They walked a ways out, deeper into the woods until the tree canopy blocked their view of the sky. It was several degrees cooler now than it had been, with a refreshing cleaness in the air. The ground was soggy and soft, the trees still dripping fat raindrops absentmindedly. One of the drops caught Jack on the nape of the neck, the feeling of it akin to an ice cube sliding along her skin, and she winced in surprise and discomfort and swiped it away.
The shadows were already growing long and dark, the night deepening in the woods first, as if it had a primary claim there, as if it couldn’t wait for the show to begin.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Jack chanted in her mind. She could feel her spine start to knot in terror, then her arms, then her legs. The darker it got, the more nervous she became.
“This was a Goddamn stupid idea,” she breathed to Rarity. She wanted to scream into the woman’s face, but didn’t want to attract the night’s nightmares to their position. “Stupidest idea you’ve ever—”
Rarity stopped dead in her tracks and Jack almost ran into her back.
There, a good forty feet in front of them, was another Rooter. Jack swore internally, grabbed Rarity’s arm and brought the both of them, very slowly, into a crouch. The thing stopped and inhaled, like the one before had, and again, looked towards their general direction.
Please don’t see us, please don’t see us, please…
She hardly breathed for several long seconds, not moving a muscle. The Rooter let out a grunt and started to shuffle along again. Jack made sure to wait for a very, very long time after it had disappeared out of their sight before she slowly stood to her full height. She dropped her bag off of her shoulders, scanned around, and shoved her hand inside quickly, in search of the NVGs.
“Here,” she panted, handing one pair to Rarity. “Since ya fuckin’ insisted on travelin’ in the dark.”
Rarity didn’t respond.
They continued on. Their exodus was silent, their steps the only noise either created, soft as they were. They ran into another Rooter, and followed the same pattern as before with it. The things seemed to rely on their sense of smell more than their sight, and if one stood very, very still, it did not see you. Karl’s information had been right.
They walked for hours, avoiding most everything with the help of the goggles. Fucking things were a lifesaver, Jack thought more than once.
Eventually the woods opened up for them again, and brought them to a camping site where an RV stood, its door open and, as Jack expected before even stepping inside, its occupants gone, the only proof of their vacation was a ruined and burnt pot on a now-dead campfire, and a half-eaten banana upon the dash of the RV.
Moving, more machine than man, Jack cleared the van. With a nod to Rarity, her first real attempt to speak to her since before they encountered the Rooters, Rarity shut the door behind them, sealing them in the RV throughout the long night.
Rarity lowered the shades at the windows and, though realistically it would do nothing, she dropped her now-heavier bag in front of the door, creating a halfhearted blockade.
Jack, meanwhile, sat on the sofa across the door, running a hand absently over the night vision goggles, testing over dozens of knobs and switches, trying to get an indication of how much battery remained in them,
Rarity took in a breath, running a hand over her tangled hair, then crossing her arms. She stared at Jack, who finally finished her examination of the goggles and was checking the batteries in a pair of walkie-talkies, then making sure the receivers picked up. She seemed ready to move onto another make-work project when Rarity spoke, cutting through the silence like a spark of lighting in a black sky.
“Didn’t you do that when you found them?” she questioned. A part of her, the sore, exhausted, annoyed part, wanted to add ‘then again, maybe you hadn’t thought of it, since you’re you’, but she bit her tongue just in time to not let the words escape. Jack didn’t respond, didn’t even look at her. Rarity glared, and almost let the words slip through, just to… Well, just to distract herself by starting a fight, really.
Since Rarity was not giving up in the face of blatantly being ignored, Jack sighed and looked up at her. “Well, maybe I just don’t wanna talk to you right now, and I’m keepin’ myself busy so you’ll go away,” she replied in a frustrated growl, a small protesting pop coming from the walkie-talkie in her right hand, a subtle reminder of her strength. She let the object drop to the ground and stared harsly at Rarity. “So go away.”
“You—”
“I said I don’t wanna look at you right now,” the woman snapped. “Goddamnit,” she snarled, burying her face in her hands.
Rarity swallowed. A part of her wanted to comfort the woman—and, selfishly, a part of her wanted to be comforted in return—but she did not know exactly how to go about it when one party refused to even talk about it, which in turn fed into her own frustrations on the matter. She sighed, loudly, irritably, and gave a pointed look Jack’s way, even if the farmer was not meeting the glare.
“As you wish,” she tersely answered. “And, like usual, I appreciate your reassurances as well, considering the events.”
Jack looked up at Rarity, a hot reply on the tip of her tongue. Upon seeing her more tense form and the rarely seen flash of anger in her eyes, Jack relented, albeit a hair.
“Look… can this jus’ wait? Tomorrow? Please?” she asked, her own tone more quiet, a meekness to it not normally present in her more stentorian voice.
Rarity glared for several seconds, debating with herself. The subject needed to be discussed, to be put to sleep, and she was one to face her problems and feelings head-on—and she thought that Jack was, too. Still, perhaps a rest would give them perspective, or at least a day’s distance from the horrid events. She decided to concede to Jack’s request. It wasn’t an easy, instant decision; after today it felt like there was a bomb within her ready to burst, but she knew the limits of her own stamina for tragedy, how to handle shock and despair. Better than Jack, apparently.
“Fine,” she said plainly—because what else could there be said? She could talk all day at Jack, but it would be like talking to a brick wall. “I suppose I’ll find the bedroom, then.”
Jack nodded, staring unseeingly at the floor, trying not to remember.
Mere hours earlier, in a different place, in what may as well have been a different world, Jack and Rarity began their day.
They awoke early that morning. Too early, perhaps, at least judging by the silence that sat within the room and extended through the house itself. It was something that wasn’t totally strange to Jack, considering the early-to-bed-early-to-rise mantra wasn’t just a quote by Benjamin Franklin, but a way of life during the more urgent seasons at the farm. She sometimes found herself awake this early during the off season, too, and would use the quiet to laze around and think her thoughts until she heard the sounds of either of her siblings pass her room.
What was strange, however, was Rarity, almost mirroring the action, up and rubbing at her tired face mere minutes after Jack.
“Hey, sleepin’ beauty,” Jack stated, tilting her head in a casual greeting and trying not to smirk at the other woman. “Ya got drool all over her chin.”
Rarity took a second to process the words and quickly reached forward, rubbing at her chin with a sense of urgency, before letting out a grunt of irritation when her hand came up dry. She reached behind her and threw a pillow at Jack’s general direction.
“Ow, heh.”
Rarity sniffed, stood, and stretched. Though the couch was one of the most comfortable ones she had ever sat on, it wasn’t exactly made for sleeping—and she wasn’t exactly used to sleeping on couches.
“What time is it?” Jack asked from behind her. A small light illuminated the dark of the living room as Rarity’s wristwatch sparked to life, the woman’s face scrunching up at the sudden assault of light to her vision.
“Seems to be four forty three,” Rarity answered, letting her arm drop back down.
Jack hummed in thought. “We’ve got a coupla hours ‘fore sunrise, then.” She finally stood to her full height and popped the kinks out of her back. Her shoulder and knee were dully throbbing in unison, but at least there was no flaring pain like yesterday.
Upon her standing, a small glow took hold, illuminating the room. She glanced over at a plug towards the ground, where a nightlight in the shape of a jet airplane bathed the room in a yellow light. As they found out last night once they were preparing to settle down for bed, it was motion sensitive; Jack guessed it was for the kid, and a small half-smile of amusement came and left her face.
“Do you suppose Karl would mind if we ate without him?”
