This Would Be Paradise (Book 2)

by N. D. Iverson

  Too late, he pulled the neck of the shirt up and cast me a pitiful look. “Please.”

  I pointed the gun to his shoulder. “You get that from an infected?”

  “This? No, no.” He waved it off. “This is just from some scrap metal. Been tryin’ to salvage items.”

  “For what?”

  “Umm.” His breathing became shallow. “You know, for radios and armor.” He took a step toward me and I took one back. “Please, miss. I ain’t no problem. Just need a ride. Been lookin’ for this Hargrove place. You heard ‘bout it?”

  Without warning, he charged me. I fired off a shot before he tackled me to the ground. I lost my grip on the gun, and it skidded away from all the wrestling. I kicked and thrashed at the man.

  “I didn’t want to do it this way!” he yelled desperately. “You made me! We could’ve gone together!”

  He was certifiably insane—and possibly infected.

  With a loud cracking sound, the man stopped his screaming. His jaw went slack, and he toppled over. Roy stood over him, bloody wrench in hand. I scrambled to my feet, fighting off a wave of dizziness, and scanned the interstate for my handgun. Once I found it, I rejoined Roy, who was standing watch over the crumpled heap that was the insane man.

  Roy looked at me. “He’s not dead. I just knocked him out.”

  I stretched out my arms and legs. He hadn’t done any damage, but getting tossed to the ground hadn’t done my head any favors. I took a few deep breaths through my nose to clear the dizziness.

  “Did you figure out what was wrong with the truck?” I asked, switching topics.

  “Ah, yeah, I think so.” Roy looked like a doctor delivering bad news. “The engine coolant reservoir bottom is completely cracked. I can’t repair it with the things we have.”

  “I guess it’ll be a cramped drive. I’ll back up the car and we can toss in everything that’ll fit.”

  “What about him?” Roy motioned to the unconscious man.

  Blood welled from the wound in his head and leaked onto the asphalt.

  “We leave him.”

  Chloe unlocked the door so I could get back in and Roy returned to his truck.

  “I’m sorry I honked the horn! I know it was loud, but I didn’t know what to do.” Chloe said in a rush.

  “Are you kidding? How else would we have known there was a crazy drifter?” She needed to understand that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “A what?”

  “Never mind. It’s all good. Besides, that shot I fired off was just as loud, so we have to get going, ASAP.”

  Before we took off, I swallowed a couple more pain relievers to decrease the dull ebb in my head that had returned thanks to the crazy man. I put my arm on the back of the passenger seat and craned my neck to see out the back window as I reversed the car. I maneuvered away from the man, careful not to run him over. That was the last thing I wanted to hear: bones cracking.

  Roy was already piling their meager supplies beside the truck by the time I reached them. I popped the trunk and he started throwing items in before I even got out of the car. We had to squish the trunk hood closed using our combined weight. Roy made sure the trucker’s radio was safely stowed on the dash.

  Chloe and Amanda would have to take the backseat, since they were the smallest. They had about one and a half seats between the two of them, as the rest of the back was piled to the roof with bags and supplies.

  No one had better open the door behind the driver’s seat. Otherwise, everything would come pouring out. Roy took up the passenger’s seat, the map already on his lap. He smelled faintly of gasoline, since he’d syphoned the remaining gas from the truck.

  “Okay, let’s try this again,” I said, turning the engine back on.

  We drove passed the drifter, who was now sitting up, rubbing his head.

  “Hey! Wait!”

  At his screams, I looked back to see him chasing after the car, but once the odometer hit fifty, he collapsed on the road. Chloe and Amanda peered out the back window, standing on their knees, as he got smaller and smaller in our dust.

  Chapter 15

  “I think we’re lost,” Roy said and held up the map.

  He cocked his head as though he were examining a painting at an art gallery. Navigating the interstate had been easy. Once we turned off, however, things got tricky. We managed to cross the bridge we’d been looking for and were technically in New Orleans, or at least on the very cusp of the city. I remembered using side streets to get out of the city, but unfamiliar one ways were all we had to go on.

