Page 30 of Dyana
Patricia clawed at my hands as her face first turned red, then purple, and her eyes got red and bulged out of her head. I didn’t stop squeezing until she stopped breathing, and even then, it was Jack who had to convince me to let go.
“Come on, brother, she’s gone. You did it. She’s gone.” Finally, with Evan’s help, they managed to get me to my feet.
“I want to burn it down,” I said as they guided me down the hall.
“Then we will,” Evan replied. He turned on all the burners and the oven as we passed by the kitchen, then swiped a dirty rag and a half-filled liquor bottle. We went outside and had to fight off more zombies, which Patricia’s screams had attracted. Once that was done, Evan lit the Molotov cocktail and handed it to Jack.
“QB?”
Jack took it and beamed it through the door from our position behind a neighbor’s truck. The trailer exploded before the bottle could even break against the wall. I stood and watched the fire erase the evidence of the horrors that happened in that trailer.
If only they could erase my guilt or the scars on my soul.
Present
I understood where Dyana was coming from. I wasn’t the same person I was before the apocalypse, either. That man died the moment I stepped foot inside that bedroom and saw my siblings’ bodies. Growing up, I had plenty of opportunities to kill my parents. I probably wouldn’t have gotten in trouble for it, but I hadn’t. Looking back, I wish I had. Barely a day into the apocalypse, I was a murderer. They deserved it, but I still killed them in cold blood. It took a long time and my best friends’ support to move past that day. Everyone has done something in the apocalypse that they aren’t proud of.
“It’s starting to get dark,” Jack said, interrupting my heavy thoughts. “Shouldn’t Dyana be home by now?”
“Radio down to Cora and ask if she is staying there tonight or if she needs one of us to walk her back,” I suggested.
“Tower to base. Tower to base,” Evan said into the radio with a gleeful look. I shook my head. Nerd.
“What’s up?” one of the guys responded.
“We were just calling to see if Dyana was going to spend the night there or if we should come down to walk her home.”
“What are you talking about?” Cora asked. “Dyana isn’t here. We haven’t seen her all day.”
Jack and I ran to the radio as if being closer would help us listen better or change what we heard.
“She left here this morning upset. We assumed she went down to your place,” Evan replied, exchanging worried looks with us.
Where the fuck was Dyana?
Chapter eight
Dyana
Iwas halfway down the mountain before my anger subsided enough to realize where my subconscious had taken me. It made sense to go home given all the feelings Jack had dredged up. It wasn’t just that I was angry with him; I was also hurt and disappointed. For some reason, I had expected Jack’s reaction to be instantaneous, and when he hesitated, it felt like a kick in the gut. I needed his validation to silence the voices in my head, and his hesitation proved they were right.
Of course, they were right. Now that I had cooled down, I could see that I was more mad at myself than at Jack. Why was it so easy for me to become such a horrible person? God, by the time I found Cora, human life had lost all value. I rated people based on their usefulness to me, and they no longer mattered if they didn’t rate very highly. And if they died to get me what I needed to survive, so be it. They achieved their full potential, and at least their struggle to survive would come to an end.
How many lives have marked my soul? It wasn’t something I wanted to think about. The number was too fucking high. But as I walked toward town, I couldn’t help but picture the sweet faceof the only friend I had made since the outbreak before I found Cora.
Past
For the first time since the apocalypse started, I felt safe. It had been two years since the church, and six months since I’d seen any sign of Harris or Tommy. I knew they still had to be out there, but they hadn’t caught up with me again. I’d also taken a new name, which contributed to them not picking up my trail. It also protected those who might have seen me from their evil ways. I never made it to Wyoming. After leaving the church, I had intended to go to Wyoming. The plan was to get the hell out of the state and put as much distance between myself and them as possible. But if Harris and Tommy followed me to my uncle’s and I brought his wrath down on my family, I’d never forgive myself. That, and if I got there and they hadn’t survived, I wasn’t sure how I would react.
I decided it was better not to go and allow the fantasy that they were alive and well to continue. Schrodinger’s cat and all that. So, instead of going north, I went east. I jumped between different groups for a while, trying to stay ahead of my pursuers. I now found myself on a charming farm in eastern Colorado. It wasn’t just a group of people, but an entire community of nearly a hundred people. I was shocked to see so many people together when I first arrived. And they were all happy! They accepted mequickly without any questions, and I was content to fade into the background, rather than resorting to my usual tricks. I was tired, and it felt nice to simply exist, almost like a vacation.
Sherry was about ten years older than me, and had quickly taken me under her wing. She was the epitome of ‘we listen and we don’t judge. ’ Opening up to her about my past had been as easy as breathing, and she never once judged me, even though I didn’t tell her everything. Some things were too shameful to admit. I watched my carefree friend as she drove us down the road. Sherry hadn’t shared much about her past with me yet, and I wouldn’t push her to. She would share if and when she was ready. It didn’t really matter anyway. Nothing from our previous lives mattered anymore.
“Why are you staring at me?” Sherry yelled so I could hear her over the wind. We were in a soft-top convertible with the top down. It was a perfect blue-skied day, and the sun felt amazing on my skin. We were on our way to the lake to swim and pick berries.
“I was just thinking how lucky I was to have a friend like you,” I replied honestly.
“You’re such a dork sometimes,” she replied. She rolled her eyes and floored it, shooting us down the empty highway.
