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Happy Halloween!
Part X: Seasons Turn

Chapter 101


Sleep doesn’t come easy in the land of the dead. The zombies don’t sleep, so neither do we. We still take turns doing guard duty, keeping watch from the top of one of the towers at night, while the others get some shut-eye. With so many of us in the rotation now, my turn only comes around once every two weeks or so, but even on the off nights, I only sleep a few winks. It’s cold in the castle and lonely late at night. The wind howls through the makeshift shutters we use to board up the windows, and it’s not just the chill that makes me shiver, but the stench and sounds of zombies that are carried in with it.

It helps having someone to share my bed, but not even Gretchen can keep my nightmares at bay. Even in sleep, I’m haunted by dreams of my dead wife and daughters. When I wake up, I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. I’m always grateful to find Gretchen there beside me, still warm and breathing, but equally devastated to realize Leighanne and Brooke and Bonnie are still dead. Even awake, I’ll never be able to escape the nightmare, not when I live it every day. The best I can do is find ways to distract myself. Gretchen is a good distraction.

I lie awake so often at night with something to read or something to write. In the silence, my mind is free to think of the ways that God has cursed blessed me.



Saturday, March 9, 2013
Week Forty-Six

The stub of a candle burned, casting its flickering light into an otherwise dark corner. Shadows danced on the stone walls of the castle, as Brian, missing the ease of electric lamps, squinted down at the notebook in his lap. Pen poised over the paper, he read the last words he had written.

I lie awake so often at night with something to read or something to write. In the silence, my mind is free to think of the ways that God has cursed me.

It had been another restless night, his sleep disturbed by another terrifying dream. Brian had woken with a start, his heart racing, and slipped out of the bed he shared with Gretchen. She slept on soundly as he stole away, not wanting to wake her. He took with him only the single candle, a pen, and the journal Riley had suggested he keep.

The suggestion had been a good one; putting his thoughts down on paper was the only way he could get them out of his head. Writing was relaxing, therapeutic. In the many months since he’d started it, the once blank book had become filled with entries that spanned everything from stories to sermons. Onto its pages, he’d copied verses from the Bible and created verses of songs, but most of his writings were free verse – his own rambling thoughts, his own troubling memories.

He still struggled with his faith sometimes, especially on nights like these, when he’d find himself alone in the dark, the only one awake. He would lie there and listen to the soft sounds of slumber that surrounded him: a symphony of slow, steady breaths… the occasional rustle of covers as another restless sleeper turned over. But rather than allowing himself to be soothed, Brian fixated on the more sinister sounds coming from outside the castle walls. Every thump made his heart leap into his throat; every moan made his blood run cold. In these moments, he reached out to his god like a security blanket. But he never got a reply. It was a lonely feeling.

But he wasn’t truly alone. He remembered it just as a dull thud from somewhere overhead made him jump.

Nick.

Nick was in the north tower, keeping watch that night. They all worried whenever it was Nick’s turn for guard duty, not because they didn’t trust him to do the job, but because of his seizures. The ominous thud sent Brian scurrying for the stairs to make sure he was all right. The candle shook precariously in his hand, its flame creating a dizzying strobe effect as he circled up the spiral staircase to the top of the tower.

There, he found Nick climbing to his feet. His gun was lying on the ground, its barrel glinting in the candlelight. Brian looked from one to the other, putting the pieces together. “Nick?”

Nick spun around, startled, but seemed to relax when he recognized Brian, a sheepish smile spreading across his face. “Oh, hey Brian. You scared me, bro.”

Brian smiled back tentatively. “Are you okay? I heard a thud.”

“Oh yeah, I’m good. Don’t tell Kevin, but I may have nodded off for a sec. Dropped my gun.”

“Nodded off?” Brian raised his eyebrows. “You sure that’s all it was?”

The sharp look Nick gave him was all the proof Brian needed. Post-seizure Nick just had a vacant stare. “I didn’t have a seizure, if that’s what you’re thinking.” If he had, he would have seemed more confused than annoyed.

