{"id":159,"date":"2013-07-21T00:11:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T00:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=159"},"modified":"2013-07-21T00:11:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T00:11:34","slug":"chapter-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 13<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

You know what question I asked the others on one of those first few days?\u00a0 And no, not \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite color?\u201d or \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite animal?\u201d\u00a0 It bugs me when people think that just because I\u2019m \u201conly thirteen,\u201d I\u2019m still a little kid who shouldn\u2019t think about anything deeper than rainbows and fluffy animals.<\/i><\/p>\n

Anyway\u2026\u00a0 The question I asked them was:\u00a0 \u201cWhat did you do the night before Infernal Friday?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

I was curious.\u00a0 That night, we lived out the last few hours of life as we knew it.\u00a0 I wanted to know what people had done with those hours, besides sleep.\u00a0 Most of their answers were kind of lame, which made me sad.\u00a0 If they had known the world was going to hell the next day, they probably would have done something different.<\/i><\/p>\n

When they turned the question back to me, I felt good about what I\u2019d done.\u00a0 I\u2019d spent the night the way an almost-thirteen-year-old girl should spend it, hanging out with her friends.\u00a0 But if I\u2019d known it was going to be the last time I ever saw them alive, would I have done something different?\u00a0 Yeah, I guess I would have.\u00a0 I would have made it last.<\/i><\/p>\n

Even so, I\u2019ll never forget that night.\u00a0 Or the day after\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday, April 13, 2012<\/b><\/b>
\n8:00 a.m.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

A bleary-eyed Gabby heaved her haphazardly-rolled sleeping bag and duffel into the hatchback of her mother\u2019s Ford Escape.\u00a0 \u201cBye, Gabs!\u201d Makayla yelled from the front stoop, where she was standing, barefoot, in her pajamas.\u00a0 \u201cSee ya tomorrow!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee ya!\u201d Gabby called back, waving briefly before she disappeared around to the passenger side.\u00a0 She heard the screen door bang shut as Makayla went back inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cTired?\u201d Jo asked as she climbed into the SUV beside her.<\/p>\n

Gabby nodded, and a yawn came to punctuate her wordless reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you have a good time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d said Gabby.\u00a0 Feeling she should return the question \u2013 and to keep her mom from probing further \u2013 she added, \u201cHow was your shift?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, fairly typical.\u201d\u00a0 Her mother gave a low chuckle.\u00a0 Gabby smiled, a little uncomfortably, and was relieved when Jo didn\u2019t elaborate.<\/p>\n

She had once looked forward to hearing her mom\u2019s stories from the Emergency Room, even begged her for the really freaky, gory ones.\u00a0 But not anymore.\u00a0 These days, she preferred not to think too much about what her mother did for a living.\u00a0 When she went to work at the hospital, Jo spent her twelve-hour shifts caring for people just like she and Gabby had been that night, scared and hurt and bleeding.\u00a0 Gabby didn\u2019t know how she could stand it.\u00a0 She had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she knew it wouldn\u2019t be a nurse.\u00a0 No way, Jos\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I buy you those PJs?\u201d Jo asked suddenly, her hand ready to shift into reverse, but her eyes focused elsewhere.\u00a0 Confused, Gabby followed them down to the magenta, leopard-print, cotton pajama shorts she had on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh\u2026 no.\u00a0 They\u2019re Mak\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh!\u00a0 I was going to say\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Jo trailed off, apparently deciding not to say whatever she had intended to.\u00a0 Probably that she thought purple leopard spots looked tacky, or trashy, or something to that effect.\u00a0 \u201cSo, why are you wearing Makayla\u2019s PJs?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabby pictured her own pajama pants, wadded into a wet ball and sealed inside a Ziploc bag at the bottom of her duffel bag.\u00a0 She chose her words carefully.\u00a0 \u201cOh\u2026 mine got wet, so she let me borrow some.\u00a0 I spilled soda,\u201d she added quickly, before her mother could ask any more questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh dear.\u00a0 I hope you cleaned up,\u201d Jo remarked, finally shifting.\u00a0 Gabby buckled her seat belt and didn\u2019t reply, as the car backed slowly down the driveway.<\/p>\n

