After Paradise

Chapter Six ~ Preparation

"Hey, shank, wake up." Thomas woke up to the sensation of a knobbly twig poking into his forearm. He peeled open his eyes, rolling over onto the grassy floor of the meadow.
"Mmhmm." Thomas muttered unintelligibly towards Gally, as the burly boy continued to shake him awake.
"You awake in there? Huh?" Gally reached down to tap Thomas on the skull.
"I'm up! I'm up!" Thomas groaned sluggishly, and hastened to scramble up into a sitting position, "Why are you getting me up this early?"
Thomas could see that everyone was already milling around as usual, even though it was only the crack of dawn.
"Orders are orders. If you have a complaint I suggest you speak to Minho. Or Jorge." He snapped before trundling away to wake more sleepy camp mates from their cosy hammocks.
"Jorge?" Thomas shouted over at the sun-tanned figure clutching a variety of handheld weapons, "What are you doing? I thought we were leaving tomorrow?"
"We are," Jorge grinned, twisting a metal blade around in the air, "But we're getting everything sorted so we can leave as soon as it's light. I'm sorting the weapons, hermano. You wanna help?" Thomas assessed the space around him. People carrying towers of washing, piling food into rucksacks, collecting up spare hammocks and equipment. Weaponry seemed the only fun option, if the only other choices were laundry, scarce food resources or ropes and hammocks.
"You know, in case we run into any trouble. We need to be prepared with defences." Jorge continued, taking Thomas's hesitation as him not being keen on the idea.
"Yeah, yeah sure." Thomas said, "So what have we got?"
Jorge rummaged through a canvas bag and dropped the contents onto the grassy floor. A jumble of weapons were covering the strands of lime grass. A couple of kitchen knifes, blunt but nevertheless useful in the most desperate of situations. Eleven spears, some still splattered with crusty blood on the wooden handles. Some longer blades, glinting and refracting the weak morning sun, and finally a scattered collection of rusty grappling hooks, tattered screw drivers and small planks of wood affixed with sharpened, jagged nails sticking out of one side.
"Is this it?" Thomas asked doubtfully, taking into the two dozen or so weapons, "This is nowhere near enough for us all."
"I know," Jorge said gravely, "But there's at least thirty staying here. I suggest we split the remaining weapons between the people who know how to use them."
"But there's a hundred and fifty of us?"
"The top twenty then." Jorge stated, furrowing his eyebrows. Thomas wondered which weapon he'd chose. Probably one of the blades. Blades. Grievers.
The remembrance suddenly sent fear shooting into his brain, burying in deep and mushing together his thoughts into panic. It's all over now, his mind soothed, it's all gone.
"Reserve this one for me, hey?" Thomas queried, drumming his fingers on the dull, hard metal of one of the larger blades, carefully avoiding the one which had been drenched with dried blood.
"Sure, muchacho. Where are you going?" Jorge questioned, carefully slipping Thomas' knife into the back of his bag.
"I think, um, I left my socks down by the shore." Thomas cut over Jorge's voice, and the lie seeped easily from his tongue, even though Jorge didn't seem to believe it.
"Okay. Well be back for lunch." He added as he watched Thomas curiously, with a puzzled glance. Thomas felt his chest restricting, and urged for the serenity and peace of the lulling ocean and the sound of waves curling over onto the pebbled beach. He hastened to tear between the wild berry bushes, hearing his trousers rip at the ankles, a consequence of him speeding through the prickly brambles. He emerged onto the stretch of land, and crunched his way over to a slab of rock jutting over the waves, and positioned himself on the slanted boulder so he could stare down into the water.
The cold, dense material of the stone beneath him pressed against his stomach, stopping his lungs from sucking in the maximum amount of air. It felt like his heart had been compressed, and considering the past few months he had endured, it was likely that it had. The ink-coloured water continued to smash up against the rock and send sprays of foaming water spurting up to pepper his face, but it felt replenishing. Relaxing.
The tide was definitely coming in, because the water lapped urgently at the wedge of rock, swirling higher and higher as Thomas lay there for another twenty minutes, trying to drown out his thoughts and concentrate on the plan for tomorrow. By the time the water had risen to centimetres from his face, the sound of pebbles scattering underfoot caught his attention. He pounced off the rock, clicking his head to the side to find Brenda wandering down towards him, nervously clutching the sleeve of her shirt. Thomas cleared his throat awkwardly, feeling immediately like his brain had just turned numb.
"Um, Jorge said lunch is in five minutes." Brenda mumbled, boredom creeping into her tone.
