After 30 Days

Nine-Day 37

Chapter dedicated to @jself1

Thank you for being you.

We were running low on water again. At the time, the backpack of supplies that we left beside the road for Jackie had seemed like a good idea. Now that we were about to find ourselves thirsty again, I was quietly wondering if we should have kept it for ourselves.

"I think, if we climb up there, we'll have a good view of the whole area."

I followed the direction Shawn was pointing, and cringed. Heights were difficult when you were vertically challenged.

The open field that we had stopped next to for the night had apparently been the scene of a small carnival when this all started. The grass was beginning to grow tall around a dozen old looking rides. The waist high, silver metal fencing was mostly knocked over. The abandoned food stands still smelled like rotten fruit and rancid meat. And the tiny plastic cups that had once held goldfish prized by every kid at the carnival, now held shriveled up orange bodies, petrified by the sun.

All in all, it was a scene straight out of every horror movie ever written, and I was creeped out.

The only bright side, a lot of the knives for the ring toss game were still sticking up out of the wooden turn tables. Everyone had helped themselves to a few choice looking weapons as soon as we stumbled upon that stand.

"Up there," he repeated.

Sighing, I acknowledged that it was a good idea even if I didn't like it, "Yeah. Ok."

The roof of the wooden food shack was a good eight feet up. It would place us high enough to be able to see over most of the other obstacles during our shift on watch. It was also located only a dozen yards from where the suv was parked and everyone else was going to be trying to sleep.

Dumping an overflowing trash can out, Shawn turned it upside down and climbed on top. From there, he easily hoisted himself onto the roof, reminding me of the time we'd climbed into a ceiling to escape a horde of zombies. Shaking off that memory, I still heard the screams of a friend being eaten alive in my nightmares, I stepped closer to our makeshift step ladder.

Without his help, I might not have made it into those dusty depths. I had a feeling I was going to need help again. I eyed the trashcan dubiously. It was several feet tall, but was definitely not going to be enough height to get me onto that roof.

Rex whined from his usual position at my side. Patting his head, I clambered onto the trashcan. I was going to be lucky to get myself up there. There was no way I was attempting to put the big dog up there too. He was going to have to be content with sleeping in the grass by the building until we came back down.

I quickly learned that a trashcan is a poor substitute for a ladder. The thing wobbled and threatened to dump me right back into the dirt. Standing up carefully, I found that my eyes barely cleared the top of the roof. Dismayed, I frowned as I tried to figure out how best to get up there.

A hand appeared in front of my face at the same time as he started chuckling.

"Need some help?"

I scowled, "You know I do."

A little thrill went through me when he pulled me right up onto the roof. Desperately trying to not let him know just how much that move affected me, I kept the scowl pasted stubbornly to my face. Knowing Shawn, he'd find some way to pick on me if he ever found out how much I liked his He-Man tendencies.

Still clearly amused, he ignored my feigned bad temper. Walking in a little circle, he surveyed the dead carnival, before plopping down near the center of the roof. Giving up my attempt to prove just how annoyed I was with him, I walked over and sat down facing the opposite direction.

I was facing our friends. Below, Bill was starting our customary small fire while most everyone else was stretching their limbs after another long day spent mostly crammed in the suv.

Waving Charlie to him, Alex began unwrapping the bandage that he'd used to cover the nasty looking knife wound that went straight through her palm and came out the back of her hand. She was going to be lucky if there wasn't some sort of permanent damage.

Shawn had begun opening a can of some sort of soup that he'd brought up in a small bag slung over one shoulder. Sitting cross legged next to him, our knees nearly touching, and facing the opposite way, I was able to study his face for a second while he was concentrating on opening our supper.

He'd lost a lot of weight, we all had really, and dark circles ringed his eyes. The beard that he'd shaved off while in Maggie's camp was well on it's way to growing back. And the cut that crossed his jaw and dropped down to his neck was still angry looking. It was going to leave a scar.

He looked like I imagined I would look if I were to gaze into a mirror, like someone who had been hit hard by the end of the world and was hanging on by the fingertips. But the hint of a smile that was still on his face was a welcome sight. It had been too long since I saw it.

It occurred to me, while I was picking bits of dried grass from the legs of my pants, that we had more privacy up there than we'd found since I wasn't sure when. I took the spoon he offered and contemplated if I should do what I was thinking of doing, while we both ate a few spoonfuls of the cold soup.

Deciding to just go for it, I indicated his jaw with a wave of my spoon, "How does that feel?"

He took a second to swallow before answering, "Ok. It's starting to itch, I guess that's a good sign." In went another bite.

He never talked all that much about himself, something that I now suspected hid a history that was not easy for him to talk about.

We all needed someone we could talk to about those dark things that haunted us. He never cringed away when I was the one who needed someone. I wasn't about to leave him all alone when it seemed like he was the one being haunted.

I started again, "Charlie's hand still looks pretty bad. I hope she doesn't end up not being able to use it."

"Yeah."

"What do you think was going on with those people? I mean, Jackie seemed kinda normal at first, but she has some real issues."

He stopped eating and looked at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. "No, she definitely wasn't normal," he dropped his spoon and stared out over the field. "I don't know exactly what was wrong with her. It's hard to tell without a doctor's input, but I'd guess she was a patient somewhere before. Who knows, maybe she's criminally insane. It would explain the handcuffs.

My mom, she was a lot like that when I was growing up. One moment she was baking cookies or folding laundry, the next she was screaming about demons. She said she heard voices that told her to kill the people around her, to hurt herself. The day my dad came home and found that she'd locked me out of the house, without shoes, in a foot of snow, he finally decided to get her help."

He abruptly shoved the can away from himself, standing up to pace the roof. Feeling slightly sick, I wasn't going to be eating any more either, I set the remaining soup aside. Rex could have it later.

Shawn had told me, what felt like a lifetime ago, that he didn't have any family. I hadn't imagined that the story would be something like this, though, until his reaction to Jackie had clued me in. He had been too quiet ever since, but not in my wildest imaginings would I have guessed that his mother was the person in his life who'd had the problems. I shuddered at the thought of growing up in a house where you never knew how your own mother was going to react.

At least in my own dysfunctional family, there hadn't been any shouting. Just cold indifference.

"Nothing the doctors tried really had any effect. They ended up recommending she be put in a home where she could be cared for around the clock. That didn't stop her from hanging herself with a lanyard that she stole off of a nurse's keys. I was twelve."

He stayed at the edge of the roof for several minutes, before heavily walking back to sit with his back against mine. I stayed quiet, leaning my head back to rest against his back, and offering comfort in the only way that you sometimes can when someone has just ripped open an old wound to share it with you.

Sometimes, words can't begin to express the things that we want to say.

***