by Jill James
Cody turned at the shuffling of feet at his back. A cold sweat trickled down his back as Ran hacked and shoved the horde headed their way. Michelle rushed to her side and the two of them managed to dispatch most of them, until two of them lurched into Miranda and sent her flying into the water and followed her in.
His heart stopped as her head didn’t break the surface. Bubbles burst thickly, thinned, and stopped. Still nothing. His feet wanted to carry him to the edge so he could dive in, but he couldn’t. He still held the baby.
A streak ran past him and hit the water in a flying leap. All he saw was a flash of pale skin and bright auburn hair. The young woman dove into the harbor like an Olympic swimmer. Seconds that seemed like minutes, then hours, passed. With a gasp and coughing, Ran and April surfaced and swam to the pier where Michelle pulled them to the wooden deck.
He rushed to Ran’s side. Her face was pale and her breathing was shallow. Michelle’s hands ran over both girls’ arms and legs. She sat back with a loud exhale.
“Nothing. No bites.”
Cody let out his breath with something between a sigh and a sob.
With a jerk, Ran turned to her side and vomited a mouthful of river water and took a deep gulp of air.
His arms ached to hold her. He longed to tell her how much he loved her. At the renewed shuffling, he cursed the fates that he couldn’t do any of those things. As he looked around, lost in frustration at not fighting the undead, getting Ran to the boat, and wondering how they were all getting out of this, he jumped at Teddy’s yell and the gunning of a boat’s motor.
Michelle stayed as he grabbed one arm and April grabbed the other and they got Ran onto the boat. The three of them fell onto the rotted cushions and he gagged at the scent wafting up from the deteriorating fabric.
Ropes were flung onto the boat as Seth grabbed Michelle and flung her onto the boat. She found a seat beside them and Teddy pulled the boat out of its berth. The zombies kept coming. One after another, they fell into the water, arms outstretched, trying to reach the boat and missing. The distance grew and when Cody finally looked around they were out of the harbor and onto the river.
Chapter Eighteen
Selena
Selena’s Diary
Mister Toby’s Treehouse
Near Mount Diablo (he told me the name of the mountain)
Spring, 1 AZ
Mister Toby is nothing like I worried he would be. He works me hard, but he works just as hard—harder to protect his camp and his belongings. He found my diary and says I can keep it. His voice is still rough and his eyes still glare at me, but he is nothing like the man who bought me from Juan. In my nightmares I can still see the zombies attacking the apartment people. I hope they ate Juan.
She put the paper and pencil into her knapsack, along with the small knife Mister Toby gave her when he showed her how to sharpen the pencil. He’d said she could just call him Toby, but Mister Toby didn’t sound so bad for the large man. The boys of Rogue Vantage had called the grown-ups Miss and Mister in the camp.
With a deep breath, she blew out the stub of a candle and cocooned herself in the pile of blankets she’d been given. Mister Toby’s snores carried through the little hut from his side of the dwelling. She snuggled down into the warmth and fell quickly asleep. After a few sleepless nights worrying about the man attacking her, now only the nightmares disturbed her rest.
When they’d reached his camp in the shadows of Mount Diablo, Selena had stared in surprise at the treehouse the man had built in an enormous Live Oak tree. He’d sent her up first and quickly followed. He pulled the rope ladder after them and pointed to a far corner of the treehouse.
“That is where you sleep.” He pointed to the other side. “That is where I sleep. We only sleep if all the work is done.”
Her heart thumped in her chest. At least eight feet divided the piles of blankets. Her confusion must have shown in her eyes because the man threw his head back and laughed. At least she thought it was a laugh since his dark eyes still glared.
“I like my women all grown up. I do need a slave and I’ll work you hard, but not in my bed. Do you understand?”
She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Yes, Mister Toby.” She didn’t know if she could dare hope yet or not. Should she push her luck or not?
Taking a deep breath, she went for it. “My mommy will find me. Juan said she was dead but I didn’t see her die, so she might be alive.”
He dropped to a knee. “Selena, if your mother finds us I will let you go. I promise.”
Toby held out his hand and she shook it. Her tiny hand was swallowed in his giant palm.
She sighed as her thoughts drifted and memories became dreams.
One day slid into the next as they worked from sunup to sundown. Mister Toby taught her to hunt rabbits, to clean them, and to cook them. She learned to walk through the tree-covered hills without making a sound.
Today was foraging. She walked silently behind the giant man as they skirted the edge of a neighborhood built in the shadow of the mountain. He talked softly as he scanned the nearest house through a pair of binoculars.
“See the gray house. Watch how the deer eat right by the back door. That house might be safe.”
“Might be?” She squinted and stared at the mother deer with its baby. “If the deer think it’s safe, isn’t it? You said the animals know.”
“It probably doesn’t have any undead since the animals seem to sense them. But even in the before Z days, deer would go right up to the windows and doors of houses with people in them.”
“And living people are just as dangerous as dead people,” she repeated the lesson she’d learned at great cost. Her fingers played with the bandage on her arm. The cut itched as it healed but she wouldn’t forget that just because a person was young it didn’t mean they were safe. Her nightmares now included the small grave by the treehouse and the boy who wouldn’t stop when Toby told him to.
