I can’t sleep for long, barely a couple of hours. I toss and turn on the small couch until I fall off at some point, and I decide that’s enough rest for now.
I sit up, stretch, and get ready to leave for a walk in the dead of night. My head needs some clearing, and this is the perfect time for that.
As I pull my boots on the old fashioned way, I hear movement in the bedroom. I can barely see in the murky darkness, but I make out Emily’s contour in the doorway. She rubs her eyes, yawns, and moves towards me.
“Go back to sleep, everything’s okay,” I say.
She isn’t dissuaded, stopping next to me instead of turning back around. My eyes refocus slowly, adapting to the little moonlight coming in through the windows.
“I mean it,” I say as I get to my feet, putting up a hand to stop her from following.
Emily frets hearing that, all of a sudden unsure on her feet. She takes a step back, then forward. Her hands come up, trembling, reaching for me.
She squeaks a single word, a high pitched no.
I don't budge. “Look, I'm not in the best frame of mind right now, okay? I need some time alone, just a little bit. I don't want to argue, I might say or do something that I can't take back. So just…go back to sleep.”
I turn to leave, but despite what I just asked, she still follows. She grabs my shirt with one hand, and with the other, she throws off her hood. I don’t know what to expect, but what she does next isn’t it. She goes to unzip her tracksuit jacket before pulling it into inventory.
“Stay,” she pleads, lowering her hand and hooking a finger in the line of her pants. “Don’t go.”
I’m so taken aback by this that I don’t react for a long second. Then my brain catches up, and I take both her hands to stop her.
“What the hell?”
She doesn’t say anything, averting her eyes as she starts sobbing. I take a deep breath.
“What did I ask from you earlier today? You know, about not interpreting my words in the worst possible way?”
That gets her to stop crying and look up at me.
“I’m just taking a walk to clear my head, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be back by morning.”
“Promise?” She whispers.
“I promise.”
She nods, so I let go of her hands and leave. Before I close the door, I look back to make sure she isn’t following. She stands in the middle of the living room, looking lost as her eyes go between her feet and me.
I close the door and leave the building, confused out of my Goddamn mind as to what just happened.
----------------------------------------
My walk takes me all over the safe zone. Few people are out and about this late into the night, mainly the defenders and a few patrols to keep order in the streets. We wave to each other, but I don’t stop for chatter.
After about an hour, I go on the outside of the safe zone and make a full round of the perimeter. I don’t run into any monsters, the night is quiet and peaceful.
I come across Garry’s hunting store again just as the sun starts rising, and I go in through the missing door to look for a place to sit down. The bear sculpture is still here after all, broken in three pieces and scattered on the floor with everything else. A few items glow with the telltale light of collectibles, and I pick them up as I pass.
One's a postcard of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another one is a wall trophy of a deer head. There's even a stupid talking bass. All of them go into the collectibles tab.
I reach the counter and sweep it clear of items before I jump on it. This store holds so many memories, and I can't help but reminisce as I look around and wait for the floodgates to open.
Mike and I used to come here all the time when we were kids. Hunters and wilderness guides gathered in the store to swap larger than life stories, and we'd drink it all up in that wide eyed way only kids can. Garry would give us protein bars that tasted vaguely like chocolate.
After we had our fill, we ran home to pester Pops. He had guns, so in our young minds, he must've gone hunting himself. We'd ask him to take us as well the next time, and he always said he would. But he never did, Pops didn't go hunting.
He bought my first knife from this store after I threw a tantrum once. I was pestering him about our supposed hunting trip, and he got me a cheap folding knife.
“I'll take you,” he said, “but only after you make a carving of every single animal out there in the forest. We’ll need them as bait.”
I asked the hunters about it, and the fuckers lied to cover for Pops. Yeah, of course, we all use little sculptures for bait. That's how I started down that path. It was nothing more than a way for Pops to keep me under control, to make sure I was busy at home, but I took to it. My new routine became: come home from school, do homework, go outside to play, and spend a couple hours carving wood in the garage after dinner.
I loved it, but I always wondered if I’d like hunting more. Now, sitting here, staring at that broken bear that Garry commissioned out of pity, I have my answer. To my own horror, I realize I like both.
I stare at that stupid bear, and I wait, and a pang of pain from wounds that aren’t there anymore creeps up my spine. I wait to cry, but I just…don’t.
“Why?” I ask out loud.
The person behind me makes a move. He tried to be sneaky when he entered the back room, but I heard him.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“Why, Pops? Why can’t I cry? She died right in front of me, and I went through…through all of that, but I can’t cry.”
Pops walks out into the store’s main floor, his steps slow as he dodges the debris. He gets to the counter, sits next to me, and puts an arm around my shoulders. I lean into him, eyes still on the broken bear sculpture.
We’re silent for a minute before he speaks.
“Let me tell you a story. I only ever told it to your mother, I didn’t want you and Mike to know about it. Back before you were born, I was in the Gulf War. Me and a bunch of other guys. We were all young and stupid, we thought we’d kick ass and return home as heroes. We didn’t know what we were in for. One day we were driving around in a humvee, shooting the shit, making fun of each other. You know, boys being boys. But we hit a landmine.”
I rest my head on his shoulder as he talks, and he hugs me tighter.
“It was chaos. The humvee flipped and everyone was scrambling for their guns. It was an ambush and our guys wanted to return fire, I think. I don’t know. I was in the back seat, but I saw John’s leg hit the roof. He was in the front seat next to the driver, right under the mine when it went off. He wasn’t dead, but he was fucked.”
