Haven (17 page)

That grim forecast, and a quick glance at the amassing horde of them, reinforced his reasoning for not letting the others know. What he’d said was true. There was no point in telling them. That would be the equivalent of a fortune teller mentioning when you’d meet your end. Human nature would compel you to dwell on that finite moment until it came, diminishing any value you could find in life until it did. No, let them live in peace.

“So…how do you feel today?” he asked, changing the subject without warning.

Turning, I found him overtly assessing me.

“Fine,” I said, my tone suspicious.

“Good.”

“Why?” I wondered if I looked sick or was behaving oddly without knowing it.

He seemed reluctant to answer, looking away and staring out across the trees, without actually seeing any of them.

Pressing again, I asked, “Why, Harrison?”

“You had nightmares last night.”

I kept watching him, slightly taken aback. So I wasn’t coming across as ill or abnormal. He’d been keeping his eye on me…despite what he’d vowed. No wonder he didn’t want to answer.

“I get those sometimes.”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “I noticed.”

Even though he seemed distressed about it, I laughed. “You’re not the only odd one here, Harrison.”

In an attempt to reassure me, he argued, “Nightmares are pretty common, Kennedy.”

“Not the kind that come true,” I countered.

Immediately intrigued, he turned swiftly back in my direction.

I shrugged and decided it might help him to be forthcoming with me if I let him in on my little secret. “They started after my dad died. I used to think they were warnings sent from the afterlife. He was always trying to protect me, so…it made sense. I had one about an accident in Old Boy, a bad one, and because I’d dreamt it, I was able to avoid it by turning in time. Another one predicted an armed robbery at a stop-n-rob…That’s what my dad used to call convenience stores…But I foresaw it happening and called the police so they could catch the guy.”

“Did they?”

“Yes, they did.”

“So your dad sends you warnings from beyond the grave,” he summarized, turning his head to the sky as he considered this.

“Well, that’s what I used to think.”

“But not anymore?” His eyes came back to me.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he didn’t warn me about this,” I motioned down to the Infected and out across the rest of the world. “And he
would
have given me a heads up about a coming apocalypse.”

“If he thought it would help,” Harrison added.

“Right.”

“So you had no nightmares about this.” He made the same gesture as I had.

“One,” I admitted, and he moved closer to me, giving me his full attention. “It wasn’t of anything that’s happened…” I explained, trying to curtail his hopes.

“Not yet,” he replied, resistant. “What was it?”

“I was being chased by someone through a dilapidated warehouse. And, in my dream, I knew he wanted to…well, to bite me…sink his teeth into me…to eat me, basically. It was pretty vivid. The vivid ones I remember.”

“Vivid?”

To explain, I added, “I could smell blood on him, from others he’d eaten.”

We fell silent as he registered what I’d told him. “Hmm, and you had this dream when?”

“The-” I said and stopped. I hadn’t realized it until Harrison had asked, but the coincidence staggered me for a second. “The morning of the outbreak.”

Neither of us bothered to address this strange little twist of fate, but I knew we were both contemplating it.

Reluctantly, he looked in my direction, not entirely but enough for me to see his concern. “Did he…” He stopped himself and was clearly considering whether he wanted to ask the question. Apparently, the curiosity was too overwhelming because he continued. “Did your dad ever warn you about me?”

“What?” I shot back, appalled. “No…No, Harrison. Never.”

Once again, that worry that he was dangerous reared its head. But this seemed to antagonize me more than Harrison. Immediately, his shoulders relaxed and the tension in his neck ebbed.

“He would have liked you, Harrison,” I added, exhaling in frustration.

“You think?”

“I know it,” I said. “He wouldn’t have pulled out the shotgun for a cleaning if you came to the house.”

Harrison tilted his head back and laughed, a sound that caught the attention of the Infected below and caused them to release a louder round of hisses and growls. Harrison didn’t appear to pay them any attention.

