Worth Saving Read online

  .o0o.

  The street looked quiet with no sign of life anywhere except for a few trees in a small plaza on the next block. Big square tan brick buildings lined the roadway for several blocks in both directions. The street looked like every other one in the city. The sidewalk curbs were crowded by dead useless cars sitting on flat tires. But still, I didn’t move from the shadows.

  I wasn’t going to move until I was sure that it was safe, No way was I leading them back to Claire and the others. After thirty minutes, I stepped out on the street and watched for movement. Schick surprised me when he stood on the apartment’s roof, waving his arms before disappearing from view.

  He’d looked happy and unconcerned. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I walked up the concrete steps trying to figure out what I was going to say to Claire. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, and dreaded what more needed to be done, the thought of her looking disgustedly at me made my insides shake. I didn’t think I could keep it from her.

  The front door sprang open and Claire flew into my arms, forcing me to grab the railing to stop from being knocked over. The smell of coconut and honey engulfed me and I knew I was home. She paused and looked a little confused when she heard me grunt in pain stepping back to search my face.

  “Kris are you Okay? What happened?” She asked. Her concern warmed my heart.

  I held her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. How many times over the last few days had I thought about this moment and worried that it’d never happen.

  I remembered standing next to the old man lynched from the lamp post. God it felt good to be home. I wanted to pull her into a never ending hug and let her strength fill me up. Smiling, I said, “I’m OK, let’s get in off the street and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She gingerly slipped a hand around my waste opened the door with her other hand guiding me into the buildings entryway and then to the same door she’d slammed in my face days before. I smiled thinking about it. She saw my smile and smiled back, recognizing my memories.

  “Claire, it’s not over, I’m going back. I wanted you to know about it upfront,” I said with a questioning look.

  She faltered for a moment then looked at me and nodded her head. “We’ll talk about it later. Calmly this time, I promise,” she said.

  Before I could answer the door opened and we were surrounded by the group, everyone except Jenny. I got very concerned very fast. “Jenny?” I asked Claire, glancing over everyone’s head as they hugged me.

  “She’s mending, I think she’ll get better,” Claire said.

  Able to relax, I returned hugs and shook hands. Ellen kept jumping up and down demanding to be picked up. Kneeling down, I wrapped my arms around the little girl and pulled her in close. No one would ever be allowed to ruin her life.

  I grunted a little when I stood and the room began to swim so I reached out and held the door jam. Claire told everyone to give me room and led me into the apartment then into one of the bedrooms asking Susan to prepare a plate of food for me.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and Claire knelt down on one knee to start untying my boots.

  “Claire…”

  “Let me do this, please,” she said, looking up, her eyes pleading with me. “Where are you hurt?” She asked, returning to the boots.

  “My chest, ribs, and stuff … Listen, we need to talk.”

  She stood and said, “Later, let me take care of this first.” Here fingers were shaking as she unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it back. She gasped when she saw the black and blue bruises spilling out from underneath the ace bandages. If that surprised her, wait until she sees the rest I thought.

  I watched her as she gingerly unwound the bandages. She tried, but couldn’t keep the shock off her face as she exposed the S burnt into my chest. The black/blue/yellow melody of color surrounding it added to the drama. Her eyes grew misty and a tear spilled out as her fingers reached out and gently touched the flaming red scar. “What … How did …?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “I got captured the first night, you were right, well sort of, I got trapped by the wild dog pack and before I could get away the gunmen had me.”

  “But who did this?” She demanded, pointing at my chest. I could see here emotions were swinging from concern to a deep anger.

  “Big Jake, he wanted to know where you and Ellen were, I don’t think they know about the rest.”

  “Ellen, I don’t understand why they won’t leave us alone,” she said as she twisted the used bandages in her hands and paced back and forth.

  At that moment Susan walked in with a plate of food she almost dropped when she saw my chest. Her gasp was louder than Claire’s had been.

  Claire jumped right in and relieved her of the plate and asked her to get the first aid kit. “And Susan, keep everyone outside, okay? Thanks.”

  My stomach rumbled at the site of the plate of burritos covered in a red sauce. Claire silently watched me devour the food until Susan returned with Claire’s first aid bag. A sports type bag, it had a gazillion pockets that contained everything from aspirin to Zoloft.

  She leaned down and sniffed the ointment on my chest. “Here, this stuff is better,” she said, pulling out a tube of goop. Her attitude had turned all business as she administered to the burns. Susan quietly tried to reassure me with a smile as she watched Claire.

  “Why do they want Ellen?” Claire asked.

  I took a deep breath; we all cared for Ellen but Claire thought of her as her own. This was going to be explosive. “They think she may be the only one who can have babies.”

  The color instantly drained from her face and her eyes got a big as silver dollars. Susan blanched, looking confused and upset. I didn’t want to go on but steeled myself and said “They said that there aren’t any more babies being born and that Big Jake thinks that because Ellen was born after the plague, that only she might be able to have his heir.”

  “What … She’s only a little girl for Christ sake,” Claire said.

  “No babies?” Susan asked.