Brian nodded, clapping a hand down on Nick’s shoulder. “I know. Just had to come check on you, bro,” he replied, returning the term of endearment Nick had used earlier. They really were like brothers now, for the small group of survivors had become a sort of family, connected by a bond that was stronger than blood – though, as it turned out, they had that in common, too. And like brothers, they sought to protect one another from threats both outside and within the walls of their fortress.

The muffled pleas floating up from the dungeon were proof of the danger that lurked around every corner, even inside the castle. Alistair, imprisoned in its bowels, served as a sad reminder that the dead weren’t the only ones to be feared. The living could be just as dangerous. But Nick was all right. A little misguided at times, maybe, but a good guy nonetheless.

“Sorry if I woke you.”

Brian shook his head. “Nah, I was already awake.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Can’t stay asleep.”

Nick looked sympathetic. “Another nightmare?”

Brian nodded.

“Sucks, man. I have ‘em sometimes too.” A look of understanding passed between the two men. Although Nick rarely spoke of it, Brian remembered that he, too, had lost family members.

“I’m sure we all do,” said Brian.

Nick smirked. “Hell, the world we live in is one big waking nightmare.”

Brian let out a humorless chuckle, nodding in agreement. When Nick turned and wandered back to the window, he followed. They stood side by side, sentry-like, staring out into the night. The moon was a mere sliver in the sky, doing little to illuminate the dark ground below, but the stars around it shone like diamonds.

“I’m thinking of asking Gretchen to marry me,” Brian blurted out of the blue.

Nick turned to look at him, grinning like a jack-o-lantern in the candlelight. “Yeah? Way to go, man – congrats!”

Brian could feel himself blushing. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”

Nick snorted. “What, you think society won’t approve or something? Lemme tell you something, bro – society’s dead, and time is meaningless. It can never be too soon.”

“I guess that’s true…”

“So when you gonna pop the question?”

Brian considered the question. “I don’t know. I guess I’m waiting for the right moment.” He had proposed to his first wife on a Christmas Eve picnic in her parents’ backyard. It was simple and romantic, exactly his style. He would have to think about how to do something special for Gretchen here, in this hellhole. But he didn’t want to dwell on it too long, for Nick was right. Society was dead. Time was meaningless. And it could never be too soon.

He felt calmer when he told Nick goodnight, descended the stairs, and slipped back into bed beside Gretchen. His side of the bed was cold, but he snuggled closer to her and was warm in no time. For awhile longer, he lay awake, imagining how he might make an honest woman out of her. Then he reached for his journal on the floor beside the bed. His pen was tucked inside, marking his place. In the dying candlelight, he read the last words he had written.

In the silence, my mind is free to think of the ways that God has cursed me.

Glancing over at Gretchen, he crossed out the word cursed and replaced it with a better one.

Blessed.

Then he snuffed out the candle, turned over in bed, and allowed himself to drift back to sleep.

***

Thick clouds rolled in while Brian slept, and the morning dawned gray and chilly. It would have been the perfect day to spend in bed with Gretchen, but such laziness wasn’t an option. The group was short on supplies, and Brian woke to find Kevin organizing an expedition into the nearby village.

They made these supply runs every few days, bringing back only as much as they could carry without slowing themselves down. Speed was their greatest advantage over the undead, whose shambling pace had slowed considerably with the winter freeze. The zombies still outnumbered them, but as long as they could outrun the undead, the small group of survivors felt confident in their ability to slip in and out of town unscathed. Selena usually led such missions, though Kevin had quickly risen through the ranks to become her second in command. He had trained the foreigners to use the military-grade weapons he had brought from the base and taught the whole group tactical formations to use in confined spaces.

