Page 64 of To Have and to Hold

It was one thing to Google “how to survive with fire during Armageddon” and watch instructional videos. It was another to construct one from memory with nothing but touch and feel for direction, since the batteries to the only source of light were currently being employed as kindling. I tried over and over to spark the gum wrapper with their tips, crouched over my bucket like a cavewoman, using the same mattress-prop I’d had when emptying my bladder, in case he could see. I left what was in the latrine, and since I wasn’t hydrated enough for a six-month-old, never mind a woman in her late twenties, barely any urine was in there. I seemed to recall another of Becca’s episodes and how when stuck in the wilderness, one’s pee could be used to make a fire, so I figured why not throw that in there, too. A little ammonia-scented luck.

I attempted various maneuvers—rubbing, tearing, crumpling the wrapper into a ball and banging them together like a monkey does his chimes. Nothing worked. Too much time had passed, enough that I was becoming tense. I hadn’t received any visits interrupting my mad science experiment. The Skull had been distracted by something—someone—he called an idiot, before leaving last time, but I didn’t bother to scream. No one could hear me and preserving my energy was paramount. Besides, it might’ve been one of the Skull’s friends. He could be negotiating my price at this very moment and tiring of my presence. I wasn’t sure what was more terrifying—being sold off to the highest sex fetish bidder overseas, or being abandoned in here and left to starve.

If I had anything to do with it, neither options were going to happen.

Exhausted, I landed on my butt bones and spread my legs in a V in front of me, the steel bucket in the middle. My arms ached with the demand of keeping them raised, and in a second of defeat, I let them slacken, holding the gum wrapper flat against the battery’s tip while I mentally pep-talked myself to keep going. It was my only chance. A subconscious flare of possibility in a cave of darkness. There was no giving up.

Crack.

I hurried back into a crouch and curled over the bucket once I registered the spurt of light.

Ssssssssss.

The gorgeous sound of crackling paper reached my ears, and I laughed with glee as I dropped the smoking wrapper into the bucket. The pee and polyester lit up in half a second, my bucket housing leaping, orange-red flames that lit up my world. I resisted the urge to dance around it and instead allowed a few claps. I could do this. There was lots of polyester and at least six gum wrappers to go around. Next time I heard his footsteps…

The door banged open.

I froze, ready for his thunderous demand for me to get out from behind my hiding place before he tore me to shreds with a kitchen knife.

But then…

“Get up,” the Skull said.

What?He said it with such a calm demeanor. Like—like he had no idea I was crouched where he couldn’t see.

Act.

I have to get him in the torso, his hands, his legs. Not his face—the porcelain mask will protect him. But the back of his head. Could I—?

I stood so I could peer over the mattress.

He wasn’t speaking directly at me. His hood was up, and his attention was distracted by something behind him, outside this room, so he didn’t see that I had bucket full of liquid fire.

I caught the profile of his nose. My blood boiled to the surface. He wasn’t wearing his mask, instead tying that damned navy scarf around the bottom half of his face and knotting it in the back. “I’m moving you,” he said, still facing out. “Too many pigs sniffing around this place—”

No time like the present.

I kicked over the mattress and hurled the best gift Becca had ever given me in her life into his face. The fiery liquid hit him with a smack as he turned toward the noise, his screams lighting up the room more than the small flames I crafted. Blue fabric melted into his skin—I hope it’s cashmere, asshole—chemicals peeled off layers, exposing flesh and tissue—zombifying the fucker. I dropped the bucket and flew past him, but his instincts sensed me and he encircled my torso, screaming, screaming and taking us both to the ground. He rolled on top of me, the flames having dissipated on his face but leaving a mask of nightmares. White showed through, blood fused with bone, empty craters formed in his cheeks. He wailed and I twisted and pushed.

“Get off me!”

His lips peeled back, both by the fire that ate his skin and his visceral rage. He raised his fists and with his one good eye tracked each punch and pummel. I blocked with my forearms, but he grabbed one and stood up, pulling me with him, yanking, wrenching, crack.

My wails met his, the spike of agony causing a new kind of light to cover my vision. My legs wobbled but he held on and threw me with a thwack, my naked body curving against the stone and then down.

“You….” He strode forward. “Fucking….” His voice was clotted with melted cartilage and pain. “…bitch.”

He raised a fist.

There are layers of nightfall. One, when someone turns off a light. Two, when the sun makes room for the moon. And three, when you’re not conscious anymore.

Black.

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