Dawnland (Book 2): Hella Kills

by Karen Carr

  “Scrubs will make great pajamas for the guys,” Zora said.

  I picked out a pair of boxers, and shorts so that we didn’t have to deal with Huck’s leg and found him a clean tee shirt. I also grabbed a couple of extra-large shirts and a robe hoping they would fit Zeke’s muscles and Broder’s pudge, or at least give them something to wear while we washed their other clothes.

  By the time we came back downstairs, it was raining hard and someone had figured out how to make a fire. Everyone changed into the clothes we gave them, with me and Ana helping Huck into his shorts. Zeke’s tee shirt fit, but was extra tight revealing his big muscles. I tried not to stare at him too much, because I knew it made him uncomfortable—it made me uncomfortable too, but in a different way. Broder went with the bathrobe into the bathroom while Zora and I took the rest of the clothes out to the porch to let the cold rain wash them out.

  “What’s for dinner?” Trevan asked when we returned from the porch.

  “You want me to make you something?” Lily asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Do we have to do everything for you Trevan? He grumbled and began to stand, but I stopped him since he was swaying and went to the cupboards to look around.

  Lily, Stan and I found boxes of peanut butter, mint, and cookie dough power bars. They weren’t the most filling of meals, but at least they were healthy-ish. Broder came up with some marshmallows and shish kabob sticks. We all gathered around the fire, choosing to sit in front of it for our meal rather than at the table. Huck sat next to me with his leg outstretched. He took my hand and rested it on his lap. I wondered how Ana felt, if she knew we were a couple? She sat next to Broder and registered no jealousy when our eyes met, so I assumed that Huck had told her.

  Huck picked up a stick, skewered a marshmallow and handed it to me. He then told everyone the story of how we met, and how we had eaten marshmallows roasted in my fire, pausing now and then to translate for Ana. He told the story so well and with such intimate detail, that I was sure everyone knew where Huck stood with me.

  I felt the same way about him, even when Zeke’s penetrating eyes met mine and stared at me like he was trying to unlock the truth. Huck was his best friend. They had made it out of the worst conditions together. I knew he didn’t want me to hurt Huck, and I would never let that happen. I leaned my head into Huck’s shoulder as if to prove that I was worthy, which only made Zeke turn away in disgust.

  Zeke turned his attention to Trevan. “What can you tell us about those assholes?” Zeke asked. “We’re going to need to know everything if we’re going to get Stan’s friend.”

  Stan’s face turned crimson and he beamed at Zeke. “You mean Saudah?” Stan asked.

  “Yea, man,” Zeke said. “I promised you that I would help you rescue her. A man doesn’t go back on his promise.”

  “Neither does a woman,” I said. Zeke glanced at me. “And she’s my friend, too.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Zeke said. “Don’t get all touchy with me.”

  Trevan had found a bottle of scotch and poured himself a second drink. “You want to know about those assholes,” Trevan said. “Those assholes are idiots, too.” He laughed. “They appreciated the fact that I have a PhD in military history because they didn’t know a thing about the vehicles or equipment or tools they had collected. I had to give them an overnight lesson in all things armed and when I was done, they insisted that I travel with them in their helicopter. They respected me.” Trevan grumbled something else and took another swig of scotch.

  “He’s been drinking a lot,” Lily whispered.

  “He’s not going to go drunk on us again, is he Lily?” I asked.

  “Boa and I are going to bed,” Zora said. She stood up and helped her sister to her feet. “We’re taking the master, if that’s alright with you?”

  “Why is it my decision?” I asked. “This is not my house.”

  “Take the master,” Huck said. “We can stay down here in the guest room.”

  “That’s right, take the master,” Trevan grumbled.

  “Trevan,” Lily gasped as Zora and Boa went upstairs.

  “She was a real hero in the beginning,” Trevan said. “Wanted to rescue her sister. But once we were captured, the girl went mute. She was useless.”

  “She’s sixteen,” I said. “This is all new for her. Give her a break.”

