by K. M. Raya
“Which part?”
Her eyes go to her lap again, biting her lip. “That we’re an actual team? Are we really, or are we just stuck together?”
“We’ll what else would you call us? We keep eachother alive, don't we? We kick the shit outta zoms together, don't we? We expose embarrassing stories about licking nuns and green dildos...”
She laughs, and the sound is music in my ears. I love her laugh. We may never be as close as I’d like us to be, but hearing her laugh is almost enough for now. “I guess,” she says. “I just keep wondering when it’s finally going to change, you know? Alex already despises me, and it’s only a matter of time until the trappers make it here...” Her eyes look far away as she gazes out the sliding doors into the distance. It’s too foggy out to see anything, but the look in her eyes worries me.
“You’re not planning on taking off on your own, are you? Alex told us you were planning on leaving once Nina’s feeling up to it.” A pit forms in my stomach. I don’t want her to go anywhere. If it were up to me, I’d vote for making a home right here in this store forever. But I have a feeling the sentiments aren’t shared.
Helana sighs deeply again, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She reaches up, brushing her hair from her face as she gazes outside into the fog. “I don’t have a choice. I have to leave soon, but I’d really like it if you guys would come with us.”
“But why? Why do you have to go anywhere? This place has everything we need and more, why would you want to risk it out there?”
“I have family waiting for me,” she says wistfully. “I need to get back to them.”
My heart hurts for her. She looks so fucking hopeful and I don’t want to crush her dreams, but at some point you have to be realistic. “How do you even know they’re alive?” I cringe, knowing how blunt that came out.
Helana doesn't even flinch, though. She just smiles softly, shaking her head. “Trust me, they’re alive. My dad… well, let's just say he’s a special kind of crazy. The good kind, and I’d bet anything he’s holed up on the family ranch with my brothers, living off the land and surviving.”
I respect her optimism, but I can’t tell if this is just hope speaking, or surety. Still, I try to lighten the mood. “So we got ourselves a country girl, do we?”
She laughs, this time a hearty, chesty laugh. “Damn straight. Born and raised on my daddy’s farm out in Nevada. I’ve never been a fan of city life.”
For some weird reason, despite her pretty looks and soft features, I can totally see her out in the country, working hard and getting shit done. “So, what did you actually do before the world ended?”
She immediately opens her mouth to answer, but just as she does, there’s a loud boom that shakes the windows of the storefront. The barricade wobbles, and we hold on tightly until it steadies. Anubis hops up, barking and growling as he leaps off the barricade and onto the floor, squeezing between everything to reach the glass. Helana and I follow him down, and somewhere in the store, I can hear the others shouting and running this way.
“What the hell’s going on?!” Wyatt shouts as he makes his way over, followed by Dante, Alex, Missy and a slightly limping Nina.”
“I told you I saw something…” whispers Hell. She’s turned back to the sliding doors, trying to peer over the barricade. “We all know what it is.”
“Alright, suit up, we’re going out there,” says Wyatt.
Hell whips around. “Are you kidding me? It’s suicide! If Mac sent his…” she snaps her mouth shut.
Alex steps forward. “Who the fuck is Mac?” he snaps. “If Mac sent who? What are you trying to say, because now’s not the time for any more god damn secrets.”
She shifts from foot to foot, looking borderline frantic. “Mac’s the one who runs the trappers, okay? He’s the big boss, the one who tells them what to do. I made a mistake a few months back. It got a lot of people killed, including Mac’s son Liam.”
Alex throws his hands in the air. “Well that’s just fucking fantastic! You piss off a psychotic hillbilly, and now we all gotta pay the price.” He turns to the rest of us. “How many times do I have to say I told you so…”
I’m trying to refrain from punching him in the teeth right now. Every chance he gets to knock Hell down a peg, he takes it. He can’t even see how much this is clearly hurting her. He’s got this stupid vendetta against her and it’s getting fucking old. Something bad happened to this amazing woman, and I can tell it eats away at her soul.