“I would have liked to have met him,” he said, his voice rumbling deeper than usual.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I would have liked that, too.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw him staring at me. When I turned to meet his eyes, I found his gaze was tender, and I saw in him an underlying desire to reach out and take me in his arms. But that tenderness quickly turned to something more as the magnetic pull that always lingered between us grew stronger. I could see him struggling with it, indulging it and then pushing it back down. Then the muscles in his jaw tightened in one final attempt to subdue his craving and he exhaled harshly before turning away. By that point, my heart was pounding hard in my chest and I realized my hands had ended up clenched. I loosened them and took a deep breath.

Once again, Harrison returned to observing the Infected below but without any real awareness of them. He seemed deep in thought and surprised me when he mumbled something seemingly to himself with a slight sense of puzzlement. “Gave no warning about me at all. Huh…”

“Hmm?” I asked, unsettled from the experience of having Harrison so close and yet so untouchable.

He blinked and shook his head as if he were clearing his thoughts. “Nothing,” he replied a little too fast for me to believe him. “Just trying to figure something out.”

In an effort to fully recover, I tried to keep the conversation going by asking, “What’s that?”

He breathed heavily and sighed, taking the time to process his answer. When it finally came, it was both cryptic and seemed to sum up whatever it was he was contemplating. “Why I am the way I am.”

My immediate reaction was to question why my dreams, having given no warning about him, would explain some underlying mystery he’d yet revealed about himself. For some reason, he thought they might be linked. I saw no connection. There was no place for him in my nightmares.

Without giving me a chance to respond, he abruptly changed the subject. “So we won’t mention this to anyone,” he stated.

I gave him a blank stare.
No…No, I wouldn’t share our conversation with them.

“About the gate’s vulnerability,” he clarified.

“Oh,” I muttered and laughed at myself. My head was still spinning from our topic before. “No, no, we won’t.”

He nodded firmly in agreement, before settling into a quiet, observant state, his focus entirely back on the Infected. Still, I got the sense that he was torn between wanting me to stay or to leave. Opening his mouth several times and closing it before speaking again was a pretty clear sign. So I made the decision myself.

“I’ll see you inside.”

“Right,” he replied, reluctantly, and I got the impression that he was let down. “Right…”

We actually didn’t see each other again until dinner. Doc and Mei served chicken tortilla soup and a strange, but tasty, chilled lentil salad, and we sat around the table they had dragged into the kitchen from the cafeteria’s dining side. They’d set up our personal “chef’s table” the first week and I liked it. Sitting in the cavernous room with all the empty chairs was a grim, awkward reminder that we were the lucky few who made it inside the day it started. Beverly wandered in just as the dinner was being plated and left the second she was done eating. But in the interim, she was mildly pleasant, stowing her sarcasm…for the most part. There was only one moment when she cut into the conversation and asked the table if her hours on the roof were paying off and if she looked any tanner. We said yes and she muttered something about not wanting to let herself go like the rest of us had. Doc’s jaw tightened and that simple motion brought out an apology from her. The back-and-forth interaction between them reminded me of the frustrating, but ultimately rewarding, victory of training a dog, and I knew eventually Beverly would “get it”. Harrison strolled into the kitchen a few minutes later. His eyes landed on me and slipped away just before he took a seat from me across the table. He didn’t eat, as usual, having already explained that he liked his meals late and at irregular hours. Instead, this was time for him to hang out with the rest of us, and to sneak glances at me when no one else was looking. Throughout the conversation we remained silent about the fence, as agreed upon, but it never left my mind, hovering in the recesses until the dishes were done and everyone but Harrison was asleep in their makeshift beds. Then the image of the broken fence near the maintenance area was replaced with Mr. Chow’s shop and a mental map on how I could reach it.

