Roadtrip

by enamis


Getting off Our Collective Asses

Ya know what’s funny?

You have two things.

The two things, on their own, are great. Random example, for instance: sponges and baths.

A sponge is nice. It’s colorful, soft, useful, and all around great.

A bath is sweet too. Relaxing, warm, comfortable, fragrant and fun.

But when you put things together… Say, for instance a cold sponge-bath in a dark, derelict hotel room all alone and after the Apocalypse. Not very fun.

Well. I shouldn’t lie, I wasn’t alone-alone. Bella was just the room over sitting on the bed and waiting for me. It didn’t make the bath part any better though.

.
A towel draped around my middle, pressed down by my wings as I trudged, still dripping water from the billionty super-absorbent feathers that I had almost all over me all while shivering from the wind that made it feel like icicles were being shoved against my flesh I left footprint after wet footprint in my wake. Barging through the open doorway to our base I ceased my grumbling for a moment as I saw both Carl and Kaja, in the middle of lunch, jolt in surprise, the shadow of fear passing over them, before they recognized the soaked ball of furious feathers as me.

That just made me even more mad.

“Jeez, Dian’ don’t go-”

“THAT’S IT!” I cut Carl mid-word. “I'VE HAD IT! I'VE FUCKEN’ HAD IT!”

They stared at me with varying amount of concern upon their faces as I silently walked over to where they were, climbed atop the table opposite to theirs and glared. I looked down at Bella standing attention like good little mutt that she was. I cleared my throat again.

.
And stopped, my finger accusingly outheld in front of me. The two gave me enough time while I waited for the gears in brain to work out a kink or two. Satisfied I could function like a normal person again I continued.

“Weird shit has been happening and we can't keep sitting on our asses for whateverthefuck to come and happen all over us.”

I saw them uncomfortably shift in their pants.

“Something needs to be done.”

Silence.

C’mon work with me here.

“Fine. I’ll bite.” Thank you, you muscle-bound bastard. “What?”

“Simple.”

I grinned as toothily as I could.

Ya’ know. For show.

“We leave.”

.

“Whelp, you are officially batshit done for, goodbye.” Carl made a show of returning to his breakfast which was the leftovers of my dinner.

“First off,” I waited for him to look back at me, “fuh-ck you. Second off: got a better idea?”

“…no.”

“Good. Welcome to the club.”

I saw the realization faintly pass across his face. “Did you just-?”

“I have a couple of ideas and since we’re basically in this together we should probably start running them by each other-”

“Okayokayokayokayokay, hold your fucking horses for like two goddamn seconds,” we both looked at Kaja for a split-second. Heh. “Why. Whywhywhy and where the hell is this even coming from? Leave?! And go where exactly?”

“What, do you want me get out a fucking map? Shit, I don’t know, south? South’s a good direction.”

“Oh South, well shit, guess that’s settled, we can just start packing tomorrow and move to fucking ‘South’!

“Oy, don’t you back-sarcasm me!” I leaned forward and my beak almost touched his nose. At what point had he gotten out of his seat? “At least we have a goddamn direction, no pun in-fucking-tended, or would you rather sit on your ass and wait for it to freeze off in a minus thirty-something winter just around the shitting corner?!?”

“Oh, big talk coming from the pint-sized pillow! And how do you propose we go in this mythical ‘South’?”

I threw up my hands and backed off.

“Well shit son, why do you think I brought it up in the first place?!

He did a very bull-esque snort and leaned back. He eventually did the thing where you press your fingertips against one another and press all that against your nose.

“You realize we don’t have cars, right?”

Yes.

“And the amount of shit we would have to pack is astronomical…”

I am aware.

“What do you want to accomplish? What is your endgame, I don’t understand, I just…”

“People.” My bravado was long gone. “Or something, anything,” I couldn’t look at him, eyes narrowed, “but I can't stay here. WE can't stay here, something has to happen and this is the next logical step.”

I'm pretty sure he scoffed at the ‘logical’ bit.

.

.

"I want to find my son."

That got us to stop in our tracks.

Kaja had been dead silent during our spat.

Her face was to the window, the rest obscured by a tangled mess of black hair. I noted the way the tips of her ears twitched and the way her wings tensed and how her breaths came sharp. She suddenly slammed her front hooves on the table and stood up in her seat, head hanging. When she turned to look at us with those bright neon eyes, she seemed so defeated.

"I know that people are gone, that we might be the last three on the planet but what kind of fucking parent would I be if I didn’t even try to find him?"

.
We stayed silent for a long time.

Not long enough.

.
“YOU'RE BOTH INSANE!”

His voice had reached booming levels.

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that we want to do something?”

“Well then why is it so hard for you to just sit down and think for a single damn second! You keep going on about ‘leaving’ but I'm not hearing any ‘how’s or ‘why’s or ‘what is the fucking point?’?”

