Chào các bạn! Vì nhiều lý do từ nay Truyen2U chính thức đổi tên là Truyen247.Pro. Mong các bạn tiếp tục ủng hộ truy cập tên miền mới này nhé! Mãi yêu... ♥

014 | Pretending to Forget

━━━━━━ CHAPTER FOURTEEN ━━━━━━
Pretending to Forget
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

          A TWENTY MINUTE DRIVE AWAY FROM THE TOWN, Daryl had to pull over, panicked as much as Mallory was surprised to find that she has started bleeding heavily again from the gunshot wound it so seems both of them had forgotten everything about. It was but a waste of time to scold her for saying nothing about the pain she was obviously feeling — Daryl was no stranger to the aches of a gunshot wound, when you feel that initial uncomfortable sensation build up into a burning flare pulsing paralyzing jolts in muscles surrounding the entry wound —, so he said nothing about it and focused on getting her to a safe zone again.

Fortunately, he happened to stop in a quiet, albeit absolutely ravaged neighborhood that, save for a couple of straying Walkers, seemed to have been left uninhabited after continous raids stripping it bare of any supplies of true significance.

In terms of picking a house to enter, Daryl was not picky in the slightest; hurry alone reduced his choices to one, so he picked Mallory up — she was paling, far too weak to protest anymore to anything at all, especially something that she was well aware she enjoyed — going for the closest house to where he parked the car.

Before he set her down, she let him know there were only two Walkers inside, one downstairs, in the basement, and one upstairs, in a room to the right. Leaving her down on the dust-filled couch in the living room that he tried his best to clear with his foot of any trash or objects with better days behind them, Daryl went on to follow her directions in securing the house for them — the Walker upstairs turned out to have been in the bathtub.

Since the sweep was quick and almost effortless compared to what would come next, Daryl gathered anything that he could use to patch Mallory up, rejoicing at something as little as finding one bottle of alcohol in a work desk's drawer in the basement or a couple of unused pads forgotten in a bag at the back of a wardrobe that he reckoned could supplement well the bandages they had left. Along with a thinner bladed knife and a pair of tweezers, he returned downstairs; the supplies he needed for the sutures, he had thankfully kept from their last close endeavor to death by bleeding out back in Atlanta.

Mallory had busied herself up in his absence into taking off her shirt — or rather prying it off her skin, as mud and blood proved to be a truly glue-like combination between flesh and synthetic fabric — and then engaging in a light read of a magazine that had been dropped on the ground and stomped over by dead and living alike most definitely. She was pleased to see the date on it be 24th August, 2010. A time before everything started.

Though her silence worried him, Daryl was mostly grateful to have Mallory pay attention to something else other than what he was doing to her wounds without even the slightest pain relief medication. She flinched almost constantly and he didn't find it in himself to complain about it, because frankly, he would have expected screams and tears, not just mere flinches away from his needle and his touch. He focused on cleaning the wounds, only removing the shrapnel that wasn't already too deep. Most of it looked like it could stay there and scar inside safely; in fact, he was planning on making sure she doesn't strain herself too much with moving so it heals properly.

Mallory set the magazine aside when Daryl looked like he was almost done with cleaning everything, the part she considered to have been the most painful. "If you're waiting for me to apologize about going out to save that little girl, it's not going to happen."

Daryl exhaled slowly, somewhat grateful she decided to break the silence between them, a tension that has been building up since they left the town and that had haunted him into deepening the void his guilt was forming in his chest. "What's done is done," he said. "I'm just glad you're alive," he added shortly after, stealing a glimpse at her past the curtain of heavy strands of hair draped around his bowed head. I could never really be upset with you anyway, he thought, yet regarded instantly he better not say such a thing, should she get the idea that his heart could take more of these dangerous encounters.

