This Would Be Paradise (Book 2)

by N. D. Iverson

  “Fuck!”

  At least I’d freed my backpack. My head whipped around, my panicked gaze landing on my Beretta. I had to stretch out, my fingers pawing at the handle. Success!

  I hauled the gun to me then ripped off my backpack and unzipped the outside pocket where I had the extra magazine stashed. I fiddled with the Beretta to eject the empty magazine, the simple task rendered difficult by the sticky coating of blood on my fingers. As soon as the empty magazine clattered to the floor, I jammed the full one in as the first infected dropped to the ground in front of me.

  It reached for me as I racked the slide of the Beretta. I gave it the honor of receiving the first bullet in my magazine. Brain matter flew out of both the entry and the exit wounds and the thing slumped down with a thud.

  “Ugh, gross,” I muttered and wiped away the pieces of brain splattered all over me.

  A second infected tripped over the legs of the first one. I aimed at its floor-level, snapping face and shot it at point-blank range. While I was occupied with the first two, a third infected had climbed underneath the side of the first table I crawled under. The infected looked in pretty good condition, as far as decay went. It wasn’t missing any limbs or chunks of flesh.

  It grabbed at my ankle to pull itself closer to me. The trail of blood I’d brought with me made it easier for the infected to shimmy toward me on its belly. I couldn’t help myself; I screamed bloody murder as I used the butt of my gun to bash its head in. The infected snarled and snapped away despite the brain damage I was inflicting. I could have shot it, but I wanted to take out my frustrations on its skull instead.

  As I wound my arm back to give it one last hit, the body was pulled backward, its fingernails scraping across the linoleum. I watched as a heavy boot came down again and again until the head no longer existed, instead, just a pile of pulp. I sat there for a second to get my bearings. Then I gathered my empty magazine and my backpack.

  The figure kneeled down and peeked under the first table—Darren. He reached his hand under the table for me to take and helped me to my feet.

  “Holy shit.” He paled at the sight of me covered in blood. “You bit?”

  He checked me over rather intrusively without waiting for my answer.

  “What? You’re not even going to buy me dinner first?”

  Darren stopped patting down my sides and had the good graces to look embarrassed.

  “I take it you’re fine if you can crack a joke.” He scowled at me. “Why are you covered in blood?”

  “I slipped and fell in some.” My face scrunched up as I looked down at myself. I was literally covered in the stuff. What started as a giggle burst into full-fledged laughter.

  “Sometimes I wonder about you,” Darren said as he rolled his eyes at me.

  I laughed even harder at his words. I felt the exact same way about him.

  Once my laughter subsided, I muttered, “It’s always me.”

  “Seriously though, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, no bites or scratches, but I think my old elbow injury is acting up,” I said, cradling my left arm. My elbow was throbbing again thanks to my fall.

  “Let me see,” Darren said and checked my elbow over. “I don’t think anything is broken. The skin isn’t discolored, but I’d have the surgeon take a look at it when we get back.”

  I bobbed my head to placate him; I’d never actually let anyone in Hargrove examine me. It was too risky. I didn’t want my supposed immunity brought to light, especially with Wyatt’s shady mercenary connection.

  We stood staring at each other, Darren holding my arm. He moved in closer, his free hand aiming for my face. For a brief, horrific moment, I thought he was going to pull me in for a kiss. Instead, he pulled his hand away and dropped something on the ground. It landed with a resounding splat.

  “You have brains in your hair,” Darren said.

  I stared down at the grey matter on the bloody floor, glad I wouldn’t have to kick his ass for cheating on Zoe.

  “That’s so gross.” I cringed.

  “You look like a mess.”

  “I look like Carrie.”

  “Except that’s not pig’s blood.”

  I shot him a sharp look. “Thanks, but I’m trying not to think about that.”

