Reason To Live

by C. M. Wright

  I manage to doze off about four in the afternoon, and only a few minutes later am jerked awake when I feel the truck stop. I immediately grab for my gun, but David let's me know its okay and that we aren't far from Kansas City, which is why he thinks we stopped.

  I rub the sleep from my eyes and stretch as best I can in the truck. We see the others emerging from the vehicles so we do the same and walk toward the front of the line. Everyone ends up meeting toward the middle, and we all wait for Will to begin speaking. I try to stay out of his line of sight and hide behind Dustin, which isn't too hard because Dustin is so huge. Not fat, but intimidatingly big.

  “Sandro, how far to the Krew base?” Will asks the teen.

  “About three miles, give or take a mile or two.”

  I hide the grin spreading on my face by looking down at the ground. I know exactly what Will is thinking because I do the same thing to him that Sandro just did when he asks me how far something is. I can picture in my mind his jaw clenching tight and the vein at the side of his forehead thumping while he attempts to control himself.

  “Sam, take Sandro with you to the lead truck and put the address in the GPS, would you please?” Will asks with forced patience.

  My face is hidden by Dustin's back as I attempt to control my laughter, but I hear the shuffle as their feet take them away to do as he asked. Then I jump when I hear Will's voice right next to me.

  “I see you,” he says tauntingly, his breath tickling my ear.

  I yelp and jump away from him and he laughs. I glare at him as some of the others who were paying attention laugh at my expense. Most stop when I meet them eye to eye but some don't, and one of those people who don't is Will. That is, until I give him a look to let him know I wont forget. Then his laughter dies pretty quickly and he turns and makes his way back to the front, where he freaking belongs.

  Dustin looks back at me over his shoulder and I stick my tongue out at him.

  Mature? Not at all.

  Do I care? Not at all.

  I move up next to our doctor when Will begins to talk.

  “We're going to find a place to hole up until we're ready to make our move. Hopefully, we can find a building close enough to observe from there, but if not, a small group of us will go out and observe the Krew. The rest of you will remain behind and prepare the weapons, make sure everyone is armed, and relax until it's time to go in. I don't want to lose anyone, so please get some rest and get your heads in the game. Any questions?” Will looks at each of us, but no one opens their mouths.

  Until Sandro and Sam get back. Then things begin to get a bit sticky.

  “Will,” Sandro's voice is a little shaky which puts my guard up. “No one back there should know what happened when you all captured us. Uncle Carlos told them not to expect us back for at least twenty-four hours. It's close to that now, so my friends and I could go back and get inside. I will be the one in charge, as my uncle's second-in-command, though I'm not sure how well that will go over with the original Krew.”

  Will immediately shoots the idea down, and I have to literally bite my tongue to keep from arguing with him. If I want him in charge, then I have to trust he'll do the right thing.

  But, damn, it's so hard!

  “But, Will! We could do so much more from the inside. Possibly save even more lives–” Sandro is abruptly cut off by Will.

  “No.” Just that one word is said with so much power, everyone jumps. Will steps up to Sandro and continues, “Sandro, I mean no disrespect to you or your friends, but not everyone trusts you all yet. What if I were to let you do this and you betray us? There are a hell of a lot more Krew members than there are of us. You could lead us all straight to our deaths. I can't take that chance.”

  Sandro's face tightens in anger, but it's soon gone and he drops his head. His body relaxes and sags as he realizes Will is only doing what's best for his group.

  My own body deflates when I realize too that Will is right. I would have made the call to let them go back, and I could have killed everyone I love. At this moment, I fully realize that not having me in charge really is the best for my group. I tend to go with my emotions, but Will uses his head.

  I look up at Will and find that he's staring straight at me as everyone else is moving back to their vehicles. The look in his eyes isn't hard to read, hes waiting for me to argue with his decision, but how can I?

  I force a smile and give him a nod. Then I turn away and go to my own vehicle where my fellow passengers are settling themselves inside. I climb up beside David and ignore the nervous and excited chatter going on around me as I stare out the side window. I watch Will walk to the lead truck until he disappears inside, hating myself for everything I've done to the man. I vow to myself right here and now, never to hurt him intentionally again.

  Hating yourself sucks.

  Chapter Five

  Will stops the line of vehicles about a mile and a half inside the city at the entrance to a very tall apartment complex. Of course, with all the vehicles we have, his and a few other trucks are the only ones actually stopped in front of the building. The rest of us fill both sides of the block before the apartments. Will and his passengers get out and motion for everyone to remain where they are inside their vehicles. A few undead that were wandering around immediately go after them, and they take them down easily without using guns.

  Will walks to the next vehicle and says something, and they join Will's group on the sidewalk. They begin to walk around the outside of the building and are gone from sight long enough to make me nervous. Just when I'm about to lose my mind, I see them come around the opposite side of the building and head back toward us.

  Will stops at each vehicle and I begin to squirm in my seat as I wait for him to get to our truck. Finally, he's standing outside and David starts the truck and lowers my window.

