Sadie Walker Is Stranded (27 page)

Survival 101: If the random schlub beside you bites it, don’t stop to weep, just keep running.

In the end, I just hoped nothing
did
happen to trigger those long-lost real, hot tears. Seeing those figures hovering on the fringes of the forest renewed something, revitalized a part of me that forgot the fight was twenty-four/seven. With Shane in hand I turned, left the others, and stalked back to the huts on throbbing feet. I needed to make more arrows for the bow. Shit, I needed to learn to actually get
good
with it. I needed to teach Shane to survive, really survive, not learn by watching some bumbling nincompoop take advantage of luck and chance. So I plopped us down in front of the fire and showed him how to make arrows. Yes, logically I understand that teaching an eight-year-old to make projectiles probably violates some innate rule of parenting, and that he shouldn’t be handling knives or crossing the street alone or fucking
breathing
without supervision, but too much complacency, too much inactivity bred the sort of unprepared meatbags that were bound to end up zombie fodder.

I explained as much to Shane, in politer terms, of course.

“Survival, Shane,” I said in closing. “That’s what we’re here for. It’s not a game, it’s not a vacation.” Oh God, I was beginning to sound like all those annoying reality TV bobbleheads I had heard shriek “I’m not here to make friends!!!” over and over again, as if that were a good thing.

“And we can make friends,” I said, just in case. “Friends are fine. But you and I getting through this? That’s the most important thing. Survival. Say it back to me.”

He nodded. Fair enough.

“You sure that’s all?”

Long, imposing shadow. Shit-eating, self-amused tone. Whelan. The sky was just bright enough to make squinting up at him painful. He crossed his arms over his SPD polo, a fresh one and this one white, sweat ringing the crumpled collar from digging and filling Cassandra’s grave. Somebody explain to me why those over the chest gun holster things are so damn attractive. I don’t get it, but I do have to feel the effects. I hadn’t seen Whelan with it before, but maybe three disappearances and/or deaths had planted a seed of paranoia.

“Please,” I said, lifting a skeptical brow, “regale us with your folksy cop wisdom.”

“No, hey, don’t let me interrupt.” He turned, idling with one toe digging into the sand. “Though I could teach you to shoot … Maybe show Shane too.”

“I am
not
letting you teach an eight-year-old to handle a firearm.”

But Shane had already hopped to his feet, scattering the half-finished arrows in his lap and sending them tumbling into the fire. Ouch.

“Shane!” Gah. I hate scoldy voice, but apparently even legal guardians develop it. “Watch what you’re doing!”

Shane frowned, taking one tiny, irritating step toward Whelan. Fine. Great. Throw your hat in with Officer Jackass and make me look like a fussy killjoy. Carefully—deliberately—I put my bundle of arrows on the ground, making a big show of it to … I don’t know, make a belabored point or something. Already Whelan was leading Shane away, adding another layer to the betrayal, acting as if he didn’t need my permission or supervision to hang out with my—my
sister’s
—kid.

“I’m coming,” I said, trundling along with all the grace of a three-legged elephant.

“Of course you are.”

Smug! Smug, smug, smug. And for what? For knowing how to shoot a gun? Of course he could shoot a gun. What else is a fucking cop good for? That’s what they do. The recriminations went on and on in my head, building speed and bitterness there because giving voice to them would prove just how deep Whelan’s talent for pushing my buttons went.

Whelan took us back to the clearing, my mangled feet and stuttering gait meaning I had the very bad luck of falling behind, putting me at the perfect vantage to get a glimpse of Whelan’s backside in khaki pants that were, in my opinion, much too fitted for island wear. Just seeing him show Shane how to position himself twisted a bundle of nerves in my stomach. And then when he handed him a gun … It just looked huge, comically so, and terrifying, as if the recoil would rip Shane’s little arm right out of its socket.

“He’s going to be fine,” Whelan said, kneeling behind Shane and steadying him.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but you were thinking it.”

“What do you want me to do? He’s eight. Jesus Christ, my sister would disembowel me with her bare hands if she could see this…”

Shane glanced over his shoulder and Whelan’s, too, giving me one of those long, menacing stares, one that was way too cold for his age. It all looked disturbingly out of whack, Whelan’s huge hands on Shane’s shoulders, the gun that looked heavy enough to make Shane tip right over onto his side. I found myself bunching up, twisting inward, bracing for the first shot. But Whelan went on and on, explaining every single part on the gun, its purpose, how to handle it, what to expect. And when the firing finally started, Whelan stayed there the entire time, his finger over Shane’s, his arms still supporting the brunt of the weight and taking most of the recoil.

