Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (7 page)

Phoenix, she thought. Maybe he was
right. Maybe this was the start of something better.

Finally the pain faded into the
background, along with the urgency of her questions. Cocooned by
the distinct sweetness of hope, she closed her eyes and drifted off
into a peaceful slumber.

7. DREAM

Alessa couldn’t see his face, but she
could feel the heat of him sidled up against her. His body wrapped
protectively around hers, she was flooded with a sense of
sanctuary, of knowing she was safe from whatever dangers lurked
outside.

Still enveloped in the tranquil mist
of sleep, she smiled deeply and rolled over to face him. Her eyes
still closed, she dreamily ran her hands over his broad chest and
nuzzled her face against the scruff of his chin with a
sigh.

Tilting her head up, she trailed his
chiseled jaw with her lips, their mouths meeting in a slow, tender
kiss. Their eyes fell open in unison and she lost herself for a
moment in the endless blue she knew so well.

But then something began
to change for Alessa, some incongruous feeling rising fiercely from
her gut. A sudden distinct
thirst
overwhelmed her. But not for water – for
blood.

And she was taken with the bestial
desire to kill.

Startled, she pulled back from their
embrace, searching his eyes for answers. And what she saw there set
her heart racing.

Yes, those blue eyes were the same she
remembered, but the face that held them was not. It wasn’t Isaac
she lay entangled with, but Joe.

Alessa shot up with a staggering gasp,
the world spinning around her. Clutching at the memory of her
dream, she struggled to calm her shallow breaths and still her
pounding heart.

Isaac stirred next to her, groggily
placing his hand on her lap in a drowsy attempt at comfort.
“Everything okay?” he exhaled.

Catching her breath, Alessa patted his
hand. “Yeah, just a bad dream. Go back to bed, Isaac.”

Isaac readily complied, rolling over
in a contented little ball with a heavy sigh.

Alessa sat rigid, staring blankly at
the wall of the lean-to until her heart finally began to slow. A
seeping guilt crept into her chest and she lay back down, her back
to Isaac, as she tried to bury the disquiet nagging at her
conscience.

It was only a dream, she
reasoned. She didn’t have control over her subconscious. Yes, she’d
had feelings for Joe once, but that was before. She was with Isaac
now. She
loved
Isaac. And Joe would understand that, he’d want them both to
be happy.

Wouldn’t he?

Alessa swallowed her doubts and
reminded herself that it didn’t matter anyway. Joe was gone – he
was the past. And any feelings she might have had for him were lost
the moment that Paragon’s guards seized him and took him away
forever.

But were they really? Just because Joe
was gone didn’t mean her feelings had disappeared. She’d loved Joe,
perhaps in a different way than she loved Isaac now, but that
didn’t make it any less real. Joe had been her closest friend, but
he’d also meant much more to her than she’d ever had the courage to
tell him – and now she’d never have the chance.

Maybe that’s where this
was all coming from. Maybe she’d never really dealt with his loss,
and the loss of the future she
could
have had with him, had things
gone differently.

But that didn’t explain
the disturbing conclusion to the dream, the overwhelming urge to
rip something apart with her teeth. That was just… grotesque. Where
had
that
come
from?

Maybe it was just her mind’s way of
punishing her for the forbidden fantasies of Joe, of bringing her
back to the present – and the loving partner dozing by her
side.

Before long, dawn peeked through the
cracks of the shelter and Alessa realized sleep was a futile
proposition. Careful not to disturb Isaac, she shimmied out from
under the blankets and crept outside to tend the fire and prepare
for another day.

An hour or so later, Isaac finally
awoke and joined Alessa at the fireside, sharing a meager breakfast
of the few canned goods they had left.

“
I gotta say, Less, tuna
for breakfast is
not
my ideal way to start the day.” He smiled brightly despite it
and proffered the can in her direction. “You want the rest of this?
Come on, you know the protein is good for you…” he
teased.

Alessa scrunched up her face, but took
a few spoonfuls anyway. “Well, the smell certainly wakes you up,
that’s for sure. Who needs coffee, right?”

Isaac laughed and finished off the
can, using his finger to fish out any remaining pieces. Alessa knew
it may not have been his favorite, but he knew better than to let
food go to waste now.

Packing up their cooking supplies,
Isaac paused, a look of concern on his face. “Hey – what was your
dream about this morning?”

“
Dream? Try nightmare,”
she replied. Turning her back to him, she dumped a bucket of snow
on the fire and watched it hiss as she continued. “I dreamed that
we –” she just
couldn’t
tell him she was having fantasies about Joe, “–
me and you, I mean, were in the lean-to just cuddling, and then all
of a sudden I got this bizarre urge to… well, to rip your throat
out.”

She risked a quick glance at his eyes,
hoping he hadn’t picked up on her lie. She’d told him the exciting
part, at least. The rest didn’t really matter, did it?

Isaac’s eyebrows shot to
the sky. “Well, I’ll be sure to stay on
your
good side today…”

Alessa laughed. “Don’t worry, I had a
good breakfast.”

“
Oh yeah, tuna… Great.”
Isaac grinned.

Alessa turned back to the fire and
sighed with relief. She knew she could count on him not to read
into anything as silly as a dream – that was her own neuroses. In
fact, with the bright morning sun pressing on her face, she was
starting to feel better about the whole thing already.

They set off on the trail, and in the
light of day the tumult of the morning was all but forgotten.
Alessa and Isaac picked their way through an ever-thinning forest
until finally, the trees broke and their feet landed on
pavement.

