"He's done."
The man pulls him off, making the boy make an ungodly noise, "Nooooo Will. I wanna hug the wolfie. I wanna wolfie. Miiiiine."
I gasp, "Will?" The eyes and the smile. He looks almost exactly like they do. "Anna and Jake's brother Will?"
His face drops, "Anna and Jake? My brother and sister?"
I nod.
His face grows savage. He lets go of the boy and grips my arms harshly. He shouts into my face, "Where are they?"
I point, "I thought they were here."
Leo doesn’t like the struggle going on. He leaps in between us and knocks Will to the ground.
He has him by the scruff of his shirt and is making a noise I've never heard before.
"Leo."
He ignores me. I sit on the ground and make a whistle sound. He tugs once more on the shirt and backs away. He turns and saunters to me. He's overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed. He curls up in my lap. I stroke his ears. He trembles.
Will stands up and walks to me. Leo growls and snarls in my lap. I look up at Will, "I wouldn’t move if I were you."
His dark eyes play in the dim light of dusk, "They're alive?"
"Last time I saw them."
His jaw tenses.
I turn to see a ruggedly handsome man walking up to where we are. "Will I need to go over some things with you."
The white haired boy sees the man and starts his tirade all over again. He is stamping his feet and pointing at Leo who trembles. I wrap my arms around him and glare at the young boy. I hate children.
"Stop that you little brat. You'll get us all killed." I hiss at him. The noise will no doubt draw the others or worse.
Will laughs at me, but his expression is lost.
Meg walks up to me in a clean dress with patches. Her hair is slicked back and wet. Her face is stark without the film of dirt she has been covered in since I met her. She is holding a platter of sorts covered in meat and something white.
"Em thith ith cheeth. You have to have thum." Her mouth is near bursting as she speaks. I grimace watching her stuff her gourd, as my granny always said.
She sits beside Leo and I. He raises his face instantly and starts eating from her plate. She doesn’t even bother to fight him for her food. I suspect she brought it to share with him. His body vibrates as his jaw reaches for the food.
The man beside Will has picked the boy up. He's crying and reaching for the brown haired lady with the doe eyes.
"You little monkey." She twirls him around. She loves him so much. I can see it on her face. I think she loves everyone, in the whole world.
Meg sits cross-legged with her skirt hiked up. I laugh seeing her tanned legs and underwear.
The dark haired lady scowls, "Megan sit like a lady."
Meg looks up with a drumstick of a bird hanging from her lips. Leo makes the same face with a large chunk of dark meat.
Will bursts into fits of laughter.
Meg frowns at me, "Wha?"
I shake my head, "Nothing." She brings levity that no one can resist.
"I can see your under garments Megan."
Meg looks up at her and frowns, "Then give me back my pants. Or stop looking."
I snicker at her saucy ways.
The doe eyed lady frowns, "Those pants are being burnt. We will have new pants for you in a bit. Until then try to act like a human being."
Meg blushes and pulls her skirts around her knees, "Yes mam."
She glances up at me with a hidden smirk.
Leo is making his weird wolf noise that he makes when he's happy. It nearly sounds like a cat purring but it's lower and deep inside of him.
The platter is empty and I've had nothing. I can't stop looking up at Will, who is talking with another man. He glances at me every now and then. I can see he wants to talk to me.
"The people I'm looking for, Anna and Jake. Will is their brother." I point to him subtly.
Meg raises an eyebrow, "You think that’s why Leo brought us here?"
I shrug, "Maybe. I think he smelled the food."
Meg grins with food in her teeth, "Thank god for Leo and his belly."
"I'm worried about where they are though. If they're not here where could they have gone?"
"The farms." She says it nonchalantly, even though I know she fears the idea of it whether she has met them or not.
My skin prickles thinking about them in the farms. Anna is old enough to be put to "work" and Jake is strong. He will be made to work hard labor.
I look up and see people eyeballing us. They pretend to be working near us, but they watch Leo eating. It makes me smile. If only they knew what a pussycat he is.
I feel fingers bite into my skin, "Wolfie mine." He shouts into my face.
The little brat is back. I hate him. His greedy little fingers are wiping an orange paste on my shirt. I lean away from him.
"Don't look so horrified. He's just a kid." Will picks the little monster up and carts him back to the doe eyed lady. I feel sorry for her. Her life must be horrid.