“Alex, cut it out,” says Dante. Stepping forward, Dante’s eyes lock onto Helana. “You can tell us the details later, but if there are trappers out there, then eventually they’re going to try and get in here. We need to fix this, now, before we have no options left.”
Hell stares back at Dante, real fear shining in her eyes. Suddenly, though, she squares her shoulders and sets her jaw. “Get the quads.”
Chapter ☣ 23
Hell
I’m yanked to the side as we scramble to get our gear together. I have my gas mask in my hand as Missy spins me around. Nina stands next to her. “What’s going on, do you have all your stuff?”
“You know we should be running,” Nina says. Her eyes are still sunken in from her sickness, but she’s regaining her color back quickly. “Helana, Mac’s not fucking around. If he catches you, he’s not even going to give you the chance to fight for your freedom. He’ll just kill you. We have to run.”
“What do you expect me to do, just leave the others? I can’t see the guys running.” They’re currently in the gun and ammo section, loading up. Usually I would loathe the thought of using firepower, but you can’t bring arrows to a gunfight, even I know that.
Missy holds my hand tightly. “Yes, they will. They’ll do it for you, if you ask them. I see the way they look at you.”
Scoffing, I shove her hand off mine and look away, not wanting to hear her excuses. Sure, we’ve been getting a lot closer over these past weeks, but I think Missy thinks a little higher of their affection for me than exists in reality. “You don’t know that…”
“Bullshit,” she spits. “We need to leave before more trappers show up. Are you really willing to risk their lives like last time?” I know she means well, but Liam’s death wasn’t all on me. He put himself in harm's way when he betrayed me. When he betrayed all of us. I fell for his lies, yes, but I didn’t throw us to the wolves like he did. I didn’t trap us, he did.
“Don’t you put that on me,” I whisper. My voice is hard and low. “Don’t you make this my fault. What Liam did to me could have happened to anyone. And I’m not sorry he’s dead. That asshole had it coming, and so does his father.”
“Yeah, he does, but you’re not gonna be the one to do it. Not this time. If you ever want to see your family again we need to go.”
Some small part of me wants to agree with Missy. I know she’s scared, and so am I. But we can’t keep running like this. We can’t keep hopping from town to town with the devil on our heels, never knowing when he and his guys are going to roll in and destroy everything. I’m tired of uncertainty. I’m tired of the memories of that dark cage haunting me every night. I fall asleep too often with the feel of grabbing hands scraping my skin and teeth gnashing in my ears. I smell the rot, the blood and the death. I can’t escape it, but maybe I can finally escape the one who put me there.
I face my friends.The most loyal women I’ve even known. They’re my sisters in every way that counts, and the only people on this whole Earth that I know without a doubt will follow me anywhere. “I’m not running this time.”
Nina steps forward, a frown on her face. There’s a glimmer in her dark eyes, though, like she really does know me all too well. “What are you saying?”
Smiling apologetically, I reach out, running my hand over her cheek, marvelling at how well she’s recovered. When that sickness spread through her body, I thought it was the e
nd for Nina. I was so afraid for her, and now I’m about to ask her to put her life on the line again. “If you want to make a break for it, I won’t hold it against you, guys, I promise. But I’m going out there guns fucking blazing until this is taken care of once and for all.” Letting my hand drop, I step away.
They stare at me in silence, before glancing at each other. They’re doing that thing they always do, communicating with each other without speaking. It’s just how they operate. Coming to some sort of conclusion, they turn back to me. Missy’s grinning a little, and Nina looks resolved. “We’re not going anywhere without you, Helana Gray. You fight, we fight.”
“I’m not forc…”
“We know,” says Nina. “We know.”
☣
We sneak out the back entrance, rolling the quads around so we don’t give ourselves away. All the while Alex won’t stop muttering under his breath. I have no time to tell him to shut the fuck up though. I mean, at least he’s here going along with the plan. That has to mean something.
