This was nothing, and it was my own god damn fault for not waiting until the spring.I knew when I set out that what I was doing was dangerous bordering on reckless, but I thought I knew better.I thought it would be worth it somehow.That my suffering would mean something.But it never did.
And then, because I couldn’t do anything else, I balled my hands up into fists and I screamed.Even that hurt like hell, but I could still do it, so I did.
When I finished, I collapsed back on the bed, staring up at the skylight and gasping for breath as deeply as I could.
“Okay,” Jordy said at length.He was standing beside my bed, looking down at me with confusion and concern.Not that I blamed him.
“Sorry,” I said, my voice going raspy after that scream.“I had to get that out.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”He watched me a moment longer, then went back and grabbed something from the table.He returned with another flake of the grinleaf he’d given me earlier.
I shook my head.“I don’t want to be drugged out sleeping all the time.”
“This is less than what I gave you last time,” he explained.“It’s just to take the edge off so that you can rest.That’s the only way you’ll heal and get your strength back.”
“Fine,” I said, mostly because I didn’t want to feel this way anymore, and I didn’t know what to do with all the anger inside me.I took the flake and put it on my tongue, and I stared up at Jordy, waiting for it to take effect.
“You know, I don’t know for sure what you’ve been through, but I can tell it’s been a lot,” he said gently, and then softer, almost bashfully, he added, “I saw your scars.”
“They’re hard to miss,” I muttered since they were everywhere all over me.
“If you ever want to talk about – ”
“I don’t,” I snapped, cutting him off before he could finish his unnecessary invitation, and I closed my eyes.
“Okay then.I’ll let you rest,” he said.“I’ll be back in a while to check the fire, and if you’re hungry, I’ll bring some stew.”
“Thank you,” I said, but already I was drifting away to the warm painlessness of oblivion.It wasn’t as powerful as before, but with the exhaustion I already felt, it was more than enough.
50
Remy
One thing that I really disliked about the otherwise adequate apartment was that the sole source of sunlight was the skylight.Not even the tiny bathroom had a window.But that was because it was actually a closet with a composting toilet and a water basin.
I imagined the skylight would be nice in the summer, without the snow constantly blocking it out, or if I wasn’t confined to a solitary room.
If I was being fair, the first week of my recovery, the lack of natural light was kind of nice.I was mostly sleeping, and the apartment was like a dark, warm cave.Even into the second week, I was still asleep more than I was awake.
Around that time, as I started being alert more often, Jordy began spending more time with me.In the evenings, he brought over supper.Usually fatty salmon and potatoes or a hearty vegetable stew for me and him, and a mix of vegetables with raw meat, eggs, and boiled oats for Ripley.
For his part, Jordy did what he could to make being virtually bedbound bearable for me.The most obvious ways were medicine for inflammation and fighting infection, as well as the grinleaf for pain, usually at night.
I didn’t like talking about myself, so he carried most of the conversation.He filled me in about his life and how he’d ended up as a chemist in a frozen little town in the mountain pass.
His childhood sounded about the same as anyone else’s before the virus.His dad left, so it was him and his mom.They lived in the city of Kamloops, where she worked as a professor at the university.
When the zombies started showing up, his mom only lasted another two weeks before they got her.Jordy ran around, tagging along with other survivors where he could.The military came in and eventually liberated the city, burning it to the ground along with all the zombies.
Everyone that wasn’t infected was hauled off to quarantine zones, which Jordy referred to as “the camps.”He was thrown in a room with dozens of other orphaned kids, and for a little while there, he described it as being dangerously close to going veryLord of the Flies.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, I couldn’t really tell by his tone how he felt – he was plucked out by the military after scoring particularly well on something called the ARK.
“What’s the ARK?”I asked.
“It stands forAdaptive Resilience & Knowledge,” he explained.“It’s a whole battery of tests that are designed to basically see if you are smart enough and not too traumatized to survive.Not to toot my own horn, but I scored well enough that I ended up getting hauled over to Cold Shore to finish my education.”
“You were a part of Cold Shore?”I asked, surprised.
