Nick drops the table, freeing his hands. As he lifts her into the air with his embrace, Hannah kisses his neck. She turns her head and spits. “You taste like gunpowder.”
“It’s the flavor of a working man.”
“And a man who provides is sexy, but not flavorful. You shower. I have to visit the infirmary and check on Emily.”
“I didn’t know you were friends,” Nick says.
“Wanikiya asked me to speak with her.”
“Prepare yourself.” Nick places her on her feet.
“What do you mean?”
“They fucked her up. Head trauma,” Nick says. He kisses Hannah’s forehead. “Be kind.”
“I will. You shower.”
Giggles.
Giggles between two veteran lovers experiencing a new partner.
Giggles between two people making love because they’re still alive.
Hidden under the sheets, the couple squirms, contorts and even wrestles into amicable positions of pleasure.
Gentle moans twist into grunts as Combeth flips Sanchez over onto her stomach. Amie uses both hands to rub her bulbous rump. She arches her back toward him, presenting herself. He slides his hands around, gripping her breasts and not having enough to cover her mounds. Grinding and twerking her pelvis, she works his stiffness inside her.
His quick thrusts break her thought. Amie’s eyes roll back into her head, leaving a demonic glaze of pleasure. If Combeth was able to stare into her eyes as he pounded her, it might ruin the moment. He moves too fast and then slows down, demanding this event last and to satisfy her enough for many repeat performances.
He loses count of the thrusts it takes to bring Amie into releasing pleasure moans.
She must force penetrating thoughts from her brain such as, What if Dartagnan hears?
Emily would take great pleasure in knowing I’m sleeping with someone other than Ethan. This might restore hope in her. I’m not an obstacle in her way to have the man who saved her. After all, I did bid for Ethan’s affections, too. Ethan’s gone. The earthquake. Ethan was near the epi…cen…ter. Ethan. Not. Dead. Ethan. I—
“Ethan!”
Amie’s body reaches climax. Her body collapses in a state of limpness, and her mind realizes the focus of her thoughts right before the moment.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkk!
Combeth. He was inside me, and I called out another man’s name.
Afraid to move as he leaves the bed, she hears the rattle of his belt as he retrieves his pants. I wouldn’t blame him if he slapped me for the hurt I know I caused him. Amie keeps her face buried in the pillow. What do I say? What do I say that doesn’t make it worse?
Not saying anything must be making it worse.
You need to say something, before he grabs his boots and reaches the door. You invited him for sex. Never say names, girl. She reaches her hand between her breasts. She rescues the silver cross trapped there. God. Call only to Him. No mistakes then.
The worst of it is, I wasn’t even thinking about Ethan in a sexy way. That won’t make Combeth feel better, but he did bring me to climax.
As you were thinking of Ethan.
Amie sits up, making no effort to cover herself, as if she expects—prays—exposed boobs will fix the problem she caused between them.
She fumbles over her own words. “I was really into it, and I was so into it, I was going to get louder, and then some part of my brain reminded me Dartagnan might hear. Then I didn’t want him to tell Ethan he heard me and—”
“At what point do you think you’re making any of this any better?” Combeth grabs his boots.
Amie chews her bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Pouting like a white girl—never your style, Sanchez.” He snaps on his heels so fast the legs of his pants slap the door as he marches out.
Why try again? We should’ve had the one moment after the river. Now I outrank him. Why do I care? I want sex.
Jilted out of the mood, she discovers her own clothes scattered like breadcrumbs to the bathroom. She sniffs at her wet shirt. Heavy with the perfume of gunpowder and her own sweat, she tosses it at the hamper. Retrieving a clean one from the drawer, she ponders what she’ll do when she wears out her only other real bra. Not that I shopped at Victoria’s Secret before the end of the world; they didn’t cater to girls of my stature, but now there are no shops for me to get new undergarments. Lack of comfortable fitting bras will take a back seat when there are no longer tampons. The men worry about all the bullets they’ve expended when they’ve defended the camp from the waves of undead, never stopping to consider other, more personal survival issues will grip us as well.
