I take the shirt from the hanger and put it on. For a brief second, I feel his hands on me, but it’s only in my head. I wipe my eyes with his sleeve. After a moment, I walk over to the bed and lie down. The phone feels warm against my cheek.
It’s been a long day, and an even longer week, and I don’t realize how exhausted I am until my body rests on the mattress that feels as safe as my own. Sam tells me I can stay in his room as long as I need. I don’t even have to say much. I just stay on the phone, listening, and feel him there on the line with me. After a moment, almost out of the blue, Sam says, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I ask him.
“For all of this.”
At first, I still don’t know what he is apologizing for. But then I realize what he meant. At least, I think so.
“Me, too,” I whisper.
Sam stays with me on the phone for the rest of the night and we talk until I fall asleep. Just like we’ve done a thousand times before.
CHAPTER THREE
BEFORE
It’s too dark to see anything. A hand moves across my face and pulls a string, illuminating the desk lamp on the floor between us. White sheets hang down from the ceiling light in Sam’s bedroom as we lay on the carpet with pillows stacked around us like walls. We are hiding in the fort he built with his little brother, James. Sam reaches over and moves my hair out of my face to see me better. He’s wearing his favorite royal-blue tank, the one that shows his shoulders and brings out his summer tan skin. He whispers, “We can do something else if you’re bored.”
James pokes his head in through the opening of the sheets with a flashlight. “I heard that.”
Sam drops his head, groaning. “We’ve been in here for two hours.”
“You promised to hang out tonight,” James says. He just turned eight years old. “I thought you guys were having fun.”
“We are,” I assure him, and give Sam a nudge on the arm. “Sam, relax.”
“Yeah, Sam. Relax,” James repeats.
“Alright. Another hour.”
I look up nervously at the ceiling lamp that’s holding the weight of the sheets, and glance around the fort. It looks like it could fall apart at any moment. “Are you sure it’s safe in here?”
“Don’t worry,” Sam says with a laugh. “We’ve done this a million times. Right, James?”
“Nobody’s safe out here in the wastelands,” James says in his creepy voice.
“That’s right,” Sam says to play along. He looks at me. “We should really be worried about what’s out there. Better cuddle up, and keep each other safe,” he whispers playfully. He leans in and kisses me on the cheek.
James winces. “Ew. Not in the fort!”
“It was just the cheek!”
I break out with laughter, then go quiet again. “Do you hear that?” I pause to listen. “I hear rain.”
“Acid rain,” James corrects me.
I look at Sam and sigh. “I’m gonna have to walk home in that.”
“Or you can stay the night,” he says through a smirk.
“Sam.”
James points the flashlight at our faces. “Mom says to tell her if Julie ever stays past midnight.”
“You would do that to me?” Sam asks, looking hurt. “My own brother?”
“She said she’d give me ten dollars.”
“So you’re taking bribes now, eh,” Sam says. “What if I gave you fifteen?”
“Mom said you’d make an offer. She says she’s willing to match anything, plus tickets to the Rockets game.”
Sam and I look at each other. He shrugs. “She’s good.”
“Let’s focus,” James says, looking out through the opening of the fort for signs of trespassers. “We need to figure out what the aliens have done with the others they kidnapped.”
“I thought we were hiding from the zombie apocalypse,” Sam says.
“… That the aliens started. Duh,” James says, rolling his eyes. He repositions his arms, holding the flashlight like a light saber. “We need to hurry and get the ingredients for the antidote. We can’t lose any more men.” Behind us lays the body of Mr. Bear wrapped inside a pillowcase. Together, we had to make the hard decision of putting him down before the virus spread to the rest of us.
“Oh. You mean—this antidote?” Sam holds up a glass vial that looks a lot like his bottle of cologne.
James lowers his light saber slowly. His voice darkens. “You’ve had that all along … while one of our men was infected?”