Note: Well, this sure did take a while. I've been working on it off and on since the last post. You know how it is, doing other things and whatever. Erin's background isn't canon with the show because I think the writers did a shitty job of characterizing Erin. Like so many of the characters in the most recent seasons, she has become completely one-dimension (at least to me). So I took liberties. Sue me as hard as you possibly can. Thanks to everyone who has left me reviews. One Fine Wire in particular left me a review I'm not sure I deserve and I thank him/her (Sorry, I couldn't figure out your gender from your profile. My bad.) I hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope it's up to snuff, given the length of time it's taken to get published and I apologize for any errors that might have slipped past my careful read-through. Some always do.
Shears of red and orange light spilled over the horizon and across the desert and Jim raised one hand up to shield his eyes from the setting sun. Before him, spread out like a blanket, lay the vast and largely empty expanse of Terrell County Texas. Sweat ran slowly down his face and he was glad for the oncoming night. The heat of the day had been unbearable and he had spent most of it in a suit in a church with no air conditioning.
From his perch on the picnic table outside Erin's cousin's house, Jim scanned the horizon slowly. Buttes, mesas, sage brush; it was almost entirely unspoiled desert painted in the fading light. The bottle in his hand had stopped sweating a while ago and he drained the last of the warm beer. He heard footsteps in the dirt behind him and figured it was Erin, her hair still done from the wedding earlier.
"Hey there, mister," she said, climbing onto the weathered table next to him.
"Hey there, lady," he responded. She rested her chin on his shoulder and ran a hand up his back.
"You're sweaty," she teased.
"That is what happens when your cousin has her wedding in August."
"Oh, it wasn't that hot today. And Sarah is letting us stay here until she gets back from the honeymoon next week. So it's not that bad a deal," Erin said. Jim smiled and slipped his hand onto her bare thigh, right beneath the cutoff of her shorts.
"You're right. But it was hot today."
"Yes it was."
After the sun had set, the temperature had dropped a pleasant degree and they watched as millions of stars shone brilliantly above the desert. The wind picked up and whistled across the beer bottle's mouth as Jim's hand traveled further up Erin's thigh.
The axe whistled through the air and through the log with the sound of rending wood. Panting, Jim set the axe head in the snow and propped it up against the block on which he had been splitting wood for the better part of an hour. Around him, the howling wind blew snow across their fields, but it was a rare day when none fell from the sky. He pulled the scarf from around his mouth and breathed in the frigid air. It had been a month – maybe a month and a half; he wasn't exactly sure – since he and Erin had taken up residence in the farm house. The weather had gotten worse and the accumulation was just up to his elbows. He stacked the split wood carefully on an improvised sled and picked up the axe and trudged slowly down the narrow corridor he had cut from the snow with the shovel. Alongside the path, the snow was heaped in great piles just over Jim's head, a product of constantly having to keep the path clear so they could get around the farm as they needed in order to keep steady the flow of firewood into their new home.
When he reached the back door, Jim shouldered it open and, as fast as he could, transferred the firewood onto the large pile already sitting on a tarp next to the door. When he had it stacked neatly, the axe set beside it, he leaned the sled up against the snow banks, knocked snow from his boots, and stepped into the relative warmth of the kitchen, where he undressed.
The kitchen was right off from the living room and when the doors to the rest of the house were closed and a fire lit, both rooms were filled with a welcome warmth that allowed them to exist comfortably without dressing in layers. With his arms loaded down with wood, Jim walked into the living room where Erin was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Spread out before her on the large coffee table were the disassembled pieces of all of their weapons. Erin was methodically cleaning and oiling each piece until it gleamed in the flickering light of the fire before reassembly. She looked up and smiled warmly when he entered the room, then went back to her work. He took his coat off and draped it over the drying rack placed in front of the fireplace, then for a moment held his hands out to the flames, ridding them of their accumulated chill, before he sat on the couch behind her.
