Painted Red Read online

  “I know,” Doc says letting out a long sigh. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

  I want to say no. I need to lock my door and scream all my demons away. I want to be alone more than anything. But something else makes me say, “Yeah, I’d like to.”

  Doc does a double-take then smiles. “I’ll meet you down there,” he says gripping my shoulder. “Sorry for slapping you.”

  “Don’t apologize.” I throw the covers off of me. “It was an alarm clock to me.”

  Doc laughs while shaking his head all the way out of the room. Hunter climbs on the bed stretching his back legs while grunting. He curls up in a ball where I was laying and pushes his head under the covers.

  “Eggs and biscuits this morning,” I ask him throwing a shirt on. His tail thumps against the bed. “I’ll bring you up a plate.”

  The house doesn’t speak. After I killed that girl, I think I crushed everyone’s hopeful outlook—although I prefer to call it their ignorant bliss.

  Doc sits by himself at the middle of one of the picnic tables. I grab two plates of food and sit across from him. I eat in silence as he sips down some mint leaves in hot water. I devour half of my food before he gets a word out.

  “What made you come eat breakfast this morning?” he says from the other side of his mug.

  I shrug my shoulders and gulp down some water. “I didn’t want to, but I said yes anyway.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s a start.” Doc takes a long sip from his mug.

  “So,” I say. I think my body is trying to strike up a conversation, but it gets stuck somewhere in my throat. I swallow down the rest of my water to smother the awkwardness.

  “You’re technique of putting that fence in was flawless,” he says placing his mug onto the wooden table. “It’s already up and done. There’s talks of going on another run to town to get more materials.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” he responds.

  “I can go with,” I blurt out. Doc raises an eyebrow and looks me up and down. “I’d want to grab a couple extra tools if I could find them.”

  “Nikia wants you to stay back. She’s worried about your emotional state—”

  “I’m fine—”

  “Xavier,” Doc starts, but lets out a sigh instead.

  “I dig a grave for some girl I shot, and now I’m emotionally unstable,” I say shoveling another forkful of food into my mouth. “Fucking brilliant.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “I know it is, Doc. I know it seems like I’m not ok. If things ever get better, I’ll probably need years of counseling or jail time for the things I’ve done, but right now, I’m as stable as I’ll ever be—”

  “You see where that concerns me, right?” he says leaning further over the table. “You’re a phenomenal hunter, Xavier. I don’t think I’ve heard of you ever missing a shot. On that hand, you’re an amazing asset. But on the other, you’re a ticking time bomb. You’ve got way too much going on upstairs—”

  “I’m dealing in my own way—”

  “Hayley.”

  I flinch, and my skin breaks out in goosebumps.

  “You see that? Feel it? That is not a healthy reaction. I can tell it’s her voice you’ve been talking to.”

  I feel heat rise to my face. How long have my private conversations been overheard? How many times has someone made the secret diagnosis of me being insane? I grab my plates and head out of the dining room. “Xavier!” Doc’s voice calls from behind me. “Wait—”

  “No,” I say stopping in the doorway. I turn my head over my shoulder but keep my eyes on the floor. “Clearly you’ve got me figured out. I’m nutty, a basket case, insane, a time bomb—I fucking get it. You don’t want my help, fine.”

  I can feel the nauseating pain in my chest again. It makes my head spin until I feel like I’m falling. I continue my quick pace up the stairs with Doc calling after me all the while. I throw open my door and close it behind me. Hunter crawls out of bed stretching his muscles along the way.

  “I’m dealing.”

  You’re damaged is more like it, Xavier.

  “We all are, Hayley,” I respond. “Why do you think no one came out this morning? It was because I killed that girl in front of everyone.”

  They’re having normal reactions to it. You’re running to your room and talking to a girl that isn’t even here.

  Hunter slurps up the eggs and potatoes from the plate and then heads back to the bed. “But I can’t let you go Hayles. If I can’t have you here, and I can’t talk to you—it’ll be like you’re not real. Like you never existed.”

  Not if you let your past in.

  You’ve got to let us back in, Xavier.

  “Xavier?” a voice calls from the other side of the door. “Are you ok?”

  Tell her the truth, Xavier.

  I push myself from the ground and grip the knob with my sweaty hand. The door opens to Nikia’s furrowed brow. “I—” I start. My mouth is dry. I feel the wall start crumbling in my head. My muscles tense.

  Let them back in, Xavier.

  “I need help.”

  Freedom

  Two Years Later

  The Dentist: December, 2014

  I sit against the white guest house where Doc usually holds my sessions. My body aches—trying to keep myself together for the past two years is hitting me all at once.

  Xavier.

  I close my eyes and let the tears fall. Her voice is distant now. It barely sounds like an echo.

  “Xavier,” Doc’s voice calls from the real world. “Back again?”

  A long sigh escapes my lips, and I nod my head. He smiles and holds out a hand to help me from the ground. I take it and pull myself to my feet. “I’ve got a lot going on in my head today. Just need it to get out.”