Jack shrugged. “Well. He seems the practical sort. We do some work an’ I don’t think he’ll cry over some oatmeal an’ coffee.”
Rarity seemed to hesitate. “But I want an omelet,” she muttered.
Jack chuckled roughly. “Not gonna lie: I do too.” She looked longingly in the general direction of the kitchen. “You think he has sausage? Or ham?”
“I would place my bet on spam over either of those,” Rarity said wryly. She paused. “How is your shoulder?”
“Tender, but it'll keep.” She paused a beat. “Yer neck?”
She lifted a hand to her savaged throat. Bruises, red and yellow and purple, marred the creamy skin. Jack looked away from them.
“It feels as though I was almost strangled by a root monster,” Rarity said dryly. “But I’ll live.”
Jack snorted and opened her mouth to reply in equally dry tones, but shook her head. She crossed the room to the fireplace, ran a hand over the banister.
“Thing uh…” she shrugged her injured shoulder out of habit and clinched her teeth around a curse. “Fucking thing almost killed us,” she gritted out, half in pain and half in frustration.
“But it didn’t,” Rarity replied evenly. “We lived.”
“Because of Karl. How were we supposed to handle that? Huh? We didn’t stand a chance.” She turned to look towards Rarity. “I almost got you killed.”
Rarity stared, silently, before she laughed. A deep chuckle seeped in humor. Jack’s visage darkened, irritation coming to life before Rarity spoke.
“Oh yes. Like back at the barn. Or by the car. There is not a single place safe in this Godforsaken world now, Jack Apple, the forest was where you only now realized it?”
“I can’t protect you against somethin’ like that,” Jack said earnestly, pointing at her own chest.
“You cannot realistically protect me against the swarming creatures either,” Rarity stated matter-of-factly. “Likewise, I could not protect you. We both would try, I have no doubts about this, but try does not always equal success.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’: yesterday, at the fucking dinner table, Karl was right. I’m going to get one of us killed.”
Because Rarity neither argued nor agreed, Jack turned back towards the fireplace. “Ya know… we ain’t too far yet,” she began quietly, shifting her weight. “We could loop back. We could get ya back there, ya know?”
“We are too far away,” Rarity argued. “It would take us at least another day or three just to get back. And I will not even comment on the fact that you are even suggesting that I abandon you on this journey—” Jack turned back towards her and opened her mouth to say something, but Rarity cut her off with a sharp hand motion. “—after I’ve already given you my word!”
“Yer word ain’t gonna keep ya safe. Can’t ya understand why I’m sayin’ what I’m sayin’ here?” Jack asked, exasperated, throwing her hands to the side. “Ain’t sayin’ this shit jus’ ta be a fuckin’ prick here. If things don’t go as planned, we’re gonna fail. An’ fail hard.”
Striding forward, Rarity laid one hand on Jack’s cheek. The action was such a surprising form of physical intimacy that it shocked Jack into silence.
“As long as we breath, there is no such thing as a hard failure. I do not expect the road ahead to be easy. Frankly, if we manage with mere bruises and fractures, I call that an astounding victory. And we will manage, Jack. We'll find them, together.” Her words were quiet, heartfelt, reassuring.
Jack sighed and shook her head, putting the point to rest for now. Rarity’s voice and gaze were one smooth, impenetrable wall of confidence, and arguing was never easy when she got like that. “Anybody ever tell you you’re kind of an optimist?”
Rarity tossed her hair. “I prefer realist to optimist.”
Briefly Jack wondered what that would make her. “Either way, it's… thanks.” Awkward now, she scratched at her cheek and look to the window. “We’ve got a few hours before I’m even willing to think about setting foot outside. How ‘bout those omelets?”
Jack slowly opened the door to the outside of the house, her eyes on the horizon for reassurance. The sun just barely peeked out over the distant mountains, bathing the sky in orange. The air blew gently towards her, lifting up a few errant strands of hair and carrying with it a false promise of warmth. Warmth that she knew would fade as the days bled into weeks. They were already a good week or two into November, and she knew once the temperature decided to drop, it would drop almost overnight. The clear skies and sunny days were lies, sweet honey on the senses, but ultimately deceitful, crass things that could kill them even quicker than the creatures they hid from.
However, even a lie could be appreciated at times—something Jack never really thought she’d think and agree with. Returning to the task at hand, she scanned the treelines as the sun began its timid climb upwards, making sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were alone, for now. That whatever brought those things here had made them return.
Though nothing in life was certain, she could say that they were as safe as they could be, for the moment. Not a thing in sight, the only noise beyond the wind blowing through the woods was the small crunches and snaps of vegetation as animals prowled within, and the subdued clucks and calls of Karl’s chicken coop.
“Think now’s as good-a time as any,” Jack stated to Rarity. “Let’s go.”
They left the porch and crossed the length of the coop, past the tool shack, and paused at a wooden fence gate, a latch holding it securely in-place. Beyond the fenceline, the ground was leveled and tilled, suggesting that there was some work, or soon would be work done within, perhaps an extension of the garden at the west, but Jack couldn’t say for sure. Though, the other hand, it could be as simple as the mines Karl spoke of last night were here, buried and ready to unleash hell at the slightest provocation.
“Shoulda got a metal detector, back when we picked up all our gear,” Jack muttered.
“Hindsight,” Rarity remarked neutrally, obviously on the same wavelength as Jack was regarding the situation. “Do you suppose Karl might…?”
“Have one?” Jack finished. “Gotta, I’d think.”
They looked warily past the fenceline for a moment.
“Well, there’s no way we’d be able to traverse a covered minefield without one, I’d think,” Rarity stated hesitantly.
Jack turned towards the small tool shack. “In there, maybe.” Without waiting for Rarity to join her or reply, she started to stroll back towards it. So much for just quietly leaving in the morning, she thought, and then almost started swearing when she came close enough and saw the heavy, slightly corroded lock on the door.
She stopped in her tracks, shoved her hands into her pockets and glared at the lock, blowing out a breath. “Yeah, alright, guess we’re not going anywhere.”
Rarity caught up to her and followed her gaze to the lock. “Ah,” she said. “Well, I guess we’ll need a key.”
“I could jus’ kick the fuckin’ thing down—” Jack muttered, giving a tap to the door.
“Or we could just get the key,” Rarity repeated wryly.
“—but that wouldn’t be right neighborly of me, would it?” Actually, now that Jack thought about it, the idea had it's appeals. She was kind of in the mood to kick the shit out of something and hear the crack and smash of wood.
“If you’re so adamant about not wishing to procure the key, allow me,” Rarity replied, digging around her pockets and fishing out her lockpicking kit. She took to working on the deadbolt, humming quietly to herself as she ran tumblers and listened patiently for the telltale signs of clicks. When the lock popped, she let out a pleased hum.
“Open Sesame,” she chipperly remarked, looping the lock out of the latch.
Rarity recognized it the instant she opened the door. This was the shack she had woken up in. At gunpoint. Now, from the position of not being at gunpoint, she could remark on its far more mundane nature. Tools on a corkboard, from pliers to a handsaw, a small rolodex calendar on a sterile metal desk, a lawnmower and a few gardening tools placed meticulously to their left, alongside their goal; a long-necked metal detector. In the far corner next to the desk sat the only object of chaos within the shack: a deer, hanging upside down from a rope suspended at the rafters, blood from a slit neck dripping down, over its dead face and into a strategically placed drain.
“Don’t recall that when I awoke in here,” Rarity remarked.
“Mighta kept it hidden while talkin’ with ya. Sorta thing could give ya the wrong idea when ya woke up.”
Rarity snorted. “Right. Because pointing shotguns at people's head gives them the right idea.”
