Silas (22 page)

I ran as quickly as I could.
“Christa, run!” I screamed.

She scrambled backwards, away from
him.

He pumped the gun.

He aimed at me.

I hit the ground, diving at
his feet.

His shot sailed just over my
head. If I hadn’t moved, it would have punched a big hole in my
stomach.

I collided with his legs.

He went down.

I rolled on top of him, reaching for
his gun.

He was gripping it tight,
scrambling to get another shell in the chamber.

I punched him in the face.

He grunted.

I grabbed the gun.

He and I grappled over it for several
minutes, both tugging, both struggling.

I had to get that gun. It
was our salvation. We couldn’t mount an offense without a gun. It
was the thing that would turn the tide, change everything about our
situation.

I used all my strength.

And I wrested it from him.

Immediately, I grasped it by the barrel
and drove the butt of the gun into his face.

It hit his nose. There was a
crunching noise.

I staggered to my feet. I brought the
gun down again.

Blood splattered.

He stopped moving.

I drove it down into his face
again.

His skull collapsed.

All right. Good. He was dead. I was
pretty sure he was dead.

* * *

“
Come on,” I said to
Christa. I was bent over the hunter. I’d stripped his body of
anything useful he’d had. An unfortunately empty canteen. A
camouflage jacket—only a little bloodstained. Extra shells. And the
gun. Of course, the gun.

She was gaping wide eyed at
the dead hunter. “But he said he was alone.”

“
Maybe they heard the shots
and they’re coming after us,” I said.

She turned to look at
Emmett. “Oh god… Emmett.”

“
We don’t have time,
Christa,” I said. “We have to move.”

She was shaking. “I’m
hungry, Silas. I’m really hungry.” Her voice broke.

“
Me too,” I said. “But we
need—”

She darted around me,
running over to the rock where Emmett had left the fish to cool.
She yanked several leaves off of a nearby tree and used them to
wrap up the fish. Then, her hands full, she scampered back to me.
“Take it to go. Just like McDonald’s.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a
good or bad sign that she was able to joke at a time like this. And
we didn’t have time to contemplate it.

I hoisted the gun up. “Okay,
let’s move.”

* * *

We tore our way through the
woods, past the broken-down power lines, fast as we
could.

We kept up at that pace
until the sun was high in the sky. We hadn’t heard or seen
anything. It didn’t seem as if anyone was following us.

We slowed long enough to eat
the fish. A while later, we found another bush of berries like the
ones I’d eaten my first night. I declared them safe, and Christa
laughed at me, telling me of course they were safe. She called them
dewberries.

We ate some berries and kept moving at
a slower pace.

We didn’t talk much, except
to say various directional things, like whether we’d stop or slow
down or which way we’d go.

Maybe it was because we were too
tired.

Or too scared.

Or maybe there was simply nothing to
say.

We didn’t hear any gun shots
or see any signs of the hunters for the rest of the day, but I
figured they’d be pretty pissed when they found the body of one of
their own.

By the time the sun was going down, we
were exhausted, and we decided to stop for the night.

I was worried about being too out in
the open, so we hid ourselves beneath the underbrush and lay down
to sleep.

We were pretty close, and I
felt a little apprehensive about it. I wondered if she was going to
try to attack me in the middle of the night again. I tried to think
about how to bring it up, to talk to her about it. I couldn’t find
the words. Instead, I turned on my side, with my back to her,
hoping that would be enough to give her the hint.

She spoke.
“Silas?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Every time I close my eyes,
I keep seeing them shoot Emmett.”

“
I didn’t think you were
awake when that happened.”

“
I was,” she said. “I was
listening to the two of you. I didn’t let on that I was, because I
wanted to hear what you said.”

She’d been listening in,
huh? “Trying to find out if we were going to take you up on your
offer?”

“
My offer?”

“
Yeah, you know to fuck us
both.” It came out harsher than I’d quite meant it. But I was
confused by everything she’d done and said. Coupled with all the
other screwed up shit that was going on, I couldn’t be delicate and
polite.

“
I only said that because…”
She sighed. “Look, he stopped talking about leaving you behind,
didn’t he?”

“
That’s why you said
it?”

“
Um… maybe?”

“
I think you were serious,”
I said.

She took a shaky breath.
“Emmett and Milo are both gone now. Just two days ago, they were
both here. They were walking and talking and with us. And now they…
aren’t. How does that even work? How can that…?”

“
Would you have fucked Milo
too?”

“
You’re mad at me,” she
said.

I sighed. “I’m not…” I
rolled over on my back. “I’m sorry you had to see them die. I’m
sorry you’re here. I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“
You didn’t mean to,” she
said. She touched my arm. “Please don’t be mad at me, Silas. Please
don’t. If you’re mad at me, I don’t know what I’m going to
do.”

“
Why’d you do that to me
last night?”

She was quiet.

“
Christa?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
You don’t know? Seriously?
People are dying left and right, and you’re talking about
threesomes, and you’re waking me up giving me a hand job. What is
wrong with you?”

“
I thought you wanted
it.”

“
Well, I didn’t.”

“
I realize that now. I’m
sorry. I just never had a guy get mad at me for getting him off.
And back in Morgantown, you were really into me—”

“
And you were
really
not
into
me,” I said. “You kicked me out of Griffin’s apartment when I
kissed you. Then it’s like this switch goes off, and you’re all
about my dick for some reason. But this is the exact wrong time for
that shit.”