She looked out the window, watching the houses of Makayla\u2019s neighborhood flash by as Jo drove.\u00a0 They got smaller the closer they got to home.\u00a0 Finally, they were pulling into the driveway of the only house Gabby had ever known.\u00a0 She\u2019d just turned two when her parents had bought it in 2001, just months before the terrorist attacks on September 11 had thrown the economy into a recession that had only gotten worse in the decade since.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t remember the apartment they\u2019d lived in before; the major milestones in her memory, from riding her first bike in a wobbly circle around the driveway (her dad had taken off her training wheels, then gotten her off to a running start), to starting her first period in the same bathroom in which she\u2019d been potty-trained (her mom had dealt with those), had taken place in this house.<\/p>\n

The asphalt driveway was cracked and in need of patching now.\u00a0 Gabby stepped carefully over pot holes as she lugged her sleepover gear into the house.\u00a0 That, too, needed repairs.\u00a0 When he\u2019d been alive, her father had overseen the home improvement projects.\u00a0 Now the maintenance of their house fell squarely on her mother\u2019s shoulders.\u00a0 And Jo was tired.<\/p>\n

Gabby could see it in her mother\u2019s posture as she shuffled into the house, shoulders slumped.\u00a0 She could see it in the lines in her face, the dullness in her eyes as she looked around the kitchen, her gaze lingering on the bills piled on the table, the dirty dishes piled in the sink.\u00a0 Gabby could hear it in the way she sighed, but said nothing.\u00a0 Jo didn\u2019t have the energy to complain.\u00a0 Gabby knew her mother was as tired, probably more tired, than she was, having worked all night at the hospital, but it was more than that.\u00a0 She knew that, too.<\/p>\n

Jo disappeared into the master bedroom to change out of her scrubs, and Gabby dropped off her stuff in her own room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna lie down, babe!\u201d she heard her mother call after a few minutes.\u00a0 \u201cIt would be nice if you could pick up some for your party tomorrow!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Kay!\u201d Gabby called back.\u00a0 She closed the door to her room and started unpacking her bag.\u00a0 Normally, she wasn\u2019t so prompt about putting things away, but she was hosting her own sleepover for Makayla and her other friends the following night, and she wanted her room to look neat.\u00a0 Maybe she\u2019d be better at keeping it that way as a teenager than she had been as a child.\u00a0 Tomorrow was her thirteenth birthday.<\/p>\n

She put away her iPod and her toiletries, tossed her dirty clothes in her laundry hamper, and fished the Ziploc bag with her pajama shorts out of the bottom of her duffel bag.\u00a0 She opened it up carefully, wrinkling her nose as she caught a whiff of the fishy smell of the Gulf.\u00a0 The shorts were still damp, but had dried some, and were now crusted with salt.\u00a0 She decided she\u2019d do her own laundry today, so that she could wash them before her mother got to them.\u00a0 Jo would wonder what she had been doing playing in the ocean in her pajamas, and Gabby didn\u2019t want to be grilled.<\/p>\n

She dumped the clothes into the washing machine and added a capful of detergent.\u00a0 Her mother would kill her if she knew she and Makayla had snuck out of the house in the middle of the night\u2026 and she\u2019d be beyond dead if Jo found out they\u2019d gone down to the marina with a couple of boys.\u00a0 Smirking to herself, Gabby closed the washer lid and cranked the dial to the normal cycle.\u00a0 She heard the rush of water as the machine began to fill.<\/p>\n