Jack paused, looking at her. “That’s a fine ‘how ya do’.”
“...One way to put it.”
“How’d you get in here?” a voice behind them inquired, and they both stiffened in surprise, Jack’s hand reflexively flying to the handle of the machete before she recognized the voice.
“Kody, darling,” Rarity breathed out, putting a hand on her chest. “Don’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Specially not nowadays,” Jack agreed, turning and putting her hand down from the machete to her hip.
“Sorry,” he said, though didn’t sound all that sorry. “I woke up and you were gone, I thought you were maybe starting on some chores or something…?” He narrowed his eyes suddenly. “Wait… are you leaving?”
Jack gave a slow nod. “Had planned on it. Figure we were gettin’ in the hair-a you an’ yer daddy.”
“Oh,” he said, looking down towards the ground. He added, almost as an afterthought, “I don’t think he minded. He just says stuff sometimes, you know.”
Rarity and Jack shared a look.
“And I was kinda hoping…” Kody continued, but trailed off. They stood there in silence for a bit, awkward. “... that you’d stick around. For a day or two, at least.”
Rarity and Jack exchanged another quick glance at one another, before Rarity took initiative.
“Uh…” she eloquently stated, the lead leaving her faltering for the moment. She racked her brains quickly, thinking of the best way to let the boy down gently.
As soon as she opened her mouth, however, she was cut off by a bellow piercing the air.
“Kody?!”
Karl’s voice, panicked and out of breath, called through the grounds. Jack leveled a narrow look at the boy in question.
“Did you not tell your dad where you went?” she hissed. In a moment of bazarre panic, she saw Karl stringing them up like the deer carcass for ‘kidnaping his son’ or some other crazy shit like that. Lord knew the man—
“In the tool shack, dad!” Kody called back, pulling Jack away from her brief panic attack and forcing her to focus more on the present and what really was before them.
“Why the hell are you in there?” Karl called back; Jack could tell that he was calmer, by a hair, but there was still a certain edge, and, going by the fast paced footsteps she heard, he was walking at a slow run or a brisk jog towards them. “Don’t tell me those two are—”
He rounded the corner into their line of sight. Unable to help herself, Jack clenched her teeth at the shotgun on his shoulder, but he didn’t even spare them a glance before he kneeled in front of his son and took the boy’s face roughly in his hand.
“Don’t you fucking run off like that,” he hissed. “What’d I always tell you, huh? You ever wake up and I’m not up, you wake me up. Fuck!”
“I’m sorry,” Kody whimpered, actually sounding sorry this time. “I just got curious—they weren’t in the living room and all their stuff was gone.”
“Well curiosity kills people!” Karl exploded and Jack startled at the sudden volume. Karl seemed to reign his temper in quickly, though, because he visibly shook himself and stroked the boy’s unruly curls. “Just—just wake me up, next time,” he said roughly, and stood.
With a jolt, he seemed to notice where they all were, and fixed a killing glare on Rarity and Jack. “How the fuck did you get this shack opened?” he snapped.
Rarity did a half-bow sort of motion, appeasing. Jack could tell she was nervous, too. “I picked the lock,” the tailor admitted.
Kody perked up. “You know about lockpicking?”
“Unbelievable,” Karl said. “After we saved you and fed you, this is how you repay your dues?” He scowled and prepared to speak again before Jack interrupted.
“We weren’t planning on stealin’ nothin’. We jus’ needed a metal detector. Had a feelin’ you’d keep one around here.”
“You could have waited until I woke up,” Karl snarled.
“Who knows how long that’d be? Better we slip out while we could.”
“How about waking me the fuck up?” Karl snapped back.
“And gettin’ a show when we jostled ya by a gun ‘round yer bedside?” Jack scoffed. “I know yer type. Pistol under the mattress, in the nightstand, one in arms reach if ya can at all.”
Kody pointed a stern finger Jack’s way. “You don’t know my kind at all if you think I’d take kindly to any of this,” he shouted back.
“Enough!” Rarity snapped at both of them, getting in between. “I’m sorry that we broke into your tool shack, Karl, but we needed a metal detector to cross the minefield that you have set up.”
“You could have—!”
“Yes, we could have woken you up, but Jack and I were eager to get on the road to make up for lost time. We’re not even in Colorado yet, for God’s sake, and we’re going to Nevada.”
“You two will be dead before you get there. Do you have any id—”
“I think we have some notion,” Jack countered, glancing past the man. “An’ the sooner we get there, the sooner we don’t have ta deal with it anymore. God knows with winter comin’, we don’t wanna be stuck out in the middle-a nowhere if there’s a freeze.”
He scoffed. “And asking permission would put you both so behind on killing yourselves. Way you’re both acting, I should have left you two out in the woods.”
Jack was silent at that, realizing that she had overstepped her bounds. She sighed, putting a finger and thumb to her nose.
“Look. I got a family. They were out helpin’ my cousin. In Nevada. I can’t stop. Not fer nothin’. Not until I’m sure.”
Karl measured her for a time, gauging her silently. Eventually, he did speak and asked her plainly. “Kid?”
She shook her head. “Brother. Sister, too. She’s a youngin, though. ‘Bout Kody’s age.”
He scowled and turned his torso, spitting outside onto the brown grass. “Goddamnit. You’re not going to make it. Or find ‘em. You know that, don’t you?”
“If you were in my shoes, if there was even a chance they were out there, what would you do?”
His answer came instantly, a wry, defeated smile on his face. “Same fucking thing, lady.” His pose seemed to relax as he made a decision, running a hand through his hair. “Look, just… help us prep a bit for winter today. We’ll give you some supplies and you can leave tomorrow. Okay?”
Jack was honestly reluctant to wait even that long, but she hesitated in her argument, glancing over to Rarity.
“Well, I suppose it is a fair trade after invading your property the way we have. And supplies would be helpful.”
“Then it’s settled,” Karl grunted. “Breakfast first, though.”
Jack said, “Uh, we’ve kind of… already…” she trailed off at the increasingly flat look Karl was giving her.
“You ate my food, too?”
Karl ran a hand across his brow, wiping sweat clean from his face. With a well practiced grunt, he hefted an axe to his shoulder and drove it down, connecting with a log. It split in twain, sending two pieces spriling to the ground from the perch. Without missing a beat, he put another log up on its end and brought the axe down, repeating the process.
Jack hovered nearby, gathering up the freshly split pieces and throwing them into a wheelbarrow while Karl took his breathers. The work was a bit slow-going. She'd tried to split too, but the injury in her shoulder prevented it and Karl had said his fair share of words about her about being practically no help.
“So,” Karl grunted, breaking the long-standing silence between them. “Tell me about the family.” He replaced his log and glanced up at her. “These, ah, siblings of yours?”
“Sure. There’s my older brother Mac. Big guy, makes the lot-a us look like shrimp. Quiet an’ shy, but would do anythin’ fer us.” Another log fell to Karl's swing and she continued her talking without breaking stride. “Lil’ one is named Alice. Loudmouth, bratty, pokin’ her nose inta trouble every second she can, an’ the best lil’ sister a gal like me could have.”
“Pain in the ass, kids that young.” He grunted, obviously straining on that last swing. He loaded up another log. “But a good kind of pain, huh?”
“Ya said it.”
“What about the parents?” He paused when Jack didn’t immediately respond. “They not around?”
“Nah,” Jack said, wiping at her forehead. “Not by the... whatever the fuck happened. Mom always had a bit of a weak heart. Ended up killin’ her. Guess ya could say Dad died of a broken one.”