  “Ok,” he says removing his keys from his pocket. He twirls them in his hands and then pockets them again. “I was a dentist before this all happened Xavier. I’m no shrink. I won’t be able to make everything disappear.”

  I nod my head and look down at his hand in his pocket.

  “Why don’t we go for a walk today? It’s nice enough.” He takes the lead without me giving an answer.

  The first few seconds are silent. I keep my eyes on the tree line while we lap around the property.

  “Two years yesterday,” he says in a low whisper.

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve been here two years as of yesterday,” he responds. “Who would’ve guessed the man who walked through our front doors then would still be here today.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Not me. That’s for damn sure.”

  “Are you happy you did?”

  I contemplate Doc’s question while shoving my hands into my pockets. “I wouldn’t say I’m happy. Content, indifferent, depressed, alone—”

  “Why would you say alone?”

  “Because I am,” I respond. “Hayley and Aisley are the only people I care about. And they’re not here. Until that day comes when I can be with them again, I’ll always be alone.”

  “Hmm,” Doc answers. He looks down at his shoes while we walk past the playground. It’s quiet this morning. The kids typically don’t come out until noon on most days. I’m sure breakfast is just getting served in the kitchen.

  “Did I ever tell you how I got here?” Doc says through the silence.

  “No.”

  “After Nikia found the place, she found me,” he says pointing to the woods. “I was being pursued by a group of gang members right through those tree lines. She killed two of them with booby traps that I somehow missed.”

  I nod my head and swallow past dry mouth.

  “She was sick, didn’t want to admit that she was dying. But I knew that she was seriously ill. I’d seen type one diabetes before. I vaguely knew the symptoms.

  I begged her to let me help her, but she refused. She had been thrown out of the fort a month or so before that point. She wasn’t all there really�
�kinda like you.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “I think I’ve got a little more crazy under my belt. No offense to her, but I don’t think she completely fell apart and rebuilt herself alone.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Doc says. We walk for a couple paces starting our second lap of the property. “She used to talk to me back then. Much like you’re doing right now. You want to know what her biggest concern was about the new world we lived in?”

  “What? Being alone?”

  “Death,” he says. “She was afraid of dying.” We walk a couple paces while that sinks in.

  “That doesn’t make sense—”

  “Think about it—she had lost her girlfriend in that mess of a place we call a fort. But she wasn’t done. That wasn’t what was going to end her.

  She had no clue how to survive without her other half. But she still wanted to.” We wrap back around the property and stop outside of Doc’s office. He reaches for his keys and inserts them into the door.

  “Yeah, well, she’s not me.”

  “You know, you’ve been here two years, and I know nothing about you,” he continues. “Maybe if I knew more about where you’re coming from, I could debate the topic with you better.”

  “Hayley is my best friend,” I blurt out. “Once shit hit the fan, we were each others sanity throughout all the mess. I stole a ring from Walmart to tell her that I would always be the person to protect her. I love her.”

  I clear my throat and watch my feet shuffle through the short grass. “She was stabbed by a group of cannibals I managed to piss off. Her skin was ice—even in the winter air, she still felt cold.

  We were planning on leaving for the fort that morning. The hotel we were hiding out in got raided by those monsters. They were going to eat us. So I just—I turned off.

  Somehow I made it to the fort’s front door. They took her from me. I don’t even know if she’s ok.”

  “The fort is a mystery to most of us,” Doc responds. “But they take care of the people going in there. Nikia was on death’s doorstep when her and her girlfriend made it to the fort. Her disease had been going unmanaged for quite some time.

  The fort took them in. They cared for her, she got better and then, they found out she was dating the girl who came in with her—”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Apparently, the fort has only been taking orphans, young adults or people with broken families,” Doc says. “Anyonedifferent is denied.”

  I frown and try to crush the sound of Aisley’s screaming from my head. “All they said was ‘just her. Maybe because she was dying—”

  “I’m not sure Xavier,” Doc responds. He looks off towards the playground where three kids run up the slide and fill the yard with laughter. “I don’t know much of anything going on in the fort’s walls. But this here—what we have—is as good as it’s going to get.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” I say watching the kids play. “I hope everything goes back to normal. I’m tired of having to wash people’s blood off my hands. I’m tired of feeling like I’m always looking over my shoulder. I’m just—tired.”

  “Xavier,” Doc says squeezing my shoulder. “You don’t have to feel like that here. We’re safe—you’re safe—”

  “Safety is an illusion,” I respond shrugging his hand from my shoulder. “I’m not that naive to think this place is untouchable.

  My one reason for surviving was to protect Aisley and Hayley. To keep them out of harm’s way. What am I supposed to do now that the fort has them?”

  “Find new reasons,” he responds. “Try and teach people about your past and keep moving forward.”

  “I just don’t see the point anymore,” I respond. “I got Hayley and Aisley out of this hellhole of a world. I mean—that was my ultimate goal. I didn’t want them to be the next body that I buried.”

  “We all have a survival instinct somewhere inside of ourselves,” he responds folding his hands behind him. “Whether it’s a raging fire or a dull ember—it’s there.”

