Ground Zero

by Jessica Meigs

  “I think it’s about time we got out of here,” Ethan announced. He stood in front of Nikola, seemingly shielding her from the sight of Remy hacking the man’s head off. His hand gripped Brandt’s forearm, like he was holding him back; Brandt looked ready to jump in and stop her. “Everybody go back to where you were, grab your supplies, and bring them to the front doors as quickly as you can,” he instructed. “We’ve got to get everything into the van and get the hell out of here.”

  Remy made a face at Ethan and kicked the dead man as she walked past him toward the department’s exit. “It was just one,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “You act like we just got attacked by an entire horde.”

  “Remy,” Ethan said simply. She immediately felt cowed by his tone, and her shoulders slumped.

  “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and moving toward sporting goods. “Cade, come help with this ammo, yeah?” she suggested, feeling the burning need to get away from the others quickly. The older woman pulled away from Brandt’s interrogation about her health and headed to Remy, taking her elbow and practically dragging her to their previous location.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Cade snapped as soon as they were out of earshot of the rest of the group.

  “I was thinking I could help Nikki,” Remy said defensively, jerking her arm out of Cade’s grasp.

  “You could have gotten yourself killed!” Cade hissed. She circled back around the sales counter and grabbed a screwdriver, jabbing it viciously into the lock on the ammunition case and starting to work at it furiously. “You’re not stupid, Remy! Stop acting like it!”

  “Well, somebody had to get back there and help them!” she snapped back. She glared as she shoved the shopping cart behind the counter and fought the urge to ram it into Cade’s ladder. “That Avi bitch was just fucking standing there! And Nikola isn’t going to be able to kill anything with that damned baseball bat! Why haven’t you taught her how to shoot a gun by now?”

  “Because she’s too young!”

  “She’s not too fucking young to get killed by one of those damned things!” Remy retorted. She slammed the palm of her hand against the cart in frustration. “You have got to do something for her before we get to Atlanta and not a minute later! She’s going to get slaughtered in that city if you don’t!”

  Cade’s eyes turned on her, and she froze as she saw the angry, cold look on the other woman’s face. “Remy Angellette, you may think I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have a much better ability than you do to judge who should and shouldn’t have a gun in their hands. And neither Nikola nor Avi should have one at this point. Neither is capable of handling one. They’d end up shooting themselves or one of us if we turned them loose with one in a fight. What I’m more concerned with is how the infected guy back there knew to go after them rather than any of the rest of us. We were just as close as they were, and he could have easily come after us instead. So why did he go after them?”

  Remy fell silent. A sinking feeling dropped into her stomach. Cade wrestled the case open and grabbed boxes of ammo, handing them down to her. “How did he know?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know, but all the ideas popping around in my head say it can’t possibly be good. I’m going to talk to Ethan about it later, see what he thinks. If the infected are getting smarter somehow, if they’re starting to figure out how to strategize…then we have a real problem.”

  * * *

  By the time Brandt and Ethan made it back to the van, dragging two carts of food and water behind them, the others were already waiting for them. Remy sat in the open sliding door of the van, her head in her hands. Cade stood beside her, wearing a pair of latex gloves and cleaning the blood off Avi’s machete. Nikola was already in the passenger seat, curled up with her head resting back against the seat. Gray stood next to her open window, talking to her and rubbing her arm gently. Theo and Avi were nowhere to be seen; Ethan guessed they were both inside the van already.

  “Everybody okay?” Ethan called on approach. “Nobody hurt?”

  “Yeah, we’re all fine,” Cade said. Remy lifted her head, and the two women exchanged an unreadable look. Cade moved closer to him and said softly, “I need to talk to you and Brandt.”

  “Can it wait?” he asked, pointedly looking around them at the parking lot. “I don’t like the idea of hanging around in the open like this any longer than necessary.”

  Brandt hauled the cart of water to the back of the van and flung the doors open. Ethan moved to help him, scooping a gallon from the cart and sliding it into the van’s cargo space.

  “I’ll give you guys a hand,” Cade offered immediately. She grabbed two jugs and moved to push them inside.

  Ethan waited until she’d put them down before he said, “This must be really urgent.”

  “It is.” Cade paused as the two men loaded some packages of food into the van. “Remy and I think the infected are getting smarter.”

  “Getting smarter?” he repeated. Brandt grabbed a case of water bottles and bumped into him as he slipped past to set it in the van. Ethan ignored him and added, “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just speculating,” Cade said quickly. “I’m wondering, though. How did the infected man know to go after Avi and Nikki? They’re the weakest of us in regard to skill and ability, right? Makes you wonder if he’d even have attacked if, say, Nikola had been with me and Avi with Remy.”

  “Interesting,” Brandt said thoughtfully. “Back when the big fight happened in Atlanta, I heard there were a lot of casualties on the side of the infected, but after a few hours, it was like the whole mess of them adapted or something. They started to get harder and harder to fight, until they eventually overwhelmed whatever forces tried to hold them back.”

  “They could just be noticing patterns,” Ethan suggested.

  “But we weren’t in there long enough to establish a pattern,” Cade pointed out.

  Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know what exactly happened back there, except for Nikola and Avi getting attacked and Remy acting like she was some sort of Amazonian warrior princess.” He dumped the last of the food in the van and slammed the doors shut. “Get in the van. I want to get out of here before we run into any more trouble.”

  * * *

  Darkness fell earlier than Cade expected it to. It was like a heavy blanket being draped over the top of the van, and she blinked as it seemed to come on suddenly. She knelt on the seat in the very back of the van, watching out the windows with her rifle in hand. As twilight settled, she couldn’t help but wish she still had the lovely night-vision goggles she used to use when she was in the IDF.

  The van was mostly quiet. It moved rather slowly due to Ethan’s paranoia over accidentally running over road debris and causing a flat tire, so Cade had plenty of time not only to study the landscape outside the van, but also to think about a certain man inside it. She could hear someone snoring; she thought it might have been Theo, but she wasn’t sure. And she was not going to turn around to check. Mainly because she knew Brandt was somewhere behind her, and she knew he was likely staring at her. After his revelation to her back at the safe house, after his confession that he’d follow her anywhere, she’d been somewhat reluctant to meet his gaze or to find herself in a situation that involved sitting alone with him. She knew it would do nothing but stir up the uncertainties and feelings that she’d experienced almost as long as she’d known him.

  Cade scanned the trees to her left. The grass at the sides of the road had grown wild with no one left to care for it, and she could occasionally spot a pair of glittering eyes watching from the foliage. Deer, most likely. In the southeast, they seemed to be as plentiful as cockroaches. She sincerely hoped they didn’t hit one. She’d seen what they could do to a car, and it wasn’t something she wanted to experience firsthand.

  She shook her thoughts free from contemplations on deer and lifted her rifle’s scope to squint through it into the darkness. A throat cleared behind her, and
it took her a moment to realize it was Ethan attempting to quietly get her attention. She twisted around and nudged Theo awake. He lay sprawled in the seat in front of her and, at her nudge, sat up abruptly, wiping at his mouth and shaking his head. She grinned before nodding to Ethan to go ahead.

  “I think we need to pull over,” Ethan announced, slowing the van. His attention was focused on the road, as it should have been, and his voice was muffled as he faced the windshield.

  “It’s not going to be very comfortable with all eight of us trying to sleep in the van,” Remy pointed out. Cade nodded in agreement. Tonight, she wasn’t too game to sleep on top of someone else, either literally or figuratively.

  “What do you propose, then?” Ethan asked.

  “I think we should find a place to hole up for the night,” Cade answered. “Especially since it looks like it wants to rain out there. where exactly are we?”

  There was a pause as Nikola shuffled through the maps, turning on the light above her visor for a better view. “It looks like we’re near a town called Weogufka,” she said, pronouncing the town’s name slowly, awkwardly, and probably incorrectly. “It looks pretty small, if I had to guess. Close to Sylacauga.”

  “Any word on how Sylacauga fared during the outbreak?” Gray asked. “I never heard either way.”

  “I can’t imagine it was any better than Montgomery or any of the other cities like that,” Cade said.

  Ethan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “We’ll see if we can find a motel and secure a couple of rooms. We can stay the rest of the evening and night there and set out again once the sun comes up.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Remy said, stretching languidly. “This seat is beginning to chafe my ass.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow, and Cade bit back a snort of laughter. She was sure he was doing nothing but thinking about Remy and her ass now.

  She looked at the rest of the group as Ethan took his foot off the brake, letting the van roll forward a few feet. “Brandt?” she questioned, her own eyebrows rising as she realized he’d yet to say a word.

  “Yeah?” Brandt said, tipping his head back to look at her, a touch of exhaustion in his voice.

  “You okay with that?”

  “Do I really have a choice?”

  Remy opened her mouth to say something to him, but Cade punched her between the shoulder blades just hard enough to warn her off saying anything.

  “I guess not,” Cade conceded. “Kind of outvoted there, big guy.”

  Brandt glanced at her and shrugged before turning his attention to her bag, which was still resting on his lap. She wondered what in the world he was looking at inside her bag, but she wasn’t going to push the question. There were more important things to do, like plan out just how they’d infiltrate a motel and barricade themselves inside.

  Chapter Nine

  The motel the group chose was a rundown Super 8 just off the highway near Weogufka. It was obvious—to Remy, at least—that no one had been there in quite some time. Several of the windows that weren’t boarded over were shattered, and amidst the trash in the parking lot were six cars in various stages of disrepair. The vehicles’ windows were broken, likely by thieves looking to steal whatever they thought was still valuable. She confirmed her suspicion when she eased out of the van and peered inside the dirty windows of one of the cars. The stereo had been ripped out, only a few sliced cables hanging from the space the electronic equipment once occupied. She wondered what good a car stereo would do for anyone now; it might make a decent weapon to hit people with, come to think of it, but it definitely wouldn’t stop one of the infected from ripping your face off.

  “Come on, Brandt, let’s check this place out,” she said, tugging at his ankle. He was still in the van, still looking in Cade’s bag. She rolled her eyes and jerked at his pants leg, trying to get his attention. “Come on. You look like you need some excitement in your life.”

