Desolation ✔️

Chapter 17: Separate Ways

Wanna know the worst thing about being stuck with an ex-eighteen-year-old SWAT officer in the early stages of the apocalypse? Orders come often. Expectations are nearly unreachable. Attitude is inevitable. And the badge never really comes off.

But—and there's a pretty big one here—there's a perk that outweighs all those things put together: the mission is always at the front of his mind.

Ash's mission, as I've discovered through exploration and...yeah, some button-pushing...took me by surprise. His fixation on it is a little unnecessary and often annoying, but when you've been thrown into a house with the person who killed your parents solely because you don't really have any other options, well, I guess it can be flattering.

Me. I am Ash's mission.

With each day that passes at his house, I've learned a little more about him. How he rubs his fingers over his dog tags whenever he's thinking or stressed. How he runs his hands through his hair for no reason at all. How he never—and I mean never—wears anything but a new pair of camo pants from his closet (he has too many) each day. How he offers me the first of anything. How his eyes follow me whenever I venture off without a word. And how too often, he subtly suggests he's open to listen if there's anything I need to talk about.

He helped me bandage up my wounds. They've all just about healed now. My ankle still aches occasionally, but within another day or so, it should be back to normal. We haven't missed a day of target practice; that's been the center of attention morning and night.

Oh, and nighttime. Well, our only purpose of sleeping in the same room the first night was to ensure one didn't kill the other in their sleep or lock them in the house if it ever got overrun by zombies. We've established enough trust to sleep in separate rooms now...but, well, we don't. There's the fear that one might vanish in the middle of the night with no explanation. (Actually, that's probably just my own personal fear after what happened at the Safe House, but Ash understands...or pretends to.) Same bed, even. As it turns out, I don't actually kick in my sleep. Ash truly was being a gentleman about it that night.

Which, honestly, makes it harder each day to pretend I don't feel an overwhelming desire to get closer to him each night. He's like a puppeteer tugging on my heartstrings, but I'm doing everything I can to sever the connection. It's all an illusion...everything I'm feeling now? It means nothing. I mean, how can you not feel connected to probably the last guy on earth? That renders every new feeling, every emotion, every interaction...questionable. Potentially unreliable.

But time...well, time has an interesting way of telling things. Thing like, maybe it's not an illusion, after all.

Day six. Today marks Day Six at Ash's house. Every morning, shots ring out. Every night, Ostford announces. How long do you wait before it's time to finally take a chance? Ash hasn't so much as "forgotten" the primary mission, and I'm pretty sure that's his way of telling me Ostford isn't an option for him. I know this. I feel it. I can sense it every time I peek out the window and catch him looking over. I can see it in his eyes during the late hours when we listen tentatively to the radio static. He won't even mention it, but I've already made up my mind.

I may be Ash's mission, but right now, Carter is mine.

"Do you think anyone's still alive?" My voice carries out into the warm spring air like a ghost through a graveyard. I mean, that's all this world has become now, isn't it? One terribly disastrous and haunted graveyard.

Ash and I are sitting on the roof of his house, backs pressed against the window that led us out here. The sun glows from behind the distant trees and roads and houses, creating fuzzy shadows along the sidewalks. Dusk is the perfect curtain to hide the destruction that tore apart so many families, so many lives, so many innocent people. It's probably not the safest to be sitting on a roof when the dead wander the streets below and the shooters still roam incognito, but here we are anyway, drinking in the remnants of another passing day.