"This magazine reminded me," Mallory changed the subject, much to his surprise, with a smile gracing her cracked lips, still a little far from the color of livelihood, "back then, when I cam back and looked for you, I had this plan. To make it up to you. It was a little silly, but I was thinking of asking you out on a date. Can you guess where?"

Too stunned by what she brought up, Daryl delayed his answer by starting to bandage her and thus motioning her to lean forward so he could reach around with the bandage. As soon as he did answer however, no words made it out: he simply shook his head.

"The cinema," Mallory chuckled, despite a groan of pain from the bandage being a little too tight tarnishing the sound of her laughter. Daryl hurried to undo the bandage and loosen it up a little. "It had dawned on me that we never actually had a cinema date. Not even at that drive-in cinema we had in our town for a month. We always had better things to do, better things to spend money on."

"I guess we did..."

"We could go now," she spoke over him. "There's a cinema in the city," she pointed to the magazine she figured was a local one. "It will be my treat," she offered, ever so innocently. "It's basically a bargain now anyway."

"Mals," Daryl's eyebrows knitted together, leaning only slightly back so he can get a good look at her, "are you insane?" He almost regretted letting those words out before properly noticing the amount of hope flickering in her eyes. Was she asking him on a date? That realization too floated somewhere in his mind, albeit not as loud as the thought he decided to voice while looking away, "The cinema is most likely overrun with Walkers and we've decided to stay out of cities already."

"Out of big cities," she corrected him. "It's a small one. We can clear the cinema."

"Ammunition—"

"We can get more of," she interrupted his argument before he even made it.

"How about electricity?" Daryl inquired, on his last strand of patience. Though he had just finished tying her bandage, his calloused hands lingered their touch on the sides of her waist. It was there that his sight's attention laid too.

"Who even thinks of stealing back-up generators from a cinema?" She lifted her right hand from the magazine and hooked a finger ever so gently under his chin, lifting up his gaze to meet hers.

"People who need back-up generators."

His answer unintentionally irritated her.

Mallory dropped her hand and looked away, "Fine. Then you can stay here and I'll go alone." She placed her hands down over his to pry them away and though he let himself be moved off of her, Daryl did not move out of her way, so really she had no way of standing up just yet.

"Alright, now you're out of your goddamn mind, woman," Daryl shook his head. "Look what happened last you went out on your own."

"I want to go see a movie—"

"And I want a pack of cigarettes that ain't stale," he raised his voice only to match hers. Since she was adamant in getting up, something visible from her leaning forward until the tips of their noses almost brushed against each other, Daryl gave in and leant back. As soon as she was up, he followed only to help her stand, all the while remaining in a state of aggravated rage. "But guess what, sunshine, the world's gone to shit and we ain't getting what we want anymore."

"Oh, fuck off," Mallory retorted instantly, holding his hands as aid to straighten up. "When have we ever just been given what we wanted? It's never been like that for us. We always gotta get what we want ourselves and now's no different. So when I tell you I want to go see a fucking movie, then I God damn mean it, because I've been dying for a whole year and the world won't stop being shitty if I just take a day to try and feel like I'm alive again!"

Her voice had climbed to such a desperate crescendo that when her shout ended, the silence which followed turned unbearable to the ears.

Mallory must have been aware of what she had just said, because she not only averted her gaze, but also tried to shake Daryl's hand off. It worked on her left hand, but only because he refused to let go of her right, instead adjusting his grip to properly hold it and lower it down between them. Without a single word, he reached down and picked up the magazine, studying the page she stopped reading it on until he found the address of the cinema being advertised there.

"Come on," he dropped the magazine back on the couch and picked her up, leaving no room for her to argue against his decision to let her walk as little as possible on her own. He was about to abandon her dirty shirt there before he recalled they had nothing better for her to wear for now, so he had to pick it up and let her get dressed again once they were back in the car.