“Well I ain’t hearing any ‘why the flying cunt should we stay here?’ you sodding fuck!”

“Sounds better than getting yourselves killed running around like maniacs in some random ditch because Missus Outdoorsy wanted to get off her fat ass!”

“Have you no ambition? Have you no curiosity?! Are you really content sitting here for the rest of your worthless life instead of going out there and trying to find out what happened? Find if there's any other people still in the world?!”

“‘Find people’. Yeah good luck finding some random dude in New-fucking-Zealand!”

A breathy ‘what’ escaped me.

By the way he recoiled it seemed someone couldn’t bite his tongue quite tight enough.

.
“Carl.”

My voice was level.

Edged.

Like mom’s.

“What ‘dude in New Zealand’?”

He hesitated.

“Eleven.”

No…

“Eleven in a forum. I only recognized three flags, one was Aussie and another…”

Why did I have a feeling I knew what clovered forum.

“Being the genius that I am, I only realized that other people might be using the internet a few hours before the power started going wrong…”

“I didn’t get to talk much. And well, they weren’t talking much either, so between the bots and the shitposting I just kind of…”

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“Listen, what does it even matter that there's some random fuck in Australia posting memes about the damn Rapture?”

“That there's people you absolute thundercunt! Actual living, breathing, fucking PEOPLE! I snapped.

Everything snapped.

“Do you have any idea how long I've tried to figure out why the fuck the three of us of all people in the world were left?! AND NOW YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S OTHERS OUT THERE AND YOU DIDN’T MENTION IT A SINGLE CUNT-SHITTING TIME?!

I stared at him in disbelief. And to think I…

I stared between him and Kaja who looked like she just realized Santa wasn’t real.

.

This wasn’t funny.

None of this was funny

.
“To think…” I felt like there couldn’t be silence. “How could you?”

“I told you.” He leaned closer to me, “What.” I could feel his breath, “Fucking.” and the way his redwood eyes bored into mine. “Good. Does. It-

.

.

Blood.

.

.. Blood.


Blood blood blood

... .......bloodbloodbloodbloodbloodbloododdblodvlodokbllod

.

Everyone is making noise and I think one of them is me.

I think that noise is screaming but I'm not exactly sure.

There is RED in the air.

And feels like RED in my mouth and RED in my nose and RED in my brain.

There's RED on my fingertips and RED across his face.

And I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with the RED on the floor and RED between us and RED in our voices.

What I'm not okay with is Kaja yelling at us and Carl yelling at us and Me yelling at us and Bella biting my tail and probably yelling in dog.

And RED is getting really annoying because I can smell it but everything else is telling me that I can't HAVE it.

I don’t think I want to know what this kind of RED tastes like.

.

What I don’t like is the way he’s holding my arm. It’s really starting to hurt and Kaja’s yelling is getting really obnoxious.

All the pink on his face is RED now and so is his chest where the RED mats his fur.

And my arm is really hurting where he’s holding it. Worse than all the times I've slammed myself into everything ever.

Fine you brown fuck, I can play.

My other hand is RED now and so is his but at least he’s stopped holding me now.

Distance.

Distance is good. Bella’s still biting my tail and that’s just pissing me off even more.

He’s holding his RED hand with his other and the RED across his face is slowing but the RED in his eyes is still there.

I'm sure so is mine.

I'm not liking the way he’s looking at me. Or the way his RED muzzle is scrunched or the way his teeth are showing or the way he’s breathing.

I nail Bella with my back leg and she finally lets go. Good. My tail can finally coil like it’s supposed to.

I finally feel like myself.

Like I can finally let go the RED inside.

.

.

.

“STOP STOPSTOP PLEASE STOP PLEASE JUST STOP JUST STOP PLEASE”

.
I think it’s the way she sounds like my mom that makes me listen.

.
Or maybe the fact that she’s bawling.

.
Or maybe because she’s standing between us, wings spread and pleading with her teary eyes at either of us.

And for some reason I can feel the RED receding. Deep. Deep. Deep…

Down.

.

We’re a mess. There’s blood on the floor and we’re both soaked. I never realized how disgusting having someone else’s on yourself was. All four of my limbs are shaking but for some reason I don’t feel nauseous anymore. Or maybe it’s just ‘not yet’.

We both feel the humanity still left inside creeping back and we distance ourselves from one another and the pool of crimson across the tiles. Kaja’s still yelling and crying, but I can’t hear her over the ringing in my ears, nor all my senses going crazy because there's blood in the water and I they want need more.

I think I'm scared again but I don’t feel like it. It seems I should but I don’t.

Trembling but calm.

Like there's two parts of me both tearing my head in two directions and in the end I'm just stuck in the middle with nothing.

