This Would Be Paradise (Book 2)

by N. D. Iverson

  “Well, my ride’s here.” I opened the door and walked to the truck with my backpack over my shoulder. Everyone followed me out.

  Darren had gotten out of the truck and Zoe was currently hugging and kissing him to death. She then came over to me and wrapped me in a big hug.

  She spoke quietly into my ear, “I know you’ve been having a rough time. When you come back, we’ll have a night where it’s just you, me, bad movies, and tequila, okay?”

  “Sounds like university all over again.”

  The next bear hug came from Ethan and included a kiss. “You be safe, okay? We got date number two next.”

  I raised a brow at that. “Will it top our lovely dinner and movie night?”

  “You’ll see.” Ethan winked, releasing me from our hug.

  It felt like I was going away to war and everyone was giving me their last goodbye. When we’d left earlier in the week, our farewell hadn’t gone like this. Maybe they were worried because of my “episode.”

  John was the last in line and gave me a tight hug. “When you get back, I expect a long talk, you hear?”

  “I promise, but it might have to wait after my girls’ night.”

  He placed his hands on my face and kissed the top of my head in a very fatherly way.

  “Be safe. Do you still have that suppressor I gave you?” he asked.

  “Like hell I was giving that back to them.” I pointed to the mismatched gun and suppressor tucked in my belt.

  “Good, ‘cause I technically stole it,” John admitted with a grin. So that’s where Taylor had gotten his klepto tendencies.

  I tossed my bag into the back as I hefted myself into the passenger seat. The truck was lifted, requiring more effort to jump into than most vehicles.

  “You ready?” Darren asked.

  “As much as I can be.” I peered into the backseat, expecting to see a stockpile of weapons. “What, no automatic rifles?”

  “They make too much noise when we’re out in the open. Silenced handguns are better for in and out missions. Plus, when you’re carrying supplies, the rifles are just added weight.”

  Two other vehicles joined us at the gate.

  “Are they coming with us?” I asked. Darren had never mentioned them.

  “Not exactly,” Darren said. “We go out in groups, then split up. We get more supplies by fanning out.”

  “Why split up?”

  “It’s easier to do runs with less people to worry about. You can move fast and bail if need be when you’re in a smaller group.”

  “You better not bail on me,” I said, narrowing my eyes into slits.

  “Zoe would have my head.”

  “Glad to know that’s the reason,” I muttered.

  The driver of one of the other vehicles waved at the guards to open the gate, then we drove out like a convoy. For the second time in a week, I left the walls of Hargrove. I took a shaky breath to dispel my nerves. Something about being safety tucked away behind stone walls made the thought of not being behind them scary. That was the main reason I’d wanted to go on this run; I didn’t want to end up like those who couldn’t function out in the open. Well that, and I wanted to prove I was okay after my panic attack.

  The two vehicles behind us veered off, one going left, the other right.

  “I guess they decided where they were going?”

  “Yeah, we talked it over this morning. They wanted to see how far out they could go and still find supplies. We’re going west.” Darren looked at me. “That’s the way we’re heading right now.”

  “I knew that, jackass.”

  “Just making sure.” He turned his smirking face back to the road.

  We dodged infected after infected, the map on the dashboard shifting every time Darren took a sharp turn. I was growing tired of watching it, so I grabbed the map and stuffed it into one of the console slots so it would stay put.

  “How far out do you think we need to go?” I asked.

  “Until we find a place that people haven’t likely raided already.”

  “So way farther out then?”

  “You got it.”

  “You get that chicken feed location from Byron?”

  “On that map you grabbed. Byron circled some of the seed and feed stores we can try. I figure we’ll head in that general direction and stop anywhere that looks good along the way.”

  Darren gave up trying to dodge every single infected in our way and rammed into them instead. Since the truck was lifted, the infected hit the deer guard on the front and bounced underneath the truck. Having this much clearance was perfect.

  We passed a McDonald’s and my mouth watered.

  “I’d kill for a Big Mac,” I said, almost drooling.

  “Kill, eh?” Darren raised a brow.

  I froze as I realized what I’d said. “It’s a figure of speech. I didn’t mean literally.”

  “I know that. It’s just … you’ve seemed different since you arrived. Like the way you reacted when Chloe brought up you having a bruised neck. I don’t really buy the whole ‘falling down stairs’ story, by the way.”

  I sucked in a breath. Darren sure picked up on a lot of things, especially when I didn’t want him to.

  I wiped at some imaginary dirt on my pants. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You can tell me. I won’t judge.” When I didn’t respond, he sighed. “Fine.”

  We sat in awkward silence until I turned to him. “You remember us telling you about that guy who held us prisoner at the police station?”

  “Riley?”

  I nodded and the words rushed from my lips, “Well he found me at the medical center I was raiding for antibiotics. He tried to kill me, but I killed him first. That’s how I got the bruises on my neck. And when we were at the apartments, I stabbed one of my would-be kidnappers in the lung and he drowned in his own blood.” I had to stop to take a breath. “Then when I was on that run two days ago with John and Roy, I shot two more of those asshole mercenaries.”

