I felt myself blushing, unused to the attention, the adulation. “Well, I guess I should thank you too. For rescuing me, I mean.” I only half-meant it but I attempted to smile. She was trying. She leaned over to me and hugged me. My body stiffened in reply.
She composed herself, tightening her face, straightening her clothing, reminding me of my mother; unable to really show emotion. Uncomfortable that she had displayed vulnerability. I knew deep down that was why I found Apella so hard to deal with.
“Aw, well, isn’t that sweet,” Deshi cooed, shaking his head from side to side, slowly. I shot him a dark look.
Alexei stuttered as he patted me on the back, “I’m sure they’ll be back tomorrow, try and get some sleep, dear.”
We curled up around the fire. The cabin was warm and felt secure and safe. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quickly, the stress of the last two days stripping me of the will to keep my eyes open.
I dreamed I was in the ruins of the city again. I felt different. Looking down at my stomach, it was smooth and flat. I touched it, panicked. My hands coasting over a tight blue top and shiny pants. I was screaming. ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?’ as I searched frantically, overturning whatever was in my way. Hearing a cry, I changed direction. I kept searching as yellow eyes closed in on me. Laughing as their tails curled and whipped. In the distance, I could see Joseph holding a child. He looked at me for a second, smiling, then returned his gaze to the baby in his arms and walked away. The yellow eyes pounced on me, tearing my flesh with their claws as I kept screaming, ‘My baby, my baby,’ over and over again. One of them cupped its hand over my mouth, speaking. ‘You can’t scream, no one screams here’.
I woke up sweating and cold. It was still dark and the fire was out. I heard birds calling and knew it must not be far from morning. I dragged myself up and brought my knees to my chest, well, as close as I could anyway. My dream was echoing in my head. Something was wrong and, for the first time, I was fearful for my baby.
I put a dry log on the fire, watching the coals brighten and begin the dance of sparks to flames. I leaned down and blew, anxious to feel the heat. “Joseph, come home.” I wished into the coals. I sat there and waited for the others to wake. They were taking too long, so I grabbed a blanket and made my way outside in the darkness. I scrambled up the hill. It was much harder without Joseph’s hands on my back but I got to the top in time to see the sunrise.
It was grey and then suddenly a flourish of color. The blood red sending shivers down my spine. It spread over the hills like a great hand. Lighting the darkness and stirring the wildlife.
I sent my love out over the hills and through the valley, willing it to reach him and pull him back to me. I prayed he would burst through the trees at any second. I sat and stared at the place where I thought he would return. Nothing. Soon the others would be wondering where I was, so I made my way down the hill, slipping several times on the dewy grass.
No one ate breakfast. Everyone kept staring off in the distance waiting, watching. If they came back now it would be miraculously fast but logic had no place in our thoughts. Like it or not we had created a little family and right now two of its members were missing. None of us would feel right until they returned.
The cabin was about two-hundred meters from the edge of the forest. None of us wanted to go far, so we all sat outside, trying to keep busy by packing extra mud into the cabin walls or playing with Hessa, all of us watching the edge of the forest diligently. I started fashioning a broom to sweep the floor with. Initially, we thought we wouldn’t have time to make a proper floor, but now it seemed we could lay some stones. I spoke to Deshi and we spent some time finding nice flat ones we could use. By lunchtime, we had a decent-sized pile. Time was passing so slowly it was painful.
We stacked the stones inside and I crouched down and started digging holes to match their shapes. It was therapeutic, assessing their shape, size, and thickness and fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. We didn’t talk, both too anxious to make conversation, so we worked silently. We’d laid about five stones when Deshi picked one up to hand to me and then stopped, smiling as he glanced out the window. He put the stone down and held out his hand, pulling me to my feet.
There he was, walking casually out of the woods. He moved slowly and deliberately. Almost mechanically. I ran outside. He was less than one hundred and fifty meters away. I ran towards him, the joy coursing through my veins, the gold running over me like rain. I would have skipped if I could.
Where was Careen?
He put his hand up as if to wave and then stopped, clutching his chest. Something was wrong. I started running, gold turning to slick black oil. If I could get there, maybe I could stop it. My face stung with tears, as I ran as fast as my body would allow, feeling the weight of the baby pulling me down.
One-hundred meters.
He looked at me, confused, and he fell to his knees. His hands braced his body for a second before they crumpled under his weight and he was lying face first in the dirt. Careen appeared from the forest, running as fast as she could. Her face fierce and concentrated. She didn’t even stop as she passed Joseph and headed for the cabin.
“They’re coming!” she screamed.
I didn’t listen. I was nearly there. I could hear the others running towards us. Frantic footfalls sounding like a stampede.
Twenty meters.
I approached him slowly. When I reached his twisted body I leaned down, afraid to touch him. I reached out a trembling hand and stroked his blond curls. I whispered, “Joseph?”
He moaned. I eased him onto his side. His right arm was soaked in blood. I carefully peeled back his shirtsleeve. What I saw was beyond description. The red rawness was replaced with a gaping wound, blood and pus mangling his perfect skin. Tiny blue veins tracked up his arm. I followed them and pulled open his shirt, buttons diving from his chest like crickets. Tiny spider web veins spun their way grotesquely towards his heart.
He looked at me but right through me. He blinked once and then he exhaled slowly. I watched his parted lips, waiting for him to inhale. One second, two seconds, three seconds…Hysteria rising, my own breathing fast and uneven. I shook him. He lay limp. The others had reached me.
“No!” I screamed. “Do something. Help him!” My voice was alien, panicked and high pitched.
I threw myself across his body and wailed. I kept screaming, “Wake up, wake up. I can’t do this without you. Wake up.”
The pain was immense, like someone had stuck a live wire to my body and jolted me with electricity. My skin prickled and vibrated, tiny needles jabbing me all over. I put my head down to kiss his cold lips, shaking uncontrollably, hardly able to connect. This wasn’t happening. It had to be a dream. “Wake up!” I screamed again. His eyes were vacant and terrifying.
Wind whipped my hair around, like a tornado had come from nowhere to pluck me from this place. I held onto him tightly. They would have to tear me from him.
More pain. It started in my back and crept around to the front of my stomach, hardening as it went. Like fingers reaching around me from behind, it clasped tightly around my belly and locked like a stone vault. Wind and buzzing filled my ears. Careen screamed over the noise, “They’re here!”
Arms dragged me backwards. Someone whispered, “Let go,” impatiently as they wrenched me from Joseph. My eyes focused on the crescent-shaped wounds on Joseph’s good arm, filling with blood from where my fingernails had been digging into his flesh.
“No, no, no, no!” I screamed, until I was suddenly rendered silent as more pain shot through me, making my legs spasm and my head cloudy. I watched my deadened feet plowing the ground. Leaving a path of dug-up dirt back to where my heart lay.