Year : 309 AM (Anno Mortuus, Year of the Dead)
Place : Westmill Town
This was bad. The blood was starting to seep through the rag, and the smell of fresh blood meant zombies would be coming to her like moths to a flame. Hick pulled the fabric tighter around the gash on her forearm and continued with light footsteps down to the run-down pharmacy.
Please, please, please let there be supplies , she prayed. She searched through the shelves. Empty. The cabinets. Empty. Of course the whole place has been thoroughly ransacked – like every other shop in this desolate town.
Hick walked right up to the transparent roller shutters to the shop's right and peered through. Beyond the impregnable plastic fortress were shelves and shelves of medical supplies. The cracks and fissures etched across the shutters suggested several unsuccessful attempts at forcefully breaking into the storeroom. She grabbed hold of the latch with her one good arm and tried to pull the shutter up, but of course it was locked tight.
Out of habit, she looked over her shoulder and surveyed her surroundings. No sign of zombies approaching so far.
She still had time. One look and she could tell the shutter had the classic wafer lock. All it needed was a ball pick to have the thing unlock. Good thing she carried her lock-picking kit in her haversack wherever she went. With just a few prods and turns, the lock clicked open and Hick grinned.
"Who's the genius? I'm the genius. Who's the genius? Hick's the genius," she guffawed, tossing her lock-picking kit into her haversack. And the security alarm rang.
"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck – " she quickly slipped into the pharmaceutical storage and made a grab for the medical supplies she needed. Fate just had to go and rain on her fucking parade.
The siren was deafening, and each second the loud urgent wails persisted, the more vivid Hick could picture the army zombies that would soon arrive. She had to move fast now or every single flesh-eating corpse in town would be chowing on her to the very bone.
Soon enough, the streets outside were starting to fill with the echoes of grunting, approaching zombies. Hick poked her head out through the back door. The back street was – thankfully – sparsely occupied with your run-off-the-mill, slow-footed, flesh-eating zombies. Their dimwitted ambling on thin rotting legs evoked such a lackadaisical attitude, one could almost always underestimate their cold iron-grip strength and sharp snapping jaws. "Thank goodness they're slow dumbasses," Hick muttered under her breath.
With the dexterity she had honed over her years of fleeing death, she made a quick zip down the street to a mansion with tall, spiked fences and leaped over its relatively short back gate. She usually would have landed neatly on her feet had it not been for the still-healing bullet wounds on her left thigh (a story we will have to leave to tell later) and the fact that she had survived three whole days on a small packet of crackers. Shoulder blade met with concrete and she had to bite down on her lips to suppress the urge to scream.
She looked at her watch. She still had to hang on for sixteen whole. "Leo better make sure his bright idea work," she grumbled. The moans and groans from the zombies finally petered out into reassuring silence and Hick picked herself up from the ground. The garden she intruded upon included a mansion, and that mansion stood tall and sturdy, towering over her petite frame. All the windows and doors were well barricaded with solid wooden planks. She couldn't smash through the windows with her right forearm so badly busted, and even if she could, the commotion would only alert zombies to her location. She shuddered at the thought of it. That would just be an instant recipe for disaster.
Hick unwrapped the now blood-soaked rag from her arm and winced. If she didn't stitch that up now, it'd be infected as hell. So she laid out the items she got so far: the bottle of peroxide she got from the pharmacy, some fishing wire, a roll of rags and the smallest needle she had which was actually pretty much on the huge side for surgical suturing. Yep, the darn needle was going to make the whole experience hurt so bad.
As soon as peroxide liquid met with raw flesh and throbbing sinew, a burning searing pain came fast and sharp, leaving Hick to writhe in agony on the ground until the pain subsided to a more tolerable level.
She had to bound and gag her mouth with something. The next step was going to be even more painful. After a moment of fumbling about in her backpack, she retrieved the one and only spare shirt she had. "Can't trust myself to not scream here," and she proceeded to cram the shirt fabric into her mouth. With stark determination, she stuck the needle through her flesh and began to suture her wound shut with the first stitch. Each stab through the swollen, infected skin around the gaping wound was pure torture. It didn't help that the tiny rough grooves on the braided fishing wire made itchy, painful friction against freshly puncture flesh.