"Oh, thanks." Thomas muttered, taking a few steps towards the bottom of the ascent back up to the meadow.
"Hey, wait!" Brenda called out from behind him, sending Thomas spinning on his heel and looking over at her. It looked exactly the same as the time, last week, when the two were down here, and she'd kissed him for the last time. Thomas licked his lips, feeling them chapped from the harsh winds.
"What?" He asked sincerely. He felt her eyes glued to his face, and looking into them he saw the same piercing eyes glancing back at him, although the sparkle had dulled to a darker hue, no longer giving her complexion a youthful and innocent expression, but more mature and sombre. Thomas liked it, it suited her personality more, but he more than hoped that this was about sorting things out, not making a bigger mess nor discovering that she couldn't forgive him or something.
"We need to sort things out. I think you know we do." She said, eyes glinting.
"Yeah," Thomas hesitated, "I-I know we do, Brenda. You know I never wanted to mess you around. But those previous few days...seeing friend after friend being massacred, and the whole thing about Rat Man and the operation and-"
"-Thomas I know. I understand. It wasn't easy for me either."
"I'm sorry. But everything seemed like it had changed and I don't want to be reminded of the past here, Brenda! I really don't! That's why I figured I can't do this anymore, well, whatever it was. A relationship? I don't know, but things couldn't be much more complicated right now, Brenda. I hope you can relate to that."
"Yeah," She sighed, "I understand. But after everything we've been through, can't we at least try to be happy?" Her eyes brimmed with regret and loss and sadness.
"Brenda..." Thomas let out a long breath.
"...Well how do you feel when I do this?" Brenda's fingers played lightly on the edge of Thomas' jawline, tracing down slowly to the plump of his bottom lip. Thomas brushed off her touch. His head was already filled with enough nonsense!
"I'm sorry, Brenda. This doesn't change anything." Even as the words spilled from his lips, Thomas could still feel the nostalgic yearning writhing in his stomach. He wanted to go back to when they had been curled up inside the van in the scorch, or to when they first met, and he was flawed by her beauty and tough exterior. But that was in the past, and the future was not written in the same way.
"Maybe...maybe if we find a settlement out there, perhaps if we can set up our lives someplace else, and start afresh with all the security and food we need. Then we can start again, and see what happens?" For the second time that day Thomas felt the syrupy lies rolling right from his tongue, but oh well. It wasn't completely impossible that they could turn this into blossoming feelings for one another again, right? In his heart he knew what he really wanted, but his head said the opposite. His head told him that if he could try to piece his life back together as it was before, then maybe all his pain would be erased. Maybe.
"So, what are you saying?" Brenda's hand hovered over a lock of her long tresses, "That we see how it goes?"
"Let's start as friends." Thomas smiled securely, although guiltily, "I'm glad you're not angry anymore."
"Oh, I'm glad too." She beamed, pulling Thomas into an unexpected hug, "Now come on, I bet the food has all disappeared!"
Upon arrival back up into the camp, Minho broke away from the crowd to hand them each some watered down grain and a scavenged handful of berries each.
"What took you slintheads so long?" Minho winked, nudging Thomas painfully under the ribcage. Thomas laughed, swatting him away, whilst Brenda rolled her eyes sarcastically, tugging on Thomas' forearm to pull him towards the food.
Minho's eyes widened in shock, catching up with them.
"You're back together?" The absence of awkwardness and frosty tension between Thomas and Brenda must have been extremely noticeable, because Minho seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that everything was sorted within five seconds. Thomas flushed, shaking his head, whilst Brenda's eyes glimmered with amusement, but also misery.
"What? Are you pregnant or something? I mean that would explain why you've been so-" Minho hushed his voice. Thomas had just taken a swig of water, and turning to Minho in shock, spluttered his drink all over his right leg, and began a fury of coughing.
"-Minho! What? No!" Brenda shouted in fury as she picked up a bowl of meagre fruit and crackers and began to guzzle it down, "I am not pregnant!"
Thomas finished spluttering.
"Minho, what the shucking hell are you on about?"
"Well, I just thought, you know, because she's seemed to be-"
"-I've seemed to be what? Fat?" Brenda scowled, although it was light hearted.
"Well, what I was actually gonna say was that you've been really grumpy, but I guess you've been getting greedier as well-" Minho's voice cut off as Brenda whacked him in the chest, hard.
"Ow. Well Thomas, you've got yourself a fighter here." Thomas rolled his eyes, as Minho scarpered off to find some more of the children to give them their lunch.