The living room, with its great stone hearth, was crowded with boxes and cartons of provisions they had managed to find after a month of scouring the surrounding area. The nearby agricultural college proved to be what they had hoped for and had provided them with food, raw grains, and medical supplies, in addition to tools and extra clothing and bedding. In one classroom, Jim had found a small solar array currently in pieces on their kitchen table, along with books about electronics, wiring, and solar power. He knew next to nothing about electrical wiring and less than that about solar panels, but when they were unable to leave the house because of the cold, it had absorbed their collective idleness and provided an output. Erin had even suggested searching the campus library the next time they went into town for books that could allow them some small inkling as to what they were doing with the panels.
The snow drifts in the fields were growing taller every day and one of the hardest things they found about this stationary life was keeping themselves busy. On the road, there was no security and they were always moving. They had to constantly be aware of their surroundings and while that had proven a great occupier of their time and their minds, the stress of living like that exhausted them. Neither of them knew just how tired they were until they stopped at the house in the clearing for the winter.
"So what are we doing today?" Erin asked, not looking up as she ran an oil stained rag gentle across a rifle barrel.
"Wood is cut for the day. You're cleaning weapons now. So I suppose that when you're done there, our dance cards are clear," Jim responded, leaning forward to run his hands along her under his fingers. They sat like that for a while before Erin spoke.
"We could go for a walk."
"A walk? It's pretty cold out, Hannon, and I don't want you to get the sniffles."
"Ha ha, Jim. What I mean is we take the same route all the time: the road out front to the left, through the trees, over our barricade, then right and continue into town. We don't know what happens if we walk out the front door and turn right. I'm bored and you're bored. We are both bored. Besides, I haven't been out in the snow in a day or two. I can promise no sniffles," she turned around and smiled up at him. She had a point. They were so busy the previous weeks gathering supplies, stocking and fortifying the house that they didn't have a chance to explore further. They never really had a need to. But now they had time.
"You've convinced me," Jim said.
"Pfft, like that's a challenge. I always convince you," Erin smirked at him.
"Hey there," he replied playfully, "Big difference between convincing and browbeating, lady."
"I do not browbeat."
"Do too," he assured her. Erin hummed a sound of dissatisfaction but said nothing as she returned to her task. Jim leaned forward and kissed the top of her head and he could almost feel her trying to suppress a smile. He stood and crossed the room to the front of the house and stared out of the living room window into the gray light of the afternoon where, just beyond the panes of glass he had not yet boarded up, the cold beat like a heart outside of their new walls, edging ever inward but stopped by the fingertips of warmth the fire pushed out. Snow blew like dust clouds across the field, rattling in the frozen barbed wire of a tumbledown fence. Behind him, the sharp sounds of Erin's work reassembling their weapons. Clicks and clacks and metallic whispers like the ticking of some unseen clock counting seconds. He exhaled slowly and his breath fogged the window until he could see no more, his vision obscured by proof of life.
They were stopped just at the edge of their clearing after turning right from the front porch. Behind them, the farmhouse sat stoically facing the wind that blew through the field, seeping through their layers slowly, intent on numbing them. Jim clumsily held their shotgun in one of his gloved hands and with the other loosened the sling on Erin's rifle where it was slung across her back.
"Better?" he asked, turning her around to look at him. She nodded.
"Much. I can actually breathe now. Too many layers."
"No such thing in this weather," he replied, stamping his feet to keep the blood flowing.
"True. Let's get moving," she said, turning. He fell into step beside her and they trudged through the snow, great waves of it breaking over their thighs like soil over a plow as they pressed on down the narrow road through the trees. They walked in silence, the only sound the dull press of their feet into the snow. He could feel nothing below his knees and his hands were so cold, even with gloves, that he hoped that if they were in a situation that called for him to quickly fire the shotgun that someone would be nice enough to bury them. If they were even found. Still, a couple hundred yards further he could see that the trees ended in what he assumed was another clearing, so he pressed on. Erin reached it first and stopped. He came up alongside her and stared out across the field to the house in the distance.