In fear of having said something that crossed an imaginary line between them, she found herself worrying about everything a little too deeply. Mallory was silent all the way back to the car and then, even as Daryl started driving through the neighborhood. It wasn't until the road forked and he choose to drive into the city that Mallory almost broke her silence. With wide eyes, she looked at him, however, by the time Daryl felt the stare and wished to meet it, he only saw the side of her smile illuminating her pale features.

It was alright if their drive was silent. In fact, he would argue it was for the best, as they shouldn't be taking their luck for granted in not coming across any large number of Walkers on the streets surrounded by decayed car accidents, ravaged façades of shops and almost tall buildings on the verge of collapse. It was an obstacle course to get to the address, but as soon as they did, they crunched down by the front door and waited in unspoken agreement for Mallory to listen to what was inside the barricaded cinema, before taking the back entrance at the side of the building and making their way inside from there, a little quieter.

"There's too many," she whispered.

"How many?" Daryl insisted with a determination now unlike ever before to get in and sit her down peacefully in one of those comfy chairs before an obscenely large screen.

Mallory inched closer to the door, her ear almost pressed to it, blinking a couple of times to try and make out in detail. "At least five in the hallways. Maximum seven. I'm not sure. But there's so many in the screening rooms."

"We'll pick the one with the least of them in it and barricade the rest," Daryl decided on the spot. "Once we get the power back on for the building, they'll get agitated, so we gotta be sure they are sealed in well."

"We could turn on music in those rooms," Mallory offered an idea. "If it's loud enough, it will not only keep them distracted, but it will also cover our noise too. I've never heard of cinema walls not thick enough to hold the noise inside either, so we should be safe from attracting more Walkers to the building."

Daryl nodded. "Listen, once we do get inside, we need to be real quiet about this. No guns. No matter what happens, you don't fire your gun, you hear me? They may spit ya out after they bite, but I ain't having none of these filthy mouths tear you apart. If they get me, they get me, but you don't —"

"That's not gonna happen," Mallory dismissively cut him off. "They won't get ya. I won't let them."

"I know," Daryl sighed, dropping his gaze after momentarily being left unable to look away from her. "That's why you're going to have to go in first."

Mallory's eyebrows shot upwards, but before she could say anything about his decision, Daryl continued, "I hate that we gotta do it like this, I really do."

"I'm alright with it."

"Nah," he raised his hand at her, shaking his head rigorously. "This ain't something that I ever want you to be alright with. Ever. It's a one time thing and... It's never gonna happen again, it's just that I ain't seeing no other—"

"Hey," Mallory called ever so softly, taking his hand and bringing it to her chest. "I get it," she leant forward to seek his eyes. As he averted his gaze, she had to raise her free hand up and cup the side of his face, nudging him to look at her. "Daryl, I trust you. I know you don't wanna use me for a shield. You're not like that. But we gotta look out for each other, protect each other with all we got in order to make it. I get that," after a short inhale, she smiled upon a repetition, "and I trust you."

Her eyes besought to inquire 'Will you trust me too?', a question for which the answer was ever clearer in Daryl's mind. "Let's go."

There turned out to be eight Walkers in the ticket hall, one that has eluded Mallory's hearing by being stuck in a maintenance room, where they had to clear too, should they wish to turn the lights back on in the place. But first things first, they had to go from door to door quietly. Mallory listened and Daryl tied up with wire he picked up from the maintenance room where she said there were too many dead on the other side to handle.

The first screen got fifty-six, the second had almost two hundred of them, the third had about ten and the fourth one a little over one hundred. Naturally, they decided they were going to clean the room behind the third door, something which, after Daryl had moved barricades out of furniture in front of the other three, became a goal attainable only by a rather dangerous move.

The Walkers from all four screens got alerted by the noise of moving furniture. Those two hundred against one single door were a worrisome deal, but so were the ten in a room they were supposed to enter. So the plan was easy, positioning Mallory with her knife right at the third door and Daryl further down the hallway, where he reckoned he could keep a certain upper hand over all the Walkers for quite some time.

