by Lilly Black
"Okay," the oldest said after a few seconds of deliberation, then she stood up and led her younger sisters to the front of the van. When the three of them were in the driver's seat, Liana paused.
"Now I need you to be very quiet, and do exactly as we say. It's dangerous out here, and if we make too much noise, bad things will happen, okay?" When the girls nodded, she started helping them out of the van one by one, but when she set the youngest on her feet, through Liana's legs, the little girl saw her parents crushed between two cars, covered in blood, and groaning. She let out a loud, blood-curdling scream, and for a moment, everyone froze as the attention of the dead from both sides of the interstate was drawn directly to the source of the sound. Then suddenly they were coming!
"Pick the girls up," Liana commanded Alek as her military training took control of her. "Olivia, we'll cover him. You take the left, I'll take the right. Go! Go!"
Alek scooped up the two smaller girls, ordering the eldest to follow him, then they made a run for the limo as Olivia and Liana shot in both directions, taking down as many of the dead as they could. They made it to the car and found Jobe sitting in the driver's seat. He rolled the window down, and Alek passed the girls through as the dead converged upon them. Dani, Jax, and Ravi were shooting from the rig, June was still shooting out of the limo's window, and Alek got his rifle up as soon as the girls were safe, but it wasn't enough. The scream had drawn every last corpse in the area. Several crawled out a broken window of the overturned bus, those across the road abandoned the northbound group, and more came from the buildings in the median.
"Give me the keys!" Jobe shouted, his fingers creeping through the crack in the window to tap Olivia's shoulder.
"What?" she demanded.
"Don't make us die with you!" he begged. "Give me the keys!"
It made her angry, but she knew he was right. They were fucked.
"Give me another gun!" she cried, out of bullets and desperate for a fighting chance.
"The keys!" he demanded as she resorted to using the butt of her gun in the faces of the dead, praying her friends atop the semi would shoot them, but they were running low on bullets too. Ravi had no more, Jax and Dani had just emptied their last box into the rifles, and all of the others were in the back of the limo with June.
"Guns!" Liana shouted at June, and as Penny and Brittani sat frozen in fear, she finally thrust a rifle through the crack in her window. Olivia passed it to Alek with one hand as she pushed a corpse's head away with other, then Alek fired, taking him down.
"If she keeps giving us fresh guns, we can do this," Olivia said.
"Cover me," Alek shouted. "We're getting on the roof." Being the tallest, he quickly climbed atop the Hummer, the bars of the luggage rack making it easier, and once he was up there, he dangled his legs over for Olivia to climb up while he covered her. They did the same for Liana, but even when they were all safely aloft, they looked out over the teeming crowd and were filled with desperation.
"How are there so fucking many of them?" Olivia asked, feeling numb and defeated as she sat down on the roof. "How can we beat an enemy that adds to its numbers each time it kills?" If not for her daughter, she might have turned the gun on herself right then and there. She was just so tired. They all were, but the enemy didn't tire. They didn't sleep. They didn't stop.
"On your feet, soldier!" Liana shouted, using her best drill sergeant voice as she tried to inspire Olivia to continue fighting in spite of their impossible situation, but as she offered Olivia her hand to help her up, they were startled by a sudden gunshot from inside the car. Liana turned toward the sound and saw June looking up at her through a now-busted run roof.
"I couldn't get it to open without the keys," she said apologetically, and Liana's relief and joy came out in a hail of laughter. They broke out the remaining glass, climbed through, and slid the interior sunroof cover closed, and June spread some of the Kevlar vests out on the floor to cover the shards. Olivia, Liana, and Alek were just thrilled to be alive, but they weren't out of the woods yet. They were still surrounded, and now the dead were right up against the car, rocking it side to side.
"Oh! Dear, God! What are we going to do?" Jobe asked nervously.