Overdrive.

Like a subset of panic mode, and I take off to where I still have my half-empty shopping cart parked outside. Can't call it instinct but I dig out a ramshackle first aid kit because fuck it, what was the point of taking classes if I can't do anything with that knowledge.

I'm back inside and the ringing has grown quiet but everything feels like it’s underwater. Well, the way movies portray underwater. I don’t notice whatever Kaja’s doing but I see Carl holding his sliced nose with his shredded hand. They only start paying attention to me when I dump my medical bag out on the ‘dinning’ table. I realize I'm leaving bloody fingerprints all over everything so I reach under the table for a five liter bottle of water and manage to dump some on my hands, enough to get most of the blood off despite some beginning to dry and cling to my fingertips.

I wildly fling about some gauze trying to get it out of its packaging. It eventually does, rolling along the table and stopping by a plate. Next comes a bottle of disinfectant and it makes a loud thump as I drop it in the ‘useful’ pile. I have some more bandages from the car’s first aid kit, the big ones.

I look over my shoulder and see the two staring at me, a good distance apart. Carl’s still bleeding, red dripping down his chest and leaving fat dollops on the floor. I motion him closer and to everyone’s surprise he comes and sits in his usual spot at the table. I'm not complaining, at least I can actually reach him.

I empty Kaja’s glass and fill it with fresh water. I pluck some fluffs from a roll of cotton and with the two combined I begin trying my best to get the blood off. He stops me. Taking the water bottle, he leans over the floor and dumps some of it on his face, washing away most of the runniness. I continue.

I don’t know how long it takes. All is quiet. Kaja’s sitting on the edge of the bloodstained table I had been standing on for a bit during the…

The way the cuts sit across his nose means I’d have to wrap up the entire end of his face to make sure they're covered. I realize that breathing might be an issue, especially as the three slices run just between his nostrils.

He scrunches his face up. Probably thinking while I'm doing what I can with my everything just to not do that. I migrate to his hand. There are three distinct punctures atop it and a slight tearing to one side where we had pulled away from each other. I hold his hand in mine and pour the disinfectant like whiskey because fuck if I know where my claws have been.

It sizzles and burns and foams and he whimpers and that just usually means it’s working. I consider that stuff like this might need stitches but I'm already miraculously not vomiting right now so I rather not push it. Tightly, I begin wrapping the thick bandage around his palm and such until it looks like it would hold the blood or whatever they really do.

His dumb face is still a problem since it won't stop fucking bleeding.

I give up at some point, because I just make him hold a wad of gauze to his worthless face for forever for all I care.

I roughly shove all the med supplies in a pile and get ready to gtfo until I hear the familiar thump of four sock-wearing hooves hitting the floor. She looks concerned so I give Kaja my best dead stare. It’s not exactly hard.

“Tail…” She mutters and awkwardly motions to the direction of my ass. I mentally command the extra extremity to drag itself closer to my face. Near the pink tuft at the end sits a distinct bite mark of a tiny fanged mouth. Seems like Bella managed to break skin in a few places. Little puncture wounds but nothing much, and in the back of my mind I pray that griffons can't get rabies.

After gauzing that up, with a generous lathering of some healing cream, I leave.

Far.

Because my brain has just about caught up to myself and the last thing I need is to be around people when the full snapback happens.

For once I don’t head into the Old City, rather the park just by Home Base. The Canal makes the air feel soggy and the sun reflects against the water in strange angles. I'm glad we hadn’t turned the anthem on today because the last thing I needed to hear was that godforsaken thing.

I fall down in the tall grass by the hill dropping down to the water. It smells ever so slightly like hay so I close my eyes and focus on that. Even with my eyes clenched I can almost feel the motions of the world around me. The way the wind brushes through the grass and the way the insects chitter amidst themselves, free for the first time in forever, the way the still water laps at the wooden posts holding the bank.

I hear wings and I can almost feel my red eyes narrow as they snap open.

Ducks.

An entire flock flitters into the waters just by me. They splash and quack and flap and for some reason I feel captivated.

For another reason I feel a guttural need to pounce them. I don’t know what to make of that.

Time passes. They shuffle and dive and fix their fathers and take off and I find myself being jealous of them. Then I remind myself that duck in teriyaki is delicious and the jealousy goes away incredibly quick.

The crunch of grass beneath four rhythmic points makes me reluctantly turn. It’s Kaja. Of course it’s Kaja, at this point it really couldn’t be anyone else. For multiple reasons.

Wait no.

Bubble, bubble goes the fury.

One can still see where the dried tears tangle her fur. Her socks are red with blood and there's dark marks under her dull and reddened eyes. I don’t know what to make of that.

