by Kate L. Mary
My fingers are shaking when I put the cigarette to my lips, and my throat is so clogged with tears that the smoke doesn’t make it to my lungs. A waste of a cigarette.
“He saved me,” I say finally. “We were surrounded and we knew what was going to happen, so he just ran for them. I was screaming and he was yelling at me to run, and I did. I ran, Riley. I ran away, leaving my dad to get ripped apart like the heartless bitch I am. I just ran and ran and ran, and somehow I ended up here.”
Sobs shake my shoulders. I don’t even know when I started crying.
Riley wraps his arms around me from behind and I close my eyes, leaning my head against his as he holds me. Tears stream down my cheeks and my body just shakes.
“He wanted you to run. You did the right thing. You aren’t heartless and you’re not a bitch. He was your dad and he wanted you to live.” He squeezes me gently. “He was a brave man.”
“He was,” I whisper.
We stay that way until I calm down, and then I pull away from Riley and go back to staring at the schoolyard. Even though I try to deny it, he’s broken down some wall in me and I find myself wanting to ask him about his family.
Almost like he’s reading my mind he says, “My family lives up in Greenville.” Riley puts his hand on my arm again and even though every cell in my body wants to push him away, I don’t brush him off. “I think I’ve almost accepted that I’ll never know what happened to them.”
“Parents?” I ask, defying every desire inside me to remain detached.
“Yeah. Mom and step-dad.”
“Siblings?”
“A younger sister.” His voice catches.
“Girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment.”
We stand in silence for a few seconds before Riley turns the questions back on me. “Parents?”
“Mom and dad. Married for twenty-five years.”
“Siblings?”
“Just me.”
“Girlfriend?”
A smile curls my lips that despite the emotion still swirling through me, feels natural. “Not at the moment.”
Riley lets out a hesitant chuckle behind me and I turn away from the grisly scene below. He’s inches away. So close I could count his eyelashes if I wanted to. Long thick lashes that frame his beautiful brown eyes. Why can’t sex with this mouthwatering man distract me more?
“How’d you get here?” I ask. “How did you make it to the school?”
Riley sighs as he trails his fingers up my arm. The soft touch sends tingles of pleasure through me. “I was looking for other survivors, hoping that I wasn’t like Will Forte in The Last Man on Earth—”
“Only he wasn’t the last.”
“No,” Riley says, moving his fingers up to my face, “he wasn’t.”
He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, sending a tingle shooting through me that starts at my mouth and goes all the way to my toes.
“I saw a few people heading down the street and followed, only when I turned the corner I found out they weren’t people after all. Zombies. Who the hell would have ever guessed?”
“No one,” I whisper.
“Because it’s impossible.” His lips hover over mine, brushing against them gently as he talks.
“Yes,” I sigh, my mouth tickling his. “Impossible.”
“They charged me and I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I needed help. I saw other people running. Heard the screaming. I moved with them. More zombies came and people went down all around me. There was so much blood.” He closes his eyes, not moving his lips away from mine. His hand is still on my face and even though the image he’s painted in my head is grotesque and horrible, my body is trembling at his nearness. “I made it.”
“You made it,” I whisper.
My heart’s already pounding when his mouth closes over mine. It’s rough and desperate, and I feel the same way. We’re both torn between the need to cope and the need to forget, and it’s driving us to do crazy things that make no sense. Like making out in my high school English class with the window wide open at our backs and the sound of moans filling the room.
Life sucks.
Never breaking the kiss, I push Riley back until he slams into the teacher’s desk. Once we’re there I pull back long enough to rip his shirt off. I run my nails down his chest to his stomach, still kissing him. He grabs my hips and pulls me against him, and I discover that Magnum is at full attention. I reach for his zipper, but he pushes my hand away and shakes his head.
We kiss. He runs his hand up my back and through my hair, and I hold onto his strong shoulders for dear life. My legs are so weak they wobble, but Riley’s there to hold me up. His kisses go on and on until my lips are swollen and sore. I feel like a teenager again, but the crazy thing is, this little make out session works a lot better than the sex we’d had earlier. That had been good, but it had been over quick and afterward reality had felt even more devastating.
Riley’s kisses slow, but he doesn’t let me go. Without breaking his hold on me, he sweeps his hand across the desk at our side. Everything falls to the floor in a clatter of pencils and notepads, and then he climbs on top, pulling me up after him. We continue to kiss as we stretch out, but it’s gentler than it was. Less urgent.
“Is the desk too hard?” Riley asks, pulling back a little. My face is still between his hands and his thumb moves slowly across my cheek, leaving tingles behind.
“You should know by now that I’m a cold-hearted bitch who can’t feel,” I say.
“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head, his eyes sad. “Don’t say that.”
“That’s how people have always treated me. It’s what Patty seems to think.”
“Patty has other problems. You have to know that.”
I do and I don’t. Just because she’s clearly not stable—whether she was this way before or it’s a result of the apocalypse is hard to tell—doesn’t give her the right to say whatever she wants to me.