  I went back to the stalls I’d already cleared and grabbed a bunch of napkins to wipe away as much of the blood as possible. While I was doing that, Darren took out a few more infected. When the paper stuck to my skin, I knew I wouldn’t get any cleaner without water. Using a water bottle, I wet a handful of napkins and wiped down my face and any exposed skin I could reach. By now the blood had seeped into my clothes, adhering them to my torso and legs. So gross.

  “I give up,” I growled and threw down the soiled napkins.

  Darren walked up to the counter, setting down his handful of grocery bags, and grabbed a couple of napkins to clean off my bloody axe. “Did you find anything?”

  “I kind of tossed the supplies I found at the infected,” I said sheepishly. “They surprised me when I rounded that column.”

  “Let’s go grab them and then we’ll leave. I’m pretty sure we passed by a dorm on our way through the courtyard. We can get you some clean clothes and see if any of their communal showers still have water access.”

  “Sounds good to me, but how do we get through the infected clogging the entrance?”

  “The backroom of the stall on the end has an emergency exit.”

  “That’s great, but they’ll still be surrounding the truck,” I said.

  “Not if we let them in here. I’ll smash one of the glass doors and get them to file in.”

  I didn’t like it, but what choice did we have? I led him over to where I’d tossed my supplies like a fool. We rounded up the bags and the items that had fallen out. I tried to shift the plastic bags around in my hand, but my fingers were still starting to stick together. Where were wet wipes when you needed them? Darren showed me where the emergency exit was and set his bags down by the door.

  “Stay here,” Darren said, “and have this door ready to open as soon as I get back. I’ll be running fast.”

  He walked back to the front of the stall with the axe, leaving me alone. I swallowed as I pictured all the things that could go wrong. What if he didn’t get out of the way in time? He had the keys!

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I hissed to myself.

  The sound of glass breaking interrupted my hissy fit. I held my breath, my muscles tensing. Please, for the love of God, come back Darren.

  After a few moments of standing eerily still, I almost screamed when Darren burst into the back room.

  “Go!”

  I shoved open the door as he scooped up his supplies. We ran back around to the front, Darren holding out an arm to stop me as he peered around the corner. His arm fell back to his side and he started running again, me right on his heels. A large portion of the infected had poured in through the broken door, leaving the truck exposed. We threw the plastic bags into the bed while still running. I used the passenger door to whack two infected and dove into the truck.

  Darren didn’t even give me time to close the door before he hit the gas, the truck flying backward. I reached outside the moving vehicle to grab the swinging door and almost fell out when Darren abruptly turned us around to face the quad. The door slammed shut from the momentum, an inch away from smashing into my surprised face. Had my head been out any farther, the door would have broken my nose. I glared at Darren, not that it registered with him. He ripped across the quad, back the way we’d come, and stopped on the other side of the campus. I braced myself against the dash when Darren slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing.

  “I’m pretty sure these are the dorms,” he said.

  The building looked like an old three-floor apartment complex shaped a little like the letter E, if a kindergartener had drawn it. The building was brown and outdated but well kept.

  Most of the infected on the campus were currently in or around th
e cafeteria we’d vacated. It would take a while for them to shuffle their way back over here.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  I wanted nothing more than a chance to scour myself clean from the blood crusted on my skin and find some clean clothes.

  Darren inched the truck up to the nearest door and got out, taking out a few stragglers. We ran up the steps to the door, but it was locked. We needed some sort of key card to enter. Darren poked and prodded at the silver card reader beside the door, then he lifted the axe and brought it down. The squealing of metal on metal made me grit my teeth; it sounded like utensils scraping against a glass plate. The silver box took a few more chops before it fell to the ground.

  “Will that even make a difference? There’s no electricity,” I said, my eyes darting between the door and the infected looming in the distance.

  “These things are usually battery powered, like at hotel rooms,” Darren said as he gripped the door handle.