“Isn’t that just a nice way of saying ‘he was so depressed after the death of his wife that he committed suicide’?”
“No,” Jack said, and then paused. “I mean, yeah, when people say that, that’s usually what it means—but not my Pa. Some virus or other ept through him in a week in the dead of winter. Got him an’ got him good. Jus’ kinda… gave up.” She shrugged and gave a shake of her head, her lips pursed and thoughtful. “Know how it goes, I’m guessin’, judgin’ by the lack of womenfolk ‘round here.”
He grunted, but didn’t respond for a long time. So long that Jack started to rethink the inquiry and take it back.
“Yeah, guess you could say that,” he finally sighed. “Wife was, uh… Katherine. Kathy. She…” his mouth moved for a long moment but nothing really came out. “Well, she’s dead, obviously. She was a soldier, a medic. I don’t really know what happened, but she called me one night in a panic, said one of the men she’d been working on had let slip something to her under the loopy drugs. Something important.” He shrugged, put another log onto the stump and hit it with the full force of his back. Taking out excess anger, Jack guessed. “Three days later, she was dead.”
Jack pressed her lips together tightly. “Why?”
“Why?” He rolled his eyes. “Oh gee, I don’t know? Maybe to shut her up? Do you think our soldier boys would really need another scandal on the news? Especially if it was an officer. Think about it. Whatever she had must of been big. Don’t hear about Kuwait otherwise, it’s always about fucking Iraq, or Iran, or God fucking knows what shitheap out there. But Kuwait? Might be our most squeaky-clean war in a long old time.”
“I don’t think any war is squeaky-clean,” Jack replied automatically. Karl laughed without humor.
“Tell that to the fucking pencil-pushing big cats. They make a killing doing their killing. But they can’t let scandels get out, otherwise the average asshole might actually wake up and realize we’re not always the good guys.” He gave something resembling a smug squint across the compound. “Been waiting for years for shit to break on us, the chinamen, the mexicans, the CIA. We built up, kept our heads low and waited.” His expression clouded for a moment in thought after a beat. “Wasn’t expecting this’d be the way it went down, though. Demons, or aliens, or whatever you want to say they are… never in a million years.”
“Guess that explains the setup ya got fer the most part,” Jack replied, not wanting to really dwell on what they were up against herself, it seemed a decent way to shift to less troubling waters.
He didn’t deny it, instead nodding in agreement. “Government can’t even figure out the difference between an asshole and a mouth. No way they’re going to get this mess figured out, and no way I’m letting them near my land to fuck it up any more than they already have. Fuck, some of the people at Tillman would handle that shit better than the Government.”
Jack didn’t know what to say to placate the man so instead she continued her work, offering only a small, “Sorry ‘bout her.”
He sighed. “Yeah. Me too.” He looked around them at the haphazard piles of split logs. “That should be enough. Let's gather this up in the wheelbarrow and take it over.”
They worked in silence for a long moment, each of their thoughts on their own ghosts, and on each others’.
“For what it's worth, I'm sorry about your folks,” Karl finally said. “How old were you?”
“Little older than Kody, though not by a lot. Twelveabouts.”
He tsked. “I couldn't imagine losing mine at that age. Hell, one a mine's still alive.” He paused. “Or was. Before.”
Jack hummed neutrally. A part of her wanted to change the subject, honestly, because while she could usually talk about her parents’ deaths with the detachment that time provided, the circumstances of the last few weeks had been a little too close to home to that particular tragedy. Losing almost everyone that one knew at twenty-five was eerily similar to losing both parents at twelve—it felt like your entire world crashing around your ears. The shock and grief was massive, and could creep up on you at any given moment in time, sometimes years down the road, and cut you off at the knees.
“Well for what it’s worth, at least Kody grows up with a good father,” she finally told Karl, and imagined, not for the first time, how life could have been if one of her parents survived.
“So all of the groves in the key are actually meant to line up all of these drive pins here, so that they are level with one another.” Rarity pointed to the sketch she’d drawn on her sketchpad. “That's really the goal of lockpicking.”
“So that you basically trick the lock into thinking that it has a key in it,” Kody said, understanding.
“Right. Now, to pick the majority of locks, up to about ninety percent of the ones you would find anywhere, you will use one of these three picks.” She grabbed them out while listing them. “The rake, the snake, and the diamond. You’ll end up having a favorite among them, truthfully, one that just works a little bit better and faster for you. My favorite is the diamond, though my father swears by the snake.” She rolled her eyes and paused briefly when a rather morbid thought hit her head, but brushed it off.
“So what you’re actually going to do is put in the torque so that it’s opposite of the drive pins, scooted a little out of the way.” She demonstrated as she spoke, putting in the slinder piece of metal into the core of the lock. “Then, I like to turn it upside down to put a little pressure on it with my thumb while my other hand works—obviously it wouldn’t be like this if the lock was actually attached to something, but just for demonstration…” Tongue peaking out of the side of her mouth, she inserted the pick too. “And then you’re gonna just rake this along the drive pins so that they all line up. But do it gently, you don’t want to go at it like you’re fu—” she stopped herself abruptly, heat coming to her cheeks.
“Like you’re fucking it?”
She gripped the bridge of her nose and sighed longsufferingly. “Well, yes,” she said in exasperation. “And I should really have a word with your father about cleaning up your language.”
“I have no idea what the word even means, if it makes you feel better,” he told her. “Dad uses it for just about everything.”
“It’s a crass term for coitus.”
“I don’t know what coitus means either!” he replied happily. Rarity nodded.
“Good. Never you mind, then. Anyway,” she said pressingly when he opened his mouth with a look of indignation on his face, “when you apply this pressure to the torque—and apply and back off, and apply and back off—you’re going to actually start feeling when the drive pins line up. So you could go at it in a racking style, which is faster, or you could align each individual pin. Either way works. But eventually...” she worked the pick until the torque gave way beneath her thumb and the lock snapped open. “It will Open Sesame.”
“That’s so cool!” Kody exclaimed.
Smug, she snapped it shut again and held it out to him. “Now you try.”
Gingerly, he took the padlock. Rarity scooted the tools encouragingly to him, and watched as he grabbed the snake pick and put in the torque carefully. The kid had steady, careful hands, she noted. A good trait to have in almost any profession or skill.
Inexperienced, it took him a few minutes to pop the lock open, but when he did, his smile seemed to almost be too big for his face.
“Do it again—practice makes perfect, after all,” she suggested.
He snapped the lock shut and took to picking it again. “How did you learn how to do this?” he asked.
“My father was a locksmith,” she told him, and then instructed, “ease up on the torque a little, it can jam the drive pins if you’re pressing it too hard.” He complied and she continued, “He would find broken locks, or people would give him some that they never used, and he’d take them home for us to practice together.”
“Do you miss him?”
She started a little at the frank question, but saw that he was still focusing practically all of his being on the lockpicking. She sighed.
“Of course I miss him. And my mother.”
He didn’t respond verbally, but he did glance at her, perhaps significantly, before shying away again.
Rarity reached over, giving a small pat to the boy’s head. “But there are other matters to deal with, now. You cannot have much of a moment to grieve during times like these.” Briefly she wondered just who she was saying that to.
He was silent a moment, picking the lock but with obvious distraction. “Do you think everything will ever be the same again?”
He sounded unsure and hopeful, both at the same time, as if it was something he hadn’t allowed himself to even consider. And it was strange to find him so, because so far he’d been treating this end-of-the-world scenario as if it was all very entertaining and thrilling. Rarity supposed that for a young boy it would be.
