Posts Tagged ‘javier’

Wherein, I just want to die.

Posted: April 4, 2013 in Life Before, On the Road Again
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I cleaned myself up as best I could, dropping the rest of my stuff by the stream. I knew the next thing I needed to do was find a place to sleep. I hadn’t slept in two days. It was what I had to do and once I got to sleep, I knew once I woke up that I needed to find food. I was beginning to border on delirium, something I figured out once I had begun to hallucinate.

It began as I worked to gather up some branches. I figured if I could just build a small fire to warm myself up for a bit that I could then work on sleeping. I walked along the stream, I was so terrified of losing water again. I found small branches and some twigs that I gathered. I bent down to get the best stick I had seen the whole way and when I stood back up again, I saw him. I saw him watching me from across the stream.

I dropped everything. I wanted to run back to my stuff and just keep running. He stood there, staring at me. Almost through me. I knew that look, he had had it so many times before. In my life before.

“You’re still mad at me,” he says as he digs his hands into his pockets.

I nearly fall backwards. I have lost my god damn mind. It has finally happened. It only took the Undead, killing my students and then getting kidnapped and raped almost daily for me to finally fucking lose my damn mind. Dealing with John’s indifference seemed like one of the easiest things I had ever done in life. But, he was right, I was still pretty fucking mad at him. I don’t respond, I just stare at him.

“Your man, he’s a good man. He loves you.” John takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lights one. He’s next to me suddenly, offering me one. I refuse in shock and fear. “Come on, we always used to smoke together.” He hands me the one he already lit. I take a long drag, letting it completely feel my lungs. I can taste the tobacco, smell it. It tastes so good. I exhale slowly. John lights another one and joins me.

We sit down next to one another. I feel like I’m in the middle of the fucking twilight zone. I keep taking long, slow drags of my cigarette, enjoying it more than I should. “I know he’s a good man,” I finally say.

“You deserve him, Lizzy.”

I feel my heart skip a beat at the sound of my name on his tongue. I breath in. God damn it. “Yeah,” I finally manage to say.

“You have to let me go. You have to let go of how fucking terribly I took you for granted.” He’s staring straight ahead at the water.

It’s taking every bit of me not to burst into tears. “I loved you,” I blurt out despite my best attempts to not go that route. “I loved you so much. And all I really wanted was your attention. That was it.” Fuck, now I am crying.

“I know.” He finally looks at me. His eyes are filled with regret. “I was stupid, I was young and there you were, this beautiful girl filled with so much love and kindness. And you wanted to give it all to me with no expectations.” He takes a long drag, exhales, letting the smoke billow out around him. “That was one thing I wasn’t used to. What I was used to were girls that always wanted something, my money, just the label, the image – whatever. You were the first girl that was in it, just for me. And that was scary, that was big and I didn’t know what to do with it so I fucked it up so bad that by the time you did ask me for something as simple as my time, the whole thing…us were already in pieces and I hadn’t even realized it.”

It took him dying…to realize this now. Fucking guys.

“So I did what any guy would do, I pushed you away. And I hurt you again and again.”

I nod, sucking hard of my cigarette. I’m scared if I try to talk I’ll just be a hot mess. He’s pressed every button and opened up every wound he gave me in the years that we had dated. I wanted to hate him, so badly.

“John, it’s another lifetime at this point.” I keep my gaze locked with his. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But it does, Lizzy. I loved you too. I loved you so incredibly much that there were days that you were all that I thought about. And I need you to know that I mean that and that happened. You matter, Lizzy. You matter very much. And if nothing else, I need you to know that, believe that and when Javier finds you – which he will – I want you to stop dwelling on me.”

I look away to stub out my cigarette. When I turn back, he’s gone. I promptly burst into tears, big heaving sobs. I tuck my knees into my chest and I just want to die. I fucked it all up, I fucked up keeping my kids safe, I fucked up basic survival and I have been fucking up my relationship with Javier too.

John’s Story

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John Reardon was what I thought going to be the love of my life. He liked beer, movies and cars. He used to drive me crazy with his indifference towards me and how it always seemed to be something else. He was born on November 8, 1983 and before he died he was working as a copywriter for a small PR firm in New Brunswick. What I loved most about him were those moments where he would show how kind he truly was like when he would lovingly talk Mouse down from her place atop my pillow. He ran hot and cold and I found a thrill in trying to figure that out. He died trying to get to my school the day that this shit all hit the fan. I buried him in the kickball field along with some of my students and my boss after Javier beheaded him.

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Separation Anxiety

Posted: March 31, 2013 in Life Before, On the Road Again
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I’ve been separated from the group for about a day and a half. I’m starving, but more so incredibly thirsty. All I want is a drink. I’m deep into the woods now. I think our old house is somewhere behind me.

