Love and Decay, Volume One

by Rachel Higginson

  Maybe there was a toll to pay? Payment for using this road? We had supplies to spare if they were civil.

  But then the guy in the middle, the one with the bandana on his head, stood up and slapped the hood of his black truck. The stillness I had momentarily grown accustomed to exploded in a rush of action and sound. Men popped up from the truck beds. They stood over us with malicious sneers and holding scary looking guns that promised pain.

  They still hadn’t said anything to us, but the intent was clear. We didn’t need to speak the same language to understand that they wanted us to surrender.

  “No.” Vaughan’s voice turned to steel. “Get down!”

  I threw Page to the floor and put my hand over Haley’s back as I helped push her face between her knees. Vaughan slammed the car into reverse and punched the gas. We zoomed backward, jerking right and left, but managing to stay on the road. Tyler let out a startled scream when Vaughan flipped the car around, tossed the gearshift back into drive and shoved his foot on the gas.

  Gunshots popped behind us, punctuating the air with warning shots. Fear pummeled my chest when I worried for the boys in the back. They were smart, I knew that. And they would know what to do in a situation like this. I knew that too. But it didn’t stop my blood from turning to ice and my eyes from watering.

  Vaughan kept his foot on the gas. He managed the big truck and the potholes in the road like a pro. His determination to flee filled the cab and bloomed courage in all of us. We had made this vow to each other over and over and over. We wouldn’t be imprisoned again.

  We wouldn’t be separated again.

  Nothing could force us apart.

  I lifted my head, anxious to see a long stretch of free road and nothing but blue skies in front of us. Instead, I watched in horror as two big trucks, one familiar and one rusted from bumper to tailgate, sped from the ditch to the middle of the road, trapping us between two immovable roadblocks.

  Vaughan let out a string of curse words and slammed on the brakes again. Hendrix punched the dash as hard as he could, denting the plastic with his fist. Nelson shot up and immediately deflated. “Damn it,” he whispered.

  A hand smacking the glass made me jump. Nelson reached behind my head and shoved the partition open. Harrison’s head poked through so he could see the reason we stopped again.

  “Son of a bitch!” he growled. Nobody bothered to bring up the cuss jar.

  The truck came to a complete stop, but Vaughan didn’t turn it off. The engine idled while people jumped into movement around us.

  I stared at the back of Vaughan’s head and willed his wheels to spin fast enough to get us out of this. I mentally calculated our chances of plowing through both vehicles and surviving. Sure, they had all kinds of guns pointed at us, but we had willpower. We had desperation.

  Surely that trumped any kind of manpower or firepower?

  No?

  Bleh.

  A silence, thick and heavy, settled over us. Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say.

  A man and a woman hopped out of their truck and moved to speak with the guy in the red bandana. I had to assume these were the two bounty hunters from the other day. They looked exactly like I expected them to, weathered, hardened and disgustingly arrogant.

  I glanced in the side mirror to see that the first three trucks had moved into position directly behind us.

  We were trapped.

  Game over.

  Another man ambled down from the newer truck. I recognized him as the man Hendrix had beaten senseless. His body was still covered in disfiguring bruises. His eyes barely opened and he licked at a split open lip that looked very painful. His eyes tracked through our cab until he found me, and then his stupid bloody lips curled into a victorious smile. He made a gun with his fingers and pulled the trigger, blowing pretend smoke off the tip of his finger.

  God, had there ever been a more obnoxious gesture?

  I did the same gesture back at him only I used my middle finger.

  He didn’t seem impressed.

  He walked over to us and kicked at the front bumper. “Out!” he yelled. “Get out!”

  “What’s the plan?” Tyler asked without moving her lips.

  Vaughan and Hendrix shared a look, but I had an answer ready. “To get them to kill us before they take us back to Matthias.”

  She didn’t look at me, and I was grateful. I probably would have burst into frustrated tears. Instead, she reached down and squeezed my kneecap. She agreed with me. There wasn’t really another option.

  Not one of us would let them take us back to the Colony. Death by bounty hunters would be a dream compared to what kind of punishment Matthias was no doubt cooking up for us.

  And I seriously doubted he would let his children live beyond an initial hello.

  “Don’t do anything stupid yet, Reagan,” Vaughan warned in a quiet voice. “Let’s see where this is going first.”

  His attention was on the man in the bandana and the American couple. The three of them seemed to be arguing heatedly about something. That gave me hope.

  Maybe Mexico didn’t extradite criminals.

  Just kidding! This was the Apocalypse after all. Nothing ever went as I wanted it to.

  I followed Haley from the cab and blinked in the hot, blinding sun. It was still early in the morning, but the desert warmed up quickly. I could feel the heat of the ground push through the soles of my boots and the morning sun as it baked my jeans. The gun tucked into the back of my pants felt slimy when I started to sweat. I became hyper aware of the weapon I needed to keep at all costs, but would inevitably lose. No doubt they would search my friends and me.

  It was still hard to tell if the Mexicans were working with the Americans or if they had separate plans for our group.

  “There’s more of them in the back,” the older of the two men explained. I recognized his voice from the other day.

