Chapter 1
The worst part about memories is they don’t stay dead. In Frankie’s head, granddad hit him again. He felt his ribs tighten, his breath stutter, his vision flash white. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t eleven. But his body didn’t know the difference.
Frankie blinked, his head throbbing as a headache fought its way forward. The shrill scream of the smoke alarm tore him from his trance, like being pulled into another reality. He heaved forward as the tainted stench of burning macaroni filled the kitchen, acrid air clawing at the back of his throat. Black smoke bellowed toward the fire alarm. Not enough to set it off, Frankie reassured himself.
Frankie scraped the pot, salvaging what he could before serving it in a paper bowl, the edges crinkling under the weight. Granddad groaned in the living room, a low sound like something dying, drool dribbling from his lip. He didn’t speak anymore. Not since the accident. But Frankie could still hear the echo of his taunts in each sigh and moan.
Frankie wiped his hands on his jeans, heart still racing from the alarm as he crossed the small living room. It felt wrong this evening, too still after the shriek of the alarm.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Dinner.”
Just as he lifted the spoon to grandad’s lips, the door rattled, hinges shaking under a fist. Frankie swallowed hard, ice flooding his veins.
“Who is it,” he called. He already knew the answer.
“Open up.”
The spoon fell with a clatter. Frankie shuffled to the door, peering through the peephole to see a warped green uniform and rough posture. He cracked it open, but the man shoved the door all the way open and stepped in, boots heavy on the ground. Rodgers.
“Smells like a fire, muppet.” He crinkled his nose, a growl to his deep voice.
“Just burnt something,” Frankie’s voice shook.
He folded his arms, looking ready to snap back like a rottweiler until his gaze flickered on granddad, the old man sitting slumped on the couch with eyes so old they were grey and sunken in, with skin so aged it looked like it would flake off and wisps of hair so thin he mirrored a scrappy dog.
“Bloody bastard’s still alive?” Rodgers shouldered past Frankie and took a few steps toward the old man.
Frankie’s lips parted as if to speak but he bit back.
Rodgers fingered the L-85 slung across his chest, looking granddad up and down. “Should I put him down?” Silence—then he burst into laughter.
Frankie chewed his lip and glanced down at the ground. God forbid he say a thing.
“Don’t make a mess of things,” Rodgers patted Frankie’s cheek with a calloused hand, and Frankie tensed thinking he would hit him. But Rodgers shouldered past him with a shove, leaving the door hanging ajar behind him.
Bastard. Frankie didn’t look up from the floor. Damn bastard. Why did Frankie let him treat him like that? Why did he take it like a dog? Rodgers’ steps echoed away, and Frankie finally looked up. It didn’t matter. Rodgers didn’t matter. Frankie didn’t matter. What he might’ve said to Rodgers didn’t matter. What mattered was survival.
Frankie stared at the open door, swinging on its hinges through particles of floating dust. His wool socks, patched with holes, dragged across the faded wooden floorboards, and he shut the door purposefully. His eyes set on the door. It didn’t move. Didn’t shake. He knew no one was there, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched.
Then, he turned to face his grandfather as if nothing happened.
“Okay,” he steadied the spoon of half burnt mac and cheese in front of granddad’s mouth, guiding it to his lips. Bits of cheese sauce dribbled down, collecting in the folds of his neck and Frankie wiped it away with a rag slung over his shoulder. “Nice job,” he mumbled.
Feeding him wasn’t so bad. Nothing like changing his diaper where he fought tooth and nail. Frankie gazed at the scar along the base of granddad’s neck. The accident took the use of his limbs but left the memories. He was still the same bully. He and granddad both knew that, the same vicious spirit trapped in a ruined body.
It made Frankie diabolically happy watching him suffer sometimes; a man who once barked and bit like a pit bull now shrunken and feeble like a mouse within an owl’s talons. Other times it was slow burning torture like a branding iron being held against his flesh for too long. There Frankie was, feeding him and wiping his ass every evening, every weekend, every holiday, all the time. Even after the accident, he still made Frankie’s life a living Hell.
The radio sputtered in the background: for our next segment, we will be honoring those who lost their life during the pandemic. Mad Deer Disease claimed the lives of half the world’s population just fifteen years ago. We thank the Crown for stepping in and restoring order during those difficult early years—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A jolt of terror whipped through Frankie. Had Rodgers returned? He set the bowl aside, his stride quick as he crossed the room. He peered out the peep hole, and his shoulders sagged in relief when he saw Maria’s distorted form through the glass. The smile he forced when he opened the door masked the exhaustion in his eyes.
“Hey,” Maria stepped in.
The stench of the dreary apartment hall wafted in, old cigarettes and mildewing carpet. Frankie glanced down the corridor, shadows dancing along the walls, looking like something pulled from a nightmare.
“Hey.”
The nursing student drew her long hair into a ponytail, wine red lips lined perfectly with dark lipliner. Her frame was wide and slender, curves rolling like the hills of a valley. She saw taking care of his grandfather as an honor and learning experience, not a never-ending punishment for past wrongdoings.
“How is he today,” She asked.
“Kind of grumpy.”
“When is he not?”
They laughed, eyes darting away from each other. Almost as awkward as their first kiss in the back of a supply truck, during the retaliation in the early years of the pandemic. He still remembered the hint of strawberry on her lips and the way the tear gas made their lips burn when they touched. When they were teenagers and thought they were untouchable. That felt like another lifetime. When the British took what was left of the continental United States, they let themselves drift away until the idea of them was all but forgotten.
He passed her with a weak smile, getting a hint of her rose-scented perfume.
“Have a good evening.” She smiled as he passed.
He feigned thanks with a nod. Her words were as empty as the dark streets outside, waiting for him.
In the hall, what was supposed to be blue carpet was faded greenish-grey, and a yellowing light flickered overhead. A woman stood outside someone’s door, knuckles tapping again and again, a handheld device in her grip. She was stocky, middle-aged with stubborn bits of white hair jutting angrily around her head. If it weren’t for the pale-yellow crown emblem stitched into her sleeve, Frankie wouldn’t have even noticed her. Crown personnel were everywhere, but you never quite got used to them.
Frankie kept his head down, passing without a word when the woman turned her head, watching him for a heartbeat too long. Frankie tried not to look back as he felt the woman’s stare linger on him the whole way down the hall—as if she was there for him. As if she already knew his name.