Page 14 of All Your Days (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #4)

They feel like little treasures that I want to hoard.

My legs ache, my feet are blistered, I’m sweaty in places sweat has no right to be, and my throat feels so dry it’s a real risk I’ll never be fully hydrated again.

But the moment is perfect.

We manage to time our secretive glance at just the right time again. My heart skips a beat when the glance holds, time slowing down. His eyes flick down to where my lips are hidden by my mask. When his eyes flit back to mine, my breath shudders out of me.

There is so much intensity in his eyes. I can feel it, like every second he’s ever stood watch over me, filtered down into this single moment.

Until Sheba, the traitorous beast, once again shoves her face between us, grumbling a throaty growl. She bumps her nose first into Jacob, knocking his hat askew, and then into me, wiping her disgustingness all over the scarf wrapped over my head.

“For fuck’s sake, Sheba, get back.” Jacob pushes Sheba back affectionately.

“She’s probably mad we stopped.” I offer, trying not to be mad at the camel for breaking up whatever that moment just was.

“Probably. Let’s get to it.”

When we start walking again, I’m not clinging to his arm, but I’m pretty close. With each step we brush against each other. Our hands, our shoulders. It’s not a conscious thing. It just… happens. Along with the secret little looks whenever we can.

I want to ask more questions. About the settlement where he grew up. About things he’s seen. What snow feels like, but I hesitate, not wanting to spook him into getting quiet again.

And truthfully, I’m a little afraid of what the answers might be. I don’t know much about the world outside The Facility, but I’ve heard enough stories from the people that’ve come through. At times, the stories were too frightening to be believed, until hearing them again and again.

Some of the worst stories were about the kids out on their own in the settlements.

There’s a lot of kids alone out there, and if they can’t find a safe adult to take them in, they run the risk of being snatched up and used for child labour.

There’s even stories of gangs of feral children plaguing the bigger settlements, causing almost as much havoc as the infected.

What was it like for Jacob, before he was picked up by Mitch?

And how exactly does someone get ‘picked up’ by a merchie?

The more I think about it, the more the picture becomes clear about how the surly teen, abandoned again, became the emotionally guarded man walking next to me, his head held high.

That Jacob lost Sarah and the merchie crew is something I’ve always known, but I’m more than a little ashamed to say that I never quite understood what that meant. And how hard his adjustment to The Facility would have been. How alone he would have been.

“I’m sorry.” I say, completely out of nowhere for Jacob, who hadn’t been able to see the winding paths my brain just took. Needing to touch him, I grasp his arm again. Through his face scarf, I can hear his sharp inhale at the touch, his arm turning rock solid beneath my palm.

“‘Bout Sarah. I’m sorry. That woulda been so hard—it’s a kinda different life at The Facility. And—and—” I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to get the thoughts out and through my teeth. So I sigh, dropping my hand from his arm. “I’m sorry.”

Jacob nods, turning to look at the horizon as we continue our steady pace. “Thanks.”

I think he means it.

Jacob sends the guard trio off to refill the water cart from the nearby bore while we set up camp for the night. Apparently, it’s the last bore for a long stretch and we won’t be able to refill until we’re near the outpost.

I’m not any more excited for my second night sleeping in the tent.

I do get a little thrill when I realise that once again, mine and Jacob’s tents are set slightly apart.

I thought I was imagining things this morning when we packed up the tents, but no, our tents are much closer to each other and just a bit further from everyone else.

I don’t know what it means, but I like it.

It’s going to make it really difficult to rub one out tonight, though. I swear I heard one of the guards last night. There was a telltale ‘ grunt, grunt, grunt, nrgh ’ from the other side of the camp. It wasn’t quiet.

It’s not hard to stick close to him, not that he tries too hard to get away.

Jacob seems more than happy to show me how to get things set up.

For a guard, he knows a lot about grunt work, and he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.

Guards are the most protective of the pecking order back home.

Probably because they’re on the top of the bottom of the pile—they gotta hold tight to their position.

By the time we’re all sitting around the camp stove eating our dinner of spicy canned mystery meat in gravy with vegetables, everyone is exhausted. We’re silent, too, until Cale breaks the peace.