  I let out a harsh breath and parked the car, turning off the engine. No point in letting it idle; it would just burn gas.

  “Did you happen to catch that street sign back there?” I asked Roy, since I’d been more focused on driving than navigating.

  “Yeah, but I don’t see it on here,” he muttered, pulling the map in for a closer inspection.

  I looked around our parking spot. The street was more residential than the others. Unkempt green grass surrounded the paved road and ate away at the cracks. A couple of scattered infected wandered around in the immediate area and would undoubtedly make their way over to us. I was about to get out of the car to dispatch them, when Chloe yelled, “Look!”

  She pushed her head between the front seats, pointing to some signage on the side of the street.

  “Ho-ly shit.” I gaped at the giant poster pegged into the ground.

  The camo-themed sign read: “Bobby-Joe’s Gun Shop. Three miles. Take left at intersection.”

  “I take it that’s where we’re heading?” Roy asked, setting down the map.

  “Good eye,” I said to Chloe and she sat back with a big grin on her face. “This makes things a lot easier.”

  I couldn’t believe our luck. I knew John had at least one billboard for the store, but it looked like he’d put out signs as well. Thank you, John.

  Roy looked at me, smiling as much as Chloe was. “Guess we just follow the sign.”

  I turned the ignition, the engine grumbling to life, and hurried down the road before the infected closed in on us. They chased us for a short distance until we turned left at the intersection. We continued down the road for almost three miles, until the familiar gravel pit of a parking lot came into view.

  “This is it!” Chloe squealed from the backseat.

  My heart rate elevated along with my excitement. Finally, something was going right.

  I parked out front, no other vehicles in the vicinity.

  “I’ll go in first and check it out. You stay here with the girls. I’ll come get you when it’s clear,” I announced.

  “I don’t think you should go in there alone,” Roy said.

  “Then what do you suggest? We can’t leave Chloe and Amanda in here by themselves. What if another crazy drifter comes along?”

  Roy looked kept looking between the girls and me. “Not like we have boatloads of options.”

  I filled up the magazine with what was left of our ammo stash and grabbed my trusty axe. I was reaching for the door handle, when Roy grabbed my arm.

  “Wait.” He peered out of the car at the empty parking lot and then got out. “Pop the trunk.”

  I did and followed him out to see what he was doing. He was rummaging through the overstuffed pile.

  “It’s in here somewhere, just give me a second,” he mumbled.

  I waited for whatever rabbit in a hat he’d produce. Roy pulled out a duffle bag and slid open the zipper. After more rooting around, he pulled out a long, yellow string. On the end of it was a whistle.

  “You’re kidding me. A rape whistle?” I cocked my hip.

  Roy looked at the whistle dangling from his finger. “Think of it as a trouble whistle. You run into something more than you can handle, blow it and I’ll come running.”

  “You think you’ll hear it all the way out here?”

  “I’ll roll down the window a smidgen.” He wiggled the whistle in front of my nose.

&
nbsp; “Fine.” I took it from him and stuffed it in my pocket. I glanced around the area. “Looks like the area is okay. I’ll be quick.”

  I headed toward the back entrance. The lawn behind the shop was even more overgrown than before. The worn footpath was hard to see through all the dense foliage. The back door was now secured by a chain and lock, since Ethan had destroyed the deadbolt. I lifted my axe and swung. The chain rattled but didn’t fall off like I had hoped it would. I decided instead to chop at the wooden doorframe to free one side of the chain. After a good couple of whacks, the chain came off the frame and hung on the door like an overcooked noodle.

  I opened the door wide and waited to see if anything would pop out. That hadn’t been the quietest of entrances. When nothing appeared, I went inside. Last time, the lights had been on, but now the only source of illumination was the sun coming in through the front windows and backdoor. With my axe at the ready, I prowled down the short hallway that led to the display floor. I cursed the creaky floorboards as they creaked from my added weight.