“
Land ho!” Isaac yelled,
his feet dancing on the blacktop and his eyes glimmering in the
late-afternoon sun. “Civilization, here we come!”

“
You are
such
a dork.” Alessa
shook her head. “‘Land ho,’ really?” but she couldn’t help but
laugh. As much as she worried about what they’d find once they
reached more populated areas, his giddiness was contagious. It
really felt like they’d hit a milestone.

Still grinning, Isaac whipped out the
compass and pointed to the right. “Looks like that way is
south.”

“
Sounds good to me,”
Alessa nodded.

The two-lane road was still flagged by
trees on either side, but Alessa knew if they followed it, they’d
have to hit a town, or at least a highway, eventually. They headed
out hand in hand, straddling either side of the double yellow line
as they walked. With much of the snow on the street melted from the
sun, they were able to make much better progress, chattering
excitedly all the while.

Isaac looked around at the sloping
trees and gentle curve of the road. “This really brings back
memories, you know? We used to vacation off a road just like this
when I was young.”

Alessa nodded. “Yeah, Joe mentioned
that you guys would rent a cabin or something?”

“
Yup. My parents worked
two jobs, but we never had a lot of money, and vacations weren’t
really in the budget. So when they found this house on a lake that
we could get for practically nothing, they jumped on it. Granted,
it wasn’t the most glamorous place – it didn’t even have running
water, and let me tell you, going to the outhouse by yourself in
the middle of night as a kid is
not
a fun experience – but we really loved it
there.”

Isaac’s face lit up with
the memory. “There was this rope swing off the dock – I’d forgotten
about that.” He smiled brightly, squeezing Alessa’s hand. “Joe and
I would spend
hours
taking turns on that thing, seeing who could make the biggest
splash.” He looked at Alessa and she could see the beginnings of
tears in his eyes before he brushed them off. “How about you? What
did you guys do to get away?”

Alessa thought back to her childhood,
to their cookie cutter house with the neat little lawn littered
with toys and bedecked with a massive swing set. She
smiled.

“
We were such a typical
suburban family. Everything about our lives, before the war at
least, was… pleasant. My dad worked a white collar job, my mom
stayed home with us, we spent summer days by the community pool and
summer nights watching movies at home. And once a year we’d take a
big family vacation, usually to one of those fancy new theme parks
with all the virtual reality rides and stuff.”

Alessa stared off into the
distance, remembering all the good times her family had shared. She
still missed them
so
much – it hurt. But she pushed back her tears and continued.
It felt good to remember.

“
There was this one time,
though, that we went to a vintage amusement park, one that still
had a real rollercoaster and everything.”

“
No way! I thought those
had all been torn down?”

“
So did we. My dad
explained that the simulations were so much cheaper and safer,
they’d stopped building real thrill rides when he was a kid, and he
didn’t think any were still in operation. But my little brother had
learned about them in school and he was so adamant that he
needed
to ride one. So
we went online and found this old park that was selling tickets. It
was an eight hour drive, but we went.”

Isaac looked almost as
eager as her brother had been. “Was it
amazing
?”

Alessa laughed. “Actually… I chickened
out.”

Isaac gasped. “No!”

Sheepishly, Alessa
explained. “It was just so
big
– and the cars were moving so fast, and well, I
got scared.”

Isaac dropped his jaw, his expression
pained.

“
I was a kid!” Alessa
punched his shoulder lightly.

Isaac shook his head vehemently. “No
excuse. I bet Janie went on it, didn’t she?”

Alessa would never forget the massive
grin plastered on Janie’s face when she came off that ride. She’d
actually puked and come up smiling. “No, of course Janie would
never miss it.” The thought of Janie and all her daring and gusto
panged at Alessa’s chest. “And my brother had a blast as well. It
was a great trip.”

“
Even though you were too
lame to enjoy it.”

Alessa sighed. “Even though I was too
lame,” she agreed. She regretted not getting on that ride. If she’d
known what was to come, she would have.

“
That was the summer
before they dropped the first nuke, actually.”

Isaac’s smile faded. “I was so young
when it happened – only nine, I think – I couldn’t make sense of
what was going on.”

“
I know, me too. I was in
middle school at the time, and I remember them trying to explain it
to us, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how so many millions
of people could die in a single instant. Or why someone would want
to do that to us. I just remember thinking, ‘But
I
never did anything
wrong. Why would these people want to hurt me?’”

“
Yeah, that’s how I felt.
I knew there were people fighting in the world, but it was never
here. And it’d never occurred to me to that it could be here. Then
when that happened… everything changed.”

Alessa thought back to that first year
after the bomb. Her country had acted quickly, finally entering the
global wars that it had tried so hard to stay out of. A retaliation
bomb was dropped, then another, and another, and pretty soon the
beginnings of a nuclear winter had begun to settle on the planet. A
lot of people couldn’t get the food they needed, but all she’d
noticed at the time was that they’d started eating a lot of canned
and packaged foods instead of the fresh stuff her mom always used
to buy.

Isaac continued. “I remember one night
we sat down to dinner and all we had was a single can of beans, for
the four of us. We’d never been as well off as other people, but
that night was when I realized that something had fundamentally
changed for us. We weren’t just poor anymore – we were actually
fighting for our survival.”

It wasn’t until the outbreak many
years later that Alessa had felt really and truly hungry for the
first time in her life – she couldn’t imagine what it had been like
for Isaac. Even when the skies had clouded over and the crops had
failed and food had gotten exorbitantly expensive, Alessa’s parents
had always had plenty of money to provide for them.