‹ Prequel: White Noise
Status: Active

Static Screams

Violence

“Holland, wake up.”

Lila’s singsong voice paired with her gently shaking my shoulder, and my eyelids opened slowly.

“Hey,” I groaned, stretching my arms out above my head. “What’s up?”

She sat down on the bed, sighing heavily. “We’re about to start heading to New York.” She shook her head, looking at her hands in her lap. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

I pulled myself upright, and Lila mirrored me until we both sat across from each other. I couldn’t help but think we were like a couple of children, sitting criss cross applesauce, playing make believe in their childhood home.

“So...New York?” I finally spoke. “Scarlett still wants to go look for her nephew.”

“Yeah,” Lila nodded. “It was the original plan anyway, and we’re getting so close...”

“But...you’re worried about traveling with the babies?”

She shook her head. “It’s not just that. It’s not even winter yet. They’re so little and there’s this great big world of monsters and horror out there, and I don’t know how to protect them.” She looked at her lap again, hands splayed on her knees, her lip trembling. “I don’t know how to do any of this.”

I sighed, placing my hand on top of hers. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and she looked back to me. We sat there in silence, looking at each other. My brain was spinning, going a million different directions all at once.

After a moment, barely above a whisper, she spoke again. “There’s so many things that can go so wrong. Losing Sasha...that’s so fucked up, Hol. I don’t know what to do. Then thinking about Scarlett, about all of the others with those people...”

“Hey, hey,” I pulled her into a hug. “That’s not going to happen again, okay?” I patted her hair, felt her tears on my shoulder. “I’m not going to let that happen again.”

“You can’t control that.”

I pulled her back, looking her in the eyes. I squeezed her shoulders firmly. “I am not going to let that happen again.”

There were footsteps up and down the hall, and that was when I noticed that Seven was no longer in the room with me. “How long have I been asleep?”

She shrugged, pushing herself off the bed. “It’s late morning. We figured we’d let you sleep for a bit.” She stretched her arms over her head. “I found something for you, by the way.”

I raised my brow, pushing the blankets off of me. She grinned and walked out, and I followed close behind. The hardwood floor was cold beneath my bare feet. We crossed the hallway into the other bedroom, where Sawyer and Natalie were playing peekaboo with the babies.

Natalie perked up when she saw me. “Oh, thank god! I was starting to think you’d sleep all day.”

Lila rummaged through a bag full of baby stuff, and I bent down to pick Ryanna up from Natalie. “I would have loved nothing more than to sleep all day. Isn’t that right, itty bitty baby?” I cringed at my own baby talk, balancing Ryanna on my hip.

“Aha!” Lila claimed victoriously. She turned back to me, holding out a bright pink pocket-sized Moleskine journal and a set of neon colored gel pens.

I grinned, grabbing them with my free hand. “Thank you! I don’t know where my other notebook is at all...”

“I’m sorry it’s pink,” she blushed. “It was the only one that size that was graph ruled.”

“No shit? Where did you find this?”

Lila smiled, eyes focused on Hollyn, who cooed happily in Sawyer’s arms. She had her tiny fist full of Natalie’s hair, and the two grinned at each other.

“She sort of broke into a bookstore,” Scarlett said behind me. I turned around to face her, and Ryanna started to whimper.

“Oh, this baby needs her mama,” I said to Lila, gently passing Ryanna to her. I held my pens and notebook in my hand and stepped closer to Scarlett.

“She broke into a bookstore?” I repeated with a grin. Scarlett managed a smile in return, before she turned and walked out.

I knew well enough about Scarlett at this point to know what that meant: follow me, we need to talk.

My heart jumped in my throat, and I tried to push it back down. Lila and Nat fussed over the babies, and Sawyer’s laughter faded behind me as I followed Scar down the hall.

Peter and Darren sat on the couch, listening intently to Wren while also studying a map they had spread out across the coffee table. Cosmic sat in the arm chair next to them, mastering that teenage glare of intrigue and boredom all at once. Logan played Connect Four with Seven at the dining room table.

Only Darren looked up when we crossed to the front door, and the amused look in his eye told me that he had already heard the earful I was about to get. He mouthed “good luck” as I crossed the threshold.

It was a crisp, cold day. Most of the leaves on the surrounding trees had long since changed color and fallen to the ground. Scarlett led the way on the wraparound porch, and I followed solemnly, a child awaiting punishment. When we reached the back of the house, where the porch overlooked the incredibly overgrown pasture, she stopped.

She rested her hip against the railing, where white paint was chipping away to reveal the wood underneath. She faced me, and her face was stone. I mirrored her stance, as mirroring exercises seemed to be what I was good at.