  “They want to keep her locked up until she’s old enough, then Big Jake…” I said, I looked down at the floor not wanting to look at the two women. “They also said that girls that started puberty after the end of the plague might be able to have babies. That’s why Big Jake takes them first. So far, nothing.”

  Claire’s face had changed from ghost white to cardinal red. I knew she was imagining the horror of Ellen going through that hell. Susan didn’t look much better. She stood there shocked and staring at me, her mouth open in disbelief.

  “But they really want Ellen,” I said.

  “That’s why they did that to you? To find out where we were,” Claire said, pointing at the brand.

  “Yeah, and they hung Mr. Thompson from a lamp post, you know the old guy that lived by the Oak Leaf Mall. He didn’t know anything but they didn’t believe him, so they hung him,” I said, shuddering with the memory.

  “But you escaped?” She said.

  I dreaded the next part, it was eating up my insides. I had to tell her and get it behind me. “Yeah, I got away, but then …” I hesitated, looking first at floor then back at her face. “Then I went back and started hunting them.”

  Claire looked at me like she wanted to strangle me. “Let me get this right, you got away, free and clear, and went back? Are you an idiot?”

  Susan laughed and said, “I’d be careful how you answered that.” Still shaking her head she left us alone to finish the discussion.

  “Claire, there’s more, when...”

  “More, what did you do? Bake them a birthday cake, deliver them a pizza? What?” She said.

  “I shot a man in the back,” I exclaimed. Finally getting it off my chest.

  She looked at me a moment. I think she realized how upset I was because her anger slowly went away and her fists unclenched. “Did you kill him?” She asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She said emphatically as she reached out an
d started feeling around my ribs until I winced in pain when she pressed the wrong spot.

  “Does it hurt when you breathe?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled between clinched teeth.

  “I can’t do anything about it except wrap you in bandages,” she said, turning and looking in her bag and giving me some time to regain some of my manly composure. “And before I do that, you need to take a bath,” she said with a slightly embarrassed expression. At least she didn’t hold her nose when she said it.

  Susan came back in and helped Claire set me up in the bathroom with a bucket of water the kids had gotten somewhere and some sponges and a brand new bar of soap. The girls left me and I proceeded to clean up. That lethargic feeling that’d been creeping up on me after I filled my stomach instantly disappeared when I started pouring cold water over my head.

  I was finishing up when there was a knock at the bathroom door. I scrambled and snatched a towel off the rack and barely had it wrapped around my waist when Claire walked in. She momentarily froze and stared at my new clean self. I swear I think she was a little disappointed that I’d gotten to the towel in time.

  She held out some clothes and put them next to the sink. She told me to hold off on the shirt until after she wrapped my chest. A secret little smile crossed her face as she turned and left. I was glad to see that her shock and anger wasn’t going to eat at her all night.

  She’d brought me some pajamas, underwear and socks. I hoped she didn’t plan on trying to keep me here by limiting me to night wear. It hurt like hell to bend and step into those PJ’s.

  Claire nodded her head at the edge of the bed while she dug in her bag. I sat down and tried not to grunt when I raised my arms above my head as she tenderly spread ointment all over my wounds and tenderly wrapped my chest in Ace bandages.

  She offered to help me with the PJ top. I told her to hold off, that I’d sleep without it. I didn’t want to try squeezing into it. I slid under the sheets and blankets feeling my muscles relax and my eye lids grow very heavy. Claire sat on the bed and reached up and brushed my wet hair out of my eyes. “You need a haircut,” she said and laughed at the absurdity of her comment. She stared into my eyes then leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “Thank you for coming back,” she said as she turned down the storm lantern before leaving.

  I woke up dreaming about bumble bees and palm trees. I was so content; I never wanted to move again. My arms were wrapped around a warm soft pillow, a pillow that smelled like honey and coconuts with soft hair tickling my nose. Claire! She was curled up next to me, in my bed. The soft female body felt like heaven. My body instantly reacted as I instinctively pulled her closer. She snuggled into me and whispered a small moan. I couldn’t believe it and was afraid to move. I was sure she could feel my heart pounding.

  I think she became aware of my bodies reaction because she woke up and jumped out of bed, a look of surprise and a little curiosity on her face. She stood there in my pajama top, with long bare legs that reached all the way to the floor. Her face was beet red and she was the sexiest vision ever.

  “I … Um… I didn’t want to leave you alone, I didn’t expect you to wake up first,” She stuttered, obviously embarrassed and unable to look me directly in the eye.

  I smiled reassuringly and told her that it was the best sleep I’d had in a long time. She started for the bedroom door like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  I sat with a grunt as my ribs screamed in pain. “Claire, stop,” I said before she could reach the door.

  She turned and looked at me, waiting, her eyebrows raised in question.

  “You might want to put on some pants. They might get the wrong impression if you walked out there like that.” I said, staring at her beautiful legs.

  She looked down and squealed before grabbing her clothes off the chair and running into the bathroom.

  She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. Fully dressed, hair tied back in a ponytail. Looking composed and once again in charge of the world. Her jeans and tight T shirt accentuated every curve and drove me crazy. I couldn’t think about anything but how her body had felt next to mine.

