Ravaged Land - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (21 page)

“I’m not going to have sex with you tonight,” I blurted out.

“We don’t have to,” he said kissing me again as if I was his life source and he needed to recharge.

“It would just be too soon, you know? I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea about me,” I said feeling as though I needed to explain. His hands kept moving and his lips kept working their magic. I felt like I was under some kind of blissful spell.

“I understand,” he whispered against my cheek, “We stop when you say so.”

I kissed him back as if it was my turn to take charge. I pulled him on top of me wanting to feel his skin against as much of mine as possible. It felt silky, but more importantly, I loved how I felt safe being this close to him. I started thinking about how if this was the end of the world, why would I deny myself something I really wanted? There was no question I wanted to be with Ryan. I reached down and started to wiggle out of my underwear.

“Ros?” He looked confused.

“I changed my mind… if you want to?”

“Are you sure?” he asked looking at me with his serious Ryan face. I wanted happy Ryan back as soon as possible, I smiled and nodded. I was sure. I couldn’t have been more sure.

We became a single tangled mess of arms and legs and kisses. It was soft and sweet. Fast and rough. So many new and wonderful feelings and sensations jolted through my whole being.

And when we came down from our cloud, we were both smiling. And nothing mattered and nothing existed except for us.

It was just me and him. For a moment in time we had become one, and it was more than I imagined it could be.

I was glad I had changed my mind. After all I think I was in love with him. I knew without a doubt I’d do anything for him. I already knew he’d do anything for me. It was the right time for us.

My eyes glanced towards the slightly cracked door. Ryan must have forgotten to close it completely, not expecting all this to happen tonight. For a second I thought I saw something move. Had someone been out there looking in? I blinked but there was nothing there.

“What is it?”

“I thought I saw something, but I guess I was wrong,” I said bringing myself and my thoughts back to Ryan and this bed.

We couldn’t remove the smiles that were pasted to our faces. My cheeks felt sore. I pulled the sheet up over myself and he kissed me lightly on the shoulder, wondering if I was OK. I was. I was happy. I had forgotten about the miserable world. I had forgotten about Seth upstairs in absolute misery. And I wouldn’t let myself think about those things, or about how Ryan and I would never have a normal relationship, like movies, dinners or dating. What we had right now in this moment was perfect, nothing else mattered. What our future would be like was a complete mystery, it would be so different from what things would have been like before all this. I’d worry about it later.

For now, we needed rest. Ryan would want to go on the pharmacy run early and hopefully searching for a car was on the list of things to do. Sienna, Dean and I would have to take care of Seth while they were out, and that would probably be a challenge in itself.

We drifted to sleep quickly and with smiles still on our faces. It was the best night I had since everything happened.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I woke up to the smell of smoke. It was still dark outside, and at first I thought I was still dreaming. Until the smell was so strong I knew it was real, and I was sitting there completely wide awake.

Chapter seventeen.

“Ryan!” I shouted, shaking him vigorously, “Ryan! Wake up!” He groaned and turned over, I searched for my clothes and quickly got dressed to see what was going on. Owen was tossing and turning on the couch, it wasn’t quite as smoky in the living room and kitchen as it had been in my room. Must have something to do with how the vent system was laid out. I ran upstairs to see the blaze through a crack in the door to Seth’s room. Dean’s room was next to his, the door open and filling with smoke.

“Dean! Dean! Please, please wake up!” I was shaking him back and forth and pulling him up trying to lift him. “Dean please!”

“What? What is it?” he said looking at me confused and then coughing. “Smoke? What’s going on?” he asked confused, his movements seemingly weak and labored.

“There’s a fire in Seth’s room, please get up. Help me!” I said dragging him with me. He only had on his boxers, I barely noticed and I didn’t care.

He pushed Seth’s door all the way open to see the fire blazing all around the side of the bed and the wall near the window. Seth wasn’t sleeping. He was looking at us, recoiling away from us back onto the bed. He looked like a crazed animal. The way he crouched and cowered made him look wild, “Seth!” I screamed at him, “What are you doing?” I felt I saw a glimmer of Seth look back at me, but most of what looked back at me was poison and evil. Whatever that dog had done to him wasn’t something that any antibiotic would have been able to cure. It was like he was rabid and he put the whole house in danger.

“Seth, come with us,” Dean said reaching his hand out over the fire. Seth leaped backwards putting even more distance between us and him. Dean yanked his hand back from the heat, not because he wanted to, but because it was a reflex. His arm was cooking, and he could only leave it near the heat for so long. He shook it attempting to cool it down.

The fire was growing with each second. “Seth, please! You have to come now!” I screamed, my face red with frustration and from the heat. “There isn’t much time!”

Sienna came up behind us “What’s going on,” she said in a panic.

“Well, there’s this fire,” Dean said rather rudely.

“Obviously,” she said, “Let’s get out of here!”

“Great advice,” Dean said, “but Seth is being a little stubborn right now.”

Seth grinned. The fire blazed up sending us another foot away from him. “Seth please,” I begged. I didn’t even know if he could hear us anymore. He opened the closet door and shut himself inside. “Noo!” I cried.

“Seth!” Dean said as he stepped forward nearly into the flames, only to immediately jump backwards from the intense heat.

Sienna was full out crying.

I saw his candle on the bedside table, tipped over, the wax poured out, and the crumpled up papers and books scattered all around the bed in a circular shape. He had started the fire. He had taken matters into his own hand, but it was going to get us all killed.

I had fallen to my knees and was sobbing for the Seth I had known. The closet doors were on fire now, it wouldn’t be much longer, that is if the smoke hadn’t already been too much for him. Dean pulled me over to the top of the stairs, the smoke was getting unbearable and if we didn’t leave now we wouldn’t have much of a chance.

