Silo

Chapter 10

I peeled myself away from the concrete I'd been leaning against for the past five hour and shifted my weight from leg to leg in an attempt to revive my dead limbs. The numbness in my legs began to subside, and a throbbing in my tailbone took its place. This was the last night I was going to spend sleeping on the god-damned floor of the hallway.  

Pressing an ear to my bedroom door, I listened for any sign that the girl might be awake ... might be ready to talk to me, move out of her corner, hell, even look me in the eye. I knocked gently, pushed the door open, and resolved to go about my day as if things were normal. As if there wasn't a girl, one who couldn't fathom a guy being kind with no ulterior motive, waiting to waste away and die in my bedroom.  

"Hey you." I forced myself to sound harmless, to tame down the natural edge that had developed in my tone since the storm. I tossed my hands out to the side, proving I wasn't armed. Her eyes briefly flickered in my direction before returning to the chipped paint on the wall.  

"Wish you would have slept on the mattress. No reason for both our asses to go numb at night, right?" I chuckled, wishing she'd laugh with me.  

She didn't.  

The can of expired hash I'd warmed for her just before bed was still sitting there, the fork balanced on its rim. I peered down into the can, thankful to see it was empty. Mentally I charted how long she'd been in our silo, how much food she'd eaten since we brought her home. What was this, three . . . four days now? I glanced down at my useless watch, annoyed. It was hard enough to keep track of the passing days, but now that we were shut-in with no natural light, we were really screwed. I didn't know whether it was five in the morning or five at night. 

Flopping back onto my bed, I sank into that lumpy, old mattress like it was a bed of feathers. "So, I gather you aren't planning on talking anytime soon. That's alright; you can listen."  

I quickly ran through conversation topics, tossing aside any reference to the silo we'd found her in. Sure she'd be an amazing source of information when it came to those kids, could probably tell us if and how they would attack. That book she had tucked under her shirt was probably full of important information ... information that could help us defend ourselves against them, or lead us to more food stores. I needed that information, Evan needed that information. But I wasn't about to make her give it up. 

Keith wasn't a conversation option either. She'd had very little interaction with him since I got her here, but those few exchanges hadn't been pretty. He'd stop in every once in a while, eye her book, and tell her that all she was doing was taking up space. Now she just avoided looking at him entirely. If it hadn't been for her clawing him to pieces when we first got here, I'd have thought she was terrified of him. Now, I realized she just didn't like him. I laughed, imagining that even though she didn't speak, she'd already called him an asshole in more ways than one.  

Seeing no other options, and hoping a little glimpse into my past would gain her trust, I started reliving some memories. They were little things, small moments from my past that were too precious to forget, yet too painful to remember alone. 

"I have a sister, you know. I figure she's about your age." I rolled over so that she could see me, realize that I was telling the truth. "Her name is Katie. She's sixteen, used to date this friend of mine, Tyler."  

I heard a sound - the small shuffling of feet, and I looked back in the girl's direction startled to see her staring at me. Not through me like she usually did, but at me. Her normally vacant expression was replaced with awareness, the tiniest hint of curiosity peeking out from behind the brown. I stumbled over myself, not wanting to lose the moment or the opportunity to make a connection with her.  

Though she remained silent, her gaze fell to the journal she'd let slip into her lap. Her small hands clutched it close to her body, her fingers wrapped around it as if it were the last precious thing on earth. I guess I couldn't blame her. To her, it was. A broken pencil lie on the ground next to her, and I gathered, although she hadn't been speaking to me, she'd been communicating.  

"I'll sharpen that for you," I said as I eased my way off the bed. I reached down and laid my fingers on her pencil, pausing briefly to ensure that she was okay with me touching half of her worldly possessions. She stayed motionless, but watched with interest as I took the pencil back to my bucket-seat and pulled out my knife.  

"You know, you probably would have liked her ... Katie that is. She had a pink diary. Seemed like she wrote in that damn thing every five minutes." I felt my throat tighten, the ache that preceded tears settling into my jaw. "Anyway, just thought you might like to know more . . . know something about me."  

The pencil shavings fell to the ground. The smell was so pungent, so perfect, that for a moment I could actually remember standing at the pencil sharpener at school, laughing at one of Evan's dumb-ass jokes. Other than baseball, I hadn't remembered anything that vividly in at least six months, maybe more.  

Locking eyes with her, I willed my mind away from the dismal path it was on. I'd wanted her to know about Katie, needed her to know that I was a real person, with a real family, and that I was stuck in the same nightmare she was. I wanted her to know I wouldn't hurt her, that she could relax, and that she was safe here with me. With us. But a trip down memory lane promised nothing more than pain for me.  

"Anyway, I was a pitcher. You know ... baseball? Keith's a pitcher too, but not nearly as good as me," I laughed, hoping to lighten the mood. "Evan didn't play, just tagged along to keep track of our stats. Tyler, my sister's boyfriend, he was my catcher."  

It was the last word that caught her attention. No sooner had his position left my lips when her eyes widened and traveled to the catcher's mitt lying in the corner of my room.  

"Shit. I forgot that came from over there. You probably saw it a lot." I watched as her eyes glazed over, the glimmer of her soul disappearing rapidly. "It's okay; they stole it from our bus ... from my friend."  

I grabbed a towel from the pile of dirty clothes in the corner and flung it over the mitt. I'd be damned if I was going to let something she was forced to stare at for God knows how long undo the progress we'd just made.  

The tip of the pencil was jagged, but it was the best I could do. I gently placed it on top of her journal, tapping the cover to garner her attention again. She glanced down, appraised the sharpened pencil, and gave the slightest nod in my direction. My pulse quickened as I surveyed her, told myself I was crazy and hadn't just seen her acknowledge me. But she had. I knew she had! 

"What do you weigh, about a hundred pounds?" I asked as I crossed the room to my stash of old clothes and began rifling through them. She was tiny, maybe five-foot-two, and weighed about as much as Katie. "What do you say we get you cleaned up?" I took her silence for a yes and yanked out an oversized sweatshirt, the one emblazoned with our school name that I'd been wearing the day of the accident. It'd taken several hard rains and a stolen bottle of bleach to get the blood stains out, but at least it was warm.  

"I'll be right back, okay?" I left my door open as I crossed the hall to Evan's room, part of me hoping to witness another slight movement. I knocked once. He didn't answer, and I pounded on his door again, kept going until I heard the knob click.  

"Jesus, Jake, what's wrong?" 

"Nothing. I need some rope." My eyes darted around his room, searching for the plastic bag I'd just looked through yesterday.  

"What do you need rope for? Are you okay? You're sweating!"  

I swiped away the beads of sweat with the back of my sleeve. God knows it was cold enough in here to freeze a person; sweat wasn't something any of us were accustomed to. "I'm going to get her cleaned up. Dressed in something a little less nasty."  

I hastily grabbed the rope from Evan's extended hand, hesitating when he refused to let go on his end. "And the rope's for what, Jake?" 

"Nothing, just give me the damn rope," I said, jerking it from his hand. It was the first time I'd snapped at Evan in a while. I'd regret it later, but right now my mind was too preoccupied to care.