“See, good as new,” he grinned.
“I wouldn’t say that, but it’ll do.” I took the blade back and turned around to face the next challenge. The Quickie Shop Mart.
We were currently in pursuit of food and supplies. Zach, Romeo and I were running recon on a corner store that we hadn’t hit yet. Besides Zach, Romeo was one of my favorites as far as other survivors. Stoic and quiet, he was a machine. His actions and words were only used when needed. Most of the others stayed away from him. They couldn’t take his wall and unresponsiveness, but I wasn’t afraid of Romeo. There was a reason they called him Romeo, pre-Z of course. According to the other grunts, Romeo had been a consummate flirt, able to bag and tag anything of the female persuasion. Panties would drop upon him entering the room or so I was told by Marquez. He was a fine piece of man, if I had to judge, and I could see it, but Romeo, in a post-Z world, was no Romeo. I barely saw him crack a smile, much less flirt. He was a focused zombie killing machine. He got the job done and done well. In this world, we needed a focused Romeo, not flirty Romeo. I liked this Romeo.
I worried about him though, I couldn’t help it. Henry Kirk, another grunt in the MJ Security Army, from the firm Blake and Zach owned pre-Z, said Romeo had a little sister that was under his charge. She didn’t make it to the compound. Romeo didn’t talk about it and we didn’t pry. Everyone had a story. Everyone.
No one made it into this post-Z world unscathed.
The guilt of my own parents’ death still ate at my soul. About two months after making it to S-Island, I worked up the nerve to go back into the city. My parents’ home was located in the Upper Ninth Ward, an area outside of the French Quarter, which was supposedly ground zero. It was too little, too late. I found my parents dead in their home. There was no telling how it all went down, but from the looks of their neighborhood it happened quickly. Their cars were still in the driveway, everything was in its place. There weren’t any signs of a panicked group of people. No one was fleeing an apocalypse.
My parents were there, dead. My mother was the worse off of the two, eaten. I assumed Dad had come in with the infection and then feasted on her. Even though I had psyched myself up to do it, Romeo pushed me aside and took care of the matter and that was one of the other reasons he was a favorite of mine. After dispatching them quickly, he just turned to me and nodded. Job done, time to go.
“Alexis, you’re miles away, what’s up with you today?” Romeo’s sudden presence next to me had me sucking in a quick breath.
“This neighborhood brings back memories,” I lied. I wasn’t on point today, but I wasn’t admitting it. We were deep in the East, a neighborhood of New Orleans called simply, New Orleans East. It was a large area, but the one we were in was an area that I had frequented a lot as a teen, so technically I wasn’t being that untruthful. There had been a great seafood restaurant on the corner and my buddy from high school had lived about two blocks down. I wonder what happened to her?
“Yeah, memories,” he sighed. “C’mon, I think we got all of ‘em. What do you want me to prioritize and stock?” Romeo asked me and Zach.
“You hit the pharmacy. We need everything and anything. Go for pills, not liquids, unless you find the unmixed. Stockpile any over-the-counter stuff you can find. Grab boxes from the back and just fill them up. Zach and I will scrounge through any canned goods or non-perishables we can find, but I’m not that hopeful. They kept the pharmacy locked though, so that should be intact. Your skills should get you in.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I hated when he called me ma’am, but with Zach the one in charge from the onset, my friendship with him had led to a sort of co-dictatorship. The grunts needed a clearly defined chain of command. Zach was on top and my association with him made me sort of up there with him. I was also pretty bossy. Zach said I was an asshole for thinking that way, that it was because I made sound decisions and the boys trusted me, but I knew it was just because he always deferred to me, the wimp.
Deep down I knew it wasn’t just because of my “sound decisions” that Zach kept me near him. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the way Zach looked at me wasn’t because we were apocalypse BFFs. He wanted to be apocalypse fuck buddies or maybe even a bit more. I just wasn’t willing to play that game, especially since the last guy I had shacked up with was his best friend and had left the both of us high and dry to rescue his ex-wife. At this point in my existence, I wasn’t willing to go all-in with anyone, except a well-honed machete.
