Love and Decay, Episode Nine

by Rachel Higginson

  “What are we going to do about your shoulder?” I wondered aloud, trying to distract myself from the big issue of his still-bleeding leg.

  “It’s just dislocated,” he tried to shrug it, but his body went nowhere. The only reason I knew he attempted to shrug was because his head fell back toward his shoulder and then he frowned down at it, like it had offended him. I stifled an annoyed sigh.

  “Just dislocated?” I asked dryly. “Do you want me to just pop it back in for you, then?”

  “I can do it,” he assured me but he looked half-passed out, so I wasn’t sure exactly how he planned to do that.

  “Really?” I snorted.

  “Just as soon as I get some strength back,” he murmured. His color looked a little better since the crackers and pills started to kick in, but his eyes fluttered and drooped and his body lay perfectly limp.

  “Oh, your iron!” I remembered the supplement and immediately started to dig around in Hendrix’s messenger bag for it. That would help him get some of his strength back.

  I pulled out the pill, and waved it in front of Kane. “This will help with all the blood loss.” He didn’t argue, just opened his mouth. Before I even thought through the consequences, I pressed the pill into his mouth and then offered him a drink of water to swallow it with. I was significantly gentler than Tyler and managed not to drown him with it.

  Kane’s gaze held mine the entire time. He watched me with that same quiet intensity he had at The Colony. He took a long pull from the water bottle and just kept staring at me. There was a question in his eyes, but purpose too. Part of me felt like I should be able to read his mind, even though we’d barely spent any time together. And the other part told me because I felt that I needed to run- and run fast.

  “Hendrix, I need you for a sec,” Vaughan called from the front seat.

  Vaughan’s command immediately called everyone’s attention forward and just like that our audience turned to watch Hendrix climb his way to the front of the van to conference with his brother. The van drove along the smooth highway as fast as it could go, so it was loud enough that I had no idea what was being said upfront. I imagined it was important for Vaughan to call Hendrix away from Kane.

  “I’m surprised he left you alone with me,” Kane commented sullenly.

  “Well, you’re not really a danger like this, are you?” I busied myself with the slash on his left bicep. It was deep, but not dangerously so. The worst part was that it cut across his injured shoulder arm and I was afraid to really hurt him by being too rough. “You can’t do much harm in your current state. Plus there’s the whole we-have-you-surrounded thing.”

  “I don’t want to do you harm, Reagan,” Kane promised on a raw whisper. “Stop trying to make me the bad guy, when I’m not one.”

  My eyes flickered up and fell into his pained gray gaze. “You followed me to Oklahoma, Kane. Tell me you’re not trying to take me back to your brainwashed colony.”

  He licked his dry lips and then twisted them in a sheepish smile. “The only thing I’m doing is keeping promises I made to you.”

  I puffed out an impatient breath. “Yeah, I remember those promises. They’re not exactly heart-warming.”

  He paused for a beat and then dipped his head, “You don’t have to fear me, Reagan.”

  “I don’t fear you, Kane,” I lied. I definitely lied. I did fear him. I quaked in terror of him. “Our lives are just moving in two, completely opposite directions. Literally. The sooner you realize I’m not the girl for you, the easier this difficult life will become for you.”

  “Because of him?” Kane’s chin jutted toward the front of the van.

  “Believe me,” I sighed. “He’s just one of the many reasons you and I are never going to happen.”

  “Then what’s all this?”

  Assuming he was referring to me playing doctor, I just barely managed to control my eye roll. “This was Vaughan’s idea. If Tyler and I had been the ones calling the shots last night, we would have gladly left you to fend for yourself.”

  “Damn right,” Tyler chimed in. I jumped at the sound of her voice. I managed to forget she was sitting right next to me. I stifled my surprised while she continued her scathing retort, “Vaughan wanted to play humanitarian even though you barely pass as human. Reagan and I simply got sucked in. Trust me when I say she’s not tending to your wounds from the goodness of her own heart.”