The hordes have thinned out. It’s the strangest thing. At first there were what felt like hundreds and then the more I ran and the more I worked through, the thinner the groups got until I was back out into open ground. The family of deer that crossed my path may have had something to do with helping me get this far. Sorry, Bambi.

My legs are so sore and swollen. I just want to sit, but if I stop it means they can come back. I don’t have it in me to deal with a horde.

I have to find water and a place where I can rest. I’ve thought about tying the blanket up amongst the trees and sleeping for just a little bit, but then if I fall that will be the end of me. I need water.

I need to focus on the water. At least I’m focusing on me and survival now and not my crappy life I had before.

I never realized just how crappy my life really was before all of this. There have been nights since this all started where I used to lay awake and think about my perfect life before, but it was far from perfect. I actually had started to hate teaching. I hated every moment of it. And as much as I wanted to believe that my boyfriend loved me and was my happy, fairytale ending…in all reality my boyfriend didn’t even really like me and probably just used me for comfort and companionship when he needed it.

I don’t know what’s worse, having been secretly holding onto that behind Javier’s back this whole time. Romanticizing the whole thing. Or actually even missing that perfect life I never had.

God, I am so thirsty. I just want water. I would kill for water.

And as crappy as life had gotten after all of this happened, it actually got better in a lot of ways. I have Javier. I have kids. I have a life that I wanted.

And I’m not teaching, though now, I actually find myself missing it.

I’m so damn thirsty. I wish it was summer. If it were summer there would be leaves and even though there would be minuscule amounts of water in them, I would be pulling them off left and right until this super cotton mouth went away.

I feel like I used to feel after a very long night of binge drinking. Only at least before feeling this way, at least I got to have some fun and not have to fight for my life. This wouldn’t be so hard is this was up hill.

Damn it, I wish I listened to Javier all those times he tried to tell me how to find things out here. I wonder where he is. I wonder if he’s looking for me. Of course he is. And he’s probably worried too. I know Javier loves me. John would have left me out here to fend for myself, giving me some lame excuse about a hang nail stopping him from rescuing me.

Enough. I’m not doing the comparing men game now.

By the sun I know it’s past noon. I have to make it up over this hill. I need to find water. You can’t live without water after what, 3 days? Shit.

The Aftermath of the Man in the Ice

Posted: March 12, 2013 in Home Sweet Home
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I’m not sure how long it was that I sat there. I know that it was dark, very dark when my mom finally came in. She whispered to me in the soft soothing tone that she used to use when I was little and I wouldn’t or couldn’t stop crying. She led me by the hand into one of the bathrooms. I could hear Javier speaking somewhere between spanish and very broken english.

He had heated water and was dumping it into the bathtub. My mom undressed me and much like when I was a little girl, she eased me into the tub and gently washed the Man in the Ice from my body. She let me sit in the warm water for awhile, as she rinsed soap from my arms and hair. It felt so good.

She helped me out of the tub and dressed me in one of the nightgowns we picked up along the way. It was two sizes too big, but it felt good to feel almost human again. My hair hung just above my shoulders now. I could feel the now cold water dripping down my shoulders and my back.

Somehow I get upstairs to the room I share with Javier. I sit on the edge of our bed, my knees drawn tightly to my chest. A part of me wants to cry, but the stronger more dominant part will not let me. I hear Javier come in. He sits behind me. He doesn’t say anything to me. He takes my brush and like he’s done so many times before when he felt that I needed him to comfort me without words, he softly and gently begins to brush my hair. It relaxes me. It calms me. It makes me feel so safe with him.

Gently and with hands that suddenly feel smaller than I know they are, he braids my hair into a loose braid. He hasn’t done this before and I am surprised that he knows how to do it, but I guess having had so many sisters, it was a craft that he probably did pick up.

He draws me to him and we lay down. I lay my head of his chest as he cocoons us in the big, down blanket that we were beyond lucky to find.  This has been and is the only place that I feel safe anymore. I hear Javier’s heart beating, warm and steady against my ear. I drift off to sleep quickly, feeling at peace on the inside for the first time in a very long while.

Defrosting the Man in the Ice

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Uncategorized
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It’s been beautifully warm and then bitterly cold. Last week, we even saw our first real snow storm since this all began. We were trapped for the entire weekend until we were able to dig out our little house. It reminded me how in my life before I should have been more appreciative of public services like snow plows and snow removal. 

It was bitter and cold and we were thankful for it because it meant that we did not have to deal with The Man in the Ice. But then, it started to get warmer out. We had days where it felt like spring. I would stand with the children and we would stop doing chores. We’d put our faces to the sun and just feel the renewal that was coming.

