Please Remain Calm (10 page)

No, no, no, no. She pulls me away, drags me through the trees. I hear a gunshot, so loud and close, I feel it in my mouth. The ugly sound of the dead surrounds us, more of them than I can ever remember hearing at one time. They’re screeching, directing each other to their prey.

To Jess.

And it’s not long before I’m hearing him being torn open, and I’d give anything not to hear him. I’d give anything to cover Ainsley’s ears from his screams. His screams. The woods are crawling with so many of them, more than was at the house in Fairfield, all in varying stages of decay. Some of them are blind to us, want to reach the dying man and make their claim, but the eyes that see us, see only us. The gun goes off several more times. I watch bodies fall as they take bullets to the head or the knees. But soon the chamber’s dry and all we can do is run.

Ainsley’s heavier in my arms now and my legs are turning to nothing and it’s that moment when I’m aware I’m losing steam that the infected realize it too. They become even more determined and better at the chase. One tackles me and I drop Ainsley, hear the awful thud of her small body hitting the ground. I lay there for a long moment, wondering if this is the one that is mine. I stare up at the sky, at the stars dotting the darkness, until the view is interrupted for the rotting visage of a man who reminds me of my father.

I don’t want to hurt you.

He opens his mouth.

“
Rhys!
”

I turn my head. Sloane has Ainsley in her arms, somehow. The man above me leans forward, his teeth sharp and ready, but there are more behind him and they try to pull him away from me so they can have me to themselves. They yank him back and I roll to the side at the same time they collapse forward, grasping at the space where I was.

We get clear of the dead.

We find the road and then we find the bridge. Jess told me the infected should be less of a problem after that, if any, because it’s farther away from Riverside. After the bridge, we move deeper into the wilderness, through trees. I wait for the ground to get steeper as it rises, because after a long hike up, we should be high enough to see it, the cabin. From there, it’s back down again and another six or seven miles through a dense stretch of woods.

The air is dry against my skin and my mouth is parched, barely enough spit to wet it. But that turns out to be the biggest of my problems because Jess was right. We don’t run into any dead. I push down the fury building inside me that it couldn’t have been easy for that one last night. That we couldn’t have just walked out of the RV and been on our way. When the ground starts to elevate, Ainsley starts faltering. We take turns carrying her. I know it hurts Sloane’s injured arm, but she doesn’t complain. Ainsley stares at me over Sloane’s shoulder, her face pale and drawn. The night took so much out of her and the death of her father is in her eyes and it’s so wrong to see all of this on the face of someone so young.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“What?” Sloane asks.

“He could’ve sacrificed either of us instead.”

She pauses. “Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to live with that, if he had.”

I’m mad at him, so much. Sloane whispered the story to me, about Jess telling her what it was like outside the RV, that we were too surrounded, that he was going to do this so his daughter had a chance. He was smart, I guess, to tell it to Sloane because I wouldn’t have let him. I don’t blame Sloane for not stopping him, but I’m so fucking mad at him. Just because we’re supposed to be here for Ainsley, doesn’t mean he’s not supposed to be here for us.

“We’re getting close,” Sloane says breathlessly, after a while.

“You hear that, Ainsley?” I force myself to sound cheerful. “We’re getting close to the cabin. It’s going to be okay. When we get there, we’ll clean ourselves up and we’ll get some food and we’ll have—I’ll read you the—”

I didn’t bring the book.

It’s still in that fucking RV.

“I’m sorry, Ainsley,” I say. She closes her eyes. I try to remember the first lines about Molly waking up and getting ready to start her day. Maybe I could write it myself, make it close to how it was. But all its words escape me now, got left behind.

Eventually, I see light between the trees, the sky. Sloane notices it too and picks up her pace. We make it up the last of the hill and break through the clearing and the view is everything I want it to be, a promise. There’s not many of those made these days. Sloane sets Ainsley down and we stare across the woods below us, the ones we’ll be walking through, and beyond them, I see the cabin. The cabin. This small, but cozy-looking shape in the distance. Shelter. Safety.
Home.
We can make a home out of that, I think. I turn to Ainsley, and she’s sat herself down, her tiny palms pressed against the ground.

“I’m cold,” she says.

She’s got the sweetest voice.

No.

I move to her, kneel in front of her, seeing for the first time how limp and pale she is, see that what I was telling myself was just her father’s death wearing on her was so much worse than that, that there are things in this world, now, that are worse than that. I bring my hands to her baby face and draw back just as quickly because she’s cold and I know that cold.

“No,” I say.

No.

My eyes search until they find the small bloodstain on the cuff of her pants. I roll it up and find a very small bite mark on her ankle. More of her pants got it than her leg did, but it’s not like if you get a little bitten, you get to make it out okay.

“No,” I whisper. “I can’t …”

I look up at Sloane and she looks down at me with the sorriest eyes. A tear slides down her face. I turn back to Ainsley and her head begins to twitch, jerky little nods. The sight makes my stomach hurt. I gently ease her back on the ground and I don’t recognize her anymore. She looks smaller than she already is, like she’s not wearing her body right.

“I can’t,” I say.

“I’ll do it,” Sloane says.

Ainsley’s mouth opens and closes but she doesn’t make sound. It’s starting now, it’s starting, but it can’t be starting because she just got her voice back and we were going to be in the cabin, Ainsley, me, and Sloane. All of us. And it was going to be good, even without Jess, even without my parents, even without Lily. Not everything we lost, but good, because it would be so close. So close. We were so close.

But we’ll never be close enough.

What am I supposed to do, knowing that?

“Rhys.”

I look up from the body.

Sloane holds out her hand for mine.