  Kane let out a contemptuous laugh. “Trust you, Tyler? Really? Do you know how livid dad is that you kidnapped Miller and ran off in the middle of the night?”

  “Obviously that doesn’t bother me,” Tyler snipped. “Dad can be as mad as he wants. I will never go back there, Kane. And if you came to bring me back, I’ll kill you first. I promise you that.”

  “I believe you,” Kane sighed. “But I’m not going back without you either. One of us is going to have to compromise.” Kane’s attention returned to me and he caught me up in that steely gaze again. “Are you sure you’re ready for this fight?”

  There were several beats of silence while Tyler and I processed all his spoken and unspoken words. Although, I knew our thought trains were headed to different stations because even though he was in active conversation with his sister, his words felt specifically designed for me.

  And I didn’t feel ready for this fight.

  I was a fighter. I kicked ass on a daily basis.

  But I didn’t even understand the nature of this particular battle with Kane Allen. He told me not to be afraid of him. He promised he wasn’t the bad guy. And then in some roundabout way, made it clear he wasn’t going back without me and that I needed to be ready for a struggle.

  He alternately made me relax and not worry about him and then put every one of my nerves on edge and be scared of my own shadow.

  He was a contradiction in every single way.

  Suddenly the van came to a screeching halt in the middle of the highway. I pitched backward and Kane reached out and caught me with his good hand. I made a surprised sound at the same time Kane hissed in pain.

  We untangled from each other just in time to lift our heads and see why Vaughan decided to stop so abruptly.

  I reached for my gun at the same time I turned around. A whoosh of breath left my lungs as I took in the sight in front of us. The entire highway was blocked off and barricaded. Car after totaled car piled up in front of us. Vaughan must have seen this coming, so I wasn’t sure what the purpose for the sudden stop was, but it didn’t matter now. We were fifty feet away from an impossible road block. There was no way to get through. There was no way to move forward.

  And what was worse, I could see figures moving between the gridlocked cars. Moving steadily toward us- intent on reaching us.

  Feeder or human?

  Feeder or human?

  I prepared to shove a new clip into my empty gun and squinted against the distance between us

  and the human shaped bodies I couldn’t make out just yet. It was maddening not knowing what kind of danger we were in. But as the seconds ticked by, I realized we were just moments from finding out.

  And anyway, at this point in my life, I knew how equally dangerous humans and Zombies could be.

  Chapter Three

  “What the hell?” Harrison ground out. “What happened here?”

  “Rush hour?” Haley thought she was so funny.

  “What are we going to do, Vaughan?” Page asked with the appropriate amount of fear.

  “We’re going to turn around, Pagey,” Nelson explained gently and then with more authority and obviously directed at Vaughan he said, “Right now.”

  “Right now,” Vaughan mumbled.

  The bodies kept moving toward us, faster than ever. Their shoulders bounced unevenly and they didn’t seem to care if they ran into the immovable cars parked at every angle.

  Feeders.

  Definitely Feeders.

  I clenched the seat in front of me, digging my fingernails into the soft fabric. I watched their bel
abored approach with anxious horror. It hadn’t even been two hours since my last near-death-by-Zombie experience. Couldn’t I just have a day? Just one freaking day in which there were no Zombies, no killing, no death?

  “Holy shit, did they make this?” Harrison exclaimed when the Zombies became clear to everyone.

  “No way,” King argued. But he didn’t sound all that convinced.

  “Look, they’re coming from everywhere!” Haley screeched.

  And sure enough Feeders filtered toward us from every direction.

  We had somehow driven into a U-shaped stadium made from discarded cars. The longer I watched the Feeders approach, the more the scene in front of me came into focus. Cars weren’t just spread out on the highway, they wrapped around to the shoulders on both sides of us. The front line had been smashed and rammed until it was a solid barrier of crumpled, solid metal and beyond that, the vehicles of all shapes and sizes were parked at every angle, barely leaving walking space in between. This cluster of machinery stretched on as far as I could see.

  And now, so did the Feeders.

  What. The. F.