~

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a haze; Frypan put a stew on to simmer, and then donated all the rest of the food and herbs and seasonings to one of the large canvas bags they would be taking tomorrow. Seeds were picked from the spurting plants in the vegetable plot, so that if there was anything other than wasteland out there, they could start growing crops and plants. Medical equipment and hammocks were divided throughout the thirty or so people staying behind in the meadow. These thirty people consisted of a dozen older women, two brothers in their late thirties who wanted to stay behind to put some infrastructure up, mothers and their children or babies, and another straggle of orphaned children - the decision had been made that no one over the age of ten could join the search party, unless they had a parent going as well. The rest of the equipment was split between everyone else, and Jorge quietly distributed the remaining weapons between most of the previous gladers, and some of the older, experienced immunes. Thomas shoved his few belongings in a torn shirt, tying up the small bundle and squashing it into the rucksack he'd found last night. His package consisted of the locket, spare clothes, and a small, iridescent shell he had found down at the beach a few days ago. It really was beautiful, and he decided to take it with him in case they didn't make it back here.
Their final dinner was a quiet affair. A small fire glowed from the burning embers, sending sparks scuttling into the grass. People sat all over the north end of the meadow, picnicking on Frypan's assortment of stew and some offcuts of the final loaves of bread that they had found here when they arrived, in the store trunks. There wasn't any dessert, nor had there been any, ever, but Thomas and Minho went into the edges of the forest and raided a bush of mint leaves, bringing out handfuls of peppermint-flavoured plant material for people to chew on. The last night at camp was fairly miserable. As soon as the light dimmed from the horizon, people tucked up into their hammocks, and Thomas took his usual position next to the fading fire. He held his outstretched hands over the blackened fire for a few minutes, to attempt to warm them up, and then settled down under a blanket. He couldn't sleep for a long time, but eventually the constant thudding of his heart pulled him out of consciousness into the world of sleep.

~

Clang. Clang. Clang.
"Everybody up! You've got twenty minutes!" Minho's voice roared, echoing around the small meadow. Thomas sluggishly flitted his eyes open, heaving the blanket off and stretching. It was going to be a long, long day. And it was only just dawn. Fingers of light wove there way through the cluster of trees spiking at the skyline, as Thomas efficiently rolled up his blanket into his hammock and squeezed them into his backpack.
Frypan had immediately walked over to the makeshift kitchen area, chopping fruit and dividing berries between everyone. There was nowhere near enough cutlery or plates for even fifty people, so a bowl was shared between four or five people. Thomas grabbed a dish fresh from Frypan, gulping down his share and then passing the plate on to the knot of people gathering. He then pulled on his rucksack, and sat down by the beach for a further ten minutes, knowing that when he emerged back in the meadow everything would be chaotic. He finally had to resurface though, with only five minutes remaining. Minho had collected more people at the foot of the trees, whilst others were still milling around and packing their things. Thomas was walking over towards them, when he was suddenly struck with a thought. Bess! Where is she? He paced over to the crowd who were eating, scanning faces for Bess'. He finally caught sight of her returning from the stream in the woods, her hair dotted with drops of metallic water. I almost forgot to say goodbye, his mind snapped angrily.
"Bess, can we talk for a moment?" He asked. She seemed to have been avoiding him after she had revealed that the locket belonged to her. He had contemplated leaving it with her, but it was the only clue they had, and if Ollie truly was out there then they needed it to ask around or to see if it was his.
"What?" She questioned forlornly.
"I wanted you to know. I'm going to try and find Ollie. He must be out there somewhere, and when -if - we find some life out there then I'm going to try and find out where he is. Okay?" He said urgently.
Bess' eyes brimmed with tears, unspoken gratitude washing down her face.
"And if we do find someplace out there, then I'm coming back for you. You've been like a mother this past fortnight, and I can't thank you enough." Bess nodded graciously once Thomas had said that.
"You'd better go now, Minho's getting ready to leave." Bess smiled, patting Thomas on the arm, "Well then, I'll see you soon!"
Thomas turned to go towards Minho, smiling reassuringly at Bess for the last time.
"You ready now?" Minho asked, "It's gonna take us all day to get to the well. If it took us four hours to run there...plus we've got a few children and some adults, we'll probably need to slow down to a quick walk."
"Okay, is everyone here?" Thomas looked around the mass of people.
"Yup, I think so." Minho confirmed. The people staying behind looked lonely and lost as they huddled by the fire, and Thomas spotted Bess sitting with her head in her hands. He spun away briefly.
"Right then! Let's get going!" Minho yelled, and the crowd of immunes melted into the woods.