"The first thing you're going to do is get the hell out of my spot, asshole," Olivia hissed, and though he scowled at her as he climbed over the front seat to trade places, he knew better than to say a word. She was furious with him because not only did he want to take the limo and leave them for dead, he, of all the people in that vehicle, should have realized the sunroof was the answer since one had saved his own, miserable life earlier tonight.
Once Olivia and Alek were back in the front, they asked Liana to pass them several boxes of bullets and half of the extra rifles. They were just going to sit there and pick the corpses off one at a time. Beyond that, they didn't have a plan.
But someone did. Suddenly the van in front of them started up and began pushing the cars out of the way, and to their right, the sound of motorcycles roared. They looked out the window and saw six men on the bikes, revving the engines and making circles as they taunted the dead, drawing them away from the limo. Dani, Jax, and Ravi got back in the rig, and soon the way was clear. The limo followed the van, and the rig followed the limo as they rolled down I-77 South, leaving the horror behind. Olivia's group was saved, but they had only managed to rescue three little girls.
We have to go back, Olivia thought. She couldn't just leave those people she saw hiding in cars there to die. She looked in the rearview mirror at the toll plaza, wondering how hard it would be for the limo to make a U-turn now that the road was only two lanes again, when she suddenly saw the motorcycles catching up to them. As they drove past the limo, she could see that there were passengers on the backs of most of the bikes now, and she breathed a sigh of relief knowing they could continue on.
A few miles later, the van led them to pull over on a stretch of deserted highway, and when the door opened, and out stepped a certain, tall, dark-haired French-Canadian in tight jeans. His chin shadowed by the beginnings of a beard, he looked rugged and disheveled, and as he stalked toward the limousine in a Greyhawks t-shirt, everyone could see his well-defined muscles moving beneath his clothes. He was an absolute work of art sculpted from women's fantasies and men's nightmares as he carried a blood-drenched hockey stick he had been using to fight the dead. He had removed the blade from his skate, duct taped it to the end of the stick, and honed it to razor-sharp edge that had become stained deep red wit the blood of the freshly resurrected.
His name was Aiden LaCroix, and he was everything Liana had ever wanted.
"King of Staves," she breathed with an overtly erotic excitement in her voice, and despite that her friend had been alone for so long it was depressing to think about, June still went directly to her Four Horsemen spiel.
"Behold," she said, "A pale horse, and he who sat upon it was death."
Then in unison, Liana joined Olivia in her automated response.
"Shut the fuck up, June," they said, and everyone but June and Jobe laughed. She didn't appreciate it, and he didn't get it, but before he could ask for an explanation, Aiden LaCroix opened the door of the limo.
"Can I catch a ride?" he asked with a subtle French-Canadian accent that made Liana's heart skip a beat. "The van's almost out of gas." Liana took her feet down from the seat beside her and patted it as he got in. Penny and Brittani were sitting on the other end with two little, blonde girls sniffling in their laps, and June and Jobe were sitting in the very back, the barrier of suitcases and shopping bags now crumbled on the floor. The nine-year-old sat between them, taking everything in with a terrified look on her face.
"Thanks for helping us," Olivia said to Aiden as they pulled back onto the road. "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't."
"It was the right thing to do. We'd be dead if your people hadn't been shooting at the zombies on our side." He was the first to use the Z word, and with his accent, it made Liana g
iggle.
"So where are you headed?" Olivia asked, noticing that the motorcycles were still following along.
"Anywhere safe," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "We were trying to make it home to Canada, but we can't do another thousand miles of this. We're going to find a place to get our bearings, then decide what to do from there."
"What were you doing in West Virginia?" Liana asked.
"We were actually in Charlotte, North Carolina to see a very sick little boy whose wish was to meet the Greyhawks. The whole team went, but we're all that's left." He nodded his head backward to indicate his teammates on the motorcycles. "So where are you going?"
"We're going to Olivia's place," Liana said. "She's a doomsday prepper, so she has a compound in the mountains not too far from here."