“Sienna, fill a pack with clothes… whatever you need and that you think we can’t get in town, hurry,” he said pushing her into her room. “Ros, wake up Owen and Ryan, quickly fill your packs, GO!” He disappeared into his room covering his mouth with his hand but of course coughing anyway. I could see him moving around his room fast, which motivated me to move my feet. I rushed down the stairs and ran into Owen at the bottom about to ask what was going on.

“Fill a pack,” I said.

“What is it?” he asked groggily.

“A fire, we gotta get out of here, pack your essentials and get outside,” I said rushing past him.

“My things are upstairs,” he said confused.

“Shit!” I yelled, “Right, um, you’ll have to get new clothes and stuff later, pack some food and water for us.” Thank God for quick thinking, it didn’t give him a chance to think about what he was losing and it would give him an extremely important job. That’s what he was good at, getting things done.

“Ryan wake up!” I yelled as I shook his leg. “There’s a fire. We need to get out so GET UP AND GET DRESSED!”

“What? A fire?” he said not understanding, it was as if I had been speaking to him in another language. “Is this a dream?”

“For the love of Pete, I wish it were, please get up and go fill a pack! Clothes, whatever you need, hurry!” I yelled while I filled my own pack with clothes and my novel. I couldn’t think of anything else I absolutely needed that I couldn’t find once we were safe. Water and food would be far more important so I’d just fill the rest of my pack with necessities.

Ryan pulled on his pants and left my room to see all the smoke gathered in the hallway, “Holy shit,” he said covering his mouth as he coughed. He went into his room to pack his things. I slid my shoes on without socks and went to the kitchen, Dean and Sienna were making their way out the back door.

“Wait, the guns!” Owen said. “Don’t go out yet! It may not be safe.” He opened a closet and took out a few guns, packed some bullets and put one of the guns in his waistband, “OK, go!” He handed me a gun, safety on, and I put it in my waistband. The fire could probably be seen from far away, at least the night sky would hide the smoke. We were not safe here, inside or outside.

I noticed Dean had his bow and arrows hanging off of him. “Let’s go over by the shed,” Dean suggested, and we all ran towards it. “Check to make sure we have what we need,” he said looking around anxiously. I made a mental list and ran through it quickly making sure we had food, water, and weapons. I guess we were back to just the essentials.

“Where is Ryan?” I said stomping and staring at the back door. “What is taking him so long?”

“I’ll go get him.” Dean dashed off at top speed meeting him right as he was exiting the back door coughing like crazy. He was doubled over from the smoke inhalation. It was getting much worse. Dean practically dragged him to the rest of the group.

“Where’s Seth?” he choked out also noticing one of us was missing.

We didn’t know how to tell him what happened and that this was all because of Seth. I suspected Owen had a feeling it had something to do with Seth but what exactly he didn’t know. Ryan was oblivious. “Umm…” I started but stopped when the words didn’t come and a tear streamed down my cheek.

“The fire started in his room,” Dean said, his head down. “Guys we gotta get out of here, it’s not safe,” he said looking around nervously.

The house was starting to really light up the night sky. We would see people coming. We would see the dogs, but the bad part is they would see us too, and they would see the five of us in bad shape. We had lost our shelter. We had lost our supplies. We lost our safety. We lost a friend. We were so far from the top of our game it wasn’t funny.

“Do we have a backup plan?” I asked.

“We find a car. We find somewhere to spend the rest of the night that is safe, and then in the morning we go find a car,” Ryan said walking into the darkness. He coughed again, and scratched his arm where he had his wound from the dogs.

We followed him as we always did, leaving behind what felt like everything.

Chapter eighteen.

We walked about three miles before we found another house. It was a small house with a trailer in the yard. We didn’t want to waste the time doing a full check of the house, so we decided we’d just spend the night in the trailer. Owen and Ryan cleared it in a matter of minutes and we all went inside. Thankfully Owen had been smart enough to pack a flashlight, unfortunately he’d only packed one, but once we were situated he turned it off and we sat in the darkness.

The trailer was dreary and had signs that someone had stayed there recently. There was opened cans of food on the small kitchen table and blankets piled up on the couch. Whoever had been here wasn’t there now, but I worried about whether they’d be coming back or not. Anything that had been of any value had been taken out. Pictures that once hung on the wall were laying broken on the floor, all sorts of things had been pulled out of the cabinets and strewn on the counters and floor. It looked as though a tornado went through this trailer with how messy it was. I had been happy when the flashlight went out and I didn’t have to look at the sadness left behind in this beat up, stinky trailer.

Owen lounged in a chair with one leg up over the arm rest and was trying to sleep. He hadn’t been ready to ask about Seth and I didn’t blame him considering their past. Ryan sat on a chair in the kitchen near a door which I figured was probably a closet door, he liked having a wall behind him instead of open space. With a wall behind him he only had to watch three directions instead of four. Sienna and Dean shared a small couch, each lying sort of in a crunched up position trying to get as comfortable as they could manage. I stood there too anxious to sit in the recliner behind me. We all needed sleep for whatever tomorrow held, our somewhat easier life was gone. Just like that.

“What exactly happened back there?” Ryan asked when everyone was silent and possibly asleep.

“Are you asking me?” I whispered back, hoping he was talking to someone else.

“Anyone that will tell me,” he said. But if anyone else was awake they didn’t say anything.

“I woke up to the smoke, went upstairs and found his room on fire. He was trapped, but he had no desire to leave, we begged him, repeatedly,” I said sniffing up the tears and Ryan’s head dropped.