“What was with the station back there?” He asks, mopping up the last of his food with his fingers and licking them clean.

“Well, for a start, it’s not ‘back there’.

It’s just the other side of the track. The station is huge.

” Jacob nods in the general direction of the station.

“They’re one of the few cattle stations that survived in this area that sided with the Union.

The rest are all west and Federation, or too far east for transport to this area.

They made a deal—the Union leaves the station alone, and the station provides the Union with meat and leather. ”

“That’s not so bad.” Ryan mumbles around a mouthful of food.

“What’s the catch?” Lou wisely sounds skeptical of the deal.

“They run the place like their own little kingdom. The ones that make it out of there, they ain’t right. If you can get a story out of them, it’s pretty fucked up.”

“Like what?” Cale asks, enthralled by the story.

Jacob expels a long breath, rubbing his hands on his pants.

“They round up kids, take the ones who are causing problems at the settlements and old enough to work. They take others, too, people lookin’ for work, people who are desperate, you know?

Offer them ‘shelter’ and a place to stay.

The punishments for slackin’ off are severe.

The punishments for takin’ more than your due are worse.

I’ve seen people that lost their hands or feet for crossin’ the leads there. ”

“Well, there’s gotta be rules, right?” Ryan says, with all the confidence of a man that’s never known a moment of true fear or hard work in his life.

He’s immune, and a guard to boot, in one of the safest—if not the safest—places in the Union.

He’s even the son of a former Ag scientist who lived to a ripe old age before he passed, and a Union official who lived to retire from their administrative position.

Even at The Facility, to have one family member live such a long and healthy life is rare, let alone two .

The silence around the campfire is different from a minute ago, everyone looking between Ryan and Jacob, who are locked in an intense stare-off. Tension radiates off Jacob, the muscle in his jaw flexing furiously.

“They starve ‘em, Ryan. Work ‘em to the bone, and starve ‘em. And then brutalise ‘em when they complain.” Jacob holds Ryan’s eyes, refusing to back down, even when Ryan eventually caves, looking away in embarrassment. “They use the zombified against ‘em. Once their staffers turn, they get chained up like rabid dogs and used as a threat against the others. And the threat is real . They let their infected attack the people in their care. I’ve even been told they do it just for the sport of it. Just because they’re bored .”

“That’s fucked up.” Cale breathes into the stony silence that follows Jacob’s announcement.

“And on that note,” Malcolm says, clapping his hands. “I’m on first watch. You losers better get some sleep. Ryan, I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

I never thought I’d be grateful for Malcolm, but here I am, grateful that he’s finally stepping in before his friend can say something awful, like he’d pay to go watch if the station allowed it.

A shiver runs down my spine at the gory details Jacob hinted at, my mind unhelpfully filling in the rest of the details.

Is there a chance that the men from the station could be at the outpost?

Are we safe even being here? What if they wanted to just take us?

Ryan would probably use us to barter his freedom, the grimey asshole.

Ryan and Cale head to their tents without a word for the others, while Malcolm sets himself up on top of the metal roof of the trailer with his rifle and Union issued night vision goggles to keep watch.

While the other guards leave us grunts to do the clean-up, Jacob is back to helping us get the camp packed up for the night.

Being the most useless, I’ve been stuck on dishes duty.

Watching the efficient way Lou and Jacob work, restacking the trailer and getting things ready for the morning, and getting the camels all safely sorted for the night, the dishes kind of feel like the busy work you give a child who insists on helping but is just in the way.

But I don’t mind, it just means that I can watch Jacob go about his chores without having to think too hard about what I’m doing.

When he stripped off his hat and scarf earlier, he retied the knot of his hair, pulling it right to the top of his head to keep it off his neck.

A lock fell down at some point, and he keeps tucking it back behind his ear.

For some reason, I can’t stop smiling whenever he does it.

It’s the strangest thing to find endearing.

People don’t look attractive tucking their hair back.

But Jacob does . And every time he does it, I get this giddy urge to giggle like Jessica does when she’s had too much to drink at fire pit nights.