
a round of putting golf balls into a hole, I soon found myself bored and
irritated. Another day of this and I would be bouncing off the walls.

The hammock swayed slightly as I stared at the ceiling with
my hands tucked behind my head. If only I could nap my time away, but for some
reason, despite everything I’d been through since crawling out of the bunker, I
wasn’t tired. Lazy, but not tired.

Had Cole bothered to ask me for help, I may have, but he
didn’t. Instead, I rested in the hammock, rocking it with my bare foot that
dangled over the side, and continuously blew and popped my bubble gum while
staring at the ceiling.

“Can’t find a way to entertain yourself, huh?” Cole stared
down at me, blocking my view of the
oh so intriguing
corrugated roof.

“I’m bored.”

“Only boring people get bored.”

I didn’t care if he had slighted me. It didn’t matter. Maybe
I was becoming used to his offhanded insults. I rolled my head to the side and
decided to go back to ignoring him, so I gave the hammock a gentle push to get
it swaying once more.

“You’ve been keeping up on your antibiotics, right?”

“Not sure how you would expect me to do that. The monster
tornado sucked everything I owned away, remember?” I blew a large bubble,
bigger than any of the previous ones, but it popped before I could pinch off
the end and admire it.

“I think I might have more for you. I’ll have to check.
Also, I need to take a look at your stitches and make sure everything is good
to go.”

I didn’t answer, going right on chewing my gum.

“Well, then. This hunting your dad down in complete silence
should be
super
fun. So glad I signed on for this.” He stopped the
swinging of the hammock and waited for me to look at him. “I’ll be back with
your drugs in a second.”

Besides the stitches itching every once in awhile, I hardly
remembered they were there. Tornados, thunderstorms, angel wing tattoos, and
wacky dreams—those things had me too busy to think about anything else.

When he returned, he handed me a bottle of water and two
pills, and watched me swallow them both. “If we’re gonna hike a friggin’
mountain, you need to be in the best shape you can be.”

He did have a point there.

“How’s your arm?” He didn’t wait for me to respond but
raised the sleeve of my shirt. He peeled back the bandage and gave out a low
whistle. “Yeah, we probably should have changed the dressing on this after your
shower last night.”

I tried to look at my arm, but couldn’t quite angle my head
to get a good peek. “What’s wrong? Is it infected?”

He shook his head. “Nah, just needs to be taken better care
of than what we’ve been doing.” He removed the dirty bandage and replaced it
with a clean one, taking his time to tape it in place. “You like playing video
games?”

“Umm... sure. I’m not very good at them though.” Toby played
them all of the time, and I mostly watched. The stupid controllers always gave
me problems, because there were too many buttons to push. My brother had no
patience for my lack of gaming skills and usually sent me away after a few
minutes.

Cole’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Perfect!
Meet me at the movie theater in, say, ten minutes. I’ve got to shut most
everything down to play, but you and me, we’re taking on some ninjas!”

His excitement was contagious and I chuckled in spite of
myself. “Sure. Why the heck not? What else do I have going on?”

He started walking away, a little pep in his step, but
turned to face me. “Hey, Tess?”

“Yeah?”

“I get the whole bored thing. I actually feel ripped off
that this apocalyptic mess isn’t due to crazed zombies or an alien invasion. It
would’ve given us something to do besides argue with one another all the time.
No one can possibly get bored when they’re busy fighting the undead or trying
to keep from being probed.”

As strange as his logic was, I couldn’t help but nod. “Except,
I’d be a zombie by now if we had to fight the walking dead.” I hardly made a
good survivor under my current circumstances; I couldn’t imagine trying to fend
off the undead too.

He tipped his head from side to side and raised his brows,
thinking. “That’s true. You’d be a walker, but in all fairness, you’d probably
be a pretty damn good one because of how testy and mean you are.”

Another backhanded compliment. I didn’t say anything even
though what he said was mostly right.

“You know I meant that as a good thing, right?”

I nodded.

“It’s because of your feistiness that you’d be an amazing
zombie, ripping off limbs and eating brains like a pro. I can picture the whole
thing clearly. Total George A. Romero style.”

