A Secret In Your Throat

Chapter 7

I arrived home before dusk, exhausted. I'd only had snacks from the break tent all day. My stomach had been too knotted up for food this morning.
I was ravenous, now. I threw a frozen ration plate - turkey, mashed potatoes and vegetables- in the microwave. I filled my plastic cup with water and drained it, then filled it again. I sat at the sad little card table, lighting my lantern. I hated the harsh overhead fluorescents, and anyway I was provided with enough oil to keep it burning forever.
I looked at my pathetic meal. The sagging table. My sad little mattress. Why was I fighting so hard to keep this? What was fulfilling about this life, in this tiny hole? True, I was treating people. But what about me? Didn't I deserve my own happiness? The only real taste of it I had ever gotten, was mid-disaster. There were others to replace me if I disappeared from this place. If I chased my own happiness for once.
But what if I didn't become like the coven leaders? What if I became just like the mindless ones, just an unknowing pet that Gerard and his coven had to keep on a leash?
This truly terrified me.
I felt sick, but I ate my dinner anyway, and even an apple afterwards, because I knew I needed to fuel myself. I drank my water to stay hydrated. I took care of my body, because I needed it to carry my consciousness around with no disruptions.
On a normal night, I would read until I fell asleep. Tonight, my mind was too occupied. I hesitated before I went to bed, and unlatched my window. I didn't open it, for fear of letting out the cool air, but if he came back... I thought I'd like to talk to him.
He didn't come back for two more nights.
***
Two weeks later, we struck out for Seattle. We rotated our schedule. We kept moving, during the day. At night, we pulled the van off into the woods in Wyoming. We avoided Salt Lake City, even during the day. We drove around it for miles, taking no chances.
Every night, wherever we made camp, one stood watch. Two slept. One of the rested people drove in the morning. We couldn't let them see our headlights.
And then, in Baker City, Oregon, so close to freedom, our lives fell apart.
We chanced the Knights Inn Motel. It was fully abandoned. We hid the van, and Mikey and I each took a bed. Gerard sat awake beside me, his hand on my back as I slept curled against his hip.
I remember feeling like I was in a nightmare when he silently shook us both awake. He held a finger to his lips, which we could see by the bright blue light of the flashing alarm clock. The only bag we'd brought in was stowed in the closet, full of stakes, water, and a small med kit. The three of us slowly, silently piled into the closet, as the noises outside became louder. Voices could be heard.
"I smell it." One said, and the door was kicked inward. My heart fell. Our beds were warm. They'd been slept in.
"Go and get him." The voice said. A woman's. We heard retreating footsteps.
Gerard looked at us, and in that moment I knew what he meant to do. He slipped a handful of stakes from the bag. There was no point being silent. She knew we were here. I held my hand out for one, and he armed each of us with a stake. He held up his fingers, 3...2...1...
Gerard burst from the closet just as the woman with long, wavy red hair was about to open it. We brought her down, Mikey's hand over her mouth, and drove a stake through her.
We were on our feet and moving a second later. I ran as fast as I'd ever run in my life for the van at the side of the building. I felt my lungs burn, my bare feet slapping the pavement.
And as we neared the van, an actual nightmare unfolded.
At least a dozen mindless ones came at us from the side.
"GO! GET OUT!" Gerard screamed, throwing a stake through the eye of the nearest vamp.
"NO!" I screamed back, finishing the shrieking vampire off with my own stake.
"RAE GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
"WE ARE NOT LEAVING YOU!"
"TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER! RUN!"
"GEE! NO!"
He was driving stakes and dodging them, holding them back from us. I started forward to help him, or die at his side.
Mikey suddenly yanked me backwards toward the van, his arm an iron band around my waist. I was caught off guard. I was too small, too weak and too devastated to fight him off. I thrashed, panic setting in. Not Gerard. I would stay, I would hold them off. He was just flying black hair now, spattered in blood, a blur through my tearing eyes.
It was too late. Mikey carried me as easily as a doll, his forearm clamped around my waist as I screamed for him to put me down. I felt as though my heart was being ripped from my chest. He threw me inside as Gerard fought, and when he started the van I thought maybe Mikey was going to run them down. Save him.
And then beneath the headlights, Gerard disappeared under a tide of mindless undead.
***
We stopped the next night under a canopy of stars. Neither of us had spoken. We were just outside of Kennewick, Washington, at a campsite in the woods.
We silently set up our camp. Our two small tents. I lit a fire and opened two cans of soup, dumping them into a saucepan and setting it near the fire to warm.
"Don't bother. I'm not hungry." Mikey's voice was flat.
I glared at him. If he hadn't run, we might have saved Gerard. I said coolly, "I promised him I would always take care of all of you, no matter what. You have to eat. You have to fuel your body."
"I don't care, doc."
"Well I do!" I stormed. I stood up, tears in my eyes. "Why did you do it? Why didn't we stay with him?"
Mikey threw a twig he'd been pulverizing into the fire, "He wanted us to run. He wanted us to survive. He sacrificed himself for us. I couldn't let you die, doc. He didn't want that."
"We could have-"
"No, Rae. We couldn't. There were too many. I didn't want to leave him either. But he's my brother, and this was what he wanted. What he chose. I had to decide, and I couldn't let him die in vain. He wanted us both to live, so that's what we're going to do."
Tears stung my eyes. I said, my voice breaking "Fine. I accept that. But you are going to eat. You're going to drink water and sleep properly. You are going to take care of yourself, because he wanted that, too."
We glared at each other. I took a bowl, scooped half of the warm soup in it, and held it out to him.
"Please." I said, my voice softening.
His face softened, too. He wiped the tear from his eye with the heel of his hand, though his voice broke when he said "Okay." He took the bowl with a slightly shaking hand.
I hesitated, and then, after pouring my own bowl, I sat down close beside him to eat.
***
The night before we reached Seattle, Mikey disappeared.
We stopped with three hours to go, both of us too tired to continue. We didn't want to arrive into the city in the dark, anyway, where we might be mistaken for vamps. Better to hit the checkpoint in the morning.
"Hey," he said to me, as I pulled our tents out, "We need some kindling. We've only got a couple pieces of wood left."
"Do you want me-"
"Nah, I'll go. I'll stay close. Don't worry, doc. Just set up your tent."
He ruffled my hair and I smiled at him. As he walked away, I saw the stake in his back pocket.
I never saw him again. I waited, sitting in front of my set up tent. After half an hour or so, I dug up the flashlight and went to look.
There, not ten feet into the trees, was his stake, snapped in half.
I bolted. I didn't even pack my tent. I sprinted for the van, thank god the keys were in the back lock and not in his pocket. To hell with this. If they thought a vampire was hurtling toward Seattle in a van on a suicide mission, they could shoot me. I was not going to die this way.
With the adrenaline and grief coursing through me, I tore onto the highway. My exhaustion was gone. I was going to survive.