“Oh, there you are, Brian,” he remarked, as Brian walked into the kitchen, where Abby was ladling bowls of porridge out of a big pot on the stone hearth. A fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace, making the starkly furnished kitchen feel cozier than any other room in the castle. Abby handed him a bowl of breakfast, and Brian pulled a milk crate up to the makeshift table, crudely fashioned out of wooden planks. Kevin sat at the head of the table with a scrap of paper and a pen. “We’re going into town today,” he was saying. “I want you to be my wingman.”

Brian gave a single nod – not that Kevin needed his consent. The former Air Force pilot didn’t ask for favors; he issued commands. Brian knew better than to refuse. Ever since AJ’s leg had taken him out of commission, Brian had become his cousin’s right hand man. “Add candles to your list,” he said. “That stub I had last night isn’t gonna get me through another one.”

“Got ‘em. Matches, too,” replied Kevin, tapping his pen against the paper. “Anything else?”

Brian shrugged. “Just the usual.”

Food was always their first priority. It was impossible to grow anything in the frozen ground, so they survived on what little they could scrounge up that wasn’t spoiled – mostly canned goods and boxed meals, looted from the pantries and cupboards of houses in the village.

The original castle-dwellers had come up with a system for organizing their trips into town. When they’d finished going through a house or building, stripping it of all useful supplies, they spray-painted an X across the door so they wouldn’t mistakenly go there again. It would have been an easy mistake to make, for the houses in the small parish all looked more or less the same, a row of quaint, red-brick cottages with gabled roofs, located along a single, winding lane.

Using this system, the survivors made their way up the street, bypassing the houses whose doors had been marked. They moved silently, in the T-formation Kevin had taught them, with Kevin in the lead, flanked on either side by Brian and Ashton, while Selena brought up the rear, walking backwards to cover them from behind. The advantage of being in such a sparsely-populated area was that there weren’t many zombies roaming around, certainly not compared to the situation in Florida. However, it was common to have to clear a house of its undead inhabitants before it could be scavenged.

As they neared the end of the lane, the houses became fewer and farther between. Brian wondered what they would do when they ran out of buildings to loot. He supposed they would have to become completely self-sufficient and produce their own supplies. Food wouldn’t be a problem once spring came; they could re-plant the garden and grow their own vegetables, enough to last through the winter if they preserved them. There would be more animals around, if the undead hadn’t driven them away, and they could hunt for game. But Brian worried about how they would manage to make all the other things they needed, things like candles and matches, soap and medicine. Somehow, people in the distant past had done it, and he supposed they would have to learn as well – sooner, rather than later.

They passed a two-story brick house with a bright blue door. A charming little sign mounted next to the door named the house as Ash Cottage, but the red X slashed across the cheery blue told Brian the cottage held nothing of value to them. They moved on.

An ominous creak caught Brian’s attention, and he froze in his tracks. Kevin and Ashton stopped as well, but Selena bumped into him from behind. Startled, Brian let out a shout.

“Shh!” Kevin hissed. He crept up alongside the tall, wooden fence surrounding Ash Cottage’s side yard, and the others followed in a single line, pressing their bodies close to the wooden planks. Brian feared the noise had come from inside the fence and imagined a zombie mirroring their movements on the other side, ready to crash through the gate and attack them at any moment. But as they reached the corner and peered around it, he saw the source of the sound.

There was a small playground next door, and a pair of swings were swaying in the wind, their chains creaking. Brian let out the breath he’d been holding, willing his heart to stop its pounding. But his sense of relief didn’t last long. It was replaced with a shivery feeling that had little to do with the cold. There was something eerie about the playground. Its equipment, painted in bright, primary colors, seemed out of place under the steel gray sky. The wrought-iron fence that surrounded it had an air of menace. Keep out, it seemed to say. Children only. But there were no children left to play inside. Perhaps that was what unnerved him. There was something sad and almost sinister about an abandoned playground.

But it wasn’t abandoned. Something moved behind a row of rubbish bins, and Brian’s breath caught in his throat again. He raised his gun as he sidestepped carefully around the trash bins, his courage bolstered by the presence of Kevin, Ashton, and Selena close behind him. But when he saw what was skulking on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, the breath rushed out of him, and his shoulders slumped, his arms falling limply to his sides.