“
Okay,” she said. “Okay, I’m
sorry.”

“
That’s it? You’re not going
to explain anything?”

“
I don’t know. I like to
feel wanted, okay? I like to feel good. And everything feels bad
right now. So, I guess I just thought…”

I massaged the bridge of my
nose. Actually, maybe I was being too hard on her. She was going
through a hellish sort of experience right now, and I was dictating
how she should react to it. Everything around us was insane. Maybe
it was driving her insane too. “Okay, okay,” I muttered. “Maybe we
should forget about it.”

“
Okay,” she said.

“
I’m going to get us out of
this one way or another. We’re going to go home. We should think
about that.”

“
Okay.”

“
So, um, what are you going
to do when you get home?”

“
Mmm…” she considered. “I’m
going to go to Sonic. Do you guys have Sonic in West
Virginia?”

“
Yeah,” I said. “There’s one
in Morgantown. But, uh, I don’t know if I’ve ever been
there.”

“
They’re really awesome,”
she said. “You can get tater tots smothered in cheese. That’s what
I’m going to do. I’m going to go to Sonic and get a bacon
cheeseburger on toast—they put onion rings on it, you know—and
cheesy tater tots and a Coke, but you can put flavors in the
drinks, so I think I’ll get vanilla and cherry. Or maybe chocolate
and raspberry. And I’m going to eat and drink all of that. And then
when I’m done, I’m going to order more food.”

I sighed. “That sounds
amazing.”

“
I know,” she said. “It’s
funny because I always took stuff like that for granted. And I
thought that fast food was evil, because it was bad for you. But
right now, I don’t care about stuff like that.”

I laughed a little. “Yeah,
bad-for-you food would be really awesome right now.”

“
Right,” she said. “Because
it fills you up. If I had a Sonic meal right now, I’d be good for
days. I would be so full. It would be absolutely awesome. What are
you going to do when you get home?”

“
Eat,” I said. “And drink a
beer.”

“
Oh,” she groaned. “Beer. I
almost forgot about beer. I want beer too.”

“
Maybe a nice stout,” I
said. “Or a wheat beer. Or an amber ale.”

“
Yes,” she said.

“
I forgot that you liked
beer,” I said, smiling. “That’s a little strange for a
nineteen-year-old chick, you know. Most underage girls think beer’s
gross.”

“
That’s only because they’ve
never had good beer,” she said. “I had this thing with a guy who
owned a brewery once. Totally spoiled me.”

“
A thing?” I said. “Like he
was your boyfriend?”

“
Not exactly,” she said. “I
don’t really do boyfriends.”

“
Of course not. You don’t do
boyfriends, but threesomes are no big deal,” I said. Then I
immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry. I said we’d forget about
it.”

She propped herself up on an
elbow. “You’ve never had one?”

I winced. “That’s not the
point.”

“
So, it’s okay
for
you
to have
threesomes,” she said. “But not me? Or is it only okay to have
two-girl, one-boy threesomes, and not two-guy,
one-girl?”

I sat up. “All right, I’m
sorry. I didn’t realize that you were so hot for Emmett, the dude
who killed his wife and is practically old enough to be your
father.”

“
He wasn’t that old,”
she said. “And he only killed two people. How many people
have
you
killed?”

“
I never killed anyone that
I didn’t have to kill.”

She shrugged. “That many,
huh?”

I was feeling tense. “You
know, he was probably thirty-five.”

“
Well, if so, then he would
have been fourteen when I was born. That’s not really old enough to
be my dad.”

I glared at her. “Fourteen
years is a ridiculous age difference.”

“
Well, given the
situation—”

“
Given the situation, the
last fucking thing on your mind should be sex.”

She sighed.

I rubbed my face. “You know
what, it’s not really about whether you have threesomes or not, or
how you’re fine with having anal sex as long as there’s lube, it’s
about…” If I was being honest, both of those things were kind of
awesome. “Did you actually want to have sex with him?”

“
Why do you
care?”

“
Fuck it,” I muttered,
pushing out from the underbrush.

“
You know, Silas, maybe you
really do want me,” she said. “Maybe that’s why you don’t want to
think about me with Emmett.”

I started to get up. “I’m
finding someplace else to sleep.”

She grabbed me by the arm.
“Don’t. Please?”

“
Why?”

“
I’m sorry that I said
anything,” she said. “Just… I don’t want to sleep alone. I keep
seeing them dying, Silas. I keep seeing both of them
dying.”

I sank back down next to
her.

“
I promise not to touch
you,” she whispered. “But don’t leave me alone.”

* * *

I woke up to a pounding headache. My
mouth was dry, and I felt really thirsty.

Christa was already awake,
sitting a few feet away from me outside of the brambles we’d slept
under. She was hugging her knees to her chest. “I feel hungover,”
she said by way of greeting.

I pushed myself out from
underneath the branches as well. “We’re dehydrated. We didn’t drink
much water yesterday. Probably the only thing we got was from those
berries.”

“
Yeah, I figured that out,
genius.” Her voice was cutting. “I actually have been spending the
morning looking for water. Can’t find anything.”

“
There’s got to be water
somewhere,” I said. “Before, we didn’t have any problem finding
some.”

“
Before, we were walking
along the same path as that stream,” she said. “Yesterday, we went
in the complete opposite direction of it.”