  “We've found a parking garage in the back. Let's move the trucks inside so that we aren't discovered by the Krew before we're ready. It's attached to the apartments and can be secured once we clear it out. We didn't go too far inside, but there are plenty of undead to take care of. Be careful.”

  He says that last part while looking at me intently. I nod and he leans in and kisses me. Thank the lord I'm sitting on my ass, because this kiss is making me feel a bit faint.

  I know, I'm pathetic.

  I catch my breath as I watch him walk away and only come back down from the clouds when I hear the others giggling. I turn and give each one a halfhearted glare, but finally give up and just grin like a moron.

  David starts the truck and we follow the others to the parking garage. We leave the brightness of the sun and enter the dark gloominess of the garage to find the first three vehicles are covered in undead. David immediately throws the truck into park and we all grab our guns. There is no way we can use anything else if we don't intend to be overtaken. The other vehicles vomit out armed passengers and the guns begin to pop.

  Finally the undead are dead again, and we only had one person get bit. A man I didn't yet know, and now never will, was bit on the shoulder by an undead that had come from behind, most likely from one of the other floors of the garage. Even though we all try to pay attention to what's going on around us, shit like this still happens.

  A few others tend to the injured and doomed man, while the rest of us stand guard at the street entrance and where the garage turns to go up to the next floor. The ones who had been trapped, including Will, emerge and begin to strap on their own weapons.

  Will goes over to the injured man and speaks to him for a bit. The man's voice raises in argument with Will until Will nods reluctantly and raises his gun to the man's head. When the shot comes and the man's body drops, Will's arm drops soon after. I start toward him to offer comfort, but he's soon surrounded by the people who had been closest to him. Feeling unsure of myself and quite sure he doesn't need me, I turn back to keep watch for the undead who might come from another level.

  Will orders the entrance to be closed and
I hear the metal shriek as the gate is put into place. It has a locking mechanism and seems to be sturdy enough to keep out a decent-sized horde of undead attracted to the noise we've made, but I'm sure it won't be enough to keep out the living.

  Will then orders that all of the vehicles but one weapons truck be turned so that they are pointing in the direction of the entrance...or exit as the case may be. He has Dad Ben drive the weapon trucks in front of us as we clear each floor of the garage. We all walk behind the truck and take down the undead that Dad Ben doesn't get the chance to smash into. We can see him fist-pumping each time he knocks one down and I begin to worry that he's enjoying this just a bit too much.

  We make sure the ones my dad does hit are definitely dead, of course, and we have to be very careful of any undead that might stagger out from behind the abandoned vehicles. Slowly and methodically, we get the job done. We only had to use our guns once more when the crowd on the fourth level was bigger than we were, but other than that, we were able to manually put them down for good.

  The garage has six floors and the apartment has twelve floors, though the first floor has only one residence, which by the sign on the door, belonged to the apartment manager. The first floor also contains a large lobby with a desk and one very long wall with nothing but mailboxes. As we clear the first floor, we discover a laundry room for the residents to use, a small workout room with exercise bikes and treadmills, and a management office next to the managers apartment.

  That floor is the easiest to clear, as we only find who we assume was the manager in his apartment, and one undead stuck in the laundry room. We push the large desk in front of the front doors, though the hope of actually keeping anyone undead or living out is laughable since the doors are glass and there's not much more available to block it with very quickly. Later, we will fix that, but not right now.

  Then we head up the stairs to clear the next floor. This floor is packed with the undead. We can only assume some of the undead were residents from other floors, as there are too many to actually have all lived on just one damn floor with only four apartments.

  Eventually though, the undead in the hall are no longer upright and dangerous, and we move into the units themselves. We split up, and wouldn't you know I'd get stuck clearing a unit with my team in the one apartment that had a couple undead kids in it.

  Fucking hate this shit.

  And of course, who has to be the one to shoot the little girl, who was once a beautiful curly blond-haired doll? Me. Because the little bitch came straight for me.

  Half of her scalp is hanging down over her ear, and her teeth are stained a dark color, which I can probably and correctly assume is old dried blood. Her hands are up as she comes at me, a little faster than most undead, and her tiny nails are filthy with caked on blood and tissue. They are also jagged and torn, and a couple of her fingers have no nails at all.

  She snarls and I have just enough time to point and pray the bullet hits her in the sweet spot. It does, and she drops mid-snarl. Her brother, or who I assume is her brother, is quite a bit slower, mostly because his leg has been gnawed on so badly that his ankle is barely attached.

  Joel takes him down quickly and we continue searching the apartment to find no living or zombie adults. We figure any adults who were here were probably in the hall. After the second floor is cleared, and seeing how many of our group had to wait in the halls while just a few groups cleared the apartments, Will decides to clear each hall as an entire group, then go back and let smaller groups clear the apartments while a few individuals remain in the halls to stand guard. The clearing goes a lot faster this way and we soon have a nice zombie-free apartment.