  “You’re right, Hella,” Trevan said. “She played it cool at first. They caught us in the Walmart parking lot. We played dumb, like we were out shopping for supplies, like we had come from the south and not from Haverlyn Village. Once they figured out I could help them, because of how much I know, they sent Boa back to the village. They told me everything.” He paused for a swig of scotch. “About where they have your friend, what’s her name?”

  “Saudah?” I asked.

  “Yea, I’ll never forget a name like that. There are others, too.” Trevan rolled over onto the floor.

  He was silent for so long, that Lily touched his shoulder. “Trevan?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “I think he just passed out,” Zeke said.

  Trevan’s sudden need for sleep broke up the rest of the party. We all went our separate ways, with Huck and I retreating to the guest bedroom on the first floor. Huck’s fever had broken, but it was still very hard for him to walk and he was in a great deal of pain. I had found some Vicodin in the upstairs bathroom, and gave Huck a pill. He was trying to stay awake for me, sensing my need to talk, but I told him to rest and watched him fall asleep on the pillow next to me.

  CHAPTER 18

  In the morning I woke up to soaking wet sheets. In a panic, I pulled myself up and turned to Huck, my tired brain thinking it was blood. He was sweating profusely and when I touched his forehead I felt the heat from his fever. He murmured and rolled over, his hand sleepily finding my leg. Bags showed under his eyes in the soft morning sun. His hand quivered and his leg twitched, like he was having a nightmare.

  I wanted to wake him, to comfort him, but when I tried he only moaned and rolled over to the other side of the bed. We needed more antibiotics, ones that weren’t expired. I shuddered to think of the time when the expiration dates of all antibiotics were past due. Would humanity be wiped out by another plague that wasn’t zombie related?

  I rolled out of bed to see if I might scrounge up any more pills for Huck and food for me—I doubted he felt like eating. It took me a minute to be able to stand, all I wanted to do was fall back down and rest for another day or two, but I finally mustered strength enough to stand. Walking was another issue, and I had to use the wall to stabilize myself as I made it to the door.

  I hobbled out of the guest room to find Ana there with a cloth, some fresh bandages, and a bucket of water. She gestured in the room, apparently to ask if she may check on Huck, and I nodded. It was better that Huck wasn’t alone while I went on my errands, and if she kept his wound clean it would only help him heal faster.

  I heard Huck and Ana’s muted conversation in Spanish as I rested outside the door. She had been able to wake him, probably that freezing-cold water on his leg. I resisted the urge to check on him one last time and made my way into the kitchen. Zeke and Stan were sorting out a bunch of guns on the long kitchen island. They both regarded me with cheerful grins. I picked up a pink gun.

  “That’s a Sig Sauer,” Zeke said. “It suits you.” I liked it better than the Uzi, more practical and easier to carry.

  “We found the key to the gun safe,” Stan said with a mischievous grin. Since when was Stan mischievous?

  Zeke pushed a pink camo gun belt toward me. “This must have been hers, it belongs to you now.”

  “Do you have to remind me that it was someone else’s?” I strapped the gun belt around my waist, put the gun in it, and smiled—tilting my hips around to model it. “What do you think?” I asked. I stopped when I saw a fire in Zeke’s eyes that reminded me I was a woman. I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression and he didn’t ei
ther because he abruptly turned away.

  “Nice,” Zora said from behind me. I twisted around to see her with Boa. They both must have recently bathed, were wearing matching tennis outfits and had freshened up with lip gloss. Zora’s hair was in a thick braid and she had found a colorful scarf to wrap around her head. Boa’s hair had been trimmed, and was now shorter than mine, making her look much younger than her sixteen years.

  “How did you get your outfit to fit so well?” I asked Boa.

  She blushed. I remembered Boa wanted to be a designer when she graduated high school. “I found a craft room with a sewing machine on the third floor.”

  “There’s a third floor?” Stan asked.

  “With a ballroom,” Zeke answered.

  “My sister is the best seamstress,” Zora said, wrapping her arms around her little sister’s shoulders.

  “Where are the rest?” I asked.

  “Out there.” Zora pointed to the French doors.