"We should go back," Erin said from beside him. He was just about to ask her why when he saw the heavy, snow-covered shapes hanging in the branches of the tree in front of the house. He pulled one of the rifle scopes from the pocket of his parka and looked across the distance. Three large shapes and two small shapes alongside them. No question as to what they were, no question as to even why. One of two options: they did it themselves or it was done to them. Jim said nothing but watched as the frozen corpses blew in the gusting wind. He lowered the rifle scope. Erin was silent beside him. He tucked the scope back into his pocket and, with his teeth, pulled the glove off his numb right hand. Jim reached out and turned Erin towards him, away from the view of the tree. She blinked once and looked up at him with red, watery eyes. He swiped his thumb gently across her cheek.
"Let's go back."
Her sister killed herself on a Saturday in September. Erin's mother discovered her body the next day. Phone calls were made and Jim picked up the phone Sunday afternoon after drying his hands, wet from doing the dishes.
Jim, it's Ellen. Oh, hey, do you want to talk to Erin? No…something terrible has happened.
The phone weighed a thousand pounds in his hand. A wet clearing of the throat from the other end of the line. Jim said nothing for a while. He was about to ask again if she wanted to talk to Erin and then she was standing in front of him, smiling.
"Who's on the phone?" she asked and he panicked, beads of sweat instantly wept into existence on his brow, pooled in the creases of the palms of his hands. He gripped the phone tightly and ignored Erin, choosing instead to speak into the receiver.
"Um, she just walked in. We'll...uh, we'll call you back in a minute."
Erin's smile faltered and faded as he silently hung up the phone, bracing himself against the stove for the span of time it took him to draw a deep, steadying breath.
"Jim?"
"You…need to sit down, baby."
Her face lost its color and she went stock still for a single second before woodenly stepping over to their kitchen table, dragging a chair out, and setting herself heavily into it. She said nothing, her eyes already rimmed with red and beginning to brim with tears. Instinctual understanding of this moment. No explanation needed, a reaction already encoded within her, activated by Jim's faltering tone and his expression. The creases in his brow, the stiffness in his shoulders spoke to her, told her without specifics that she could expect the worse and would be richly rewarded for doing so.
"Your sister," Jim began before choking on a lump forming in his throat. He hated doing this to her but knew it needed to be done. He cleared his throat and started over.
"Your sister…she's gone, Erin. I'm so..." here he took a stuttering breath, "…so sorry, sweetheart."
"She's gone? What does that mean, Jim?" Erin's voice was disbelieving as tears tracked slowly down her cheeks as her face began to redden, a prelude to the storm that would follow.
"She's dead, Erin" Jim said as quietly, gently as he could. Erin's face crumbled in on itself as she started to sob and she quickly leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop, and buried her face in her hands. He was out of her chair and kneeling at her side in an instant, left hand methodically, soothingly stroking the gentle curve of her hunched and shaking shoulders, his right hand kneading her bicep, his soul aching to make her stop crying. Make everything alright. Repair that which is irreparable.
He said nothing but leaned his head forward until his lips were pressed to the silken curtain of her hair just over her ear. Soft, soothing sounds as he stared without focus over the top of her head, out the sliding glass doors into the small back yard. A gentle breeze turned fall leaves slowly, without purpose and muted through the glass came the dry shifting of the leaves. The hanging clock's pendulum continued its traversal, the click of each arc sounding quietly in the background of Erin's desperate sobs. He felt tears on his cheeks and his heart broke for her.
"How did she die?"
"We should call your mother. She's expecting us to call."
Jim hammered the last nail into the boards he placed over the final window and tucked the hammer into the pocket of his jeans. In the fading light, the wind blew clouds of snow around him like a sort of halo, catching the soft glow that came from the small slat of window pane he left for them to see out of. He cupped his hands and peered in through the gap between boards.