  It opened. He shot me a “would you look at that” look. We rushed inside, Darren using more of his zip ties to secure the door we had just broken into. Once that was done, we went through another set of doors and entered into the main corridor, our weapons at the ready. The main floor looked huge. To our left was another set of doors, so we continued right passing what looked like a student lounge area on either side of us. Fallen bodies lay face down among the couches and tables, but none were moving. My eyes watered from the sheer force of the odor of rot. They must have been here decomposing for a long time.

  We increased our speed, trying not to gag. A sign pointed us to the stairs. Darren said it was best to start at the top of the building and work our way down. Following it, we rounded a corner to our right. Darren pointed to a wide staircase.

  “You think these are the ones we need?” I asked. There seemed to be a few dorm rooms on the main floor that we could look through if we could bare the stench.

  “They go up, don’t they?”

  Jackass.

  We climbed to the highest floor, the bottom of my shoes sticking to every step. This had to be one of the grossest moments of my life. We pushed open the door to the third floor, which was the top floor, but a pile of furniture blocked the entire doorway.

  “Looks like they barricaded it,” Darren said.

  I tightened my bloodstained fingers around the handle of my Beretta. Maybe they were trying to keep a barrage of infected out. We closed the barricaded door and went down to the second floor landing.

  The next floor wasn’t blocked and didn’t smell like a morgue after a long power outage. There were smears of blood on some of the walls, but there weren’t any bodies. The blood trail led to an open room at the end of the long corridor. The frame was a mess of bloody handprints.

  “I vote we skip that room.”

  We rummaged through the closest rooms we could open without a key. The first dorm I checked had belonged to someone with major school pride. Tulane banners hung all over the walls with a giant poster of Riptide the Pelican over the bed. Must be the school mascot. I scooped up the noise makers and air horns on the dresser. Never know when they could come in handy. After tearing apart three more rooms, I found one that looked like it had belonged to a girl. First, I checked the room for anything that might jump out at me from behind a door or under the bed. Then I proceeded to yank open the dresser drawers.

  I shuffled through the clothing and produced a couple of band t-shirts that would work, including a V-neck AC/DC shirt that caught my eye. Skirts and sweats filled the last drawer. I pulled out a pair of black sweats and held them over my hips. They should fit.

  “Can’t decide on an outfit?”

  I jumped a foot in the air, my heart beating a mile a minute. “Don’t do that!”

  “You need to stay aware of your surroundings. What if I was an infected?”

  “An infected wouldn’t have tiptoed in here.”

  Darren tossed a towel at me. “I found the bathrooms, and in the lounge around the corner, I found a water cooler with the jug almost full. You can use that to wash up.”

  He led me to the communal showers two doors down from the room I’d raided.

  “I already checked that nothing was in the showers and put the water jug in there. I’ll stand guard out here. I also brought a first aid kit, so when you’re done, I’ll wrap up your elbow. Don’t take too long.”

  “Not sure how quick I can be when I’m scraping brains out of my hair,” I said and opened the door.

  Just to be extra cautious, I re-canvased the bathroom. I found the showers at one end and a single bathtub. Thank God. I wouldn’t have to worry about holding up the heavy jug with my sore elbow. I splashed some water in the tub to clean off the grime from lack of use and then plugged the drain, emptying the rest of the water from the cooler jug in the tub. The water barely came up to my ankles, but I’d make do. At least the water wasn’t freezing. Someone had left a bottle of body wash in the stall, which would better help get the blood—and stench—off me.

  I put down my backpack, placing my gun on top of it for easy access, and stripped off my dirty clothes, flinging them to the ground. I hopped into the tub and squirted a huge handful of body wash right on top of my head. Crouching uncomfortably, I had to bend down to gather water and wash my hair while my head scraped along the bottom of the tub. Next I scrubbed the crusted blood from my skin until it felt raw. My elbow didn’t appreciate the movement, but I ignored the dull ebb of pain. At least the pain level wasn’t even close to when I’d originally injured it falling off that fence.