“Tori was pretty pissed at me too,” I say, suddenly feeling bad for being so blasé with her.
“I saw her. She didn’t seem too pissed, just sad. You have to remember that we’ve all lost, and not everyone here has someone to forget with.”
He’s right, of course. I’m beginning to think Riley is never wrong. “Tori does, though. She has Jim.”
“He told me all about it.” Riley’s shoulders shake with the force of his laugh. “He’s a lucky guy.”
I smile, but don’t say anything. None of us are lucky.
“Did you and Jim come up with something?” I ask, pulling my face out from between his hands and laying my head against his chest. “I mean, it’s not like there’s a way out of this place. We’re surrounded. We don’t have any weapons other than the baseball bats.”
Riley runs his hand over my head, brushing my hair out of my face. “I’ve been thinking about it, checking out the parking lot and trying to figure out what to do. It’s going to be rough, but there’s a big SUV parked not too far from here. The door is wide open, so I’d be willing to bet the owner ran off and left the keys in the ignition when things got crazy. If the battery isn’t dead yet, it’s big enough that we could drive through the field to get to a road not jammed with traffic. If there’s any government left, there would be emergency broadcasts. A car would not only get us the hell out of here, but give us access to a radio.”
It sounds like it would be tough, but not impossible. “So what’s the hold-up? Why haven’t we tried it?”
Riley exhales and his entire body tenses. “Thing is, we can’t all fit in one vehicle, and most of the people here want to wait around until help arrives. Which you and I both know is total bullshit. There’s no help, and even if there is, how are they going to know we’re in here? We need to get out of here. Make it to a refugee center or whatever they have set-up. There has to be something!” The last sentence is louder than the others, but the second it’s out his body relaxes under me.
; I scoot closer and his arms tighten around me, causing a tingling sensation to move through my body. “We’ll make it work,” I say, closing my eyes. “If some people want to stay, that’s their choice, but I won’t go down like this. I’d rather die fighting than hiding like this.”
“Me too.” Riley’s chin rubs against my head when he nods.
Why do I suddenly feel so much hope? Until this morning, I’d accepted that this was the end for me, but now… Things feel different. Again.
Chapter 4
My eyelids flutter open and when I shift the coarse hair on Riley’s chest tickles my nose. His breathing is heavy and the room is darker, but I recognize my old English class instantly. We’re still on the desk, although how we fell asleep on the hard surface is beyond me. Not that my body isn’t paying for it. The muscles in my shoulder feel like they’ve been put through a meat grinder, and my left arm seems to have disappeared. I sit up, and prickles run up my arm as the circulation returns to the limb. I flex my hand to help get the blood flowing.
The room is deathly silent with the exception of Riley’s heavy breathing, and outside the sky has darkened to a dusty rose color. Night is closing in.
“I can’t believe we slept so long,” I mutter, rolling off the desk.
Riley doesn’t move, and every time he exhales there’s a soft rattle at the back of his throat that reminds me of cartoon character.
I head across the room. The air coming through the window is chilly, making me shiver as I pull out another cigarette. I stick it between my lips, my gaze focused on the ground below us. My hands move automatically. Pulling out the lighter, flicking once. Twice. Three times. The click echoes through the room and when the flame finally catches, I lift the lighter to my cigarette with shaky hands.
I’m mesmerized by what I’m seeing, but I can’t make myself walk away.
Tremors work their way up my legs and goose bumps immediately follow.
I should move. Do something.
I inhale slowly, pulling smoke into my lungs until they’re so full they’re almost bursting. It all comes out in one swift puff that is sucked outside on the breeze.
Riley stirs behind me, but even when his feet touch the floor I can’t get my body to do anything other than stare out the window and smoke. It’s like I’m stuck on autopilot.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale…
Riley’s hands run down my arms and I jump.
The cigarette falls from my lips as a little yelp pops out of my mouth.
“Hey,” he whispers, moving the hair off my shoulder, his lips brushing against my right ear. “You okay?”
I shake my head but when my lips move, nothing comes out.
Riley’s hands drop away and he steps forward. Every hair on my body stands up.
“What the hell?” he whispers, sounding as shocked as I feel.
He sees her. It’s clear by the way his eyebrows pull together.
Riley’s back stiffens and he takes a step closer.
For some reason that snaps me out of it, and I stumble back. Moving away from the window. Away from what I’ve just seen like that can somehow erase it from being true. But it can’t and my mind must know it, because I can’t take my eyes off the body on the ground or the hideous floral dress that is now covered in blood.
“It’s Patty,” I whisper.
Riley shakes his head, but he doesn’t look away from the window. “It can’t be.”
“It is,” I snap, turning. Searching the room for my shoes as my brain spins in circles.
How the hell did she get out there?
“Shit!” Riley yells so loudly I jump three feet off the ground.
“Shut up!” I hiss, shoving my feet into my shoes. “What if they’re in the building?”
“Shit.” This time, he whispers the word as he rushes across the room, looking around in a way that reminds me of a chicken with head cut off.