At the mouthed count of three synchronized between them, Mallory cut the wire on the door and pulled it open, initially hiding behind it. The first Walker that got out immediately had a bolt driven through its head. By the time Daryl got the second one down, five more were out and heading with dragged steps towards him. He got the third one down and only when he counted those still standing as seven did he finally raise his voice over their groans, "Now."

Mallory closed the door and got the one closest to her with a knife through the back of its head. Daryl shot down his forth kill at the same time.

One by one, the Walkers fell and once the hallway was silent and Daryl had gathered all the arrows that could otherwise be salvaged, they regrouped by the third door. "It should be clear now. Can't hear anything apart from those guys," she looked across the hallway, nodding at the second door behind which the banging continued.

"They'll stop pushing against the barricade once we turn on the music in there," Daryl reassured her after having taken a glimpse back over his shoulder too. "Alright," he returned his attention to Mallory, grabbing her right shoulder. "I'm gonna need you to go in there and check every row, then you pick a seat and get comfortable. I'll get the power up then make it to the projection booths. When I get the movie playing, I'll come back and find you and...," he trailed off, hesitating, until he was able to whisper, much less intelligible than before, "and we'll have our date."

He didn't linger to await her answer. As if electrocuted, Daryl released her shoulder and left her side, making it so that Mallory had to call after him to speak her heart.

"Daryl," she waited for him to slow his walk. "Thank you."

He had raised his hand as if it wasn't a big deal, but it was. Oh, it was.

Though all she did was resumed to exactly the directions he had given her, it felt infinitely more significant to finally take a seat on the middle, with that big white screan in front of her. The stains of blood on the bottom of it, even the scent of death, they all seemed to disappear when the lights flickered on and even the air conditioning murmured itself to life — one could never truly tell how quiet the world has gotten since the outbreak until a small glimpse into how loud life used to be was shown to them.

Noise was exactly what Mallory needed, she was certain of it.

So she leant back in the chair, set her head back, comfy, and exhaled slowly; as long as she could focus on the noise, she imagined she would be fine with waiting however long it took Daryl to put the movie on, a movie she hadn't a single clue what was going to be about, just that it would be something, it would be a noise famously capable of distracting someone for at least two hours, transporting them into a world separate from their mundane worries and struggles. Movies have always been an escape and damn, if there was a time in which she needed them, that time was now.

There was only one more Walker in the projection booth that posed little trouble to Daryl, at least in comparison to how complicated the machinery he faced in there looked to him. Hitting it until it worked was not an option so Daryl looked around for manuals, for any instructions plasted on devices, on surfaces, well aware that he might sooner start feeling like he was reading hieroglyphics than actually make out anything of value.

Once he felt minutes start to pass, words escaped past his lips thinned into an annoyed line, "Fuck it. How hard can it be?"

Mallory watched excitedly how the flicker of the projector hooked her like a life vest out of the depths of the silence she was slowly sinking back into with the passage of time through her wait. There were glitches, problems with the sound that made her cover her ears, but eventually, the volume was turned down below the normal cinema noise — Daryl did not forget her sensitivity to loud things in the slightest — and she settled back in her seat, watching with glee unlike ever before the commercials run on.

The sight of bars, of people dressed in clean clothes and caring about what beer they should drink or what piece of jewelry they should wear, everything was color before her wide eyes, so bright and so nostalgic of a time before that it swept her self-consciousness under the rug; it no longer mattered that she was just then the furthest she had ever been from the ideals casted on the screen, but only the fact that she was there, feeling that humane desire to be left in awe.

Her eyes glazed, somewhere between the commercial about a new car model of some brand she couldn't even recognize anymore and the beginning of the trailers, all presenting stories that seemed so out of place and whimsical in a world with no time left for creativity that reaches for purposes of entertainment rather than those of survival. She lost herself a little there, in those stretched minutes, only to be awakened out of an unblinking state by steps coming up the stairs.

