Haley started to tug on Kent’s clothing. First she unzipped his jacket and then tugged it off. Her hands stayed inside her sleeves the entire time, but if her palms and fingertips felt like mine, it didn’t entirely matter. My skin itched and burned in the most painful way, but the adrenaline helped to keep me focused.
I reached down and slipped off Kent’s shoe before jamming it beneath the door to prop it open. When I stepped away, the door slid, but not more than two inches before the shoe acted as a proper wedge.
I swooped down, feeling drunk and tortured at the same time, and unbuttoned Kent’s pants. This would be absolutely awkward if I didn’t realize how much pain he was in.
Once the pants were unzipped I began to wheedle them off, inch by stubborn inch. They were soaking wet and, I had a terrible feeling, sticking to his skin in the worst way. But at this point, I didn’t have a choice.
I didn’t know much about first aid in circumstances like these, but the most logical course of action to me was to take off the chemical-soaked clothing and rinse him off. He probably needed something like a fire-hose to get the chemical truly off his skin; unfortunately water-pressure was a thing of the past.
Finally, Maya returned with the emergency bottles of water kept in the trunk of the Suburban. By this time, Haley had removed his jacket and t-shirt, and I had his pants down to his ankles.
His underwear remained, and for good reason. I wasn’t a nurse. Hendrix, the team leader, could deal with that particularly sensitive spot.
I ripped off his other shoe, removed his pants completely and struggled with his socks until all he had left was his Apocalypse-style undies.
Poor guy.
If we made it out of this alive, I would tell Gage he needed to add “Men’s Underwear” to his teacher’s edition of the shopping list.
I wondered if Hendrix’s were this bad?
Although, I knew from careful observation that he didn’t wear underwear most of the time. Was this why?
I’d always kind of assumed it was a personal preference, but maybe not everyone was as lucky as Haley and me with our raided Victoria’s Secret stash of all things intimate.
Ok, wrong time to be going over those odds.
“Let’s turn him,” Maya suggested with some authority in her tone and I was too beat to argue with her.
Haley grabbed his shoulders, and I turned his thighs and together we propped him up on his side. Maya hissed in a disgusted breath that I soon echoed.
Kent’s back looked like… well, horrible. There was no other way to say that. His skin- the skin that remained- was vividly red and splotchy. And where the potent chemical had eaten away at his flesh, bright, crimson blood dripped all over him now mingled with gravel from where he’d been exposed to the ground. The ammonia- or whatever smelled like ammonia but could eat through anything- had bypassed his clothes and gone to work on all of his skin. From scalp to toes, this man was in serious trouble.
The three of us stared at him for a few seconds, unsure how to even process what we were looking at. And unless Maya had some secret medical training she hadn’t given up yet, we also felt extremely helpless.
In stunned silence, Maya handed a bottle of water to Haley and me, and we unscrewed them in almost perfectly synced harmony. I tossed my cap to the side; sorry, Global Warming, you’re the least of my worries and squatted carefully in order to reach “my section” better.
Slowly… so slowly I worried it wouldn’t do anything… I poured out the water over the irritated and bloody skin that needed a real doctor’s assessing eye and possibly an emergency skin graph.
I felt so helpless that tears pricked at my eyes.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to call 911 right now! What I wouldn’t give to have a car drive by at this exact moment and offer us assistance. A cell phone. An ambulance. An emergency room with trained professionals and antibiotic creams were a thing of the far past, and I couldn’t dwell on how easy life had been before… not unless, I wanted to lose all hope and throw myself back into the Zombie-fray and end my suffering quickly.
Because as much as Hendrix loved me, and the boy absolutely did love me, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet right into my temple if I happened to get bit.
And that, my dear End-of-the-World survivors, was true, everlasting love.
Speaking of… I chanced a glance up and saw that my boyfriend and Haley’s boyfriend were finishing off the last of the flesh-eating parasites. Once I made sure Hendrix was all right, I went back to pouring water over the biting chemical that also wanted to become a flesh eater.