  This wasn’t an accidental hazard of the road. This was designed.

  By Feeders or humans though? Was this another Matthias Allen using Zombies as his own personal army to control humans? Or was this the culmination of the signs we’d been seeing since Missouri?

  Zombies evolving into creatures capable of organizing themselves…. of waging war.

  “Vaughan, turn the van around now!” I heard myself yell, but I barely recognized the panic in my voice. This was a death trap.

  The mid-morning sun hid behind a haze of gray, stormy clouds. Sprinkles of rain plopped onto the windshield and roof of the van, but the worst of the rain was holding off. The lines of approaching bodies faded into the gloomy backdrop to our latest expedition into Zombieland. The weather pressed down on us as ominous as the rallying troops of Feeders.

  We sat tensed and quiet as Vaughan desperately maneuvered the van in a three-point turn. Our bodies swayed with the sharp movement of the van, but for the most part we were silent, patiently waiting the first strike. By the time Vaughan had the car in “drive” again the front line of Zombies had broken through the metal barricade and watched us with drooling fascination.

  I whirled around and stared horrified as a Feeder reached out for the van just as Vaughan stepped on the gas. Her jagged, elongated fingernail scraped across the back window in an aggressive screech that caused tremors to shake my body.

  That had to be one of the worst sounds ever.

  I breathed a short breath of relief just quick enough to suck it right back in. Vaughan stomped on the brakes almost as soon as he touched the gas. The tires squealed against the black asphalt and we halted to a stop, now sufficiently surrounded by Feeders. Their disgusting smell wafted in through the closed windows and everywhere I looked decaying, rotting flesh stared back at me.

  “We need to get out of here,” Hendrix growled at Vaughan.

  “I’m open to suggestions on how you want to accomplish that,” Vaughan bit back.

  “Holy shit!” Tyler screeched.

  Nobody even reminded her of the cuss jar. We were that afraid!

  “Reagan,” Kane murmured just intense enough to call my attention away from the ensuing pandemonium around us.

  I looked over my shoulder at him and ignored the Feeders now banging on the back window. The glass rattled against their aggressive hits and I winced with each connection. “Yeah?”

  “Stay close to me,” he commanded in a low voice.

  I cracked a smile, thinking that was the funniest thing I’d heard all day. “You can’t exactly protect me, Kane.”

  “But you can protect me,” he rasped.

  I gaped at him. “And why would I do that?”

  “Because you don’t want me to die.”

  And he was right, damn it. I didn’t want him to die! For all his faults, he was still a living, breathing, thinking, non-flesh-eating human being. And I couldn’t make myself feel enough of that kind of soulless hate for him. I couldn’t make myself want him dead at these undead hands. Or worse.

  I wasn’t capable of feeling enough hatred for any one person to leave them at the mercy of Feeders.

  “Fine,” I growled back at him. “I’ll help you get out of this alive. But you have to promise me something in return.”

  “A bargain?” he asked with hooded eyes.

  “Yes,” I nodded. “I’ll make sure you stay alive.” I thought about it and quickly amended my side of this. “To the best of my ability.” His lips turned into a small smile at that. “And you leave me alone after. Completely. I’m not going back to your colony by choice or by force. And if I keep you alive today, you won’t try to make me. You get better and then you leave us alone. You leave me alone.”

  Kane thought that over for a few moments, assessing me with a vague but sparkling

  amusement. I was sure if he wouldn’t have been in so much pain, he would have been incredibly excited about this.

  “Fine,” he agreed slowly. “You keep me alive today and I’ll leave you alone.” Pushing off the seat with his good arm, he leaned into me and murmured, “To the best of my ability.”

  Shock and something darker trickled into the ventricles of my heart and I lost the ability to think clearly for a moment. He had this way of getting to me, under my skin and into my vital organs and rearranging everything I thought I knew or wanted. It was confusing.

  He was confusing.

  And confusion felt like loss of control. I did not like that at all.

