Page 92 of Dating After the End of the World
I follow, my heart breaking at the sight. Tessa’s mom lies on the ground, a small pool of blood beneath her head, her hair matted and wet from the sticky liquid.
“Oh my God! Mom!” Tessa shakes her, trying to make her respond.
Grabbing Tessa’s shoulders, I pull her off. “Easy. We don’t know how hurt she is, so don’t shake her, okay?” Tessa nods and slides to the floor, leaning her back against the bed.
I place my fingers gently on Meredith’s neck, checking for a pulse. After a few seconds, my heart nearly stops, a mirror of what my fingers are feeling. Panic settles in, but I keep it deep within, not wanting to alarm Tessa. I hold my fingers in place, keeping up the ruse that I’m counting out her heart rate, the sadness welling up so strongly inside me that I’m not sure how I’ll be able to tell her that she’ll never speak to her mother again.
But suddenly, a tiny bit of pressure makes her skin rise up into the pads of my fingers, sinking back down for nearly two seconds, and then rising again.Oh, thank God.I turn to Tessa, nodding in quick bursts. “She’s okay. Her pulse is very faint, but it’s there.”
Tessa dives onto her mother, holding her in her arms and brushing the hair out of her face. Aunt Julie and Elaine stand over us, tears in their eyes and hands covering their mouths.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“I don’t know. Dale and Jimmy ran out into the yard shooting when the men showed up, but I didn’t see anyone else,” Elaine explains.
Aunt Julie cries from the pain of her wound and from the unknown of whether her children and her husband are alive and well.
I know it’s not a consolation for the rest who are missing, but I tell her, “Greg is safe, by the way. He’s up in the sniper tower with Molly. They have the lookout secured, and they’re watching down on us.”
Her wet, crumpled face, saturated with blood, lights up. “Like guardian angels.”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking we’re gonna need more of those if we’re going to survive this. “Are you two gonna be okay in here? Tessa and I need to go find the others.” I turn to see Tessa staring up at me, a torrent of sadness and worry spilling out of her as she shakes her head.
“I can’t leave my mom,” she cries.
As much as I want her to come with me and finish this, I know, in this state, she won’t be any good anyway, which puts us both at risk.
“Okay. Stay then. Keep everyone in here safe.”
“I’ll come with you.” Aunt Julie takes a sudden step forward but nearly topples over, catching herself on the bedpost. Elaine steadies her and helps her sit.
“No, Aunt Julie. You’re too injured. Just stay here.”
My aunt slumps her shoulders and slowly nods. She doesn’t want to agree with me, but she also knows it’s for the best.
“Are you all going to be fine in here?” I ask the room.
“The real question is, Are you going to be fine out there?” Elaine says, reaching for my hand. She holds it and pats it with her other.
I take a deep breath and exhale at the prospect of facing this on my own, but somewhere deep inside me, I sense I will be. It might be pure delusion, but I can still feel it.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I know you will. You were the strongest little girl I ever met, and now you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” Elaine gives me an encouraging nod and lets go of my hand.
I smile and tell them to take care of each other before leaving the room and making my way back out into the kitchen.
I debate whether to check upstairs or downstairs first. Upstairs is noisier; the stairs creak more and there are a lot of corners, but I have windows I can jump out of if needed, and there’s more light. Downstairs has the armory and it’s quiet, but it also leaves me trapped.
I decide the armory is the spot my dad or Uncle Jimmy likely would have gone to, not wanting the burners to take it over, so I descend into the depths of the house, keeping my noise to a minimum.
The closer I get to the bottom of the steps, the louder a pair of voices become. I recognize neither of them, and I slowly poke my head around the corner, hoping to get a glimpse of the scene before being noticed.
Two men stand near the entrance to the tunnel leading back to the armory, chatting it up like they’re on watch duty at a mall. Scanning the rest of the room, I see one of the cell doors is closed, bloody handprints stained across several of the bars. My stomach drops as I wonder who’s locked in there, and whether they’re alive.
I grab two of my throwing stars, tried and true for taking down people quietly, and palm them. After a deep breath, I emerge around the corner, hurling the objects one after the other into the burners. The first one strikes the man on the right directly in his open mouth. A second before, he had started laughing at a joke the other burner told, and now the glint of silver disappears into the blackness of his throat before a stream of blood begins to pour out of him. He chokes, his body trying to dislodge the object from his throat, his tongue flailing as he grabs at his neck. The burner heaves up air, only accelerating his choking on his own blood.
The other burner takes the star directly in the chin. My aim was a little high and now he looks like a member of the Mursi Tribe, the glinting, pointed disc jutting from his face as he lets out an agonizing scream.
