Tooth and Nail (Draft In Progress - Book One)

Chapter 4 - Clean

There were bruises. So many bruises. Everywhere. All over his back and down his arms and cuts, coated in mud and grime and slime.

Drew sat sideways on the toilet cover, facing the tub, and I sat behind him on the end of the countertop. "So how did you get so gross?" I asked cautiously, attempting to clear one of his wounds with a rag wet with hot water and rubbing alcohol.  He winced, making a small groan. I tried to press lighter on the blue and purple spots, but I couldn't always see them under the ashy brown color of the various sludges he wore as an organic jacket. "Sorry," I grumbled.

He shrugged, which made him groan again in pain. "I had to make some desperate calls to get away from one of them." He was holding his face in his hands, and even his once light brown-gold hair was looking like a potted plant.

Shaking my head, I couldn't help but wonder. My head filled with images of desperate families clinging to their loved ones unboarding the plane at the Bergstrom airport this afternoon. No one was waiting for me. It was already bad enough at four o'clock that Jezebel's mom couldn't quite make it to the airport to collect someone she knew she was responsible for. She was going to leave me to die. It was already that bad.

He rolled his shoulders and held his breath, a hissing sound exposing the pain he felt from the simple motion. I could see his shoulder blades, and the outlines of every muscle in his back and arms. My fingers were cold and shaking from the cool air in the room, and I lightly ran my fingertips down his spine. Tickled by the touch, he puffed his chest out forward, arching his back away from the sharp cold feeling. A grunt of more volume than before escaped his throat and he stood, rolling his neck and adjusting.

He reached for his shirt, a torn strip of something that was closer to the dishrag in my hand than actual clothing, from the edge of the tub. He turned and stepped to the sink at the other end of the narrow bathroom and turned on the faucet.

"It's not your fault," he said, a tone of remorse. 

Standing and crossing my arms, I took the two steps it was to the sink and leaned my hip against the edge of the counter. "Whats not my fault?"

"Anything." I didn't understand, and shook my head and shrugged. He smiled a small 'Well now I have to explain, don't I?' smile and laughed under his breath. "Us. It's not your fault."
-~-
Her blue eyes were wild with a glow I remember from when we first kissed. She looked so scared and breathless, but she had such energy in those crystal eyes. I wanted to lean forward and kiss her again, push her against the wall and spend an hour on the bathroom floor.
But that would make this too complicated.
We can't go back to how we were.
The world is too different and things will get worse as cops turn too.
The world may be burning but we are surviving. And before we get too excited about being safe, we need to help make this house into a home and settle in. Know the exits. Know the house well enough to be able to truly feel safe. Maybe shake the feeling of God's eyes on my back.

Maybe the image of my mother standing in my bedroom doorway with the eyes of hunger and craving and Dad behind her with a fork in each hand, wrath burning through his eyes will fade and I will be able to close mine without that flashing on the inside of my tired eyelids.

Maybe one day I will tell my mother I love her again, when it's safe, when she is laid in the ground with Dad, the way she always wanted, but maybe not as clean as she would have liked to be.
Maybe when I go to sleep, my dreams won't be of monsters I called friends only weeks ago.
They will walk and run and chase the living, but we're all dying aren't we? I'll just do my dying in here. I'm too tired to run away from my classmates and neighbors.
My head is tired.
My legs are tired.
My heart is tired.

The lights flickered, and Avery looks at me with her doe eyes.
I am tired.

But Jezebel was running around the house like a madwoman when we walked out of the bathroom into the short hallway that curved around the stairwell. She had a lighter and a candle taking up her two hands, her hair in a messy ponytail, strands flying out giving her an especially and literally hair-brained appearance. Allen was holding a small glass bowl full of what looked to be melted Scentsy wax and a package of the unmelted cubes, and Tamerlyn had a feather duster. 

Together, they looked insane, obscure and wild looks about them. Jezebel was lighting candles frantically, and Allen was following her around filling the dents in the used candles with wax from the bowl, to make them last longer, I assumed. And once the candle's new wax had settled to meld with the original candle wax, Tamerlyn would blow them out. I don't know what the feather duster was for, but it made the scene all the more exciting and interesting to watch.

In the background, I could hear faint and quite appropriate music playing, "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Fabulous. We've all lost our minds. I stepped back into the bathroom and collected the  candles from the three sconces on the wall opposite the counter and mirror. Jezebel saw them, and her eyes lit up, her smile was genuinely golden, and she ran to me to pass on a flame like an Olympic relay. Allen poured a violet wax into the pits of the used candles, then Tamerlyn blew out the flame gently. I smiled back at Jezebel, and stepped back into the bathroom to place them back where they were, and flipped off the light switch. The room was so much prettier by candlelight. And when I stepped out into the living room again, leaving the residential hall bathroom tucked behind the stairs, between Jezebel's room and the guest room, the sun had completely set. I guess someone had remembered that we should get on that whole having fire in the house thing when the lights dimmed. The power wouldn't last for long, we knew, and having a constant source of flame is important. The little things you pick up from movies can go a long way.