Maggie Davis (seamstress) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-01-17 23:24:00 |
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It wasn’t safe to wander off. She knew that, she’d watched the National Geographic videos and seen the little water buffalo or gazelle that broke from the pack and found itself lost, scared, and unable to take on a pack of lions on its own. Or the little birds being eaten by bigger birds.
But wandering hurt. And right then she wanted it to hurt badly, she wanted every inch of her body to feel pain as she struggled through a windy day. Her leg was still in a makeshift brace, but she’d left the crutches behind at camp, next to a pile of laundry she’d had every intention of doing. But then the wind had picked up, and the overwhelming need to move had hit her.
She couldn’t see the camp. Her lips felt puckered. As Maggie sank into the earth she felt happy for a moment, the cold and the pain of all lighting her up. If she died would it be so bad? No one needed her back at camp, no one at all. And out here, in the nothing, she might fade into the oncoming night like a star that no one ever noticed because it didn’t shine bright enough.
Struggling to move, she adjusted herself so her busted knee was out in front of her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sharpness of the cold.
“It’s okay,” she said. But it wasn’t, she knew it wasn’t: it hit her all over like it had during the attacks by the Capitol’s goons. The idea of death was peaceful, but actually handing oneself over felt impossible. “It could be okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Her sob rang out over the wind that swept up her hair.
She stayed like that for a while, alone. The Greenbelt was a desolate and isolated place—where once it might have entertained weekend preppy hikers, now most people steered clear of the area, knowing that the raiders’ territory extended here. So it worked when you wanted solitude.
On the other hand, it didn’t work when someone had noticed your absence and come hunting, following the directions pointed out by the perimeter guards, where they’d seen the lone figure wandering off into the distance. (He’d torn into them for that, his normally calm and even-handed demeanour cracking, showing some of that tight, barbed anger that normally only came out when he was on the wrong end of midnight and a vodka bottle.)
The distant sound of Rome’s motorbike announced his presence much earlier, and then a few minutes later he stood above Maggie, blocking out part of the sky like a human wall. His shadow fell over her, long and slender.
“You’re supposed to have a chaperone when leaving camp.” Rome’s voice was a bone-deep thing, a bass rumble that she was used to hearing when dozing off in the past: pressing her ear against his chest and feeling his vocal chords rumble under her palm, so very much like his motorcycle that waited down the hill. Maggie was glad he was only a shadow then, her skin prickled and she felt sure his heat would hurt right then.
He’d tried to sound accusing, but it just came out weary instead. Eyes shut, Maggie curled her good leg up into her chest, hugging it.
“I know. I just… I needed... “ she didn’t have the words for it, but she did look up. He was so tall, she’d liked that about him. Hell, Maggie still liked it about him, but it made him feel distant in that moment. A million miles away. She ran her hands down and over her hair. Her stomach felt hollow. “I thought it might be okay to get lost here and just not go back. But then I got scared.”
It was terrifying to admit that. Maggie had gotten used to being zen, to becoming wallpaper and someone that was paid attention to sometimes, and then ignored and allowed to deal with their own devices. She could have faded away. But this was more than fading, and she was unhappy with the mix of emotions that were not dulling and turning beige. What she buried in sadness was coming out, and it was horrible.
The hands in her hair moved up to her face, covering her eyes. She didn’t cry- she yelled. A deep, guttural scream lost on the wind. He took an involuntary, instinctive step backwards, as if scalded by the sound—Maggie was usually faded earth tones and a sinking silence, swallowed up by molasses. She didn’t lash out like this, like the hot-tempered hounds he knew so well.
“Maggie.” Roman had hunkered down by her side now, one hand reaching hesitantly out—he’d been more careful around her since that drunken night, a night she didn’t even fully remember, too long ago—but then he was ignoring that little stutter-stop of hesitation and touching the woman’s shoulder. Maggie had been wrong, the heat Roman gave off wasn’t painful, it wasn’t searing. It was warmth, it was slow and felt like a blanket had been wrapped around her. She sobbed again, the sounds choking her as she stayed dry, but rocked forwards, towards him, head bowed down. His hand found the angle of her shoulders, pulled her into him.