And after the first loud pop, Shane exploded with giddy, nervous laughter. He looked up at me and
smiled
. Smiled! That made it not so hard to ignore the stinging in my feet, to stand when I wanted to sit, to stay quiet while Whelan did his thing and showed his expertise and took Shane under his wing with the kind of male influence I knew I was never very good at giving. I could show Shane comic books and even knew the basics of throwing a football or explaining checkers, but that didn’t seem to replace the missing ingredient that had been his father. Maybe if he hadn’t known his parents at all filling both roles would have been easier for me. But here it was, like the last piece of a puzzle, discovered under a shoe on the carpet, missing but not really gone.

Heaven help me, I was going to get emotional.

“Any questions?” Whelan asked, taking the gun from Shane and standing. The smell of gunpowder and sweat hung around us like a fog.

“Ever fired your gun whilst jumping through the air?” I asked.

“That’s a joke, right?”

Shane giggled. Oh, God, this was like a real
thing
now, Shane could actually laugh! Display merriment!
Let go
. It was almost too good to believe. And yes, showing
Hot Fuzz
to a child is probably negligent parenting and could get him booted over to child services or something—if it still existed—but he asked to see it, repeatedly, and not many DVDs survived the carnage. He’d only ever seen it on a little handheld video screen, but at least it was something.

“What’s so funny?” Whelan asked, watching as Shane and I dissolved into a fit of laughter together.

“A cop who doesn’t watch cop movies?”

“I hate cop movies,” Whelan muttered, holstering the pistol Shane had been using. And again with the chest holster. I looked at the sand. “They never get any of it right.”

“So that’s a no, then? To the firing a gun whilst jumping through the air?”

Shane stared up at Whelan, teetering on his heels, his lower lip tucked under his teeth. The poor kid’s life was practically hinging on the answer.

Smiling, Whelan shrugged and patted the gun locked safely in its cradle. “I never said that, did I?”

Whether I liked it or not, I was going to be seeing a lot more of Shane and Whelan together. With that one little clever response, the man had become Shane’s hero. Mine, too, to be honest, if he was telling the truth. And even if he wasn’t, Shane was enamored.

Before I could explain to Shane that Whelan was probably just being silly and that it was nothing to get worked up over, Andrea was banging away on a pot, signaling lunch. Shane scampered off, a cloud of sand kicking up in his wake. I hadn’t seen him that excited since before The Outbreak … when he still had parents … when he didn’t need me.

“I’m going to say two things right now,” Whelan began. I turned at the waist, waiting for him to go on. He had entertained Shane for a solid hour and lifted his spirits. He at least deserved my attention. “One is that I have a bad, bad feeling and I need you to keep your eyes open.”

“For what?”

“For anything weird … anything … that doesn’t fit.”

“And the second thing?”

“I want to see you tonight.”

“I … Oh.” I think I maybe choked a little on my own voice.

“Alone,” he added in an undertone.

“Yeah … I sort of worked that out for myself.”

“So?”

“Wouldn’t that qualify as weird?” I asked, stalling because I didn’t have an answer for him and the one I did have that was jumping to get out was … not welcome. “I mean … would that
fit
?”

“Oh. I see what you mean. Ha. I suppose so. If you’re not comfortable being alone with me that’s understandable.” He flinched. “Maybe not understandable, but … It’s tense … everything is. If you’d rather not then I get it. Or, you know, we could always ask Banana to chaperone. I’m sure she’d be delighted.”

You know that feeling where you suddenly know that someone or someones are staring at you? Like their eyes are actually little laser beams cutting into your head? Well we had a bit of an audience now. Everybody gathered around the fire pit for lunch was staring, bowls and plates abandoned in favor of watching our little drama play out. With burning cheeks I forced myself to ignore it, to look away and up into Whelan’s bright blue eyes.

Big mistake.

“No … let’s.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes.”

“I have a confession to make,” he said, catching my arm before I could leave.

Oh, dear. Those were never good.

