by M. D. Massey
“Does it make you feel better?”
I laugh, but it’s a short, bitter sound that almost chokes me. “Not even a little.”
“It’s better to have loved and lost, than to never love at all,” Axl mutters. I twist in my seat so I’m facing him. He shrugs and his cheeks get red. “Had me a girlfriend in high school that liked poetry and shit. Knew right away it wasn’t gonna last, but she was hot. She had big dreams ‘bout goin’ to college and gettin’ outta the trailer park. Not like I could compete.”
“Did you ever have any dreams?”
“Naw, guess I always thought the trailer park and construction was my only option. Don’t think a guy like me can hope for much more.”
“You sell yourself short.”
“It ain’t like I got brains like the Doc or Trey. They’re smart. They had big lives ‘head of ‘em. I was goin’ nowhere.”
“You’re smart in a different way. You’re every bit as good as those guys,” I say. “You’ve really been a leader here, helped to keep us all safe. You should be proud.”
“This whole thing ain’t natural for me. Watchin’ out for somebody else. Weren’t how I was raised.”
“You think it is for me? You think my dad was out there in the trailer park helping others? No way. He only thought of himself.”
Axl looks at me with narrowed eyes. “How’d you do it then? How do you only think of somebody else when you hear a man on the street callin’ for help? Risk your life without a moment’s hesitation?”
“Because I don’t want to live the way my dad did. Even if it means I may die trying to help someone else. I spent the last two years of my life pushing people away, thinking that everyone was like my parents. That I wasn’t worth being loved. This group we have here, it’s a good thing. I don’t want to screw that up.”
Axl purses his lips. He looks so much like Angus when he does that, but he’s so different than his brother. So much better.
We stop in Bakersfield. It’s not quite the halfway point, but Axl refuses to go any further without getting the code. There’s a small shopping center just off the interstate. He pulls into the parking lot. The dead are everywhere, so he pulls up next to the Explorer and rolls down the window. The air is thick with the scent of decay. I gag and cover my nose.
“We ain’t going ‘nother inch till you tell us the code,” Axl says.
Mitchell’s in the backseat. The corners of his mouth turn down and he crosses his arms over his chest. He reminds me of a kid, pouting because he didn’t get his way. It makes my skin crawl.
“That’s fine,” Axl says. “We can let you out here. Ain’t that right, Winston?”
Winston nods. “That was the agreement.”
Mitchell’s eyes get as big as golf balls and he sits up straighter, frantically looking around the parking lot. The dead lumber toward the cars from all directions. There are at least twenty of them coming at us, with more off in the distance.
“You wouldn’t leave me here!”
“Why not? You wanted to leave Emily,” I spit at him. “You didn’t have any way of knowing for sure that she’d turn, but you were willing to just toss her aside. You’re better equipped to take care of yourself than she was.” I’m shaking, and I cram my nails back into my palms, digging them even deeper.
“But she was infected!”
“You didn’t know that!”
Axl puts his hand on my leg, and I turn away from Mitchell. He disgusts me, but I need to shut up so he and Axl can talk about the code.
“What’d you say?” Axl asks.
Mitchell shakes his head, but droops back against his seat. “Rose. You could pick any alpha or numeric code you wanted, so I chose Rose. It was my mom’s name.”
Axl nods. His hand is still on my leg. “Alright, then.”
He moves his hand and rolls the window up, then heads back out onto the interstate.
My leg tingles where his hand was. “You think we can trust him?”
“Nope. But we got no choice.”
“I think that chick was right,” Angus says from the backseat.
The sound of his voice makes me jump and I spin around to face him. I didn’t even know he was awake.
“I was lookin’ at them zombies we killed at the mini mall. They was a lot more rotted out than the ones we saw in the garage. Seems like they start off kinda slow and get more aggressive.”
“Just our luck,” Axl mutters. “If this prick don’t let us in we’ll have to find a place to hole up in Vegas, right when these bastards get feisty.”
