Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

shrugging. He obviously didn’t care she was smothering him.
    Good for them . Even wackos need love. “Alright, so I’ll see you later.” I held my hand out for a fist bump and Kowi joined in. Peter tried, but fumbled around helplessly, so I just grabbed him in a hug before releasing him and walking out of the hut, shouting, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” over my shoulder. “Come on, Buster. Let’s go take a walk,” I said, patting my leg to get his attention.
    “Where are you going?” yelled Peter.
    “Nowhere!” I said, lying my butt off. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
    “Okay. Later.” Peter left going in the opposite direction.
    I practiced my quiet walking techniques as I headed out to the clearing where I’d first seen Bodo with Nina. I was going to give the harmonica in my pocket a try, and see if I could call any scary-looking pterodactyls over to me. The leaves crunched under my feet and I sighed, knowing I sounded like a herd of pachyderms moving through the brush.
    ***
    I reached the clearing where I’d seen Bodo working with Nina a couple times. There were gators lazing around near the banks and some long-legged birds out in the water, wading around looking for fish; but there were no big hawks that I could see. I’m not sure what I expected, really. A part of me had hoped to see her and another didn’t really want that. Maybe if she weren’t here it meant she was somewhere with Bodo, looking for a way to come home.
    I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my uninjured forearm. Just in case Nina did come, I didn’t want her to tear my skin apart. I wasn’t sure if the shirt would be enough, but I figured it was better than nothing.
    I pulled the harmonica out of my pocket and stared at it for a few seconds. It’s the first time I’d really examined it since Winky had handed it to me. Bodo had always kept it in his pocket, so I’d never really gotten a good look at it. I turned it over, noticing a scrolling design on both sides. It was like flowers and thorns mixed together with some stylized leaves. The instrument was heavy, much more so than the few toy harmonicas I’d had in my lifetime. A scratch that looked different than the scrolling on one side caught my eye. I brought it up closer to my face to see what it was, and was almost sorry that I had, once I realized what I was looking at. Bodo had etched a small heart with my name next to it into the metal.
    My heart squeezed uncomfortably in my chest and my throat got sore with unshed tears. I couldn’t look at it anymore, or think about what it meant, so I lifted the instrument to my lips and blew on it. One clear note came out and echoed eerily across the swamp.
    A few of the nearby birds flew away but none of the gators even flinched. And no hawks appeared on the horizon. I stared up into the sky, looking for a tiny brown shape that might be coming toward me, getting bigger and bigger as it got closer - but there was nothing but blue sky and some wispy white clouds out there. I sighed. At least the rain had finally let up.
    I blew on the harmonica a few more times, using different notes and even trying to make a tune out of a few of them. But Nina never showed up, and I was reminded once again that I have zero musical talent - even on an instrument that had only ten holes to blow into and no place to put fingers.
    I looked down again at my name and the heart scratched into the metal, rubbing it, enjoying the feel of its uneven surface under my finger. Bodo had done this with his own hand at some point. I wondered when. Had it been before he told me he loved me or after? Did he do it after I knew about Nina or before? What does it even matter? He loved me, he told me, and now I have to go find him so I can tell him back. It was that simple for me. I couldn’t have Bodo out there in the world somewhere not knowing how I felt. If he were dead, well, then he already knew, and I was going to have to be okay with that. But until I knew that he knew how I felt, I wasn’t going to rest.
    ***
    Lunch was filled with talk of setting up our defenses. Paci and Fohi had designated themselves as leaders of the defense team. Rob and Jeremy joined in, okay in theory with letting the other two call the shots. I think they were all just excited about the idea of setting boobytraps for canners.
    “Okay, so we need to map out the traps and make sure everyone knows where they are,” said Paci.
    “Yeah. If anyone we like goes into any