Abibliophobia - Hghrules
Chapter One: And So the Current Plot Revolves Around Jason's Need for an ICEE
Jason tripped, and, for the first time since my mother's death, I prayed.
Then I came to my senses, and now I'm running back to help the boy up.
"Seto," he whimpers, as though he thinks I would let him die. Whether Notch listens to my desperate pleas or not, Jason will get out of this alive. "Seto, we aren't gonna make it," he says brokenly as I yank him up off the ground by his arm.
"Don't say that. We'll be fine." I grit my teeth and boost him up over the chain link fence before sticking the toes of my combat boots into the holes to climb after him. "All right?"
"I'm okay," he says quietly, refusing to make eye contact as I jump down to his level.
"Good. Stay that way."
"Seto, we- how long have we been running?"
"An hour, tops." I pause my walk and spin around to face him. "Why? How tired are you?"
He bites his lip and breathes in shakily. "It's just- will we ever be safe?"
"Honestly? N-" I stop myself just short of a terrible mistake. He's breathing in short breaths, fairly in shape but still not athletic enough to keep this up for long; his eyes are watering and I can't be sure whether it's because of the wind or our situation, but I'm leaning toward the latter; he is so clearly so tired, not just of running but of having to run. But he is okay, and that is only because he has hope. That hope is to him as he is to me – the only thing pushing us to finish this never-ending race.
I can't take that from him.
"Eventually," I answer after a short time. "For now, we're stopping to rest for the night."
His eyes go wide. "With the Readers so close?"
"Jason. You trust me?"
He visibly relaxes, smiling slightly. "Uh-huh." I glance behind us, hoping he's right to trust me, and am pleasantly surprised to find that he absolutely is. We lost the Readers long ago, by the looks of things, and the last building blown up by a hand grenade seems to be at least two blocks back. Yeah. We can afford to stop for a bit.
"Pick a place, little bro."
Jason scrunches up his face in distaste, and I have to laugh. He's such a cinnamon bun. Far too pure for this world. He shouldn't have to deal with this. "How about that gas station over there?" he suggests, pointing across the street to an abandoned BreakTime.
"As good a place as any," I reply with a shrug before grabbing his hand and pulling him over. "Think they'll have any Monster left?"
"Those aren't good for you," he chides, tugging me to a stop right in front of the doors. "Promise you'll only have half of one?"
A few weeks ago, he wouldn't even have approved of that, so it's fairly easy to keep the sarcastic reply from escaping my mouth. (Plus, there's very little chance of us actually finding something good in here.) "Can do, bro. What about ICEEs?" One of his favorite drinks from before the disaster – I sincerely hope we can find him some. It would certainly lift the poor boy's spirits a bit.
He flushes slightly and looks down, mumbling, "Well, they aren't so bad…"
"Mhmm. All right, come on, we'll get you something."
He nods eagerly, all shame forgotten, and taps his fingers against his thigh while I unzip my backpack and root around for a full notebook. I may not be a completely A+ survivalist, but I at least know enough not to walk into an abandoned building unarmed. "Ah, this one's about full. 'S got a few pages left, though. Let me rip these out."
Jason nods again, seemingly patient as always, but his still-tapping fingers give him away. He wants that ICEE, a memory of the life we used to have. Not that it was all that spectacular to begin with.
"Ready. You've got something?" I ask, raising an eyebrow and resting a hand on the push handle of one of the doors.
"I've got The Very Hungry Caterpillar..?" He winces and holds up the tiny children's book.
"Dang, we've gotta get you something better than that," I mutter, sighing. "Maybe we'll find some brochures or something in here – even those will last longer than that thing. Okay, okay. Ready?"
He nods for the third time, though his forced patience stays reliably in place, and puts his hands up against the door handle. "On three?"
"Yeah. One… Two… Three!"
We burst through the door in a flurry of activity, accidentally knocking over a shelf as we swing our reading material around as threateningly as possible. "Stay at the front!" I bark, ducking between the aisles and waving my notebook under and over the shelves. I have to be sure there aren't any Readers in here. There's a ton of stuff on the shelves; we can't possibly be this lucky.
And yet… Nothing is moving. Nothing is screeching or throwing hand grenades at us. Nothing is lunging for our books.
Safe.
-Ish.
Close enough.
"All right, we're good," I breathe, walking back to Jason. "Wow. So, um… Guess what I saw in the back of the shop?"
"A freezer full of Monster?" he asks, wrinkling his nose.
"Yes. Also, an ICEE machine, but I guess that's not as important-"
Jason squeals in an adorably unmanly way and jumps up to hug me quickly. "Thank you, Seto! Oh, this is awesome! We get a safe place to stay and ICEEs! Praise the devs!" He bounces around a bit and then squeals again before running off toward the ICEE machine. He's lucky there's still electricity here; the alternative was his favorite treat turning out to be nothing but disgusting mush.
"Look for some reading material after you've gotten your drink," I call into the shop. "I'm gonna check the back room."