"You're welcome to come with us," Olivia said. "As long as everyone pulls their weight, we should have enough to keep us all comfortable." She was already planning ten steps ahead, contemplating reinforcing the fence around the inner ring and wondering how to get more supplies. Some of their companions might have considered it overkill, but after what they saw at the toll booth, she didn't expect to hear anyone arguing with her. Liana wasn't going to argue. She was completely enthralled by the newest member of their group, and though she should have probably been more worried about their situation, she wasn't anymore. The other aspects of the spell had come true, so she expected that just as Dani had demanded, there would be no monkey paw bullshit. She, her friends, their children, and their chosen men were going to survive this. That didn't exactly bode well for the others they had picked up along the way, but no one was going to tell them about the spell anyway because even though individually it had crossed each of their minds that they were responsible for this plague, none of them wanted to find out how the others would take it.
Most would probably think they were nuts...and that was probably the best response they could hope for.
It was almost 7:00 AM when Olivia finally pulled the limo onto the private drive that led to her compound near the top of the mountain. The remainder of their trip had been uneventful, and thankfully, today was a holiday so there weren't thousands of people hitting I-77 on their morning commute. Or maybe people had seen the news first and decided not to leave their houses. At the compound, the kids had been watching, and the news outlets had finally discovered and started reporting on what Savannah and Rey had figured out hours before. It was surreal, and though they should have been sleeping like the boys were, there was no way any of them could get a moment's rest until there was an adult here to make them feel protected.
Olivia drove up the winding road, through the middle gate and past the blood-stained gravel and wrecked vehicles that the Vincents, who had been patrolling since last night, had moved out of the way. Growing numb to the horrors already, Olivia pressed on, and when Savannah and Rey saw the limo approaching the upper gate on the monitor, they cheered like they had won the super bowl, waking the boys.
Once the gate closed behind the Right Way truck and motorcycles, the door to the lodge swung open, and the children came rushing out to greet their parents, relieved to find that they had all made it home safely. As Olivia held onto Savannah as if her life depended on it, Evil came running out the front door toward her mother, and suddenly half a dozen rifles clicked.
"No! She's not dangerous!" Savannah shouted, protectively blocking the cat as she stood up on her hind legs and hugged Olivia, nuzzling against her face.
"I've missed you, Evie," she whispered, then she directed her gaze toward her human daughter, "but what is my sweet kitty doing roaming free?"
"Long story," Savannah said.
"Well, why don't you take her to her room and give her a treat, then you can tell me about it after we all get some sleep?"
"Yes, ma'am," she said. "Come on, Evie."
The cat followed her into the lodge, and once she had disappeared down the hall, Olivia led everyone inside. There was so much to do, but what they all really needed right now was rest. The lodge had only seven guest suites with an additional guest room in the Anders' private residence, and while the inner ring had several cabins, they decided it was safest to keep the group together for now. Olivia started pulling guns and bullets out of the safe beneath the counter, handing them out along with keycards for the rooms. She gave Dani and Jax a king room and a hand gun, then did the same for Liana and Aiden after her son expressed that he had no interest in rooming with his mother. There weren't really enough suites for her friends to have that sort of privacy since they had picked up the Greyhawks and the other new people from the toll plaza, but there were plenty of rollaway beds and places to put them.
Jobe volunteered to protect June, and Olivia set them up with June's sons, not even mentioning to Jobe that the sofa he'd be sleeping on pulled out into a bed. Then as they left with their keys, she slipped a gun in Noah's hand and told him to protect his mother.
When everyone else had a place to sleep, Olivia agreed to take first watch at the monitors.
"I love you, Mom," Savannah said, hugging her. Olivia repeated her words, and her daughter, Sally, and Bella headed off, leaving her alone in the lodge. She picked up the satellite phone and dialed Reid's number. This time, he answered.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Hiding out in a hardware store on the West Side," he said. "It's a fucking mess here, babe. Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I made it home. I'm okay. Savannah's okay. Evie's okay."
