Chapter 7: TrickyTricky
Ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. ~ Genesis 3.5
At first, I thought I was delusional. I was so overcome with grief I thought I might be having some sort of screwed up fantasy, but as I pressed my ear harder into his chest, and I heard it loud and clear. A heartbeat. And it wasn’t mine…
It was Colin’s.
My head whipped upward and I scowled at him, “Oh, no.”I scrambled backwards, getting to my feet and peered down at him as he let out a gust of air from his lungs.
“Georgie,” he wheezed. Then he caught his breath and sinister smirk spread across his lips. “Did I ever tell you I was on the swim team in high school? Did you know that I held the record for holding my breath under water the longest.”
My breaths were short and rapid. My cheeks were red and tingling. None of this was funny. I was seconds away from killing him all over again. And this time it would be for real.
“Do you know what that record was?” Colin went on.
“No,” I said, grinding my teeth together.
“Three. Whole. Minutes,” he bragged as he sat upright. Then he began laughing. He laughed so loud the sound of his deep voice echoed off of the piles of rubble surrounding us. “You were like a depressing record,” he said in between laughs, “I never knew you were so emotional.” Colin rose to his feet and wiped the dust from his clothes. “You’re lucky, he mocked. “You’re free of this awful world that we live in.” Again more laughter. He hunched over and hugged his sides to catch his breath.
And me, I was fuming.
That was a cruel, wicked, evil prank to play on someone. To play dead like that, especially in the situation we were in was…. I couldn’t even come up with more words. The only thing I was focused on was how much I despised him at that very moment.
“You’re a jerk!” I yelled.
Colin exhaled, still smiling. He walked over and placed his hands on shoulders. “Calm down. It was just a joke.”
“A crappy joke.” As much as I tried to settle down I couldn’t. I felt betrayed. He probably just did what he did to see how I would react and I cursed myself for being so stupid. I backed away from him, stomping in the opposite direction. “Stay away from me!”
He grabbed me by the hand. “Georgie,” he sighed.
Yanking my hand away, I whipped my free hand around and backhanded him. “I said stay away from me!”
Colin’s mouth dropped open as he cupped the right side of his face. “Georgina, what do you want me to say? I’m sorry. Well, I am. I’m sorry.”
I marched forward ignoring him. “Leave me alone.”
“You can’t go off on your own! Mr. Baker said we have to stay together! And we haven’t found any supplies, yet!”
“I’m sure you can manage without me. And if you die this time, believe me, none of my tears will be shed over you.”
Pretty soon, I was far enough away from him that all I could hear was his voice echoing, “Georgina, drop the bitch act! It was a joke! Now come back here! You’ll be eaten alive out there.”
“I’d rather be eaten alive than spend any more time with you!” That was the last thing I said to him. And if he did shout something back, I couldn’t hear what he said. There had to be at least a mile between us and in my opinion; a mile wasn’t far enough.
My blood was boiling, and twice during my walk, I shrieked out so loud that I thought some of the anger, might have escaped through those screams but it didn’t.
The tattered sign that read Lincoln, Nebraska dangled over my head as I plopped down on a pile of metal and rocks. “I can’t believe him,” I growled. He had me so worried that I was frantic. I poured my heart out to him. And what do I get? Some joke. Some sick, twisted joke.
I kicked a rock in front of me and watched as it rolled across the dusty road. Seriously, what was he thinking? And why in God’s name would he think that I would think that any of this was funny? When I pictured him laughing, I had the urge to scream again. Instead, I picked up an even bigger rock and chucked it across the road. I focused on the tiny dust particles that circled in the air every time the rock bounced.
Part of me wanted to be elated that he was alive and not dead. When he initially stood up, there was a miniscule second where I thought about tackling him and placing at least a dozen kisses on cheeks. The educated part of me knew that how I reacted would be the way anyone in my situation would have reacted.
I thought of my parents. I imagined my mother’s face if my father ever pulled a stunt like this. Yeah, I don’t think even when my father was Colin’s age, he would have ever played a joke like that on my mother. After mulling it over it my mind, I came to the conclusion that I was not overreacting about Colin’s joke. Not at all.
* * * *
After sitting in the same spot for about an hour, and tossing
at least twenty more rocks across the road, I felt like I had finally calmed down. The brightness in the sky was starting to dim slightly and now I focused on another task. Finding Colin.
“Damn it,” I cursed as I wandered back the way I came. It probably wasn’t a good thing that I let my temper get the best of me. I shouldn’t have wandered off. I could have stayed with him and ignored him, while the rage inside me was writhing. No. That wasn’t a good idea, either.
When Frankie was a toddler, she used to do the same thing. She’d sit there and let her anger build. And build. And build up more. Until finally she was throwing a full-on temper tantrum. And those temper tantrums lasted for hours. They usually happened at night, so I’d be forced to listen to her incessant wailing as my parents tried to calm her down.
The next morning, I’d be exhausted because unlike Frankie, I had to get up for school. “Never be afraid to unleash a little bit of your temper,” my Mom would say. “It’s not good for you hold it in.” It was that simple memory got me up off that pile of trash and walking again.
As I walked down the road, something off to the side caught my eye, and whatever it was, it was sparkling. Glancing in both directions, my eyes rested on a piece of sharpened metal sticking out of the ground. I was definitely nervous to be out here all alone. That piece of metal would be an excellent weapon for me if I was attacked. But, I hesitated before picking it up.
