My Pleasure, Darling

31: Farewell Soul, Hello Doom

Twilight is not an ideal time to stop in plague-infested nomad country, he tells me. Twilight is a bad time of day to stop, drink, eat, refuel, and change drivers.

I argue there is no good time of day to do it, and quite frankly, I'd rather do it when we still have a little light, than when it's black out. He can't very well argue with that, and he knows it.

When we swap seats, I take the blanket under my body with me. He notices. I knew he would. I raise my eyebrows at him as if to imply something. When he doesn't get it, I chastely whisper. "I bled a little on it. So unless you want to sit on my blood..."

Felix doesn't know I've been shot. Felix doesn't know this, predominantly, because Felix has been smelling blood falling out of my body for some time now, and he can't tell the difference. This is, in hindsight, excellent for me. Maybe getting my period late was a blessing in disguise. Either way, he acts like I never spoke, and doesn't bring it up again. Smart man.

We ride through the night. Neither of us sleep. I'm lucky that my shot leg is on the side of the brakes, and I'm not really using those right now. The night sky is ablaze with stars. I'd be comforted to look at them from anywhere else in the world right now.

I'm glad Felix is still up. His night vision is better than mine. Shadows that play in the darkness against other shadows, he can watch, carefully. He has to fire a single shot, and then another, and then he's sure there is nothing else, nobody else, after us.

It's suspiciously quiet. Nomad territory. We know the myths, rumours and legends well. You expect to be cowered into submission, haunted every moment, day and night, by fleets of ghoulish cars and bullets flying. Part of me wonders whether it's because of the plague outbreak – do the chieftans not send out the few mercenary children they have, when the others are dying?

The roads have old, withered signs. Felix and I agree to keep heading South. There's no use in taking exits to nowhere.

The pain is bearable. Controllable. As long as I am not required to think very hard, I can be in control. I can manage myself. I have stopped bleeding. Probably just a flesh wound. Luckily I have plenty of flesh to keep the bullet from hitting anything too vital.

The perks of being fat girl. What can I say. You win some, you lose some.

It has, of course, occurred to me, that a bullet that was fed into a gun by a nomad who likely has been exposed to plague, has opened my flesh. This is bad news for me.

Plague is a curious thing to live with, as if we don't live in an age of science. There are never any cures, except for old wives' tales of rubbing garlic against your head and dancing three times in the rain or some other nonsense. And there is no telling who will get it. Some people can smother the fresh corpses of plague victims into their own blood and never get plague. They are always discovering new reasons why some people don't get it, and others do when there is a breakout.

It doesn't matter, either way. I don't feel bad enough for this to be plague. That means it's just a flesh wound. And flesh wounds are things I have had before. I am not scared of them.

It's all about the frame of mind.

The water goes quickly. Felix reminds me that, in nature survival, we did learn that it is best to drink water when you are thirsty, than try to ration it too hard. People have been found dead in the desert of dehydration with bottles of water still in their hands. I know this, of course. I just hadn't been thinking about it. It takes a surprising amount of concentration to not scream in pain 24/7. We smell, but we drink just plenty.

It's helpful for me to be behind the wheel. My hands grip the steering wheel hard enough that it reminds me to be grounded, and I can keep the weight off my leg. Even though it's tiring, and the muscles in my back are straining, I drive for nearly fifteen hours straight until Felix insists on taking over. I am half-glad he does. I need to sleep.