The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (37 page)

Though Lee said it was because he wanted to be a surfer, Xander and Bobby had known it was because Lee actually believed the girls out there walked around in bikinis twenty four seven. Xander had thought Lee would fit into the lifestyle well out there, that it was where he belonged, while he and Bobby were east coast boys with family ties that were more entwined than Lee's had been.

So he couldn't be at a campfire with his college friends, not if Lee and Bobby were here, or had been here…?

His throat felt like there were fire ants in there too. He tried to reach a hand up to it, but something cool pushed his hand back down. Liquid was pressed against his lips. He heard voices, one of which he was certain was Bobby's, but the others…

He tried to shake his head but it wouldn't move. He tried to open his mouth but no words would come out. Hot, he was hot like the Painted Desert on an August day. He'd gone through the Painted Desert when he was sixteen with his family to visit the Grand Canyon. Though it had been beautiful it had been so unbelievably hot that he was pretty sure he'd panted like a dog through most of the days they'd spent out there.

Something cool and refreshing touched his forehead and knocked away the ants crawling over and through his skin.

Through?
He thought as he tried to figure it out.

Yes, it really did feel like they were crawling under and through his skin as their legs brushed against him and their pinchers repeatedly sank into his leg. He shuddered and attempted to wipe them away but his arm didn't move. He sighed as he gave up on trying to beat the heat, and ants, away. It wouldn't do him any good anyway.

A woman's voice reached him seconds before the coolness touched against his forehead again. A smile flitted across his mouth. It had to be his mother; he must be sick or something. He must have come home from college, was he even in college? Perhaps he'd imagined that he was in college when in reality he was still in high school, or maybe he'd imagined that too and he would happily be joining his friends for recess once he was feeling well enough to open his eyes and face the world again.

Maybe that was why he could hear Bobby's voice; Bobby had stopped by after school to drop off the homework for Mrs. Carmichael's class. Everyone knew that they couldn't miss even a day of Mrs. Carmichael's assignments or they would never catch up. She was the toughest teacher at the elementary school, but she was also his favorite.

He'd go back to school tomorrow or maybe the next day when he wasn't so hot and tired. He'd go back when his mom said it would be ok for him to go back.

His head was tilted back, he felt something pressed against his lips and then more liquid was spilling into his mouth. The acrid taste caused his tongue to jerk reflexively and he didn't understand why water would taste so awful when it wasn't supposed to have any taste at all. The brief thought of poison flitted across his mind, but his mother would never do anything to hurt him. He tried to spit it out but his mouth was forced closed and his head was kept tilted back.

The awful stuff slid down his throat and he had little choice but to swallow it. He thought he gagged but he couldn't be sure as something was placed to his forehead and he sank back into the blissful world of obscurity.

Bobby's voice tickled at his mind again sometime later; perhaps it was only seconds after the last time he'd heard it, but for all he knew it had been days. The woman spoke again but it wasn't his mom, he realized that now. Maybe it was Carol, but no there was something with Carol… was she away? Had she gone somewhere with the high school?

He'd done a few fieldtrips with the school where they'd spent the night, one to New York City and another to Washington D.C. He knew his parents would send her on the same trips. It was important to his parents that he and Carol saw as much of the world, and experienced as much of history, as they could. No cruises to the Caribbean for them during the summer, but he and Carol had convinced them that Pearl Harbor was a must see five years ago or maybe it was last year?

He couldn't remember and it really didn't seem that important right now when he didn't know where Carol was. He'd have to figure it out soon. At least it didn't feel like fire ants were biting him all over anymore. The heat was still there but it wasn't as blistering and he wondered if perhaps he'd fallen asleep on a beach or something.

Was he in Hawaii now?

No, that made no sense either. Carol would be here with him and he was certain Carol wasn't here. There was a woman but he realized now it wasn't his mother and it wasn't his sister. Carol was somewhere else. The memory niggled at the edges of his mind but it was like trying to catch a firefly. It was there one second but the next it was gone.