He freezes and his eyes meet mine. Neither one of us says a word. What can we say? That we’re screwed? It’s on both our minds because there’s no other way to look at the situation. Patty was locked inside the school with us, but for some reason she’s now outside.
Damn. I’m not sure I’m ready to die.
When my brain finally focuses, I grab my baseball bat from where it’s leaning against the wall and stop next to the door. I’m terrified of leaving this room. So scared my heart is pounding harder than a jack hammer and my pits are wet. But I don’t have a choice.
“Thank God you talked me into respecting people,” I mutter, pulling my hair back with my free hand. Twisting it around until it’s out of my face.
“What?” Riley snaps as he heads my way, his brown eyes vicious-looking. Like he’s ready to beat the shit out of someone—or something. Good, because we might have to.
“Nothing,” I say, gripping my bat.
Riley looks toward my bat, then shakes his head. He holds out his hand. “Give me that.”
My fingers tighten on the aluminum. “What? Why?” No way I heard him right. Is he seriously choosing now to turn into some macho, sexist post-apocalyptic asshole? “I can protect myself.”
“I know you can.” He rips the bat out of my hands and steps toward the door, pushing me behind him. “But I’m a damn idiot who left my bat downstairs—I don’t know what the hell I was thinking—and if one of us is going to be armed, it should be me.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Because you’re the big strong man?”
“Yes,” he snaps again. “In this instance it makes sense. I’m stronger, meaning I can put more power behind a hit. Do you know how hard it is to crack the human skull enough to destroy the brain?”
I swallow. “No.”
“A lot.” Riley takes a deep breath and reaches for the doorknob. “Are you ready?”
I’ve lost the will to argue. “Yes.”
He lets out a low shhh as his fingers curl around the doorknob, but it’s a waste of breath. I can’t even force a sound out, let alone a word. My shoulders tense as he turns the knob, and when he pulls the door open, my heart jumps so high it almost chokes me. I hold my breath, straining to hear above the pounding of my heart. Are those moans in the distance? It’s hard to tell.
“Anything?” I whisper.
Riley leans closer as he nods. “I hear something.”
We both pause, and less than five seconds later a moan breaks the silence.
Fear shoots through my veins like an icy blast of wind. The sound wasn’t close, but it clearly came from inside the building. Staying here would be both stupid and a death sentence, but where do we go now?
“What’s the plan?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“We’ve got to get out.”
No shit, Sherlock. I swallow my sarcasm and clench my hands into fists. If only I had a bat too! “Okay…”
“Just like we talked about, we’re making a break for that SUV. It was stupid of us not to do it earlier.”
I can’t argue with him and I don’t have another plan, so I nod. “Do we look for others, or just run?”
Riley’s eyes snap toward me. He studies my face for a moment, his jaw tightening before he turns back toward the hall. “Run.”
His tone is so final it doesn’t leave room for argument, which is good, because before I can even think of one he’s out the door. Motioning for me to follow.
My whole body tenses when I step into the hall, hurrying after him. I focus on Riley’s broad shoulders while keeping my eyes and ears open for anything threatening. Every scrape of our shoes as we hurry down the empty hall causes me to bite back a gasp, and before we’ve even reached the stairs my bottom lip hurts from biting it so hard.
Riley pauses at the top, motioning for me to do the same. I hold my breath and stand next to him, our arms touching as we listen to the sounds from below. Shuffling feet and moans. A few grunts that sound angry. And something else, but I can’t tell what it is. A strange scratching sound. The unknown noise m
akes the hair on my scalp prickle.
If only I had a weapon!
Riley licks his lips and nods as he moves his face toward mine. “We’re gonna go down real slow.” The words are barely more than a brush of air against my face. “Pause halfway down to check things out, then move. The front door is only fifteen feet away. Follow me every step of the way. Got it?”
I nod once and so does he, then we’re moving down. Tiptoeing our way toward hell. Fear wraps its fingers around my brain and squeezes so hard it makes me want to scream.
When Riley stops, so do I, following his lead as he kneels. In the distance are a few zombies. Five, to be exact. They don’t seem to notice us and they’re all gathered around a closed door. Clawing at it. That must be the scratching sound I heard.
Seeing them is terrifying, but not nearly as much as seeing the carnage in the hall is. There’s blood everywhere. Splattered on the wall and smeared across the floor in the direction of the front door like someone tried to drag themselves away. No bodies, though, which makes me wonder where they disappeared to.
“They’re busy,” Riley hisses, drawing my attention away from the blood and back to the zombies. “We move fast, but quiet. Get to the door and hopefully the front isn’t too crowded.”
He doesn’t wait for me to nod, and when he starts moving again I’m so close to his back that people might think we’re glued together. We stay close to the wall, our footsteps as quick and silent as possible.
When we reach the doorway Riley turns the corner without pausing. I reach out to stop him, but I’m too late, and before I’ve had a chance to do anything he reels back. I rush forward to find a zombie less than a foot in front of Riley. The thing opens his mouth, chomping his yellowing teeth as he reaches out. His hands covered in blood so dried it looks brown. The same brown is caked under his nails and covers his clothes.