Erin sat on the couch staring into the embers glowing hotly within their hearth, chewing on the cuticle of her right thumb, her legs curled up beneath her. Jim had been thinking about Erin's sister since they started their walk back to the house. He knew that that was all she'd been thinking about as well. This happened whenever they came across folk dead by their own hand. They reminded her of her sister, her best friend, and she saw in their dried and shrunken faces a face so perfectly preserved in her mind, embalmed within a tomb of fond memories. A dozen Christmas Eves and birthdays and school dances. Girlish laughter, immaturity. Jim knew that, even with all that had happened to the world, she would feel the sharpness of that loss for the rest of her days.
He stepped off the edge of the front porch and circled around the house in the snow. He knocked the snow off of his boots and went inside.
At the wake, Erin froze halfway to her sister's casket and Jim had to stand there with his hand on her back, comforting her while she stood motionless.
"Hey. Hey. Calm down, just breathe, okay?"
"I don't want to do this, Jim. I can't do this."
"I know. I know how you feel. But you have to do this. You didn't get to say goodbye to her and this is the only chance you'll have. You don't want to do this. No one wants to do this. Ever. But I know you and if you don't take this last moment to look at her and say goodbye, you'll never forgive yourself. You know this."
He felt her breathing even out and she nodded slightly then wordlessly stepped to the edge of the casket. To her credit, her steps faltered only once more.
The next day, after mass, they stood in the cemetery after she was interned and everyone had left, Erin rooted to her spot. The cemetery workers stood patiently, respectfully off to the side, smoking. Jim stood next to her and said nothing. It felt like he was more or less silent the past few days. He wondered if he was being comforting at all.
"It should be raining or something. It's too bright out for a funeral."
"Yeah," was his response. She reached for his hand without looking and gripped it tightly.
"Is it weird that I'm mad at her? Mostly I miss her and I wish she was here, of course, but I feel like…I don't know. I feel like she betrayed me by leaving me her and doing that to herself. And I'm mad at her for all of this. Is that weird or selfish or something?"
"No, I don't think so. I think it's actually probably pretty normal to be feeling that way. This is a really difficult thing to deal with. You may not think so, but you're being so strong, Erin. It's kind of amazing."
She said nothing but squeezed his hand harder and pressed her side into his, her head resting against him. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, and then:
"I'm glad you're here, Jim."
After they had eaten in front of the hearth and cleared away their dishes, Jim went up to the corner bedroom overlooking the roadway in the direction of their camouflaged barricade and retrieved their blankets. He carried them back downstairs and arranged makeshift racks around the fire and hung the blankets there to warm them. He threw two more thick logs onto the glowing embers then sat next to Erin who, wrapped in a blanket, was slowly eating a jar of warmed apricots. Jim crawled beneath the warmth of her blanket and edged in against her. She had said very little all evening.
"Hi, fruit-having-lady. Can you spare some for a skinny Jim?" he asked, opening his mouth. She looked at him and gave up a small smile before carefully putting her spoon into his mouth.
"You're not too skinny. Not like we both were. We were gross and I've never been happier to put on weight," she said softly as he chewed slowly, nodding thoughtfully, eyes staring unfocused at the fire. Eventually he turned back to her. She already had another spoonful waiting for him. He took it and when he was done he cleared his throat as he watched her eat.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. I was just thinking about her."
"I figured you were. I was."
"Really?"
"Yeah," he admitted. "It's hard not to, seeing the way you react. Not that it's a bad thing. Reacting, I mean."
"I know what you meant," she said, finally smiling genuinely at his rush of words. Inwardly, he sighed in relief at her return. He was always worried until she came out of it. But she was back and in the dying light of the fire, he leaned across the space between them and kissed her, her mouth sugary and warm from the apricots. When he pulled away, the fireplace held nothing but quickly dimming embers. Erin unfurled her legs from beneath and her set the empty jar and spoon on the end table next to the couch. Wordlessly, they grabbed their warm blankets and carried them up the creaking staircase to their room. Jim set the wind up alarm clock to go off in two hours so he could check and make sure they were still secure in their little outpost and together they climbed beneath the layers of blankets.