Blood was starting to pour out profusely at the pain, making the needle slippery with blood. Steady now… Steady… Don't lose hold… Hick furrowed her brows in stark concentration.
Eight years ago…
Year : 301 AM (Anno Morduus, Year of the Dead)
Place : Sector Olympus, Division 13
Got it! An eight-year-old Hick quietly celebrated, her hands clasped together to imprison the little thing sitting motionless and unblinking on the soft flesh of her left palm. She wriggled off her tummy to her knees, careful not to let any cracks between her palms and fingers show.
"You ready, Nico? She may be a bit heavy," she heard her mom's voice, and looked over her shoulder. True enough, there was Stefanie Valkyrie in the pale blue uniform she spotted every day – those were the clothes that veterinarians wore, or what Hick knew then as 'animal helpers'. The gossipy ladies with the green hairnets from the farm factory just down the road often remarked that the resemblance Hick shared with her mother was uncanny, but Hick knew better. Her mom was a beauty, with voluminous locks that cascaded down her shoulder. Hick's own head was an unkempt bundle of mess, like tangled up yarn string that's been pawed and mauled and chewed right through by ruthless kittens. She was nothing like the tall, beautiful lady standing in their backyard. Upon close inspection, the tall, beautiful lady was cradling in her arms what looked like a crumpled up heap of Hick's quilt.
The unmistakable coos and babbles of a baby could be heard from where Hick stood at – the edge of a meandering stream. Stefanie slowly passed the bundled up little thing into the eager arms of an excitable eight-year-old Nico. "Isn't she pretty?"
The little boy smiled in fascination at the tiny baby he held carefully in his arms.
"What's her name?" Nico asked. Hick ran over and peered over her stepbrother's shoulder, their faces smooshed cheek-to-cheek. She gasped, "Why hello! Hello, baby!"
"Hey! Don't push!" Nico exclaimed.
"I wasn't!"
"Mom!"
"She's adorable isn't she? Her name's Hazel," Stef chuckled, ruffling the two little heads that were eagerly bending over the babbling tot.
"Hello, Hazel!" Nico greeted. Hick stared down at the baby, mouth agape in fascination at this alien morsel of brown flesh. A moment of silence passed as all eyes stayed fixated on the baby. The baby stared back, mirroring their entranced expressions. Hick was the first to grow bored, "Whatttt… So that's it? She's not doing anything. She's just lying there. Where's daddy? Daddy!"
Hick ran to the front of the house and kicked off her mud-crusted sneakers at the shoe rug. Her hand still clasped into a ball, she pushes the door handle down with her elbows and enters the house.
The hallway was dark and silent. Hick took a step in and the floorboard creaked. The creature trapped within her hands hadn't moved a single inch on her palm. Hick uncurled her fingers to reveal a tiny dwarf green tree frog, otherwise known as a Litoria Fallax. As gently as she could, she sandwiched the little amphibian between her fingers and gingerly placed it at the tip of her left index finger. She liked this particular frog now. It looked so unafraid despite its teeny tiny size, and was obediently still. Its red eyes shifted to return Hick's stare, and it adjusted its tiny webbed feet so that is clung comfortably to the fingertip it was perched on.
Hick tore her gaze away from the creature and started advancing down the hallway. "Daaaah-deeee," she called out softly. "Daaaah-deeee… Daaaah – "
Hades stepped out of the kitchen and eyed the culprit behind the freaky calling. A look of relief replaced his alarmed expression. "Oh, it's just you! Sweetie, I told you already, you don't need to use your indoor voice anymore. It freaks the bejeezus out – "
"Daddy, look!" she held up her finger in the air. The frog looked up at Hades.
Hades froze. "Oh no. Oh no, sweetie, you've got to get that thing out of here before – "
"Hey, dad!" came Bianca's voice from the kitchen. "I think we can make French toasts for dinner! The deadline for the eggs and – "
Time stopped as both girl and frog lock eyes. Hick stared at Bianca's face of shock, and looked up at Hades' face of dread. Did I do something wr -
Frog croaked. All hell broke loose.