There were so many things to say, but Maggie was so used to bottling it all up, to leaving small hints here and there. She missed her son, she missed her daughters, she missed the boys, she missed knowing that the next day would be the same as the one before. Maggie missed faith. Not in a Bible or a preacher, but in good things. Happy things.
“Why am I here?” she asked, the question flung out to the universe and the man before her. Her eyes connected to his. “Why am I still here, Roman?” she asked again, her voice turning to a hollow hush. “I don’t need to be.”
He looked at the woman nestled into his side, and it was no exaggeration it felt like his heart was splintering in his chest, somehow still fragile even inside that big shell.
“I can’t say I haven’t asked myself the same question, Mag.” The truth was a bitter pill. Roman sat down now, landing on the earth without a noise, simply to be closer to her. “Why are any of us here? Because we take it one day at a time, and we find our reasons to still be here.”
None of his reasons will work for her. His brother, his daughter—Rome is painfully aware that none of that applies to Margarete Davis.
She has to find her own. And Maggie didn’t even know where to start looking, because the first step involved a systematic breaking down of her emotions she couldn’t comprehend.
“What was the best thing you ate last, M?” It’s a small place, but it’s a start. Maggie licked her lips, she could feel she was thirsty. That her stomach pain was not just anxiety.
“This morning,” which wasn’t a total lie. Maggie had had some bread, the flat stuff that was more cardboard than anything else. She thought about making bread at home, with Sedona and Dominic. How her hands always hurt after, but it was worth it to have something fresh and clean to eat with dinner. She was lost again, her mind focusing on home: the floors, the walls, the items she’d left behind. Maggie hadn’t been back since her family had died in the gun shop, she’d been too scared. But now, with her fear already razor sharp and stabbing her, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d even notice a bit more pain.
“I want to go home, Roman. I want to see it.” It was a request, one she wasn’t even sure if she had the right to make. Roman would be risking biter territory... and the chance Maggie wouldn’t even want to come home.
He went still, processing that question.
No, not so much a question: more of a flat statement, a declaration. Maggie didn’t often declare things. She asked, meek and quiet. The fact that she was pronouncing something so firmly—
Roman ducked his head against hers, his forehead against her temple. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, as sure as she could be right then. She took his hand into her own and squeezed. She knew it would hurt, she was ready for that. She was ready to feel that she was in pain.
“Let’s go.”
He didn’t lift her up, didn’t whisk her off her feet like some fainting princess—that wasn’t how this worked, nor how he wanted it to—but Roman stood, and waited patiently for Maggie to join him.
When they walked carefully down the hill towards his bike, he did pause and hold out an arm to steady her, the woman resting his weight against him due to her leg brace. Reaching the bike, he settled his helmet on her head, and was gratified to see Maggie’s small fleeting smile as the oversized plastic swallowed her up.
He rapped his knuckles lightly on the side of the helmet, as if for good luck, then climbed onto the bike and waited for her arms to circle his waist, hands knotted at his stomach.
They drove.***
The street was empty, the plant life overgrown and brown. Each house was one story, with a distinctly 70’s look in the architecture. But the last house on the street was instantly eye catching with the bright red childrens slide in the yard, the blue door, and the many windchimes. Many had fallen, smashed to bits and pieces. The garage was closed, but the windows had been smashed open. Maggie felt her inside clench at the sight of how many pieces of furniture had been thrown out of the house.
Her orange couch. Lamps. Toys. Not zombies, this had been raiders and random people trying to find supplies.
She got off the bike (Roman followed with a cocked shotgun), stood before the gate, and then finally walked up to the door. It opened easily, she didn’t need to unlock it. Inside the dark halls had bare walls. Pictures all smashed to the floor. She bent down, picked up one of the frames and lifted it up. Her and Davy- she in a white wedding dress with a big belly, sitting on Davy’s bike as the redheaded man beamed in his sunday best. She put the picture back onto the ground and kept moving, fingers grazing the stucco.
It was the kitchen that did it. The way it had been torn apart by those looking for food- knowing she’d made meals there, knowing the last time she’d thought zombies were just a story had been there. Remembering meeting Roman there before. Saying words like ‘another life’.