He patted her on the head and Selena saw stars. She knew he meant well, but Mister Toby didn’t know his own strength sometimes. The light flashes passed and she went back to checking out the house. Movement appeared behind the sliding glass door. A second later, metal appeared in the slight opening. A gunshot rang out and the larger deer fell to the ground. Another shot and the baby joined its mother.
A cry filled her throat, but she swallowed it down. A gun could shoot people as easily as it had shot the deer. Mister Toby gave her a nod and they faded back into the shadow of the trees. It wasn’t until they’d passed five or six houses that the man returned to scouting.
Selena stood still as she’d been taught until Toby brought the binoculars down and nodded to her. She fell into step behind him as they moved toward the house. Weeds filled the backyard, with toys and a kiddy pool half-hidden in the abandoned grass, now dry and filled with dust and dirt. The large man easily hopped over the fence, and then reached back to lift her over as well.
“Why didn’t we use the gate?” She pointed to one a few feet to her left.
“Gates squeak. Hasn’t had oil in long time.”
She nodded, feeling stupid inside. If she ever needed to survive alone, she needed to know this stuff. Use your head, Selena, she admonished herself silently.
Concentrating, she noted everything Toby did. He went up to the glass door and peered inside. Tapping gently on the glass with his gun, his body tensed as they waited. When nothing appeared at the glass, he finally slid the door open, an inch at a time.
He held a hand up as she tried to follow right on his footsteps. “Just a minute. Let me check this room.”
In seconds, he was back. “Kitchen is clear.”
Her breath caught as she stepped inside. They’d hit the mother lode, as her Grandfather Sterling used to say. Boxes and cans filled every countertop. Some had spoiled, as she spotted cans with split sides and goo oozing out onto the tile. But most of it looked great. She didn’t see any bugs or a trail of ants.
She frowned. Why w
eren’t there any bugs? Like the rest of nature, the insects were taking back their part of the planet, too. Her answer came swiftly with the telltale moan of the undead coming from beyond where she saw a dining-room table and overturned chairs.
Toby rushed forward and she followed right behind him, with the butcher knife she’d just grabbed off the counter. Selena slid in a blood pool as the large man ran forward and stabbed a skinbag in the skull. What had been a woman fell to a heap on the floor. Something grabbed her foot and she jumped, falling in the sticky pool. Her eyes widened at the sight under the table.
A small child crawled toward her, his mouth full of white, gleaming teeth and his eyes dead and hungry. She raised her knife as the boy got closer. The weapon shook as her hand and arm trembled. He was just a baby.
“It’s not alive, Selena. Its mother would thank you if she could.”
She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, and plunged the knife down. The sound of metal against bone filled her head. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to go back to being a little kid.
“Good job, Selena. Now it is dead dead.”
She wanted to laugh at the big man using Rogue Vantage’s favorite saying for killing the skinbags, one she’d told him yesterday. It bubbled up inside her until the laughter became sobs and her body shook with the force of her emotions.
His footsteps moved away as she pulled herself together. He still had rooms to check. She looked away from the mess under the table and busied herself with closing and locking the glass door and sorting through the food on the countertop.
Once she’d moved the spoiled food away and checked and found some insects in food after all, they’d still have a nice foraging day, with enough food that they would both have full knapsacks to carry back to the treehouse.
Her stomach grumbled as she eyed the box of chocolate chip cookies. Mister Toby didn’t take much junk food from the houses they foraged. He said their bodies needed good stuff. Protein and such. She craned her neck and didn’t spot the big man in the living room. Opening the box as quietly as she could, Selena stuffed a couple of the crunchy snacks into her mouth, chomping away before he could get back. She sighed. Even stale, the chocolate chips melted in her mouth.
A thud sounded from the glass door, making her jump and a small squeal escaping her. Looking over her shoulder, the undead man stood inches from her, only the glass separated them. She stood motionless. His head swung back and forth, his face sliding grossly across the clear barrier, blood and black gunk coating the sliding door.
“Don’t move,” Toby’s deep voice said from the edge of the room.
“I’m not,” she intoned back, as quietly as she could.
“I’ll be right back.”
His steps faded as Selena continued to stare into the lifeless depths of the zombie’s eyes. She’d never been so close to one before without someone running forward to kill it. It raised its head, twisting and turning, as if to get her scent.
What was live? What was dead? Maybe they were all dead and they just didn’t know it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the big man stalking up to the thing at the door. His knife shone in the bright sun as he raised it up and brought it down on the skinbag’s head. The zombie fell to the ground like the bag of bones it was.
“Toby,” she tried to yell as a bunch of people surrounded the big man. He tried to fight back, but the blows rained down on him from clubs and other weapons. Too many for the man to fight, no matter how big he was. He fell to the ground a last time and didn’t get back up. His blood flowed onto the cracked dirt and splattered across the weeds.
“Toby,” she yelled again. She was stopped as a hand clasped across her month and an arm grabbed around her and lifted her up.
