Jess.
“Don’t tempt me,” Jude said darkly, his honey colored eyes glinting dangerously.
Visions of Jude’s big, rough hands tying me to my bed shimmered through my mind and I swallowed. Jude’s mouth lifted slowly on one side, his dimple making an appearance there. His eyes said he knew exactly what I’d just thought and how my stomach had done a little flip flop.
Damnation. That’s not fair, I thought. He looked downright delectable right then.
“Okay.”
I blinked.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Okay. You can go with me.” He said.
I blinked and my shoulders relaxed. I smiled.
“You would just sneak out and follow me anyway, wouldn’t you?” Jude asked nonchalantly around a bite of his food.
“You bet your ass I would.” I answered immediately.
Jude just shook his head.
“We leave at 0700 in the morning.”
I nodded and jumped up from my seat to go and prepare.
“See you there,” I said as I turned to walk away.
“Melody?” Jude called softly over his shoulder.
I hesitated a foot away from him. He crooked a finger for me to come closer.
I bent over, my hair falling forward between us. His mouth came close enough that his breath moved my hair as he spoke.
“Have sweet dreams about all the things I could do to you if a bed and silk ties were handy,” he murmured huskily. I gasped and jerked away. I nearly ran from the room, but Jude’s laugh followed me out. His words stayed with me long into the night.
*****
It took us over two hours to drive to the halfway point about forty miles outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Dodging wreckage, abandoned vehicles, and zombies made traveling take a lot longer than it used to. It felt like we were evading landmines, but instead of bombs we were trying to avoid becoming surrounded by the undead or stuck in a tight spot with nowhere to run.
The vehicle we were riding in, a 2015 Jeep Wrangler, made a few weird noises and sputtered several times during the journey, putting me on edge. I glanced over at Jude who seemed to be taking the new development in stride. Other than the rigid set of his jaw, and hand flexing tightly on the steering wheel, he gave nothing away. I shrugged.
I definitely wasn’t a mechanic, so I left that to Jude and focused on our surroundings. As we continued, the sputtering and jerking of the Jeep got noticeably worse. I was relieved when we began slowing down and made a turn into a small, shopping center parking lot.
The small strip center only boasted a nail salon, dollar tree, and mixed martial arts school. The building that stood apart from the strip on the outer edge of the parking lot, facing the road caught my attention.
Jude pulled up to the back entrance of the rendezvous point and I sat there for a second, wondering if he was just yanking my chain.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I mumbled when he killed the engine.
I glanced out the window and only noticed two straggler zombies in the area, easy enough to take care of. Maybe he had a point. Looting a local Toys-R-Us would have been low on the priority list for people trying to survive in a zombie-riddled world.
And fewer people looting in the area meant fewer zombies to worry about.
“You take care of our decomposing friends while I secure the outside of the building,” Jude said as he exited the car.
I nodded briskly before opening my door and sprinting toward the zombies who had already started heading in our direction.
I entered through the back door of the building with Jude, my weapon ready. When the door shut behind us, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the unlit interior of the store. The store had been ransacked and the interior smelled musty and unused, but at least we weren’t overpowered by the stench of death and decay that was now common in most stores and populated areas.
“Melody?” Jude asked in a whisper.
“I’m good,” I whispered back.
We separated and searched the store for any broken doors or windows, and of course for any zombies. I made my way up and down each aisle with my handgun drawn and an unreasonable fear that someone was going to be hiding under a shelf saying “they all float down here” and grab my leg.
What? Zombies I could handle. Killer clowns? Hell, no!
We met near the door of the manager’s office, where our team would have normally exchanged info with the men from the Charlotte base. Once supplies had been exchanged, they would have gone back to their bases and we would have met again two weeks later. That had been the routine—until over six weeks ago when the other soldiers stopped showing.
“Everything clear?”
I nodded and Jude opened the door to the office. The smell hit us before we took a single step inside. I gagged and yanked my knife from my sheath. Thin lines of sunlight slanted through the closed blinds, leaving most of the office in deep shadow.
“Jesus,” Jude muttered. His stance changed and he lowered his arm slightly. He took a small flashlight from his pocket and flashed it to the corner of the room. There sat a corpse, twice dead and covered in maggots and flies.
I gagged and stepped back out of the doorway to take a deep breath. When I returned to the office, Jude was standing near the corpse, inspecting what was left of the body with the flashlight.
“Soldier. Probably from Charlotte,” he said. “No way to tell how long he’s been here, but can’t be longer than a month, since we were here thirty-four days ago.”
He pointed at the corpse’s hand, still holding a handgun. “Looks like he was bitten and knew what was coming, so he took his own life.”
Jude let out a string of obscenities that in other circumstances would have made me raise an eyebrow, but in this instance, I wholeheartedly agreed.
“So, the question is, why was he here after all this time, and most importantly, why was he alone?” Jude wondered out loud.
“Maybe he wasn’t alone. Maybe he had other men with him, but they left him once he became infected?” I offered up.
Jude shook his head, his lips in a grim line.
