Part 5: Dream

Anne has a dream

Anne was dreaming. She usually didn’t dream often, and when she did, she couldn’t remember, but this was different. There was a rose colored glow around her as she looked around the world birthed from her subconscious. Squat trees with white flowers in big clusters lined a road leading up to a house. The house was the one her mama and Hyde told her about. It was two stories tall, painted burnt orange and had a wooden deck with lawn chairs and a little table with a stack of fashion magazines resting on top of it. She was alone outside. The grass was trimmed and the sun was out and shining down yellow light, brighter than any daylight she saw while awake. She walked up to the door and ran her hand over it, polished rosewood with patterned glass that glimmered in the light. She pulled it open and took a step inside. The carpet was clean and caramel colored. Photographs of happier times hung on the wall.

Then, she saw an apparition walk up to her. It resembled Hyde, though with cleaner hair and skin and wearing much nicer clothes.

 “Beautiful day out there.” The doppelganger said with a cheer that the real Hyde never allowed into his own voice.

“Yeah.” Anne said, reaching out to touch his hand.

His hand felt smooth and soft. A strange feeling since she had been so used to dirt and calluses.

“Hyde, why don’t you go outside? Today’s too nice to spend inside.” A familiar, honey-sweet voice echoed out, rippling through the dream like a pond.

“Mama?” Anne said, running in the direction of the voice.

Indeed it was her. She was standing there, dressed casually and sporting neatly trimmed short black hair. Her eyes were like jewels and her smile stirred up feelings of security and warmth that Anne seldom felt.

She bent down and brushed her hand through Anne’s hair and pulled her close. She began to whisper softly into her ear.

“Wake up, Anne.”

 

Anne was on the cold ground. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. Hyde was crouched over her.

“Sleep well?” He asked her, his eyes were weary and hollow looking, like the eyes of an old hound.

Dead leaves were scattered on the ground, the woods were silent and barren of movement. The sky was overcast again, a milky shade of grayish-white like a cataract.

 

Anne got up and pulled a small twig out of her hair.

“I had a good dream last night.” She said to Hyde, who was brushing leaves and bits of grass off his coat. They had long since learned to ignore the horrid stench of their clothing.

“That’s good. What did you dream of?”

“I dreamt of our old house, like you said it was like. Mom was there.”

Hyde didn’t say anything but a positive sounding “Hmm”.

Hyde turned to her. “Did she look like she did when we were with her?”

“She looked like how you said she used to when she lived in that house with papa.”

Hyde had picked up a twig and turned it over his hands, studying the bends and knots in its figure.

“Hyde, what is it like, living in a house?”

Hyde sighed a bit and put his hands in his pockets; he kicked a few leaves around and said with a tinge of sorrow in his voice… “From what I remember, it was pretty good. You didn’t have to walk everywhere and you always had a nice place to sleep and it was always warm.”

“Will we have a house one day?”

“Yeah, we will.”

Hyde scouted the road, rifle in hand as he paced down the long path of asphalt and gravel. His nerves were shot to hell. He kept jerking his head around, taking aim at sounds he had thought he heard. He would hear what sounded like a footstep or a gun being cocked and he’d jerk the rifle around, its stained gunmetal shining feebly in the murky light, and there would be only silence again. After an hour of his fearful vigil, he returned to the little encampment.

 

“All clear. Let’s go.” He said as he took her by the hand.

There was a child’s bicycle on the road. It was rusted over and the tires had rotted away. A small basket was affixed to the front; the bars were twisted to the point where it just barely resembled a basket. Hyde looked at it and imagined a child riding on it, laughing as he or she sped along without a care in the world.

 

 

 

They walked along the side of the road. There was still no movement anywhere. Anne narrowed her eyes and saw a shape next to an electrical pole.

“What’s that up ahead?’ She said, pointing.

“I don’t know”

“Do you hear that?” She said.

They could hear a faint, straining cry in the distance

“Help! Please help! Help!”

The sound was coming from the figure next to the pole.

Their feet carried the faster and farther as they broke into a run.

“Help!”

As they drew near, the shape revealed itself to be a man, looking to be fairly young, and tied to the electrical pole with a filthy length of grayed rope. The man was tall and lean, with scraggly brown hair and wide hazel eyes set deep on his sheepish face. He wore a varsity sweater from some extinct university and work jeans with a large stitch zigzagging down the knee of one leg.

“Please, could you help me?” He said, his voice quivering.

“Who did this to you?” Hyde said as he got out his knife.