“I’ve never actually discharged my weapon while jumping through the air.” Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his neck, a pretty pink suffusing his cheeks as he glanced away. “There were several times where I jumped and then fired or fired and then jumped, but never simultaneously.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, Whelan. That you lied to Shane or that you lied to me.”

The blush faded, his dimple curving around a crooked smirk as he murmured, “I’m contrite.”

“
How
contrite?” Oh, God. This is not me. I am not the person who says things like that. No more pulp novels for this classy little dame. Now I was making
myself
blush.

“Hell, if you don’t show up tonight then you’ll never find out.”

SIXTEEN

“You’re a lifesaver.”

Noah blushed, looking up from the little figurine he was whittling. I had seen him futzing with wood and a knife before, but this was the first opportunity I’d had to see his work up close.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shrugging. “Shane’s a good kid. It’s no trouble watching him.”

“Are you sure? I feel bad asking.”

“You shouldn’t.” Noah turned the figurine in his hands, brushing off a few stray curls of shavings. “I like hanging out with him. Reminds me of my brothers.”

“Two, or?”

“Three,” he smiled sadly. “One older, two younger. Matty and Tad. They were real rambunctious, though. Not like Shane.”

“Sometimes I wish he was a little
more
rambunctious,” I said, sitting down on the bench next to Noah.

“No, trust me, you don’t.”

“That’s really good.” His figurine was shaping up to be an owl. The tiny knife cuts on the feathers were delicate, soft.

“Heh. I get plenty of practice.”

I could imagine that yes, he did. There wasn’t much for a teenager to do. Well, there were chores, of course, but no girls to chase and no movies to go see. He had his books, but you could only re-read the same story so many times. I blinked, shivering, seeing Shane’s future right in front of me. In many ways, Noah was a full adult now, but in others … he was still just a kid. The old rites of passage were gone. He wouldn’t have prom. He wouldn’t get to sneak out and break his curfew. He was expected to act like one of us, cut off from the rebellions that made growing up so damn fun. I hoped his being cooped up wouldn’t drive him too crazy.

“I could do one for Shane,” Noah mused, turning the carved owl this way and that. “Maybe a bear. Pink Bear, right? He talks about that thing all the time.”

“Actually,” I said, smirking, “Pink Bear is a pig. He, um, well, he thought it was a bear that just happened to be pink and the name stuck.”

Noah tossed the owl, flipping it idly as he looked beyond me to the coast.

“Sounds like Gigi.”

“Gigi?”

“My older brother, Gabe. I guess I had trouble with his name when I was little … kept calling him that ’til I could finally say it right. My parents thought it was hilarious. He was Gabe ‘Gigi’ Newerth in the yearbook.”

“He didn’t…?”

“Nope.”

“My sister … We were like that too.”

Noah fiddled with the owl, making small adjustments with the knife, making feathers more particulate and smoothing out the head.

“I’m sure I was incredibly obnoxious, intolerable, probably, but she put up with it,” I continued. “Gigi is a pretty cute name, all told. I called her much worse.” Although I also called her Meow-Meow, Kitty-Kat, Meow Mix … “Her name was Kat and she was allergic to them. She wanted a kitten so damn bad and would beg to go to the pound. She’d come back swollen up like a heavyweight boxer, grinning from ear to ear.”

“Did she get the cat?”

“No,” I said, “never. Mom didn’t want to deal with the doctor visits. Shots … antihistamines … In hindsight it seems like such a small thing. She should’ve just gotten her the stupid cat.”

“Do you let Shane do whatever he wants?” Noah asked, chuckling.

“No. Well, yeah. I guess I see what you’re getting at.”

“Your sister would have been miserable all the time,” Noah continued. “I lost my … my parents, right? And I don’t remember what they wouldn’t let me do. It’s pointless.”

“You think about Gigi,” I said, nodding. “That your silly name for Gabe stuck.”

“They were pretty good all right. Not perfect, ya know? But they were good to us.” Noah shrugged, carving deeper welts into the spaces between the owl’s talons. “Pop taught me to like books. Mom taught me to stand up for myself … I guess Gigi did, too, but that involved a lot of bruises.” Noah paused, both his words and his work, and shifted to look down at his feet. “We used to play this game … We’d all gang up on Gabe. He was big, ya know? A brute. He’d beat on us all the time. Sometimes I’d get my younger brothers and we’d all pin ’im down and try to shove a dirty sock in his mouth.”