All Aboard the Train (The Clockwise Station Book 1) Page 2
A snap of thunder brings her to her feet. “No. I will not go down so easily.” She flings the cultivator out, then runs across the park.
She stops at a large tree. The last time she went up into a tree, the dogs disappeared. She climbs.
She feels a little pressure on her head, forcing her eyes shut.
Waking from another nap, she looks down and there’s no dogs.
“If this is how it must be, I will take some of you with me.” She holds up her empty hand. She blinks a few times. “Where are you?”
The dark clouds are rolling out.
She cocks her head to the side. A strange but familiar sound. “Bells?” Shakes her head. “No. More like a whistle.”
Suddenly, the dogs appear, circling the base of the tree. With another whistle sound, the dogs run from the tree and disappear down the street.
She climbs down. “Is this Hell? This park has to be Hell.”
The sun shines down on a single spot in front of her. She reaches out for it. A dark cloud comes over and absorbs the light. She notices footprints in the dirt where the sun was shining. They are small like hers. And they look to be coming from the direction she originally came from. She places one of her feet in the footprint. They are a perfect match.
Barking. The dogs are coming again. They are walking casually across the park towards her.
Instead of running, she walks back to the large tree. The grass inside the park used to be green, but now it’s brown and dead. She bends down to it. “I have no more fight in me.” She looks up at the tree. “I wonder why you guys always go away when I am up here.”
She notices a playground that definitely wasn’t there before. It’s rusted and dilapidated. She walks over to the lopsided swing. Tries to straighten it out. A flash of a memory comes. Her mother swinging her on a tire swing at the farm. She is twisted out of her memory. Pushed forward and finds herself tangled up in the chain. A clamp on her feet. A dog has her. She lets her body go limp. The thrashing calms down once she has fully succumbed to her fate.
A whistle sounds off nearby.
The dog scampers off. “It’s the whistle. Who is using a whistle?”
She untangles herself. Her feet are doused in blood. The open wounds risk infection and she hasn’t got anything to apply to them. Her jeans are already torn up, so she tears a little more off and attempts to wrap her feet. The slightest touch sends her into a fit of crying and yelling. She tosses the torn jean away. She digs her nails into the ground, as if that can somehow help stop the pain. Then she remembers putting mud on her knee that she scraped up when she was little. The dirt here isn’t muddy, but she scoops up a handful and applies it gently to one foot. It helps a little with the pain, but she must get medicine or a cream to heal it.
Whatever, or whoever made that whistle has no plans of coming to help her. All they cared about was commanding the dogs. Standing is difficult. She bites her bottom lip through the walking. Pain is moving up her legs. Numbness is settling into her legs. She gets to the doorstep of one of the homes and collapses. With a strained hand, she wiggles the doorknob open and crawls inside. She wiggles across the floor, careful to keep her feet off the floor. She sits against a recliner. Tests the sensitivity in her legs. She can’t feel anything against her skin. The blood from the wounds is not clotting. If anything, all that crawling has made them worse. She goes onto her belly again, keeping her feet off the floor. Into the bathroom. She forces herself to stand at the sink. Her legs give out but she holds onto the sink with her arms. She looks briefly at her face. The depression and stress has aged her. She is skinnier than she ever wanted to be. She loses her grip and hits the tiled floor. Through pain and tears, she pushes along the floor to the tub. She puts her hands over the side and pulls herself up. Flops into the tub. She turns on the water. She doesn’t bother checking the temperature or taking off her clothes. The water stings her wounds. She has cried so much now, there are no more tears left. She sees a loofah and grabs it. Gently rubs it along her feet. Then she grabs a bottle of body wash and pours it directly onto the wounds. Through the soap and lukewarm water, the numbness starts to lift. The wounds are still angry, but she is cleaning them. She lets them soak a few more minutes before turning off the water and letting it drain out.
Sopping wet, she climbs out of the tub. Grabs a towel hanging on a towel rack and wraps her feet. Pats them gently. The blood isn’t pouring out anymore. The wounds still look infected though. She searches through the tall cabinet next to the vanity and finds First-Aid materials. She grabs the peroxide and a Q-tip. She dabs the wounds. Now looking at her cleaned wounds, she sees that they aren’t too bad. She has a lot of skin torn in places, but the dog didn’t reach the bones. She’ll have some enduring scars to boast off, should she ever meet anyone, but she won’t end up losing her feet. She gives them a quick wash off with the wet towel, then puts on Aloe Vera cream. She takes a ton of Band-Aids and puts them everywhere that may open up again. She unpacks some Ace bandages and wraps her feet. She searches the kitchen. She finds a box of crackers. She nibbles on a few. Her belly is hardly satisfied. She finds a bottle of soda. Opens it. Flat. She drinks it anyway. She can use the sugar boost. She finds an opened bag of M&Ms on the coffee table in the den. She has spent too much time here. She sees a pair of women’s slippers next to the back door. She puts them on, then leaves the house, cautiously.
She hobbles down to the end of the street, favoring her right leg. She sees a large pile of something all mashed together on the ground and a flock of crows surrounding it. She gets a little closer… and sees what it is. She can’t look at it anymore. The crows are feasting on human remains. She heads back to the park.