The swerve of the car jerks me awake and I squint from the bright sun. Axl is turning around.
“Shit,” he mutters.
“What’s wrong,” I ask, looking around. We’re on the highway and the landscape is even more brown and sandy then when I went to sleep. We must be getting close.
“Don’t know. Mike pulled over back there.”
“Car trouble, maybe,” Angus says from the back.
I look down the street as we head back to the others. They’re all climbing out. Angus must be right, there’s no reason to stop in the middle of the road, and they had plenty of gas to make it into the desert.
“How much further do we have to go?” I ask as Axl pulls over next to the others.
“We still got ‘bout three hours.”
He turns the car off and we all hop out. By the time we make it over everyone is talking at once. I do my best to sort through the individual conversations and figure out what’s going on, but it isn’t easy.
“Check engine light just came on and the damn thing wouldn’t accelerate,” Mike grumbles.
“Let’s just leave the stuff behind. I don’t like being out here in the open,” Sophia pleads. She’s holding Ava in her arms and her eyes don’t stop moving for a second.
There isn’t much around, but we’re right off an exit and there are a few signs in the distance. A gas station, a restaurant, stores. There’s a small wooded area to our right and a huge housing development beyond that. It makes me squirm. All those houses so close to us. If Anne’s right and these things really have learned how to open doors, we could be in trouble.
“We ain’t leavin’ our stuff.” Axl walks to the back of the van, jerks open the door and start pulling boxes out. “We got guns and other stuff we need.”
I run over to the Nissan and open the back so he can put it in, but it’s pretty full.
“Shit.” He puts the box on the ground. “We gotta rearrange all this shit. We gotta pull the third row up so more people can fit in and we gotta fit more of this gear in there.”
He starts pulling boxes out and I help. We need to get it done as fast as possible. I glance over my shoulder. Everyone except Mitchell is unloading the van. Winston, Mike, and Trey are all busy moving things around in the other vehicles, trying to make room for more stuff and more people.
I don’t stop looking around while I work. Sophia was right. Being out here in the open sucks.
Once Axl has the back cleaned out, we both climb in and pull up the third row. It only takes a few minutes, but I’m on edge. We still have to load up before we can get out of here.
Angus and Axl start loading boxes and I stand back. They’re faster than I would be and I want it done. From the looks of it, the others are getting close to having their cars packed up too. Just a few more minutes.
I tap my toe nervously and a soft breeze blows, bringing with it the scent of decay. My shoulders tense and my heart beats faster. I search the area around us. The road is clear and the exit ramp is clear. I don’t see anything.
“You smell that?” I call to the brothers and pull my gun out.
“Yup,” Axl says. “We’re hurryin’.”
I chew on my bottom lip and rush to the other car to see if there’s anything I can do to help. They’re almost done.
Sophia screams and my stomach clenches. I spin around. There’s nothing by her, but she’s pointing toward the woods. I turn just as two of
the dead step out of the trees. They head right for us. Only two.
“Get in the car!” I tell her, aiming at their heads.
I pull the trigger and hit the first one between the eyes before turning to the second. He meets with an identical end. I exhale in relief just as dozens of bodies come racing from the woods.
Everything explodes. People yell, guns go off, the dead run toward us with their arms raised and their hands reaching out. Moans and unearthly screams come out of their rotting mouths. The stink of decomposing flesh is so overwhelming I have to hold my breath while I shoot into the horde.
Others fire and I lower my gun, running for Sophia. I grab her arm and yank her toward the Explorer. “Get in!”
Anne shoots at the bodies with Jake clinging to her legs. “Anne! Take Jake to the Nissan,” I yell as a body stumbles toward me with raised arms.