Last night, it had been tapping.\u00a0 Tapping on Makayla\u2019s window, just after midnight.\u00a0 Whether Makayla had planned it or not, she wouldn\u2019t say, but when she had pulled up the blinds, there had been two grinning faces pressed against the glass.\u00a0 Makayla hadn\u2019t seem too shocked, but Gabby\u2019s heart had leapt into her throat until she\u2019d recognized them as Brock and Colton, two boys from her seventh-grade class.\u00a0 Colton was okay; he was on the student council (she\u2019d voted for him) and had earned the nickname \u201cPresident\u201d in fourth grade, when he\u2019d had the habit of standing up to answer questions and adjusting his hoodie before he spoke, the way men in business suits straighten their jackets.\u00a0 He was polite to everyone and had a good sense of humor.\u00a0 Brock, on the other hand, was a big kid with a big mouth, loud and obnoxious and immature, despite the fact that, physically, he was the tallest boy in their grade.\u00a0 Maybe it was the physical aspect which gave him some appeal, in Makayla\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

She had opened the window to the two of them, and Brock, who lived somewhere down the same street, had held up a portable DVD player.\u00a0 \u201cWanna watch Friday the 13th<\/sup> <\/i>with us?\u201d he\u2019d asked, as casually as if he knocked on Makayla\u2019s window to invite her to a movie every night.<\/p>\n

Makayla had looked at Gabby, and Gabby had stared back pointedly, trying to convey with her eyes that she didn\u2019t want to at all, without actually saying it in front of the boys.\u00a0 But Makayla had either missed the message or ignored it, and Gabby had soon found herself standing awkwardly outside in the dewy grass, in nothing but her pajamas, with a couple of boys she\u2019d never even talked to outside of school before.<\/p>\n

The boys had come over on bikes with the portable DVD player, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, and the plan to ride to the marina, where Brock\u2019s family had a boat.\u00a0 They\u2019d sneak aboard and watch the movie there.\u00a0 Again, Gabby had been reluctant, but Makayla must have thought Brock was making a grand romantic gesture by suggesting it, and so, Gabby had been carted to the marina on the handlebars of Colton\u2019s ten-speed.<\/p>\n

Her butt was still sore from riding that way, she realized, patting it gingerly as she moved from the tiny laundry room into the kitchen.\u00a0 There she fixed herself a bowl of cereal, carefully avoiding the invisible spot where her father had been killed as she put the milk back into the fridge.<\/p>\n

She carried her cereal into the living room and set it down on the coffee table as she settled onto the couch and turned on the TV.\u00a0 Last night, she had sat on the deck of Brock\u2019s boat with her back pressed up against one of the seats, gathered with the others around the tiny screen of the DVD player.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t been very comfortable, and she hadn\u2019t wanted to watch the movie anyway.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t do well with slasher flicks these days.\u00a0 After the second bloody murder, she\u2019d had enough and had snuck away from the group with the excuse of having to use the bathroom.\u00a0 She\u2019d ended up picking her way down to the beach, where she\u2019d found a dry spot in the sand to sit.<\/p>\n

It was Colton, not Makayla, who had finally come to check on her and found her there, hugging her knees to her chest in the cool night breeze.\u00a0 \u201cYou okay?\u201d he\u2019d asked earnestly.\u00a0 His voice had not yet broken, and it rose to a high pitch with concern that seemed genuine.<\/p>\n

She had smiled and nodded.\u00a0 \u201cI just don\u2019t like scary movies very much,\u201d she\u2019d admitted, once he\u2019d plopped down beside her.<\/p>\n

Colton had surprised her by smiling, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t really either,\u201d he\u2019d confessed.\u00a0 \u201cThis was Brock\u2019s idea.\u00a0 \u2018Cause it\u2019s a Friday the thirteenth and all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, does he like Makayla or something?\u201d<\/p>\n