"No jam tonight?" Hick asked meekly as she peeked over the kitchen counter and stared up at Hades. It was dinner time and her dad was handing out the meal for the evening –some crummy lettuce leaves, a slice of apple and two slices of French toast with a small glob of apple jam. Well, excluding the jam for Hick.
Hades shifted stern violet eyes to meet Hick's sad violet ones and his resolve started to melt. "You… I… it wasn't..." he sputtered. A French toast slipped off his spatula.
"It's okay, I understand," and his little girl slipped her plate off the counter. He watched as she headed for the backyard. The pot of jam was sitting on the kitchen countertop, right in front of him. He stared at it long and hard.
"Don't even think about," Stef remarked, wiping her greasy hands clean on her apron.
He looked to his wife, who was shooting him a warning stare. "What?"
"No jam for her, we agreed on that. Hick's got to learn, and you can't be so soft-hearted all the time."
Oh, so she was going to dig up the past, is she? Hades folded his arms and scowled at the lady. "You're one to talk," he grumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"That kid you brought back without even consulting me?"
"She's a baby, Hades. An abandoned baby, in a cardboard box without any blankets or clothes, and she was shivering and crying from the cold. I mean, who does that? And how am I suppose to leave her alone when she's left right at my clinic's doorstep?"
Hades furrowed his brows in concentration. It was a facial habit Hick had picked up from him, a sign of being in deep thought. He looked up at his wife. "We can't save them all, Stef. I understood and was fine with it when you brought Bianca and Nico in. But this time, we're really stretching it."
"So what now? You propose I leave Hazel to die?"
"Hey! That's not fair! You know that's not what I meant! It's just that adding one more mouth to feed is really putting a strain on our supplies… and you gave it a name already?"
Stef sighed and looked to the backdoor that was left ajar. There was sweet, responsible Bianca, sitting at the porch, rocking Hazel to sleep in a hammock. She turned to meet Hades square in the eye. "Hazel is a 'she', not an 'it'," she replied, walking over to the sink. She picked up the sponge and began scrubbing at the bits of egg that clung stubbornly to the wok. "Look, I know times are hard here in Division 13 and you've got a lot going on being delegated this area to oversee. But can't you just talk to your brothers? Ask for a shift, rule over a safer division?"
"And who will take over Division 13? You know Zeus and Don. None of them will willingly exchange their domains with me, no matter what I offer," Hades said. He moves the stray hairs out of his wife's eyes and handed her scrub brush. "Here, try this."
She heaves a tired sigh and takes the brush. "Thanks. Anyway, the defense borders here are weak and food supply is terribly scarce. Don't even get me started on the medical supplies at the clinics. It's just… It's not fair that you always take on the harsher responsibilities while your stinking brothers enjoy life in the affluent settlements uphill. Sooner or later, you'll have to say something."
Unbeknownst to the two distressed adults, little Nico had brought his dinner plate up to the family tree-house, despite Stef emphasizing several times that the hideout was a no-food-and-drinks zone. "There are tons of ants crawling up and down that wretched tree as it is," she would say. The sky was getting darker and fireflies were starting to emerge just above the tall grass by the river. Nico pulled out his night vision binoculars to locate Hick. There she was, at the foot of tree and the edge of the stream. According to the protocol he had established, Hick had on the firefly catching gear (which really just consists of a yellow rugby helmet, a catching net and a haversack of empty glass jars).
Hick heard her walkie-talkie cackle to life. Out came Nico's obnoxious voice. "The fireflies are out! Enforce code blue! Do you copy? Enforce code blue! Hawkeye out."
As soon as the message was over, Hick pressed her lips to her walkie-talkie and clicked the green button on the side. "Hawkeye my butt! It's not fair you always get to sit up in the tree-house, all comfy and snug while I'm out here catching them bugs! What's the point of you looking out from up there when I can clearly see the fireflies where I'm standing? Your job is useless and I'm doing all the work!"
"Just stick to the plan!"
Hick looked up at the tree-house and stuck her tongue out at the silhouette by the tiny window. The silhouette proceeded to shake an angry fist at her. And with that, she grudgingly embarked on her firefly catching. From her pocket, she retrieves a couple of batteries and quietly heads over to the bush Nico had carefully decorated with a net of LED bulbs. As soon as Hick located the piece of wire connecting to the LEDs, she clips wire to battery and the tiny blue bulbs flickered on. A bright swarm of fireflies, within seconds, had started to hover around the blue glow.
