I shrug.
“And what if they decide to turn you?”
“It’s a risk, but these are desperate times.”
She puts a hand over her mouth. “I couldn’t do it. I would just …” She muffles her words and shakes her head, looking horrified.
“It isn’t easy. I assure you.”
We don’t speak for a few blocks. I’ve managed to take us completely out of downtown, and I’m well on my way to my rendezvous spot with James.
Hannah hugs her legs to her chest and rests her chin on her knees, looking pensive. “Will IgNiTe take me?”
“If you’re willing to fight. If you’re not, they’ll find a safe place for you. One of the underground human communities.”
“They really exist?!” she asks as if I just told her Sasquatch is real, and she can’t wait to meet him. “We heard rumors, but we never saw them.”
“We?” I ask, then immediately regret it.
She stares down and pulls at her jacket as if it’s out of place, which it isn’t. You’d think I would have learned by now. I’ve lost enough people in this fight to understand the touchy subjects.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t …” I trail off. There’s nothing to say.
The silence between us is heavy for a long moment, then Hannah speaks, “Mom, Dad, my sister, Josephine, and Mack, our dog.” She worries at a hangnail, pretty much obliterating it.
I don’t want to hear this. I don’t. If she expects wise words from me I have none. If she expects sympathy—I have plenty of that, heck, I even have empathy—but I’ve never been good at expressing it.
“We lived in a condo right on Olive Way. We were at home when all hell broke loose. We stayed holed up in there until the food ran out. About two weeks.” Hannah pauses and takes a deep breath.
The Eklyptors never bothered searching people’s houses. A good number of citizens just came voluntarily in the beginning of The Takeover, believing the lies the beasts spread through the news channels, the ones that said the authorities would provide answers and help. They were like mice crawling inside the lion’s mouth. They never stood a chance, because Eklyptors took control of everything that was important: hospitals, government, police. They had their infected monsters in place, ready to assume power as soon as hostilities began. As for the humans who stayed hidden, Eklyptors knew they would soon have to come out in search of food. The creeps are in this for the long run. So why hurry?
“We tried to talk to the neighbors,” she continues, “but the few that were still there wanted nothing to do with us. One guy even threatened us with a gun, saying we wanted to steal his provisions. The empty units had already been raided by them. We found a few cans of soup, but that was it. So Dad … he decided to go out to find stuff to eat. He took Mack with him and made us stay back. It was so hard waiting for him, not knowing if he was all right. We were so relieved when he came back. He ran into no trouble, was even able to fill a backpack with enough food for a few days. Stuff like canned tuna, crackers and Slim Jims.”
A vivid image of her family huddled together, dividing up the few items, pops into my mind. How many families went through the same? How many are still together?
“Of course, the food didn’t last,” Hannah continues. “Dad felt confident he could go out and get more. He hadn’t run into any problems the first time, so he assured us it would be fine. We still didn’t like it. He had no idea how awful waiting for him had been. I told him we should stay together, but he wanted to make sure we were safe. He said that was his priority.”
Hannah doesn’t need to say what happened next. Her story is charged with the power of an awful punch line.
Her father never came back.
She cries silently. Her hands flutter to and away from her face as she wipes tears off her cheeks and jawline.
I clench the steering wheel and look straight ahead. I doubt there’s a human left on Earth who doesn’t have a nightmare story to recount. I have my share of them, but I’m not burdening her with mine, am I?
What does she expect me to say?
Apparently nothing, because she goes on, oblivious to my discomfort.
“We stayed there for two days, eating little more than cracker crumbs and crying ourselves crazy. Finally, I convinced Mom we had to go out and look for him. In case Dad came back, we left him a note that said we’d be back every night. We packed what we could. Flashlight, matches, first-aid kit, stuff like that.
“We were terrified, but at least we were doing something, instead of just waiting like useless fools. First, we went to the convenience store where Dad went the first time. He’d said there was nothing left there, so it was unlikely he’d gone back, but it was all we had to go by. It was so hard moving through the streets. We kept expecting someone to jump us from every door and alley.” She gives a dry laugh. “I saw people watching us from their condos. They just stared at us from behind their curtains. No one offered to help. No one.”
She lifts her chin and looks over at me. I throw a quick glance her way. The wonder and gratitude in her eyes let me know how surprised she is that someone, namely me, gave a damn and risked everything to save her life.
Yep, it was nuts. Even I can’t believe it, so she should shut up before she makes me regret it.
But Hannah is on a roll, and I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop. Maybe she needs this, maybe it’s therapy. Too bad I’m not a shrink.
“I used my cell phone to navigate us, snapping pictures of the areas we had checked. It’s so odd that phones and TVs and all that crap still works when everything else’s gone to hell.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, it was slow going. We hid and crouched more than anything else. We almost got spotted a couple of times by … people driving past. Then, just when we were about to go back home, we … we found Mack. He was Josephine’s dog, a good-hearted black Labrador. He was dead. Shot in the head and laying by the side of the street.
“Josephine lost it. She went hysterical, screaming and crying, clinging to Mom. We tried to calm her down, but we couldn’t. ‘If Mack is dead. Dad is dead,’ she kept saying over and over again.
“Then, all of sudden, this man comes out of one of the buildings. He looked furious and dangerous. At first, I thought he was one of them, but he was mad because of the racket Josephine was making. Not like he made it any better by yelling at her to ‘shut the fuck up unless you want the Eklyptors to show up.’
“When Josephine wouldn’t shut up, he tore her away from Mom and slapped her across the face. He looked like he was ready to kill her. Mom and I pulled him away and that’s when he pulled out a gun and he just …” Hannah trails off, too choked up by her tears to continue.
The corners of my eyes prickle. I think of Dad, Mom, Xave, all gone. The pain of their absence smarts like a wound freshly opened. It always rides right under my skin, but it hasn’t resurfaced is some time—not when hatred and revenge-lust are my prevalent emotions while living among Eklyptors.
I want to curse Hannah, want to blame her for pouring salt on the wound and reminding me of my own misery and loneliness, but she’s gone through enough as it is. The last thing she needs is my brand of bitterness undoing the little comfort she’s found in pouring her heart out.
After her tears run out, Hannah takes a deep breath and shifts in her spot, one hand digging inside her blue jacket. I look sideways at the exact moment she pulls out a small revolver from the depths of her puffy top layer. I nearly slam on the brakes, expecting her to point the gun at me, but she just lets it dangle between her thumb and index finger.
“I killed him,” she confesses, though not with regret.