She felt a stinging pinch in her neck and then she felt nothing else. Time passed in increments of light and dark and bouncing against a metal floor. Slowly, she opened her eyes a small slit and looked around her. The metal floor belonged to the bed of a pickup truck. The flashes of light and dark were the truck passing under streetlights. Her surprise had her forgetting she was supposed to be spying, not staring with her mouth open. She hadn’t seen working streetlights in months as they failed one by one and left the streets in darkness.
“She’s awake,” a soft voice intoned in the darkness. A light passed by and Selena saw a woman about her mother’s age. One with a smile and dark hair and eyes.
She sat up, noticing she wasn’t tied up or gagged. “Where’s Mister Toby?”
“You don’t have to worry about the male. We took care of him, just like we take care of all the men”
Her head swiveled back and forth. The truck was full of females. Young. Old. Children as young as her and younger. They were all dressed like Commander Jack and Mister Paul back at the RV yard. Everyone dressed as if they were in the army.
The dark-haired woman moved forward and placed a hand on Selena’s head. “My name is Alaina. Welcome to the Sisterhood of the Earth. What man has destroyed, woman will rebuild.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jack and Lila
Lila’s notes
Somewhere near Mount Diablo
Spring, 1 AZ
I don’t know how Jack does it. Just when I think all hope is gone, he finds a person who knows a person who saw Toby Hill or Selena or at least a little blonde-haired girl. The only way I continue on is with the rumors that Toby is a nice man although scary looking. I hold on to hope he has not hurt my child or killed her.
“You take this road until it dead ends. Hop over the guard rail and there is a path, not much bigger than a deer trail. Follow that for about two miles and look for the largest Live Oak. Toby’s treehouse is in it,” the man told them, then started walking back to his storage container home.
“Thank you,” Jack called out.
“Good luck,” the man replied.
“We’re getting closer. I can feel it,” she said as they started walking down the road. “This has to be it. The man knew who we were talking about. He even said he saw a little girl.”
Jack took her hand for a moment and then dropped it like a hot stone. “I don’t want to get your hopes too high. Just because these people think this Toby is nice doesn’t mean he is when he is away from people. Even in the old world, pervs hid their true natures.
“Why else would he live all alone? There is a reason we find groups of people. Even if they are small groups. There is safety in numbers.”
They came to the Dead End sign and guard rail. She turned to Jack, her fists balled at her side. “You can’t allow me just a little hope, can you? It’s the apocalypse, so everything has a bad ending.”
She turned away, refusing to let him see the angry tears in her eyes and mistaking them for sadness or grief. Giving up was not an option. She would find Selena and they would be a family. With or without Jack.
His arms came around her. She stiffened.
His calm voice floated into her ears and her brain. “I have hope, Lila. Sometimes it seems like too much hope. So much that my chest will explode. I have nothing but hope we find Selena and she is safe. I’ve already missed nine years of her life; I can’t fathom losing the rest. We will search until we find her. We will hope until there is no more hope left.”
The tension left her body. She leaned against him and inhaled the scent that was uniquely Jack. Even hot and sweaty he smelled of pine and fresh air and sexiness.
He stepped back and she mourned the instant loss of his closeness. He shrugged out of his backpack and pulled two waters out of it, handing one to her.
“This will probably be our last break before we find this treehouse. Might as well take it here where we are still in the open and can see around us.”
She swallowed the tepid water and thought about all she’d learned in just a few short days. She hadn’t realized how sheltered she was in the RV yard to the outside world. More than anything she’d bitched about the primitive conditions there, as
if it were one long camping trip with all the inconveniences that implied. Washing clothes, cooking, cleaning, everything so much harder than in a house. Zombies were those things outside someone else took care of. Now she was outside, and she was the someone who took care of it. If she wanted to live, that was.
The idea was scary and freeing at the same time. Scary because death was everywhere. Freeing because you can’t live in fear every second of the day. She knew Jack would protect her and she was coming to feel she could protect herself.
Jack hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. “Let’s move on. Stay a few steps behind me. It will be harder to maneuver in the trees and we’ll each need our space if we come upon anyone; dead or alive.”
She nodded, a shudder running down her spine. She didn’t know what was worse, the skinbags who couldn’t help what they were or the living who had a choice and chose bad.
A cool breeze blew as soon as they stepped onto a small dirt path among the trees. She took off her bandana and tied it around her neck. The wind brushed across her chopped off hair and dried her sweaty scalp. Her anger lingered at all Juan had put her through. He’d been an indifferent husband, especially once Selena was born and wasn’t the wanted son. Being ignored was better than his sporadic anger fits when, yet again, she wasn’t pregnant. Nothing in their past prepared her for how he’d changed once he met Bennett and his toxic church followers. She shoved the past behind her and concentrated on following Jack and observing the forest.
Staying two steps behind Jack was no hardship as her gaze swept his body. He’d been in shape before as an athlete and she was sure he’d built up muscle in the army, but the lean fit man before her had been honed into sexual fantasy material by the daily life of the zombie apocalypse.
Jack stopped and held up his fist. The first time he’d done it she’d whimpered and ducked. It took several times until she didn’t flinch when he used the military sign for stop. She held her breath and swept the area. If he saw something, she was missing it.