"Code blue protocol accomplished. Now get your peacock butt down here and help me catch the fireflies! Now!" Hick hissed through her walkie-talkie. After a moment of angry silence, a series of buzz and crackles followed by the voice of agent Hawkeye grudgingly came through, "Fine! But I'm not splitting my jam with you next time you get into trouble again!"
Whatever the case, she had managed to fill four whole jars with half a dozen fireflies already. They were the prettiest out of the twelve jars because they were the ones Bianca had painted. It was a Friday afternoon then, and Bianca had found some polyvinyl acetate glue and mixed them with old dried-up poster paint to produce acrylic coloring. The adults had yet to come home from work, and Hick and Nico were getting restless because the TV set had broken down. As soon as they turned to a dangerous game of balancing potted cactus plants on their heads, Bianca knew she had to do something to distract them.
"Hick! Nico! Here, why don't we paint your firefly jars? They'll look real pretty when the fireflies glow within!" Newspapers were set on the bedroom floor and Bianca managed to settle both kids down to diligent painting. The jars with colorful sticky fingerprints were Nico's and those with clumsy ocean waves and simple rabbit silhouettes were Hick's (because of her obsession with the book Stef had her and Nico take turned reading out loud the night before, called 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane'). But the real show stealer were Bianca's jars.
"What's that?" Hick had asked her.
"That, Hick, is called the Eiffel Tower," Bianca placed Hick's finger on the iron lattice tower. "It stands tall in a small part of Atlanticas, which was once called France. And over here is Mount Everest, where Japan is. And those over there are the pyramids of Giza, which used to stand tall in Egypt until The Gray Death virus took over and corpses started to rise."
"Well, you painted them real pretty," Hick sighed as Bianca smiled down on her. She wished she could be half as smart and half as talented as Bianca was. In her eyes, the fourteen year old girl was marvelously clever and accomplished in all areas of talent.
Just then, more buzz and crackles came from her walkie-talkie and she pressed the plastic device to her ear. "Code red! Code red!" came Nico's urgent tone. "A huge fish is approaching! I repeat! A huge fish is approaching! Hawkeye out!"
From a distance, Hick could see a boat slowly making its way down the stream towards her, making faint popping noises from the boiler; it had a navy blue cabin, a lemon yellow body and red hull. From the cabin windows, a yellow glow emitted through. Hick crouched down and squinted at the light from tall grass. It was the glow of an oil lamp, which seemed to be fuelling a diaphragm type engine at the boiler. "It's okay, Nico! It's not a fish, it's a boat!" Hick reported through her walkie-talkie. She stood up and walked towards the edge of the stream, carrying her haversack of firefly jars with her.
Upon close inspection, she could make three boys staring at her from the boat. One of them had curly brown hair and eyes of the same shade, another with equally messy brown hair and an eye patch that covered his left eye, and the third boy who was carefully steering the boat had jet black hair and bright sea green eyes.
"Hello!" she waved from the banks. The boat slowed and came to a stop. From behind, Nico had shimmied down the tree and ran over to Hick's side. "Careful, Hick," he whispered to his sister. "Mom said we aren't suppose to talk to strangers."
"But they don't seem to have adults with them. Maybe they need help?" Hick whispered back.
"Maybe," he agreed, but visibly still apprehensive at the thought of approaching the unfamiliar boys. He clung tight to his sister's arm.
The boy with the curly hair seemed to be gawking at the haversack Hick shouldered. "Your bag is glowing," he said. "What's up with that?"
"Oh, this?" Hick took a jar of fireflies out and held it up for the entranced boys to see. "It's a jar I painted. It has six fireflies inside now! I counted."
Eye-Patch Boy and Green Eyes appeared fascinated, but Curly Boy was not having any of it. "I don't like it," Curly Boy announced. "It's got rabbits painted on it."
It was Hick's turn to be offended now. "What's wrong with rabbits?" she scowled.