It amazes me how much more in-tune we have become with the natural world since ours lives changed. Our moods align with the temperature and the weather. It was so nice for those few days. It made all of the snow melt and made it easier for us. Javier though paid close attention to The Man in the Ice. 

One morning we could see the ice beginning to break up. We both stood there watching him, as his fingers began to slowly protrude through the ice. It was disgusting and stomach churning to watch these purple/brown bloated fingers worm there way through the weak parts of the ice. If we helped to pull him out we knew he would break apart. If we let him struggle to get out we figured the same would happen to him. 

His eyes said that his mind was muddled, probably both with decay, his unceasing hunger and the temperature of the near-freezing water. 

“If we leave him in there, he will spoil the lake. If he hasn’t already,” said Javier as he drew me closer to him.

“But how to we remove him?”

“A really big net.”

“Even if we had one of those, we’d still have to get it underneath him.”

“I know.”

Javier was already half way up the hill towards the woods before I could respond. 

Javier’s Story

Posted: January 25, 2013 in Life Before
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Last night when we had battened down for sleep, Javier crawled into our makeshift bed next to me. I was still annoyed with him for what had happened earlier in the day. He usually slides in beside me and wraps me in his arms, but tonight was different. He slid in next to me and remained very much to himself.  After awhile, I rolled over and found him awake, staring straight up at the ceiling.

“I could tell you didn’t like me very much this morning,” he said, still staring up and away from me.

“You’re right, I didn’t.”

He rolled over, laying his head on his bended arm. “We don’t talk much about our old lives.” I nodded, agreeing. “Maybe we need to.”

 Javier’s Story

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 Javier was born on July 14, 1979 in a poor, rural area of Spain called Extremadura. He was the youngest of eight children and the only son. He never knew his father and his mother passed away from cancer when he was only 18. When he was eleven, he had gone to work for the farmer that his family rented their home from. At first it was simple things, small errands that he would do for a barely existent wage. Then it built into him slowly becoming more and more important to their landlord.

At thirteen, he was moved to Madrid where he helped run all sorts of crime rings. They liked him for it because no one really would suspect a young boy to have such connections. His mother, on her deathbed, made him promise that he would get away from his life in Madrid and clean up. He left for America and to his oldest sister’s within a few months.

He worked minimum wage jobs and helped his sisters the best that he could until he was finally hired at Alcott Elementary ten years ago.

Somewhere Between Death and Humanity

Posted: January 24, 2013 in Home Sweet Home, On the Road Again
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The closer I got to him, the faster I seemed to be walking. I was furious by the time I reached him and I think that he knew that. He put down the machete and the sac of small animals that he had found and no doubt killed. There was a small part of me that wanted to kill him in that instance, we had been through so much, seen so much and had been forced to do so much I just couldn’t believe he would let Vincent experiment on walkers like that.

“Leez, you seem upset,” he said, putting his hands on his hips as he absent-mindedly kicked at the dirt in front of him.

Upset?! You’re damn right I’m upset, you big Spanish jerk! I exhale, slowly before I even try to talk to him. Since we became whatever it is that we are, we always were able to talk about things. Why was I finding it so hard to talk and not yell about this? Because it’s disgusting and I’m disappointed that we would do that shit. I shake my head.

“Is this about, Vincent?” He reaches out, running his hands over my arms. His touch is both calming and warm, but I refuse to let him win like that.

“Of course it’s about Vincent! You’re mutilating walkers? THAT’S what you two do out there?”

He draws me closer to him. Oh, he’s good. “He’s curious. I’m curious. We need to figure them out. They’re dead, it’s not like they feel it.”

“You don’t know that. Just like The Man in the Ice, we don’t know what—”

“You’re right, we don’t. But you still have been out there for the past two days staring at him. He makes you curious. It’s not like it used to be Leez, we have to teach them to be survivors not shelter them.”

“But he’s just a kid.”

“He turned eleven last month. When I was his age I was already working to help my mother. We were not all as fortunate as you were. Childhood doesn’t exist in this world, anymore.”

He kisses me on the forehead, picks up his things and starts walking back up towards the house.  I watch as he goes. I look towards the lake. I am curious about The Man in the Ice. I wonder what would happen to him if we left him in there. I wonder what would happen to him if we took him out. Should we take him out?

I wonder over towards the lake and pick up Vincent’s bag. I look down at The Man in the Ice. He looks like he’s almost sleepy. His movements are pronounced and angry anymore, instead he looks like he’s just floating, minimally aware of what’s going on around him. In an eerie way, it’s almost peaceful.