  I look out at the forest and into the sea of green. I can feel something looking at me from out there. Something sinister. Something that won’t sit back much longer and wait. This world will either keep turning or we’ll all burn to dust in the end.

  “Right,” I say.

  Quell The Voices: Spring, 2015

  Xavier, please don’t do this to us.

  Please! We’re still alive if you just listen.

  I wake up from another cold sweat and hug my knees into my chest. Hunter licks my face and whines. They haven’t let me sleep through a night in the past week.

  “Stop it, please.”

  You promised you wouldn’t forget.

  You said it!

  I grab at the sides of my head and back myself into the small space between my nightstand and the wall. “Stop, stop, stop, stop,” I say, squeezing my knees tighter.

  “Xavier?”

  Why won’t you talk to me?

  Don’t you care about us?

  I tap my head against the wall to numb their voices.

  “Xavier?” the voice says again. “Are you all right? I can hear you in there.”

  Go ahead and tell them. Tell them who you’re talking to all the time. Tell them!

  I can’t keep listening to them. Doc was right. If I keep talking to them, I’ll be tearing myself into two pieces. If I keep them the way they are right now, it’s like I never lost them. It’s easier, for sure. I can listen to Hayley like she’s with me, and Aisley is just next door watching cartoons on the television. Like I’m holding them both in my arms in the hotel pretending for just a moment that cannibals weren’t hunting us.

  Xavier.

  Xavier.

  But I can’t. I need to let go. I need to mourn losing them. Sometimes in order to remember who you are and what you’ve gone through, you have to stop taking the easy way through things. Even if it means being alone.

  The door bursts open. Two stumbles into the darkness with his hands outstretched. “Xavier?”

  They’re here now, Xavier. Tell them who you’ve been talking to.

  If you forget us, do you even know who you are?

  “Stop it, please.” Tapping my head turns into banging.

  “Xavier,” Two says reaching a hand out. “You good, man?”

  His hand squeezes my shoulder pulling myself away from their voices. A wave of relief washes over me in an instant. It takes all my strength to stand. “I need to get out.”

  “Let’s go then,” he says holding out a hand.

  We’re outside in the cool the spring air in an instant. The crickets chirp hidden in the blades of grass under moonlight. It’s so simple. Like I wanted years ago.

  “You’re talking to them.”

  It wasn’t a question. His voice is flat, like he’s done this before too. “I can’t remember how they sounded.” My voice cracks when it escapes my throat. “It’s what I’m afraid to lose. My memory of them.”

  “Memories don’t fade.” Two steps up on my left and kicks pebbles into the fence. “We change them over time. It sucks because the best part of a memory is that it’s yours. Nothing that happens can take it away from you.”

  “I still go to the fort.” The secret that I’d been keeping since coming here rolls off my tongue like water.

  “I know,” he says. “I still follow you to make sure, in your current state, nothing gets to you.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause despite everything you’ve done to try and keep us at an arm’s distance,” he says adjusting his baseball cap. “I still consider you a friend.”

  I nod. At least there’s a chance that some people in the house consider me useful.

  “You’re family,” he starts, but clears his throat instead.

  “Listen, I know I’m falling apart. I’m trying to get past the fact that Doc and Nikia were right. I can’t bottle things up. I want to get my family back.
I want these god damn nightmares to stop. Their voices—they keep me in a constant frenzy.

  I’m doing this to myself. I know this now. But I also know that my best chance at survival is here. I’ve gotta still be me somewhere underneath everything. Right?”

  “Yeah man,” Two says folding his arms over his chest. “You’re a good guy. Much better than One and I. I know that Nikia has been keeping you on lockdown, but there’s a brief time during the week where she’s out on runs. You can sneak out then and do whatever you want for a couple of hours.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I know what it’s like—what you’re going through,” he responds. “Different circumstances and backstory, but I get it.” He pats me on the back once before disappearing back into the house.

  Hayley and Aisley don’t reject anything that we said. The silence is beautiful.

  In The Dark: Summer, 2015

  Hunter and I walk through the forest in silence. He stalks another turkey in front of me. I draw my bow and take aim. I hear a low grunt and then see the turkey jump just above the grass.

  My arrow releases and strikes the bird between its breasts. It crashes to the ground. “Atta boy Hunter,” I call out. He barks and pounces on the bird several times until I reach him.

  “Got something?” Nikia’s voice calls out.

  I cringe. I didn’t want anyone out here with me while I was hunting.

  “You really think I’d let you out alone? There’s a better chance of hell freezing over.”

  “I asked Doc if I could hunt alone today because I hunt better by myself,” I respond latching my turkey to my backpack.

  “You also have been getting counseling from Doc,” she says pushing herself over a fallen tree trunk. “That negates all agreements of being alone. Especially those involving weapons—”

  “Don’t you think if I wanted to off myself, I would’ve done it already?” I respond walking toward her. “Besides, do you have any idea how hard it is to kill yourself with a bow and arrow?”

  She lets out a sigh as I pass her. I hear her feet crunch through the dead leaves behind me followed by Hunter’s panting. “How are you doing today?”