She stops a fair distance away from me. I feel like a cornered animal. In the sense that I'm being treated, like I’d either die of a heart attack or pounce, I mean. That hurts more than anything I've done so far.

Animal.

That’s all we are anymore.

.

.

Animals.

And if anything, Carl and I just proved that, in a way. Then again I probably would have punched him had I been my old self. At least not in the face. I actually valued my fingers.

She stared at me, occasionally pursing her lips or chewing the bottom one with her fangs. I already knew why she came and I'm not one to waste time. Mostly. I got up, shifting to my stomach and pushing myself upwards with four legs.

I'm suddenly with my face in the grass again with molten pain radiating all throughout my left front leg. A desperate whine escaped me as I breathed hard trying to ignore the feeling of having my arm(?) viciously hammered with doorframes in the darkness and asphalt in the daylight.

I writhe and whine and Kaja’s desperately trying to figure out what's happening. Eventually the searing pain fades to a low throb of punched bruises and slammed finger joints. My gasping levels and I weakly push myself into a sitting position, still clinging my upper arm with my other. She asks again and I try to push my fur away to see my skin. Since it’s incredibly short it doesn’t exactly work, but between the two of us we figure out that entire half of my limb has already swollen, what little of my off-gray-pink skin we could see had turned a dark, black-blue, bloodshot mess.

I wonder, had Carl squeezed me a bit harder he might’ve crunched through bone.

I very much did not like that thought.

.
She helped me back to Base, acting as an impromptu crutch so I wouldn’t have to put a single iota of pressure on my leg. That, I didn’t mind. I realized I hadn’t spoken a word since screaming my throat raw and I didn’t mind that either.

He was hunched over and lying on our dining table, a bundle of bloody gauze still held to his nose. The floor was still running red but it was beginning to turn dark as it dried. He saw us approach and quickly averted his eyes. Bella had shrunk herself beneath the table with as much grace as a quivering dishrag. Sorry doggo.

“Now.” Her voice was clear.

“We will talk like adults.”

Authoritarian.

“No more screaming.”

I got comfy beside her in our usual spots.

“We now vote on what we do.”

“For fuck sakes Kaj’, we already know the fucking answer.” His voice raised a few decibels but not much. “You two want to leave like the retards that you are and my opinion doesn’t fucking matter.”

“It does matter.” The way she insisted upon it, one couldn’t help but agree. “Dian’ was good when she say ‘we in this together’.” She shifted in her spot, her demeanor softening. “I un-duh-stahnd you don’t want to go but that not mean we not listen to what you say.”

He sideways glared at her before while Kaja cleared her throat one more time.

“All that want leave?” She raised her hoof. I followed suit with my usable hand. Bella crawled out from under the table hopped on the spot, as if she was trying to stand on her back legs. Hah, stupid dog.

“All that want stay?”

Carl unceremoniously raised his bandaged hand.

“This is patronized as shit.” he muttered, and I was inclined to agree.

“Alright. We leave. We now start plan on how we leave and where we go.” She glanced at me for a split-second whilst straightening her spine and refolding her wings. “I want to go to Tartu.”

“I know it get cold soon so I want leave soon. I need to see home. I need… I-I… need…” The way her nose wrinkled and the way she swallowed hard or how much she blinked. It made me feel better about my decision. This wasn’t just about me, was it?

I think Carl realized that too.

The three of us sighed, almost simultaneously. Any other time I would have pointed that out.

“Alright.” It seemed like talking hurt him, by the way he tried not to move his jaw and how he muffled his words by not opening his mouth much. “Step one is find how we’re going to be traveling.”

“Cars are out because we don’t have keys and even if we did the batteries are long dead.” He stared at Kaja. “And I'm pretty sure none of us know how to hotwire a car because if we did we would have been using one by now.”

“And no shopping cart wagons either. It was brilliant for about a day but it’s just stupid and makes me feel like goddamn hobo at the end of the world.”

I feigned horrid insult.

I came here having a not so great time and I was honestly feeling so attacked right now.

I smiled.

Just a bit.

I think either of them said something else but I was too busy staring past Kaja to the park outside. My mind kept drifting back to those ducks and for once I was sure it wasn’t just a craving.

If only Carl had wings and if only Kaj’ and I could actually use ours, we could just pack a few bag and fly off.

Far.

Far, to wherever the world would take us.

Like ducks.


.
Wait.

Ducks.

I shot up and slammed my usable fist on the table, making both my companions jump and shut up.

They stared at me like they could see the gears of my brain through my eyes.

Click, click, went the thoughts.

Twinkle, twinkle went my razor like teeth as the unholy grin crept its way back onto my face.

Ducks.

I opened my mouth.

My own voice surprised me. It was raspy and strained and itchy and I hated it for far more reasons than one.

.

“Boats. We have boats.”

.

o.O.o