It was a little girl, dressed in a lacy nightgown that had once been white. She had long, blonde hair that reminded him of Brooke and Bonnie, but her once-blue eyes were bloodshot and clouded by a pus-like film. In life, she had probably looked like an angel. In death, she was demonic. Her hands scrabbled between the fence posts, hooked fingers slashing like claws. A primal, animalistic growl rumbled from the back of her throat as she snapped her jaws, baring her teeth. Brian saw that she was missing the two top ones.

“’S’alright, it can’t get us from behind the fence,” he heard Selena say nonchalantly over his shoulder. “Let’s keep moving.”

He sensed her turning away, heard her footsteps crunching over the dead grass as she walked back to the road, and felt Kevin’s heavy hand on his shoulder, trying to steer him in that direction, too. But Brian couldn’t simply walk away. “Wait,” he said. “Shouldn’t we… take care of her?”

He glanced back at the others. Selena was standing on the edge of the road, rolling her eyes at him. Halfway between them, Ashton hesitated, looking back at Brian with impatience. Only Kevin, still at Brian’s side, seemed to understand his internal struggle. Slowly, he raised his gun.

“No!” Selena said suddenly, stopping him before he could take aim. “We don’t shoot when it’s just one, remember? It’s a waste of bullets, and it’ll only attract more. Let’s just go.”

“We should put her out of her misery,” said Kevin evenly. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

“Humane?” Selena let out a derisive laugh. “That thing isn’t human. Not anymore.”

“But she was,” said Kevin. “What if she was your daughter?” Through his tears, Brian saw his cousin’s eyes just barely flicker towards him. Discretely, he tried to blink them away.

“Fine, then I’ll do it,” Ashton interjected, brushing past both of them. He strode up to the fence, holding his rifle over his head by its barrel. Brian looked on in horror as he reached over the fence and brought the butt of the gun crashing down on the little girl’s head. It took several blows, but finally, the child collapsed, blackened blood and brain matter spilling out of her split skull.

Brian couldn’t help it; he turned and vomited his porridge into the grass beside the trash bin. For what seemed like an eternity, he crouched there, too shaky to stand, with the memory of embedding the meat cleaver in Bonnie’s skull replaying in his mind. Over and over again, he saw her small body collapse, the handle of the cleaver clattering against the floor as she fell into a heap next to the decapitated head of her twin, its dead eyes open and staring. Then Kevin sank down beside him, put an arm around him, and hauled him to his feet.

“C’mon, cous,” Kevin whispered in his ear. “We’ve gotta keep going. C’mon.”

He dragged Brian down the lane, Selena and Ashton covering them both. At a bend in the road sat an old-fashioned, red phone booth. A zombie was stuck inside, smacking the sides clumsily in its efforts to get out. Brian wondered how it had come to be inside it in the first place. Perhaps it had tried to barricade itself in the booth while it was still alive and had been bitten. He found himself feeling sorry for this zombie, too, but not like the little girl.

They kept walking.

Around the bend was a large, brick house, half-hidden behind the overgrown hedge that surrounded it. It was a struggle just to find the front door, but when they did, they saw that it was unmarked. Ashton threw a rock through the front window, then boosted Selena through it. A moment later, she had unlocked and opened the front door for the others. “Place seems empty,” she said, as the three men trouped in.

“Just becomes it seems empty doesn’t mean it is,” Kevin warned. “Don’t let your guard down.”

They kept their guns within an arm’s reach as they searched the house, starting with the kitchen. They raided the cupboards, filling their backpacks with as many cans of food as they could carry. Then they made their way down the hall, looking in linen closets and medicine cabinets for additional supplies. Brian added soap, batteries, and a package of tea lights to his stash. “Those don’t burn very long,” said Kevin, when he saw Brian stuff the tea lights into his pack. Brian could tell he thought they were a waste of space.

