Remnants Ch. 03

(Gabriel)

Gabriel watches the dangerous man talk with Liam, disappointment a bitter tang in his mouth. He didn't even let me talk, like I didn't matter, like he couldn't be bothered even listening to what I had to say! Just like Liam.

Unable to finish his food, he dumps it back into the pot, trying and failing to be unobtrusive. It's as if Liam has radar, the way his head snaps around and those hard eyes skewer Gabriel.

Instead of cowering, Gabriel lifts his chin, drops his bowl and spoon onto the table with a noisy clatter that cuts through the room, drawing every eye to the conflict about to unfold.

"Unacceptable." That's all Liam says, but it's enough to make Gabriel's stomach clench, enough to make him want to puke. God, he hates this, hates the control Liam has over him, over all of them, their cracked puppet master, trying to be God. Or Satan.

He knows what he's supposed to do, he's supposed to leave the room immediately and go to the Punishment Room and wait for his punishment.

That's what he's supposed to do, but that's not what he does. Instead, he remains standing there by the table, watching Liam's face turn red.

"I'm warning you, Gabriel," he says through his teeth. "You know defiance is not tolerated here."

Gabriel glances over at the stranger; he's watching carefully, curiosity in every line of his body. Could he be an ally?

A couple of the younger boys whimper, and Liam snaps his fingers impatiently. The boys quickly respond, scooping up dishes exiting the room, leaving the three men alone. The door closes tight behind them.

"This doesn't concern you," Liam says to the man. "You can leave."

Jeremiah shakes his head, still watching Gabriel. "No, I think I'll stay."

After a moment of pointless glaring, Liam steps over to where Gabriel stands, trembling, but feeling strangely powerful at the same time. He knows what's coming, but it's still a shock when the fist slams into his chin, knocking him back several steps. Head ringing, he blinks hard, unwilling to show weakness to either one of the men.

Another fist in his belly, doubling him over, stealing his breath, and this time he crumples to the floor, fingers digging into the dirty carpet, mouth open and closing. Dimly he can hear angry voices.

Liam and Jeremiah stand toe to toe, the disparity in their heights and builds striking. The stranger is taller, thin, with big hands. His dark hair is roughly cut above his ears, and his clothing, while dirty, hasn't any holes, and his boots look solid. A thin, rough beard covers his square chin.

Liam, on the other hand, is shorter, a little too thin, with shaggy white hair and a patchy beard. His jeans and flannel shirt have seen better days, both stiff with dirt. His brow is low, his eyes very dark and intense. His hands, too small for his body, are fisted at his sides, his head back so that he can look the taller man in the face.

"You blame me for this?" The heat in Jeremiah's voice scorches the air. "You just beat the shit out of that kid for what? Not finishing his meal? What the hell, man?"

"This doesn't concern you."

"You're right." The stranger snatches up his pack from the floor and jams his hat back on his head. "This doesn't concern me." Then he looks at Gabriel, still gasping on the floor. "You deserve better, Gabriel. I hope you know that."

Then he's gone, the thud of his boots fading in moments.

****

Gabriel's fingers tighten around the stock of the shotgun when Liam motions impatiently to him from further down the block. They're on a search and rescue mission, because somehow Liam heard about a group of kids living on their own, without an adult, so of course he wants to 'save' them. Ever since the dangerous man left, Gabriel's felt itchy, like his skin doesn't fit anymore, like he needs to get out of here, get out on his own.

The night is clear and cloudless, the moon a sickly yellow in the sky. He creeps closer, shoes crunching broken glass, old cardboard, and other stuff he doesn't care to identify. He wishes he could've had the opportunity to talk with Jeremiah, to ask him questions, to learn from him.

Gabriel isn't sure he likes Liam's brand of salvation anymore. Maybe he never did, maybe he was just scared of being alone and clung to the other man like a father. Images crowd Gabriel's head, images from the past, before the whole world blew up and became a walking nightmare. He thrusts them away, shoves them back down, down deep. Memories can be dangerous, they can suck you down and there you'll stay, and there you'll die. He isn't going down like that. No way.

They're about four blocks from Moon's church where the singing is still going on. They have about ten more minutes before the doors open and the area floods with rotters. Time enough to find the boys.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" A hard punch to the shoulder accompanies Liam's irritated question, hard enough to bruise. "Get your head together."