A howling sound comes at her from all sides. She freezes up. The wounds on her feet act up. They remember as well as she does.
She relaxes for a second, as she sees it isn’t a dog.
A tornado. It lifts cars and flings them.
“I’d rather have the dogs finish me off.” She takes cover on the side of a house. A car crashes down in front of her. “What the hell is going on here?”
The howling of the tornado ceases.
“That’s it, I’m going back to my empty lot and staying there and dying.” She leaves the safety of the house. The tornado is gone.
She looks down at the cracked pavement and smiles. She recognizes those cracks. Her feet have found a renewed energy. She starts to run, then stops when she reaches a piece of pavement with blood on it. “I’m back.” She sighs with relief. “I’m back?”
The sound of an engine makes her almost jump into the air. Her eyes blink rapidly as she sees a car pull up alongside her. A dark-blue, beaten up Ford Explorer. The kind that belongs on her street. That she would belong to. Not those fancy cars on the other street. She almost forgot what a car smells like.
The passenger side window slides down. The driver is a man wearing dark sunglasses, skin is dirty and tanned, and he is definitely not starving for water or food. “You okay, miss?”
“Go away.”
“I see. I’m just passing through. Didn’t think I’d find anyone here.”
“Do you feel lucky that you found a hopeless teenager?”
He laughs. “You’re all in your little private hell. Oh, the wonder years.”
She finds him to be a little sardonic. But maybe he is laughing because he finds all teenagers to be hopeless one way or another.
“Here you go, hopeless.” He tosses out a brown paper bag and then speeds off. Straight to the other side.
She looks through the bag and finds a water bottle, a box of crackers, and a half eaten tuna fish sandwich. She devours the sandwich, drinks a little water, then lays down on the road. She will save the crackers for later in case she can’t find anything else. She is thankful that none of this f
ood is expired.
“This is getting pathetic. That guy is right. This is my little private hell.”
She gets up, prepares to walk across the street and face the dogs, or whatever else is there. Ready to find her way out of here, and into the world where there is only laughter and normal, mundane lifestyles.
“Jolie?” a man’s voice says.
She turns around and, for a moment, has excitement run down her spine. It’s him. Her neighbor that she thought was an illusion. He runs over to her. Wearing a clean blue polo shirt, tan khakis, new sneakers, and his hair is fresh and silky.
She wants to punch him. How can he stay clean and fresh and she looks like a dirty mop? And furthermore, how is he still living inside his house like nothing happened? He turned sixteen a few months before her, but that doesn’t mean he is a better survivor than she is.
“Really, Chris? I don’t need a send-off.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I… um… I had something to take care of.”
“What could you possibly have to take care of? We are living inside an apocalypse. Where are your parents, Chris?”
“I don’t know.”
“How come you are the only other person around here? Or are there others? Have you seen more of our neighbors? Have you been to the other streets? I have. I was nearly eaten by dogs. Almost sucked up by a tornado. And those shadows. I think they are spirits.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t gone far.”
“Either you give me strange answers or no answers at all. I’m going to Hub. Maybe that’s where the sane people live.”
He plays with his pant pocket. There’s coins jingling around in there. She gives him a strange look. Why bother carrying money around if there’s nowhere to spend it? Unless he plans to leave too.
“I am not kissing you goodbye either,” she says.
“I didn’t ask for that. But it’d be nice, I suppose,” he says.
Suddenly, all of her memories involving him come flying back to her. He hardly hung out with anyone except her. She used to see herself as a convenience for him, but he never saw her as that. He always smiled when he was around her. Like he is doing now. People often thought he had a crush on her. Although she never saw him in that way, she couldn’t deny that he liked her in that way. She sensed it the day he asked her to see a movie with him. He asked her in that awkward, shy way, and he blushed a lot.
“Can I come with you?” he asks.
“Seriously? What for? You aren’t going to be of much use to me.”
“I figured we should stick together. Seeing as we are the only two people here.”
“As far as we know. There could be more. I haven’t gone too far out to be sure.”
If she takes him with her, she will have to share whatever food they find along the way. Also, there’s the doubt of his commitment to helping her. What did he do these past weeks? Stayed in his house and watched her suffer? She washes away the doubt. If anything, he’ll be someone to talk to. She needs that.
“I wouldn’t mind you coming, but really you should go home. When I leave, I am not coming back. I can’t ask you to leave your home when it is a comfort to you. I feel like I don’t belong here anymore. Maybe I never did. I have to leave.” She can’t believe she has the courage to say that. She smiles at herself, proud even.
He looks from side to side. Is he waiting for someone? Is someone watching him? “I can bring food and stuff.” He looks up at her. “What do you say?” Before she can answer, he is off. “I’ll be right back.” He runs back to his house.
“That little turd. Why is he doing this to me? No, Jolie you have to look past this. Maybe he was scared too. Maybe he was so scared that he didn’t know how to approach me. I can’t be nasty to him. That’s not the kind of person I am.” She tries to see through herself. “Not the kind of person I was. I am changed. Isolation has changed me. Why can’t he see that? He thinks we can pick up from where we left off. Maybe we can.” She continues to wrestle with her feelings, until she sees him walking back over.