Was that part of the joke? If the Zombies didn’t get you, the ammonia would?
Except, this had to be strong as hell ammonia… maybe some industrial blend? What would do this to a person’s skin? And why would the person plant this trap to begin with?
Kane… a little voice whispered in my head. Kane did this.
But how? The stronger, more logical voice argued. And why? Why would Kane create something this deadly?
And how could he possibly guess we were going to come here. There had to be a hundred of these places in an hour’s drive circumference.
Still, the gut feeling that The Colony was behind this remained.
“Bored with me already, Babe?” Hendrix asked in a deceptively dry voice. I glanced back at him. He was trying to maintain his look of casual teasing, but the minute his lungs found fresh air, he doubled over in a severe coughing fit.
Nelson mimicked Hendrix’s exact movements at almost same time. I could hear the intake of breath as it fought to stay in the body. Their lungs rattled, their chests heaved, and their hands shook on their bent knees.
Definitely, a trap.
“We need to move him,” Haley said. “He’s going to bring more Feeders if we don’t.”
I nodded because I was too exhausted for words. The intense jolt of adrenaline waned abruptly after we’d stepped outside, and now I had to worry about slipping into shock.
I focused on my breathing and the slow inhales and exhales of finishing a breath. I focused on the meticulous pouring of water over all of Kent’s exposed skin. I forced myself to pay attention so that I wouldn’t spill and waste a single drop of water.
Kent jolted awake the moment the first drops of water landed on the worst of his back. His body bowed with the force of the pain until his appendages were steel rods and his wounded head vibrated with fear.
Haley whispered reassuring sweet things softly into his ear. I was more thankful than ever to have his feet during this; no offense to him, but I wasn’t a “sweet nothing” kind of girl. I was more of the “Walk on it. You’ll be fine.”
Except he couldn’t walk: he couldn’t even sit up.
Tears dripped down his eyes, and these little sniveling sounds wheezed in and out of his mouth. He seemed so truly pathetic at this moment; I couldn’t help but feel for him. His skin was completely gone in some places- stripped away by a chemical meant to harm all of us. And his limbs were starting to swell now. Plus, he still had that head wound from his fall. I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned into a concussion.
This could not be good. And the only expert we had to take him home to was Tyler.
Had I mentioned before how not qualified for her job she was?
But there was no one else better prepared than her.
“Holy shit, this is bad,” Nelson groaned.
“We’ll pick him up.” Hendrix ignored his brother and started spouting more directions. “Maya and Haley cover each other and go open the door to the backseat for us. Reagan, follow behind and make sure nothing else surprises us.”
“Gotchya,” I called back so that he knew I understood him.
I stood up and shook the sharp tingles out of my lower half. I’d been squatting too long for my legs to like the sudden upright position. I pulled my weapon back out and rechecked the clip and safety. When everything was to my specification, I looked up in time to meet Haley’s determined gaze and
realize she’d done the same thing.
Hendrix counted down, a Parker family trait, and then signaled to Nelson. Both boys grabbed places on Kent’s body that would make him easy to carry and maneuver. The minute their hands dug into his extra sensitive flesh Kent let out another fiercely wounded cry of pain.
Hendrix and Nelson chose to ignore him, or at the very least tune him out. They walked at a quick pace back to the Suburban and shoved him into the SUV. He never stopped howling in pain, and while I very much wanted to tell him to hush before he drew more unwanted Zombie-attention, I also felt bad for him. He might not have been able to calm down anyway since he seemed to be in and out of consciousness.
There would be blood all over those seats by the time we got back to the compound, but it couldn’t be helped.
Now was not the time to worry about the visual appeal of the Suburban. Plus, Kent’s blood could mix and mingle with Kane’s dried blood and this could become like the car’s theme.
This man was in severe pain, and we needed to get him home now.