Colton laughed nervously again.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m supposed to say\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabby raised her eyebrows.\u00a0 \u201cThat sounds like a yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in the moonlight, she could see Colton blush.\u00a0 He blushed easily in class, his fair, freckled skin turning redder than his hair, and though it was dark, she saw the same effect there on the beach.\u00a0 It made her smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry; I won\u2019t tell,\u201d she added.\u00a0 And she hadn\u2019t told, not that night or in the morning, although that wasn\u2019t a guarantee she never would.\u00a0 She thought Makayla had a right to know if a boy had a crush on her.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t she, herself, at least a little curious to know what Colton thought of her now?\u00a0 After last night\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWanna take a walk?\u201d he had asked after awhile, standing up and brushing the sand from his backside.\u00a0 He\u2019d offered her his hand to help her up, and as she\u2019d reached up to take it, she had marveled over the contrast of his pale, white arm, glowing almost blue in the moonlight, next to her own, darker skin.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d wandered a ways down the bay, the tide lapping at their bare feet, until the lights of the marina faded, and it had grown darker.\u00a0 It was then that Gabby had tripped and sat down hard in the water, soaking her pajama bottoms.\u00a0 She\u2019d been mortified at first, but Colton stuttering and stumbling to help her had made her laugh, and he had joined in, and before she\u2019d known it, he\u2019d pulled her to her feet, she\u2019d staggered into him, and, then, somehow, his lips were pressed up against hers, clumsily kissing her.<\/p>\n

The kiss had been wet, and he\u2019d tasted like Mountain Dew and nacho cheese Doritos, but now, as she absently spooned cereal into her mouth, Gabby savored the memory of it, though with fascination more than any real fondness.<\/p>\n

It had been her first kiss.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t seen it coming, and apparently, Colton hadn\u2019t put any real thought into it either.\u00a0 The moments afterward were just as awkward as the ones that had led up to it, with him blushing and stammering and nervously giggling again.\u00a0 She\u2019d been so astonished, she hadn\u2019t known what to say or how else to feel.\u00a0 Even now, she was not sure.\u00a0 Did she like Colton?\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t before, not like that<\/i>, at least.\u00a0 He was just a boy from school, a nice boy, but not one she\u2019d ever given much thought.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t like<\/i>-like any of the boys at school, anyway.\u00a0 But did he like her?\u00a0 She could admit it to herself now:\u00a0 she was<\/i> curious.<\/p>\n

Gabby smiled over her cereal as she perched on the couch, like a mother hen carefully guarding her own, private secret.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t even told Makayla that Colton had kissed her, but maybe she would, tomorrow night, at her party.\u00a0 She would think about it.\u00a0 She did<\/i> think about it, as the TV droned on in the background.<\/p>\n

When she snapped out of her sleepy reverie, her cereal bowl empty, Gabby realized she\u2019d never even flipped channels.\u00a0 The TV was still tuned to NBC from when her mother had watched the nightly news before work yesterday.\u00a0 The Today<\/i> show was on now.\u00a0 Uninterested, Gabby picked up the remote to change it, but not before catching the end of Ann Curry\u2019s recap of the morning\u2019s top stories.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 And in breaking news, we are getting reports of unauthorized, foreign jets seen flying in the Washington, D.C. area around six o\u2019clock, Eastern Standard Time, this morning.\u00a0 The jets were captured on video by a civilian recording on his cell phone, and we have that video for you now.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0 There was a pause, as the feed cut to a shaky, pixilated clip of a small group of planes flying seemingly low to the ground.\u00a0 Watching, the remote still in her hand, Gabby recognized the WashingtonMonument in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you see on your screen, the jets circled the Washington Mall several times before flying over the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon.\u00a0 Officials at the Pentagon and nearby Bolling Air Force Base are on a heightened security alert, and the Department of Homeland Security has raised the National Threat Advisory from yellow to orange, while they are investigating the aircraft sightings.\u00a0 We at NBC will update you on this story when we can confirm more details.\u00a0 Reporting live from the news desk this morning, this is Ann Curry.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The news held her attention for another minute, before, shrugging it off, Gabby set down her cereal bowl and changed the channel.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Chapter 13 You know what question I asked the others on one of those first few days?\u00a0 And no, not \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite color?\u201d or \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite animal?\u201d\u00a0 It bugs me when people think that just because I\u2019m \u201conly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/159\/revisions\/160"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}