"Excuse Grover," Green Eyes interjected, sensing the tension. "He just has leporiphobia, which is an irrational fear of rabbits."
"It's not a 'irrational fear'!" Grover folded his arms, clearly insulted. "Rabbits are big bullies who steal lettuces from defenseless children!"
"Where are you going?" Nico asked, ignoring Grover much to the curly-haired boy's chagrin.
"Yeah, are you lost? Do you need help?" asked Hick.
Footsteps could be heard from behind, and Hick and Nico looked over their shoulder to see Hades and Stef staring at them, hands on their hips. "What – " Stef began.
"Hey!" the three new faces greeted.
"My backyard is full of children," Hades replied through gritted teeth. "Stef, my dear wife, flower of my life, why is my backyard full of other people's children?"
"Hey, I just brought ONE baby back home. I know nothing of these three boys here," Stef frowned.
"We were just passing through," Green Eyes said. "Sorry for trespassing, we'll be on our way."
"Alright then," Nico waved.
"Bye!" Hick joined in the waving.
"At this time of the day?" Stef exclaimed. "Nuh-uh! No way, young man! You are staying with us until daybreak, and telling us where your parents are so we can take you home!"
"No!" All three boys exclaimed.
"No!" Hades echoed the boys, staring at Stef in indignation. Much to his consternation, Stef had rolled her eyes at him. "Honey, you aren't proposing we just let these boys sail along in the dark without adult supervision!" She turned to the nervous trespassers peering out at her from the cabin windows, and then shook her head and clucked her tongue in disapproval. "Come on out now, sailors!" she waved an impatient, beckoning hand at them. "Get out of that boat and come in! Look at your oily faces! We better get you boys cleaned up, and that includes both of you as well," she turned to Hick and Nico, who groaned in unison.
"But the fireflies – " Hick began.
"No more fireflies. That's punishment for bringing your dinner up in the tree-house," said Hades. Hick shot Nico an accusing glare, "I told you they'd notice! We shouldn't have eaten up there!" To which Nico stuck his tongue out.
And Stef marched all five children straight into the house, while Hades carried the boys' boat onto the porch. "Where'd they come from?" Bianca asked, cradling a now sleeping Hazel in her arms. "Hick and Nico found them by the stream," Hades replied. "Bianca, darling, be a dear and spread the leftover jam over a couple of the biscuits in the green Tupperware. Our visitors haven't had dinner just yet."
Up in the bathroom on the second floor, Grover was the first one forced into the shower, so Hick and Nico were made to hang out in the playroom up in the attic with the other two new boys. The boy with the green eyes had introduced himself as Percy, and the boy with the eye-patch was called Tyson. Hades had taken out a couple of LEGO bricks for them to play with. From the looks of it, Percy was constructing a ship.
"Does your ship allow passengers onboard?" Hick asked him, holding up her LEGO bunny rabbits.
"Sure!" he laughed. "Hop on in!"
"Why do you wear that?" Nico asked Tyson, pointing to his eye-patch. The boy looked down in embarrassment, "I was born blind in my left eye, and dad said it's disturbing to look at, so I've got to wear an eye-patch over it or it'll scare people away."
"Really? Well now I've got to see this!" Hick scurried over to Tyson's side, very much like an excited puppy. "Can I? Can I see?"
"Yes! Let us see! Let us see!" Nico cheered.
After a moments hesitation, Tyson finally relented and lifted his eye patch for all to see. He was prepared to see them shriek and back away in terror like all the other kids who had seen it. Unlike his normal right eye, the left eye's pupil was entirely white with an outline of green pus and permanent blood clots.
"Woahhh…"
Both Hick and Nico looked in awe, much to Tyson's surprise. He exchanged glances with Percy. That was not the reaction they had expected.
"You hide that?" Hick cocked an eyebrow at him. "Why! Dude, if I were you I'd show that thing wherever I go! That thing's badass!"
"Yes it is," Nico nodded along in approval.
"You don't have to lie," Tyson sighed, moving the eye-patch back in place. Hick folded her arms, evidently insulted, "No! You're the liar!"
"Both of you aren't scared?" asked Percy, surprised but also relieved at their reaction. These kids were really strange, but in a good way. Nico shook his head at him, "Why should we be? He's just missing an eye, isn't he?"