She’s fast. So much faster than any of the others we’ve encountered, and so much more decomposed. Her skin is gray and ripped in places. Black ooze seeps out of the wounds, giving off the putrid smell of decay. Her hands grab my arm and yank me toward her, but before she can sink her teeth into my flesh I put the barrel of my gun to her temple and pull the trigger. Instinctively I close my eyes and mouth, turning my face away as black goo explodes out of her skull, covering me in the stinking liquid.
“Vivian!” Axl yells.
I run, glancing over my shoulder to make sure everyone else is okay. Most people have climbed into the cars, but Mike is still firing his gun. There are too many of them. Bodies converge on him. They grab his limbs and pull him forward. He continues to fire, even as teeth sink into his skin and he screams in agony.
“Mike!” I stop in my tracks. My legs won’t work.
But Axl is next to me. He pulls me toward the Nissan. I try to resist, but he’s too strong.
“We have to help him!” I sob.
“Too late.”
Axl pushes me behind him, back toward the car, and lifts his gun. He pulls the trigger. The bullet hits Mike in the head and he goes down, lost in a mass of dead bodies.
I stumble to the car and jump into the passenger seat, shutting the door just as Axl climbs in. The engine is already running and he hits the gas.
“Did everyone get out?” Anne asks anxiously from the back.
I clench my hands to stop them from shaking. “We lost Mike.”
“Shit,” Angus mutters. “Dead bastards.”
We’re all silent. I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut while I work hard to slow my breathing. But I can’t stop shaking. Not with Mike’s screams still ringing in my ears.
“Don’t wanna be an ass,” Axl says. “But you stink.”
I open my eyes. What’s he talking about? He nods toward my shirt and I look down. My clothes are covered in black goo.
I pull my shirt over my head and roll down window to toss it outside. Axl raises an eyebrow and Angus actually leans forward so he can get a better look. I give him the finger, then pull a fresh shirt out of my bag. Pervert.
When I have a clean shirt on I lean my head back and close my eyes. “What are we going to do if Mitchell doesn’t let us in that shelter?”
“Hell if I know,” Axl says. “Whatever we do, we ain’t goin’ near a city.”
28
We’ve been driving through the desert for almost an hour, passing nothing but sand and rocks. We have to be getting close.
Axl drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re runnin’ low on gas.”
“We’re screwed if this guy leads us out there for nothin’,” Angus grumbles.
Anne, who is sitting in the second row with Angus so Jake can sleep, leans forward. “We need a backup plan. Where do we go if this doesn’t work out?”
I stare out at the passing desert. This conversation is getting old. And exhausting. Right now, I just want to pretend that Mitchell is a decent human being. That this shelter does exist and we’ll be safely inside sometime in the next twenty minutes. That Emily is asleep in the back of the car.
“Farm,” Axl says. “That’s all we got so far.”
“What about a hotel?” Anne asks. “We could clear it out and take over. It would have a generator and rooms for us. Could be okay.”
“We did that in San Francisco. It was alright,” I say.
“Problem is, it’d have to be a good-sized hotel to have a generator, and that means goin’ into Vegas. Not ideal. Then you’re gonna have to worry about runnin’ outta fuel.” Axl sighs and shakes his head. “A remote area would be better.”
Anne sits back and exhales. She has even fewer answers than we do.
“So what did you do for a living?” I ask Anne. I need a distraction.
“I was a cop.”
“No shit,” Angus says. “I always loved me a lady cop.”
I glance over my shoulder. He’s raising his eyebrows suggestively, checking her out. I laugh and shake my head. One thing Angus is good for, comic relief when things get too tense.
Anne’s probably his age, although she looks several years younger, but she’s way too classy-looking for him. She’s small and thin, with chin-length brown hair and brown eyes that crinkle in the corners when she talks. She isn’t beautiful, but she is cute.
“So where’s Jake’s father?” Maybe if I keep her talking I can save her from more suggestive comments. Angus has to have quite a few bouncing around in that empty head of his.
“Both his parents are dead. He isn’t mine. I found him wandering around the streets the day before you guys saved us. Poor kid, he’s been through a lot.”