“No,” she answered simply, glancing away for a beat. She continued a moment later, returning her gaze to him. “But there can be something, after all of this, I believe. As long as you’re still alive, there’s hope for tomorrow.” She smiled. “Now, let’s pass by this grim conversation and return to work. Practice makes perfect, after all.”
Later, they sat around the lunch table eating on a smaller offering than breakfast, dried jerky but a treat in the form of orange juice—Karl had been fairly adamant about wanting to save some of the meat he had in the freezer for dinner instead of wasting it on a quick break from work. After a hearty pull of OJ, Jack looked towards Rarity and Kody.
“Well, what you two been doin’ past few hours? We finally got enough wood ta last for a few months.”
“Yeah, with no real thanks to you,” Karl grumbled somewhat teasingly and Jack elbowed him in a natural reflex that seemed to surprise them both.
Kody wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. “I learned how to lockpick!” he announced. Karl looked flatly at Rarity, who raised a brow in response.
“When the hell are you gonna use that, boy?” Karl questioned.
“If we need to go into town for supplies, we can get to anywhere we need to be, now.”
Karl snorted. “Won’t be necessary. We’re self-sufficient.” He held his words for a second, before giving the kid a smirk. “But it never hurts to have a plan B. And going by what little miss perfect did to the shack earlier, she must have some notion about what to do.”
“I have a respectable awareness of the workings of the trade. Though far from perfect,” Rarity remarked, bridging her fingers together and resting her elbows on the table. “But I’m as proficient as one can be with second hand knowledge, I suppose.”
“Well your ‘second hand knowledge’ is going to make sure that nothing in this house stays locked,” Karl drawled, giving a meaningful glare Kody’s way.
“Doubt ya got too much that’s under lock an’ key ‘round here.” Jack shrugged. “Ain’t like a safe full-a cash is gonna mean much now. If ever.”
Karl leaned back is his chair and took to picking between his teeth with a thumbnail, working out a strand of jerky from the gap. “Tragedy is a good equalizer like that. Rich. Poor. Old, young. Doesn’t matter when shit gets put on the table. I mean look at you two.” He glanced at Jack and Rarity to further prove his point. “Not like I’d expect a hick and a prima donna to usually join up, aside from when things get rough for everybody.”
“Who ya callin’ hick, mister?” Jack replied, and almost at the same time, Rarity offered a quick “Prima donna? Well I never!” in response.
Karl brought a leg over a knee and offered nothing else, seemingly satisfied with his piece on the matter.
Eventually, Jack shrugged—and then winced in pain, forgetting again about the shoulder. “Nah, we’ve actually known each other for…” she looked at Rarity, somewhat in shock as the thought occurred to her. “...hell, like, all our lives, actually.”
“Indeed,” Rarity said slowly, as though she was talking to a simpleton. “We did grow up together, Jack.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, a little dumbly.
“Sure wouldn’t expect it, judging by appearances,” Karl muttered out.
“Well, appearances can be deceivin’, as the sayin’ goes.”
“You know, I’ve meant to ask something.” He glanced over, out the windows, where sunlight spilled in through the openings, briefly letting them forget about what waited in the dark of night. “That shit that happened. How you two make it out? Were there sirens?”
“Oh, you mean when everyone up an’...?”
“No shit, sherlock. When everyone just vanished. The lightshow and then nothing.”
“Lightshow?” Rarity repeated, tilting her head. Karl rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, Cinderella. The flash that happened?”
Jack and Rarity looked to one-another. Karl swore.
“Fuck. You know, what took out everyone?”
“Mister,” Jack began, leaning on the table. “Me an’ the girl here were in my folk’s cellar samplin’ some hooch. I didn’t see shit that day, jus’ knew when me an’ Rare got a few belts in us, I drove her home an’ it was empty. Nobody. Dropped food, cars crashed inta trees, dead silent. Never found out what happened.”
“I have footage of it,” he replied, a hair triumphant. “Bet you anything the government is involved.”
“Footage?” Rarity repeated. “Of the event?”
“Did I fucking stutter? Footage.” He glanced over at Kody, who met his gaze and grinned around the jerky he was gnawing on. “Me and the boy were canning some vegetables down in the basement. A friend of mine was upstairs, working on a herb rack at the windowsill when we—”
“We heard a really loud bang!” Kody exclaimed, punctuating the word by slapping his hand on the table. “So we ran upstairs thinking Danny fell.”
“We don’t find shit,” Karl continued, not missing a beat from Kody’s interruption. “Except Dan isn’t there. His truck is still parked outside, and his tools are still around, but we hear another noise from towards town.”
“Dad got his binoculars and he climbed onto the roof. He told me to look for Danny.”
Karl nodded. “I looked out onto the road, towards the outskirts. Semi had wrecked, tipped over. Looked like a pileup. Was tempted to just let the cops handle it when they showed up, but I wanted to make sure nobody was hurt, so I started to walk over there.”
“Heart of gold,” Rarity replied, the tone a thin line between sarcasm and sincerity, not forgetting the fact that Karl did in fact save them earlier. It was almost enough to excuse his alarming crassness that even made Jack’s occasionally gruff manners shine in comparison.
“Fuck off,” he said dismissively and continued, looking down at his hands. “I get over there. Nobody. Fucking. Nobody. I thought maybe people had got out of the vehicles, but…”
“I couldn’t find Danny,” Kody interjected, talking of his own experience. “So I looked at the camera feed.”
“That’s my boy,” Karl beamed, putting a hand on top of Kody’s head. “He looked through the footage to see where Dan ran off to.”
“He vanished,” Kody said in a delighted whisper. “Like that.” He tried and failed several times to make his fingers snap, before flushing and sitting back in his seat again.
“Vanished?” Jack repeated.
“Are ya both like fuckin’ echos? Always repeating what we’re saying.”
Jack narrowed her brow. “Look Karl, this is jus’ a lil’ hard to take in.”
“And monsters that come out at night to kill us ain’t?”
Rarity rubbed at the bridge of her nose, reluctant to admit that he had a point. A part of her still expected to awake from a horrible nightmare.
“A good point, I suppose,” she said. “Still doesn’t explain where everyone went, however.”
“But what if it was us that went somewhere?” Kody asked.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Kode,” Karl dismissed after a short time of thinking about it.
“Does it really matter?” Jack questioned with a raise of her hand. She spared a glance at the other three. “What happened ain’t gonna change what’s happenin’ now, ya know?”
Rarity scoffed. “Indeed. We do not need to know everything. We simply need to know to go safely in the day, and bunker down at night, with only a few exceptions to shoot in the day, judging by those within the forest.”
“So easy on paper. But it didn’t look like your rinky dink pistols did shit against the Rooter. If I didn’t have my twelve gauge, you would have been one more brick in the wall,” Karl stated plainly.
“We do not need to be reminded of that, Karl. We’re well aware.”
“If you’re dead set on going west? Load up.” He tipped his glass towards Jack, raising his brow as he spoke. “We got a small store next town over. Might be able to grab a few heavier arms.”
“We got a shotgun,” Jack replied, throwing an arm over the headrest of her chair.
“You sure were reluctant to squeeze the trigger, then.”
“Was over my shoulder. Went dumb when that thing caught us.”
“Losing it is one fucking great way to get yourself or that girl killed. If you have a weapon, use it, don’t drop it. Don’t forget about it. Otherwise you’re already a dead man walking.” He gave a small bounce of his head. “Woman,” he corrected after a pause, a little lamely.
“Dad taught me how to quickdraw,” Kody stated, looking towards his father with obvious, beaming pride. “From the side it’s just about your wrist. Rifles and shotguns you use a sling.”
