Prospero's Half-Life by Trevor Zaple Read Free Book Online Page A

say. Nothing
was coming to mind, however, so he simply said the first thing that
came to his mind.
    “ What do we do next?” he asked. She shook her head slowly, and
Richard thought that her anger might be dissipating.
    “ We could stay here, there’s food. I don’t feel safe with that
hospital full of shooters on the other side. Sometimes when I’m
walking around, I think that at any second a bullet will come
whizzing through the window and I’ll just be another dead body to
litter up everything. Even though the drapes and blinds are closed
tightly, I feel this constantly. I don’t think that it’s a healthy
way to live”.
    She put a
long-nailed hand to her face to wipe away the sweat. “I need to get
out of here. It’s not just the hospital, either. Everywhere I go in
here I see Doug. If I stay here, I’ll just end up crying in the
corners all the time. I need to go somewhere else. Anywhere
else”.
    Doug , he thought morosely, you may not have been able to hold a job but she
sure has a problem with letting you go . He
wondered sourly if the smug cheer he felt over Doug’s lack of
employment was a mark against his character.
    Instead of
voicing his inner debate, he asked her if there was anywhere in
particular she wanted to go. She appeared to think about this for a
while, and then finally shrugged her shoulders.
    “ I don’t care,” she said, and in the finality of her tone it
seemed that she meant it. Richard let it hang in the heated air for
a moment before scrambling for a place to go. A suggestion to make,
anyway.
    “ Well, let’s go downtown, then,” he said blindly. “We should
probably go find other people, before they find us, I mean. Maybe
someone knows what’s going on”.
    “ We already know what’s going on,” she replied sullenly, “and
that’s the problem”. He let that go.
    “ We can at least find a safer place to sleep in further away
from here. We may as well head downtown, anyway”.
    “ Sure,” she shrugged again, and she seemed deflated. “Let’s
pack up and go downtown. Someone must be down there”. From the other side of the
building, muffled by the mass of brick, there was the dry, brittle
snap of a rifle shot. Richard jumped a little and his heart raced
away. Samantha nodded, continuing to stare off into the parking
lot. The sun shone through her fair hair and the sight of the rich
yellow light filtering through her golden strands and the way it
shone on her bare, smooth skin made him stir.
    “ Maybe before we go...” he whispered, advancing on her, but she
spun around and held him off.
    “ No,” she said, and Richard thought he heard a note of contempt
in her voice. He stepped back, wilting. He put his hands behind
him, on his buttocks, to show that he wasn’t going to try anything.
She looked him up and down, lingering here and there. “Maybe,” she
amended, although she still seemed doubtful. She walked by him into
the apartment, not waiting for a reply. Richard watched her go and
let out an explosive breath.

SIX
    They ended up
leaving the apartment a short half-hour later. There ended up being
no time for any sort of physical interlude, as once inside Samantha
began a whirlwind of gathering and packing. She laid out a
messenger bag and a tattered old denim knapsack. She packed the
canned portion of her cupboards into the knapsack, as well as four
bottles of water. On top of this she packed a towel, and two
changes of clothes – casual wear, jeans, t-shirts, sturdy
textiles.
    “ I don’t really have anything for you,” she semi-apologized.
“Doug was a bit bigger than you, so nothing would really fit”.
Richard shrugged and said that it was alright, he would survive,
but he bristled inside at the perceived dig.
    Into the
messenger bag she packed a map of the city and a couple of her
sharper kitchen knives. She fished her plastic identification cards
out of her purse and placed them inside the bag as well, along with
her battered old blue birth