I looked her in the eyes, mentally making a list of all of the things I wanted to say. I’d never noticed how green her eyes were. I started to wonder if maybe they changed with the light, or maybe with her mood.

The eye contact was becoming a bit brutal, and I felt the need to look away, but I wouldn’t. This wasn’t just a challenge, it was a test. After all this time, she was still testing me.

“I’m not going to look away,” I stated. “I know this is your thing, I’ve seen you do this to Peter and Darren and Nat when you want them to say what you wanna hear. I’m not doing it.”

We resumed our silence, staring into each other’s eyes, barely blinking. The cold stung my face, goosebumps rose over my bare arms. I should have grabbed a jacket.

I sighed. “Do you really want to do this all day? Or was there something you wanted to say?”

She broke eye contact first. I’d never tell anyone, but I was doing a victory dance in my head. I passed the test.

She turned and looked over the field. “You left.”

I groaned inwardly. I knew this discussion was coming, but I’d still prefer it didn’t. I leaned on the railing, my crossed arms resting on the top, feeling the chipping paint digging into my bare skin. “I did.”

Her voice was normal, almost robotic. “You left us. You left Natalie, Peter, Darren, Sasha. You left Lila.” She grew quieter. “You left me.”

I didn’t speak. This Scarlett was rare. This Scarlett was not a fighter, not an arrow-slinging badass, not a leader. This Scarlett was vulnerable, terrified, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, angry, disappointed.

This Scarlett was not one I was familiar with, because this Scarlett was crying and then she was screaming at me, almost incoherent.

“You LEFT me to carry all of THIS and didn’t even give me a warning!” She exploded, flipping over the rocking chair next to the back door. “You LEFT me to lead this group straight to this podunk town in West fucking Virginia, where half of us were kidnapped and tortured! You LEFT me and Sasha died and I can guarantee that if you’d been here, that wouldn’t have happened.”

“If I wouldn’t have left, we ALL would have died!”

Her eyes narrowed, and rage washed over her entire body. She was visibly shaking, and the vein at her temple was throbbing.

I fucked up, I knew I did, but I really knew it when she lunged at me. She knocked me to my back, which knocked the air out of me. She didn’t even stand back up, just straddled my stomach, and starting punching the shit out of me. I couldn’t even breathe, much less fight back, but I felt each blow as she hit my sternum, my shoulder, my neck, and eventually my face — six or seven times, not that I was counting. The entire time she yelled obscenities and insults at me.

I could barely see past her to the screen door, where Darren watched. Seriously dude? I thought to myself, right as Scar’s first connected with my nose.

That shit fucking hurt. She landed one more good blow to my eye, and that was enough. With my breath back, and my entire upper body screaming in pain, I reached an arm up behind her and grabbed her by the collar of the back of her shirt. I slung her off to my right, hard, and finally had her pinned down.

“Listen,” I spat through blood. “I know I left. I know Sasha’s dead, and I know it’s all my fault.” Blood dripped my face and fell on hers. I let a few tears fall, too. “If you think you can make me feel any more guilt, any more blame, any more self-hatred than I already do, then you just do not know me as much as you think you do.” I swallowed hard, and blood ran down my throat. “This isn’t exactly how I expected this conversation to go, but I hope you feel better. I sure as shit don’t.”

I stood up and stomped off the porch. My vision was blurry and my head was pounding. I aimlessly wandered into the field, hearing my heart thudding in my ears. From what felt like far away, I could hear my name being called.

But I just wanted to be alone, the way a wounded dog will hide away to lick his wounds. My legs all but gave out from under me, so I sat in the tall grass, using my t-shirt to wipe the blood from my eyes.

I laughed to myself, thinking about the times Ryan and I had done the same thing. It would always build up, little things here and there pissing us off, until finally one of blew. Punches would be thrown, noses broken, eyes blackened, and then...then, things would be okay.

God, I hoped things would be okay with Scar.

I started to cry then, because the weight of it all finally collapsed on me. I wasn’t there for them when I should have been. What did I do that was so heroic? Blast some country music in a van and lead a bunch of zombie groupies to the beach? And for what? So that some psychopathic cannibals could kidnap and torture the only friends I have? The only family I have? I left so someone could murder Sasha in cold blood, and leave her body on the street? So Lila would be forced into a premature labor, giving birth to her babies without me there? Every bad thing that happened only happened because I wasn’t there. I couldn’t stop the guilt or the blame or the anger or the sadness. I just sat in it, letting it marinate, letting it bounce from one side of my brain to another, until I couldn’t think anymore.

I was kind of hoping if I stopped moving, maybe I could stop existing, just for a moment.

Just a moment.
♠ ♠ ♠
1971

I’m feeling a lot of things.

Stay safe.