Karl ran a finger over the rim of his glass, glancing to Kody and giving another proud half-smirk his way. “Damn right. Get a strap, carry that African style.”
Rarity glanced around the table, and then caught Jack’s eye for a split second. “Well, actually, Jack has been meaning to teach me how to shoot with a rifle.”
“Yeah,” Jack grunted. “Woulda liked to have taught you before we got attacked by that damn thing—but whatever.”
“I can teach you!” Kody offered.
“We got a range out a little ways,” Karl added on, seeming to agree with the boy’s suggestion. “You three could take advantage of it, if it strikes your fancy.”
Jack paused, mulling the offer over. “Well, figure it’s either learn now or die later. I’d go with the first option myself,” she answered with a nod, then paused. “Though, I’m not gonna be much good for shooting for a while, with the shoulder.”
Karl nodded. “Fine, then, you can help me out with the harvest.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, looking at Rarity out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t waste casings when you shoot. Grab them and I can get gunpowder loaded up.”
Jack snorted. “Right. Self-sufficient.”
“Damn right.” Karl gestured to Kody as the boy shot from the table. “My boy and I don’t need anyone but ourselves.” He paused, and then cupped his hand to his mouth. “And don’t think you’re getting outta dishes duty, Kode. Get back here.”
“...And if you go left five steps, then up seven, you’ll pass by the mines.” Kody pointed at a collection of rocks, piled into a small mound. He followed his own instructions, easily moving past the stones with his arms outstretched like he was emulating an airplane, not a care in the world despite the fact they now stood upon the outskirts of a minefield.
Rarity watched him as he took a lazy turn, moving past a tree, its trunk bowed and tilted over to where it snaked horizontally a few mere feet above the ground. He hopped up onto the trunk and balanced his way across, talking as he did so.
“So the gun range isn’t too far away,” he said, jumping off of the trunk and letting out a small ‘omph’ as he landed on the ground. “We’d let you shoot it back home, but we don’t wanna spook the chickens.”
“How generous. At least a small comfort before being eaten by their masters.”
“The Swarmers would eat them anyway, if it’s not us,” Kody answered, turning to look towards Rarity with restrained excitement. “Dad said that he saw someone on the road get pulled out of his car and ate the first night they showed up.”
Rarity had no real drive to carry on that conversation, so she remained silent. Kody mistook the quiet as a silent urge to continue, and so he pressed on.
“Dad was going to try and help, but by the time he could get a shot, the Swarmers had chewed him down almost to the bone. It must have been fast, since Dad can get around pretty quick for being so old.”
She almost protested, well and sure that man could be no more than ten years her senior. That wasn’t old. That was a respectable age. Though when she was Kody’s age, a man like Karl would seem like an antique. The thought of thirty, or even twenty for that matter, a distant, impossible dream. So she let his remark die and offered an indifferent scoff instead.
“What did he do then?” Rarity questioned as they walked, observing Kody’s movements and mirroring the actions, trusting, or at least doing her best to trust that the boy knew his way around the safety of the minefield.
“He came home and slept out on the front porch with a shotgun in his lap, then woke up and planted mines everywhere.”
Kody took them a bit farther away, down a dirt path lined with thin, yellowing grass.
He guided them both to a clearing amid the woods, where three round hay bales stood, the paint on their sides an obvious indication to their use; a target, not unlike the sorts she had seen before at the town’s fairs, on the occasions she was guilt-tripped into attending, be it with her sister or her friends. Jack or Isabelle would always goad her into watching the tractor pulls. She could even recall a time after a breakup where Isabelle managed to pull her out of a depression by winning one of the overstuffed and overpriced prizes at the shooting gallery. A large teddy bear. One that, granted, was the proud property of her younger sister now, but was still a nostalgic memory to relish on occasion.
Yes, a memory, darling. Considering you’ve not heard from your sister. Her eye twitched with suppressed emotion and she swallowed, a low, shuddering noise in the back of her throat. Kody showed a surprising amount of matureness, once more a shade of Spike, and he reached forward, taking her hand.
“It’s past the archery range,” he said quietly. She nodded, focusing herself forward, allowing Kody to lead her deeper into the clearing.
Towards the end of it, there was a thick and aged hickory tree, knotty, with busted off pieces of bark and obvious battle scars. In the center was another bullseye, painted and repainted with a careful hand. Karl’s work, Rarity assumed. Kody took a few steps forward and kicked at a stump.
“This is three hundred yards,” he announced, then pointed to a solitary stick further ahead, jammed into the earth and pointing towards the heavens. “That’s two hundred. And there’s a pile of rocks at one hundred if you wanted to try that.”
Rarity rubbed at her lip with the tip of her thumb as she stared off into the distance at the target. “Three hundred seems a bit far, dear. Perhaps we can work on the basics first.”
“Okay. Dad can make the three hundred, but I’m still learning the two.” He beamed up at her and quickly jogged forward, beckoning her. “Come on!”
She watched him go and felt a chuckle bubble out of her throat, her earlier thoughts and dread quashed and buried inside her once again. “Very well, very well. Slow down.”
He took her to the small collection of rocks, closer to the woods. There was a sort of duality within her as she looked past the target and into the dense underbrush. A subconscious fear of what, exactly, could be hidden within, but, there was also some relief when she recognized the familiar buzz of insects, and the faint brief sparks of movement, clearly from smaller creatures, some lizard or raccoon or other ghastly disease ridden thing that she right now loved more than any other creature in the world. Their very own early alarm system for if the Rooters were nearby, and their chittering and occasional calls let her know that, yes, right now they were safe. Right now there was time to train. To take aim and prepare.
As she raised the rifle to her shoulder and squinted her off eye shut, she did just that.
Shooting rifles was a new experience for her—she’d only shot the occasional pistol with her father, and even that was a rare occurrence. A rifle was bigger, obviously, harder and more awkward to hold up, and when she squeezed the trigger—
“Shit,” she swore under her breath, the kick from the weapon driving its stock directly into her tender underarm, inadvertently bringing tears to her eyes. She readjusted herself, bringing the stock flush against her shoulder proper, and fired once more; though, this time, there was no righteous fire or deafening roar, only a click.
“It’s a bolt action,” Kody said. Rarity looked at him like he was speaking in tongues before drawing a distant, foggy memory of what that entailed. She looked over the lever at the top of the rifle and awkwardly reached across her line of sight, her left-handed grip causing her to have to pull away a bit from the rifle in order to chamber in another round. She soon enough got another at the ready and flushed the weapon to her again. She squeezed the trigger and a round launched across the field, missing the target and only nicking the side of the tree before disappearing into the woods.
“Good start!” Kody cheered, as enthusiastically as if she had shot a bullseye.
Not good enough, Rarity thought, once more reaching over the top of the gun’s stock to use the weapon’s bolt and free another round into it. Having to lay her face practically down on the stock of the gun just to aim made the entire endeavor very uncomfortable, as did the fact that she was cross-dominant, favoring her left hand but her right eye. She squeezed off another round, actually catching the outside of the painted ring this time.
But, well, challenges could be overcome. She smirked, a bit self-satisfied. She knew herself to be a quick study, all things considered, and privately between herself and herself alone, she enjoyed the practicality of learning how to shoot.
Something stirred in the bushes. Rarity froze, chills running up and down her spine, her blood freezing over. The foliage behind the targets shook, and she reached over to the bolt to load another round.
“Kody,” she whispered, heart hammering. “Get behind—”
The foliage bust open and a large buck darted out, skittish and obviously on the run. Rarity only hoped it was from them, rather than a Rooter. Kody was on it in a heartbeat, shaking Rarity’s shoulder.