"Like Nick Fury!" Hick exclaimed. She scampered over to a bookshelf in the corner, took out a comic and hurried back to show it to Tyson and Percy.
On the cover was a comic character with a damaged left eye, entirely white on the eyeball and bleeding from the sides. "Don't tell my dad but I snuck this out of his room when he wasn't looking," she whispered to them. "Said it wasn't age appropriate for kids and that it's delicate vintage stuff, but he just wants to keep the fun stuff all to himself. That's how dads are."
"Is Nick Fury a bad guy?" Tyson pointed to the comic cover.
"Is Nick Fury a bad guy?" Nico echoed after him, unable to conceal his astonishment. "That's like asking whether Father Christmas hates cookies and milk!"
"So… So he's not… a bad guy?" the boy stammered.
"No, of course not!" Hick flipped open the comic to the thirteenth page. "See here, Nick Fury's protecting the doctors and scientists from the evil Doctor Doom," she flipped some more to page 21. "And here, he's helping Spiderman and Miss Marvel fight off the bad ninjas on the roof of the Tokyo Imperial Palace. Nick Fury is totally a good guy!"
"Who's that green man below?" Percy pointed to the Hulk.
"Oh, that's Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk! He's my favorite superhero because he's the strongest!" Nico replied. Percy raised his brows, "Really? Well then I like him too!"
"I like Nick Fury," Tyson announced. "Who's your favorite superhero, Hick?"
Before she could reply, Stef had emerged from the attic doors and sent a freshly bathed and toweled Grover up the attic stairs into the attic. "Percy, Tyson, you kids are up!" Stef called from below. By ten o'clock, just one hour past the regular sleepy time that Hick, Nico and Bianca were used to, every single person in the household had been thoroughly hosed down by the cold shower water from head to toe.
"Come on in, Nico. Time to sleep," Bianca said, lifting up the covers of her blanket for her little brother to crawl. And crawl in he did, like a sleep-deprived squirrel eager to snuggle in its tree-hole.
"I'll be going now. Goodnight, children," Hades said, his finger on the switch. Everyone in the now jam-packed bedroom muttered their goodnights to the man in the doorway. Hick sat up, her freshly toweled locks springing up in all directions, "Sweet dreams, daddy!"
A smile spread across her father's tired face. "Sweet dreams, sweetie."
And the lights went out.
But not every child in the room had one's eyes obediently shut. After a long time of tossing and turning, Percy finally gave up on trying to sleep. These kids' bedroom was much more shabbier in comparison to the room he had all to himself back home, with his air conditioner and fluffy pillows. This room only provided open windows for ventilation, a noisy rusty fan that barely emits a draft and mattresses too hard to sleep on. He sat up and saw a bump in the blanket right next to him. A faint orange glow emitted from within the pink covers. He pulled up a part of the blanket and poked his head through. It was Hick, and she was holding a tiny metal torchlight to a book she was reading.
"You like to read?" he asked. She nodded.
"What're you reading? Can I see?" he asked. She nodded again and wriggled a little to the side, making room for him.
"The Miraculous Journey of Tulane; my mom got it for me," she whispered. She points to a picture in the book of a boy playing on a harmonica. He was sitting at the foot of a bed, and on the bed was a sickly-looking girl hugging onto a toy rabbit. "That is Bryce Ruth. And that's Sarah Ruth, who's hugging onto Edward the bunny. She's Bryce's little sister and she's horribly sick, so Bryce takes good care of her. Kind of like how Bianca takes care of Nico and me, and Hazel now too."
"That's nice," Percy said. For some reason, he felt sad looking at the book illustration.
"My mom and dad takes care of us too," Hick continued. "And so does Ryan. He helps me keep Nico's bullies at bay. We go to the same school y'know, and he comes over and play with Nico and I in our house ever so often. He lives just across the street, in his dad's bakery."
Percy wrinkled his nose out of annoyance, over what he wasn't quite sure, "I could come over and play ever so often too, right?"
"Sure you can! We could go on adventures in your boat too, and when it's night time, we could tell ghost stories!"
"Yeah! Well… all that except the ghost stories. My little brother Tyson doesn't like them very much."
