“How’d you guys fight them off?”
“Peter finally got a hold of himself and grabbed a camera I’d been trying to fix. I think his point was to try and stun her with the flash, but that didn’t work because the wiring leading up to the bulb was fucked. I’d told him not to mess with that camera because I knew it was dangerous, but at that moment, I couldn’t do much about it. When he clicked the trigger, the wiring shorted out and the bulb exploded. The broken pieces when flying into the woman’s eyes and gave Barnes just enough time to push her away and lock the door.”
Desmond bowed his head, chest rising and falling with what seemed like physical exhaustion. Steve set an arm across the young man’s shoulder and pulled him close.
“Sorry this is taking so long,” Desmond said.
“Just let it out.”
“I’ll just cut to the chase. The zombies eventually got distracted by something outside the store and ran off. We stayed holed up in the redroom for two days, and we didn’t know what was going on. Mr. Barnes opened the door to see if the coast was clear then, and it didn’t take long for us to notice something was wrong when there were three or four bodies stripped to the bone lying in the road, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered after that point, because when Barnes went out to try and get food, he got ambushed. They came out of the convenience store right next to us and ripped him apart. Peter…when he saw that, when we saw that, he couldn’t take it. Something inside him snapped. He ran.”
“What’d you do?”
“I tried to go after him, but the zombies saw me and rushed the store. There was no way I could’ve outrun them that early on, because they were still fresh and running, so my only choice was to lock the front door and run back into the redroom.” A tremble started at his very core and began to spread throughout his body. Arms shaking, chest heaving and lip quivering, Desmond shook his head like a dog tearing a piece of meat from its kill and splashed hot tears across Steve’s face and arms. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said, tears coursing down his face. “I couldn’t follow him, Steve. The zombies were already on me by the time I ran back into the store and locked the front door. They tried to fight me for it. The only reason I was able to lock it was because they’d pulled it back into place. I couldn’t. I tried. The zombies split off and Peter—”
“It’s ok,” Steve said, bringing Desmond into his arms just in time for the boy to lose it. “There wasn’t anything you could do, Desmond. You were trapped. You couldn’t have helped him.”
“I should’ve tried!” the boy screamed. “I should’ve fucking tried, but the bastard ran away from me! WE could’ve stayed in the store and waited for help! Armstrong came two days later, two motherfucking days later!”
“You can’t help what he did.”
“I could’ve tried!”
“And what would you have done?” Steve asked, pushing the boy away to look in his face. “How would you have gotten back to the store?”
“We could’ve holed up somewhere else.”
“What if you couldn’t have caught him? What if they came out of a side alley and got both of you, huh? What if they got him and you couldn’t find anywhere else to stay? What if you had been trapped out in the street and couldn’t do anything else but run?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Desmond cried, throwing himself from the couch. “That’s just it! I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!”
“You can’t blame yourself for something someone else did, Desmond,” Steve said, standing. He reached forward to try and grab the boy’s arm, to still his quaking body and to comfort his aching heart, but stopped when the younger man lashed out.
Steve raised his arms to cover his face.
Fists ablaze, Desmond struck him in the chest not once or twice, but three times. Steve had it in him to take the onslaught of punches for as long as he could so long as his face was covered, but when the boy struck him in the ribs hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, he stumbled back and raised his hands above his head. “Desmond,” he gasped, air shooting from his lungs even as he tried to recapture it. “I’m not your enemy, Desmond! Stop!”
“You don’t know,” the boy said, tears streaming down his face. “You don’t know!”
“Of course I don’t know! I haven’t really lost anything!”
“What?”
“My parents were dead long before this happened,” Steve explained. He braced himself for Desmond to rush forward and hit him again, then slowly lowered his hands when the boy didn’t move. “The day they came, the day everything changed, when I realized what was happening, I ran across the street and pulled Dakota into my apartment because I had absolutely no one else to go to. That day, I pulled my best friend from his foster home and dragged him across the street, into my apartment and boarded the door up with as much shit as I could. I’ve lost absolutely nothing, because the one and only person I care about was right there with me when the world went to hell. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been going through.”
“I… I just… I just don’t understand. Why couldn’t he have just stayed with me? Why, Steve? WHY? He said we would run away together and find our own life the day I turned eighteen. He promised me! He promised me that everything would be all right and that he would give me everything I never had today!”
“You… today is your birthday?” Steve asked.
“YES!” Desmond screamed. “YES!”
“Why didn’t you tell us before, Desmond? Why have you been keeping this inside you for so long?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of facing it,” the boy said. “Of finally, truly knowing that Peter’s dead and I can’t do anything about it.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“What does it matter even if he’s alive?” Desmond asked, swiping his nose with his hand. “Even if he is alive, we’re hundreds of miles away now, there’s zombies everywhere, and winter’s coming. There’s probably three feet of snow up there right now. If he hasn’t frozen to death already, he’s been eaten by zombies, starved to death or killed himself. He’s dead, Steve. And even if he is alive, I don’t want to know. I can’t imagine him living a life of hell.”
Steve stepped forward. Trembling, hurt and very near tears himself, he brought the boy into his arms and locked his hands at his back, digging his fingers into his shirt and forcing the two of them together.
“Cry on me,” Steve whispered.
“What?”
“I said cry on me. Do it, you little fucker, because if you don’t do it, I’m going to do it for you.”
The moment Desmond’s face fell against his chest, Steve began to cry.
I’ve lost nothing, he thought, stroking Desmond’s hair, yet he’s lost everything he could have ever had. How can he be so strong?
Bowing his head, Steve closed his eyes and let the tears run free.
“So,” Rose said, heaving a box of canned goods off a shelf and turning her eyes on Kevin. “Now that you’ve heard my story, what’s yours?”
“Sorry?”
“Your story,” she said, crouching down to wipe dust from the box’s surface. “You know, where you came from, how old you are, your family.”