The drawer catches on the slide back in. Sanchez pushes, then tugs, and the drawer remains stuck. She shakes it hard enough to rattle against the wall, knocking down a framed picture. The three unknown girls who used to live here. She picks up the largest chunk of shattered glass, careful not to scratch the picture.
“You have no pants on.” Dartagnan’s surgical observation should leave her embarrassed or, at the least, uncomfortable, but the boy’s casual, as if a naked woman is commonplace in his everyday world.
“I was getting dressed and the drawer stuck.” She searches the room for a quick covering, but Dartagnan ignores her exposed lower half as he adjusts the drawer, sliding it with ease back into place.
“All fixed.” He shifts subjects without any segue. “Ethan’s been gone for…” He touches one of the five watches on his arm. “Eleven days. I’m out of paint. So much to repair. So much to repair.”
His constant, diligent work on the model of Acheron keeps his savant mind busy when he isn’t calculating the necessary needed supplies of the camp.
“I’ll see if any of the other scavenging teams located any paint. Do you mind stepping out while I finish dressing?”
“My mother had breasts. Why do women find it uncomfortable to display them? They’re for attracting a mate. Why not show them all the time to utilize them to their effective purpose?”
Oh, my God! No way in hell am I having The Talk. “Dartagnan, many cultures have an expectation of modesty.”
“Seems a waste of resources when greater problems persist across the planet.”
“You want the short answer? If they aren’t properly secured, they hurt when they bounce around.” She closes her eyes. “And please don’t ever ask me about this again.” Same problem I’m going to have when I use up my sports bras.
When she opens her eyes, Dartagnan has gone.
In the horror of the moment, she realizes and calls after the boy who functions on a literal level, “It’s not polite to speak to any girl about her boobs.” Why is he back at the farm? I thought they sedated him.
She must wash her BDUs as they’re coated in gunpowder residue as well. As she pulls on her jeans, she mumbles to herself, “Of all the problems at the end of the world, I would never bet on this. Sad, I think the special kid gets it better than most normal adult men I’ve met.”
“Emily.” Hannah knocks on the door to the classroom sectioned off with curtains to be the medical ward.
“Hannah?” Emily presses the button, raising the hospital bed up.
Even prepared, Hannah did not expect as many blood-stained bandages. “I’ve patrolled the fence so many times since the quake. I…I’m sorry.”
“Nothing you could have done.” Did I forget we were friends?
“I ride the fence every day to protect us.”
“The inside. They climbed over. And in a crisis. They say I killed two of the three. Not all that thrilled Sanchez saved me.”
“Corporal Sanchez. She saved the camp,” Hannah says.
“Thought she was a Private.”
“Heroes get promoted, when they aren’t remembered with a stone,” Hannah says. “I’ve visited more memorials dedicated to heroes during the wars of the old life. Guess the outbreak will become a marker of time.”
“New calendars don’t
seem a priority.”
Hannah approaches the bed. She touches the quilt. “Does it hurt?’
“Can you be more specific?”
“Your head.”
“All of me hurts. And I’m glad I was never one to worry over my appearance, because…” Tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m disfigured.”
Hannah slides onto the bed, leans to avoid the broken arm, and hugs Emily as she cries.
ETHAN’S EYE LINES up down the barrel of his M&P, through the white, night sight dots and at his intended target. You don’t miss. Miss and that’s the one that kills you. His ears ring from the truck explosion.
Kaleb draws his mouth into a twisted grin, displaying his pride. Revenge for his brothers’ deaths splashes over his face.
If the Bowlin idiot only knew the pain crossing Ethan wasn’t because he cared for the dead girl next to him, but that her blood contains antivirals which might produce a vaccine to end the scourge of the undead. People like the Bowlins never desire order be restored to the world.
The flames gnaw at Kaleb, and he refuses to allow another Bowlin life to end at the hands of this man. He rolls into the center of the smoking asphalt hole, smug in his win.
