You're Hoping For A Taste

The sky is pale, weak. From where I sit on this log it looks so far away. I've always wondered where the sky begins. But its infinite, isn't it? Nothing like us.

Jesse swears and throws his attempt at a makeshift cross on the ground. He buries his head in his hands, but he doesn't cry. I can tell because his back rises and falls rhythmically in big, deep breaths. He's trying to calm himself. He's pent up with emotion, but I feel nothing, like a hollowed out tree.

I stand up, turn and make my way into the forest. I'm turning my back on the four boys, pallid and drained in the morning light. I'm turning my back on the the patch of brown, upturned earth, which Jack now pats down with a shovel he found in the car boot.

I know what I'm looking for. One by one I pick rocks from the forest floor. It frustrates me when I can't find some that are exactly the right size I need, but I push my anger down, flatten it like that mound of earth.

After a little while, twigs snap under footfalls approaching me. I don't stop my work. I wouldn't even care if it was a Walker right now. I don't think I'd have the energy to fight.

But it's not a Walker. The footsteps are too careful, too even. So I stay alive for another day.

“What are you doing?” Kellin's voice is tired. None of us have slept.

“Collecting rocks,” I tell him.

“Yeah, but why?” He comes to walk alongside me. His arm brushes mine.

I don't say anything, don't even look at him. My eyes stay on the forest floor.

“Well, can I help?” he asks.

“If you want.”

We're talking like strangers. Kellin is receding into himself again, and I know I'm not helping. But however much I want to open up, let my thoughts rush out like a stream, I can't bring myself to do it. I'd like nothing more than to just stop. Stop everything. But I owe this last thing to Gabe.

Kellin holds up the end of his t-shirt to dump the rocks in, like I'm doing. We work side-by-side in silence.

“It's not your fault, you know,” he eventually says. “What happened to Gabe, it wasn't your fault.”

My breathing becomes tighter, but I don't stop what I'm doing. “It was, in a way. I could have killed that Walker earlier.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kellin shake his head. “You did everything that you could.”

Something inside me snaps, and the words come out before I can get a hold of them. “How would you know? You weren't there.”

We both stop what we're doing. Kellin looks at me. His eyes are sharp, no longer dulled by loss. I feel a pang of guilt. I shouldn't have snapped at him. Gabe was his friend. This is worse for him than it is for me.

“I'm sorry, Kellin,” I manage to say.

He dips his head. “It's fine.”

“No, it's not, I shouldn't have shouted at you like that.”

“It's fine, Alexa,” he repeats, starting to move away from me. I follow him, these rocks still cradled in the hem of my t-shirt, but I can't let them drop.

“Gabe was your friend. I'm sorry, Kellin, I really shouldn't have yelled at you.”

He stops, looks at me. His eyes are dull again. His dark hair is dusted with soil. I want to reach up and brush it out, but something stops me.

“You're right, he was my friend,” he says, “but you're the one who had to end it for him.”

I flinch. My heart is starting to punch my ribs. “Kellin...” I begin, but it's barely even a whisper.

“I'm not angry at you, Alexa,” he goes on, “none of us are. You did the right thing. You did what Gabe wanted.”

I can't think of anything to say. My heart is still going wild, but there's a sense of relief to it. Just as long as none of them hate me, I can live with this. I can live with what I did. Instead of a pain flowering in my gut, it'll be an ache, a dull void.

I'll be waiting for that day when it won't hurt so much any more.

Kellin smiles. It's small, but soft. Maybe he's not going back to the way he was after all. Maybe not completely. “Come on,” he says. “Do you have enough rocks for whatever it is you're doing?”

I attempt a smile, but I can feel it wavering. “Yeah, just about.”

“Are you gonna tell me what they're for?”

“In a minute.”

We traipse back to the clearing by the side road. Jesse's still sat there, his head in his hands, but he's uncovered his eyes so he can stare at the broken crucifix at his feet. I think he's taken this the hardest. Jack and Justin stand by the finished grave, watching it as though they expect something to happen.

Grave. Gabe's grave.

Justin looks at Kellin and I when we appear. “What's with all the rocks?”

Kellin shrugs. “Ask her,” he says, nodding at me.

“Put them down here,” I tell him, dumping my collection beside the brown earth, so obvious in this little green space.

Kellin does as I say. “Are you gonna tell us what this is about now?”

I shrug, and I can't help but laugh nervously. What if they hate this idea? “It sounds silly, but I saw it on a TV programme. They marked graves with piles of rocks. I don't know, it was a medieval thing. And then I thought we could put this on top.” I take the crucifix from Jesse's feet. He's tried to secure two sticks with some twine in the shape of a cross, but he hasn't had much luck. It only takes me a minute to fix it.

Justin catches my eye, and he smiles. The sight of it has tears pricking my eyes. I blink them away. Now is not the time for me to break.

Jesse stands up, clearing his throat. “No, that's a nice idea.” He hasn't smiled since what happened, but there's a note of sincerity in his voice.

Jack takes a deep breath before he speaks. His eyes are a little hopeful. “It'll make his grave stand out, at least. We can find it again.”

“We'll come back,” Kellin agrees, nodding firmly.

The boys start piling the rocks into a mound at the head of the grave, and when they're done I carefully slot the cross in the gap right at the top. The sight of it is final. What happened last night wasn't imagined. Gabe is gone, we can't bring him back.

I let the four of them talk about him. They laugh as they recount stories, and I smile along with them, but all the while I'm biting my lip to stop the tears flowing. All that strength you build up, and one simple event knocks it down.

When the sun is getting high in the sky, we decide its time to go. We can't wait any longer if we're to meet Vic and Tony on time, and I feel as though we haven't put enough miles between us and the commune yet. I don't feel bad about all those people any more. They can burn in the fire I started. They can die at the hands of the dead men walking.

Kellin doesn't drive today. We sit in the back with Justin. I'm acutely aware of the sudden increase in space and, feeling it to, Kellin slips his hand into mine. He squeezes once, a quick pulse, and we share a smile. It's a wonder what human contact can do.

I finally reach up and brush some of the dirt from his hair, and he shakes the rest out like a dog, showering the three of us in the back with little flecks of earth. Justin shouts at him, reaching past me with practically inhuman speed to punch his arm.

“Ow!” Kellin yells, cradling his bicep. He screws his face up like a little kid and reaches over me to slap Justin's arm.

“Excuse me!” I say, holding out my arms to stop them. Everyone laughs, but it dies quickly, guiltily.

“He wouldn't want us to be sad,” Jesse says. No one else speaks, but his words ring true. If we're to survive, for Gabe, we can't let our sorrow get the better of us.

Sorrow. I always thought it was a stupid word, meaningless, archaic. But it's the one that seems right.

The three of us in the back turn in our seats and we watch Gabe's grave recede into the distance. Then the car slips round a corner, and he disappears from sight.