  The blood ran off me like melting snow, staining the water a grisly red color. I ran my hands through my wet hair again and again for good measure, making sure I got all the brains out. I chuckled at the absurdity of that. Good thing I wouldn’t be scarred for life or anything.

  Using the rough towel, I dried off and put on my borrowed clothes. The shirt was a bit tight and rather low-cut, but the sweats were a good fit. After I gathered my backpack and gun, I opened the door to find Darren gone. So much for standing guard.

  “Darren!” I hissed down the hall.

  I held my breath and listened for him. When I couldn’t pick up anything, I tiptoed farther down the hall, with my Beretta at the forefront. Door after door revealed that Darren was nowhere to be seen.

  I continued to the end of the hall, noticing that the door to the gory dorm room was closed. Darren must have closed the door to spare me the sight of whatever was inside. When I reached the last room on the left, I found Darren standing inside with his back to me.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I said, enraged.

  He turned to me and held up a baggie.

  “You left me unguarded for pot?!”

  Darren called my attention to the floor where there was a plastic bag overflowing with Styrofoam cups. “And soup cups. Besides, you were fine, and I checked all the open rooms for infected.”

  “Something could have attacked me while I was bathing!”

  “Like I said, you were fine,” he said as though my concern was senseless. He was the one berating me earlier for not paying attention while I searched for clothes.

  I pointed to the bag of rolled-up doobies. “Let me guess. This was the real reason we came to the university, right?”

  Darren looked pleased with himself. “Food was my main thought, but I figured there was a high chance we’d find some.”

  I sighed. “You better share that.”

  “I was thinking we head to the sun deck I spotted and light one up. Not like there are schedules anymore.”

  “Well, we do have a stockpile of junk food,” I mused. My ire started to dissipate. “Why not?”

  After the week I’d had, getting stoned seemed like a reprieve, and it was probably the best offer I’d heard since the infected took over. Plus, my elbow was bugging me, and there was nothing like a little pot to help with the pain.

  Noticing that I was poking at my elbow, Darren said, “Now that you�
��re all cleaned up, let’s take a look at that elbow.”

  He kneeled and dug through his backpack, producing a white plastic box with a red cross on it. Inside was the usual fair: bandages, scissors, peroxide, gauze. He pulled out the light brown elastic wraps used to treat sprained ankles and stood. After unraveling the wrap, Darren wound it tightly around my elbow and tied off the ends. The pressure turned the pain into a manageable ache.

  “Thanks,” I said and inspected my newly wrapped appendage.

  I wondered after all the injuries my elbow had sustained if it would be permanently messed up like my dad’s bum knee from one too many baseball slides.

  “Take a few of these. It’ll help with the swelling.” Darren plunked two pills in my hand.

  At my curious stare, Darren explained, “Ibuprofen helps reduce swelling.”

  Trusting him, I swallowed the pills dry.

  We headed back to down the corridor toward where Darren had found the water cooler jug. The small lounge and communal kitchen had been picked clean, but the lounge had a door leading to a balcony that connected to a deck farther up. Darren opened the door and a wave of fresh air hit me, blowing through my wet hair. A shiver ran up my spine. The mid-afternoon sun was hours away from setting. Bright light shone between buildings, reflecting off the glass. The sight would make for a great postcard picture for Tulane.

  “Hold the door open while I look for something to prop it open with,” Darren said.

  He took off in search of something heavy. I looked down to my left and saw a cement block sitting there, so I picked it up and used it to keep the door open.

  Darren’s eye’s bulged when I came up beside him. “What are you doing? You want to get locked out here?”

  “Calm down. There was a cement block right beside the door, Sherlock.”

  We went up the set of stairs to the deck, which had a variety of lounger chairs to choose from. An infected was sightseeing from the ledge but turned as we approached. Darren sprinted toward the infected.

  “Darren, what are you—!”

  He shoved the infected with the full force of his speed behind him, and the infected toppled backward, flailing over the side. I ran up to the ledge and watched the infected splatter against the pavement, its head cracking open like a dropped egg.