I’ve Got You

CHAPTER 20

The company sat in stunned silence as they gave Sasha her space to grieve her loss. Jared never took his eyes off of the closed door to her room. He had wondered aloud if it was his fault. One drunken night with a friend had seemed to cost so much more than he ever thought it would.

Even long after Sasha’s cries fell silent, he whispered apologies that she would never hear. Grimm gripped Eris’s knee. No one spoke for the longest time. The clear blue sky had given way to a canvas of soft oranges, with brilliant streaks of pink and yellow as the day drew to a close. Eris stared out of the shattered window, watching as the evening wind rustled the gum trees, filling the air with notes of smoky wood and eucalyptus. Galas screeched as they flocked to their nests. Nature was calm and peaceful, paying no mind to the horrors of what had just gone on in that motel. They had lost an entire days worth of travel, but Sasha needed rest. It would be slow going from there on out to reach the safe zone. None of them complained, not even as the brilliant, blazing Australian sunset had given up its dominance to the dark night sky, sprayed with stars and their hunger intensified. Having only a few packets of snack foods left over. “Eris and I are on first watch”. Grimm muttered, groaning as he stood on aching feet. “We might forage around while we’re out there. See if we can’t find something edible in any of the abandoned cars on the highway. Would have been a lot of people loading their cars up with all kinds of things before trying to make it out of here when everything went to hell”.

“Don’t wander too far, keep the motel in sight at all times... That’s an order” Yarran warned. Grimm nodded his understanding as Eris kissed Dorian on the cheek goodbye. Holding him perhaps a little too tightly. Thanking any and every god that she could think of for every breath that he took.

Crawling out of the shattered window, the pair disappeared into the night.

The pair took turns alternating between who would pick over cars and bodies to find food, and who would keep an eye out for any signs of infected hosts. They barely spoke for the first hour of their watch. But it was while Eris was turning over the body of a dead man to open his back pack in search of something for the group to eat that Grimm finally worked himself up to asking what he’d been trying to ask since she’d told Jared about her experience with loss.

“The miscarriages... Were they with James?”. Eris stiffened and Grimm almost slapped himself for being so blunt. “I’m sorry. Like I said before, I’m not really good with my words... I just... I want to help”. Eris sighed

“There really is no helping it, Grimm. One was an unplanned pregnancy, lost very early on. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I went in to emergency, thinking it was just a really bad period, but my GP couldn’t see me that day. The second was when Dorian was about five years old... We were actively trying to get pregnant, I lost the baby at 21 weeks... We knew the gender, had a name. Set up a nursery. The whole deal. But at that stage they class it as a still birth. I had to go through labor, knowing that when I pushed out my baby girl she would already be gone. Both of them took a piece of me when they left my body. And the only man I’ve ever been with is James... So yeah, they were his”. She sniffed as she busied her self with the dead man’s back pack. “Planned or not, it’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”. Eris produced a few small cans of tuna and soup from the bottom of the backpack she was digging in. “We named the girl Arctia... Like the garden tiger moth.” Eris smiled ruefully rubbing her tattooed thigh. “We didn’t have a name for the other because we never knew the gender... But I have the date of the loss tattooed here”. Eris pointed to a small tattoo behind her ear that Grimm had never noticed before. She laughed without humor. “I’d give anything to have all three of m children with me... I think about the two I lost every day.” Grimm shuffled uncomfortably. “Is there anything I can say? Anything to make the pain go away?”. Eris swallowed, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand before standing to toss the full back pack towards Grimm. “It’ll never go away... It’s something I’ll have to live with until the day I die”

***

Eris and Grimm returned at the end of their watch well before the others in the group started settling in to sleep. Between them, they had scavenged just enough canned food and power bars to see the entire group fed until at least mid afternoon the next day.

Sasha had not come out of her room or spoken to anyone since she first requested to be left alone. Nor had she let anyone remove the blood-stained towel from her presence. Eris left a few of the power bars she had found outside of Sasha’s door. They were still untouched come morning.