He has two backpacks. She recognizes one of them from previous school years. The other one is much larger. Ideal for camping. Something her parents did with her a few times. They never went far. About a mile off their land, but it was a fond memory full of roasting marshmallows and cooking chicken over an open fire.
“What did you bring?”
“Two sleeping bags are in here.” He smacks his hand down on the large backpack. “Along with some clothes that I snagged from my mom’s closet. They may be a little big on you seeing that you don’t have… well you know. I grabbed a few things for myself. The other one is full of snacks and a few bottles of water. I think we will be okay for a while. Until we get to Hub that is. Then we can really load up on the goodies before heading out to wherever.”
The mention of his mother’s garments being a little too womanly for her slender and less endowed figure is not something she is surprised by. All of her female friends would ask why she isn’t maturing as fast as they were. It’s true that she has always had more of a boy’s body growing up, but when she turned fifteen her breasts started to form. Just not at an alarming rate like her friends. She didn’t develop curves, but she developed muscle due to working on the farm. All that muscle is gone now.
She stares at Chris as if saying to herself, Where does he get off saying “wherever”, like he thinks he is coming with me wherever I go? I have to put him straight.
“Let’s go. But when we get to Hub, we go our separate ways. Agreed?” She cannot and will not bring him down with her. She is barely hanging on. He is still full of life. He has a chance at happiness. She has already counted her deck of cards, and she’s missing quite a few. There’s no replenishing them.
“But I… okay, agreed. For now. I aim to change your mind along the way.”
He hands her the smaller backpack. She opens it and sees tons of cookies and fruit. Without knowing who belongs to what snacks, she opens a box of cookies. She puts as many as she can fit into her mouth. Peanut butter and dark chocolate. It makes her miss her mother’s baking. Jolie was not a good baker, but she enjoyed helping with what she could. The aroma from the cookies puts her into a euphoric state of mind. It takes Chris grabbing her hand to pull her free. She takes out an apple.
“I’m fine,” she says.
“So you say.”
Takes one bite of the apple, then throws up.
“You’re not fine. Your stomach doesn’t know what is good and what is bad.” He sighs, zips up the backpack and then puts it over her shoulder. “We should go to Frostmine.”
“Where is that? I’d rather stay at Hub for a while until I can figure out what needs to be done next.”
“Do you think we will fit in with those people?”
“It’s the central part of our city. Everyone has been through there at least once. What does it matter if we fit in with everyone else?”
“That’s not what I was referring to. I am not saying that we will stand out. I’m saying that they don’t think beyond Hub. Those who live there or frequent there, don’t care about anyone from Murberry. They don’t care about you or me.”
“They don’t have to.”
“They aren’t like us. They may show resentment towards us.”
She has no idea what he is talking about. She throws the rest of the apple away.
He sniffs her. “You don’t smell nice.”
“Sorry. Maybe if you had let me use your bathroom, I’d smell better.”
“Why didn’t you use any bathroom from any house?”
“Because I didn’t trust staying longer than I needed to. Look, don’t question me about my bathing habits. I’ve been a little preoccupied with how I was going to survive.”
He points to a house whose door is open. “I’ll stand guard.”
“Why can’t I just use your house?”
“It’s bet
ter that we don’t go back there. Okay? Look, either try for it or don’t. You need to clean yourself properly.”
“Okay. You better not leave.”
“I won’t leave you, ever.”
They walk across the street and up to the opened door. He tries to avoid taking notice of her limping.
“I can’t wait to rest for a long time,” she says.
Chris sticks his head in first. “Hello?”
Jolie nibbles on her fingernails. She’s afraid of dogs, mutant people—all sorts of nasties that may wait in the closet or under the bed.
“All clear.”
She shoves him out of the way. “Just because you say hello once and no one answers, doesn’t mean it’s safe.” She grabs a ceramic gnome figure at the bottom of the steps. It’s not the best weapon, but it’ll work.
The furniture inside is perfectly set up for a modern day family. The only thing missing is the people.
“We don’t have time to go through the entire house. I am going to find the first bathroom with a tub and wash fast.”
“We should look around a bit.” Chris checks out the DVD collection.
“Let me have the backpack with the clothes. I need to be able to change.”
Chris pulls it close to him. “I will get the clothes out for you.”
“Why can’t I choose my own clothes?”
“I just think it’s better that I do.”
“You’re acting weird. Forget it. I think the master bedroom is back here.” She heads down a hallway. A bedroom sits there with its door open. The bed is dressed with a fluffy white comforter and a plethora of green and white accent pillows.
Chris stands in the hallway like he is a guest waiting around for a friend.
She finds a connecting bathroom. “Chris, I’m going in.”
“Right.” He checks out some of the stuff in the bedroom. There’s a few framed pictures on the dresser. A family of four looking happy. He pushes the pictures over. Right after, they disintegrate. He rubs his fingers together. Friction forms, sending a small electric current out, striking the bed. It rattles and Chris immediately puts his hands over the comforter to settle the bed. “That is strange.” He turns his head towards the bathroom. “Hurry, Jolie.”