I open my eyes and see Merrick"s warm and blood shot green eyes watching me wearily. Then I find myself looking into a another pair of worried and relief filled eyes.
Jeff"s.
"One of these days, Sherry, you"re gonna give us a heart attack." His words were firm and reprimanding but his eyes nor his words could lie to me.
He squeezes my hand before glancing back behind us and ordering Merrick to take me inside. They will finish this he said. I try to glance back too but Merrick says no.
"Don"t look, Sherry. You don"t need to see this."
I close my eyes and press my head down but then I realize that I do want to look. In fact, I need to look, because I caused this. If I hadn"t ran out in the dark after a voice instead of waking someone who could better handle the situation, this wouldn"t have happened. Cain could"ve ran faster without having to carry me to safety.
The thought brings tears to my eyes and my throat locks down in a knot of overwhelming regret. I clench my fists and prepare myself for a vision of slaughter and blood. Whoever is hurt, whoever is dead, whoever is still out there fighting - it"s my fault.
I gasp and clench my eyes shut in shame. That quick look over Merrick"s shoulder told me more than I never wanted to know. There are bodies on the ground. Who"s? Theirs or ours? The fighting is still going on. Blurring figures and then hard slams. Fist and legs. Swinging makeshift weapons. Gunshots.
I can"t help but heave and sob. My body refusing to cooperate with my silent internal plea to stop. Merrick doesn"t speak, just squeezes me tighter. Must a.s.sume I"m crying because I"m afraid and in pain. He can"t know my shame. My embarra.s.sment and guilt for being so stupid and reckless. My conscience is beaten and affecting my coherency.
I know we are inside now but I can"t move, can"t speak. I feel the bounce of the stairs. Then the worse thing that could possibly happen, happened.
I hear Merrick"s swift intake of breath and halt in steps. I look up, then down, following his gaze and see Mrs. Trudy, Lana and Marissa lying on the floor, all three of their faces spotted with blood.
Then the world goes black.
Merrick - The Blame Game
Chapter 3.
No! They set us up. This was all a set up, a game. They knew someone would hear them and come outside to help. They knew we"d go after them. They knew we"d go after Sherry. They knew we"d take the strong and leave the weaker ones here.
I lay Sherry on the couch, she pa.s.sed out after seeing Trudy, Lana and Marissa on the floor. I throw an afghan on her and then check her and the others pulses. Oh, thank you! They"re alive. Where is all this blood coming from?
Immediately I remember why they had been left down here. To guard Calvin and Lily. I run to Lily"s room. Not there. I blur across the bunker to Trudy"s room. No one.
I glance in Paul and Kate"s room, Trudy"s old room. Somehow, they both and the baby are asleep on the bed still. Must not have been much of a commotion. A quick look in Laura"s room and I see the same. All three asleep. No one in Lana"s room either.
I check everywhere. Our room. Jeff"s room. Bathroom. I call out their names, out loud and in their minds, though I know Lily would be scared if she could hear me that way. Nothing.
It hits me what Crandle told Sherry in her dream. That he wanted her and the children to come to him. I can feel the blood drain from my face. I can feel my heart slam painfully in my chest. I can see the blurring and double vision from shock.
They took Lily and Calvin.
I blur my way back into the commons room and hear a few others coming back down the stairs from outside already. I grab a few towels from the hall and go to see what damage has been done to them, hit on the head with something blunt. All three need st.i.tches it looks like. How had they gotten the drop on Marissa? Must have surprised them and hit her before she had a chance to touch them.
I see a meat mallet in Trudy"s hand and a knife next to Lana"s. Good girls. They at least tried to put up a fight.
Ryan and Cain are beside me now. They said it"s over. The Lighters are dead. They are asking what they can do to help and what happened? I can see that Cain"s head is bleeding too but he insist he"s fine for now.
I focus through the gasps and questions and chatter to handle what needs to be done. I instruct Ryan to hold the towel to Trudy"s head and Cain to do the same to Marissa while I put one under Lana, who seems to have the worst wound of all. She has a huge gash above her eyebrow and another one in the back. Kay will return soon, I hope, and she can st.i.tch them up.
I push someone aside, Margo I think to get back to Sherry. Danny is beside her and must see some fury or desperation in my face because even he moves aside when he sees me coming. I just can"t focus. I can"t care about anyone"s feelings right now. Too many other things matter. Sherry matters. She pa.s.sed out. It"s all too much for her.
I take her and lay her down in our room to rest in the quiet while we sort this out. I wrap her up in the sleeping bag and zip it tight leaving on the jacket I put on her. I light a flashlight on in the corner so she won"t wake up alone in the dark.
Making my way back into the commons room, most everyone is back inside now. Jeff and Ryan are tending to everyone best they can. Kay is already working on Trudy with Danny and Cain"s help, though Simon is yelling that Cain get his head looked at immediately.