There were mega number of Zombies lurking from hidden places, and even though we’d felled the threat inside the grocery store, that did not mean we were out of danger.
Not by a long shot.
I winced before I could identify exactly where the pain originated. My hands. My hands!
What little bit of chemical had transferred to my bare palms was now eating away at my own skin. I took off for the back of the Suburban and forced the trunk open. There were a few water bottles left from the emergency stash, and I tucked one between my thighs after deciding I needed to remove the clothing that had come into contact with the same chemical. The slight itching-burning in my wrists and forearms from where I’d pulled the sleeves over my hands to transfer Kent were growing more prominent and getting worse- much worse.
I pulled out my hunting knife and carefully but quickly cut my shirt into a three-quarter-length sleeve. I fumbled a bit with the right sleeve, since my left hand wasn’t as deft, before Haley put a shaking hand out.
“Here, let me,” she ordered, sounding pained. “And then you get mine.”
I nodded and handed over the knife. She tore away the damp material and then we switched. I was very careful only to touch her contaminated fabric so I wouldn’t compromise the dry, safe parts of her shirt. Then we took turns pouring water over each other’s hands. I rubbed my hands together underneath the cool stream of water and instantly felt relief.
I could have gone for a bar of soap to get every last trace of the horrible stuff off my skin, but I would have to wait for that back at the compound.
By the time Haley and I were clean and not ready to scream in pain, our hands were bright red, but not bleeding. Whew.
“Us next!” Nelson demanded.
I hadn’t noticed them appear, but both Nelson and Hendrix stood behind us, clenching and unclenching their fists. They had exposed more of their skin to Kent and his chemical-war-fared body when they moved him and so we decided they needed to remove their shirts. Haley and I attacked our boyfriends with our individual hunting knives and ripped away their clothing before it could hurt them more severely.
This was a hard task. I mean, having to pour water over the flawless chest, rippling-with-hard-muscle forearms of a shirtless Parker brother was… work. Hard work.
One needed focus and courage; one needed temerity mingled with endurance. Not every girl could appreciate the raw, seamless beauty of a man’s chest perfectly toned with sinewy, sculpted muscle that stretched taut as it reached the length of his long limbs. This should count as overtime. Oh, the hardships I’ve had to endure during the Zombie Apocalypse-
“Reagan, could you stop ogling me until after you use the water? My hands are on fire.”
“Oh, right.” I cleared my throat and did as Hendrix asked. Oops.
“Haley, I give you permission to ogle me anytime you’d like. In fact, ogling is encouraged.” Nelson had shot us a smug grin right before Haley used some of her water to splash him in the face.
“What about ogling Hendrix?” Haley asked innocently. “Is that encouraged as well?”
Nelson grunted out something I couldn’t quite hear over my laughter. “But why would you ogle Hendrix when you have Nelson?” I taunted and then let out a surprised squeal when Hendrix grabbed me around the waist and pulled me roughly against his half-naked body.
He looked down at me, and the rest of the world seemed to fade away… or maybe Haley and Nelson walked away. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blue, bottomless depths of Hendrix’s gaze to figure it out.
Some infinitely strong emotion flashed in his searching eyes, something deeper than love, something so much more consuming than lust. His stubble had been trimmed recently, but his dishwater blonde hair could use a cut over his ears. One of his cheeks was bruised from playing around with his younger brothers the other day, and he had a black smudge of something on his temple. He smelled like soap and sweat, metal and earth; he smelled like a hundred different things that mixed together until it was only Hendrix. His full lips were pressed into a serious frown, and his arms had become a steel band around my waist.
“I don’t like what happened in there,” he all but growled at me. “I don’t like that your life keeps getting put in danger.”
“Nature of the world we live in, Babe,” I whispered through a throat thick with emotion. Haley and I cared more about what happened to each other than we did ourselves. That had been true since the beginning of this catastrophe. But the fierceness of Hendrix’s love and devotion for me shook my bones. I had never been loved like this before
I had never loved like this before.