“We can melt some together to make bigger candles,” he replied with a shrug, though he had other plans for the tiny white candles.

While Selena and Ashton continued to poke around downstairs, the cousins wandered upstairs. At the top of the stairs was a small room that was set up as an office. There was a large desk with a computer under the window, bookshelves along one wall, and propped in the corner, an acoustic guitar. Brian’s eyes lit up when he saw it, his heart lifting. A guitar… It was a luxury item, certainly, and not a necessity, but it had been so long since he’d played one…

Impulsively, he picked up the guitar. It felt like an old friend as it fell into position in his arms, comfortable and familiar. He slid his fingers over the strings and gave them a strum. A single chord echoed through the silent house.

Kevin turned and gave him a stern look. Downstairs, he heard Selena squawk, “Are you fucking mad?! Keep it down; you’ll attract them!”

“Oh, like you shouting through the house won’t!” Brian called back, rolling his eyes at Kevin. Kevin cracked a smile, seeming torn over whom to side with.

But it turned out that Selena was right.

Brian’s blood ran cold when he heard the scuff of dragging feet. He froze, looking at Kevin. His own eyes were wide with fear, but his cousin’s were narrow and determined. As they stood still, listening to the slow approach of the uneven footsteps, Kevin whispered, “Gimme the guitar.”

Brian imagined him grabbing the guitar by its neck, raising it over his head and bringing it down upon the zombie’s, bashing its brains in and splintering the guitar in the process. He shook his head, slinging the guitar onto the safety of his back. “No… find something else.”

Kevin started to protest, then seemed to realize there wasn’t time. He spun around, snatching a heavy-looking lamp from off the desk. He ripped its cord out of the wall and raised it over his head just as the undead master of the house staggered into the office, arms outstretched. The guitar let out a hollow twang as Brian backed into the wall. Kevin sprang forward, swinging the lamp like a club. It connected with the side of the zombie’s head, knocking it sideways. He continued to bludgeon the zombie until it lay still in the doorway, its skull clearly caved in. “Let’s go,” he growled, jumping nimbly over the corpse. Brian followed, the guitar swinging on his back.

There was a trail of dried blood in the hallway. The sight of it turned Brian’s stomach. It seemed to unsettle Kevin, too. “Let’s make this quick and get back downstairs, alright?” he said, eyeing the blood.

They split up to search the two bedrooms. Kevin ducked into the smaller of the two, while Brian found himself in the master. He perched on the edge of the bed and looked around. While he had no problem stealing food, knowing that it would just spoil otherwise, it felt wrong to go through other people’s personal possessions. They didn’t really need new clothes or anything else that could be found in a bedroom. But just as he was about to get up, something shiny caught his eye. A pair of rings lay upon a saucer on the nightstand next to the bed. He scooted over and picked them up. One was a solid, white gold band. The other was a matching ring, set with a single diamond. It wasn’t overly large or ornate, but its simplicity was what made it beautiful.

A lump rose in his throat as he remembered picking out wedding bands with Leighanne. He had taken his off when he and Gretchen had started getting serious, but he still wore it on a chain around his neck. He kept it tucked beneath his shirt, so that it rested against his skin, right over his heart. Gretchen had done the same with hers, which he knew must have been difficult for her. The only time he could remember Leighanne taking off her rings was during her pregnancy, when her fingers were so swollen, they didn’t fit. It occurred to him that if he was going to propose to Gretchen, he should have a ring for her to put back on her finger.

With that thought in mind, he stood and stuffed the rings into his pocket.

He tried not to think of the woman they’d once belonged to, but try as he might to prevent it, the vision came of a sick woman on her deathbed, removing the rings from her swollen, sore-infested finger as the plague ravaged her body. Perhaps her husband, the man Kevin had killed in the office, had died in bed beside her.