Cannibals were blood sucking, flesh eating, bone picking humans/monsters, but they were very cunning and they were very smart. I had never seen any of their traps up close and personal but I had heard plenty of stories. The one that terrified me the most was one that Mr. Vickers told.
Once, when he was a gatherer, he found a glass jar, still intact, sticking out of the ground. Any gatherer that came across an object we could use would take the object, so Mr. Vickers yanked on the glass jar, pulling it out of the ground, and noticed there was a string attached to it.
He unwound the yards of string until he couldn’t anymore. The string became taught and he resorted to tugging on it. A few forceful tugs later, a female cannibal erupted from the dirt. She was extremely hungry. I remembered this part of the story specifically because Mr. Vickers put such emphasis on it. “You should have seen her,” he said, an eerie tone to his voice. “Her face was hollow and sunken in, like she was rotting away from the outside to the inside. Her teeth were sharpened to form fangs, and white saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth.” But that wasn’t the worst of it. “She snapped her teeth at me, like a beast with rabies, and when I looked down, I noticed the bulge in her stomach,” he paused to catch himself, because he was on the verge of tearing up. “She was pregnant.”
To me, that was more frightening than her resorting to cannibalism. I assumed that she was like the rest of the cannibals, homeless, abandoned, and starving. Her unborn child probably died in the womb because of the malnutrition. When you can’t eat, the living being inside of you can’t eat. Therefore it would not grow.
I turned away from the metal on the side of the road. I kept walking. No picking anything up off the side of the road today.
Chapter 8: Waiting And Drowning In Emptiness
It is not good that the man should be alone.~ Genesis 2:18
When I arrived at the spot where I had left Colin, he wasn’t there. That wasn’t a shock. I figured he wouldn’t wait around for me. After all, he probably assumed that I wouldn’t be coming back. Especially after I slapped him. A tiny grin spread across my face when I thought about my mother slapping Mr. Baker across the face. I didn’t mind that I inherited her spunk at all.
I sat down on the boulder that almost made me a human pancake an hour earlier. Of course, it was now at the bottom of the pile of rubble and three medium-sized rocks kept it pinned there. I stared out in front of me and squealed in delight. “My knapsack!” I had abandoned it during my fit of rage—thanks to Colin.
After grabbing it, I slumped down in front of the boulder, and removed a piece of flat bread and my canteen of water. My stomach howled, churned, and gurgled. Yeah, I was pretty hungry. I was surprised that I didn’t notice my hunger pains until now. Then again, I had a lot on my mind at the time.
Picking the bread apart into pieces, I nibbled on few of the pieces, still feeling distracted. I wondered where Colin went and when or if he would come back here looking for me.
Focusing on two rocks in front of me, I chewed the bread mechanically, not able to enjoy it when I was hit with an epiphany.“Georgina, you idiot,” I said as I swallowed.
Colin and I were supposed to be out here looking for supplies. Two hours, maybe three, had already passed and the council said that we only had four hours to look for the items on our list. Because of everything that had gone down earlier, I completely forgot about our mission—the reason that Colin and I were elected to come up here in the first place.
Reaching into the front pocket of my knapsack, I removed my list, scanned it quickly, and peered up at the mountain of rocks in front of me. “Well,” I said aloud. “Might as well try to find at least one thing on my list while I’m waiting.”
As I climbed to the top of the mountain, the worn out soles on my tennis shoes made me slip when they brushed against some of the flat, smooth rocks. I stumbled, almost falling down.
“Wwhhoa,” my voice shook as I steadied my flailing arms. I caught my balance when I clutched on to a massive, triangular piece of debris rock. The layered edging and worn out banner across the front of it reminded me of the top of the building at the old city hall.
The City Hall was one of my favorite buildings to look at. It had such an ornate and antique feel to it. I used to marvel at the stone gargoyles on the top and fantasized what it would be like to see them soaring through the endless periwinkle sky. My lips curled up into a smile. Ah, memories.
When I finally reached the top of rock mountain, I was proud that I had climbed all the way to the top. I wasn’t even winded. And I felt like I had climbed at least a dozen mountains in my life. Which was a lie. I’d never climbed anything. I didn’t even like the jungle gym on the playground.
It wasn’t until I saw my bleak surroundings that the proud feeling inside of me vanished. Instead, depression set in. I was so sick and tired of the thick mass of gray all along the skyline. I was tired of not being able to see the beautiful, glowing sun, and scowled at the sight of the roads that were covered with a mixture of ashes and dirt.
I wanted to see houses, buildings, roads, cars, and most of all, I wanted to see the earth alive again. I wanted to see the endless green stretching on for miles. Flowers in an assortment of colors blossoming. Cows out in the pastures chewing on the grass.
Then I thought about my home. I couldn’t spot where it used to be. But as I closed my eyes, it came back to me, like a dream. There used to an open field behind our house. Frankie and I played many games of tag in that field. We frolicked, picked dandelion bouquets, had picnics, and even stayed out late at night in the summer to catch lightening bugs.
Every Sunday morning, during the summer, my father would hop on his riding mower and mow the grass. That was one of my favorite scents—freshly-cut grass. After he’d finished the lawn, I’d walk out the sliding glass door and inhale deeply. I’d never again be able to experience that. But I should have been happy that I had any fond memories of what earth used to be like at all.
A few women in the colony had given birth since it had been established and I felt sorry for those new infants. For the rest of their lives, they would only be able to picture what the earth was like from stories that would be passed down to them. They’d never truly be able to experience the real beauty of it for themselves.