He yells back some form of confirmation, so I hold my notebook high and move to stand in front of the door that I assume leads to the storage room. It's a swinging door without a handle, grey and plain but certainly capable of hiding a couple of Readers from our view. Granted, that isn't very likely, considering nothing jumped out at me and my brother while we were waving our books around earlier. Readers can practically smell books. But, just to be safe…
I fling open the door and jump inside, holding my notebook out in front of me like a shield. Can't be too careful. Fortunately, my amazing defense skills are pretty irrelevant, because there's nothing here to attack me. I peek around behind boxes and counters, but the area is completely void of Readers.
Wow.
"Looks good," I say, returning to the main room and expecting to see Jason waiting with a couple of new books in hand. Instead, I see Jason frozen in place just a few yards from the restrooms, his eyes trained on the jiggling handle of the men's door. I fight the urge to run over and end up creeping silently toward him instead, notebook held high yet again. "Wait for them to come to us," I whisper, subconsciously stepping half-way in front of him. "The second they show any signs of moving forward, we throw our books and run." The poor boy nods, trembling slightly in anticipation.
Muffled voices bleed through the door, and I cringe. They're still speaking. They can't be Phase Three yet – but we can't just let them go. They'll be Phase Three Readers soon enough, and that isn't okay. Plus, they can still hurt us; they can still hurt Jason.
They've gotta go.
"It's important to be clean in the middle of the apocalypse," a voice says defensively as the door cracks open. Great, an OCD Reader. I glance down at the dirtied cover of my notebook. Will it still work? It should.
A second Reader snorts. Why are they so calm? Readers are notorious for how… crazy they are. "The disease is only spread through saliva and blood, moron. And, really, did you have to use the air dryer? There were paper towels right there, and that thing was loud as the Nether. Notch."
"He cursed," Jason breathes, frowning. I resist the urge to slam the palm of my hand against my forehead as I silently shush him.
"Well, yeah, but the dryer is more environmentally friendly-" the first Reader tries.
"We're in the apocalypse-" the second interrupts, only to cut himself off when he sees us. "They've got books," he whispers to the boy next to him. "If we're quiet, they might not even notice us until we're out the door."
"We've noticed you," I hiss, confused but not about to be caught off guard. Wait, are they trying to avoid us? We've got books, why would they avoid us? Jason fidgets behind me, tries to peek out at the two Readers.
The second boy draws a diamond freaking sword from a sheath at his waist that I hadn't noticed before. "Attack!" he shouts, jumping forward, and I step completely in front of Jason and hold up my notebook as some measly form of protection. He is definitely not a Reader.
"Stop, they're not Readers!" his friend shrieks, grabbing the boy's hand and dragging him back. "Tyler, stop!"
Jason moves out from behind me and holds up his hands, dropping his book. "We're just kids!"
"Oh my Notch, you're just kids," the violent boy whispers, lowering his weapon. Jason wrinkles his nose, and I can picture him spouting off the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the dev, Notch, in vain.
"No hard feelings?" the non-violent boy chuckles nervously. Wait…
"Brice?" I drop my hands to my sides, making my face visible again.
"Seto, it's you! I haven't seen you since the start of the epidemic."
"Yeah. We sorta holed up at home for a while when things started getting bad. We definitely weren't going to school," I scoff.
"You two know each other?" the other boy asks, sounding bored as he sheaths his sword.
"Mmhmm! Seto, this is Tyler. Tyler; Seto. Seto and I know each other from school," Brice introduces us with a wide smile.
"Hi. This is my brother, Jason," I inform Brice and the boy, who doesn't really seem all that friendly now that he's done freaking out over almost killing two children.
"Hey, Jason. Seto." He crosses his arms. "I'd say 'Nice to meet you,' but I'm not into lying."
"I'd say 'Duck you,' but my brother doesn't like substitute curses, either." Jason frowns.
"Substitute curses? I've got a few very real curses I could show you-"
"Guys!" Jason butts in, tugging on my hand. I didn't notice how close I'd gotten to Tyler. "Please don't fight."
Tyler's gaze softens just a little, but he hides it with a well-timed eye roll. "Whatever. We'll keep it PG for the kids," he sneers, but Jason doesn't seem bothered. He just smiles and nods happily. "How old are you, anyways?"
"Fifteen," he tells him, tone neither proud nor ashamed. Tyler looks him up and down, nods as if making a decision, and then walks over and ruffles his brown hair slightly, which annoys me because I'm the only one who's allowed to do that.
Jason doesn't seem to mind.
"All right, kid. I think I'll take you under my wing, teach you how to survive in this world. What do you say?"
He starts to nod excitedly, but then his face falls and he glances over at me. "You'll teach Seto, too, right?"
"I don't need teaching," I say gruffly.
"Seto has taught me lots of stuff," Jason says. "Hey, maybe you can be Seto's student! It'll be, like, a teaching circle."
