Jackie leant forward and held him. She rubbed his back, which drew massive sobs. “It’s okay, Ted. One day, when this is all over, I want to hear everything there is to know about Chloe. She will never be gone, I promise you.”
“She was my little girl, and those fucking monsters took her away from me.”
“Too right, they fucking did. So, stay with us and help us fight back. Everyone keeps telling me we’re doomed, but I refuse to accept it. I’m not interested in just surviving. I want to show those shitting monsters that they picked the wrong fight. Fuck them!”
Ted reared back, stunned. “Jackie, you keep swearing like that and I’ll make you my foreman.”
She let out a hoot. “Just don’t tell anyone. I’ll lose my air of sophistication.”
Ted laughed hysterically, tears drenching his cheeks. All of this emotion was wretched, turning him inside out, but it felt good too. It was like coming up for air. “You really think Chloe is still with me?”
Jackie stopped laughing and grew serious. “Can either of us be sure she isn’t? Everything we thought we knew about the universe is wrong. There are places beyond this one, we know that now for sure. Perhaps you should stop thinking about promises you made Chloe in the past and make her some new ones. Who knows, she might be watching. Isn’t that enough?”
The thought that his daughter might still exist in some form sent a shiver down Ted’s spine. It rocked the very core of him and filled him with something he thought he’d lost forever—hope. He looked over at the children huddled in front of Philip and saw they still had it too. As long as there were children, there was hope.
“I’ll stay,” he said, feeling a massive relief to know his journey had come to an end and that he was home. “I’ll stay here and fight.”
33
DR KAMIYO
Two days passed without drama, but tension there was in spades. Kamiyo imagined what patients used to go through waiting for the results of a biopsy. That endless, runaway worry about an oddly shaped mole or slight lump in the breast. Waiting for a death sentence was torture. Waiting for demons to attack was no better. Apprehension was a lingering wound.
Speaking of lingering wounds, Kamiyo’s hands slowly returned to their original size. They were a sickly purple now, and every slight movement was sickeningly painful, but all of his fingers moved, and he thought he might get close to full use of them back. The main thing was that his hands worked well enough to leave the forest in search of supplies. Injured or not, it had to happen.
“I’m leaving,” he announced over the chitchat in the castle’s great hall. He stood before the crackling hearth which felt like the appropriate place to give a public address. His statement went unnoticed, absorbed into the evening’s background din, so he cleared his throat and spoke again louder. “I said, I’m leaving!”
This time he got a reaction. Those who were eating stopped chewing and looked at him. Slowly, all heads turned his way. Hannah was the one to give the first objection. “The heck you talking about, Doc?”
“I’m talking about the fact we’re still low on supplies.”
“We’re fine. The stuff I carried back from the Post Office bought us some time. Once I’m rested up, I’ll head out again.”
She was referring to the dog bite on her shin. It had been a deep and painful wound, which Kamiyo was sure would have killed her if not for the antiseptic she herself had found. Kamiyo looked at her now, knowing that getting her onboard would be key. “Any day now we expect to be attacked. That means we might not get another chance to head out and get what we need. Ted here is doing an excellent job of barricading us inside, but the point of a siege isn’t to break down the walls.”
“What do you mean?” Carol asked. “I don’t understand.”
Ted groaned. “He means if the demons come in force, they can just wait us out until we starve. How the Hell didn’t that dawn on me sooner?”
“We can’t survive a siege with nothing in the pantry,” Kamiyo explained. “We’ll be cut off from the lake, the forest. Once again, it turns to our need for crops, long-term rations, and medicine. We need to plant within the castle’s walls and scavenge the nearby village for dried food and water. One summer without rain and we’ll die of dehydration in a week. We’re living hand to mouth, and that doesn’t work with an enemy at our walls.”
Hannah frowned. “Okay, Doc, point taken. But why you? Why do you want to be the one to leave?”
“Because we need medicine as much as we do food, and if we’re only going to get one shot at this, we’ll need to be thrifty with what we bring back. There’s no point filling a rucksack with beta blockers and statins when what we need is antibiotics, blood thinners, anti-coagulants, strong painkillers, et cetera. I am the only one who can find a pharmacy and fill a rucksack only with what we need. If there’s only time for one trip, there will only be room to carry so much. If you want another argument, then I would point out that Hannah has an injured leg, and Ted is too busy making this place safe. Who else is there?”
Hannah nodded and gave no further comment.
“You’re injured too,” said Jackie. “Your hands…”
“Are a mess,” he admitted. “I won’t be writing any letters for a while, but I can hold a weapon and scoop supplies into a bag. There’s nothing useful I can do here, but I know how to survive out there.”
“You don’t have to do this,” said Jackie. Her voice tremored, her resolve was fading. She
