“You were very brave,” I said, remembering how he jumped down to meet our attackers, probably to prevent them from getting to me.
“So were you. Perhaps you are useful after all.”
“I told you I would be.”
He huffed a little laugh. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. Go to sleep now, Kitten. Put that ugly Rabid business out of your head and dream of happier things.”
My eyelids grew heavy. The flames made the shapes of people dancing or dying. Cocooned by the warmth of the fire and Cipher’s arms, I finally fell asleep.
NINE
CIPHER
“You seem to have a groupie,”Macon said. Nudging my side, he nodded at Kitten, just a few paces behind. My little shadow. I’d woken up this morning with the kid’s ass cheeks nestled snugly against my crotch. I was aghast at my raging boner trying to bust through several layers of fabric to reach him. Luckily, Kitten was still asleep when I crawled out from under the sleeping bag, shame-faced, found a tree off in the cut, and furiously jacked off. Of course, Macon had caught me red-handed while gathering firewood, then pointed and laughed like a huge dickhead. There was no goddamned privacy with these fuckers.
“I hadn’t noticed,” I said to Macon, when in fact, Ihadnoticed.
“Really? He’s been following you all morning.”
“So? Everybody follows me.”
“He sits next to you whenever we eat or take a water break.”
“He’s probably worried about Rabids attacking us again, and he knows I’m his best shot at survival.”
“Hey now,” Macon said, elbowing me in the ribs.
Our mission that day was to find an out-of-the-way subdivision to scavenge. Our supplies were running low, and we could all use a change of clothing and more nonperishable food. An inhaler for Kitten would be like a gift from God, and I was continually looking to restock our medical kit, which included my sleepytime painkillers. Also, Ziplocs.
We each had an idea of the needs versus wants. Teresa had a sweet tooth, Gizmo liked any sort of gadget he could fix or take apart, Macon enjoyed hard liquor and beef jerky, Artemis liked her spices, and I obviously had a thing for weaponry and quality-made leather goods.
“What are you hoping to find today, Kitten?” I asked when he’d caught up with me. This would be his first official scavenging mission.
“I don’t know. Maybe a cat toy for Little Miss Purrfect?”
I bit my tongue at the utter impracticality of that, not to mention it was breaking ouronenonessential item rule, but I reasoned that he did just kill a Rabid on my behalf the night before and if he wanted a damn cat toy, then so be it.
“Why didn’t you use your gun?” he asked, clearly still processing the gruesome events of the night before. “With the Rabids, I mean?”
“Guns make a shit-ton of noise, which tends to attract more Rabids. And bullets are hard to come by. Better to save your gun for when you really need it.”
He looked slightly perplexed by that, but I didn’t go into any more detail. Hopefully, he’d never have to find out what the gun was for.
We were heading south, skirting alongside the woods bordering US 29, when we happened upon a fancy gated community situated on a golf course outside of Anderson, South Carolina. Expensive homes were hit or miss in terms of practical items, and many of them had already been picked over. But sometimes you’d find a real treasure trove, like the one time we stumbled upon a stocked wine cellar and got absolutely shit-faced. Other times, the houses were bone dry.
We stopped at the edge of the weedy, overgrown golf turf and hid our packs under a pile of brush, then split into teams of two to search the McMansions.
“I’ll take Kitten,” I said before any other arrangement could be made. Macon gave me some side-eye, and I pointed to my ear to remind him that the kid couldn’t hear, whereas I could hear exceptionally well, which was only partly due to my extreme paranoia. I laid my hand on Kitten’s shoulder, should anyone want to challenge my claim, and he grinned up at me like I was some sort of hero. I removed my hand promptly. I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
I learned pretty quickly that Kitten was not a very good scavenger. He spent way too long looking at family photos and marveling over shiny baubles and trinkets. I supposed I was the same way during my first few hunts, curious about other people’s lives and wondering what became of them. I still lifted jewelry when I came across it for the sole purpose of trading, but to linger over family memorabilia now just made me sad.
For our first house, the family must have left in a hurry because their Christmas decorations were still up, including a trimmed tree—a fake one, of course. Kitten was entranced by the many ornaments and garland strung around its plastic bows and asked me if I remember Christmas.
“Sure, I remember Christmas,” I said.
“We kept the tradition going for a while, decorating the inside of our house and making each other gifts, but when more people started getting sick and leaving, we didn’t want strangers to know we were living there, so we stopped. I miss it.” He touched one of the silver balls on the tree, causing my own eyes to get a little misty. Damn his sentimentality.
“We’ll have Christmas again someday,” I told him and hoped that it was true.