He had to figure out where Carol was. He could save her if he could simply remember where she'd gone. He frowned as he mulled over his thoughts. Why would his sister need saving? It was an absurd notion. They lived in a safe suburban town, Carol wasn't a crazy party girl; she had her head screwed on straight and her priorities in order. She enjoyed having a good time, and they'd shared more than a couple of drinks together, but she'd never done drugs and she didn't drink and drive.

He didn't see how she could be in trouble or why he was irrationally convinced that she was.

Lifting his hand he slapped away something tickling at his skin, only to discover that it was sweat trickling down his temple. A hand grabbed hold of his and pulled it tenderly aside. Bobby was speaking again but the words made little sense.

Swallowing heavily, he forced a word out of his parched throat, or at least he thought he did. "Carol?"

No one answered him though and he began to think that perhaps he hadn't spoken aloud and was only imaging that he had. He struggled to stay afloat in the quagmire that had become his mind, but he felt something tugging at him as persistently as the concrete shoes that a mobster attached to a body before throwing it in a river.

Swimming with the fishies
, he thought as the water swirled up to take him into its blessed depths once more.

The awful tasting liquid being forced back down his throat pulled him from the bottom of the river. A face swam before him as he tried to blink the blurriness from his eyes but he couldn't bring the wavy features into focus.

"Xander?"

It was Bobby again, but his name was coming from his left and not the person sitting across from him. The feeling of someone driving a nail through his skull forced him to reclose his eyes. The person across from him was a woman but it wasn't Carol and it wasn't his mother.

But who else could it possibly be? The only other woman that had ever meant anything, and been of any significance in his life was Riley, and she hated him. She wouldn't be sitting here with him, trying to make him feel better, unless she'd been the one that made him feel this way to begin with. He wouldn't have put it past her to slip something into his food to teach him a lesson for pulling her hair or teasing her incessantly.

He really wished she would realize that he only teased her because it made him smile every time she stepped off the bus with Carol, and he didn't know how to tell her that. Every time she smiled he did too, especially on those rare occasions when she smiled specifically at
him
. He was certain that smile could light the Empire State Building.

He didn't let any of the other boys tease her. She may not know about it but he'd actually gotten into a fight with Bill Hoyton for picking on her during lunch the other day. No, not the other day, he'd been eleven when that happened and he was…

He couldn't remember how old he was right now, but he was pretty sure that incident had been awhile ago. That hadn't happened yesterday and Riley had never learned about the altercation with Bill. She would have still been angry and resentful toward him even if he had told her. He desired nothing more than to sit next to her and hold her hand and she wanted nothing more than to kick him in the nuts.

Something else teased the corners of his mind and he saw himself holding her and kissing her by a set of railroad tracks. That most certainly had to have been a dream, like the so many other dreams he'd had about her, but even as he tried to tell himself that it was only a dream he knew that wasn't right. The memory was so solid that he couldn't shake the feel or taste of her. He couldn't shake the warmth that had helped to ease his wounded and ravaged soul as he'd held her. He frowned as he struggled to recall why he was wounded, why he had felt so ravished when she had kissed him.

The more he struggled to bring the memory to the forefront the more it eluded him as other memories fluttered across his mind. He could clearly see Riley and Carol standing in front of him, frowning as they watched his girlfriend streak across the football field while Bobby and Lee grinned and yelled "cheers!" with their bottles of beer.

He didn't think he'd ever seen his sister look more disapproving, but it wasn't Carol or even the naked girl he had focused upon, it was Riley as she shook her head and turned away. He could take Carol's disappointment, he didn't like it and it was definitely something he would try to fix, but the complete disgust and disillusionment in Riley's eyes had robbed him of his breath. He was in college now, he was supposed to be having fun and doing crazy things like dating wild girls, even if it didn't always make him happy.