  Darren let my confession hang in the air for a bit before he finally piped in. “You did what you had to. Don’t you dare be ashamed of that. All those people had it coming. It’s not like you went after them. They came after you.”

  After all the time I’d spent struggling with the fact that I’d killed actual human beings, it was a huge relief to hear someone say that. I looked out my window and inconspicuously wiped away the tear that had slipped down my cheek. I’d held on to that burden for so long. It had been eating away at me like a parasite, and for some reason, I found it easier to tell Darren all this. I’d had ample time to tell my friends, but couldn’t get the words out. I could picture John frowning because I’d opened up to Darren instead of him, even after he’d shared his war story.

  Darren swerved the truck, ruining my moment of tranquility. I had to brace myself on the center console to stop my ribs from becoming better acquainted with the hard unit.

  “What the hell, Darren?” I demanded.

  “We’re taking a little detour,” he said.

  I looked around the area, spotting a road sign that stated Tulane University campus was five miles down the road.

  “To the university?” I asked. “No way. I’ve done my time.”

  He cast a grin my way. “We can hit up the dorms. Most stores in the city have already been raided, so we need to search places people wouldn’t have thought to look at.”

  “All we’ll find, if we find anything at all, will be Cheetos and ramen noodles,” I said.

  “Better than no food. If broke university students can live off it, so can we.”

  I had no response to that.

  Saying the campus was big would have been an understatement. It must have spanned blocks.

  “Which of these buildings are the dorms?” I asked. All the structures varied in size and age.

  “Don’t know. Once we get close enough, we can look through the doors.”

  Darren drove over the curb to our lef
t, which was no obstacle for the lifted truck, and drove down the wide walkways originally meant for students. We cut through the lush quad that had fallen into disarray with no groundskeeper to mow the lawn or pick up the garbage. The truck left tire marks as it trampled down the lengthy grass, so the wandering infected trailed along the path we had made. The grass came to an end and Darren veered off to the right, stopping in front of a glass-paneled building. The massive windows reached from the ground to the next floor, illuminating the inside and allowing us to peek in. A square marvel of glass and steel girder architecture, the building was modernly designed compared to some of the older brown buildings we’d passed on campus.

  “I think there’s a food court in there,” Darren said. He inched the truck flush against the front steps.

  I squinted and looked inside the building from my seat. It looked like the usual food court you’d find in a mall. Fast food stalls lined the inside and plastic tables and chairs covered the rest of the area.

  “Looks like we found our first stop,” Darren said, cutting the engine.

  A group of infected were hanging around like ducks in a pond waiting to be fed. We got out of the truck as they shambled toward us. I lifted my loaded Beretta and chambered a round before taking out the five of them with precise, muffled shots. The suppressor wasn’t a hundred percent silent, but it certainly dampened an otherwise loud gunshot. Thank you, John, you klepto.

  “I have to say, I did not expect you to turn out to be a good shot.”

  I glared at him. “Rude.”

  He ignored my reply and pulled his backpack on. I grabbed my own, the extra bullets and magazine jingling inside the bag. All we needed was a handful of two-hundred-dollar textbooks that students didn’t crack open until midterms to complete the college freshman look. Instead of the textbooks, I grabbed my axe to wield.

  Darren approached the glass doors and looked inside. An infected flattened itself against the inside of the door, opening it enough to smash Darren in the face.

  “Goddammit!” he bellowed as he stumbled down the two short steps.

  The infected had managed to get itself out of the building and was perched on the first step.

  “You brought an axe, right?” Darren turned to me while pinching his nose.

  “Here.” I passed it to him, my eyes never leaving the ill-mannered infected.

  He ran back up the steps and swung with brute force at the infected. Decayed skin splattered all over the door as the pinging sound of teeth hitting glass rang out. Darren had hit the thing so hard that half of its face now decorated the glass, but it still stirred from its new spot on the landing.

  Darren loomed over it and used the blunt end of the axe to crush its skull. It cracked like a clay pot and the infected stopped moving. He shoved the body out of the way. More infected had gathered on the grounds as if we’d announced there was free beer. The ones that had followed us through the overgrown quad were now just reaching the sidewalk. An infected snuck around the truck and lunged at us from the other side of the grill. I took it out with one shot. It fell face first onto the steps, looking as if we’d parked on top of it.

  “We’re going to be surrounded soon,” I said nervously as I watched the infected close in on us.

  The city population of infected was larger than the one by the cabin or even around the small towns we’d been to.

  “Come on,” Darren said and together we entered the building.

  “How do we keep these doors shut?” I asked.

  “Hold this.” Darren passed me the axe and ripped into his backpack.

  He produced some white zip ties and used them to bind the two doors handles together.

  “You’re really prepared,” I said, impressed.

  Darren stood and took the axe back. The infected had reached the steps, some tripping over the first stair while the others navigated their way to the double doors. The rest spanned out, banging against the doors and running their hands down the glass walls.

  I could imagine them yelling, “Let us in!” The scene reminded me of the time we were bombarded at Walmart.

  Darren grabbed my shoulder to get me moving. “We need to get out of their sightline so they’ll calm down.”