“Shoot it! Shoot it!” he quickly ordered. Rarity considered it easier said than done, between her own inexperience and Kody shaking off what little aim she could get on the creature. Nonetheless, she brought the rifle to-bear and squeezed off a round. A shriek of surprise and pain came from the deer as soon as Rarity’s brief bout with deafness from the gun faded away, and he was off, sprinting in a dead run past the two, heading towards the house at an angle.
Rarity sighed, well aware that to miss a moving target with her inexperience was understandable. Doubly so when it came to wildlife. She relaxed and lowered the gun, Kody quickly slapped her shoulder again.
“Come on, we need to chase it!”
“What?”
Kody pointed where they had seen the deer first erupt from the underbrush. Rarity squinted, and was briefly surprised at the blood that decorated the dead grass.
“I think you hit its heart,” Kody remarked. “It should bleed out soon.”
“Kody, dear, I think I shot its rear.”
“Dad calls it the flank.”
“And I’m sure Jack would call it the ass, but regardless.”
Kody looked out west, debating something. He then nodded. “We should go find it. It ran towards the house, and Dad’ll be super happy if we did get it. He may even take me hunting with him from now on.” He paused and shot a sly look over his shoulder at her. “Well, if you tell him that I was the one that shot it.”
She eyed the clouds beginning to boil together in the far western sky. Time enough to get back towards the house, she figured. And the buck had run off towards it.
She shook her head. “It’s long gone now.” But she decided to outpace his disappointment by adding, “but if we see him, we will most certainly take him to your father. How is that?”
Jack leaned over the sink, cracking a peapod open with her rough fingers. She scooped out the peas from their casing into a bowl, and tossed the empty pod to the side, her fingers easily going through the monotonous motions without complaints. Karl leaned over, standing next to her and working on a five gallon bucket filled to the brim with corn ears. He pulled out one, shucked it and tossed it to another one, repeating the process himself.
“Handling those peas like a pro,” he commented to her, sounding genuinely impressed. “You done this before?”
“Grew up on a farm. Peas, corn, ya name it, odds are I had my hands on it.”
He looked sidelong at her. “Don’t tell me; apples, too?”
She looked towards the ceiling in a long-suffering expression, before nodding. “Golden delicious, granny smith, braeburn, ya name it we farmed it.”
“That’s—”
“Don’t say it,” she warned, and startled a bit when he laughed, a loud and happy sound that did not at all fit with his more guff demeanour.
“Living up to the name I guess, huh?”
She pursed her lips in mock irritation and flicked a pea pod into his face, which made his grin all the wider.
“Ya said it,” she stated plainly.
“Guess so, missy. Guess so.” Another chuckle escaped him, like he couldn’t help it. “Jack Apple, from the apple farm. Ah, geez.”
They worked together in silence for a minute or two.
“So I have to ask,” Jack finally began. “Why…” she gestured. “Why all of this?”
He gave a halfhearted shrug. “The peas? We planted a good amount, I guess. Good return on the investment.”
“Nah, nah. Ain’t talkin’ the peas.” She cocked her head towards the living room and another cock towards the dining room. “The house. Security. Mines. Super self-sufficiency. Why all-a that shit?”
“Oh.” His more jovial expression faded a bit. “Well. The wife and I had got the land for a steal, and we was going to originally have some angus cattle on it, but the hours I worked got reduced, so I decided to start a pet project. Lay out a foundation, start building. Little by little, have a place outside of the city we could raise Kody at. Give him a chance to be a kid, not have to deal with all those fucked up things you see on TV.” He tossed an ear of corn into a tub. “And now he has to deal with something even more fucked. Good joke, huh?”
Jack tossed another pod to the side and stared out the window above the sink. “Mmm.”
“But that’s sort of how it started. Built the place up. Got a good groove on the thing, then got in a dispute with the county when it came to setting up a water line, so I said ‘fuck it’, and we built a well. And a damn good well too.” He gave a shake of the corn ear in his thick hands, looking like a lecturing scarecrow. “Guess then… I just saw what we could do on our own, and wanted to see what else could be done. So we started a garden, grew it into fields. Chickens. Herbs. Figured out a way to wire up the place to run on a generator on bad days, solar panels on good ones.” He nodded to himself, coming to a realization. “Guess that’s when I started to go the next step. Just after Kathy got killed. Knew I needed a way to keep everything safe, so I got some guns, started to teach Kody everything I could on that front. Fishing, bow hunting, filtering water. One project after another, you know how it is, being farm grown.”
“I do. One thing gets done, two more things need the same treatment.”
He nodded, perhaps a hair too enthusiastically. “Yeah. So I got things square with him, I got things square around the place, and then, night after I saw the things Kody calls Swarmers? I got serious. Knew a few ways to make pressure bombs, so set up a little surprise for if they ever got close, and an electric fence I could switch on if the need came up. I’ve gotten fucked with too much in my life, Jackie. Not letting that happen again, not now, not ever.”
The man could make a passionate speech, Jack had to admit. She found herself taken with the idea he presented, and sympathetic to the plights that he spoke of.
“And when I die, be it through natural means or by fighting those fucking things, I’m gonna leave it all to Kody,” he spoke wistfully, almost as if he couldn’t wait for that to happen. For him to die. “I even named this place ‘Kody’s Grove’, you know? ‘Cause in the end, it’s his.” He shrugged. “So I guess that’s another reason why I built this place; to have a legacy.” A pause, and he lowered his voice and head. “Guess it don’t really matter, now, with everything happening.”
“There’s still hope of that, Karl,” she told him. “You an’ your son’ll be fine.”
The woods once again closed in around them as Rarity trailed after Kody in search of their prey, their steps brisk, hurried, tearing through the underbrush as they chased the blood like a demented game of follow the leader. Kody was obviously moving almost as fast as his smaller legs could carry him, ducking under foileage and leaving Rarity a sputtering mess as she was struck by the branches.
“Kody! Slow down, please,” she ordered. He seemed to almost jog in place waiting for her to follow after, and, once she got closer, he was off again, his clumsy steps rushing ahead of her.
“Hey, there's another one!” he called, and when Rarity got through the branches, she saw him standing over several drops of blood, bright against the yellowing grass and leaves. She finally caught up to the boy—he only seemed to pause long enough for that to happen when he saw a blood puddle.
“You had to have shot it in the heart,” the boy argued empathetically. “Look at how much it’s bleeding!”
Almost against her will, Rarity felt his enthusiasm of her hunting skill take her ego. She brushed her hair back behind her shoulder and did her best to disguise a smirk.
“Yes, yes, it’s bleeding quite a bit. But if he was short in the heart, that means we do have time to not run everywhere, honestly, Kody.”
He brushed off her admonishments with a wave of his hand. “The quicker we get to it, the quicker we can take it back to Dad! Come on, we’re having venison for dinner tonight!”
They worked in silence for a beat more, with waves of begrudging gratitude coming from Karl’s body language.
“Yer a good father,” Jack said with a shrug. “Just cause there’s monsters out there now… it don’t change that. He seems like a good and well-adjusted kid.”
To her bafflement and surprise, the man blushed a little. He ducked his head down to face the corn bucket to hide it, but Jack saw nevertheless and smiled at him, slowly returning to her own job. The silence hung once more.
“I sometimes wonder if I’m not…” Karl began in a rushed voice. “...like, teaching him enough, you know? He can barely read within his age group, and can’t write more than a few words.” The soft tone of voice let her know the depth of his insecurity about it and she pivoted to him, laying a hand on the man's shoulder.