"Nothing," he mutters, gritting his teeth.

"You deserve better, Gabriel. I hope you know that."

"I saw a couple of boys run down that way," Liam says, pointing toward the warehouse district, a place they've never ventured before.

"You sure it was boys and not rotters?" It's easy to make a mistake, easier than Liam will ever admit.

"What? You think I'm stupid or something, Gabriel?" Liam grabs the younger man by the collar and slams him up against a tree, the bark giving a way wetly. Gabriel can feel it soaking into his hair, can smell its rottenness.

"Let's get something straight here," Liam says, his face inches from Gabriel's. "I'm in charge here, and I'm not interested in anything you have to say tonight, got it?"

Gabriel whips his head forward, slamming it into Liam's face with a crack. The other man staggers, falls to one knee, and Gabriel darts past him, running back toward the house where he will grab his stuff and anything else he wants, and get the hell out, get away from everything, taking any of the other boys who want to go.

Feet pounding, breath coming fast and hard, Gabriel slows as he nears the old Victorian where he's spent the last two years of his life. Something's not right. The front door is wide open and there's a sudden barrage of gunshots that makes bile rise in his throat.

Shotgun ready, Gabriel creeps around the side of the house, hands slick with sweat, every nerve on alert, a sour taste in his mouth when he thinks of those boys in that house alone, his friends, no, his brothers, because Gabriel is supposed to be their protector, protecting them from the greyskins the way he always protects them from Liam.

At the rear of the house, he finds the back door open as well, and he's concentrating so much that he nearly runs into a crouching zombie. It rises, teeth gleaming in the moonlight, skin luminescent.

Gabriel blasts its head off, wasting two bullets, eyes stinging, because there's Jimmy, a skinny boy with red hair and a lisp lying there with his guts spread across the dead grass. Grimly he reloads, already knowing what he will find inside, and bounds up the back stairs and into the charnel house.

It's silent, and everywhere there are splatters of blood, all leading toward the basement, where the boys were always told to hide if something happened. It was never a smart idea, getting out of the house would have been a better thing to do, but it doesn't matter now, nothing matters. The usual stink of cockroach is nearly obliterated by the sickening, metallic smell of blood. It turns his stomach, dries up his mouth.

The boys never made it anywhere close to the basement, the rotters converging on them in the hallway. There's about five of them, two women and three men, all wearing what used to be known as 'church' clothing: tattered dress pants, torn jumpers, the remains of ties looped around greasy necks. The greyskins are like animals, tearing flesh with their yellow teeth, throwing their heads back to swallow, snarling at any other that get too close to their food. There's nothing human in them anymore.

A hand clamps on his shoulder and Gabriel twists away, bringing up the shotgun, ready to blast whatever it is.

It's Liam, his eyes hard and grim, nose bloody, and without speaking the two men raise their weapons and blast those rotters to hell where they belong.

Gabriel doesn't even know he's shouting, he just keeps blasting and reloading, until nothing moves, until Liam grabs the smoking barrel to get him to stop, and then Gabriel sinks down to the floor, his eyes burning, his throat aching, but he won't cry, he'll never cry again.

*****

"Something's wrong." Liam hesitates by the stairwell door. "This door shouldn't be open."

Gabriel glances around, scalp prickling. It's creepier than normal in the Tower, a place he's been several times before, to trade for bullets and sometimes food. Marie Golden wasn't beautiful, at least not to him, but he can recall at least one occasion when they didn't have anything to trade, and Liam sent him out in the hallway to stand guard. When he was allowed back inside, it was only to load the things they needed into his pack.

Now, though, a bad feeling wafts up, sort of like the disgusting odor coming from the stairwell.

He wants to tell Liam to forget it, they should just go, but there's a good chance no one else has ventured down there and he knows Liam won't let an opportunity like this go by, even if it's a very bad idea. Which it is.

"Maybe we should just leave," Gabriel suggests, the heavy silence unnerving.

"No, we should check it out." Advancing cautiously, Liam doesn't wait for Gabriel, just steps into the gloomy stairwell, unafraid and unwilling to listen. As always.

After the massacre at the house, Gabriel had been in shock, and even he had to admit that if it hadn't been for Liam, he would have died. He'd been in a stupor for longer than he likes to admit, the shock of his brothers being killed too much. Now, though, he feels more like himself, and even though Liam hasn't said or done anything even remotely abusive, Gabriel still wants to get away from him.