Tyler narrows his eyes. "I don't need teaching, either. I guarantee you I need it far less than Seto."
I smirk. "I dunno, I think I know a few moves that could better your poor performance with that sword-"
"You can take your moves and shove them up your-"
"Oookay!" Brice laughs awkwardly, pushing us apart. Again, I didn't realize I'd gotten right up in Tyler's face. "I have an idea! Let's just not have any teachers or students – we'll all teach each other out of concern for each other's well-being and out of the goodness of our hearts-"
"That's a great idea, Brice!"
"I'm going to punch you in the face, Brice."
"I. Don't. Need. Teaching, Brice."
"Well, it was a noble effort," Jason sighs, smiling at Brice.
"Sorry," I apologize – not to Tyler, but to Jason and Brice. "Why are you guys here?"
"We needed a place to stay for the night," Brice explains. "We've been running from the Readers for ages. You?"
"The exact same story. Mind sharing the place?"
"Not at all," Brice says kindly, his voice drowning out Tyler's series of negative answers.
Jason grins. "Can I go finish making my ICEE?" he asks me.
"Of course you can." He gives me a double thumbs-up and runs off.
"He's cute, your brother," Tyler tells me.
"He's fifteen."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"Look, maybe we should calm down and get something to drink?" Brice suggests cautiously, stepping between us again.
Tyler peers past me at the cash register. "Is that a cigarette shelf I spot? I do believe it is!" He glares at me, fake-smiles at Brice, and shoulders past me to get to the counter.
"So… That went well," Brice says, voice just a few pitches too high.
"Sure. Where'd you meet Tyler?"
Brice shrugs, bites his lip. "I don't know him all that well- I mean, like, it's not like he's my boyfriend or anything. I'm single. Just, um, just so you know."
I roll my eyes, but a smile peeks through. "I didn't ask if he was your boyfriend. I asked where you met him."
"Right! Ah, well, he was my sister's friend, and when that group of Readers attacked the high school for the textbooks, he and I both hid on the roof. We just kinda stuck together after that."
"Hmm. Why is he such a jerk?"
"Be nice!" Brice scolds me, and I roll my eyes again, this time without the smile. "He's… I don't know. I don't know his story."
I huff and blow my hair out of my eyes. "Right."
"Seto, they have energy ICEEs!" Jason calls excitedly from half-way across the shop. He runs into view and bends the fingers of my right hand gently around an ICEE cup. "For you," he says, jokingly formal as he bows and then runs off again. Geez, how is that kid so happy all the time? We are mid-apocalypse here.
"Hey, how old are you again?" I ask, turning to face Brice. He's taller than me, but he acts a bit younger, and I know he wasn't in my grade at school.
"Sixteen," he answers. "You're in the grade above me." Oh, right. I smile nervously. How well am I supposed to know him? As far as I remember, we were nothing more than acquaintances.
"Friggin' Nether," Tyler huffs, looking down at a lottery ticket. Jason whispers something like 'he cursed again!' in my ear, and I sigh and choose not to wonder how he got back over here so quickly. "I finally win the lottery, and we're stuck in the middle of the friggin' apocalypse."
"Have fun redeeming that," I snort. He ignores me and puts the ticket down in favor of a lighter. "Woah, hold up. You're not smoking in here, you're going outside."
"Like the Nether I am." He lights the cigarette.
"Really!?" Jason breathes. Tyler catches his expression and shrugs apologetically.
"Seriously, get out," I demand, barely refraining from simply pushing him out the door. "I don't want Jason exposed to that crap."
Tyler glares at me for a moment, glances down at Jason, and then rolls his eyes and walks outside.
"Is he okay?" Jason asks worriedly, his ICEE forgotten in his hand. "Maybe I should go talk to him to make sure."
I give him my 'what the crap' expression, and he frowns. "The whole reason he went outside is because I don't want you breathing smoky air."
"Yeah, but it's not so bad outside, and Tyler needs someone to talk to right now…"
I bite my lip and glance outside at Tyler, who is sitting on the curb. "Okay, just…" I turn to Brice. "Does he actually know how to use that sword?" He nods. "Okay, fine. Jason, you have five minutes. After that, I expect to see you safely inside."
He thanks me and runs to the door, gently pushing it open. Tyler glances over at him and then goes back to staring moodily at the ground, and Jason sits down next to him.
"He's a nice kid," Brice comments. I nod.
"He doesn't deserve this."
"You don't either."
"I probably deserve it more than most."
He furrows his eyebrows, but he's still smiling. "Why?"
I shrug. "I've made mistakes."
"Hasn't everyone?"
I move around the shop, gathering sleeping bags and pillows and stuffing food into my backpack for when we leave in the morning. Does everyone make mistakes? No one's perfect, of course. But aren't some mistakes worth a little more judgment than others?
Geez, it's too late to be thinking so much. Whatever happened to functional families, safe homes, and nine-thirty bedtimes?
When I realize I haven't yet answered Brice's question, I go with the cop-out and say, "I guess."