I chose to wear a pair of black leather pants, a leather vest over a thermal with arm guards and a knee high pair of boots for safety. I’m not taking any fucking chances. Last time the trappers showed up, there were zoms everywhere, and I won’t chance getting bitten just because I’m distracted. The others are dressed similarly, and to be honest, it still takes everything I have inside of me not to laugh. We look like a bunch of Mad Max extras, with our guns, machetes, knives, bows and leather.
All is silent outside, but I have a feeling it’s only a facade. I knew I saw floodlights when I was on lookout. I need to start trusting my instincts more. The night is still, and it’s freezing. With all the fog that hangs over the country day and night, the sunlight isn’t able to be absorbed into the ground, leaving us in an almost perpetual chemical winter.
Wyatt sits on one of the quads, while Ret rolls a three wheeler over. The three wheeler might end up being a little louder than the hunting quads we used when we went to the hospital, but… desperate times.
I’m walking over to my vehicle, when arms wrap around my torso. I tense for a moment, still unused to touching, but when I turn, it’s only Dante. With his mask on, I’ll admit he looks like a badass. His buzzed hair has grown out a little over the last week, but he keeps his beard neat in order to make sure the mask seals. His hazel eyes rove over my face, and his cheeks rise up on the sides, telling me he’s grinning down at me.
“You worried?” he asks.
“Are you not?”
He laughs softly, keeping his voice low. “I’ve got a badass Marine by my side, what’s there to worry about?”
Shaking my head, I push on his shoulder lightly. “You say that, but I’m pretty sure I just bring bad luck wherever I go.” I say it like I’m joking, but a huge part of me is really starting to believe it. I put all these people in danger time and time again. They didn’t have to come with me to the hospital for Nina’s meds, and I almost got Alex killed for it. And the fire… the trappers…
“Stop,” Dante says, grabbing my face between his gloved hands. “You’re thinking way too hard, and I know exactly where your brain is taking you. None of this is your fault, Helana. Not any of it. We’re gonna kick these assholes out of town, and then we’re out of here, got it?” Everything about Dante is so sincere, it makes my heart squeeze and warmth travel through my body. He absolutely means what he promises, and I know for sure he’d just follow me if I left.
Another loud bang has us all jumping. I don’t know what they're hitting us with, and I can’t see anyone yet through the fog, but I know they’re out there. They might think we’re falling into their trap by scaring us out here, but we’re ready for it. After another minute of silence we mount our quads, double check our weapons and rev the engines.
“Let’s go!” Wyatt shouts, and with Missy sitting behind me, arms wrapped around my torso, I take off for the side of the building, circling around with the others through a narrow parking lot and an alleyway until we reach the front of the store. Anubis runs beside us, already barking up a storm, but I can tell he’s excited to stretch his legs.
Rounding the corner, I don’t know what I expected, but this isn’t it.
A wave of zoms practically slams into us… or, we slam into them. There must be a hundred of them at least. I have no clue how we hadn’t heard them. But we fucking hear them now. They’re everywhere, packed in together like a writhing sea of thrashing limbs and teeth. The stench is nearly overwhelming even with the masks on.
But the zoms aren't even the worst of it. Spread out in the crowd of the dead, are four trapper trucks. They’re massive, too. From what I can see, I think they might have been monster trucks at one point, and as they plow through the horde, the massive tires squish the zoms and their guts splatter into the air. Their engines are roaring, and the cages attached to the truck beds rattle and clank.
“What the fuck is happening?!” Missy yells in my ear. “Did they bring them here?!”
“I think this was supposed to be an ambush!” I yell back, circling my vehicle around the first wave. “Use your machete, I’ll skim the line, you take off as many heads as you can!”
“Roger that!”
Speeding up, I twirl one of my hands in the air at the others as they circle around ahead of the horde. It’s coming closer, separated only by twenty feet or so. If we don’t move fast, we’ll be cornered between them and the building. Dante and Alex take off in seperate directions, looping around to the right and left, almost as if corralling the zoms close together. Nina’s holding onto Dante, and she’s got her arrows at the ready, already firing into the horde.