Her judgment of him had infuriated him as she had stared at him unrelentingly. He'd tried so many times to talk to her only to be rebuffed time and again. His anger with her had worn off as she met his gaze with a look that clearly stated she'd expected better, and yet somehow also managed to convey that she wasn't at all surprised by his choices.

He'd wanted to shout at her, to tell her to stop being so obtuse and just
talk
to him, just open her eyes and see how he felt about her. How he had
always
felt about her. He'd opened his mouth to tell her, to make her
see
, and he'd been drunk enough at the time to finally blurt it out, but Lee had swung his arm around his shoulders and turned him away before he had the chance to speak.

He hadn't been able to tell her that night, but he hadn't continued to date that girl either. Riley had made him angry, but she'd also made him take stock of his life and what he wanted from it.

The answer had simply been what he'd wanted all along, and that was
her
. She may still be resentful of him, but he wasn't doing anything to improve the situation by bringing girls like that home. He'd hoped to make her jealous; he'd only succeeded in distancing her more.

But he must have made her jealous or succeeded somehow because she
had
kissed him. She had finally held him and touched him and she'd allowed him to do the same to her. He couldn't focus on anything too clearly right now, but he knew he hadn't imagined
that
, he knew it wasn't some fever addled delusion that his mind was creating just to make him happy.

It
had
to have been real. He could almost touch her again almost taste the memory of it on his lips even now.

A bone wracking shiver slid down his spine and though he was hot he was also so unbelievably cold that he thought he might fracture and fall apart if someone hit him. He felt something being draped over him; he heard more voices as whatever had been placed over him was pulled snug around his arms. The chill eased a little but he was still certain he was going to fall apart at any second.

He managed to crack an eyelid but though the room was gloomy the little bit of light that pierced his irises was too much. The pain followed him even after he closed his eyes again. He was certain his skull was going to explode and there was no way to escape that. He tried to sink back into the oblivion of the water but it eluded him as the woman knelt before him and pressed something cool to his forehead.

This woman wasn't Riley either, no matter how badly he wanted it to be, Riley wasn't here. He didn't know where she was, perhaps with Carol. They were always together, it was nearly impossible to separate the two of them. If anyone knew where Carol was it would be Riley. She would know what kind of trouble Carol had gotten into, where she had gone…

Gone!

Carol was gone. She hadn't wandered off somewhere, she hadn't gotten into trouble, and she wasn't on a fieldtrip. She was simply just gone.

The thought pierced through his heart and though he tried to deny it, tried to find those concrete shoes again, there was no shying away from it anymore. He remembered. Carol was gone, his parents were gone and Riley was somewhere else. Riley was out there with Lee, she was lost in a world that was turning against them on an hourly basis.

A world that was going to claim his life too, he was certain of that fact as he tried to fight his way through the fog to take in the room and people around him once more.

It was useless though as the water kept threatening to pull him back under. He imagined this was what it felt like to swim through mud as even his limbs felt weak and hindered. The pounding in his head was beginning to ease but his brain still felt like scrambled eggs as thoughts jumbled and tumbled within his mind. He struggled to recall the details of his life, details of who he was as memories flipped like a picture book through his mind.

That awful taste hit his lips again and his head was tilted back but as the voices spoke he could no longer differentiate one from the other. He wasn't sure if the confusion and insanity was ever going to stop, and he was almost certain that it wouldn't. It seemed that whatever it was that was wrong with him was determined to drive him mad.

He thought he understood the madness of those people now, or at least he thought he understood their need to escape the persistent misery that must plague them. So much so that it caused their mind to snap and kill, or caused them to only be able to perform the simple human functions of eating and drinking. No matter what it was they were eating or drinking.

He wasn't entirely certain he understood much of anything right now though, except for the fact that the fire was easing from his body and the pain in his skull didn't seem as intense. When the water was pressed against his lips this time he swallowed it on his own without being coaxed.