  One of the guys in the cowboy hats walked over to the truck and swung the short door open. He waved his big gun around and it wasn’t long before I heard the scuffling of boots as Harrison, King and Miller shuffled out. They joined us in the shade of the truck and raised questioning eyebrows at their older brothers.

  I wasn’t the only one conditioned to expect a plan from Vaughan. But this time it didn’t seem he had one.

  I regretted not pushing to backtrack and go the other way this morning. Why had we thought we could outrun these guys? Why had we thought we could escape the clutches of the Colony?

  “You’re the chica?” the guy in the bandana demanded with a thick accent. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties. Young enough that he still had a cocky swagger to his gate, but he also held an air of authority and wisdom that came from experience. This guy made me very nervous. “The one from the poster?” He pulled said flyer from his jeans pocket and flipped it open with one hand.

  “You tell me,” I retorted. Hendrix’s forearm pressed discretely against mine- a warning.

  The guy in the bandana chuckled at my attitude. “You are the girl,” he decided. “You’re worth mucho dinero. So much…” He rubbed his thumb against his other fingers to symbolize “mucho dinero.”

  I shrugged. “No such thing as dinero.”

  His grin turned evil. “Not pesos, real money. Food. Guns. Water. My partner from the North, he’ll make me a very rich man.”

  “I’m not worth anything,” I confessed trying to sound believable. “Not enough to make you rich. You’re wasting your time. And his time.”

  Doubt flickered across his hard face, but the bounty hunters refused to give me this one victory.

  “Diego, that’s the girl!” the woman practically shrieked. “That’s her. I swear it! That’s her! See? She’s got all the brothers with her. And his kids. This is them, I swear to god.”

  “Silence!” The bandana man shouted and jabbed his gun her direction. The woman wisely shut-up. “I will decide if it is them or not.”

  The man and woman shrunk back, huddling
close together. Their beat-up friend moved to stand next to them, not anxious to speak his opinion.

  Diego walked forward, taking his time approaching us. He moved with grace and confidence that seemed at odds with his criminal-like personality. He held his gun casually in front of him, but his pointer finger stayed poised on the trigger and his eyes gleamed with attentiveness.

  This man wouldn’t hesitate to kill.

  He walked a slow circle around us, taking his time measuring our worth. All of us were still armed; nobody had bothered to take our weapons, but not one of us moved for them. We were surrounded by men who already held and aimed loaded guns. And Diego’s presence sent unease and mild terror swirling through me. I was sure my friends felt it too.

  In the cab, I had been cavalier with my threats. It was easy to choose death over Matthias when I didn’t have a gun shoved in my face. But now that the choice was here, survival instinct kicked in and I couldn’t make myself willfully walk towards death. I needed to survive.

  And I needed to make sure all of my friends survived.

  Hendrix’s arm was hot and heavy against my own. The small touch was the comfort I needed to stay standing, keep my shoulders squared and my chin lifted. He gave me courage I couldn’t have gathered without him. He gave me hope I wouldn’t have found unless he stood next to me.

  He gave me a promise to escape.

  “It’s them,” Diego announced. “Load them up!”

  The men moved into action, not hesitating for even a second.

  “Wait a second!” the bounty hunter shouted. “These are our prisoners! We’re taking them back to our side of the border!”

  Diego tossed his head back and let out a sadistic laugh. “Shoot the gringos,” Diego ordered. “But leave the ugly one alive to fetch his master.”

  I ignored the instinct to stay still or be shot. I spun to the side, grabbed Page and crushed her against my body. I wrapped both of my arms around her head and tried to shield her as best as I could. The gunshots punched through the air, echoing poignantly in the middle of the road.

  Diego’s men did not question his orders. They obeyed.

  Two bodies hit the pavement and the slow slump screamed louder than the two shots.

  This was what Mexico was like.

  Now we knew.

  Chapter Three

  They split us into small groupings and loaded us in the backs of their trucks after they confiscated our weapons. It should be said that they were not gentle with us, nor were they modest. I thought the Parkers’ heads were going to explode when they were forced to watch Haley, Tyler and I get searched.

  Diego lazily refocused his men and they moved on from patting us down. His lack of effort and enthusiasm made me nervous for what was yet to come.

  I wasn’t wishing Matthias a speedy journey, but I also knew whatever time we spent under Diego’s watch would not be enjoyable.

  The men didn’t seem concerned with the possibility one of us could be infected. They were much too interested in our girly bits to care about bite marks or symptoms of infection.

  That brief interaction left a foul taste in my mouth. I hated these men all over again.

  Once we were secured in the back of the truck, they surrounded us with men and guns and took off for their settlement- wherever that was.

  We had been driving pretty straight south, but they turned west. I guessed they had a home base of some kind.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how the bounty hunters found them. Had they known where to go to get help? Had they stumbled upon Diego and his merry band of perverts and offered us up in a trade of sorts?

  We drove right by the backup trucks and hadn’t noticed them. We walked right into that trap.

  And now we were prisoners to the local Mexican government and the bounty hunter Hendrix had beaten the crap out of was now on his way to alert Matthias of our capture and bring him back to us.