Seconds pass.
The Humvee crash aggravates his damaged leg. Ethan reaches the crater blasted in the bridge. Aiming at the center of the rippling disturbance in the water, he decides not waste valuable rounds, lacking a solid target.
Even if he survived the fall, the undercurrents will keep him from shore. Ethan eyes the bubbles until they’re gone and readies his weapon at the impact spot longer than it would have taken Aquaman to be forced to surface. Dead.
Scanning the bridge, burning truck, lots of bodies. The explosion alone will draw the undead. None of Bowlin’s men stir.
It’s becoming a career—killing these bastards. As the high-pitched ring subsides in his skull, Ethan detects the distant scattering of automatic rounds. A few of the Marines live. Give’m hell. Too bad the cure—he uses the back of his hand to fling off Amanda’s blood splattered across his face—died with her. Amanda’s final drops of life splash onto the bridge.
Cost more than it was worth. So much for saving the world. Ethan hobbles to Becky. The moan-howl cadence deafens around them as he cradles her in his arms. Poor kid. I’m sorry. You’d have made a great warrior in this new world. “I’m proud of you.”
The tears burn as he blinks drops of Amanda’s blood from his eye.
With her unswollen eye, Becky glances at him as she once did her father. She moves her broken jaw. Ethan places his ear next to her lips. Through splintered teeth, she spits four words.
Her last four words.
“Baby…okay…end…me—”
There’s no getting her off the bridge, and even my crack medical team lacks the treatment center for her trauma. Tears stream from the center of Ethan’s left eye.
No words.
A thunder boom ends her pain and any chance of reanimation.
Ethan pops the clip.
Twelve.
And one in the pipe.
The undead shamble from both ends of the Hernando de Soto Bridge. Ethan ignores his natural urge to count and calculate his shots, facing down a hundred times as many biters as he has rounds.
I need on the Arkansas side. If I fail, I’ll fail that direction. He hobbles west, expending two rounds. He drops one biter and splinters the clavicle of another. Still too far away. No wasting rounds. Must risk them getting closer. What a grand Butch Cassidy exit, and no one will be around to tell the tale.
He slips a second full clip from his belt, placing it in his mouth. Then he grips the third full clip in his left hand, ready to replace the first once he empties.
I wish for that rocket launcher. In a few seconds, I’m going to wish for more ammo, but I’d blow the hell out of these fuckers. Instead…maybe I should follow that Bowlin bastard into the river. I’d have to give up my gear, and how many miles down the river would I be before…if I could reach the shore. Undertows. They’ve killed a lot dumb enough to swim in the river. Last resort—river. Oh hell, the fall would probably kill me.
Fuck me. The fall should kill me. It’ll be a hell of an impact. Save the last round. I won’t be—
An aftershock rocks the bridge.
The undead stumble—lost, confused. Some stagger to the rail and fall into the Mississippi. Those that move don’t seem aware of Ethan.
Never refuse a gift horse. As he picks up speed, his bum legs stretches, and he moves west. He pockets the clip in his hand and releases the one from the M&P. He loads the missing rounds.
No fucking way. Ethan spits out the clip. “No fucking way!” If I live through this, no one will believe me.
Full-armored medieval knights on horseback hack through the herd on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River. Swords cleave off heads. Axes and Thor hammers smash skulls.
The undead paw at the horses but are deflected by a chain mail covering.
It takes Ethan seconds to register it’s no hallucination. They’re real. Real men mounted on mares and wielding broadswords. I need to be where they are. He chooses his targets carefully so no bullets penetrate the confused undead and harm his saviors?
Clear a path. He pops a biter near the edge of the rail. It falls. I need to be ending those in the center. He picks off biter after biter until the black powder smell fills his nose over the rot. Ethan shifts his attention to those approaching from behind him. Fuck it! He rattles off the clip.
The undead approaching from the east side attack the flames of the truck. Some munch on the bodies of Bowlin’s men.
