Adaptation

Chapter 3: Mad Maggie

She was old, her hair was completely gray, and it didn't appear to have been combed in months … or longer. She was too thin but had lively blue eyes set in a face that smiled easily.

"Wolves got you good," the woman said in a surprisingly strong voice. "Took a chunk out of your shoulder."

Carmella's stomach turned at the rankness of her breath. She reached up and touched her shoulder, surprised to feel that it was bandaged heavily.

"I stopped the bleeding. Had to take a hot knife to it. It'll be ugly, but you'll live." The woman moved away.

Carmella looked at the filthy, trash-strewn bed where she lay and then at house that was a hoarder's dream. There was so much stuff Carmella couldn't see the floor except for a narrow path that led out of the room.

The woman returned with a filthy mug, with food smeared along the lip. "Here." She offered the mug to Carmella.

Carmella struggled to sit up.

"It's soup, Campbell's chicken noodle. It's good for you."

Carmella was happy the soup helped to mask the other smells, and she tried to take it, but her shoulder screamed in pain and she gasped.

The woman held the mug up to her lips.

"Thank you, but I don't think I can drink any right now."

"No?" The woman prodded her lips with the dirty mug as if she was an insolent child.

"No. Thank you, no."

The woman slurped the soup. "Good stuff." She eyed Carmella. "I heard your gunfire. I didn't know what it was at first. It's been so long …" The woman's eyes hazed over before clearing and refocusing. "What's your name? I'm Maggie."

Carmella tried to look at her shoulder. The bandages appeared clean. She needed to remove them to see the damage, but she was tired and it hurt too bad to move much. She looked at the woman. "Carmella Washington. Thank you for rescuing me."

"You would have been wolf food if I hadn't. Get some rest, Carmella. We'll talk in the morning. I broke a pain capsule open into some water and spooned it into you. You'll be sleepy for a while, but maybe you'll sleep through some of the pain. I had to sew your leg up, but it only took six stitches, one on each puncture." The old woman smiled ruefully.

Carmella considered the likelihood of a staph infection. Maybe it was the mention of the painkillers or the trauma of her attack, but Carmella fell asleep.

When she awoke, Carmella's bladder felt as if it would explode. She slid off the bed gingerly, and as she stood, her leg nearly buckled when pain flared in her calf. She sat and pulled up her pants leg to examine the wound. Although covered in a clean bandage, it had begun to seep. She carefully pried the tape away exposing an angry wound, the uninjured flesh ringed with iodine. Relieved, she secured the bandage. Maggie might have been dirty, but she knew to keep a wound clean.

Carmella stood and stumbled out of the room on the narrow path through the trash, careful not to topple towers of junk rising to the ceiling on either side of her. "Maggie?"

She came to a landing with a stairwell leading down. Boxes stacked to the ceiling lined the corridor, and Carmella tried not to lean against them as she limped to the stairs. How had that skinny old woman managed to get her up these stairs?

Carmella eased down the stairs and looked around. What should have been a living room on her right was a mess of chaos. At least upstairs there was some semblance of order. It was as if someone had flung trash into the room. Another room to her left was in a similar state. Rotting food, opened cans, and human and animal waste littered the floor.

Grimacing, Carmella made her way outside. "Maggie?"

A cat came scurrying out the door and almost made Carmella fall.

"Carmella," Maggie called. "Come down around the side. I'm picking tomatoes. There's a patch of poison ivy so leave it be. Leaves of three, leave it be."

Carmella followed the voice and saw the woman tending to a small garden. Maggie had a basket filled with fresh lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and Carmella's stomach groaned in hunger.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." Maggie smiled.

"Good morning. Um, where can I …"

"Pee? Anywhere you want. You gotta poop, there's toilet tissue in the spare room upstairs."

"Anywhere?" Carmella looked around.

"God don't care and neither do I."

Later they ate a salad dressed in vinegar and oil.

"Have you seen any people come through here?" Carmella asked as they sat on the porch.