  I did not see how this could end well for us.

  Of course, there were all kinds of variables in play. For instance, Matthias wouldn’t want to leave his empirical seat at the head of the Colony. Who knew all of the bad things that could go awry with his absence? Or the bounty hunter could be attacked and eaten by Zombies in between here and there. Or maybe that would happen to Matthias on his way down.

  Diego shouted out orders to his men in Spanish. I caught a few words I recognized from my high school language classes, but not enough to give me any indication of what he said.

  I watched it unfold though. Four men checked out our truck from front to back. They measured the gasoline we had left, loaded the bed up with more of their own and then got in our truck and took off toward the bounty hunter they’d let escape.

  So they were his escort?

  I couldn’t be certain, but that was what it looked like. Not to mention, they took every last one of our supplies and extra ammo.

  I lost everything in that stupid truck. My extra clothes, my extra ammo, my emergency rations… my razors.

  I was back to square one. Again.

  Holy shit, I found that painfully obnoxious.

  Right then and there, as my personal hygiene loot disappeared in front of my eyes, I decided I would make Diego pay for his crimes against humanity, his crimes against the little remnants of my humanity that he stole from me.

  I said goodbye to those precious material items that shouldn’t have mattered so much to me and braced myself when the truck jolted to a start. I rested my back against Tyler’s and counted my friends as the trucks moved to line up single file.

  I couldn’t help but notice that there were more men on me than any of my friends. I found this silly since I was truly a mid-level threat. But the less attention put on the Parkers, the better.

  We navigated down dusty dirty roads at a dangerous pace. I tried to take in everything I could as we raced toward something unknown.

  Structures in the desert started to pop up more and more frequently. At first glance, they looked like giant crates built into the cracked earth. They took up large amounts of space, with flat roofs and slatted sides. I didn’t understand what they were for. They looked like lobster traps.

  Tyler nudged her shoulder in to mine. “Zombies,” she mouthed when we passed by another one.

  I squinted as we flashed by, catching the site of a rotting hand reaching through a space on the side. The longer we drove, the better I could make out the Feeders locked inside.

  Eventually, there were enough Zombie cages situated close together that I could hear them too. They groaned and screeched at each other. I could hear their teeth tearing each other apart and the rip of flesh and bone.

  They were savaged and crazed in those crates, but they were contained. It was like Matthias’s school hallways, only these Feeders had direct access to each other.

  A sick feeling churned in my stomach. What would happen if someone opened these cages? How much carnage could these abused Feeders wreak? And how quickly?

  I wondered if this was a symbol of hope for locals? If Diego was responsible for solving the Zombie infestation in these parts, did they worship the same way people revered Matthias? Or was Diego just a small part of the political puzzle down here?

  I wanted to drop my head into my hands. Hey, guys! Let’s go south! It will be super fun! Honestly, what the hell was I thinking???

  “Reagan, don’t puke on me,” Harrison whispered.

  I shook my head and jerked back into focus. “I won’t.”

  He didn’t look convinced. A boot in his back kept us from talking more though.

  The tires kicked up the dust from the dry desert and formed clouds all around us. I tried not to choke on the slap of wind in my face and the gritty feeling on my tongue and skin. I hugged my knees to my chest and searched for a solution to this brand new problem.

  I needed to see what kind of structure they were taking us to before I could really come up with a solution though. Diving out of the truck and taking off into a desert layered with Z
ombie prisons was not an option.

  Yet.

  I didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, we arrived in a small town.

  People wandered the streets in every shape and size. They talked easily with each other and eyed the trucks warily. They all held guns at their sides, not bothering to tuck them away or hide them.

  Whatever kind of military leader Diego was, he at least didn’t deprive his people of weapons.

  Matthias would be so culture-shocked when he finally got down here.

  The buildings were little more than shacks made from leaning stucco and flat roofs. The road leading into town was dirt and so were all of the side roads. This had been a struggling community before the infection.

  Now it was just an echo of civilization, a faded call against the very distant hills. You could make it out, but barely.

  We pulled up in front of one of the only solid looking structures. The engines shut off at once and the air filled with shockingly normal sounds of village life. They all spoke a different language than we did, but there was a consistency to humanity that made their activity familiar.

  The gunmen herded us into the building. I looked back at an old woman, a teenage girl and a little boy who watched us closely. Expressions of open curiosity painted their weary faces, but when the men holding us prisoner walked by them, they quickly turned their attention elsewhere.

  Inside, we were blissfully relieved from the heat of the sun. Light filtered in through square windows evenly spaced around the one-floor building and revealed that this had once been a police precinct.

  A small lobby greeted us, opening up into an office area complete with desks, very old computers and equally old telephones. Beyond those antiquated items, a simple jail lined the back wall.

  It was like a scene from an old Western. Three cells stood side by side in the classic style.

  This was where we were taken. Although, I had half-expected to have mug shots and fingerprints taken.

  That didn’t happen. Whew. My permanent record was still technically unscathed.

  They split us up into the three separate cells. Or, really, I should say that they split me up. I got my very own room. How sweet.