I wasn’t even sure I was over Blake, which set off all kinds of alarm bells in my gut. I felt like such an asshat for pining over the douche, but it couldn’t be helped. I blamed hormones and my traitorous vagina. At night, I still woke up and reached for him heady with need. That was all sorts of fucked up in my book.
I had to shake off my wandering mind. Too much introspection got you dead in this world. I needed to be mentally all-hands-on-deck. What the fuck was wrong with me today?
Time to get moving, no thinking of men. I pushed into the store and gagged from the smell. Vomit rose in my throat and I had to spit to get the acidic bile out of my mouth. You would think that I would be used to this shit by now. But the smell of rotten meat, spoiled veggies, and some other noxious gas permeated the entire store and sent my gut into a frenzy. It was horrible.
Zach didn’t say a thing about my almost vomit. He just handed me a towel and a bottle of water. I nodded my thanks and wiped my face, swirling the water in my mouth and spitting it on the floor. He pushed a shopping cart in my direction.
“Get to work.”
“Aye, aye.”
“I think you should salute me next time,” he winked.
“Never!”
“Your defiance to my leadership is so sexy.” I shook my head at his response and bit back the caustic comment that was on the tip of my tongue. I pushed my cart to the right side of the store and waved him toward the other side for maximum coverage.
The pickings were slim, but I did manage a semi-good score. I found some vitamin drinks and meal replacement bars and shakes. I even found a small supply of canned goods on the back shelf to the rear of the store, canned peaches, fuck the world.
Zach’s basket wasn’t as full as mine when we met at the back. He had a few bags of rice, a lot of pasta, and some mouth-watering tubs of icing. I was calling dibs on that sweet goodness.
“Let’s check the storerooms and then hopefully Romeo will be done and we can get back to the Island,” Zach said. I nodded in agreement and followed him through the swinging doors that led to the back, my machete drawn and ready.
There were boxes everywhere and they looked to still be sealed, not even unpacked. We had to grab two more baskets to fill up on what we found in those boxes, boxes of canned goods, peas, and corn galore. I nearly squealed in delight when we opened up a box of Ramen Noodles and another of boxed Jambalaya mix. I had dreams of catching some shrimp and cooking up a feast.
There was more storage a little further back through a doorway that looked promising. In front of the door was a heavy pole that I picked up and tested the weight. I could do some serious damage with this, but how could I utilize it? I set it down, and promised myself that I would come back for it right after I checked this room out. I pushed through the door and knew I had made a huge mistake the moment I set foot over the threshold. The stink of zombie hit me first and then a body slammed into me. I brought my arm up to block any bites. My arm was covered in a homemade body armor that I had perfected, a light weight plastic material of rubber scrounged from used tires adhered with duct tape.
My arm couldn’t keep it off of me for long, especially when another body slammed into the first zombie and tried to reach me over the first one’s shoulder. It was fighting with the zombie on top of me to get to my neck. I couldn’t remember if I had signaled to Zach where I was going. He probably didn’t even know I was being attacked. I had lost my machete and couldn’t reach the M9 strapped to my waist. I was screwed.
“Zach!” I sc
reamed.
There was no way I was getting out of this without a little divine intervention. Should I just let them bite me and get it over with or should I try and make a reach for my gun? Any way I sliced it I was getting bit.
That divine intervention did happen. It came in the form of Zach. He slammed through the door and slashed at the zombies. He yanked them from me and stabbed them right in the brain in two quick motions. His movements were quick and precise. Before I could blink there were two dead zombies at my feet relieved of their damned existence.
I couldn’t move, I didn’t want to move. I just laid there on the dirty floor. I had been two seconds away from death.
Strong hands were pulling me up and then his arms came around me. The hug was desperate and tight. He hated when I went on runs and always insisted that he join me when he could. I could tell by the tremor in his hands as he wiped the blood off of my face that I wasn’t the only one affected by that little close call.
“Alexis, you scared me.”