Beyond the walls of their bedroom, the wind blew a high, piercing shriek that rattled the window panes in their molding and drowned out the sound of their deep and even breathing.
Jim was on his way down to his car to try and find the charger for his cell phone. He pushed the button for the elevator and shifted his feet, waiting. Through the door of the stairwell just down the hall, he heard something. Curiosity got the best of him and he decided that the elevator was taking too long, so he made his way over to the stairwell and quietly eased the door open, intent on finding out what he had heard. With the door open, it was obvious that the sounds that had drawn his attention were the sounds of someone crying inside the stairwell. He was about to retreat and wait for the elevator when he saw Erin standing tucked into the corner of the landing, arms crossed in front of her and her nose pressed to the cinderblock wall. Her eyes were screwed shut tightly and tear tracks glistened in the diffused light from the window. He stuck his hands in his pockets and made his way down to her.
She had heard his footsteps and by the time he reached the landing, she had opened her eyes and hastily scrubbed the tears from her face with the heels of her hands, managing to quiet herself so that when he stopped in front of her, her eyes were darting from the wall to Jim, her breath flaring her nostrils, but her crying had ceased.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," he said simply, moving to lean against the wall next to her, but still keeping an arm's distance between them. After a while, she turned and looked at him.
"I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry, Jim. Thank you for being so nice, but I just want to be by myself for a little while longer. Let the machine answer my calls," she said quietly, smiling slightly. He found himself looking back at her and returned the smile, nodding his head. Impulsively, he pushed off from the wall and took a step towards her. His arm rose and he placed his hand gently on her thin shoulder. She looked at him, surprised.
"Well, whatever it is…try not to let it bother you. Tears don't suit you, Hannon," he said. As he was about to withdraw his hand, she quickly raised hers to clasp tightly around his where it rested on her shoulder. His turn to be surprised.
"Thank you," she repeated and loosened her hand, letting his fingers slip through hers slowly as he withdrew. He said nothing and walked back upstairs to the office, where the phone at reception was ringing. Jim sat at his desk, hands dangling from the arms of his chair, remembering the feel of her small, warm fingers around his. He thought about that vulnerability and twice Pam called his name. He shook himself out of his trance and smiled up at her.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked you what you wanted to do for lunch today. And hey," she said, pointing, "did you know your cell phone's dead?"
He awoke before the alarm sounded a second time. No reason for the awakening, just a feeling, like the press of the air right before a thunderstorm. His heart rate sped up and his body tensed. Erin stirred next to him.
The wind had died down in the night and no longer whistled around the eaves, but there was something else, a vibration of some sort. Erin jerked awake next to him.
"Jim?" she whispered, "Jim? What's going on? Do you feel that?"
"I don't know," he whispered beside her. They waited another beat until they heard a sound rise above the sound or sensation or whatever they were experiencing that pulled them from sleep. Though it was muffled by distance, the sound was something that both of them instantly recognized. It was the sound of a human voice shouting, though they could make out no words, as muffled as it was by the snow, trees, and distance from the house. It could only be coming from the road.
Jim bolted up from the bed and Erin sat upright, reaching for the pistol on her nightstand. Jim grabbed up the rifle and checked its load. With panic seizing his nervous system, he crossed to the window and peeked through the heavy blackout curtains they had hung.
"Oh my God. Oh my God," he said quietly, disbelief evident in every word.
"What is it? What is it? You're scaring me, Jim."
"Come look. Oh, Jesus Christ, come look," he whispered, frantically waving her over. Her long legs gracefully touched the floor and within seconds, she was at his side, peering into the distance.
The air above the tree line was aglow with light, an orange smear that danced like a wildfire or maybe torchlight. Through the occasional small gap in the thick trees, they could see no movement but occasionally a flash of orange light. Small tendrils of smoke curled through the flickering glow into the dark and starless sky.