The smile that lit up Mallory's face was worth every drop of sweat that took them to get there and that was not something Daryl was afraid to admit to himself. He walked over and dropped in the seat besides Mallory, staring ahead as the movie was about to start.

Though he raised his elbows on the armrests only to get comfortable, as soon as he did, Mallory slid her arm next to his and slipped her hand into his own, interlocking their fingers.

His attention belonged to her from the moment their skin touched, but after Daryl's eyes climbed up her arm and watched her features for a while, expecting some reason as to why she decided to hold his hand, he furrowed his eyebrows and questioned suspiciously, "You good?"

Mallory gave him a smile and a nod, squeezing his hand for reassurance. "What movie are we watching?" She returned her gaze ahead, at the start of a film she hadn't the faintest clue what would be about.

Daryl shrugged, "Just had that thing work with whatever was inside of it already."

"Perfect," Mallory sighed.

For a while, she did try to watch the movie, to see the world again as what it used to be, through the exaggerated optimism of a comedy's lenses. The streets filled with actual people, not monsters who wanted to tear apart humanity. The warm lights at the windows of houses. The loud laughter, unafraid of what lurked in the night. Steam raising off of fresh bread pulled out of the oven at the break of light at the start of the week. I don't even know what day it is anymore, her mind begun an avalanche of cried out realizations about just how far the world has fallen around her.

There was noise, alright, a noise that reeked of jealousy, of unattainable desire and unbearable melancholy for times that now existed only on that very screen and in the corners of her memory she was too tired to dig through dirt to reach.

Before she could stop any of it, Mallory had ceased blinking, trapped underneath the sharp edge of her merciless realizations. That was but a cause to tears gathering in her eyes and those tears have been begging to be let out for so long already that they did not wait for her permission anymore once they had already blurred her sight out of the blue. The first tear rolled down her cheek and pooled underneath her chin only for a flood to follow.

At first, Daryl felt it in a shiver traversing from her hand into his palm. That flinch which couldn't have possibly been caused by anything on screen, for the story happening in the movie seemed to him to be nothing but a bore, made him return his attention to her. Instantly, his heart dropped to see Mallory silently swallowing sobs and drowning in tears.

He hadn't the heart to say nothing, nor to pry his hand from hers as she held onto him so tightly. What Daryl decided he had to do instead was reach his left arm around and grasp her shoulder. "Mallory," he called her name, unaware it was going to be the only sound he would bare to utter. His voice stirred the storm of her weeping and bent her forward over her knees. Her back was shivering and her hand slipped from his, desperate to reach her eyes and wipe away the tears, or maybe clasp over her mouth in an attempt to silence everything.

It was then that he found himself unable to say anything at all, but unwillingness to stand by and do nothing ruled his actions with more conviction still. Daryl wrapped his right arm, newly freed, around her and apparently, it was all Mallory needed.

He was a light in the darkness that had clouded her then as he had been at the cemetery in that town, so with desperation, she clung to him and lunged forward. Daryl didn't quite expect her to skip over that armrest between them and climb into his lap just so she could wrap her arms around him, but he didn't care to complain about it either, finding it sufficient to hold her as close to his chest as she desired, let her sink her sobs into his shoulder, let her tears get lost into the fabric of his vest — give me your sorrows, his arms told her, give them to me and I'll hold them for you.








AUTHOR'S NOTE  
    Important —    I have officially finished writing the rest of the chapters for this second Act, however, the last two chapters I posted, despite involving incredibly significant action to the plot, both had zero comments, with no sign of that changing, something that has not only deeply saddened me, but also tarnished my motivation. This is the last chapter I post after a zero comments deal. From now on, there will be no updates until the last posted chapter(s) get at least 10 comments (each). I put too much heart and soul into my stories not to deserve the bare minimum of feedback after hours of work on writing it.

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro