Out There
written by: R. M. Greta
He raised his eyes to her.
“All done.”
She tilted her head to examine the bandage he had applied to her knee and gave a small nod. Her face—her whole body—felt heavy. The gravity of everything pulled down on the corners of her mouth and the bags under her eyes.
He placed a rough, dirty hand on her calf.
“Listen,” he hissed.
She focused on his hand as she strained to hear what took place outside the bathroom window. Her lips stuck together, and the roof of her mouth suctioned to her tongue.
“Uh…the sirens…they’re gone.”
His shoes squeaked on the bathroom tile as he stood from where he had knelt before her. The soles left bits of dirt in the grout. She rose from her seat on the toilet lid.
“We should get going,” he said in a rush.
“Why?” Her gaze swept from the shower to the lock on the door. “We could stay here. Wait—”
“Wait for what?”
She opened her mouth, closed it. No answer came to mind. He placed his hands on her shoulders—he moved too fast—and she flinched.
“Sorry”—he rubbed her arms—“but we need to keep moving. We can make it to that group of houses before the next siren begins.”
There was blood on his shirt—blood that had been mixed with sweat and dirt. She wondered what color the shirt had been before, wondered if it had been one of his favorites.
“Hey.” He shook her. “You still with me? We got this far; we can keep going.”
“No.” She was far away. “I’m going back.”
He let go of her arms. “Back?”
“To the car.”
“To the—there is no car!”
“There might be something left.” Her words trailed off.
“There’s nothing left! You gotta be a damn fool to go back through that field, after everything we went through to get outta there!”
“I just need to see.”
“You won’t see shit! Nothing but blood and scrap metal. Are you always this stupid?”
She felt a droplet of spit land on her face as he ranted. She sighed but said nothing.
“I will leave your ass here,” he continued, “God knows I don’t need a woman tagging along with me.”
“You should go.” She looked him in the eyes at last. “You really should.”
He stood with his hands on his hips, studying her. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle.
“I’m sorry. About how I found you. No one should have to see that—see all that—”
“Stop!” Her balled-up fists found his broad chest. “You shut up! You stop! That was my husband—my children!”
She continued to hit him. He caught her fists with his thick fingers and calloused palms. She screamed again as they struggled. He grunted, tried to steer her back to a sitting position on the lid of the toilet. She leaned into him suddenly, and he loosened his grip. Her teeth came close to his ear, chomping and searching for flesh to bite. He let go of her wrists and wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her too tightly. With a sob, she melted into him.
He smelled bad—rotten, acrid—but also like grass. Her husband had always smelled good. His words, like this man’s, had also stung, but they were nothing compared to the blows he’d landed on her face, her ribs, her back.
“It’s bad out there,” the man said. His breath was hot against the side of her head. “We can stay here if you really want. But I won’t let you go alone.”
She nodded, pressed herself against his body. An image of her garden, at her house, five miles away, flashed in her mind. Spring blooms of red, yellow, and purple—opening, shuddering, closing. Laughter in the sun room, filling the big porcelain bathtub with warm water, the tea kettle whistling.
His hands rubbed her back, heavy and insistent.
“They’re gone,” he urged.
She knew.
Later, when she heard the water in the hotel bathroom running, she grabbed the pocketknife and the flare gun from the bedside table and walked out into the dusky evening. Smoke rose from the field on her left, and lights flickered in the neighborhoods to her right. She set off down the road, away from the man whose name she did not know.