“No, if he had men, they wouldn’t have left him even if he was infected. No man left behind. They would have taken care of the situation for him, not left him here to do it himself and then rot in this office. No way,” Jude stated as fact.
“Okay, so he came alone. Why would he risk coming all this way alone to see if you guys would be here?” I asked no one in particular.
“He needed help?” I judged.
“Something was wrong,” Jude agreed.
I shivered. That couldn’t be good. I glanced back over at the body and cringed at the carnage. Blood and brain matter had been blown all over the desk area and wall behind the soldier when blew his brains out to avoid becoming one of the undead.
I frowned and stepped closer to the body against my own will.
“Flash that light over there.” I pointed to the desk behind the body. “There. What’s that?” I asked breathlessly.
Jude reached over and grabbed a piece of paper that had been pinned to the corkboard and splattered with gore. He handed it to me. I held the paper out and used the flashlight to try and make out what it said through the dark splatters.
UNDER SIEGE.
NEED HELP.
GERMAIN.
Jude read the words out loud.
I sucked in a breath. What the hell did Germain mean? Was it the soldier’s name? The name of someone at the base? The rest I understood well enough. The Charlotte base had been taken over. But by who? It specifically said under siege, not overrun.
Not good at all.
We stepped into the hallway to escape the smell.
“So, what’s the plan now?” I asked.
I glanced over at Jude. His fist tightened around the letter and his eyes hardened. “You are all going to head back to base. I’m going to Charlotte.”
“No way,” I argued.
“Like hell I will,” I ground out, my eyes daring Jude to try and make me.
“I will not guide you all into an overrun city now that I know our contacts there have been overtaken, probably by some sort of militia. I don’t know what we’ll find and I won’t be responsible for leading you to your death, or worse, to your un-death.”
The muscle in Jude’s neck thumped wildly and his eyes bore into mine. “You will head back to base. Am I clear?” he snapped.
I pulled myself up to my full height of five feet and six inches and squared my shoulders.
“So, Captain so-freaking-sure-of-himself, what is your plan if you get into Charlotte safely?” I snapped.
He stared at me, a muscle in his cheek twitching, no dimple to be found.
I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting.
Jude sighed and ran a hand roughly over his face. “I’ll dress down into civilian clothes and try to get into the base and see what I can find out. Like, how many soldiers are there, if there are any civilians being held captive, that sort of thing.”
I shook my head and smiled and forced myself not to laugh.
“What?” he snapped, his light brown eyes glinting dangerously. He took a menacing step towards me.
“I hate to break it to you, Jude, but you could wear a pink tutu and call yourself the Tooth Fairy and everyone would still know you’re military.
Changing out of those camo pants and taking off all that gear sure as hell won’t make a difference,” I said. I laughed then and Jude’s scowl deepened.
“I’d make you as a soldier in a crowd in a heartbeat and I’m not even military. I bet your first word was ‘hooah’ wasn’t it?”
Jude’s top was about to blow, but I pushed on, hoping to get my point across.
“I could go with you,” I offered.
“No fucking way,” Jude growled.
“Now listen, Jude,” I chided and held up a hand. “Think about it, a single guy looking like you do would draw attention immediately. They would peg you as military, or at the very least, a threat, before you stepped a foot in the door.”
I actually did believe what I was saying, but more than that, I had a reason to head to Charlotte. If I made it safely, I planned to search for Jess. I couldn’t do that from the safety of the base. I also wanted to go because . . . well, I wasn’t sure exactly why I felt I needed to be by Jude’s side, but there it was. I shifted uncomfortably.
I continued.
“But if a civilian couple just happened to be needing shelter, well, we would be able to fly under the radar a little easier, since there would be no way I could be military,” I said coaxingly.
Jude’s mouth swung open and promptly snapped shut again several times. He growled and ran a hand through his hair. I waited with my arms crossed.
Jude paced back and forth for several moments before sighing heavily and turning to face me. “Okay, you can come with me,” he agreed.
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I’d anticipated much more resistance.
Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold.
“It’s dead,” Jude said as we sat in the Jeep.
“Can’t we fix it?” I asked hopefully. Jude shook his head.
“I think it’s a sensor,” he said through clenched teeth, obviously not liking this turn of events. Now he really had no choice but to take me with him. Both of us were stranded anyway.
“Fucking new cars and their electrical systems.”
I nodded like I understood.
“Let’s go,” Jude said gruffly, reaching for our packs.
We left the Jeep where it sat in the parking lot and started walking.
And just like that, we were headed away from the abandoned Toys-R-Us with an uncertain future sprawled out before us.
Road to Charlotte
We walked down the highway side-by-side, both of us hot and sweaty from keeping to a brisk pace for several hours. Most of the journey had been spent in relative silence, keeping to the tree lines beside the road when possible and avoiding zombies where more than a handful were present as well. It was slow going sometimes. But staying safe was a priority. We couldn’t help anyone if we were dead.
“How long do you think it will take us to get to Charlotte on foot?” I asked.