“But he knows how to filter water, fish, grow his own food—none o’ them city slickers know how to do that.”
He laughed, a little nervously, scratching at his cheek. “And that’s why they’re dead, and we’re not.”
“Exactly.”
Karl grew silent again and stared at her, his corn briefly forgotten. There was a certain kind of look in his eyes, one she had seen before in other men. A restrained want, even if it was for a few scant, mere moments. He took a few slow breaths, considering. Jack wasn’t a mind reader, but she could read at least this thought.
He wanted her. How far he wanted her, she couldn’t be sure of. But, as she took sight of him, she realized that she wanted him too, or at least didn't have a problem with the prospect if they were to put in on the table. Two boats passing in the night.
She meet his eyes, bit her lip, tossed her peas to the side, and stepped forward into him. He seemed to hesitantly do much the same, and they met one-another, close. Close enough that she could smell the cologne on his collar. Close enough that she could hear his slow breaths. She reached forward, resting a hand on his chest and flashed a smirk his way. Meanwhile, Karl rested a hand at her hip and took his other up to her face, lightly cupping her chin between his index and thumb. Leaning down, he gave a slow embrace of his lips against hers.
Jack was more than happy to return the favor as their lips slowly slid against one another’s.
The woods opened up for them, leading gently up a hill so that they could not see the house proper, but Rarity knew they were back onto Karl’s lands.
“It looks like we missed it, Kody,” Rarity said.
“No, there’s still blood tracks!” he said, pointing at the ground where, indeed, small drops of blood decorated the grass.
“It looks like it stopped bleeding, maybe,” Rarity said, almost to herself. There was not nearly as much blood as there had been.
“Let’s just follow a little more,” Kody persuaded her, just as they crested the hill.
They didn’t have to follow it for too long, because there, laying on its side and breathing heavily and not fifteen feet in front of them, was the buck. A line of blood from Rarity’s well-struck shot went across, over its ribs, and dripped onto the ground. The two were quiet upon seeing the beast. Though Rarity was pleased at her earlier shot, even if it was more luck and less skill than she’d care to admit, she felt nothing but sympathy for the deer. It was a mere victim of circumstance, of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and while the thought of venison stopped those thoughts from fully entering her mind, it did not stop the deep, troubled sigh she gave as the deer tried to roll over onto its hooves and move again upon seeing them out of the corner of its eye.
Kody looked to Rarity and nodded to himself. He pulled out his pocket knife and flicked it open.
“We should cut its throat. Stop it from…”
Rarity nodded instantly at agreement upon the suggestion. She followed after Kody as he approached, every bit averting her eyes from the deer as Kody focused upon it.
As she looked down and their feet dug through dead leaves and dying grass she spotted something in her peripheral vision, something she would only realize later Kody did not. A loose-fitting pile of dirt, something almost like an exceptionally large gopher would have made, upturned in a neat circular pile amid the rest of the undisturbed field.
She processed it mid-stride, her adrenaline on and active and screaming at her to flea. Instead, she managed a quick, “Kody.” A pleading, urgant tone to it.
He glanced over his shoulder, surprise etched on his face as he finished his step, planting a foot firmly onto the ground.
It ended naturally, as if they both decided that it had gone on long enough and chose that moment to pull back. And when they did pull back, they stayed close, still in each other’s personal space. Karl went beet-red instantly, his eyes widening in alarm.
“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I don’t know—”
The sound of the explosion seemed to shake the entire house.
His expression still held surprise even after the deafening and near blinding explosion. Rarity froze, her mouth agape and her hand outstretched for him, or, rather, what of him had been there not even a second ago, obliterated by the mine he stepped on. Rarity remained totally paralyzed, her mind not merely struck dumb, but fully shut down upon the sight, upon the warm splash of blood that covered her clothes, her face and arms. She remained frozen until he dropped face-first down onto the ground, no more than a broken puppet with far too few pieces. Later, Rarity might consider at least one small blessing to be that his death had to have been quick, like flicking a switch to kill the lights in a not-used room. But that consolation came later, much later and now her lips had finally trembled, shuddered as she whispered a weak, unbelieving “Kody.”
Feeling bile come to her throat, she gagged and dropped down to her knees, only managing to turn her head to the side as she threw up until she dry heaved, coughing, sputtering and holding her wrist in her hand to stop them both from shaking. Her lips moved once again, mouthing his name, and she crawled forward, looking him over. His eyes were still open, and when she met their lifelessness, she threw up all over again.
There was no doubt, no mistake, and no hope.
He was dead. And she held the blame on killing him.
Karl was out of Jack’s arms, out of the house, like a bullet. Jack followed him at a run, dread coiling like a stone in her gut. By the time she was out of the house, Karl was almost past the chicken coop.
“Karl! Slow down!” she yelled at his back, but he seemed to do the opposite thing and speed up. Jack’s vision fuzzied, her legs growing weak and her chest aching. Straining myself, she thought, cursing her weakness, her lightheadedness, her breaths that seemed to do nothing to aid her in her time of need. She bent over, drawing in deep mouthfuls of air as a wave of nausea hit like a car.
Her first thought was she was getting sick. But it was a sick like she had never felt before. A kind of off-kilter feeling that she couldn’t place the source of.
Rooter, her mind stated with a direct bluntness that gave her pause. Pursing her lips, she nodded in agreement with the assessment. Why else would she be feeling like this? She’d only run a few yards, and she could give Dash competition on the track, usually.
Carefully, she took off at a jog past the coop and tool shack. Just as she was jumping the fence, a mournful cry rang through the air. She stumbled, startled, and landed hard on her hands and knees, a barb from the fenceline tug and cut at her clothes and, subsequently, nicked at her leg, bringing a bead of blood to surface. She ignored it and pressed on.
It didn’t take her but a scant second to see the end results of the noise. Of Karl’s end goal. And, as she came closer still, she saw Kody. Or, rather, what remained of the boy.
Jack stepped forward, but stopped mid-stride, alarm bells ringing, whaling desperately in the back of her mind. Kody’s end, the helpless, ruined body amid broken bones and torn-asunder flesh was an urgent reminder of what lay possibly feet from her. She hesitated and then retreated her foot back to her side, not daring to approach.
She saw Karl’s back shake seconds before a gut-wrenching sob tore through the air. The lifeless body in the man’s arms quickly stained them with blood, and Jack felt a numbness settle over her, as if she had stepped out of her own body to watch the scene. Her eyes focused on Rarity, deathly pale, her lips trembling, bright flecks of Kody’s blood in an arc across her torso and face.
“Oh, Kody,” Karl gasped, his voice all over the register, dropping into highs and lows with the force of his grief. “Oh, my baby.”
Jack again tilted her body weight to take a step towards him. Mines, her mind screamed. She opened her mouth to call out, helpless to do anything else, more helpless than she had ever felt in her life.
“Karl,” she muttered out weakly, at a register that the man couldn't have possibly heard.
And yet his eyes lifted up to hers, and what she saw in those eyes made her own widen in alarm.
“Kar—!”
The pistol was out of the holster and pointed at his own temple, and before she could completely call out his name, a shot rang out. She saw every detail, the bright spray of blood and grey matter jetting at an arc from the exit wound and staining the already-red grass, how his body tipped down by degrees before gravity took him and he landed face-first onto the ground, dead, crushing Kody’s lifeless body underneath him.
“Christ!” Jack barked, a sudden wave of nausea hitting her like an uppercut. She dropped to her knees and looked away from the carnage. Her eyes landed on a buck, shot but alive, not ten feet away from her.
As she watched, the animal rolled over and got to its feet, it's strength back. It skipped away.