  On the positive side, there was no one in the display area. The negative side was that there wasn’t a single gun in sight, and scavengers had picked the bullet shelving clean. I lowered my axe in defeat and leaned against the wall, taking in the empty room.

  This trip had been all for nothing. We hadn’t found our friends or any weapons. And now I felt even more lost than before. I retraced my steps, heading back out, and stopped at John’s office. I twisted the door handle, but it was locked. With the backdoor chained up, why would John also lock his office? It wasn’t locked the first time we had come here.

  I wedged my axe in between the door and frame and heaved. The splintering sound of wood giving way spurred me on, and I leveraged the axe until the door broke open. I was getting good at this whole breaking and entering thing. The small space was lit thanks to the skylight. Metallic red caught my eye as I entered the room.

  On the desk in the middle of the room was a Beretta with a red bow on top and two boxes of 9mm bullets. I picked up the gun and examined it. The piece was exactly like the ones I’d lost. This couldn’t be random. I smiled as I spotted the paper underneath. Unfolding the note, my smile grew bigger and I laughed aloud. Ethan, in his messy scrawl, had written:

  Bailey, I hope you get this. We found Hargrove. We left you a map with directions. Please follow them and get here as soon as possible. Ethan.

  Chapter 16

  I wiped away the happy tears dripping on the note. Ethan was alive and had thrown us a lifeline. I tucked the note in the back pocket of my shorts and unfolded the map. Ethan had outlined the route to Hargrove, starting from the gun shop. Even I could follow these directions.

  I released the Beretta’s magazine to check it was loaded. With my hands full, I practically ran outside, excited to share the news. On the gravel lot, Roy was defending the car from a few roaming infected with his wrench. He bashed in the head of one as it lunged at him but wasn’t paying attention to the second one coming up behind him. I dropped everything I was carrying except for the Beretta. I lined up the shot and fired, dropping the body before it could get its hands on Roy.

  Roy whirled around, taking in the dead infected, and then looked at me wide-eyed. I spotted another one coming out of the tall grass and took it out with a single shot. When it fell back, its body flattened the tall grass, revealing a good ten or more infected creeping toward us like a lion stalking its prey.

  I gathered my things from the ground and bolted for the car.

  “We have to move—now,” I said as I ran around to the driver’s side.

  I threw my stuff onto Roy’s lap and started the car, rushing out of the parking lot.

  Once we were back on the street, I said, “Looks like you were the one who needed the whistle.”

  Roy grunted as he rifled through everything I’d dumped on him. “What’s this?”

  He held up the map.

  I looked in the rearview mirror at Chloe. “Ethan left us a present and a map.”

  “What?!” Chloe squealed and launched herself over the center console.

  I reached into my pocket and handed her the note Ethan had left. She tore it from my grasp and slunk into the backseat to read it. Her eyes lit up as she read.

  “He’s alive!” she screamed, bouncing as much as she could in the backseat.

  I pointed to the map Roy was unfurling. “That’s the way to Hargrove.”

  His mouth fell open. “Wow, talk about a lucky break.”

  “About time we got one,” I muttered.

  “We’re heading the wrong way,” Roy pointed out.

  Of course we were. I did a U-turn at the next intersection and headed back, almost taking out the “no U-turn” sign in the process. We passed the gun shop again, where the infected were struggling to get out of the tall grass.

  “Looks like we keep on this road for a bit,” Roy said, studying the map.

  “Aren’t we heading farther into the city?” I asked. I’d only glanced at the map back in John’s office.

  “Mm-hmm, but we gotta take this road before we start heading north-east.”

  “Dad, I’m hungry,” Amanda said from the back.

  Chloe rummaged through the bags and produced a box of granola bars, passing one out to everybody. We devoured the entire box, and then moved on to the lunch Mac had packed us—one of his famous canned food and spices concoctions. I kind of already missed him, but the sooner we found Hargrove, the sooner we could go back and get them.