“Okay, you can stop now.”

He kept up with his cheesy grin. “Sorry. Meet me in ten?”

I blew a huge bubble, pushing its limits until it popped. “Sure.
Ten it is.”

“You weren’t kidding when you said you sucked at playing
video games.” Cole kept his gaze on the oversized screen while maneuvering his
hero through the ninja battlefield. His fingers pressed buttons quicker than
any person could possibly blink.

I held up my controller—my hero had been sliced in half and
I had to wait to regenerate. “I never said I sucked, just that I wasn’t very
good at it.”

“Yeah, Tess. I hate to break it to you, but there is a
difference between being no good at something and sucking at it, and you, my
friend, suck worse than I could have imagined possible.” He slid forward in his
chair, becoming intensely focused on the game as though it were a real matter
of life and death.

“Well, look at this thing!” I waved the controller at him. “There’re
too many buttons! One for jumping, another for swinging nun chucks, and I’m
supposed to push these”—I held down the two buttons, moving my character
forward while keeping him looking straight ahead—”all at the same time. It’s
impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible. You need more practice, is all.”

My character came back to life, and for a brief minute I
thought I actually had a chance, but I was dead again within only a few
seconds—stupid character staring up at the clouds while ghost ninjas pummeled
him with blasts of powder balls.

I sank into the plush theater seating and drew my feet up
and under myself. “I feel like I should be doing something other than playing
video games, singing songs, and riding in shopping carts. Our situation is
serious and all we seem to be doing is messing around.”

Cole didn’t look at me. “It’s raining. When it stops, we’ll
be more serious. I promise.”

“Do you even know
how
to be serious?” I tossed a
handful of Skittles into my mouth.

“Of course, but being serious right now isn’t going to
change the fact that it’s raining. Until it lets up, I’m going to enjoy myself.”
He glanced at me briefly, smiling, before turning his full attention to the
large screen again. “Isn’t that what life’s all about?”

I gave a non-committal shrug. “I don’t feel like I’m living
right now. This is me being in limbo, waiting to live.”

He paused the game even though his character had leveled up,
becoming a master ninja slayer, and turned in his seat to face me. I’m not sure
what I was expecting from him. Maybe a keep your chin up kind of thing, but he
only leaned forward, coming closer to me than most people would find socially
acceptable, and said, “You’re ruining my gaming experience.”

Instead of backing away, removing myself from the awkward
situation, I leaned even closer into him, our noses only inches apart. “Good.”

The goofy grin he wore faded and his dark eyes tracked mine,
staring at me in a way that should have felt uncomfortable, but didn’t.

I felt paralyzed and vulnerable, his gaze penetrating a part
of me no one had ever been witness to, seeing something I wasn’t sure I wanted
to share. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t move. His warm breath feathered over my slightly
parted lips, natural and strange all at once. Tiny goose bumps rippled my skin
in response, and my own breath lodged itself in my throat.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but knew well enough
that sharing this kind of intimate experience wasn’t right—not between him and
me. I barely liked him, so how could my body react in this way? The traitor. My
mind whirled in confusion, never coming to rest on a single thought, but
accepting the humility and realness his eyes reflected. The mystery of it all
held me entranced, however wrong it was.

Then he blinked. Once.

Whatever had passed between us dissipated, and I fell
against my seat like a ragdoll, but continued to watch him as my heart eased
back into a normal rhythm.

He slumped in his seat as well, his eyes on the paused
screen, his controller resting in his hands. Neither of us said anything, and I
knew by the look on his face he had to be thinking the same thing:
What was
that all about?

I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to understand, because
there was no acceptable reason for that kind of behavior, especially after our
lengthy talk earlier.
This is ridiculous
. I grabbed my open box of candy
and distanced myself from him, trying to put some perspective on the whole
thing. Weren’t there dishes to be done? Maybe I should try washing my clothes? Another
shower, maybe?

I headed toward the RV, leaving him sitting there to stare
at the stilled screen.

“No touchy-feely, Tess,” he called after me.

I glanced back at him, and planned to tell him no worries
there, but he’d already leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees,
engrossed in shooting flying ninjas from the air.