Chapter 2

Hello my darling Otherbeasts! I hope the week starts off with a bang for you!

CHAPTER 2

      My head snaps up to look for her. She's stopped walking and is now standing at the opposite end of the kitchen staring at me. Although still plenty young in years but middle-aged, her shoulders are permanently tensed and shrugged forward as if trying to keep this world's pain at bay, hunched as if she's been trying to shut out the world for decades, or perhaps slumped by carrying the weight of the world for at least that long. Her hair, sandy brown at the roots but languidly blonde all the way to the tops of her heavy shoulders, falls limply around her round face. She looks tired but then again she's always looked tired, always looks as if she's exhausted by just merely existing, which is perhaps why her footsteps are so heavy and slow; she's not living her life, she's trying to survive it. Her tired eyes are the color of milk chocolate and I watch her scanning and studying my face before her piercing gaze trains on my own cinnamon colored eyes and locks there. We stay that way for a few moments with silent regard, never breaking eye contact like two predators vigilantly observing the other for the first sign of weakness before she decides to speak, “Where did Joey go?”

     I hesitate. “To pick up some stuff for Diana so she would be okay for the next few days.”

     “When will he be back?”

     “I don't know,” I respond stiffly.

     Anger creases her brow as she spits the words at me, “Well, I don't know why he and you can't just stay here. It's safer.”

     I consider her for a moment. “Josephine,” I start. My mind is reeling at a thousand words a second and I try to keep my anger from breaking though the very worn dam I've built and that she's eroded over time, “You know that we can't stay. It's not an option. We've had this planned for four years and you know that it isn't safer here than anywhere else.”

     “Then it if isn't safer than anywhere else, then why go anywhere else? You just admitted that your chances aren't any different if you leave,” she rebuttals.

     I hate it when she starts putting words in my mouth that I didn't say. The cracks in the dam are leaking now but I manage a different response and state very flatly, “Our chances are better outside of the city than inside of it.”

     She stares at me if I've just announced that I'm going to pull a sword out of a stone. Her face uncreases and she looks away, obviously given up on talking to me, “Whatever, Stacey, I don't know how you plan on getting out of the city but it sounds like you have it all under control.” She begins to walk away into the living room and down the hall to her room. She waves her hand in the air indifferently as if she's swatting at a gnat, “Whatever.”

       My blood is boiling under my skin and I feel it flushing pink. I close my eyes and try to feel the tile under my my feet as I concentrate on pulling air into my lungs and then pushing it back out slowly. I can hear the blood roaring through my ears but through it I hear the grumble of an engine and high pitched squeals from an old chassis protesting under the stress of making a turn. I whirl around to look out the window. The familiar truck is lurching into the driveway and coming to a stop. Joey!

     He steps out of the truck and reaches across the cab to grab something. I would run outside to help him and take him into my arms and give him the biggest bear hug he's ever had but he told me that for my own safety not to leave the house just in case the civilian militia group that prowls this neighborhood is out and decides that I'm easy pickings. The patrol in this neighborhood is mostly comprised of the people that live here, wanting to ensure safety of their property and their loved ones from any outside would-be attackers, and since Joey has lived here since he was six they all know and recognize him. Unfortunately for me, four years hasn't made an imprint on these people and so I would be seen as a potential threat and eliminated or else tortured severely. These people used to be kind and neighborly but when something like what's happened happens they turn into savage animals; their real humanity comes out, and it's eliminate or be eliminated. I don't blame them. They think what they're doing is right, but only because they've been brainwashed into thinking that way, they don't know that there's another option. They're trying to protect their lives against the people like what Joey and I are going to become very soon.

     I watch Joey haul the huge backpack out of the truck and sling it over his shoulder, quietly closing the truck door behind him and leaning into it with his hip to ensure it closes all the way. He shifts the backpack's weight and walks to the backyard patio and to the back door. I hear him fumbling with the keys until the latch clicks and the door swings open. It shuts behind him softly and I hear him ensuring that it's locked. All he has to do is come through the door from the laundry room to the breakfast nook. I grab the 1911 off the kitchen counter, grab the magazine and shove it into the gun. Click. I check the safety. Off. I pull back to see that a round is chambered. Loaded. I walk silently just the few steps needed to cross the kitchen, turn the corner, position myself about ten feet away.    
     My breathing and my heartbeat slows and focuses into a sharp clarity. An icy calmness steals over me and I hear Joey setting the backpack down, tucking away his keys, and checking his concealed firearms. Every part of me is held in careful suspension, the only thing I allow to move are my eyes to look at the doorknob and calculate the height from hip level to heart level. My eyes find the sweet spot on the door, I sweep the the 1911 gently into my vision so I'm looking down the sights of the gun at the crucial invisible target on the door that means life or death, I place my finger on the trigger and aim.

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Until Next Time,

<3 Shade