Suddenly repulsed, Brian backed away from the bed and bumped into the wardrobe. As the heavy piece of furniture slammed against the wall, he heard a softer thump, followed by a scratching sound. The door that he’d thought led to a closet stood ajar, and as it slowly swung inward, he realized it opened into a bathroom. In the gray light, he could see that the tiled floor was smeared with dried blood. And then he saw the pair of bloody feet trip over the threshold. Unable to look away, his eyes followed the skeletal gray ankles up to the bare, mottled legs. What was left of the rotten flesh was covered in festering sores and streaked with blackish blood. The woman’s nightgown was soiled with it, too. It hung to her knees, hugging the middle of her swollen body in a way that reminded him oddly of Gretchen. When she staggered through the bathroom doorway and he saw her in profile, he understood why.

She had been pregnant.

In the second it took him to realize this, the woman shambled into the bedroom, snarling as she reached for him. “Lord forgive me,” Brian muttered as he raised his gun. Remembering Selena’s warning, he didn’t shoot, but instead used it to strike her with all the strength he possessed. The zombie collapsed, and Brian exhaled a sigh of relief, slumping back against the wardrobe. He closed his eyes, wishing he had just stayed in bed with Gretchen. He wanted to be anywhere but in that room with the woman he had just put down. But when he opened his eyes again, there he still was, and there she was, too. And she was starting to move again.

Startled, he raised his gun again, ready to shoot her in the head and put her out of her misery for good. But as he took aim, he realized the woman wasn’t really moving after all. It was something else that was moving, something that was tucked between her legs, hanging out the back of her nightgown like a tail. It was gray and bloody, and when he realized what it was, he gagged violently. He didn’t want to look, but something – morbid curiosity, perhaps – made him take a tentative step forward. He peered into the bathroom, and there he saw it, writhing in a puddle of congealed blood on the floor.

Its skin was gray and mottled, like its mother’s. Its black, soulless eyes bulged from their sockets, seeming too large for its head. Its flailing limbs, by comparison, looked like twigs. It seemed so helpless, lying there on the floor, unable to hold up its head or turn its body, and yet, its toothless mouth opened and closed, rooting desperately for the blood and flesh it craved.

Brian didn’t want to do it, but he knew he had no choice. He stepped over the rotting umbilical cord by which the zombie mother had been dragging her undead fetus around for months. He squatted on the floor, careful to avoid the blood. Then he raised his gun one last time and brought it swiftly down, smashing the infant’s fragile skull.

There was nothing left in his stomach to vomit, but that didn’t stop him from retching over the toilet bowl, the bile burning the back of his throat, until Kevin came to collect him.

“Brian… my God,” said Kevin, looking down at the scene before him in horror.

Brian looked up miserably from the toilet. Wordlessly, Kevin handed him a towel off the rack, which he used to wipe the mixture of tears, sweat, and vomit from his face. Then Kevin extended his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get out of here,” he said in an undertone, towing Brian by the wrist. They stepped around the baby and over the mother on their way out of the room. They went straight downstairs to rejoin the others and never looked back.

“You found a guitar?” said Ashton, looking impressed. “Bloody ace!”

Brian had almost forgotten about the guitar strapped to his back. “Yeah,” he heard his own hollow voice agree, as if someone else were answering for him. He didn’t believe himself capable of speech.

“You know how to play?”

Brian struggled to bring himself back from the brink of Hell. It’s over, he thought. Don’t think about it. Think of something pleasant. Think of Gretchen. Finally, he found the strength needed to form words. “Yeah… a little. I used to write music… for church.”

“Will you teach me sometime?”

“Sure… sometime.”

Selena rolled her eyes. “Lovely. Now we’ll be able to gather ‘round the fire and sing ‘Kumbaya’ whilst the zombies moan along in harmony.”

Despite what he had seen, the comment struck Brian as funny, and he managed a hoarse chuckle. “Thanks, Selena.”

“For what?” she demanded, flashing him a sharp look.

Brian smiled grimly and shook his head. “Never mind.”