When he steps into the dimness, the foul smell of putrefaction hits him like a wall.

It gets stronger the farther they descend the mold-slick steps. This is a really, really bad idea. Not to mention stupid.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and a greyskin lurches out of nowhere, fingers grabbing for Liam. He brings up his shotgun and knocks the thing back, then beats its head in with the butt.

"No sense bringing more," he remarks, glancing back at Gabriel. "There might be supplies. Let's go."

The unspoken word between them is that Marie Golden is more than likely dead, her fortress breached. It makes Gabriel sick to think about it, because he's always liked her, liked her dry sense of humor, the way she always had a smile for him.

Her door hangs off its hinges, the metal deeply dented. Shotguns at the ready, the two men creep inside. There's a destroyed corpse on the floor near the bed, so eaten that its basically just a pile of bloody clothing, and nothing else.

Liam starts grabbing boxes of ammo and shoving them into his pack. He motions at Gabriel. "Get some of those cans and lots of water. We're leaving the city."

This is news to Gabriel, but he does as Liam says, shoving in two boxes of ammo anyway, because why should Liam have all the bullets? Five minutes later they're climbing back up the stairs and then outside, where they quickly start walking west.

"Once we get out of the city we'll head west," Liam says, his eyes roaming. "We'll find a house or something to hole up for the night."

Because he hasn't a better plan, Gabriel shrugs and goes along with it, content to bide his time until the right moment.

They find her in a residential area, near the outskirts of the city. Nervous sweat prickles Gabriel's hairline, because it's dark now, well past sundown, and they have yet to find a safe house.

"There. That house," Liam says, pointing at a small yellow bungalow in the middle of what used to be a quiet, respectable street. Now it looks as if the inhabitants have been rioting, breaking glass out of houses and cars, and worse.

Gabriel creeps softly across the dewy grass, then freezes. "Liam," he hisses. "There's something beneath that tree. I'm gonna check it out."

He slides closer, his boots crushing leaves and sticks and other things he doesn't want to think about. The tree used to be tall and proud, but now is twisted and stunted by mutation. The bark glistens in the moonlight and if Gabriel touches it, his finger will come away coated with a grey slime.

A body lies curled on the dirt, a small body--a child? Feeling slightly ill at the prospect of a dead child or even worse, a child rotter, Gabriel pokes the figure with his toe, keeping his shotgun at the ready.

A whimper--not dead, then. He crouches down, looking closer, ignoring Liam's furious whispers behind him. It isn't a child, Gabriel realizes, his eyes flickering over golden blonde hair and smooth skin. The face is that of a young girl about his age, and while he stares, the eyes open abruptly, faded blue like the early morning sky.

"Don't be afraid," he says, nearly falling on his butt when the girl sits up, her eyes never leaving his face. He holds out his hand and when she slips her smaller one into his, something like an electrical shock goes through him. His eyesight narrows until all he sees is her little pale face looking back at him.

"Gabriel, what the hell are you doing?" Liam's harsh voice shatters the moment, bringing him back to the surface.

"It--it's a girl, Liam." Gabriel is amazed at his calm voice because his head is a mass of confusion. What is she doing out here? How can she still be alive?

"What the hell?" Liam stares hard at the girl huddled in the leaves, brows lowered.

"We gotta take her with us." Still holding her hand, Gabriel lifts her to her feet, slipping his arm around her waist when her legs sag.

"No. It's a trick."

"Liam, she's not a greyskin. She's just a girl."

"It's never 'just' a girl, Gabriel." Liam points his pistol at the girl, the sound of him cocking it ringing through Gabriel's head.

Gabriel steps in front of her. "What the hell are you doing, Liam?"

"Get out of the way."

"You've lost your mind! Isn't this what we do? Protect the weak?" He turns around and scoops up the girl. She rests her head on his shoulder, filling his nose with the heady scent of her hair. Protectiveness wells up inside of him; he will not let anything happen to this girl. He couldn't protect his brothers, but he can keep her safe.

****

"You're a fool."

Gabriel says nothing, because he's too busy sliding his fingers up and down the girl's arm, marveling at the softness of her skin. A curious feeling in his chest--protectiveness, love? Something he's never felt before for anyone, and he dives headlong into the feeling. He never wants it to go away. He won't let it.