The next day was no different. Sasha was lethargic and quiet. Jared tried his hardest to console her, but he was rebuffed every time. The walk was slow, and the mood was not as it had been the few days prior. There was more optimism in the air that came with the knowledge that they may just reach their destination today. But the despair of Sasha’s loss was felt with the empathy of the group as a whole.

After some hours of Staring at her feet Sasha looked up, peering into the near distance. “Getting close to the CBD” she mumbled.

“Not too far from where the initial outbreak happened.” Yarran nodded. “Weapons out, eyes and ears sharp. There may still be hundreds -if not- thousands of infected hosts lurking around. Our plan going forward is evasion. We won’t survive a confrontation”. Eris took her large bag from Grimm, pulling out Dorian’s baseball bat and tossing it at James’s feet as the rest of the groups members gave their guns a once over, checking that they were loaded and functional. Sasha reluctantly handed Mark one of her pistols. Eris took out the Buck 119. Wiping off the blade on her jeans, grabbing Dorian by the hands she whispered. “You do exactly as I say until we’ve moved through the CBD. We run in to trouble. You go straight to Grimm. Don’t hesitate.” Dorian nodded, pressing his mouth into a thin line and worrying at his lip. Eris smiled at him, leaning down to kiss the top of his head. “I’m sure we’ll be fine”. She cooed. Handing her bag back to Grimm she grasped his hand.

“You’ll take care of him if we run in to trouble?”. Grimm toyed with her fingers as they interlocked with his.

“Always”. Eris looked back at James. He had been trying -however unsuccessfully- to strike up conversations and build kin-ships among the group since they left the facility. But to no avail. Everyone in the group -perhaps except for mark- had seen his true nature and knew him only for what he’d done to her. And none of them were having a single bar of it. All things considered, Eris still felt a small pang of sympathy for him. As he stood there, looking miserable, alone and utterly dejected. She doubted he was even sad that he lost her to another man, just sad that he wasn’t the center of her universe any longer. Eris tried to remind herself that whatever James was feeling and however people were treating him, it was his actions alone that caused it. But she would be lying if she said she didn’t pity him at all.

***

Within another half hour the group was well and truly in the inner city. The tall glittering buildings and the cars frozen in time provided lots of cover for them... But also had the potential to be providing lots of cover for the hosts as well. The group knew this and they were all on edge. Every stray dog or cat digging through bins startled them. Every bird flying overhead made them flinch. And every breeze that rustled the trees turned their heads.

“Eerie isn’t it?” Mark whispered. “You’d think there would at least be some survivors other than the people from the facility”.

“Maybe there are” James whispered back at him.

“Can hardly expect them to be out in the streets, though. Probably hidden away in some of the buildings.”

Riley nodded in agreement. “Yeah, look at the state of some of these storefronts. Lots of looting went on around here. There wouldn’t be this much damage if there weren’t other survivors left around to do it.”

Eris frowned “If there were that many survivors how come they weren’t taken to the facility like we were?”. Yarran looked back at her.

“You’d be surprised at the amount of people who didn’t trust the government enough to comply with the military evacuation mobs efforts of evacuation. Thought they’d be safer on their own”. He snorted his disbelief.

“You can bet most of them lived by those doomsday prep and conspiracy shows” Jared piped up.

“Look how well that worked out for them” Mark whispered, shaking his head. “This place is a ghost town”. Eris shuddered, looking over her shoulder. She was unable to shake the feeling of being watched. Dorian squeezed her hand and she knew he had the same feeling. “James” she motioned for him to come stand on the other side of Dorian. As he walked over and took Dorian’s other hand in his free one. “Talking to me again?” He tried with a kind of shallow hopefulness.

“Dorian needs both of us right now” she replied firmly. “Don’t read in to it”. James scowled at her and she shrugged it off. James no longer scared her as much as he used to. Since they were forced to flee the facility, Eris had fought and killed to survive. She had over come pain and injuries, she had bathed in blood, and she had come out on top every single time. And she would make sure that she came out on top if James laid another hand on her again. What had Sasha called her? Little Mouse?

Well mice have teeth too, and Eris was now more than comfortable with using hers to protect herself.