ᶜᴼᴺᵀᴱᴺᵀ ᵂᴬᴿᴺᴵᴺᴳ — ᴿᴱᶜᴼᴹᴹᴱᴺᴰᴱᴰ ¹⁶⁺ ᵀʰⁱˢ ᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿᵃˡ ᵈⁱᵃʳʸ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵃⁱⁿˢ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ʰᵘᵐᵒʳ, ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ, ᵇᵒᵈʸ ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵈⁱˢᵗᵘʳᵇⁱⁿᵍ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉʳʸ.

10/25/1980

Dear Diary,

The other day I left a pile of clothes on the kitchen table. My back hurts and I've stabbed my fingers more times than I can count because I lost the only thimble Mrs. Miller had in her sewing box.
Calvin and Jenny came downstairs together.
“Is this my shirt? So that's where it went.” Calvin picked up a plaid flannel shirt, questionable taste, but whatever.
“I mended everyone's clothes and made a few new things.” I wouldn't look either of them in the face. “If I can't hunt or help with the tests, I can do this. We need clothes.”
And while the two of them were looking through everything, I froze. There was a handkerchief in there that wasn't supposed to be.
I'd made it without thinking... Just to pass the time...
I grabbed it before Jenny could pick it up by accident. Then I dropped into the chair in front of the table.
“I made you a skirt.” I nodded toward it. “I didn't have time to take your measurements, but I can fix it if...” I couldn't talk anymore. My throat was closing up.
As Dean came down the stairs, I clearly saw Calvin walk over to him, grab him by the collar of his shirt and drag him out of the room. They disappeared into the living room.

“Taffy, I need you to actually talk to me.”
I didn't know what to do with my hands on the table. I kept squeezing the handkerchief between my fingers.
“I talk.”
She shook her head. “I can tell what's going on inside you, but if you want me to help you, you have to be honest. With me and with yourself.”
My lip started trembling. I stared at the ceiling so another waterfall wouldn't start pouring down my face.
Then all it took was one name to ruin everything. And she was the one who said it. “Trevor.”
And I broke. “We abandoned him, Jenny... alone. He took those bullets to save me and we left him there!” I was sobbing, my hands cold from the tears. “I left him alone in that hell while I was stealing boots off dead bodies and cassettes from record stores!”
I felt like I couldn't breathe. “He was left there all alone!”
And she did the one thing she knew I needed. She wrapped her arms around me and let my tears completely soak her sweater.
She only spoke once I had my breathing under control again.
“We had to leave, T. If we'd stayed, he would've taken that bullet for nothing.”
“But at least we wouldn't have left him alone. He woke up alone.” I insisted.
“I'm sure that, if he's alive, he'd be happy knowing you're out of there. Instead of trapped there with him.”
I wiped my tears with the handkerchief, then looked at it. An embroidered T and a tiny red sailboat. For that shitty song he loved. “I hate that song... but I didn't want to break the radio...”
“You don't hate the song...” she corrected me.
“I know.”
When she started tapping her fingers on the table again, I realized something my guilt had kept me from noticing.
“You and Calvin...” I started. “You've been spending a lot of time together, even though at first you didn't even want him touching you.”
She just murmured something, stroking the fabric of her new skirt.
“Actually, I should've figured it out from the way you look at him.”
She shook her head. “You know, T, I don't have a crush on him.”
“I'm not talking about crushes. He's the only uncontaminated one here.”
She sighed. “But he smells so good...”
“That's exactly why you need to stay away from him. Do you really want to risk biting him like I did with... you know...”
“The meat Dean brings back doesn't satisfy me, T...”

And then, after several failed attempts by Calvin, there were sounds in the house again. The TV screen finally came to life, even though it was full of snow, a constant hiss filling the room as Calvin flipped through channels at random. And then, a familiar voice.
“Good morning, survivors, this is Radio Apocalypse.” The voice was catching some interference, but it wasn't annoying.
A Billy Joel song started playing, and I immediately recognized the melody Dean had been whistling.
Cause somebody once did somebody wrong
But you'll be sleeping with the television on.
Everyone's shoulders relaxed as soon as the music started filling the house.

