#traomi

“"My point is, I’m kinda easy to talk into things, that’s why I got the problems I got. People say shit like, ‘Wait in the car and keep it running, I just gotta run in and do something,’ or ‘I know this guy in Dousman needs a favor,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, sure, I just point the gun at my foot and pull the trigger, is that what I do?’ Bang! ‘Ow! What a surprise, I blew my toe off. Should I do it again? Okay!’ But I have spent a lot of time working on my personal self and talking to smart people and learning to ask what’s good for me and to not just dive into shit. Which is what I am doing right now, okay? I am taking a fucking moment." "I understand. I respect that." "It is very, very important to learn to tell everybody in the whole world to fuck off all the time. It took me forever to learn that." "I’m not sure that was the exact message you were supposed to—" But he glared at her, so she stopped and recharted her course. "I’m sorry. I get you had some bad stuff happen to you. I was not being cool." "Okay. Good. That’s more like it." He took a deep breath and let it out again, then pulled a flashlight off a battery charger on the wall next to the desk and headed for the gate that led deeper into the building. "You coming or what?"”

“There was a second there where Teacake could look into her eyes from up close without coming off as creepy, a second where it was just gratitude and connection. The first half of that second was thrilling- her eyes were home, they were the only place he ever wanted to be, and the last lines of the only poem he knew flitted through his mind- A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent. But then came the other half second, and his mind was no longer at peace, it felt only sorrow. Because he knew no matter how she felt tonight, no matter the thrill or danger or exhilaration of discovery, inevitably tomorrow morning would come, those feelings would fade, and she would realize they couldn't possibly be together.”

“"C’mon," she said. "This is the most fun I’ve had in years. This is a night out for me." "Jesus. That’s depressing. You don’t go out?" "Not really." "What about just, like, for a beer?" "I don’t drink." He persisted. "Not even for one beer?" "That would be drinking." "You never go out for one beer?" "This is getting off the point." But he was determined. "What about a coffee?"”

“"It’s a concrete floor, Travis." "Weird to hear my real name." He kept moving, kept tapping the hammer on the floor. "Sorry," she said. "It bothers you?" "Can’t decide." Yes, he could, and he already had. It didn’t bother him; he loved it. His heart skipped a beat every time she said his name. He couldn’t wait till she said it again. Please say it again, just one more time?”

“He stared at them for a moment. Then he ran at them. From the looks of Mike's decomposing body, it didn't seem like he'd be capable of running, but he was, in a rapid, shambling sort of way, coming at them hard and fast. He was already too close for them to turn and run themselves. and Teacake realized, with some regret, that his grand heroic plan had consisted of almost zero real ideas. Leave the unit, tell the others, save the earth? Honestly, that was a for shit plan, it didn't deserve the word plan, it didn't deserve to be mentioned in the context of real plans. (...) Mike was only a second away from them now and Teacake squatted low, to lunge himself at their attacker, to at least block him long enough so that Naomi would have time to run. He tensed his legs, ready to spring forward. Naomi heard the gunshots first, because they came from a foot and a half behind her left ear. They were so loud they burst her left eardrum and temporarily deafened her in the right. (...) Six slugs from the .45 whistled past Naomi's head, over Teacake's shoulder, and slammed into Mike's chest with such force that they reversed his course of motion. They lifted him off his feet, blew him back two yards in the air, and dropped him to the cement floor, dead. His fungus-riddled body was in such a state of disrepair and disarray that he nearly disintegrated on impact. Naomi, completely deaf in her left ear and overwhelmed by a loud ringing in her right, turned and saw the woman standing behind her, holding the smoking weapon. Teacake rose, looking at the woman with eyes wide. "Mrs. Rooney?!" Mary Rooney lowered her dead husband's service weapon, the one she had reported lost rather than turn in when he died, the one she'd brought to the storage unit in the shoe box that very day. She turned from Mike's scattered remains and looked back at Naomi and Teacake, "That boy just wasn't right."”