  I gripped the empty gun in my hands harder, digging the pads of my fingers into cold metal. I

  opened my mouth to respond to his slimy, bastard comment but a rotten fist came down hard

  on the back window and rattled the glass, propelling me out of conversation with him.

  “Vaughan, let’s go!” Harrison shouted.

  Vaughan punched the gas and we lurched forward into a solid line of Feeders. Bodies bounced off the hood of our formidable vehicle and we rebounded around inside while Vaughan forced the car to drive over them.

  Nelson and Hendrix prepared their guns in the front of the car while the rest of us watched on. The only two windows that opened all the way were the front two. But unless Hendrix was planning on shooting over Vaughan’s head, the only protection we were going to get was from Nelson’s side.

  Feeders continued to pour out of everywhere, appearing on every side of us. They seemed somewhat in control of their addiction to flesh as they prioritized corralling us over than outright attacking us. Vaughan was moving the van, but slowly and in every direction Zombies stood in our path of escape.

  “Get Page, Tyler and Miller on the ground back there,” Vaughan commanded. “Hendrix, you’re going to have to open that door. We’re going to have to start shooting.”

  “If I open the door, they will flood in here, Vaughan.” Hendrix gestured toward the door with a violent sweep of his arm. “Even with all of us shooting, they will rush us. I can’t just open the door.”

  “Shit,” Vaughan cursed. “Get Page further back anyway. Tyler taker her down to the floor and stay there.”

  Page obeyed her older brother and crawled over the seats to meet Tyler in the middle. Miller pushed her down at his feet and pulled out his small handgun. He checked the clip and then the safety and held it menacingly across his chest. He looked like a little twelve year old gangster.

  It was adorable.

  And that I thought it was adorable said something about me that I wasn’t ready to investigate yet.

  “You gave Miller a gun?” Kane asked quietly enough that his little brother couldn’t hear him.

  “Of course we gave Miller a gun. We want him able to protect himself and help protect us as a whole.”

  “You taught him how to use it?”

  “Obviously you think we’re idiots,” I drawled.

  “I don’t think that,” he pr
omised.

  I looked over my shoulder and wrinkled my nose at him. He chuckled at my expression and ran his finger down the bridge of my nose. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Reagan. I think you’re smart for teaching Miller how to survive. And he’s going to need to know how to take care of himself if Tyler gets her way.”

  “What do you mean?” I leaned back into him so no one else would overhear. In light of the fact that Zombies were now pounding violently on our windows from every side and crawling on the roof, I didn’t really think it would matter if he started yelling his explanation out because no one was paying attention to us, but I wanted to be safe.

  Kane’s gaze drifted to where his brother watched the Zombie attack alertly and his sister protected Page on the floor. When his gray eyes came back to me they were bright with honesty and determination. “Tyler’s a runner,” he explained just loud enough for me to hear. “I can see it in her eyes. She’s looking for an out. She’ll take Miller with her. And Miller will go, just because he’s naïve enough to believe his sister knows best. She’s looking for something and she’s not going to stop running till she finds it.”

  “What is she looking for?” I demanded. Something like betrayal flashed hot and blinding in my blood. I had come to care about Tyler and Miller- probably against my better judgment, but there it was. It wasn’t exactly like I trusted Kane, but he knew his sister better than I did. And for the past two years she had been trying to run.

  Maybe she wasn’t done yet.

  Especially if there was something out there she wanted to find.

  And was it my place to ask her to stay with us? Maybe it wasn’t even smart for her to stay. Maybe we would all be better off if we didn’t have so many people to worry about.

  Still, her leaving and taking Miller with her felt wrong.

  “Not something tangible. You know, something like…. spiritual. She’s lost.”

  “Since Logan?” I asked just to see his reaction.

  Kane’s expression turned dark and hard. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Since Logan. It’s nice to know she’s such a sharer.” He pressed his lips together and glanced casually over at a particularly gentle Feeder that was just staring at us with drool running down the missing half of his bottom jaw. “She isn’t at peace, Reagan. She can’t sit still.”