"How"s Sherry?" Miguel asked.
I can see a bright red and bluish semicircle under his left eye already.
"Her leg"s broken."
"I can help. I got half way through an EMT course before I dropped out. Couldn"t take all the blood and gore. Where is she?"
I take him to her. I unzip the sleeping bag and pull back the blanket. He sucks in a breath through his teeth at a glance at her leg. Then leaves to get medical supplies. We don"t have a splint, I know. I wonder what he can do for her.
I absentmindedly stroke her hair back from her face. She still hasn"t stirred awake yet. I rub my thumb over the bruises on her neck, fingerprints.
More of Phillips fingerprints.
My blood begins to boil but I stave it off and pray that she stays asleep while Miguel sets her break. I see him return with an armload of stuff that is anything but medical supplies.
He produces a light wooden shelf board to stint her leg from underneath and the attached 90 degree wall brace for her foot, a roll of duct tape, and an ace bandage to wrap around to keep it in place. Surprisingly, it looks st.u.r.dy enough and it just may work. We don"t have much of a choice at this point.
My mind drifts to when Orville Wright broke his leg. Him and his dang flyer. Always persistent and never cautious enough. A recipe for stupidity and brilliance and discovery. Reminds me of someone else I know.
As I look back down to her I can see the faint purple marks under her eyes from the cold and sleepless night I"m sure she endured. She can"t stand the cold or the dark and she gets cold so easily. I don"t know what Cain did but I"ll have to thank him for taking care of her and bringing her back to me.
"Hold her down, Merrick," Miguel breaks my thoughts with a command and I comply, as unwilling as I may be.
I envision Danny running in here in a matter of seconds once he hears Sherry"s inevitable screams when Miguel sets her leg. I shut my eyes and place my forehead on hers. Just like the last time we purposely tortured her after the Markers scratch, where we had to hold her down and burn her to stop the poison. I can"t watch anymore than she could.
This isn"t the first time I"m intentionally inflicting pain on her. Even though I have her interest at heart, it kills me to know that fact.
I brace myself, wrapping an arm over Sherry"s stomach and arms and apply enough force to keep her still. I hear the crunch of bones as they grind and snap back to where they should be.
The high pitched scream is piercing but she doesn"t wake. She just screams and sobs. Then she calls my name, not an accusation but a plea. Over and over. I whisper that I"m here, she"s safe, that I"m sorry. She can"t hear me nor understand through her sobbing and crying out.
Miguel wraps it quickly and shoves me some pills he grabbed and insists I make her take them. She is somehow still asleep but whimpering and her face is a dictionary ill.u.s.tration of painful confusion.
She has started shaking again. I still think it"s better this way that her being awake though I can"t imagine the kind of dream she is having.
Danny does run in as does Ryan and Celeste. Miguel ushers them out, explaining that he had to set her broken leg. Danny and Miguel yell and go back and forth in the hall as to why Danny wasn"t told beforehand that Sherry was hurt, Miguel explaining it was better for him not to see it and he needed the room to work. At this show, a few others start yelling at each other as well.
"Oi! We can"t just scream and fight at each other. That"ll get us nowhere fast. We gotta stop blaming each other and focus on what"s gotta be done now," Miguel barks to get his point across.
Celeste starts to cry and Kay drags her off somewhere out of sight. I block them all out and lay next to Sherry, kicking the room door closed with my foot. I hope that she isn"t having a nightmare. I hope she knows what"s happening to her and that I"m here.
Later after her heart settles down and she starts to breathe more evenly I slip out and join the others. No one has brought up Lily and Calvin yet, a.s.suming they are being cared for elsewhere. My heart aches and pounds as does the blood rushing in my ears. I have to say the words but I just don"t want to. The upset this will cause is worse than some st.i.tches to the head.
Calvin has been a staple member of our core group and a jovial reprise for all of us. He has become quite the helper. And Lily is sweeter than pie. Everyone is so attached to and protective of her. This will make them want to hunt. This will make them all want to kill.
Maybe this is what we need but I have a feeling that Sherry will blame herself for all this. I can already hear her argument in my head of how she caused all this. I know her completely.
I take hesitant steps to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. Gulp down half the bottle in one pull. Then prepare to speak the dreaded words that will mean war. First, since I know our conscience doesn"t work the same on earth, I know Ryan doesn"t know yet about Calvin, I have to tell him. And I dread telling him, but here goes.
Ryan.
He looks at me and I grimace with what I have to do. I imagine someone telling me this about Danny and how I"d feel. It"s not fair how our conscience works on earth. It only buzzes if our human body feels anxious about it. It doesn"t alert us to danger, like it used to.