I’d estimate an hour passed before I got out of bed. By then it was around midnight, I assumed, and the others were deep into REM sleep. Our beds were lined on both sides of the hallway, forming a short, broken runway right toward the main entrance’s glass doors, but exiting that way posed several problems, not the least of which would be to alert the others that I was leaving. So I went in the opposite direction, stopping a few feet away at Beverly’s locker. It was open, but she was laying in front of it, which meant I had to lean over her to get what I wanted from inside, which also meant I had to wait for a break between Doc’s snoring in order to confirm she was asleep. Beverly had one odd trait, which had been discovered during girls’ night sleepovers. Once she was in deep sleep, she whistled on her exhales, a peculiarly happy trait for someone so much the opposite. So I didn’t move until I heard the soft pitch of her whistle. Then I carefully pulled the ring of master keys she’d taken from Harrison off the hook. Using Doc’s snore as cover to conceal the clinking of their collisions, I settled them into one palm to prevent them from moving further.

It was essential, an absolute requirement, that no one woke up. If any of them knew what I was about to do they’d stop me, and probably bind me to a desk for my own good. I’d have to thank them for it too…until the Infected rushed the school and I was eaten alive.

My next stop was at the clothing pile where I fished for the black leather jacket I’d seen there weeks ago. Had Beverly claimed it, had her shoulders not been too broad, it would have been hanging in her locker right alongside the keys where her eagle eyes, which had always been acutely aware of her possessions, could keep it under surveillance. But I only had to wiggle it free from under a few sweatshirts and slip it on. It matched my body perfectly, and more importantly, was the sturdy thick leather I needed to keep the Infecteds’ teeth off my skin.

Quietly, I left the main hall, stopping briefly in Admin to pull my hair into a ponytail with a rubber band I found on Ms. Cleary’s desk. I then headed toward the south end of the school, listening carefully the entire time for Harrison’s footsteps, freezing just once when I thought a door clicked closed in the direction of the auditorium. He would be my first obstacle, but thankfully he wouldn’t be watching for me because he didn’t expect me to leave the security of the school. Why would he? It was an insane move. I knew this and still my feet kept moving in the direction of the south side’s entrance since the part of my brain that doesn’t abide warnings wouldn’t allow them to stop. This was because it was locked on something else, the understanding that eventually the Infected would get through that vulnerable spot in the fence and we’d become a nice little meal of sitting ducks. We needed to defend ourselves. We needed weapons for that purpose. Someone needed to leave the confines of the school to get them. That someone was me. Very simple. Cut and dried. I hoped…

The south side was hit less than the rest, which I attributed to the smaller parking lot – used primarily for substitute teachers, the nurse, and visitors – and the fact that commercial buildings lined that side of the school’s property blocking the Infected from roaming there. Fourteen of them straggled through the now decomposed bodies as I left the building, carefully closing the door so that I didn’t draw their attention. The night air was at a standstill and carried a chill because the fall weather had now arrived. The moon’s light filtered down through translucent clouds and tree branches, giving everything it touched a bluish-grey tint. But it was the night’s stillness that stood out to me. The scuffs of the Infecteds’ feet, their hoarse inhales, their muted groans were magnified in the silence. No car motors, no humming street lights, nothing absorbed their presence. Their existence was distinct and unavoidable.

I hadn’t been this close to them since the day of the outbreak and I’d forgotten how they made me feel. Intrigued but cautious. I realized with a certain amount of surrealism that was exactly the feeling I got with Harrison. Brushing aside the comparison, I decided to stop wasting time.

Sticking to the shadows, I slipped down the far side of the stairs, coming to a crouch on the bottom step. It was there that I saw it. Three of them, standing no more than ten feet away, lifted their noses into the night air and inhaled. And my heart stopped. It was the same exact motion Harrison had made when he sensed Beverly’s dad behind the dumpster. Their three heads were already turning in my direction by the time I had my hand in my back pocket and pulled Old Boy’s keys free. Their eyes were just about to land on me when I hit the alarm.