  She gave me a weak smile and walked to the door.

  “Claire, we need to talk,” I said

  Her hand froze on the door knob as she looked back at me. “OK,” she said, taking a deep breath.

  “I have to go back,” I said. It felt strange thinking about what I was going to do and what waited for me. The thought of more killing was starting to bother me. I remembered the faces of the men around the camp fire. Hard and brittle, I hated them, my heart raced and hands twitched whenever I thought about what they wanted. I despised what they were making me do. It wasn’t fair. But I couldn’t see a way out.

  Claire stepped into the center of the room, her hands on her hips, she looked like she was getting ready to take on a mother grizzly. “Your right, we have to stop them,” she said, surprising me enough for the shock to register on my face. “But,” she continued. “I’m going with you.” Then turned and started for the door again.

  “Hold on,” I said as I jumped out of bed and raced to the door before her. Leaning my back against the door I gulped for air and tried to steady myself as the room swam around me. “What do you mean? No way are you going. We had this discussion last time.” I said, my voice rising in fear. The thought of her out there, facing that scum, made my insides turn to water.

  “Kristopher,” She said in a calm voice, as if everything was obvious and it was only my lack of understanding that kept me from seeing the obviousness of the situation. “I can’t stay here and just wait for something to happen. Ellen is my responsibility, even more than she is yours. You don’t know what it was like waiting, not knowing, wondering if you were lying in some ditch somewhere. No way am I going through that again. I know this city better than you, I can run as fast as you and can use a cross bow almost as good as you can use your bow, not as fast or as far. But just as good in close.” Her face was set in stone, her body tense and unmovable. She put her hands on her hips and dared me to deny it.

  “Claire, you don’t unders…”

  “Don’t you dare say I don’t understand? Of course I understand. I love these people as much as I love you and if you think I’m letting anything happen to anyone I love then you are out of your mind.”

  Here statement about loving me hit me like a spear to the chest. What did she mean exactly I wondered. It took me a second to get my mind back to working the way I wanted it to, I couldn’t afford to go down that track, that way only led to surrender. Instead I kept focused on the issue in front of us. “Come on, you can’t be serious. You know what these people will do to you if they catch you,” I said.

  “Of course I know what’ll happen if I get caught, but is that any different than you getting beaten and burned, permanently scarred for the rest of your life. What makes you so special that you’re the only person allowed to risk themselves? If you say it’s because you’re a boy and I’m a girl, I’ll kick you so hard you’ll have to crawl out of this room.”

  That last statement made me cringe; I’d been close to saying that exact thing. She’d cut me off at the knees. I couldn’t think of a response. I stood there with my mouth flopping about like a fish on the beach because that was exactly what it came down to. I looked at her again, she was so determined, standing there daring me to contradict her. A part of me knew she was right. I’d seen this woman take on two much bigger men armed with nothing more than a 2X4. I’d seen her charge a mountain lion with only a spear. She was the strongest most courageous person I’d ever known. Another part of me was terrified of the idea of her being at risk. The very core of my essence said that it was wrong.

  We stood there facing each other, neither willing to give an inch. Her shoulders slumped and she let out a deep breath, as if she had been holding it for a long time. “It’s happening Kris, get used to it. You can’t stop me. And if you sneak out without me, I’ll track you down. Now
get out of my way. I have things to do before we leave.” She said, gently pushing me away from the door as she left the room.

  I stood there and let her go. Another failure Kris, I thought. Not only hadn’t I stopped her, now she probably hated me.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Claire’s Diary

  Day 2081

  Jenny is doing well, Kris checked her wounds and agrees with me that we should let them heal from the inside out, not sew them up. I am glad I won’t have to put her through that.

  Ellen is fine, she is reading in her room. She is upset at me because I am going with Kris.

  I’m going with Kris; I can’t believe he is letting me. Granted I didn’t give him much of choice. I’m nervous but I’m not going to let him know that. Susan has agreed to look after Ellen if anything bad happens.

  I am leaving this diary here. I will tell you all about it when I return. Whish me luck.

  .o0o.

  Claire and I made our way towards the park. I’d spent the last two days resting while everyone else hit the nearby buildings and restocked our supplies. The goodbyes had been tough. I pulled Hector aside and left instruction on what he should do if we didn’t return in three days.

  “You putz, if you think your leaving me with this group you are loco,” Hector told me. I just laughed and hugged everyone a last time before we left.

  It took us half the day to make it to the vicinity of the park. Being careful each step of the way. We made a swing close enough to the Library so that Claire caught a glimpse of what they’d done. She stopped walking and fixated on the pile of rubble that used to be our home. She looked at me with a withering expression that could have killed an elephant. I knew it wasn’t meant for me, but it made me hesitate for a second. I didn’t know what I’d do if she ever did look at me that way.

  I reached out and took her hand, pulling her away from the site. “Come on Tiger, this way.”

  She didn’t say anything but followed me as I lead her to the Hotel that overlooked the park. We made our way to the third floor and found a room that let us see their camp ground. I pulled out the binoculars, scanned the area then handed them to Claire, “Tell me what you see.”