***

The first thing Brian did when he was safely back inside the castle walls was hug Gretchen. As he wrapped her up in his arms and held her close, he savored the warmth of her skin, the softness of her body, and the firm little bulge of her belly. His baby was inside there – his living, growing, human baby. He felt his body beginning to relax against hers, his mind banishing the horrors he had seen to some far back corner, where they couldn’t be easily accessed. He knew they would return in his nightmares, as such horrors always did, but for now, he tried to put the past behind him and focus on the present… and the future, his future with Gretchen and their baby.

“Are you okay?” Gretchen asked, looking him over, once he’d released her from the hug. She seemed to sense that the supply run hadn’t been an easy one.

He nodded. “I will be. But if you don’t mind, I need a few hours to myself. Will you meet me later, at sunset?”

Her eyes searched his, but she didn’t question his request to be alone. “Sure. Where?”

He thought for a minute. “The chapel,” he decided. And after he’d helped sort through the supplies they’d brought back, it was there that he went, the pack of tea lights tucked under his arm, the guitar slung over his back, his journal in his hand.

He sat down on the stone altar and wrote in the journal for nearly an hour, not about what he had witnessed that morning, but about what he felt for Gretchen. It helped to cleanse his soul and to wash away the blood on his hands. He would write for awhile, then pick up the guitar, plucking out notes and chords to accompany his voice as he sang softly to himself. It had been so long since he’d sung, even longer since he’d played. He had almost forgotten the effect music had on his spirit.

As the gray sky slowly faded to black, he set out the tea lights and lit them, bathing the chapel in soft, golden light. Then he sat back down to wait for Gretchen.

She soon appeared in the doorway, her smiling face aglow in the candlelight. “What’s all this?”

He smiled back. “Something special for someone even more special. C’mere.” He patted an empty spot on the altar, and she came to sit beside him. “I found this guitar in town today,” he said, pulling it into his lap. “I’ve just been in here playing and writing. It’s been so long since I’ve done that. It felt good. I’m a little rusty, but you wanna hear what I came up with?”

Gretchen’s face was shining. “Sure."

“Alright.” Brian cleared his throat and slid his fingers into place. He plucked at the guitar strings, picking out the tune he’d been humming to himself all afternoon. His playing was tentative at first; it had been so long since he’d had an audience for his music. But as he repeated the progression, he found himself gaining confidence, settling into the song. Then he took a deep breath and began to sing the words he’d put down on paper.

“I lie awake, so often at night… with something to read… or something to write. In the silence, my mind is free… to think of the ways… that God has blessed me. It’s easy to see how He’s been so kind. Any proof I might need is right here by my side…”

Still strumming along, he turned to face Gretchen and found tears sparkling in her eyes. The emotional response bolstered his courage, and he continued, “You are the grace of my life, so tender… so undeserved. Won’t you please be my wife? It’s so hard to put what I feel into words…”

He trailed off, chuckling nervously at the way her eyes had widened. The last few notes hung in the air, uninterrupted, until Gretchen said, “Um… was that a proposal I just heard?”

Brian grinned and set the guitar aside. Taking her hand, he replied, “Yes, ma’am, it was. It’s high time I made an honest woman out of you, wouldn’t you say? For what it’s worth in this weird world we live in... I wanna marry you.”

Gretchen smiled and squeezed his hand, pressing her other hand to her belly. “Then I say yes.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply. In the midst of the kiss, he remembered the ring. “Oh, hold on!” he cried, breaking away. “I forgot one thing. Told ya I was a little rusty at this!” As she looked on, laughing, he dug in his pocket and pulled out the diamond engagement ring he’d brought back from the village. “Now it’s official,” he said, as he slipped it onto her finger. It was a little loose, but it would do. With any luck, she wouldn’t even need to remove it as her fingers swelled later on in her pregnancy.

“Where did you get this?” Gretchen wondered. “It’s beautiful.”

Brian flashed a big smile that he hoped would hide the horror in his eyes. He wagged his finger, then put it to his lips. Some things were better left unsaid.

***
Chapter End Notes:
Love ya, ZDRC!