Careful not to tip us, I take a sharp right, skimming the front line while Missy swings her machete with precision. It feels too close for comfort, but we can’t afford to waste our ammo just yet. It’s no question that the trappers set this group of zoms loose on purpose to throw us off, the same way they set the Costco on fire. They’re cowards, afraid to take us on without distractions, but they underestimate us every time.
The first wave falls, heads flying and guts splattered all over the asphalt. Some of them don’t die right away, but their torso’s drag over the debris, still desperate to reach the meal they’ll never catch. The ride is bumpy as we run over bodies, feeling the crunch of bone beneath us. It's fucking nasty, but for some reason, oh, so satisfying.
A horn blares and floodlights nearly blind us as one of the trapper trucks skids sideways, knocking down a group of zoms. The gore rains over us, but when I look up, wiping the guts off my goggles, I see a figure hanging out the side window. My heart stutters, but my veins fill with angry fire. Mac’s looking right at me. Though it’s been months since I last laid eyes on him, he still looks as crazed as ever.
His whole face is covered with a gas mask, the kind the military used to wear with hazmat suits. The only reason I know it’s him is the cowboy hat on his head. We’re still circling back and forth so Missy can take out more zoms, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes off Mac and his approach. At first, he was just watching me while he hung out the window, but now he’s got a rifle in his hands. My blood runs cold.
“Missy, you have to get off!”
“What, why?!”
“It’s Mac! He’s got a gun and he’s coming for me. Get off now!”
She does what I say without question, and practically rolls off the back as I slow down. I see her duck out of the way, swinging her machete as more and more zoms close in. I take the quad around again, but I steer with one hand, reaching into my waistband where I stuffed a glock last minute. The truck is coming after me, and the others are already starting to shoot. I can hear the booms over the moans and gurgles, and I try not to flinch at every single one of them, hoping that none of my people were hurt.
I fire two shots into the side of the truck, but driving with one hand makes it hard to aim. A zombie staggers into me, grasping at my arm,
but I shove the glock under its chin and blow its brain out of it's skull. Several more try it, but a bullet to the head each clears a small path for me. Soon, I’m out of bullets, and I have no time or reasonable way to reload, but I pull out my machete, still steering with one hand.
I’m paying more attention to the trapper truck than the horde, so I don’t see when several zombs stumble and fall to the ground until my quad is plowing right over them. My back tires stall, and I jerk backwards. If I can’t get this vehicle moving again, I need to handle the rest on foot.
From the corner of my eye, I see a figure running through an open space between zoms. The black clad figure is moving swiftly, dodging this way and that. After a second, I realize it’s Alex. He jumps, landing on the tailgate of a different trapper truck. It swerves, attempting to knock him off, but he holds on tightly. His hands are gripping the cages as he makes his way up and over the bed of the truck. I’m cutting down zoms almost in a trancelike state, trying to focus, but getting distracted worrying about Alex. The others are still fighting the horde, and even Nina’s managed to jump off her quad and fight.
She’s got the right idea. Abandoning my vehicle, I leap off into the fray. At this point, the ground is nothing more than a mushy, gut ridden river of red and black blood and bodies. Everywhere I step is on the body part of someone who used to be a human being. Luckily for us, these zombies are relatively slow. They amble around aimlessly, searching for something to eat without the instinct to hunt behind it.
The trapper truck stops, it’s tires getting stuck in the blood and body parts, and I can see Alex making his way across the bed. I watch him raise the butt of his shotgun to break in the back window. Several zoms are reaching over the bed, unable to crawl on top. He’s focused, though. And I know without a single doubt that he’ll kill those trappers. There’s something about the way Alex moves that speaks of experience. And not just the experience of living through the apocalypse. I never brought it up to anyone before, but I’m almost positive he’s former military.