All That's Left Behind - ronance

chapter 5

Robin dreams, as usual, about Max.

She is small in Robin's dreams, never older than eleven. And she is always smiling. This time, she’s an infant. She looks up at Robin with her glittering little eyes and clutches her index finger in her miniature fist and Robin imagines her holding the older girls heart in that tiny hand. She thinks in a furtive haze, I love you I love you I love you I won’t let anything happen to you. She bends to kiss her forehead and she smells like babies always do. But when she straightens up, she has turned an alarming shade of mottled gray. And when she touches her, her new skin is hard as stone. She lets out a startled yelp, and Max crumbles to dust.

She jolts awake, heart slamming against her ribs. She fumbles shakily for the picture of Max and squints at it in the dark, just barely making out her face. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, she chants to herself. Very slowly, her heart rate calms and the ache in her chest dulls a little.

A high-pitched whimper startles her. Again, she’d forgotten the girl asleep in the backseat. She twists to look at her. She’s balled up so tightly she looks tiny, her face screwed up in anguish, her fist at her mouth. She’s having a nightmare, too, and judging by her pained muttering (“Please…”), hers is worse.

Robin shifts in her seat, puts one knee in it and the other on the armrest so she can plant her hands on the backseat. She reaches out and grasps Barb’s arm firmly. “Hey,” she says loudly. She shakes Barb. “Hey, wake up. Wake up.”

Her blue eyes flash open, and she flinches away from Robin. She freezes, waits until Barb catches her breath. “Sorry,” she says.

“No,” Barb says, and her voice is uneven. Small. She swipes at something glittering on her cheek. “Thanks for…you know.”

Robin slowly shifts back into the driver’s seat. “I’ll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours,” she offers, because hey, she’s curious to know what priss' dream about.

She looks at Robin critically. There it is again, that guarded look. But it falls away as quickly as it appears. “I was dreaming about my parents and my younger sister,” she admits. “they turned about a month ago. I had to…” She looks away.

Robin feels a surge of sympathy. “I was dreaming about my sister,” Robin tells her. “She turned to stone when I touched her.”

Barb levels her gaze at her. “I’m sorry,” she says genuinely.

“Yeah,” says Robin. “Yeah, me too.”

*****

It’s raining so hard that Robin can’t even see out the windshield, even with the wipers on. She can barely discern that they’re in a residential area, that outside tiny birdhouses line up along the block. She thinks about keeping up, but decides against it. Not worth it.

Barb is asleep in the passenger seat. It’s odd. She never so much as closes her eyes unless she’s a good few feet away from Robin. Does this mean she trusts her? Somehow Robin doubts it. She’s careful when she reaches toward her and prods her arm. “Barb, wake up.”

She does so slowly, blinking several times at her as she sits up. Robin wonders what it’s like to see her face first thing in the morning. (Afternoon, whatever.) “What is it?” she asks groggily.

“This,” Robin waves a hand at the obscured windshield, “is way too heavy. We should wait it out in one of those.” she points at the houses that flash in and out of wavy vision.

Barb is silent for a minute. Robin gleaned that Barb thinks stopping for anything other than supplies is a waste of time. She wonders what’s really waiting for the shorter girl in Oregon. Is she lying about her brother? She shakes herself. What does she care?

“Okay,” she says finally, which surprises Robin.

Robin grabs a few water bottles and the almost-empty box of granola bars and wraps them up in one of the hoodies. She gives the other one to Barb, who knots her hair in a misshaped bun before pulling the hood over it. Robin doesn’t bother with the parkas. They’re for cold, not rain, and she doesn’t want them getting damp and moldy. She doesn’t want Max wearing anything damp or moldy.

They make a beeline for the nearest house. Robin manages to kick in the door (it hurts even though the wood’s old), but Barb darts inside before she can stop her. (That’s not panic in her chest, is it?) She mutters a curse and ducks in after her.

They carefully check every room. Barb finds a decomposing body in one of the bedrooms (the smell tells all) and comes out of it with her brows shoved together. She shakes her head at Robin when she tries to edge by. “You don’t want to see it,” she says, firmly shuts the door behind her.

Robin is faintly surprised. No one’s ever tried to shield her from something hard to look at, and she’s the last person Robin ever… she shakes herself, but she doesn’t try entering the room.

It wasn’t more than a minute in the rain, but Robin’s soaked and Barb’s hair is dripping steadily when she unties it. She peels off the wet jacket with a frown, but Robin doesn’t follow her example. It’s cold as hell, but she’ll manage.

She scrounges up a box of matches and lights one of the burners on the gas stove. Barb comes over immediately to hold her hands over the flame. Robin has the urge to grab Barb's hand.

There are stale chips, a few cans of beans, cereal, and a little vodka in the cabinets. Robin can’t remember the last time she had a drink, but she puts the bottle aside. As far as meals go after the apocalypse, it’s not bad. They decide to save the cereal for the morning. Barb sets the cans on separate burners. Robin wanders into the rest of the house for a closer look. There’s toothpaste in the bathroom, along with an unopened pack of seven toothbrushes—score. Also, a bunch of pill bottles lining the shelf behind the mirror. She doesn’t dare look at the names. The big bedroom is full of women’s clothing, but nothing that’ll fit Barb. Everything’s either too big or too small. Robin has a feeling that the body she found was a child.

The bed is the best part. A real bed, with a mattress and everything. The sheets smell a little musty, but clean. Robin wants to stretch out on it, but she’s still very wet.

There’s a jewelry box with a glass window in the lid on the vanity. The glass is broken in big pieces, but the jewelry is there. Robin’s already reaching in, thinking Max would like that bracelet before she remembers that she probably wouldn’t want some dead woman’s jewelry. Robin pulls back too fast; one of the jagged pieces cuts into her palm. She curses.

She heads back to the kitchen, where Barb is staring morosely at the cans. She tells Barb what she found, and the shorter girl brightens visibly.

“Soap?” she asks hopefully.

“Yeah,” Robin says, “but no running water.”

The hope dies. “Damn,” she mutters, turning back.

Robin finds a dishtowel on the countertop and dabs at the stinging cut. It’s pretty long and pretty deep. She sort of wants to mention that she doesn’t think Barb smells bad at all, but she doesn’t. She remembers then, as she glances at Barb's wet hair and the tiny pool around her feet, that they’re both pretending to be different people. Or she is, at least. Robin knows Vickie turned at the start of the apocalypse.