Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Yeah, but how?”
“Easy peasy,” Rage said. Turning suddenly she aimed her gun at the family portrait hanging above the mantle of the little fireplace in the living room and fired, shattering the glass, sending it raining down to the floor, leaving a dusty rectangular mark on the wall where it had hung. She turned back around. “You take the power back.”
It was like suddenly something inside of me broke and without thinking I took a step past Rage, walking around the broken portrait in the living room in complete and total awe. “Yes,” I said, looking back up to Rage. “Let’s do it.”
Rage and I spent the rest of the afternoon making a competition of setting up vases, photos, stuffed animals, plates, and other objects of my hatred, taking turns obliterating each and every one of them.
Neither one of us missed a single shot.
“Have you ever missed?” Rage asked from her perch on the counter, as she watched me sweep glass into a dust pan.
“Yes,” I admitted, remembering the park and how I almost got Bear and I killed because I hit Mono’s shoulder instead of his chest. “Once, maybe twice.”
Only when shooting at people.
“You?”
Rage swung her legs back and forth and scrunched up her little nose. “Just once, although I’m starting to think I did it on purpose.”
We were both quiet after that as I cleaned up the mess, and Rage cleaned her guns. She’d been right. In order to overcome my fear I had to take the power back, which meant I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing when it came to my fear of losing Bear.
I had to do something.
Unfortunately, in order to do something I had to wait for Barbarian Barbie to turn her back.
At least long enough for me to borrow one of her guns.
Which I realized very quickly was going to be hard when she didn’t leave my side. When I showered, she sat on the toilet with the lid down and filed her nails. When I cleaned out the freezer, she did a bizarre series of stretches in the middle of the kitchen. When I went outside to throw away the trash, she kept pace beside me and complained about the heat.
That first night when I went to sleep in my little twin bed in my old room, Rage surprised me by getting in right beside me. “What’s going to happen to this house?” she asked without a trace of tiredness in her voice.
“Bank will probably take it back soon.” I said, yawning.
“Good. That means we can blow it up when we leave,” she said, sitting up and hopping up and down on her butt and clapping like she’d just been crowned prom queen, which she most certainly could’ve been with her blonde hair and tanned skin. However, I had the nagging inkling that Rage’s past was more colorful then prom court and pep rallies.
“Deal,” I agreed, enjoying the idea of watching the place go up in an explosion of flames. “But do you really have to sleep in here? You can sleep in my brother’s old room. Or on the couch. It pulls out. The extra linens should be in the hall closet.” I didn’t mention anything about my parents’ room, preferring instead to pretend like the room where I’d found my father’s bloodied body didn’t exist.
Rage ignored me, her silence telling me all I needed to know about her plans for going to find another place to sleep.
“Is what King said true?” I asked. “You don’t sleep?”
“No, I don’t. Not really. Not for a long time, anyway,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.
“How do you survive?”
“I don’t really know,” she answered with an audible sigh, although she seemed like she was talking about more than just her lack of sleep.
“I have to help Bear,” I admitted. Testing the waters to see if there was any way I could get her to help me instead of hindering me.
“You can’t help him,” Rage said, taking me by surprise.
“Why the hell not?” I asked, turning on my side to face her. Rage did the same. Her blue eyes sparkled but were lacking something which I soon realized was what King had been talking about when he’d dropped us off.
“Because you can’t leave the house. Those are my orders.”
“But why?”
“All I know is that I’m here to make sure you don’t try anything stupid.”
“How are you going to stop me?” I asked, growing bold.
Rage giggled like a schoolgirl with a secret, she rolled onto her back, again turning her attentions to the ceiling. “That, Thia, is entirely up to you.”
CHAPTER TEN
Thia
I had a dog.
Well, sort of.
I sort of had a dog.
I first spotted it one night when I was sitting out on the porch in my grandmother’s old rocking chair. Rage, who I was supposed to believe was a killer, unabomber, babysitter of sorts, spent the afternoon baking muffins. Really good muffins as far as I could tell from the one bite I’d had. But before I could grab it off the plate again, which I’d set on top of the old wooden toolbox, it ran away in a flash of teeth and brown fur. I stood up an looked out over the railing at the tiny thing who was barely out of the puppy stage, happily munching on my muffin. He was all skin, ribs, and bones. The second he took his last swallow, he hightailed it between the trees and into the grove.
The very next night I left out some food again, this time on purpose and this time it was a few pieces of breakfast sausage. I sat in the same spot, watching and waiting. Sure enough, he crept from his hiding spot in the trees and stole my food all over again.
Night after night it played out the same way, except I’d switched to feeding him actual dog food that Rage had delivered from the feed store. Everything else we needed was magically stock piled in the refrigerator and pantry, even the deep freezer in the garage. We weren’t just hiding out. We were all set for the zombie apocalypse.