“Let’s keep going,” she says.

There are lights in the windows.

The boy is
beautiful.

She wants him to look at her.

Look at me, look at me, look at me.

Look at her. She’s young, she’s vital, she’s a star in the sky. She’s agonized over this night, agonized over every second of getting ready, like the perfect combination of clothes and makeup will unlock the secrets of the universe. Sometimes it feels like that much is at stake.

She has never been hungrier in her life.

You look perfect,
her best friend, Penny, says, stepping back from the mirror, and that’s all she needs to hear to feel worthy of the six-letter name she’s tattooed on her heart. Penny would know about perfect. Penny’s got the kind of face and body that stops traffic, turns heads, leaves people open-mouthed, in awe. The kind of pretty that makes you prettier just by being close to it and she’s always close to it, because they’re close. Secret-keeping close.

Thank you,
she says. She’s never had a best friend before, let alone been one. It’s a strange feeling, to have a place. Like there was an empty spot beside another (perfect) girl, just waiting for her. She pulls at her skirt, adjusts the thin straps of her top. It feels like too much and not enough at the same time.

Do you really think he’ll like it?

Yeah. Now don’t do anything stupid.

Is this stupid? It’s so much later now and
beautiful, beautiful,
she’s saying to the boy because she can’t seem to shut up. She has had one, no, two, no, three-four shots and this is what happens when that much drinking happens. She says things like,
you are so beautiful. I just really wanted to tell you that.

The boy is beautiful.

Thank you,
he says.

She reaches clumsily across the table and threads her fingers through his hair, enjoying the feel of his dark curls. Penny sees this happen somehow, sees through the wall of an entirely different room where she’s been wrapped around her boyfriend because suddenly, she’s there, saying,
don’t let her drink anymore.

I won’t,
the boy promises.

It makes her feel warm, being looked after, out for. She tries to articulate this with her numb tongue, but all that comes out:
is this stupid? Am I stupid?

You’re one drink away,
Penny says, and laughs at the stricken expression this news inspires. Penny hugs her, tells her not to worry about it, whispers in her ear before disappearing back behind her wall,
but he’s looking at you.

Look at her.

Drink.

Six-seven-eight-nine shots later and she’s thinking
oh no
because she is going to puke. He walks her through his house, guides her away from the party.

You want to get some air? You want to lie down?

No, she wants her best friend because she worries she is so many drinks past stupid now and she doesn’t know what to do about that.

It’s okay. I’ll get her. But first you should lie down.

There’s a truck, a classic pick-up pride and joy. There’s the truck’s bed, and the cold shock of it against her back makes her shiver. The stars above move or maybe it’s the earth, that slow and sure turning of the earth. No. It’s the sky and it’s speaking to her.

Close your eyes.

He waits. He waits because he’s a nice boy. A blessed boy. His father is the sheriff and his mother sits at the top of a national auto supply chain and they are both so proud.

He waits until he can’t wait anymore.

She thinks he’s beautiful. That’s enough.

The hard ridges of the truck bed never warm under her body but her body is warm. He feels everything under her shirt before he takes it off.

Look at me, look at me, hey, look at me.

He wants her to look at him.

Her eyes open slowly. His tongue parts her lips. She’s never felt so sick. He explores the terrain of her body while he pretends to negotiate the terms.

You want this, you’ve always wanted this and we’re not going that far, I promise.

Really? His hands are everywhere and he’s a vicious weight on top of her that she can’t breathe against so she cries instead, and how do you get a girl to stop crying?

You cover her mouth.

But that was a long time ago, and that girl …

I’m in the dirt. I’m on my hands and my knees and I’m crawling in it, what I came from. I don’t remember standing, don’t remember ever being a thing that could stand. Just this dirt, this road. I opened my mouth to it, tasted it. It’s under my fingernails. A night passed from the ground. Now it’s early morning and I’m thirsty.

A dry wind moves through the trees off the road beside me, stirring their leaves. I dredge up spit to wet my swollen lips and lick my bloodstained teeth. It’s hot out, the kind of heat that creeps up on you and makes mirages on the road. The kind that shrivels the elderly and carries them into the waiting, open arms of death.

I roll onto my back. My skirt rides up my legs. I pull at my shirt and find it open, feel my bra unclasped. I fumble buttons through holes, covering myself even though it is so. Hot. I can’t. I touch my fingertips to my throat. Breathe.

My bones ache, have aged somehow in the last twenty-four hours. I press my palms against the grit and the bitter hurt of it startles me into semiawareness. They’re scraped, raw and pink, what happens when you crawl.

A distant rumbling reaches my ears. A car. It passes and then slows, backs up, comes to a halt beside me. Its door opens and slams shut. I close my eyes and listen to the soft crunch of soft soles on rough gravel.

Birds are singing.

The footsteps stop but the birds are still singing, singing about a girl who wakes up on a dirt road and doesn’t know what happened to her the night before, and the person standing over her, a shadow across her body that blocks out the sun. Maybe it’s someone nice. Or maybe someone come to finish whatever it is that’s been started. About a girl.

Don’t look at her.

Before I tore
the labels off, one was called
Paradise
and the other,
Hit and Run.
It doesn’t matter which is which. They’re both blood red.

Proper application of nail polish is a process. You can’t paint it on like it’s nothing and expect it to last. First, prep. I start with a four-way buffer. It gets rid of the ridges and gives the polish a smooth surface to adhere to. Next, I use a nail dehydrator and cleanser because it’s best to work with a nail plate that’s dry and clean. Once it’s evaporated, a thin layer of base coat goes on. The base coat protects the nails and prevents staining.