I look at the orange stain mixed with debris smeared across my sleeve.
I glance up at Will, "Is there somewhere I can wash up?"
He nods at the dark haired lady, "Mary can take you."
She smiles, "Follow me." She passes the evil beast with the white hair to a man next to her.
I look at Meg who nods, "Just don’t get roped into the dress and them brushing your hair. It's a bad experience. Leo's fine with me."
I walk away from him, not looking back. He'll see my fear and follow. I don’t want him anywhere near the little monster. It's going to touch him and hurt him and Leo will bite and they’ll defend their little brat. Then we'll have to leave and it will ruin my plan to have a good night sleep.
"You've never seen a child before have you?" Mary asks sweetly as we walk past a grouping of tents and lean-tos. She leads me down a steep narrow dirt path.
"Not in over ten years. Just the ones left behind when the mom's get taken. I don’t hang around long enough to get to the know them though."
"That's horrible. You leave little kids alone?"
I don’t care if she judges me. I am alive. "I was a kid too Mary. I barely took care of myself and Leo."
She crosses her arms, "He gets tired once it's after six. He really is a sweet boy. Once you get to know him, you'll love him."
I try not to be rude but speak my mind, "He will get you killed with noises like that. The infected love noisy things that lead to food."
She looks back aghast, "We never leave the camp. None of the children do."
"So you have an agreement with the infected and the others that they stay out of your camp so the kids can be as noisy as they want?" My sarcasm is filled with more sarcasm.
She laughs, "You really don’t have any social skills do you?"
I shrug, "I've made it this long out there, alone."
She looks shocked, "How long have you been alone?"
My anger and pain is pulled away from me when I see it. I stumble past her and sigh, "Since the beginning."
The walls surrounding it are high and rocky. Nothing can get to the massive lagoon of crystal clear dark green water. The only visible path is the one I'm standing on. I pull my boots and socks off. My scabs sting on the dirt and rocks. I pull down my pants and rip off my shirt. I look back at her and smirk. I run down the remainder of the path. I run out onto the huge flat rocks that make a platform in the water. I dive in before I can chicken out. The cold rips through me instantly but I have never felt this clean. I remember my baths as a small kid. They were filled with bubbles and hard plastic mermaids. This is much better. The freshness of the water makes me feel alive in a good way. I lie on my back and float. The huge rocky walls surrounding me are amazingly high and rugged. The tops are high enough that even if I was spied upon I wouldn’t know who they were and vice versa.
I look over at Mary as she jumps off the rock. I blush as she enters the water with a big splash. She had been completely naked. I've never seen another naked woman before.
"So where are your parents?"
Apparently she has no problem going for the personal details right off the bat.
I lie back again and watch the sky grow dark blue, as the evening fully starts to set in.
"My mom died when I was really little. She had cancer."
"Back then everyone had cancer."
"Yeah I guess so. Anyway she died and it was me and dad and my grandparents. My dad was a survivalist so when things got bad we got out early. He taught me a lot of things I needed to know."
"Wow I heard about those people. I remember hearing my mom and dad call them wing-nuts and crazy."
I laugh bitterly, "Yeah. That’s how I felt about him. Well until the infection hit and Japan had those massive earthquakes and the tsunamis hit the west coast. Then I was pretty impressed at his resources."
"Did you get separated?"
I shake my head, "No we hid at a friend's bunker till we could get out of the urban areas. We were on our way to my grandparents cabin when we were in an accident. He was pinned under the jeep. The hunters were coming. He told me to run."
I don’t look at her. I have always been ashamed of that moment.
"After he was taken I was on a hillside and I heard a gunshot. I knew it was him. I ran for weeks until I got to the cabin. I was there alone until a few weeks ago."
She splashes me. I look up at her grin and frown, "How many times have you swam in the last ten years?"
I feel confused and lost in the conversation suddenly, "Uhm three times. Once I was being chased by the infected. I've crossed rivers without really swimming lots though."
She laughs, "How great is this moment?"
I'm annoyed by her randomness, but I nod, "Really amazing."
Her eyes are glassy under the light of the dark sky, "Then leave the rest of it where it happened. They ruined everything ten years ago, we can't let them ruin the future too." She splashes me again.