  Trevan and Lily were on the screened-in porch. They had found a camp stove which must have had propane in it. I walked closer and saw a box of complete pancake mix and smelled the wonderful smell of breakfast—exactly what Huck needed.

  Trevan was sitting in a lounge chair with his head in his hands nursing a hangover and Lily was cooking like a pro, flipping and pressing the pancakes. My stomach grumbled as I went to join them on the porch. Broder was there, looking out to the horizon, surveying the grounds for trouble.

  “You ready for some breakfast?” Lily asked. My stomach grumbled in response. She handed me a plate. “Syrup is over there.”

  “Can you give me another plate?” I asked. “I’d like to bring these to Huck and Ana.”

  Lily handed me another plate and I brought them back inside. When I walked into Huck’s room, I smelled the sickness in the air, a smell I hadn’t noticed when I woke up in the morning. I knew Huck was sick, but never considered that he may possibly die of his putrid infection. The loss of his soul would damage me forever. Thinking about it made me woozy, so I tried to push that far from my mind.

  Ana responded gratefully to the plate of pancakes. Huck was sleeping, so she took the other plate and rested it on the nightstand, ushering me to go back to the others. Huck was in good hands, and there was nothing else I could do for him except eat a good meal and hunt for medicine, so I went back to join the others.

  Everyone had gathered on the porch outside the kitchen, where Lily was still flipping flapjacks. I sat down next to Stan. Trevan had his feet up and held an iPhone, watching something on the screen with a furrowed brow—he was probably using up the last of its juice to play a stupid game. Zeke took two plates and joined Broder on lookout duty, handing him one of the plates and Zora forced Lily and Boa to sit while she finished up the rest of the batter.

  “Huck’s really sick,” I said. “We might have to stay here for a few days until he’s better. We all need some time to rest and to heal.”

  “We’re going to need supplies,” Zora said. “These pancakes are great, but I don’t think we can survive on them.”

  “There’s plenty of oatmeal,” Lily said. “And giant containers of protein shakes, vanilla and chocolate, and lots of bottled water. It should last us a couple of weeks.”

  “We’re going to need medicine for Huck,” I said. “I think everyone needs a bandage or two.”

  “Are you wondering where the previous owners are?” Trevan asked, oblivious to our conversation. We looked at him with disbelief. I shook my head, no. I didn’t want to get into it with him, or think about the previous owners. “Here’s a good look.” Trevan slid the iPhone over to me. He had been playing the home movies taken on the iPhone.

  I resisted the urge to pick up the phone.

  “Go on, press play,” he taunted me. “If you were here, you could have saved them.”

  Zeke strode over to the table. “What’s going on over here?” he asked. When he saw the phone in front of me, he picked it up. “Crass ass,” he said to Trevan. He sat down in the empty seat next to me and pressed play.

  I leaned over Zeke’s arm to watch the small screen. Whomever was filming strode slowly through the house. “Turn the sound up,” I said.

  Zeke looked at me as if he was judging how much I could handle, and turned up the sound. The others gathered around Zeke to watch.

  A man’s voice filtered out of the phone. His voice was calm and he was talking to someone, calling them darling, and by the way he spoke I gathered his darling was already deceased and he knew it. He brought us through the tidied rooms upstairs and then downstairs, all the while describing how he did this for her, and how he couldn’t wait for her and the children to come home from the zoo. He kept describing the fun things they would do, go to Paris, Disney Land, and even a trip to the moon, while he led us out to the garage. There, he filmed three cars while we heard keys jingling.

  “The new Rover,” he said, dangling a pair of keys in front of the camera. “This was for you.” He got in the vehicle, still filming the interior, and started the engine. He placed the camera on the dash, pointing towards him. We were able to see his face for the first time. He was an older gentleman with graying hair around the temples. “Goodnight, my love,” he said. He reclined the seat and rested there while the engine rumbled on. The video kept going without him making a move.

  “I don’t think we have to watch any more of this,” Zeke said.

  “You think he’s still in the garage?” Trevan asked.

  “We’re going to have to get rid of him if he is,” Zora said.

  “I can’t deal with any more dead bodies right now,” I said.