I know some of these details already, just not the full story or where Pops is going with it. I’d heard snippets of it every now and again, when he and Mom thought they were alone or out of earshot from me and Mike.
“I liked the guy, everyone did,” Pops continues. “He was the squad clown, always trying to make us all laugh. I got out, then I helped pull him out too. His leg was just…gone. Up to the hip. He screamed and struggled and I held him down while the squad medic tried to save him, but there was nothing left to tie a tourniquet to.”
Pops pauses and takes a breath that catches in his throat. So close together, I can feel the way he shudders.
“He didn’t make it,” he says with a hitch in his voice. “I looked him in the eyes as he died. I saw life leave him, and I snapped. Next thing I know, my gun clicks empty and our sergeant shakes my shoulders. It’s over, son! It’s over!”
I finally look away from the bear and up at Pops. He has a thousand yard stare and tears streaming down his face. He looks down at me, his eyes wide, and he wipes the tears away. He composes himself with a deep breath before he continues.
“We got evac’d, but the sarge lied to me. It wasn’t over, it never is. We got back to base and continued as if everything was fine, as if we didn’t send John home in a body bag, but it wasn’t fine. And none of us cried, that’s what got to me the most. Not even I cried, and the guy died in my arms. I thought something was wrong with us — with me. I asked the same thing you did, why can’t I cry?”
“I…don’t…”
“You know when I finally cried?” Pops interrupts me. “When I got back home. I was back in civilian clothes, no longer a soldier, and your mother was out. I sat down in the kitchen and it all hit me like a train, and I was finally able to cry. And I only stopped hours later when I heard her pulling up in the driveway.”
He squeezes me tighter before pulling away, but his hands still grip my shoulders.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, son. It’s okay not to cry today or tomorrow or a week from now. You’ll cry when you're ready.”
I look down at his hands, at the white knuckled grip he has on me, and I realize I can’t even feel it. Fuck this stupid system and this stupid mana, fuck all of it.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you, Pops.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just jumps off the counter. His usually broad shoulders slouch, making him look so much smaller and more vulnerable. Sharing that story must’ve taken a lot out of him, but it’s not just that. He’s been through a lot as well, and I can’t even imagine what went on through his head when he had to hold me down after our battle.
“Good,” he says. “You stay here, I’ll go and…”
Something cracks and we both look up in time to catch a blur of movement by one of the windows. It’s Emily pulling back and out of sight.
“God damn it, Emily!” I yell.
Pops shakes his head and leans in again, his serious demeanor unchanged.
“That reminds me,” he whispers, “I wanted to talk to you about her as well.”
“Sorry she shot you in the shoulder,” I say, remembering that particular detail.
“It’s okay, she just wanted to protect you. How long have you known each other?”
“We met during that first night,” I answer, “but how do you even know her?”
“I know everyone in this town, Jack. With her in particular, I was dispatched to a call about a year ago. She has this crazy ex boyfriend who broke a restraining order she had against him, so I had to make sure she’s okay and I took her statement.”
“Is his name Morris, by any chance?”
Pops’s eyes narrow. “Did you meet him?”
“Yeah. He’s a real piece of work.”
“Did he…”
I put up a hand to stop him. “Later. Focus, Pops.”
“Right,” he says. “She’s a good woman. Quiet as a mouse —”
“I noticed.”
“— but good,” Pops continues, not pausing at my interruption. “She’s just had a rough life from what I’ve heard. It’s not my place to talk about it, though, you’ll have to ask her about it.”
“Sorry, Pops, but I don’t think I follow this time. What are you trying to say?”
“Just let me talk, okay?” He says. “You know your old man isn’t the best with words, so bear with me.”
“Sorry.”
“What I’m trying to say is that she’s a nice girl, but she has a lot of problems. Things you might not be ready to deal with, but you’re an adult. Whatever you choose to do, I’ll try to help the best I can. But the main problem is how close the two of you are, especially if you only just met. I’ve seen it before, after the ambush. After…after John’s death. It brought the rest of real close together. The higher-ups called it trauma bonding.”
I think about it for a moment, and I realize he’s right. It’s one of the things I noticed, but that I couldn’t quite put into words myself.
“And what’s wrong with it?” I ask, trying to understand.
“Maybe nothing, maybe everything. The thing you have to understand, that both of you need to understand…” he raises his voice as he says that last part and turns to face the window, where Emily is snooping again, “...is that what you’re feeling right now isn’t genuine. I was ready to die for some of those guys, only to realize later, when we were out of danger, that I still hated their guts.”
Emily shuffles in through the door, her head held low. Pops is laser focused on her, but there’s no ill intent. Just worry, and a touch of caution. He steps out of her way and she stops next to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and one on Emily’s, who flinches at the sudden touch.
“You’re both good kids,” he says, looking at us in turn. “It’s good that you’re looking out for each other, but just…be careful, okay? It’s easy to get very close when it feels like the whole world is out to kill you, but the world will let up someday.”
He pats our shoulders, then he turns around, not adding anything else. Emily and I look at each other, both confused by his cryptic words. Or maybe we’re not, but we just don’t like the implications. I sure as hell don’t want to think about it right now, especially after what happened back in the apartment before I left.
Pops walks back into the back room, and we follow in silence, side by side. Emily is tense, so I whisper, “are you okay?” She takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze, but she quickly lets go.
I’m worried that I might’ve pushed her away, that I might lose her.
“As I was trying to say,” Pops calls out as he opens the back door, “we’re getting ready to…”
The door swings open, and he’s interrupted again. Derek, Carter, and Jessica are waiting for us right outside. She pushes past Pops, grabs my arm, and pulls me along.