Free V.J. Chambers - Jason&Azazel Apocalypse 01 by The Stillness in the Air

I let Kieran work on building a fire while I tried to get the baby supplies into the packs we’d brought with us. I was sure that there wasn’t anything we could use back at the church. I didn’t know if there were supplies to be raided in the nearby convenience store or not, but I knew that we needed to get all the formula, bottles, diapers, and baby clothes we could. Of everything, the diapers were the bulkiest. Kieran wanted to leave them behind, but I wouldn’t. He said that people used cloth diapers before the advent of disposable ones and considering there was a finite supply of them, we might as well get used to that. I told him that he could wash the cloth diapers if he felt that way. He caved and let me bring the disposables.
    With a fire built, Kieran and I heated up some cans of chili and ate next to our tent. The baby was snoozing inside. I’d made him a little bed of blankets away from our own sleeping bags. The last thing I wanted to do was roll over on the baby and kill it. This happened more often than people thought.
    I watched Kieran eat, the fire dancing on his face, lighting up his long hair. He was a good looking guy. He was nice, too. Decent. If I were really going to have a baby, he wasn’t the worst pick for a father ever. I didn’t think he’d run off or leave me in the lurch or anything. I thought he was a pretty stand-up guy. Still, the whole idea felt too foreign to really wrap my head around.
    I couldn’t believe that there could actually be a tiny being growing inside my body.
    Actually, it sounded kind of gross. If I were pregnant, wasn’t I supposed to be releasing hormones that would help me bond with the little creature? Maybe that came later. I stared down at my flat stomach and willed it to stay flat. I was only a week late. My period would come.

    Maybe it was stress. Maybe I’d lost too much weight. There were lots of things that could be going on.
    Inside the tent, the baby woke up and started fussing. I left my chili and went in to get him. I didn’t know if he needed another bottle already. It hadn’t been that long since I fed him. Sure enough, he quieted as soon as he was in my arms.
    He was lonely, poor guy. How many days had he lain by himself in that house, his family rotting around him? It made me feel sick. I tickled his tummy, and he gave me a huge toothless grin.
    Kieran came around the fire and sat next to me, peering at the baby.
    “Did you see his name anywhere?” he asked me.
    I shook my head. “Nope.”
    “He’s very cute.”
    “Yes,” I cooed to the baby, “this little guy is adorable.”
    “Well, that’s what we’ll call him, then,” said Kieran.
    “What?”
    “Guy. You said he was a little guy. Guy’s a good name. It’s very masculine.”
    I laughed. I brushed his nose with my forefinger. He grabbed at my finger with his tiny hand.
    “You like that, Guy? Is that a good name?”
    He gurgled and smiled.
    Kieran reached in and tickled his chin. “I think he likes it.” Guy grasped Kieran’s finger. It was crazy, how big Kieran’s fingers looked next to Guy’s tiny ones. Kieran smiled at me over the baby. “He’s got quite a grip.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Babies go through a stage where they love to grab stuff.”
    “Cool,” said Kieran, looking at Guy again. He gazed at the baby. “Very cool.” Guy and Kieran made gurgling noises at each other for a bit. The two of them were fun to watch, I had to admit.
    “We could do this,” Kieran said.
    He caught my eyes.
    “Kieran, we don’t even know if—”
    “We could, though, I mean, don’t you think?”
    I sighed heavily. “There’s way more to babies than diapers and formula and finger grabbing.”

    “Sure, I know that,” said Kieran. “Can I hold him?”
    I handed the baby to Kieran, who look a little terrified at first. He wasn’t sure where to put his hands. After I assured him that he wasn’t going to break the baby, he relaxed a little bit. The warm light from the