Guess they weren’t dead.
They eat until each person turns, having nothing to do with the undead flesh. Most of those men were dead from head shots and will never transform as the undead consume them quickly. It gives me a buffer as I wait for my handsome rescuers. Just need a tall tower guarded by a dragon.
The next aftershock spooks the horses.
Fuck me!
Explosions erupt from Memphis.
From the herd bursts an undead soldier as tall as Ethan with even wider shoulders, moving with linebacker speed. It howls.
Ethan ejects the empty clip. He has no time to pop in a fresh. He drops the gun, drawing his Taurus Magnum.
“You have to ask yourself if you feel lucky. Do you? Punk.” The thunder tears open the top of the brute’s left shoulder. Two more unaided shots splinter the chest of the monster. I’ve never encountered one so fast. Ethan draws and holds his breath. Aims.
The biter reaches a one-inch distance from the Taurus barrel. The flames from the powder ignite the collar as the head disintegrates into a fine, blackish-red mist. The lack of skull doesn’t prevent the impact of the body. Ethan finds himself on his back and his Magnum skittering down the pavement.
He rolls to his stomach and pushes up to his knees while grabbing his M&P. Sliding in a clip, he hobbles toward his Magnum.
As he recovers his gun, the knights reach him. They circle him, their white tunics splattered in blackish, coagulated blood. A knight pulling an unsaddled horse drops the reins at Ethan’s feet.
Through the air holes comes a muffled voice. “Come with us if you want to live.”
“Always wanted to say that, haven’t you?” Ethan grabs the leather straps.
“We can leave you here for the Nachzehrer.”
Ethan grabs the base of the mare’s mane and flips onto the back—not his first rodeo.
The confused undead stagger past the living warriors toward the burning city.
MIKE LACES HIS fingers into Kelsey’s as she sleeps in a hospital bed. Tubes sprout from her mouth, nose and down her arms.
A man in full tactical gear slides into the room, followed by an older man in a lab coat.
The unfamiliar rifle hangs from a plastic crampon attached to his chest armor for easy recovery and discharge.
Mercenary. Mike whispers, “Doctor’s here.”
“You should b
e in your bed. You open up your chest wound or do any more damage to your back, I don’t have any whole blood to replace it,” the doctor says.
“Someone she trusts should be here when she wakes.”
The doctor checks the vitals on the computer screen. “Trust is relative. Captain Mayberry took pity on you. He has orders not to allow anyone inside.”
“And I owe him…and you,” Mike says.
“Your friend may not have the same feelings.”
“If you hadn’t taken her leg, she would have died.”
“Outside, a one-legged person has no chance of surviving.”
“I’ll protect her,” Mike says.
“You have an infection. Whoever flayed your side and back left you in need of antibiotics. I don’t have enough to spare to give you the full dose you’ll need,” the doctor says.
“Any assistance you give us is appreciated. We can’t repay you,” Mike admits.
“Your blood work was helpful.” The doctor sits on a stool. “Your friend needed immediate attention, or she would’ve died. I might have to take her other foot, but she must be stable first. Your body has seen much abuse. What I must know is how you two got this way?”
“I lived in St. Louis. The city held out for close to ten months. A caravan of final survivors was in the process of traveling to Fort Leonard Wood. A herd of undead swarmed and…I escaped.”
“Highway 44?”
“Yes. Miles of trucks—all loaded with supplies, if you were wondering.”
“It takes our team farther trips out to replenish certain items.”
“What is this place? A research lab?” Mike asks.
“And your back?”
“After I escaped the herd, I was captured by a…” Mike ups his game to avoid appearing weak. “A couple drugged me, and when I woke, I was hog-tied. They were cutting off my flesh to eat.”
“Whoever cut had a surgeon’s hands. The removal was clean. You’ve broken open a few times, and it was filthy.”
“You’ve never been outside during the outbreak, have you?” Mike knows the answer to his question.
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 18