Maggie speared a slice of tomato and plunged it into her mouth. "No." She chewed. "Not since the Blobs carried the people away on the trucks. I'd hear the trucks morning noon and night for months. And then it just stopped." Maggie stopped chewing and stared off into the distance. "I hid. They come through here looking. But they couldn't find me. I guess they thought the place was abandoned. They ain't been back. Didn't have the manpower to check a place twice. Man power." She laughed. "Why didn't you go with them?"

How could she even ask that? She stared at the old woman. "Because I'm a human and this is my home. And no f*****g alien is going to come down and force me away from it!" She placed her hand on her belly and thought about Micah and Jody. They were buried here on earth, and here is where she would stay.

Micah …

Her breath hitched in her chest. They'd killed her baby, and the rest of them could believe their lies but she wouldn't. She knew their purpose had been to take the humans. It had been their plan all along. The Blobs. That name was a kindness they didn't deserve. They were a scourge that brought the ultimate g******e against the entire human race. And after the mass death and suicides, what was left was carried away to Earth 2.

But there was no Earth 2. There was only Earth! The other was only an alien world, and she would kill anyone or anything that tried to take her from her world!

She stayed with Maggie while she healed and was expected to stay on. It was unsaid. Humans who had found each other would naturally gravitate to each other. Maggie, however, could not tolerate having her things touched. She had allowed Carmella to stay but hadn't given her a space. When she had tried to move some things into the hallway and out of a spare bedroom, Maggie had gone into a tirade.

"Where is my cat? I can't find my cat!" Maggie searched hours for Kitty, the cat that Carmella had inadvertently allowed to escape the week before. Carmella carried her gun and went out searching for the cat, not wanting to admit to what she'd done. And despite being deathly afraid of wolves, she searched for hours, never finding Kitty.

When she had gone back to the farmhouse, all of the items that Carmella had moved out of the spare bedroom had been returned—and more.

"I can't find anything when you move s**t around!" Maggie screamed. "Just leave it all alone! Don't touch my things!"

Carmella had said nothing, and the next day Maggie had calmed although still distraught about the missing cat. She left a can of tuna sitting out on the front porch and wrung her hands.

"Kitty will be all right, Maggie," Carmella said. "Animals adapt to the wild, even when they're domesticated."

Maggie picked at the lice in her hair sullenly.

"Maggie," Carmella said, broaching a subject she knew had to be discussed. "When was the last time you bathed? Honey, your hair needs a good scrubbing. You have things living in it."

"f**k you," Maggie said, turning cold eyes on her. "You let my cat out, didn't you? Admit it! You let her out!"

"She—I didn't know you had a cat and—"

Maggie flew at her with her hands clawed, going for her face. If Carmella hadn't fallen the woman would have gouged out her eyes.

"b***h!" Maggie screamed. "b***h! You let my baby get away!"

Maggie was stronger than she looked, and it took all that she had to keep Maggie's gnarled hands from her face. Carmella had to knee Maggie in the stomach to end the attack.

"You're crazy!" Carmella screamed. "I didn't mean it! It was an accident!"

She ran into the house and grabbed her satchel. She didn't want the clothes because they were probably infested with lice, but she needed her satchel and her guns. She hurried down the stairs where Maggie was waiting for her with a knife.

"You're insane." Carmella raised her hands to show that she wasn't holding a weapon. "I'm leaving, okay? Don't worry. I'll be out of your hair."

"You're not leaving me, too! You're staying!"

Carmella's heart began to pound in her chest. "I'm not a pet, Maggie. You can't keep me locked in the house like I'm some damned animal!"

Maggie looked confused, dropped the knife, and shook her head. "I'm—no no no. You can stay. I won't …"

Carmella relaxed. "I can't live like this. I'm sorry." She rushed past the woman, who grabbed for her with strong hands, but Carmella easily shook her loose. She ran for her bike, tossing her satchel over her shoulder. She had to kick-start it with her injured leg, and it would hurt but she soon forgot about that when she saw Maggie come rushing out of the house holding the knife and yelling like a wild woman.

Carmella cursed and kick-started the bike. She gunned it into life, almost flipping it when she added too much gas.

Maggie shrieked and brought back her arm, stabbing down as Carmella took off in a cloud of dust.