I"m sorry. I promise you we"ll do everything to get him back but...they took Calvin.
I hear him gasp in my mind. His face pales under his tan and he sits down on the couch slowly as I proceed.
"They took Calvin and Lily," I say out loud.
My voice doesn"t sound like my own. It feels like I barely breathed the words but somehow everyone heard and is now masking my face of horror and disbelief. And then an explosion of angry rants and questions and rambling ideas.
"Oh no!"
"We have to get them back!"
"We have to go after them!"
"What?! How could they do this?"
"How?! Why?!"
"How do you know that?"
"What do they want with them?"
"They can"t get away with this!"
Then one statement stopped them all in their tracks.
"Oh no! Sherry."
Everyone turned to see Sherry leaning on the wall, on one foot, pale faced and broken looking. Not just her body, but her spirit. The bruises are already very evident around her neck and jaw, and her eyes are red from the strain and crying.
How she got up off our pallet with that thing on her leg by herself I"ll never know. I didn"t hear her make a sound but I guess I wouldn"t have over all the racket. Her face tells me she heard that the children are missing.
I see her chest start to heave with her silent sobs and her eyes close. I go to her, pushing a few people out of the way to get to her. I grab her around the waist just as she starts to slump over and hold her to me.
She"s completely given up. She refuses to try to stand on her good leg, refuses to hold up her head, refuses to open her eyes. Just sobs silently, limp and uncaring of anything. Not like Sherry. My bashful Sherry who doesn"t want anyone to see her weak. This scares me more than anything. Her letting loose right in front of all these people and not caring.
I pick her up in my arms, cradling her to me, trying to be careful not to swing her leg too much, but she doesn"t care about that either. Doesn"t make a sound other than her steady deep soft sobs.
Danny comes up beside me. He wipes a tear from her face with his thumb and she looks up at him. But before he can speak she does. In a raspy barely audible voice.
"It"s my fault. He got them because of me."
I can"t tell if she"s pa.s.sed out again or just closing in on herself but her eyes shut and she doesn"t respond to anything or anyone after that. Not Danny or Trudy, not Celeste, not Jeff. Not even me.
Jeff comes up and speaks to everyone else, who is still stunned silent.
"This is no one"s fault but the Lighters. I"m sure there is a good explanation. Cain. Why don"t you tell us what happened. What were you two doing out there last night?" Jess asked but was anything but accusatory.
Cain calls out from the back, near the stairs. The people part a way so everyone can see him speak.
"We were in the kitchen late, getting a snack. Couldn"t sleep. We heard someone yelling for help outside. So we ran to see who it was thinking it was someone who saw the flyer maybe. When we got outside there were Markers everywhere and two Lighters. I shot them but we couldn"t turn back and make it and Sherry was screaming because of her arm, the Markers mark. Also her leg, the Lighter hit us with a stone or something. So I picked her up and ran with her to the cave out past the field."
"Cain," I said, stunned. "That cave is almost half a mile away. How did you carry her all that way with Markers and Lighters out there with you?"
"I don"t know. I just did. She was freezing and her leg was..." He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "I don"t even know how she survived the night."
Cain sounds nothing like his normal c.o.c.ky self. He"s just as beaten and somber as Sherry but all I can think about is that he saved her life. While I slept in my warm room, he carried her through Lighters and Markers, bandaged her leg and kept her alive during the freezing pitch black night in an old cave.
"Cain," I start but feel a familiar choke come to my throat and have to pause to let it pa.s.s. The one I felt the night that Phillip tried to...hurt Sherry. "Thank you."
"Don"t, Merrick. Don"t thank me. I should never have let her follow me out there," his voice cracks when he says "never".
"This is Sherry we"re talking about, Cain. She"s stubborn and doesn"t always follow orders very well," I say lightly and try for a weak smile.
Sherry has stopped heaving and is quiet and still so I a.s.sume she"s fallen back asleep in my arms. I"d hate for her to hear us talking about her like she"s not here, but I continue.
"She does what she thinks she needs to do no matter the cost to herself, especially when it comes to these people. Someone was yelling for help and any one of us that had been in that kitchen would have ran to help them too. It"s not your fault and it"s not Sherry"s. I think ya"ll have been through enough to atone for it anyway."
I can"t ever repay you enough. Thank you. You don"t know what she means to me. She"s...everything...
He nods solemnly and I get a few echoes of my out loud sentiment to Cain. He gets a few pats on the back and "well done"s. Simon beside him puts a hand on his shoulder.
Cain still has blood running down his neck and forehead. His arm is bleeding too. A quick look around shows me he"s not the only one who took a beating along with Sherry.
There isn"t anyone that is clean and spot free. For the most part it"s all minor cuts and sc.r.a.pes, bruises and I can"t help but notice one thing. One major thing.