“Bandits, they jumped me as I was heading out to do some fishing. They took everything I had and tied me here. It’s a wonder they didn’t kill me and strip me naked.”

Hyde moved behind the pole and began cutting the ropes with his knife; the ropes were filthy and frayed, but still tough.

“Where’d you come from?” Hyde said as his knife made its progress through one of the ropes.

“I was staying at a camp up the road; the bandits didn’t head in that direction, which is good.” He looked at Anne, who was studying him the way a cat looks at a television program.

“I can show you where it is, we got plenty of food, and a nice place to sleep.”

He smiled at Anne. “Are you his kid?” He said to her.

 

 

 

“He’s my brother.”

He felt the ropes come loose and he pulled himself free from the pole, there were red marks on his wrist where they had been bound.

“Your brother’s a good man.”

Hyde folded the knife up.

“What’s your name?” Hyde said to the man, who was pacing around for what may well have been his first moment of freedom in days.

“It’s Martin.”

Martin held out his hand at Hyde, grinning ear to ear.

“What about you?”

Hyde took Martin’s hand and gave it a firm shake.

“Hyde.”

Martin looked back at Anne.

“I’m Anne.”

“It’s nice to see people with morals. You don’t see that anymore.” He said, rubbing the red rope marks on his wrists.

Anne turned to Hyde.

“Can we keep him with us?” She asked him.

“Why?” He replied in a hushed tone.

“He could help us.”

Hyde turned back to Martin.

“What can you do?”

Martin shrugged.

“I’m good with medicine and I’m a pretty good shot with a pistol. That’s about it.”

“Would you mind coming with us for a while?” Hyde said, putting his hand on Anne’s shoulder.

 

“Where are you headed?”

“We’re going east, there’s a big settlement there. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called Rosewood.”

Martin’s eyes widened, a smile spread across his face.

“Oh yes! I’ve been there before. I sold homemade painkillers there for a year. I can show you how to get there! I even know a shortcut!”

Martin paused for a bit, putting his hands in his pockets.

“By the way, would you mind coming with me back to the camp? We can spend the night there, maybe pick up some supplies before we set out?”

“Sure.” said Hyde.

Martin set off down the road with Hyde and Anne following close behind.

 

 

 

The camp was noisy and active. There were people bartering for clothing and bullets. There was a rack with strips of jerky hanging on it. There was a makeshift still and a woman tending to it, handing out cups of liquor.

There was a mother with her child clutching a ratty doll. Men were gathering at a table trading hunting stories and trading things they salvaged.

Martin led Hyde and Anne to a medium sized tent covered in patches and stitching.

“I hope you guys don’t mind sharing a tent.”

Inside was a battery powered lantern, a portable stove with a covered pot on top of it, and some sleeping bags.

“Make yourselves at home. I got some stew cooking, if you’re hungry.” Martin said as he sat down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyde and Anne helped themselves to the stew in the pot, it had a rich, full smell to it and the meat tasted lean and tender, with a slight smoky flavor.

“What did you put in this?” Hyde asked as he began eating.

“I traded a guy a pair of shoes for a pound of deer meat. He said it was fresh. The traders around here are a pretty honest bunch.”

Hyde put another spoonful into his mouth. The stew tasted even better with every bite. Anne was eating like a starving hog, a thin brown bead of stew trickled down the side of her mouth.

Martin glanced at Hyde’s rifle which had been placed down next to his knapsack on the floor of the tent.

“My dad used to have a gun like that.” Martin said, with a nostalgic tone.

“Oh.” Hyde said as he set his bowl down.

“He kept it real clean and polished, and he kept it in this big fancy cabinet with all his other guns. He took it out one day and said to me: ‘Son, you’re going to have to learn to shoot this thing. ‘He gave it to me as a present when I turned ten. He took me out back and set up targets for me to shoot; I got pretty good at it after a while.”

“He knew it was going to happen, didn’t he?” said Hyde, who was circling the rim of the bowl with his fingers.”

“He thought something like it would happen, but he didn’t really think it was going to be this bad. I remember when he heard about the first outbreak, he sat there in front of the TV and just … cried.”

Martin glanced at Anne and then looked back at Hyde, and with a sudden change of tone said..

“What about you guys?”

“Our folks didn’t see it coming, when I was five, Mom and Dad took us out of the house, we were all wearing paint masks and we drove into town looking for help. When the car ran out of gas, we walked.”

“How’d you lose your folks?”

“We lost them in a storm.”

Martin shook his head sadly.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“That’s just the way it is.” Hyde said.

 

 

“Just the way it is.” He thought to himself.