Free Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel by Iain Rob Wright

thoughtfully. 
    Poppy could contain her excitement no longer. 
“You’re killing me,” she spluttered.
    “Got it!”  Garfield pulled out a colourful stack
of glossy paper and held it in front of her face.  He gave another of his
brief almost-smiles to go with it.
    Poppy glanced down at the magazines and frowned. 
There were pictures of women on the front covers, along with makeup and perfume
adds.  “What are these?” she asked.
    Garfield flicked the top one open, revealing an
article about weight loss.  “They’re women’s magazines.  They have
all kinds of articles.  They were really popular, before…well, you know.”
    Poppy took the magazines and leafed through
them.  There were lots of articles full of words, and pictures of food,
lipstick, mobile phones and other boring stuff.
    “You don’t like them.” Garfield said.  His
eyelids drooped like a sad puppy’s.
    Poppy shrugged.  “I…yeah, they’re great.  I
just didn’t expect them.”
    Garfield sighed and looked away.  He always
looked away when he felt bad.  Poppy was the only person he ever kept eye
contact with for more than a few seconds.  Poppy’s mummy always said it
was rude not to hold eye contact, but Poppy thought it was because Garfield was
shy, not rude. 
    “I just wanted to get you something you can use,” he
muttered.  “You’re growing up so fast and…and I don’t really know what
you’ll be going through.  Your body will change, for one thing.”
    Poppy blushed.
    Garfield blushed too.  “Sorry, it’s just…I…”
    Poppy reached out and touched his wrist.  “I
know.  You want me to read about woman’s things.”
    “Sorry you don’t like the magazines.”
    “I would just rather have you around to teach me
things, than read about them in a bunch of old books.  We haven’t spent time
together in ages.”
    “I have to go out, Poppy.  I have to feed us.”
    “I know you do.  But I’m
growing up , you said it .  You got me these
magazines because I’m growing up, so let me come with you.”
    Garfield shook his head immediately.  “We’ve
spoken about this.  It’s too dangerous out there.  The dead…”
    “I want to come with you, Garfield.  I hate it
around here.  We were fine on the road before we found this place.”
    “We almost died a dozen times and you barely spoke a
word you were so traumatised.”
    “I’m older now.”
    “Less than a year.”
    “But-”
    “Enough!”  Poppy was startled.  Garfield
never raised his voice to her.  “I won’t take you out there, Poppy. 
It’s too dangerous.  I won’t let you get hurt.  I can’t…”
    Garfield never showed how he felt, but right then it
looked as if he were about to cry.  Poppy suddenly felt very guilty. 
She nodded slowly and looked down at the floor.  “I- I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
    Garfield huffed.  “I’m not mad, you silly
girl.  I’m scared.  It’s my job to keep you safe, but you’re growing
so fast that I can barely keep up.  I’m worried I won’t be able to look
after you soon.  The others will have to help me.”
    “I don’t need looking after,” said Poppy.  “I
just need you , but you keep going away.  You keep leaving me and
sometimes I wonder if you’re ever going to come back.”
     Garfield looked at her, keeping eye contact the
whole time he spoke, even though she knew he would have found it hard. 
“I’ll never leave you, Popcorn.  I’m always thinking of you and I will always
come back.  Everything I do, I do because I have no choice.  I do it
to keep you safe.  I made you a promise, didn’t I?  When I cooked you
bacon in that old hotel outside Oxford and we played eye-spy all night,
laughing.  When we set out the next morning, you told me you wanted to
live at the hotel because you liked it there.  I told you that it wasn’t
the hotel you liked, it was the fun we had had the night before.  I said
that we could have fun wherever we