And in the end, I was the one who broke the silence between Dean and me that had lasted a little over a week. He wasn't fixing the car, because obviously he was taking his damn time with that.
I followed the melody of what I'd found out was Sleeping with the Television On.
And I found four horses in the barn.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
The guy just raised his eyebrows without answering.
“I'm talking to you, J.R. Ewing.”
He let out a short laugh. “What do you want, Rose?”
I tilted my head. “My name is Tif—”
He cut me off. “I don't care what your name is.”
Had no one ever slapped him before?
“We've been stuck here for weeks and you have horses?”
He was brushing the white one with grayish spots. “Key word: you have. Not we have.”
“Right, so they're not the Millers'. They're yours?”
He kept his back to me. “He's mine.” He stroked the white one's muzzle. “She's Scott's.” He nodded toward the dark brown one. “That one back there belonged to the Millers. But I've noticed she's pretty unpredictable...”
I waited a few seconds. “You pointed out three. There are four.”
“You can count. You're just full of fucking surprises, aren't you?”
Jesus Christ, he's unbearable. I don't even know why I wasted my time on him, now that I'm writing this...
“You're contaminated. A lot. It took you about twenty minutes to regenerate, so your contamination level must be similar to Jenny's. You should be hungry.”
He craned his neck toward me. “No.”
I narrowed my eyes, watching the idiot go right back to ignoring me like usual.
“What's the fourth one's name?” I asked.
He didn't answer. He just shook his head.
I walked around the horse, forcing him to look at me. “I asked what the fourth one's name is.”
“I'm not telling you the horse's name, Rose.”
I shook my head. “I'm not asking about the horse.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Then he put a cigarette between his lips.
“I mended most of the clothes I found in the house,” I started. “It's pretty obvious what belongs to who and which clothes you borrowed from Mr. Miller.” I sighed. “But I found some weird things. Four duffel bags, for example. Only one of them was full. Hawaiian shirts, a camera, and I'm pretty sure none of you three know how to use it.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” he interrupted.
“Floral shorts too. A little out of character for you guys, don't you think?”
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“I'm talking about the fourth one. The one you ate.”
He stared at me. For the first time, I don't think he was even breathing. “I'm not like you.”
“You are. You're hungry. You were hungry.”
Smoke slipped out of his mouth as he spoke. “Are you done?”
“Do cigarettes help with the hunger?” That was a real question. “Or did you hide a few bodies in the attic?” That one wasn't.
“Jesus Christ, you really know how to fucking piss me off, don't you?” He started walking toward me. “Do you ever shut the fuck up? Why don't you go back to crying over your dead boyfriend?”
A smack loud enough to almost scare the horses too. The cigarette flew out of his mouth and landed on the ground. And I was left with nothing but a stinging palm and the urge to hit him again.
He rubbed his jaw in silence. Picked the cigarette up off the ground and put it back between his lips. Disgusting.
I'd had enough.
In the living room, Calvin and Jenny were sitting close together talking, as usual. Stupid idiot. He had no idea she only looked at him like that because he reminded her of her favorite pizza.
“If you don't tell me how Dean manages not to be hungry, I'm going to bite you.”
“Whoa!” He shot to his feet.
“I'm hungry. If you don't talk, I'll rip your arms off and eat them.”
Jenny covered her mouth with one hand, but I knew she was actually struggling not to laugh. I could've gone another few weeks without eating, but she couldn't. And if we wanted to avoid a second massacre at the Miller house, he had to talk.
“Fuck, no!” Calvin snapped, his hands raised in front of him.
When I turned around, Dean was leaning against the front doorframe. “Don't even look at me.” I pointed at him.
“Right when I was about to give you the answer?”
Meanwhile, Jenny actually burst out laughing. “Fuck, sorry.” She giggled as she spoke to Calvin. “It's just that you're so cute I could take a bite out of you...”
“What?!” he snapped.
I pointed at Jenny. “This is what I mean. You don't let us eat, we're going to eat anyway.”
“First of all.” Dean stepped between us and Calvin. “You two aren't fucking eating anybody.” He crossed his arms. “Second, just because I'm about to tell you how I do it doesn't mean you can do it too.”
He pressed his lips together. “And it doesn't actually make the hunger go away... it keeps it under control.”
By then Jenny had started laughing hysterically.
“I drink blood. A little every night,” he admitted.
So she stopped laughing. “It doesn't make the hunger go away. It can't. It's not enough...”
“I said it wouldn't satisfy you.”
“I'm hungry,” Jenny insisted.
“Blood takes the edge off.”
“Blood doesn't fill your stomach.”
And while they argued, I stared at those two assholes, Dean and Calvin, completely speechless. Two idiots.
“Exactly how long did your shitty method work before you ate your fourth friend?”
The only thing filling the silence was the hiss of the television after it lost the radio signal.
Calvin turned to his friend. “How does she know?”
“Jesus Christ, Calvin, shut up.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“No, because I can't believe you actually think this...” I pointed at us. “...can be solved like that.”
“But he's doing fine now. He's not hungry,” Calvin explained. “My blood satisfies him.”
Dean ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes fixed on the carpet.
“Calvin.” I called his name, and he looked at me from behind Dean's shoulder. “You're really naive,” I concluded.
He frowned, almost offended.
They hadn't solved anything. Dean had just turned one of his friends into a blood dispenser Jenny and I didn't have access to. Not that I wanted to drink his blood anyway. How do you just drink a glass of blood like that? Disgusting... yeah...
And I wasn't sure Jenny would be able to stop at the blood.
Anyway, for obvious reasons, the rule about human meat is gone. Jenny and I have some nice hunting trips ahead of us. Real ones. Not for poor rabbits and squirrels.
Anyway, a few days later I heard Calvin and Dean talking in the kitchen about that guy. It sounded like they'd brought him up specifically because I'd figured it out. They hadn't noticed I'd stopped on the stairs instead of going back to my room.
“I didn't tell her. She figured it out,” Dean insisted.
Calvin threw his arms out. “How do you figure out something like that without any clues? Come on.”
“From Trevor's fucking shirts.” He smiled.
And I almost slipped down the stairs. Four steps, for sure... I gasped loud enough to make them both turn around. “What did you say?” I pulled myself back up.
“Trevis,” Calvin repeated uncertainly.
I pressed my lips together. “Oh...” I nodded. “What a shitty name.” And I disappeared into my room.
Hopefully whoever we eat has a better name.
We're fine.
XOXOXO
Taffy