  We don't neglect to clear the basement of the building once finished with the upper floors, and good lord did it stink! Each floor has a chute at one end of the hall for residents to throw their trash bags down. The bags all end up in the basement inside a large trash container. On trash days, the door behind the container is opened for the trash company to gain access and empty it. Unfortunately for us, trash pick up has been missed for a very long time.

  The door to the basement is locked from inside, and that made us pause. Sure, it could be that it's ordinarily kept locked and the manager and maybe even a custodian has the keys, but questioning everything is sometimes what saves your lives.

  As it did here.

  After busting in the door, we move in cautiously with weapons ready. Our noses twitch at the stench and I hear a few people gag. I keep choking back my own urge to gag, and feel the burn of bile rising in my throat as it keeps wanting to shoot out my mouth. The basement is dark and our flashlights make it even creepier down here. I know a lot of the creepiness I feel personally is from my own deep fear of basements.

  At one end, and of course it's the darkest damned end, is a large caged room. Inside the caged room are smaller caged rooms with numbers corresponding to the apartments above. A sign with Storage on it is over the door of the larger cage. The door is padlocked on the inside, and Will looks intently inside as several of us shine our lights around the interior.

  “Hello?” Will calls out. “Is anyone in there? We don't want to harm you, and can help you if you let us.”

  Remember that questioning and caution I said we all should have? Well, this is where it comes in handy.

  We spy the end of a gun pop up in one of the cages a few spaces from Will, and he immediately ducks down out of our way so that those of use who are ready to fire, can. We do and the gun disappears. When we stop shooting, we hear several screams.

  “We won't shoot you unless you do something stupid like that again. Just let us see you so we can talk. Otherwise, we're coming in with guns blazing. Your call.” Will is pissed now, and anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that he's not in the mood to screw around. Thankfully, most of the people inside have half a brain.

  An elderly Mexican man stands up and waves his hands over his head.

  “No shoot! No shoot!” he yells out.

  “We won't shoot as long as no one points a gun at us,” Will tells him.

  None of us lower our guns, we aren't that stupid. Slowly, other people in several different cages begin to rise into view. One cage has a man, woman, teenage boy, and a small girl ,but those are the only kids we see.

  One woman is obviously very pregnant and a man holds her protectively against him. Near the back, one of the cage doors creaks open and another man emerges. This one, I would guess, is in his mid to late sixties, possibly around the same age as the first man. His hair is completely white, he's rather tall and is clothed in what once must have been an expensive cream colored suit. He carries himself with confidence and pride.

  He walks toward us, his hands relaxed at his sides. A few of us turn our guns on him and follow as he calmly walks closer to Will. He stops just on the other side of the fence and we all watch as the two men look each other up and down.

  Finally, he speaks. “Are you with that gang, the ones who call themselves Krew?”

  His voice is smooth as butter, and not a single shake or tremble of fear can be heard.

  “No, sir. We're actually here to stop the marauders who call themselves Krew,” Will tells him.

  “I see. Then what are you doing here?”

  “We need a safe place for the next few days as we plan how best to proceed. They've got a lot of people who need rescuing trapped in that place too,” Will explains.

  The man searches Will's face, looking for deception, and then says, “My wife. My wife is there, as well as my daughters and their families. Can you get them back?”

  His tone is challenging, his eyes intense as if trying to shoot lasers into my husband's eyes, but Will never backs away or even breaks eye contact.

  “No guarantees, sir. We will do everything we can to get everyone out safely, but if I made you a promise, then it could turn out to be a lie. I've been trying to be an honest man for several years, and now isn't the best time to forget that.”

 
“You got that right, son. There aren't a whole lot of good people left. They either want to kill, rape or eat you.” The man pauses and finally breaks eye contact with Will. He rests his forehead against the thick metal mesh of the cage and sighs. The pain of losing his family is evident, and it's painful for me to see - probably painful for us all to see - but then he lifts his head and his bright green eyes sparks with electricity. “We're helping you, and I will hear no arguments about it.”

  Will grins and says, “I appreciate that, and I accept your help. However, I will not force anyone, and will not allow anyone else to force others to fight in this battle. If the rest of your group wants to help, then great, we could use them. But if they don't, they are still welcome to join our group upstairs and have our protection.”

  The other man pulled a key from his pocket and opened the cage. He shook Will's hand and introduced himself as Victor. Will introduced himself and me as his wife, then told him there was plenty of time to meet everyone else, otherwise, we'd be there all day.

  Victor gestured for the others still in the cages to come out and join him, and when they did, it told us that they trust Victor and that he is clearly thought of as their own leader. Once they reached Victor, he introduced us to them. The couple with the kids are Harry and Jackie, their fifteen year old son, Kip, and their five year old daughter, Olivia. The pregnant woman's name is Jessica and the man still holding on to her is her husband, Jeff. The little Mexican man is Felipe.

  We lead them up to the twelfth floor and I'm about to freaking collapse from going up all those damn stairs. Twice! Then we begin tossing corpses down the garbage chute.