And yet… he was saving lives.
“The world we live in is chaotic, the decisions we make are hard ones,” I said after a moment.
“With death all around us and hope disappearing more and more every day that passes, people desperately need something to believe in, something to hold on to. I just wish it wasn’t all the crap Michael has been shoveling.”
Uncle Gus grunted at that.
“So do I, son. So do I,” he agreed wearily.
“So, what are you doing, Tex? What are you planning?” I met his gaze for a second before turning my face away. I still couldn’t trust him. I’d be wagering Maria and her brother’s lives on a hunch that Uncle Gus was a good man, a good man in an impossible situation. I still couldn’t take that chance. It wasn’t my call. He sighed deeply and then stood up from the table.
“I could really use a drink right about now,” he muttered beneath his breath.
“Whatever it is, Tex, please be careful. You know what Michael is capable of. I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
I nodded my head once and glanced up into Uncle Gus’s all-knowing gaze.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
He shook his head and smiled sadly.
“Good. Godspeed, Tex. I have a feeling I won’t be seeing you again.”
“Godspeed, Uncle Gus.”
A few minutes later, I left the mess hall and headed to my cabin.
It was almost time.
Chapter Thirteen
One Bad Mother
When the time came to sneak out of my cabin, everything was eerily quiet. My cabin mates were asleep, some of them snoring loudly, and it only took me a second to sneak out the door and to make my way across the camp and back to the side of the mess hall. I found the rucksack right where I’d stashed it.
I pulled out my loaded gun and stashed it in my waistband. I hauled the bag on and attached my knife to the front strap for easy access. I drew back into the shadows of the building when one of the men who patrolled the wall of the camp strolled into view. He didn’t have his weapon at the ready.
They were very casual since they didn’t have more than a few zombies to dispatch each night. They only rarely had a large group come through this part of the woods from what I’d been told. I told Michael and the other men that they needed to be more vigilant. Eventually a large mass of zombies would come through.
Drawn to the sounds and the smells of the camp, it would only be a matter of time and they needed to prepare for that here, though I had a feeling my warning had fallen on deaf ears.
I turned, warned by a sound that someone was coming up behind me.
I yanked my knife out, but Maria stood there with a backpack on and a large bundle in her arms. I breathed a sigh of relief and put my knife away. I glanced behind her looking for her brother, except no one was with her.
“Where’s your brother?” I whispered, pulling her arm gently to bring her more fully into the shadows like I was.
Her eyes met mine and her lips thinned into a straight line. She raised her chin.
“I don’t have a brother.”
I frowned, my forehead creasing in thought.
“I don’t understand. That teen boy wasn’t your brother?” I asked.
If he wasn’t, then who did she mean when she asked about the base taking two people in? Maria’s mouth popped open to reply right as the bundle in her arms moved, revealing a small head of hair at the top of the bundle.
Maria’s mouth closed with an audible snap and she covered the head with the blanket.
My heart thudded painfully in my chest and my mouth dried out. I reached over, my hand surprisingly calm. Maria stiffened, though didn’t object when I removed the blanket and pulled it down far enough to reveal the tiny, sleeping face of a child.
So many emotions and thoughts ran through my body that I nearly staggered from the onslaught. I hadn’t seen a child so young in over a year. Not a live child, anyway.
Then it all came crashing in.
My eyes widened and I took a step back.
“I can’t, Maria. I can’t take a baby out in that,” I said harshly, pointing to the gates.
“We have to,” she insisted. I shook my head and set my jaw. No way in hell.
“This isn’t up to you, Tex,” she hissed.
“Like hell it isn’t,” I replied, my anger barely controlled.
“I will not be responsible for getting a baby killed.”
I ran a hand through my hair and pulled roughly on the ends.
“You can’t ask me to do this,” I said without looking at her.
“I can, Tex,” she replied. “I have to. Don’t you see? I can’t allow my daughter to be raised here. Have her growing up believing in Michael’s teachings. To be his daughter?” she asked roughly.
“And then when she turns sixteen to be handed over to a man twice her age to further the propagation of the true believers? I’d rather die first.”
“What about her?” I asked.
“Would you rather her die than stay here?” I asked a little softer this time.
She glanced down at the face of her baby and wiped a gentle touch across her brow before covering her head once again with the thin blanket.
“I’m willing to take this chance. For her. For her future. What point is there to survival if you’re only surviving to live a life with no hope?”
Her eyes met mine full of unshed tears. Her words echoed inside my skull. Not so long ago I’d thought the same things. Not so long ago I was ready to die rather than go on with no hope. Maybe she was right. Maybe I had survived this long to be her source of hope for her child.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” I murmured, searching the area.
Maria snorted softly, drawing my questioning gaze back to her.