"Thank God," he breathed.
"I'm worried about you," she said.
"You worry about keeping our daughter safe," he insisted. "It's just going to take me a little longer to get home, but I'm with a group of people, and we're going to modify one of the store's delivery trucks to drive out of here. It may take a couple of days because this place is surrounded, but I promise I won't do anything stupid. I'll make it back to you, babe. I swear, I will."
"You'd better," she said.
"Tell Savvy I love her, okay?"
"I will. I love you, Reid," she whispered, choking up as she fought back tears.
"Don't cry, baby. Everything's going to be alright. I love you."
Olivia slipped the phone into her pocket and walked across the floor, heading toward the hallway to her private residence when the front door opened, startling her. Alek stepped inside, and realizing she had assigned all of the rooms without giving him a place to sleep, Olivia wondered if her subconscious wasn't somehow to blame.
In truth, Alek was to blame. He had deliberately stayed outside because there was only one bed he wanted to sleep in.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
"I wanted to walk the perimeter just to make sure there weren't any weak spots in the fence," he said. It wasn't a total lie. He did walk the perimeter, and he did think it needed to be done.
"And?" Olivia asked.
"And it all looks good," he said.
"Thank you," she said. "Are you tired? I'm going to take the first watch at the security monitors, but I can find you a bed first if..."
"I'll keep you company," he said, and she smiled, motioning for him to follow her. There were three spots in the lodge where security cameras could be viewed - the panic room attached to her bedroom, a small security room behind the main desk, and a larger room underground that she wasn't ready to tell anyone about.
She led Alek down the hall to her suite where they spent the next hour watching the monitors in her private room and talking about plans going forward. They found that they shared a lot of the same ideas about what they should do in the short term, and though they were impatient to get started fortifying their defenses, as their shift wore on, both spoke slower with heavier eyelids.
At the end of the hour, they were eager to hand the job off to Dani and Jax, and Alek stayed behind as Olivia went to the second story of the lodge where she knocked on the door of the first guest room. Dani answered in one of the robes with the lodge logo, grinning ear to ea
r, and Olivia could see Jax lying on the bed in the matching robe. Having hit the mini bar for snacks, they both looked like they thought this was just a weekend in Vegas.
"You do realize this is still the end of civilization, right?" Olivia asked with a laugh. "You should probably get dressed. I'll bet Reid has something you could wear, Jax."
"That's okay," he said, standing up and shedding his robe. Reflexively, Olivia put her hand over her eyes as he pulled his jeans back on.
"My luggage is in the limo," Dani said. "I'll grab something out of there."
Olivia led them downstairs to the security room and showed them how everything worked, explaining that they should not use the electric fence function on the dead for fear it might overload the system based on what Savannah and Rey told her. Of course, if any living people with bad intent tried to get in, they were fair game.
Sensing Olivia's exhaustion, they assured her that they could handle it, and they promised to pass the instructions on to Liana and Aiden in room #2 when their hour was up.
"You look like you're about to drop, Liv," Dani said. "Go get some sleep. We've got this."
"Okay," she said, and as she walked back toward her private residence with the sun shining through the tall windows of the lodge, she looked forward to getting some sleep in her glorious, windowless room. It slipped her tired mind that there was a tall, blonde, beautiful man without a bed assignment waiting there for her, and when she came back and saw Alek, she was torn. She didn't want to do anything that might hurt Reid, but she didn't want to be alone.
"There's a pull out bed in my office next door," she said. "Or you could stay in here with me if you don't mind sleeping on the couch." Hers and Reid's room was set up like one of the lodge suites with a sitting area, and he had noticed the couch when they left the panic room. He had also noticed that it wasn't long enough for a man of his height, but if the cramped couch was as close as he could get to Olivia's bed, he was willing to take it.