  That was enough to elicit a response from him. “If there’s anything I don’t need, it’s more excitement in my life.” He shoved the bag off his lap, and Remy was happy to see he had a gun in his hand. “And you could use a little less, too.”

  “Bullshit. The potential for excitement is what keeps me crawling out of bed in the morning,” Remy said, grinning. She brandished her bolo knife and twirled it in her hand idly, stepping back to give him room to exit the van. She really did love her bolo knife. It was once her grandmother’s; she used it while working in the cane fields outside New Orleans, helping with the harvests on Remy’s great-grandfather’s farm. Before then, it had come from relatives who’d lived in the Philippines. It was a prized possession in her family, and it had served her well in her war against the infected, now that no one else in her family was able to use it.

  Her smile faded slightly, and she lowered the knife. Thinking about her family always caused her pain and anger. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to avenge them. Nothing would stop her from taking out as many infected as she could before they took her down. It was what she’d sworn to her dead mother she’d do.

  Lost in her thoughts, Remy wandered toward the building, but she was stopped by a hand on her elbow. She looked down at it silently for a second, her eyes focused on the fingernails. They were dirty and cracked and broken, signs of a hard worker. She blinked and let out a breath then looked up the arm attached to the hand. It was Brandt. He offered her a flashlight.

  “No need to go in there without a light, is there?” he asked. There was something in his voice that made her think he was actually concerned about her. She didn’t know why anyone would worry for her, but there was definitely something there beneath his words.

  Remy let a small smirk cross her face, raising an eyebrow and shrugging. “I don’t know, Brandt. Are you scared of the dark?” she teased. He rewarded her with a grin, and she took the flashlight, gesturing to the door. “After you? Or would you like me to go first and run off the big scary monsters?”

  “That’s a great idea!” Brandt agreed. He nodded and motioned to the door with a grand sweep of his hand. “I mean, I’m much more valuable than you, so it won’t be a great loss if the monsters hiding in the motel eat you instead of me.”

  “Hey!” she protested, making a face at him and swatting at his outstretched arm before she pushed past him and walked almost haughtily to the door to the sound of her friends’ laughter.

  Despite her confidence, Remy still paused at the door, her hand on the door handle. She looked back at the van for a moment. Nausea swam in her stomach, and she swallowed, forcing the bile down once more as she gripped the handle tighter. The weight of her bolo knife was reassuring, but she didn’t know if it would be enough if something did jump out and try to gnaw on her head.

  “Well, are you going in already, or do you want me to get Cade?” Brandt asked. Remy made another face, wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out at him. Her momentary lapse of confidence disappeared just like that. She lifted her knife and pulled the door open, peering around the frame and shining her light inside.

  The cheap motel’s small lobby was empty, save for paper littering the floor and a squirrel scavenging among the trash. Remy ignored the animal and eased inside, stepping onto the chipped tile and moving her light over the fixtures. She reflexively flipped one of the light switches. She wasn’t sure why she bothered with it. Old habits died hard, she supposed.

  She let go of the door and walked farther inside, moving her flashlight’s beam over the front desk and to the elevators stuck on the first floor with the doors wide open. Still there was nothing in sight. She pushed the front door open, propping it there with a heavy trash can, and motioned to Brandt. “Come on in. I don’t see anything in the lobby that would find Brandt Evans particularly appetizing.”

  He snorted and followed her into the lobby, turning on his own flashlight as he stepped into the darkened interior. Remy made her way across the lobby to a set of large double doors that led, presumably, to a conference room, pausi
ng outside of them for a moment. Her instincts argued against opening the door, and a dark, ominous feeling settled into her stomach, making her feel like she was about to puke. She swallowed again and pushed one of the doors open just a crack, shining her light inside for a moment before letting the door fall shut once more.

  “What’s wrong?” Brandt asked, moving to stand at her side. Remy shook her head and pressed her palm flat against the door before taking a step back from it.

  “They’re all dead in there. Don’t go inside,” she warned, her voice hushed. She moved toward one of the hallways leading off the lobby, pausing to look down its dark depths. She let out a shaky breath as memories slammed to the forefront of her brain. The inside of her own house, the stairs, her mother clawing at her leg, the blast of the gunshot, the blood on the closet wall…

  “Remy?” Brandt questioned. It was enough to shake her free from the memories haunting her. She shuddered and breathed out slowly before looking to him, giving him a falsely perky smile and pushing her hair back from her face.

  “I’m ready!” Remy said, heading down the hallway at a brisk pace. Brandt hissed for her to alternatively stop and slow down, but she ignored him, walking deeper into the building. “Where do we want to get rooms?” she asked as he caught up with her. “I’m rather partial to the really fancy suites in hotels myself, even though I could never afford—”

  “Are you okay?” he interrupted. He caught her by the forearm and gave it a squeeze.

  “Why are people always asking me if I’m okay and grabbing me and shit?” Remy asked. She yanked her arm away and headed for the stairs, leaving him behind. “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong.”