  After a while, Roy asked. “How’s your head?”

  “Good.” The headache hadn’t returned since I’d taken the painkillers.

  “If these directions are accurate, we should be there by evening.”

  “I can’t wait! Can you drive faster?” Chloe asked, shaking my seat from behind.

  “I’m as happy as you to finally find our group, but we need to conserve gas, you know that.”

  “Okay,” she said, but continued to fidget.

  I was glad for the bone Ethan had thrown us, but that nagging voice in the back of my head was asserting itself. The note wasn’t dated, though I didn’t have any idea what day it was anyway, but something could have happened between now and when Ethan had left the stuff for us to find. All this hope could be for naught. And the note hadn’t mentioned who else made it. Was Zoe there? John? Darren? I didn’t want to go down this road of paranoia until I had to, so I tried to put my suspicions out of my mind.

  I looked over at Roy. “So, CCR work for you?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I took out the CD from the center console and jammed it into the player. Classic rock filled the silence, making the trip a little bit better. I was relieved John hadn’t only kept country music CDs in the car.

  Chloe was belting out the chorus to “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.” I think those were the only lyrics she knew.

  “You only found the handgun and note in there?” Roy asked and laid his head against the passenger window.

  “It was picked clean. I was lucky the Beretta was still there, although it was locked up in John’s office.”

  Roy pulled his attention from his window. “Tell me about your group. I only met Ethan briefly.”

  I wasn’t sure where to start, but I was fortunate that Chloe launched into an explanation, describing everybody from the cabin. I had to school my face when she mentioned Taylor and how he was no longer with us.

  “Sounds like a good bunch you got there,” Roy said, finally managing to get a word in. “You were here for Mardi Gras when all this happened?”

  I bobbed my head in response. “Crappy timing. Otherwise, I’d be in Canada with my family.”

  “Never been, but I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “Well, like most places, it depends where you are, but B.C. really is something. Lots of mountain ranges, greenery, and the coast is beautiful in the summer.”

  I was making myself homesick. As bad as it sounded, I tried not to thi
nk of home; all it brought me were pangs of sadness and regret. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I held on to the notion that one day I would travel home and find my family.

  “How about you? You from New Orleans?” I asked, turning the attention onto Roy.

  His mouth opened and then closed as if he were deciding what to say.

  “Not originally. I moved here with—” He swallowed. “—with my wife just before we had Amanda. More work out here than the small northern town we came from.”

  He reached back and patted Amanda’s knee with a sad smile. I felt like an ass for asking.

  “I’m sorry for everything you had to go through. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s all right. You have to deal with the hand you’re given. Can’t just take the good.” At that moment, he looked more lost than any person I’d ever seen.

  Silence reigned, the only sound coming from the car speakers. The directions took us down another main road, this one heading back into the city limits. I wasn’t nervous—until we passed one of the mercenaries’ spray-painted symbols on the road. Roy sat a little straighter.

  “I need to pee,” Chloe announced.

  “Looks like we’re stopping for a bathroom break,” Roy said.

  I slowed the car and brought it to the curb. More infected roamed within the city than around its outskirts. We would have to take them out to buy us time.

  “How do you want to do this?” Roy asked. He counted off the infected with his fingers. “I count nine sick ones nearby and more in the distance.”

  “We can pick off the nearest threats, then have a quick bathroom break one at a time. But stay close to the car,” I rattled off.

  Chloe cast me a droll look. “I can’t go if ya’ll are watchin’.”

  I groaned inwardly. This was going to be a pain. I remembered when stopping at a gas station bathroom during road trips had been enough to make me cringe.

  “Do you have to go to the bathroom too?” Roy turned and asked Amanda.

  She shook her head, brown eyes wide. Clearly she didn’t want to get out of the car, and I didn’t blame her. I looked around for any bushes or something else we could use. There was a small two-level house beside our spot on the curb, which gave me an idea.