“Another life.” Another fucking life. She grabbed the nearest cabinet door and ripped it open, throwing everything inside of it to the floor. She was a frenzy of movement, a blur of black and grunts as she ripped it all apart. The toaster was smashed to the floor, and when she was done her muscles hurt and she was covered in ancient flour. She looked like a banshee. Maggie’s throat hurt- she’d been yelling and hadn’t known it.
The den. Davy’s office. The bathrooms. She passed through all of it and stopped before the door with the sign ‘GET OUT: THAT MEANS YOU MOM’ on the door. Sedona.
If Roman was following her, she wasn’t aware of it. She was aware that someone else had slept in that room since the last time Sedona had- Sadie had always made her bed. It was unmade now. From the dresser she picked up a necklace, a purchase from Hot Topic- cheap, shaped like a dagger. It went into her pocket.
Aria and Rachel’s room. She found their ballet slippers. Pocketed.
Dominic’s. His letterman jacket went on her shoulders.
Her and Davy’s room. His watch. One of her maternity nightgowns.
Sofa’s. A pink elephant. She hugged it in her arms and took it with her.
The garage. She got a shovel. She wrapped the baby elephant, the shoes, the necklace, the watch, her shirt, all of it in the letterman jacket. The backyard was empty, the kiddie pool long since dried up. She broke the earth methodically and buried it all. It took time, more time than she’d thought. And at the end of it all, she buried the jacket. She buried it all. Then put the earth back on it, and then threw the shovel down and gasped for air. She kneeled, took off her wedding ring, and pressed it into the soft dirt.
The woman was still crouched there, breathing, silent, when Roman cautiously approached once more. He’d been doing a circuit of the house throughout all of this, checking rooms that she wasn’t in, ensuring that they really were empty before Maggie came tearing through, a hurricane of grief and loss ripping herself apart.
He’d waited and watched while she dug, standing on the back porch like some sentinel carved out of stone. (Once upon a time, he’d sat here with Davy: cold beers in their hands, hot summer sun slicking their skin with sweat, hamburger patties sizzling on the grill. Now the porch chairs were toppled and rusty, discoloured from months and years of rain and poisonous clouds.)
He released the safety on the shotgun—blessedly, this house had been empty of walkers, containing only ghosts and memories—and came to look at the impromptu grave. Her last memento glinting in the earth.
Part of him had been afraid that the moment Maggie stepped into that old building, she’d simply dissolve; slump to the floor and never get back up again, perhaps crawl into her daughter’s bed or her husband’s and burrow under the covers and never, ever emerge, until her bones had turned to dust to match her family.
Rome didn’t ask her if she was sure, this time. Instead, he leaned down and smoothed some of her disheveled hair back. Her pale skin was smudged with dirt, smears of it streaked on her cheeks and forehead where her dirty hands had tried to push away the hair. She was old statues of Mother Mary in half bathtubs- holy, sad, waysided.
“How are you feeling?” The question echoed in her head. The first impulse was to say she was fine, or that she missed her family. But it wasn’t what was true right then, because in that horrible moment she had come to a conclusion that ate at her very soul: she was thankful her children did not have to survive it all. The emptiness, the pain, the fear. Their experience with the end of days had been short, and painful for only half an hour. Perhaps that was a blessing.
Maggie turned around and looked at him. She didn’t remember much about Roman taking her back to the RV, but she knew deep down she’d kissed him. There had been a time where she’d known that if Davy had not been the man he was, she would have left him for Roman. That had eaten her up. It still did, a little. Less and less as the clouds moved above them. “They’re dead. But I’m not. Not today, and not tomorrow.”
“Another life.” The promise they’d made before, that half hearted impossible one. Out loud, slipping between the lips of the half tub Mary to the stone sentinel. She wasn’t seeking love or sex, it was acknowledgment.
They’d gotten what they’d maybe secretly hoped for; wrapped in thorns. It tasted bittersweet.
“Another life, and it is what we make of it,” Roman said, half-philosophical and half-cryptic as he so often was.
And perhaps that, too, was another promise.