"She'll hold us back, Gabriel."

They're holed up in the back of a store, driven there by the night, by the need for a new safe house. But they aren't staying; the city's not safe, not with Moon's creatures roaming around.

"Shut up, Liam," Gabriel says absently, absorbed in the girl's pearlescent skin. It's soft, the softest thing he's ever touched, and he doesn't want to stop.

"Shut up? That's all you're going to say?" Liam's voice rises in amazed anger. "You don't even know this girl. For all you know, she could be one of Moon's zombie things. Use your brain, Gabriel."

Angry now, Gabriel rises to his feet and stalks over to where Liam is keeping watch by the doorway.

"She's not a thing. She's a girl and she needs my help. My protection."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing. All this time with me, fighting Moon and his freaks, and this is what you're doing? You know what Moon's been doing. This--this girl that you insisted on bringing with us, she's not a girl. She's one of those things. Why can't you see it?"

Red-faced, Gabriel speaks through his teeth. "One more word, Liam, and I swear to God, I'll kill you." He wants to; his fingers twitch at the thought of squeezing that presumptuous neck, of driving his knife into that angry face.

To his amazement, Liam backs off, only shaking his head, lips pressed tightly together. Gabriel watches until the older man is on the other side of the room before turning back to his own blankets, where the girl sits peacefully, thin hand folded on her knees, skirt pulled down modestly.

For a minute, he stares at her, mesmerized by the way she almost glows, that white blonde hair, pearlescent skin, faded blue eyes.

He can't stop touching her, can't stop smelling her clean hair, burying his face in its softness, breathing in her scent. They lay together in his sleeping bag, his long body curled around her smaller one, his face in her hair, his arms holding her tight. Even in the dark, Gabriel can feel Liam's disapproval, the older man's mouth turned down in a jealous frown, because that's what it is, jealousy. And it's pissing Gabriel off, the way Liam thinks he can still boss him around, as if they're still in the compound, as if he's just a dumb kid.

"What's your name?" he murmurs in her tiny ear, his lips brushing her skin. He feels rather than hears her answer, the vowels a loving vibration along his skin.

"Pearl." Pearl. Pearl-grey skin, a treasure he will protect no matter what, no matter who threatens her. Gabriel tightens his arms around her soft body, closes his eyes.

"I won't let anything hurt you," he promises, and she turns in his arms and kisses him.

******

Gabriel trots after Liam, the girl riding on his back. He tells Liam the extra weight doesn't bother him, and for a few miles that's true. She really doesn't weigh that much, it's just awkward, and unsafe, since he'd have to set her down before he could grab his gun.

"That thing's going to get you killed," Liam says for the third time when they stop to rest.

Gabriel's fingers tighten on Pearl's wrist, maybe hard enough to bruise, but she only smiles at him, never reacting to any of Liam's comments, as if she doesn't even hear him speak.

"Shut up."

"I know you see what I do, Gabriel," Liam says, frustration evident in his voice. "You're not stupid. There's something seriously off about finding that thing. If you'd just stop and think for a minute, you'd see it as well. It's creepy."

"I said, shut up, Liam." Gabriel thrusts his fist in the other man's face, wishing he'd had this same courage when the dangerous man had been in their compound. "Why can't you just shut up and let me alone? It's none of your business."

"It is my business," Liam snarls, grabbing the front of Gabriel's shirt. Shoving him to the ground, Liam stalks toward Pearl, who cowers back, then falls to the grass helplessly.

"This is for your own good," Liam says, lifting his shotgun.

"NO!" Gabriel scrambles to his feet, but it's too late, too late, too late.

The shotgun butt slams into the girl's head once, twice, her legs rising and falling, so white against the grass. The noise is loud in the night, a sickening thud.

"You killed her, damn you," Gabriel screams, nearly out of his mind with pain and rage. He'll kill Liam, blow his head off, kill him--

"Calm down, Gabe," Liam says, grabbing the boy's shoulders and shaking him hard.

"Why? You didn't have to do that." He's crying, sobbing, shaking his head, he doesn't want to look, he can't look don't make him look. It's some time before he stops shaking, before the hitching in his chest calms before he can think clearly.

"Got it together? Yes? Then go see exactly what you've been carrying around with us." Liam lets go of Gabriel and walks a little bit away, to give him space.