“Doesn’t mean I like it,” he said simply, petulantly.
I tipped up on my toes and pressed a kiss on the underside of his jaw. “I don’t like it either.” My hands slid up his smooth skin, worshipping every inch of male perfection that he was. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my cheek against his vividly beating heart. His skin was hot against my face and felt so alive that I could feel the rhythm of his body echo in my own.
Hendrix dipped his head and nuzzled his face into the curve of my neck. “I love you to the end, Reagan,” he whispered against my throat.
“More than all and to the end,” I repeated our adopted vows that we’d stolen from his parents.
“You guys are super sweet,” Haley intoned with so much sarcasm I felt her words drip out of her mouth. “But we’re under attack again, so if you could wrap this up that would be fabulous.”
Hendrix and I separated so we could look around. Sure enough more Feeders had stumbled onto the road; no doubt drawn by the delicious smell of abundant blood and the scrumptious promise of fresh brains.
“Shit,” Hendrix muttered. “I really wanted not to worry about you for the rest of the day.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.” I smiled up at him and with my best impression of a Samuel L. Jackson shouting his script lines, said, “I kick Zombie ass.” To show off my impressive bad-assery, I twirled my gun around my pointer finger and cocked the sucker in a show of rodeo-esque flare.
“Get your Zombie-kicking-ass in the car, Reagan,” Hendrix ordered. “We’re going to forego the shootout this time and try to outrun these ones.”
Chapter Four
Hendrix pressed one more, sweet kiss on my forehead and turned me bodily toward the car. He smacked my ass firmly and took off for the driver’s seat. I jumped into the trunk and closed it behind me, wedging myself in between the commandeered hydraulic lift and the lift-gate. With my gun trained out the open back window, Hendrix took off toward the compound.
These Feeders were super-fast, indicating that they were far advanced with the infection. I thought I could even smell them from here, but that could have easily been us. We struggled to tell who stunk the most or where the stink originated from after one of these skirmishes.
The Zombies moved with their inhuman like grace that didn’t seem p
ossible with limbs that were decaying and feet that were rotting. But their arms pumped, their chests heaved, and their blood-red eyes stayed focus on their prize- us. I didn’t think they could catch the Suburban once we got on the highway, but I wanted to be prepared all the same. Although, I wouldn’t waste a bullet unless I absolutely had to.
Haley slid over the backseat and crawled next to me. She sat up with her gun balanced on her opposite forearm. This road was better paved than some, but the ride wasn’t smooth by any means. We bounced around in the back as Hendrix swerved around potholes, debris and various unknowns.
The inside of the SUV stilled with quiet tension while Hendrix drove us out of this place. The sooner we got home, back to the walled compound and away from this town, the better we would be.
But those kinds of thoughts were way too good for this end of the world, and I should have known better than to entertain any hope.
Hendrix let out a string of curse words as he let the Suburban roll to a stop. Haley and I were both reluctant to take our eyes off the still-approaching Zombies, but we obviously had to figure out why those in the front of the car had suddenly developed Turrets and why we’d come to a stop.
I turned around to find something so unthinkable, so impossible, my mind completely rejected what my eyes were seeing. It took me twenty-five seconds before I could finally comprehend the two burning cars in front of us. They were parked sideways, back to front, so that they took up the entire two-lane highway, and their fiery crackling could be heard over everything else.
I’d noticed the sound earlier, but I stupidly hadn’t thought anything of it. It had been distant, and while we traveled closer, the hum of the car and the whipping of the wind through the wide, open window had been in my ears.
Now the sound of metal crunching under intense heat and the snap, crackle, pop of the interior as it melted beneath the flame was as loud and clear as ever.
Another trap.
Matthias- my brain urged.
“Drive around!” Maya shouted from the seat in front of us. She glanced back and forth between the rushing Feeders and the road that was clearly impassable.
Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12 Page 5