“I think…well, yeah…I was pretty scared myself.”
He continued to wipe away the zombie blood and gore from my face, but his hands lingered too long, his blue eyes boring into mine. It made me nervous. He didn’t force himself on me. He waited for a sign from me. He looked so eager, so disturbed by my almost death, that I couldn’t help myself. I gave in a little, just an inch, a step closer. For the second time today I wanted to just give up, I wanted to stop the fight.
But that voice in my head screamed that I had to keep going, I had to fight. I must survive. Making things complicated between myself and Zach wasn’t conducive to my survival.
My thoughts drifted to that night, that first night on S-Island, the night we left the door open and Zach watched as Blake and I had sex. I could remember with stunning clarity the look in his eyes and how exciting it had been for me. How I had enjoyed watching him touch himself, his big, hard body exposed to my hungry gaze. The sound he made when he reached his climax, it was so hot.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. That was all it took.
He kissed me back eagerly. His kiss was careful and controlled. It spoke volumes of how he would be in the bedroom. His hands gripped me at the waist and held me still as his mouth joined with mine, lips, tongue and teeth all perfectly synced. He nipped at my bottom lip and I moaned in his mouth, pressing myself to the front of him, feeling his heavy erection through his jeans. Reality hit…it hit really hard. What the fuck was I doing? I pushed away from him almost spastically, slamming my hands hard against his chest. I couldn’t do this.
“Hey, boss, I think I got it all, ready to head back?” Romeo pushed through the doors and stopped in mid stride when he took in our appearance and the way we were looking at each other.
“Shit, what happened?” He chose to ignore the awkwardness and focus on the dead zombies that lay strewn at our feet.
“There were three of them locked in the storage closet. Lex opened it and they almost got her.”
“Three, shit, there were three?” I noticed the third corpse to the left of me and sent up a silent prayer to a deity I didn’t even think existed.
“Yeah, they were all piled on top of you. I was afraid I would pull them off and find that they got you. Any bites, scratches?” He ran his hands over my arms and pulled my shirt away from my neck.
“No.” I swatted his hand away and stepped back. He frowned at my action and his eyes went cold.
“C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here.” He pushed the cart toward me, his hard stare and tight lipped frown pissed me off. What the hell did he expect?
Everything. My traitorous inner voice answered. I couldn’t even give him a little bit, he had to know that. I had fucked up royally with that kiss.
TWO
Living or Existing?
We came back with more supplies than we’d gotten in a while. We had become used to just picking up rations here and there, a few cans from a neighborhood, some beef jerky from the convenience store. The goal for our group was to become self-sufficient. Four months ago we began to plant. There hadn’t been a harvest yet and currently it was too cold for anything to grow, but we were hoping for something in the spring.
A few of the Islanders had talked of heat lamps and fish tanks. Their ultimate goal was to set up grow houses and fish farms that would feed off of each other. I wasn’t too educated on growing shit, but a few of our group seemed to know what they were talking about. We just had to make it through a couple more months and a few more supply runs.
What we did have going in our favor was our nearness to the lakes and marshes. There was an abundance of fish, frog, duck and even a few deer. In a few months, we would even have crawfish, not a lot of fixins’, but a girl couldn’t be that picky.
There were three Islanders waiting for us when we crossed the bridge into the compound. We had been spotted by the tower that guarded the entrance on our approach. They opened the access gate and we rolled through. Excited voices greeted us as they noticed how full the bed of the truck was.
“Quite a haul you guys got, Lex,” Isaiah Smith, our resident doctor, helped me out of the truck. I was stiff and sore from a day of hauling and from those stupid storage room zombies.
“Yeah, plenty of meds for you too, doc.” Isaiah hadn’t finished medical school, but he was as close as we got. He had come to S-Island by way of Cole Peters, one of the MJ grunts. Peters had rescued him from a tree where he had been chased by a few zombies. I would have paid to see that shit. Smith wasn’t the most courageous of our group, but he knew a hell of a lot about healing. The meds we had rounded up could save a few lives.