“Best guess would be about ten hours of uninterrupted walking, but if I take into consideration stopping for breaks and light meals and that I have a civilian with me, I’d say at least twelve hours.”
I glanced up at the sky and frowned. If that was the case, then we would be walking once darkness fell. Jude noticed my look and smiled.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on walking in the darkness. We’ll move until it begins to get dark and then we’ll try to find a secure location to sleep until early morning,” he explained.
So far, we’d lucked out and had only run into small clusters of zombies on our walk. If nothing else, Jude and I made a very effective zombie elimination team after a few trial runs. We’d worked together some during the Gastonia supply run, so this time we were even more aware of each other’s habits, strengths, and weaknesses.
He moved opposite me, his body attuned to my movements, as we took on several zombies at once. It was uncanny, and also very reassuring. As long as we didn’t get cornered or overrun by too many, we’d be virtually unstoppable.
We slowly approached a particularly cluttered part of highway, instantly on the alert for zombies and other hazards. Cars and trucks were all parked haphazardly along this stretch of highway, tons crammed onto the road, virtually bumper-to-bumper. The eerie lineup caused the hairs on my neck to prickle in uneasiness.
I instinctually moved toward Jude, finding comfort in the fact that I knew he would have my back no matter how hairy any situation got. We passed several cars with their doors standing open wide, abandoned by whoever had initially inhabited them to travel on foot. We tried several but found them all either out of gas as a result of sitting in traffic too long during the traffic jam, no keys to be found, or they just wouldn’t start after having sat in the elements for six months straight.
Ahead of us by about half a mile, I saw a huge semi-truck turned over on its side, sprawled across the highway with several vehicles rammed into and around it. I imagined with shocking clarity how the scene must have unfolded during the accident.
People in a panic, trying to drive their families out of whatever town or city they’d fled from only to watch helplessly as the huge eighteen wheeler lost control, either by accident, or the result of the virus, and flip over, causing a massive pileup on the southbound highway.
I ran my hand along the side of an empty minivan. Had the van held, a family with little children? I didn’t peer into the window to find out. I didn’t want to know.
Had zombies immediately attacked this area during the traffic backup, or did the people get away on foot? No way to know. I blew out a weary breath and moved along with Jude, who was as silent as death beside me.
When we finally made it to the semi, I shivered. Not a single zombie so far and for that, I was grateful. Jude caught my eye and we both smiled at each other; the worst of this stretch was over.
We headed around the back end of the semi, glad to get out of the jumbled graveyard of vehicles. The moment we cleared the bumper, we both knew what a mistake it had been to think we’d lucked out.
Luck has never been a friend of mine.
Nearly a dozen zombies in different states of decay were standing near the overturned truck in their trademark shutdown mode. When we stepped into their line of vision, they all snapped out of it and turned to face us.
“This is going to be fun,” Jude muttered out of the side of his mouth. A strangled giggle escaped my lips. Fun, yeah, that’s what we’d call it. “Try not to use your gun if at all possible and stay close to me,” Jude said, his eyes hardening. I nodded, unable to form any words.
We mo
ved quickly, slashing and hacking our way through engorged flesh and bone like a couple of macabre butchers. Six overly ripe corpses hit the pavement with a splat before we had made it a dozen feet.
Bile rose in the back of my throat as the putrid aroma of rotting flesh and rancid fluids tickled the roof of my mouth and coated my taste buds. I drew back my arm and shoved my blade through the eye socket of a short and impossibly thin zombie with long blond hair, ignoring the fact that it was wearing a jean skirt, Hello Kitty tee, and had probably been someone’s teen daughter.
After she fell, another zombie, faster and much fatter, took her place. It grabbed out to snatch my arm, trying to sink its rotting teeth into it. I used the zombie’s own forward momentum, snagging it by the coat sleeve, and pulling it so hard that it stumbled and fell to the pavement when I swiveled out of the way.
I stomped with all my might into the zombie’s face, feeling its skull give way beneath my booted foot until there was nothing, but putrefied mush squished into the pavement.
I was so busy making sure the zombie on the ground didn’t get back up, that I missed the one who had come up behind me in the chaos. I turned swiftly only to come face-to-face with a zombie so swollen with fluids and rot that it could have been someone’s sick portrayal of zombies immortalized as a wax figurine.
Its murky brown eyes were so unnervingly opaque that I had no idea how it could see. Its skin glistened in the sunlight, white and waxy, and stretched so tautly across the corpse’s liquefied insides that I was surprised into immobility.
The undead man didn’t hesitate like I did, however.
His hunger for human flesh motivated him to try with all his might to rip into me. Surprised by his speed, I jumped back, only to slip on the mess of zombie goo I’d made and land on my ass right in the middle of it, losing my knife in the process.
I moved fast, scrambling backward to get away, but the zombie was already on top of me. I fumbled for my gun, trying to get it free with my hand covered in slimy zombie insides, but I wasn’t fast enough. I lunged back again, just as the zombie’s mouth opened and a gurgle of sour zombie breath coated my shoulder.
State of (Book 1): State of Decay Page 14