“Tex, I survived the zombie apocalypse during my ninth month of pregnancy all alone. I delivered my own baby in a deserted pharmacy in Charlotte, and I nursed and protected an infant who could scream at any moment for months before Uncle Gus found me and brought me here to Camp Victory.”
My mouth hung open.
Maria had survived against horrible odds.
Maria was one tough mother.
“I think I understand the risks,” she said with a half-smile.
Knowing all of that, knowing she was making the choice she felt best for herself and her baby, still I hesitated. I ran a hand through my hair and over my face roughly.
“Okay then. Let’s do this.”
She blinked rapidly before turning her eyes down to the bundle in her arms.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
We waited for the front gate patrol to pass by before we made our move a few heartbeats later. We both knew he’d walk the entire length of the front fence line and then head back toward the gate.
We only had a few moments to slip through the gates unnoticed. I pulled up the bar on the gate while Maria slipped through easily. I slipped through after her and when no one shouted out and no shots flew past us, I moved quickly away from the camp, making as little noise as possible.
Time was our only hope.
We had to put a lot of ground between us and the camp before everyone awoke and before Michael noticed we were gone. I had no doubt he’d come looking, I just hoped he would give up if we made it too difficult for him to find us. If we made the risks not worth the reward.
We walked for two hours before stopping to rest for the first time. Maria sat down on the ground and laid the child in her lap, taking a moment to stretch her arms.
“How long do you think it will take us to clear the woods and to get to the nearest town?” she asked after she took a quick swig of water.
“Probably all morning. We might be able to clear the woods about the time everyone realizes we’re missing,” I answered.
“I’m hoping maybe to even be in town at that point. It will be harder to find us if we have buildings to hide in. If we’re caught out in the open thoug
h….”
Maria frowned.
“Yeah, we don’t want to be caught out in the open,” she agreed.
“We should get moving,” I said a few minutes later. Maria shifted the baby in her lap, snuggling the sleeping child into her before trying to get up. I came over to help her.
She smiled gratefully.
“She weighs a lot more than she did six months ago,” she whispered.
I stood there for a moment, gazing down at the sleeping child.
The world shifted into rightness for a blessed second.
Hope was a tangible thing in the form of an innocent child sleeping in her mother’s arms.
I vowed that I would get that hope to the Army base come hell or high water.
I wouldn’t fail. I couldn’t.
Maria searched my face and I wondered if she saw the determinedness there, the hope she and her child had rekindled in me.
“What’s her name?” I asked softly.
Maria smiled up at me.
“Rose,” she said. “Her name is Rose.”
We continued on walking in silence after that, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
Both of us determined to get little Rose to safety.
Chapter Fourteen
Zombies Go Splat
We walked straight through the early morning hours, only pausing to catch our breaths and to drink a little water before moving on. I’d been worried about Maria carrying the baby, and yet she never once complained even though I knew she had to be getting tired.
“Tex,” Maria breathed out in a whisper, “look.”
I turned in the direction that she was staring. The tree line thinned there, and I could see the sun shining off of a sign. A sign meant a road and a road meant we were closer to a town. I looked up into the sky. The entire forest was getting brighter and brighter.
Morning had already come, and people would soon realize we were gone.
“We need to hurry,” I said.
We both picked up our pace. We had to find a place to hole up before Michael came looking. The baby would wake up soon and we both needed to rest. We cleared the tree line cautiously, making sure we hadn’t miscalculated and would find Michael already waiting for us if we chanced coming out into the open.
Nothing moved.
Nothing living, that is.
It only took us another half hour before we found the undead waiting for us.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had to fight,” Maria whispered at the sight of the first zombie approaching us.
I wasted no time, not wanting to risk the corpse getting too close to Maria and the baby.
The zombie splatted on the pavement in front of us, its brains nearly bursting from its cranium before I even got my knife free. We both stood there in stunned silence for a moment, staring down at the explosion of gray and black matter.
“Well, that’s new,” I muttered beneath my breath, trying not to inhale too deeply.
Several more zombies met their demise like the first.
They couldn’t move very fast, so they were easily taken down one by one. I wondered what was wrong with these particular zombies. Were they sicker than the hundreds of undead I’d fought previously? Were they more contagious?
My head spun from what it all could mean.
When we spotted the town of Pineville, Maria and I both heaved a sigh of relief.
Oddly enough, the town didn’t look like it was in too bad shape.
It didn’t even look too badly overrun with the undead.
“Michael will come here first thing,” Maria said. I nodded.
I’d thought that too. We needed to find a car and move away from Pineville as soon as possible. Several cars littered the streets. Two had been wrecked. One looked like it had been in bad shape even before the apocalypse.
Then, at the other end of town, I saw a car parked in front of a bookstore. I was betting that car might have had the keys in the ignition. If not, maybe the owner had worked at the bookstore and the keys were there.
“There,” I said.
“You stay behind me and I’ll take down as many as get in our way. If things get ugly, you make a run for that bookstore and I’ll meet you there.”
