Mud Vein(6)

“What if they’re not coming back?”

He doesn’t answer me for the longest time.

“There is a pantry, there—” he nods toward a narrow door to the left of the table. “It’s stocked with enough food to last for months. There is a fifty-pound bag of flour. But the wood closet only has enough wood to last a few weeks. Four at most if we ration it.”

I don’t want to think about the gargantuan bag of flour, so I pretend I didn’t hear him. The wood, however, bothers me. I’d rather not freeze to death. There are plenty of trees outside. If we could get outside, that is. We’d have wood.

“The carousel room,” he says. “Do you find it strange?” His voice is clear, precise. It’s the one he uses with his patients. I’m not one of his patients and I don’t appreciate being spoken to like one.



“Yes,” I say simply.

“The book?” His voice moves to gruff. “There was nothing in there about the carousel, was there?”

“No,” I say. “There wasn’t”

There didn’t need to be.

“Do you think this could be one of your fans? Someone obsessed?”

I don’t want to think about that, but it has already crossed my mind. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for this.

“It’s possible,” I say cautiously. “But that doesn’t explain you.”

“Have you been getting any threats, strange letters?”

“No, Isaac.”

He looks up when I say his name.

“Senna, you need to think carefully. This could make a difference.”

“I have!” I snap. “There have been no letters out of the norm, no e-mails. Nothing!”

He nods, walks to the fridge.

“What are you doing?” I ask, spinning in my seat to watch him.

“Making us something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say quickly.

“We don’t know how long we’ve been out. You need to eat and drink something or you’ll dehydrate.”

He starts taking things out of the fridge and putting them on the counter. He finds a glass, fills it with water from the faucet, and brings it to me. It’s a funny color.

I take it. How can I eat or drink at a time like this? I force the water down because he’s standing in front of me, waiting.

I stare blindly at the snow outside as he stands at the stove. The stove is gas; brand new from the looks of it.

When he comes back to the table he’s carrying two plates, each piled with scrambled eggs. The smell makes me sick. He sets it down in front of me and I pick up the fork.

Weapons, we have so many: forks, knives … you’d think if someone were coming back, they wouldn’t provide us with these things to attack them with. I voice my thoughts, and Isaac nods.

“I know.”

Of course he had already thought of this. Always two steps ahead…

“Your hair is different,” he says. “It took me a minute to recognize you … upstairs.”

I blink at him. Are we really talking about my hair? I feel self-conscious about my white streak. I make sure it’s tucked away, behind my ear.

“I grew it out.”

Put food in mouth, chew, swallow, put food in mouth, chew, swallow.

We don’t speak about my hair anymore. When I am finished eating, I announce that I need to use the restroom. I ask him to come with me. The only bathroom in the house is the one in the bedroom where I found Isaac. He waits outside the door, knife in hand. Before we leave the kitchen he upgrades to a larger one. It is almost funny, but not. Big knife, big wound. I had settled for a steak knife myself. They are easy to handle and sharp as hell.

I relieve myself and step over to the sink to wash my hands. There is a mirror hanging above it. I look at myself and flinch. My hair is limp and greasy, the inch-wide streak of grey that showed up when I was twelve is startling against my pale face. I have done everything to rid myself of it: dying it, cutting it, pulling it out strand by strand. Color won’t take to the grey. I have sat in dozens of chairs over the years and every stylist has said the same thing. “It doesn’t make sense … it won’t take the color.” No matter what I do, it always comes back like a stubborn weed. Eventually, I let it be. The old part of me won out.



I turn on the water, it sputters like the croup for several seconds before a weak brown stream comes dribbling out. I splash it over my face, drink some. It tastes funny—like rust and dirt.

When I walk out of the bathroom, Isaac hands me his butcher knife. I have to put my knife down to hold it, since my wrist is a gimp.

“Me too,” he says. “Don’t let the bad guys get us.”

I grin—I actually grin—as he closes the door. His humor always shows up at the oddest moments. I thought I was the bad guy, I didn’t think I’d ever be at the mercy of one.

When he comes out, his face has been washed, too, and his hair is damp. There is a trickle of water running from his temple.

“Now what?” I say.

“Are you tired? We could take turns. Do you want to sleep?”

“Hell no!”

He laughs. “Yeah, I get ya.”

There is a long awkward pause.

“I’d like to take a shower,” I say. What I don’t add is, in case the sick f*ck touched me…