  “You think they’re attracted to movement?”

  “Movement and sound. Not like I really want to test that theory though.”

  A few infected were plunked all around the large cafeteria, either in the chairs or wandering in between tables. The ones closest to the doors tried to shuffle over to us, but the tables and chairs were making it difficult for them to move around. One knocked a tray off the table and it smashed to the ground, capturing its attention, as well as the attention of nearby infected. It would be easy to stay clear of few we could see. The hard part would be backtracking to the truck, but I’d worry about that after we got our supplies.

  “Maybe we’ll find something good inside this place,” Darren said. “I’ll start at the right end. You take the left.” Darren motioned to the fast food stalls lining the back of the cafeteria. Walls stuck out, separating each stall and giving the illusion of privacy between booths.

  We broke apart and started our search and seize mission. An infected in a school hoodie sat in one of the plastic chairs and stirred, reaching toward me as I passed by. Out of instinct, I slapped the boney hand away from me. I looked down in horror at my hand and quickly wiped my palm on my pants.

  The infected decided to get up instead of merely grabbing at me. The hoodie it wore hung on its emaciated form like a really ugly dress that was three sizes too big. I took a few steps back and shot it in the head, seeing as Darren had pilfered my axe. It jolted backward, landing back in the chair, unmoving.

  The few other infected stationed all over the cafeteria were still trying to navigate their way through the maze of chairs and tables, diminishing their threat level. There was no sense in possibly wasting ammo by aiming so far back; I’d deal with them when I had to.

  I leaned over the counter of the sandwich booth, checking to see that nothing was hiding on the other side. Looping a leg around, I jumped over and found a full display of chips and a cooler full of bottled soda and water. I looked around, hoping to find bags to load the food in, but all I found were extremely unhandy sub-sized bags.

  I took off my backpack and opened it to fish out the empty plastic grocery bags we’d brought. They were light, took up little room, and would work well for carrying everything. I got to work filling the bags with what I thought we could use. Two full grocery bags later, I placed them on the counter.

  All the bread and meats had gone bad and the trays of condiments were covered in a greenish film of fuzz. A door led to a small back room, but the smell alone made me stay away. I figured the taco stand would have tortilla chips that were still edible, so I hopped over the counter to check out the neighboring booth.

  Turned out the taco stand had a bunch of supersized bags of corn chips under the counter that were still sealed. A pretty good find, I’d say. The bags rattled as I piled them on the counter, drawing in the nearest infected. I hadn’t heard anything from Darren since we’d split up, so I leaned over the counter to see if I could spot him farther down the row of stalls, but giant white pillars obscured my view of the other fast food stands.

  My ears picked up a scraping sound along the floor behind me. An infected wearing the taco stand uniform emerged from the backroom, a low growl rumbling in its chest. I drew my gun and put two bullets in it, blowing off the dorky pinstriped hat in the process, just for kicks.

  I jumped over the counter, intent on finding Darren. Splitting up always led to trouble; we should have stuck together, even if it meant doubling the search time. I shot at the nearest infected that had freed itself of the sea of tables, the bullet hitting it in the torso. It stumbled back and landed funny on the chair behind it, knocking it over with a crash. Of course.

  The other infected went into a frenzy, zigzagging toward the noise. I loomed over the infected re
sponsible for the racket and shot it in the head.

  I rounded one of the solid white columns and ran into a group of infected that were lying in wait behind one of the walls separating the booths. In a panic, I threw the full grocery bags at the infected and lit up the group with the few bullets left in the magazine. My hand was shaking from the surprise, and my aim suffered for it. I only killed two before the Beretta clicked empty and the slide popped back just to rub it in. Time for Plan B: Run.

  I sprinted past the group, jumping over the two fallen bodies, and the rest immediately chased after me. Where the hell was Darren? I tried to maneuver my backpack to reach for the spare magazine stashed in the outside pocket, but I slipped on something wet and crashed onto the hard linoleum.

  The gun slid from my grasp and slid underneath a nearby set of tables. I struggled to untangle myself from my backpack and get to my gun, but I kept slipping on whatever had caused me to fall. I looked down at the red staining my hands and clothes; I’d fallen in blood. A pool of congealed blood surrounded me.

  My gag reflex kicked in as I continued to slip around in the sticky substance as if I were wading through an oil spill. Please don’t be Darren’s blood.

  As the infected drew closer, I gave up trying to get my backpack off and attempted to crawl away, my feet unable to gain any traction. My hands slipped out from under me. As I scrambled to catch myself, my chin smashed into the floor. Shit!

  Even though I was seeing stars, I was well aware of the infected behind me. On my hands and knees, I scuttled toward where my Beretta had landed, ignoring the pain shooting through my head. I dove under a mass of tables that had been pushed together, but my backpack strap snagged underneath a table leg in the middle, yanking me backward. I bucked to loosen myself as I watched the many legs of the infected close in, my heart rate going up with every step they took.

  Chapter 35

  As the group of infected drew nearer, dread settled in my stomach. I bucked hard enough that the table tipped over, the toppled surface blocking my escape route as it landed.