  Zeke turned off the iPhone and placed it upside down on the table. “Let’s concentrate on the living today. Hella, let’s go on a medical run for our boy Huck.”

  Broder walked over to the door that we assumed led to the garage and disappeared behind it.

  “You coming, Stan?” Zeke asked.

  “Sure,” Stan said. He stuck out his shoulders as he stood up from the table. I smiled at Zeke and Stan’s unusual friendship, and was happy to go along with them.

  Zeke, Stan and I readied ourselves to go. The rest agreed to hold down the fort, alternating guard duty around the house, while Ana stayed by Huck’s side in case he took a turn for the worse. I took my new pink gun and Zora produced my American Flag tee-shirt, looking as good as new—although it was still a bit damp. I put it on, along with a pair of flip flops that Boa had found. They were a little too small for me, but it gave my blisters time to heal and it was better than going barefoot. Besides, the straps were sparkling with jewels and made me feel pretty.

  We decided to start our hunt at the golf club which was a short distance away. Zeke had put on some scrubs and given his laundry to Zora, Stan had done the same, although they looked very different in the outfits.

  Zeke resembled a doctor you would find in the Australian Outback, especially with his Desert Eagle protruding from his pants, while Stan looked like a med-student trying to fit in. They didn’t care, Stan was busy grilling Zeke about the different names for buildings and structures and columns and windows, leaning on Zeke’s Architecture and Design degree. Their conversation turned to solar panels when I became distracted by other noises around us.

  I listened to the soft animal noises in the distance, a dog barking a horse neighing, and birds chirping. I practiced aiming my new pink pistol at anything that moved, making sure the safety on. We arrived at the clubhouse and walked around to the rear where there was a large patio dotted with over a dozen umbrella-covered tables arranged in rows of three.

  These umbrellas were unlike the white tents in Pittsboro. Those had been tattered and torn and beaten down to the ground from countless storms. These umbrellas were in perfect condition and weren’t even wet from last night’s rain. It gave me an eerie feeling.

  “Stay close,” Zeke said. It gave him an eerie feeling too. “Safety off.”

  I clicked the safety off and held my gun the w
ay Zeke had shown me. My new gun and holster made me feel like a pro, like I was meant to be here in the midst of this new suburban wilderness. “The whinnies are getting louder.”

  “You hear them, too?” Stan asked. I nodded.

  We crept along silently with Zeke at the lead and Stan and I flanking each side. The patio was raised about three feet, with a half a dozen wide and shallow stone steps leading to the top. We climbed the steps with our backs to the wall of the building. The patio was a wide expanse of stone with a low arched wall at the far end held up by fat and low stone pillars.

  Soon we heard hoof beats and watched as a dozen horses galloped over the golf course toward us. We took the remaining steps up to the patio in twos and then dashed to the stone wall to watch the horses.

  “It’s feeding time,” a woman’s voice said from behind us.

  Zeke, Stan and I turned around with our guns raised. I cursed at myself for not thinking to look in the building, for assuming it was abandoned like everything else out here. An older woman had come out of the club carrying several large burlap sacks.

  “Damn, you snuck up on me,” Zeke said. He still had his gun pointed at her, but I lowered mine.

  “You shouldn’t turn your back on anything, especially a door.” the woman said. She rested the sacks on a table.

  “I don’t make the same mistake twice,” Zeke said.

  “Put the gun down, son, and help me feed the horses.” The woman gestured to Zeke’s gun. When Zeke wouldn’t put it down, she continued. “I am by myself, there is no one here to harm you.”

  I walked over to the woman. “I’ll help you,” I said. “My name is Helena, and this is Stan, and the one with the gun is Zeke.” The horses, over a dozen of them, were now all traipsing back and forth in front of the patio.

  “We better not keep them waiting,” the woman said. She took a sack and handed it to me. “And you may call me Sivan.” Her wavy black and silver hair blew around her face as a gust of wind hit the patio. Her skin was pale and wrinkled like parchment, and everything about her exuded healthiness. She could have been as old as my grandmother, but looked no older than my mother.