AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughs. “No. I’ve been fighting for my life for the last few days and I don’t have a brush. That makes for a messy combination.”
“Well, I don’t have a brush, but I might be able to help you with something. Stay here.” I wade over to the bank and grab a bottle from the little pile of supplies I left there, then return to her. “I’d say. Tilt your head back.”
She does as I ask until she’s lying with her back against the rock and her head in my lap. I dip her hair in the water. There’s more dirt and grime in it than I realized, but I do my best to get as much of it out as I can. She rests her elbows on the large rock behind her and looks up at me, watching while I work. I try to not get lost in the curious amber eyes looking up at me. Not that she has much else to look at right now.
My fingers snag on a chain around her neck. Pulling gently, I follow it down to a compass resting over her chest. I’ve seen her fidgeting with it since the day we took her, but I feel it’s more than an accessory. “What’s this?”
“A compass.”
I chuckle. “I know that, Em.”
She sighs. “It was my dad’s. We went camping a lot when I was growing up, so he took it everywhere. Then I took it off of him after he became a rotter. Didn’t think he’d be needing it anymore.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry you had to go through hard times, too, William.”
We remain in silence, sitting in the water while I do my best to untangle the knots in her hair. Still, I want to know more about her. There has to be more than the sad stories she’s shared about her current life. “So what’s your story?”
“Mine?”
“Who were you before the apocalypse?”
Her question catches me off guard. This isn’t a normal topic of conversation anymore. Nobody we’ve ever run into has cared about something like that. All anyone cares about now is do you have any food, and are you alive or rotting? “I was a software engineer. Computers were my life, day in and day out. Thought it would be the job to set me up for life. Turns out there’s not much use for a computer guy nowadays. Go figure.”
“Have to say I agree with you. No use for a computer guy in this day and age.” Her words make me pause, but then I’m surprised at what she says next. “Too bad you’re wrong.”
Curious, I meet her gaze. “How so?”
“You have skills that are used all the time. After you kidding me? I haven’t been here for very long and even I’ve noticed it.”
“Please, enlighten me.” I tug her hair playfully.
She holds her hands in the air and counts on her fingers. “Problem solving, systematic thinking and planning, resource management—which I saw you doing and I’m pretty sure we’d be out of food if it weren’t for you. Adaptability—hello, what’s more urgent to adapt to than the end of the world? Teamwork and communication—you’re the least of an asshole here. Critical thinking—if we’re ever in a position where we need a computer guy, boom, there you are. Not to mention?—”
“Okay, I see your point.” Heat rises up my neck and I don’t know how I’ll react if she keeps going on. I haven’t felt this seen in…well, I haven’t been counting the days like Griffin has, but it’s been a really long time. These are things I never considered, skills I didn’t realize I have, let alone use. I guess my job in my previous life set me up for the apocalypse better than I thought.
“Oh please, I’m just getting started.”
“You think you can turn any bad thing into a good thing?”
“Try me.”
“Before the dead rose, my hobby was music. I played guitar and harmonica. I still have the harmonica, but I can’t play it.”
“Why can’t you play it?”
I raise an eyebrow at her genuine confusion. “Music attracts rotters. Well, being too loud does. Even talking like this, there are probably dead dragging their corpses our way right now.”
“Doesn’t mean you should stop. It’s the best way to attract them all to one location, freeing up other areas for you to get to.”
“That’s what you were doing when we found you. We thought you were insane.”
She laughs. “I mean, don’t write that off yet. We’re barely getting to know each other.”
“Good point. So what about you?”
“What do you mean, what about me? I’m not done fluffing your ego.” She smiles wide and I let out a laugh and get back to washing her hair. This time, I squirt some of the shampoo into my palm first. It smells like strawberries.