"Oh, it's okay then! We can do plenty of other stuff."
Percy looked down at the book in Hick's lap again. "What about the bunny, Edward? Does he take care of Sarah too?"
"Well, he's a toy, so he can't really move but he lets little Sarah hug him so she'll feel better. The main concept of the whole story is that Edward learnt to love."
A look of amusement formed on Percy's face. "Learn to love? You just feel it, you don't need to learn how to love!"
"Sure you do," Hick replied, closing the book shut. "You may not realize how to love even more sincerely until you've been through a lot of experiences. Like Edward's journey encounters."
Percy didn't reply, unsure what to make of it. It was all too puzzling. Aware of his silence, Hick reached for under her pillow and took out another book. "Perhaps you'll like this one much better. It's got adventure and isn't so complicated. I've had it since I was seven and read it over many times. You can keep it if you like."
The cover read Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain.
"It's a sequel to another book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," she explained. "But I don't have that."
The book title must have been no stranger to Percy because he sat up straighter the moment Hick spoke of the literary classic, "Really? I've got that at home! I could lend it to you if you like!"
"You could? That'd be nice! It's an old rare classic my dad couldn't find and keep safe. People tend to burn books at their fireplace when winter comes."
"Why? Can't they just switch on the heater?" he said. From the looks on Hick's face, he could tell he must have said something stupid.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she inquired. "You must belong to the divisions uphill. Division 13 houses don't have heaters and the number of trees we have here are dwindling. Books aren't becoming very important now a days when people are trying to simply get by, which upsets mom and dad sometimes."
Percy flipped through the yellowed pages. "Well, I'm from Division 2 and we have lots of books back there. And heaters and food. Maybe we could share these with Division 13, and books won't have to be burned here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah! My dad's in charge of Division 2. I could ask him and he could do it!"
Her face lit up, which he thought was a good sign. "You could make that happen?" she asked.
"Well… maybe not. I don't know. He's hardly home and I left with Grover and Tyson to find him, but we lost our way after a while. My mom is probably worried sick right now. And very angry."
The two children fell silent at the scary idea of an angry mother. Hick reached out and wound her arm around the boy's shoulder. "It's okay, Percy! Mothers don't stay angry for long. They'll scold and then forgive and make hot cocoa to make you feel all better. That's what my mom – " A huge yawn emerged and she covered her mouth with her hands.
"You must be sleepy," Percy said. "We should probably go to sleep now. Come on! Let's lie down!"
"Okay!" And the torchlight went out.
"Percy?"
"Yeah, Hick?"
"Can we hold hands?"
"Okay," he replied, reaching out and intertwining his fingers with hers. She smiled up at him, "I'm glad we could become friends."
And there they laid, staring up at the bedroom ceiling and the fat white clouds clumsily painted on by Hades, and then artfully repainted to life by Bianca. Everyone else in the room had long fallen fast asleep, and Grover's soft snores could be heard from across the room in the silence.
The present…
Year : 309 AM (Anno Mortuus, Year of the Dead)
Place : Westmill Town
The dark, desolate sky above was nothing like her old bedroom ceiling's bright white clouds. If only I could turn back time, Hick thought but never said. She got her back off the grass and walked to the mansion front door. It was getting dark. Staying in the garden any more longer let alone sleeping in it would be dangerous, should any zombie manage to break in.
So she took to prodding the keyhole, once in a while looking through to see if there were any zombies inside that could potentially jump her. It only took a few minutes to hear that satisfying click and have the doorknob turn. Hick opened the door to an empty hallway.
Eight years ago…
Year: 301 AM (Anno Mortuus, Year of the Dead)
Place: Sector Olympus, Division 13
An eight-year-old Hick stood where what used to be her house hallway. Everything was dust and peeling plaster and broken bricks. For the first time in her life, she understood what real fear was. It renders you immobile, makes you want to get inside a cabinet and hide; your heart pounds hard and fast and you feel like the whole world's caving in on you, crushing what little bit of hope and courage you've got left.
Sirens were blaring, people were screaming being eaten alive, and you couldn't hear your own thoughts even if you tried. The help Percy promised from Division 2 never came. It never came.
To be continued.