Isaiah had set up an infirmary in the main building, what we called the barracks. It was now home to the cafeteria, infirmary, store and singles’ quarters. There was still plenty of room and a few of the Islanders had thought it was best to stay in the upstairs sleeping area instead of moving into the houses that dotted the island.
The group that lived in the barracks met us outside and helped us unload the truck. The barracks group was mostly the single members of our team, the ones that had worked for the firm pre-Z, and a few other stragglers that had come in with employees. The barracks group included Kirk, Marquez, and the only female team member, Hannah Klink, who everyone called Baby behind her back. Don’t call it to her face though. Her cute little face and body was a disguise for a lethal ass-kicker. She was one of the toughest of the MJ grunts.
“Damn, Alexis, y’all scored big.” She came up and slapped me on the back a little too hard.
“They hadn’t looted the store rooms and pharmacy.”
“Our gain.” She grabbed a box and carted it to our storage area, it had to weigh fifty pounds and she swung it around like it was nothing.
The barracks was just a large warehouse with a second floor that had been converted into offices and sleeping berths. Downstairs held the kitchen, cafeteria, infirmary and plenty of storage, which we called the store. Creative, I know. Before, Zach had used it for training and personnel retreats. Now it was our lifeblood. It was where we all hung out together, held meetings, kicked back, and ate our meals.
In addition to the main building, there was another warehouse, which was practically empty and used for storage and vehicles. The best thing about S-Island, in my opinion, was the houses. The developer had constructed ten houses, but they were all in different stages of construction when he went bankrupt and sold the island. Blake and Zach had finished them after they purchased the properties, hoping to one day use them for themselves and employees. Today they housed survivors. All ten were not occupied though. Only a few were claimed by Islanders, but those occupied were filled to capacity. Furniture was scavenged from nearby neighborhoods and the few family units we had in the compound teamed up and lived together. The houses were nice and spacious and the few kids of the group felt more at ease living in the houses. The Peters had even found a trampoline and were working on scavenging a swing-set.
When the last of the boxes were put away, I was about ready to drop. I said my goodbyes, grabbed a to-go plate from the cafeteria and headed to my house.
I shared a house with Zach, the big one at the tip of S-Island. The house had originally been meant for the developer and was sort of the compound show-piece, but it was in a bad strategic and defensive location, so no one wanted to move into it. When Blake had left, I had spent a few days wallowing in the office that we had shared, but quickly got tired of my own pity party and moved into the house. At about the same time, Zach had decided to give the house he occupied, the one closest to the barracks, to Cole Peters and his family. So, it just seemed natural for us to both take up residence in the big house. It was a bitch walking back and forth since it was the farthest from the barracks but I liked the isolation and would have worried if anyone had lived there. It also had plenty of extra room, so Zach and I had set up a work-out room and backup communications station in case the one at the barracks went down.
The house had also been furnished well and used rarely. Blake and Zach had used it for clients as a weekend wine and dine experience. The house looked over Lake Borgne and sat almost fifteen feet off the ground. I really did enjoy going home every night. But lately the fact that it was just me and Zach alone in this great big house had become an ever present buzz. I was aware of him from the moment he stepped foot in the house. I told myself that it was only self-consciousness, that it was because of his budding interest that I was so affected by him. It didn’t have anything to do with me or my feelings.
To try and cut down on the awkwardness, I tried to get Baby and Romeo to move in with us, but they liked the barracks. Go figure.
There were still a few houses that sat empty and unfurnished. We could probably take in another fifty survivors if we wanted. Granted, we wouldn’t be able to feed all of them, but we had the living space, bring on more apocalypse buddies! The coldly logical side of me didn’t want any part of this train of thought. Just because we had the space, didn’t mean we would throw open our doors and let in anyone that had their hand out. We had a good thing going here and introducing a new group might make or break us. It was those types of things that went through my brain constantly, especially as we were faced with other survivors on our supply runs. None had asked for shelter, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before we had to make that type of decision.
Fight (NOLA Zombie Book 2) Page 2