Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

possibly into the hut.
    I stepped over the dead canners who’d dropped earlier during our shootout, and stopped when I reached the one who’d been the ringleader, the one who’d been holding Bodo captive the last time I was here.
    Pushing him over onto his back, I nearly screamed at what I saw. His whole abdomen had been slit open, and his intestines and other things were sliding out. Everything was pooling next him as it fell into the huge puddle of arterial blood that had emptied him of life. His sightless eyes stared out toward a spot behind me.
    Even though I knew he wasn’t staring at anything back there, I had to turn around and look behind me anyway, just because it was so creepy. No one was there now, but someone had been. No way had Bodo done this. He wasn’t this savage.
    Words from a girl I’d hoped to never see again as long as I lived haunted my mind.
    “I’ll gut you like a fish.”
    Coli had said that to me once. I’d heard her say it to Winky, too.
    I looked down at the canner and put it all together. Pieces of a scary puzzle were falling into place. He’d definitely been gutted.
    Did Coli do this? I stepped back from the gore, my hand resting lightly on my own stomach. It was threatening to turn itself inside out. I tried not to look at him again, but it was impossible. All that blood … all that stuff that was supposed to be inside was now out, lying on the floor of the ceremonial hut … And that one last look was my undoing.
    I stumbled over to the side of the hut and vomited into the bushes next to it. Holding onto the railing, I waited until the spasms stopped pushing me practically inside out before I bothered to try and think straight again.
    By the time I was done, I was lightheaded and my mouth was so sour I could hardly swallow without being sick again; but at least I could put two words together in my head and make a little sense about what I had to do next.
    Must find Bodo .
    I didn’t dare risk looking at the dead canner-leader again. I focused instead on the area around him, searching for clues of where Coli had gone and where she’d taken Bodo. There was no doubt in my mind that Bodo was still captive somewhere. No matter how mad he was at me, I really didn’t believe that he would just leave me to be raped by canners. He wasn’t that kind of guy. Immature? Maybe. Inhumane? Never.
    I noticed some wide leaves that were broken near a path I knew well. It led to my old hut, the one that I had shared with Bodo, Peter, and Buster. It seemed like it had been so long ago, but it had been less than a month.
    I smiled grimly as I moved towards the path, thinking how Coli liked to say we white kids were like buffalo crashing through the swamp. Bodo was definitely a buffalo, and I was glad for it. He was giving me a sign.
    I tiptoed around the pools of blood, ignoring the high-pitched whine of flies and mosquitos that were converging on the blood-feast, focusing instead on the sounds of possible travelers and the broken leaves and piles of disturbed debris at my feet.
    I walked for five minutes before I finally heard voices.
    “Dat’s a problem. Do you hear me? Dat’s a bigk problem!” Bodo’s voice was hoarse. “You can’t do dat. Dat’s not right. Kowi would not like dat.”
    “Shut up, idiot. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Kowi’s … Kowi’s …” And then the sound of crying came next - agonized emotional pain. “Don’t you get it?! Kowi. Is. Gone! Everyone’s gone! And you are all I have left and now you’re going to be with me! Not Bryn!”
    “But I don’t want to be with you. And Bryn is still alife! She is alife!”
    “No, she’s not! She’s dead, too. Everyone is dead except you and me.” Her voice went from weepy to matter-of-fact. “You came back for me, I know you did. You came back so I wouldn’t be alone. And now we’re going to live together here and be happy. You and me. Together. We’ll hunt together and fish together and maybe we’ll even have children together. We’ll be great parents.”
    “But you don’t even like me.”
    Bodo sounded sad now, like he pitied Coli. I know I did. She had clearly lost it. She was crying and yelling half the time and sounding like she was utterly convinced the next. And she was making no attempt at being quiet like she usually did. She must have found him and taken care of those canners all by herself. I wasn’t sure now if I was in a better position or a worse one with Coli as