The smile disappears from my lips. Emily. It’s like someone has poured hot lava into my stomach.
“There it is,” Axl says, saving me from torturing myself. For now.
There’s a small square building in the distance, surrounded by a six foot chain link fence. The building is gray and plain. No windows, a flat roof, only one door. There’s nothing remotely interesting or special about it. Next to the building is a concrete landing pad with a small helicopter sitting on it. That must have been what was supposed to go pick Mitchell up. Bet he’ll be ticked it’s sitting there.
Off in the distance is a wind turbine. It’s outside the fence, probably about a football field’s length away. The turbine’s three blades spin at a rapid speed as the wind sweeps across the desert.
Axl pulls up to the fence, and once the car has come to a stop I hop out and run over. It’s shut with just a simple latch. No lock or anything else to keep intruders out. I push it open and run back to the car, and Axl parks right next to the building. There are no other vehicles in sight. Either everyone hitched a ride on the helicopter before the pilot got too sick or ran out of fuel, or no one else is here.
Everyone gets out and butterflies start flapping around in my stomach. All eyes are on Mitchell as he walks to the door. He’s holding his gun and he has a smug smile on his face.
“Thank you for getting me here safely,” he says when he stops in front of the building. He smiles and scans the group. “I truly appreciate it. I only wish I could do more. Unfortunately, when I bought the condo I signed an agreement with the company that forbids me from allowing anyone else in.”
“You son of a bitch!” Winston snarls.
“So that code was a bunch of bullshit?” Axl steps forward and pulls out his gun.
“Of course it was. You think I’m stupid?” Mitchell shakes his head. “I didn’t become a billionaire by accident.”
“You’re nothing now,” I say. “You think all that money you have in the bank means anything? You may as well use it to start a fire. It’s worthless!”
“But it got me here when it was worth something, and that’s all that matters.” He sighs and shakes his head, trying to look sympathetic. He doesn’t. “I’m willing to be reasonable, though. I’m sure some of the people who bought condos didn’t show up. I’m willing to take in a few people who have proven that they’d be useful to have around. Joshua, you’re more than welcome to
come. Having a doctor would be helpful.” He turns and looks at Al next. “The Asian kid seems like he’d be a good person to have around as well. We can always use someone in the control room. I’d take you,” he says, tilting his head toward to Axl. “You’ve proven that you have some very useful skills, I just don’t think you could take orders.”
Axl clenches his hand tighter around his gun and takes a small step forward.
“Screw you,” Al says. “I’m not going in there to live with you. I’d rather take my chance with the zombies!”
Joshua nods. “I agree.”
Mitchell frowns. “I would consider it a personal favor to me. I really want to be sure there’s a doctor in case I get sick.”
“Are you for real?” Joshua says with a laugh. “Who cares what you want?”
I consider the situation, but we don’t have anything to bargain with. We could try to overpower him, but there’s a good chance someone would get shot in the process. If Mitchell gets killed, we’re all screwed. No one gets in if he dies. But if we let him go some of us will make it at least. That’s better than nothing. Maybe someone can even convince whoever else is inside to let the rest of us in.
“You have to take Sophia and the kids,” I say.
Mitchell laughs. “I’m not taking a woman and two kids. I want people who can help me survive, not burdens.”
Anger builds up inside me, but I clench my jaw shut so I don’t say something I’ll regret. “Sophia’s pregnant. You can’t just leave a pregnant woman and two children in the desert to rot. Even you have to know that’s wrong.” I don’t look at Sophia. I’m not sure whether or not she’ll think it’s a betrayal, but I had to take a chance. Maybe deep down Mitchell is human.
Mitchell swears, but before he can say anything Joshua steps forward. “I won’t go unless she does. If you want a doctor, you’ll have to let her in too.”
“And Arthur,” I say. “He’s sick. He needs to be with a doctor.”