"Holy shit," Erin whispered breathlessly. Jim fumbled for the lock on the window and, with effort, lifted the frozen window an inch. Immediately, the room chilled as the frigid night air rushed in. They both dropped to their knees, peering through the gap and barely feeling the cold. They could hear dozens and dozens of voices shouting but could still make out no words. Underneath that, they heard what they eventually figured out was the sound of many feet packing down the snow as the unseen crowd moved.
"What are we going to do? Are they camped out there?" Erin asked. Jim knew her heart was pounding and this only because his felt like his was going to beat through his chest. He struggled to form a coherent thought and respond to her questions. His brain had completely locked up. Beside him, Erin began to fidget with impatience.
"We can't make a run for it. There's nowhere to go, it's too cold, and we might not be able to outpace them in the snow."
"Okay. So what do we do? Hide somewhere?"
"Where could we hide where they wouldn't find us?"
"Then what do we do, Jim?" her voice was frantic. Jim wracked his brain trying to come up with some sort of solution. Suddenly, he remembered the closet in the other bedroom. The ceiling of the four-foot-square space lifted up on hinges revealing a tiny, empty attic space. They had found it their second day at the house when they had searched the place top to bottom. It was such a small space that they had forgotten about it since then, having no use for it.
"The attic. They can smoke us out of they decide to set the place on fire, but it's the best we can do. Get your shit, get the guns. I'll head downstairs and grab whatever I can," he said, rushing from the room without waiting for her reply. Downstairs, he grabbed as many boxes of food as he could carry and rushed back up the stairs and into the second bedroom, dropping it on the floor where Erin had piled their guns.
"Good. Grab the blankets and the packs. I'll be right back," he said before leaving to head back downstairs. Two more trips later and he was standing on a desk chair in the closet shoving boxes up into the crowded space. Erin handed up the blankets, their small medical bag, and their vests, still heavy with spare ammunition. Next went their packs and then finally, gingerly, their weapons. It had taken fifteen minutes total from the time he had first sprinted for the stairs. Despite the chill in the house, sweat beaded on his forehead. He made room for Erin on the chair.
"You're next."
She quickly stood on the chair with him and stepped into his cupped hands and he pushed her up through the ceiling. She reached back down to help him up but he shook his head.
"Give me my vest and one of the rifles."
"Fuck you, you're coming up into this attic right now."
"Erin, there's no time to argue..."
"Get the fuck up here, Jim," Erin warned, her voice harsh and on the verge of a shout. Jim quickly pulled himself up into the crowded space with her. He cupped her face in his hands.
"I'm just going to keep watch. I have to keep you safe, Erin. It's my job to keep you safe. If they start coming, I'll come right up into the attic and we'll hide together. But you have to let me stand watch. We need to know, okay?"
Her face was a study in warring with oneself over an impossible decision, but she eventually relented and handed him a vest, which he dropped down through the hole. She kissed him lingeringly.
"As soon as you see someone, come straight here," she said.
"No place I'd rather be. I love you…I love you," he said, brushed a hand across her cheek quickly before dropping back down through the ceiling. She handed him a rifle and his .45 and they locked eyes for a few seconds before she dropped the hinged panel back in place.
When Jim saw that the panel was closed, he removed the desk chair from the closet and shut the door. After tucking the chair back beneath the desk where it belonged, he headed into their freezing and vacant bedroom and carefully shut the window. With his heart still beating wildly, he stood shrouded in their curtains and peering out the window at the foreign glow just beyond their clearing. He couldn't be sure, but he thought that maybe the light had shifted further up the road. Hours passed as he stood sentry and just before the first tendrils of dawn pierced the horizon, the light disappeared completely from sight and after an hour of watching the sun slowly rise, he stepped from beneath the curtain on aching legs and made his way to the closet, calling up to Erin. Without the use of the chair, he managed to pass his things to Erin and hoist himself up into the attic where, exhausted, he tunneled beneath the mounds of blankets with Erin and fell asleep in that crowded, dark place beneath the roof's peak.
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