Maria pulled a knife, holding it in her right hand and the baby in her left. Rose stirred in her arms.
“Just a little longer, mama. Sleep a little longer,” she whispered sweetly to the sleeping child. I began moving. I didn’t look back. I knew she was following closely behind.
We moved swiftly through the little main street of town. Zombies fell around me and though the town was by no means overrun, it did have a plethora of corpses looking for a meal.
We were only two storefronts away when I heard Maria gasp. I turned right as a zombie stumbled out of a broken store window we’d passed. I’d been so busy taking down the threats on the street, I hadn’t noticed that one inside the store.
I moved quickly, but not before the zombie got to Maria. She didn’t hesitate though, her arm moved out to the right and swung in an arc until her knife was embedded in the left temple of the badly decomposed zombie. The jarring movements woke the baby abruptly, scaring her into crying.
I reached Maria while she tried to remove her deeply lodged knife.
“Hand me the baby,” I said.
Maria handed Rose over to me hastily so she could pull her knife free. More zombies were headed our way and Rose had begun to wail. I shushed the baby gently, murmuring absolute nonsense to her as we ran the rest of the way to the bookstore.
We reached the store and threw ourselves inside, opting to take our chances inside than outside with a crying child and shambling corpses headed our way.
Maria reached out for Rose as soon as we had the door secured.
“Stay here, I’ll check out the store.”
Maria already had the baby calmed down when I set out to make sure the store was zombie free.
“Looks like someone stayed here before,” I said from around a few bookshelves.
“There’s a couch over here.”
Maria came around the corner with a very alert Rose on her hip. The baby eyed me curiously, not looking like she trusted me for one second. She had her mom’s dark brown eyes and her skin was the same pretty shade as her mom’s as well.
Maria walked closer to stand in front of me.
“Look, Rose. This nice man’s name is Tex,” she said sweetly.
I smiled at the baby, meeting her very serious gaze. Maria raised her hand and placed it on my chest.
“Tex,” she said again gently. Rose put out a small hand and her mom leaned in, bringing her closer to me. Her tiny hand patted me twice on the chest and then she grinned.
And just like that, I was done for any other woman.
Rose would have me wrapped around her tiny little finger for life. Then she blinked and lost interest in me altogether. Maria took her over to sit on the couch. I held out a colorful board book I’d picked up a few minutes earlier.
Maria beamed at me and the baby instantly cooed over her new prize.
“I’m going to see about finding keys to that car and I’ll also see about clearing out the zombies we attracted to the front of the store,” I said after watching Rose play with her book for a few minutes longer.
“I’ll feed her some snacks while you do that and we’ll be ready to go as soon as you are,” Maria assured me. I turned to leave.
“Tex?”
“Yeah?” I threw over my shoulder.
“Be careful,” Maria said softly.
“I will.”
Ten overly bloated zombies later, I had cleared the front of the store.
Unfortunately, that meant that the entire area was now covered in putrid innards, by far the largest mess and most stomach-curdling stench that I’d encountered since the first day the dead began to walk.
I stood outside for a while looking over the bodies of the zombies, careful not to get closer than necessary. My boots, jeans, and arms
were covered in their entrails, but I didn’t want to take the chance it would get in my face or on me any more than necessary.
Something was going on, though it was yet unclear exactly what.
What that meant for us survivors was anyone’s guess.
Was the virus adapting? Evolving?
I grimaced.
I didn’t like the implications.
The car was unlocked, and the inside was clean. I didn’t find any keys, but if I had to, I could get it started with some effort. First, I needed to check on Maria and Rose. I found a half empty bottle of water and a tee shirt in the back of the car and used them to wash up before I went inside.
“How is it out there?” Maria asked when I entered.
“We’ll be able to leave through the front without any problems.”
Maria studied me over the top of her daughter’s head. The tiny girl, no older than nine months or so, was happily and quietly playing with her book.
“Something has changed.”
I glanced away, not wanting to scare her, especially since I had no idea what the change in the zombies could even mean.
“Yeah, something is different. Maybe it’s just these zombies though. Maybe they were all sick before they died or maybe they were exposed to something after they died that made them this way. It’s nothing to worry about since we have no idea what the circumstances are.”
Maria sat there for a moment in thought and then heaved a sigh.
“Alright. We should get out of here. The camp must be awake now. People will be heading to breakfast,” she said.
And then they would know we were missing. Yeah, time to move.
“I couldn’t find the keys to the car, so I’m going to have to hotwire it,” I told her.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do it, but I think I can manage.”
Maria grinned hugely and shook her head.
I raised a brow.
“What?”
She tossed me a set of keys.
“They were in a purse under the cash register area,” she laughed.
“Guess I won’t get to show off my mad car theft skills then,” I grumbled.
State of | Book 2 | State of Ruin Page 8