State of Decay (Omnibus (Parts 1-4))

by Peggy Martinez

  “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked with a weary sigh.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, Melody. I know you and Jude ain’t here just because you heard some dying soldier mumble vaguely about the base needing help,” I opened my mouth to protest, but Tex cut me off. “And if I know something sounds hinky with your story, then you bet your sweet little ass that Jessica Germain suspects something ain’t quite right.” My mouth snapped shut and I took a small step back and weighed my options quickly. I really didn’t have any options. I was going to have to trust Tex.

  “Shit,” I muttered beneath my breath.

  “Shit creek. No paddle.” Tex agreed.

  “If you’re really so trust worthy, tell me how many people she has here against their will and where she’s keeping them.” I took a deep breath and waited, hoping I hadn’t grossly misread Tex.

  “By my count, she has around twenty soldiers as prisoners.” Tex answered after a moment. I breathed out a nervous breath. “But, freeing them from the place she has them is impossible.” I shook my head. Nothing was impossible. “She has them guarded by several armed men twenty-four hours a day,” he said quickly. “Don’t you think I’ve tried to get into the holding cells? That I would do everything in my power to set them free if I could?” He ran a hand through his hair roughly. “She doesn’t truly trust anyone. I’ve spent the past several months trying to convince her that I’m on her team, that she can trust me. She will never trust me though. I’m military after all.” I placed a hand on his arm and squeezed gently.

  “You couldn’t have known what she was planning, Tex,” I said gently. “You aren’t the only one who was fooled by her. Any other soldier would have done exactly what you did. She is at fault. Not you.” He put a hand over mine and stood still for a moment, our breathing the only sound in the tiny room.

  “Thank you, Melody. I wish I could believe that.”

  “So, what am I going to do to get these people free?” I whispered. Tex chuckled.

  “You don’t give up, do you?” he asked wryly.

  “Not if I can help it,” I answered with a grin.

  “I’ve heard that Jim and Germain have something special in store for you and Jude later today at the assembly.” A shiver ran down my spine. Tex rubbed the back of his neck and mumbled something beneath his breath. “You and your boy toy are going to have a very small window of time to get to the prisoners and then get out of the base. I have no idea how y’all will be able to survive once you’re out of the base, but with a big enough diversion I can at least get you something of a head start. That’s the best I can do.” My mouth popped open to ask the hundred and one questions swirling around in my mind when I heard Tex mumbling beneath his breath once again. “Awe, the hell with it, I probably won’t live past today anyway,” he growled.

  His arms came around me and crushed me to his chest as his hand cupped my neck and angled my head back to gain access to my lips. And man, oh, man did he ever gain access. My head spun from his assault on my mouth. I should have pushed him away. He would have stopped and I knew he would. But, I couldn’t think through the sweet, thick, haze of euphoria that I was hopelessly lost in. About the time I began to come to my senses, he pulled back and stepped away from me. I raised my eyes to Tex’s.

  “Tex, I …” I began. He held up a hand and brushed a wayward strand of my hair out of my eyes.

  “Don’t. I just had to. Life is too fragile—too short—nowadays to live with regret. And if I die today, I’ll die without any after that kiss.” I gulped, breathless and unable to articulate any response. I mean, what does a girl say to something like that? “I’ll do what I can do for you, so just keep your eyes and ears ready for my distraction.” He turned and put a hand on the door handle.

  “Wait. How am I supposed to know what your distraction is?” I asked. He opened the door a crack and glanced back at me over his shoulder. I watched as a small smile spread across his face and he winked at me.

  “Oh, you’ll know it when you see it, sweetheart,” he said as he went through the door, closing it behind him. I waited several minutes after he left, trying to calm my heartbeat and my nerves before exiting the small supply closet. It wasn’t until I was back out in the hallway that I remembered that I was lost.

  “Damn,” I muttered as I took off down a halfway familiar looking hallway.

  SEVERAL STRINGS OF CURSE WORDS later, I found myself back in the common area of the base, the place quite abandoned compared to the day before. A few people loitered here and there, but mostly it was empty. I was standing in the doorway, trying to decide where I should go and what I should do, when Jude came striding down the opposite corridor with a murderous look on his face. Two of the six people in the common area saw him coming and scooted out of his way, sensing his mood well before he even got close to them. I didn’t blame them, he looked capable of mass murder in that moment. When he finally noticed me standing across the room, his body visibly unwound just enough to allow the entire room to take a much needed breath of relief.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I’m beginning to feel really twitchy. The guards here won’t give me any of my weapons. Not even a knife.” His eyes met mine and I could see that his pupils were slightly dilated. I nodded in understanding. I kept finding myself reaching for the hilt of my knife and it was a horrible feeling to be without any means of self-defense after living and fighting for your life every day for over two years. Yeah, I knew exactly how he felt. “I don’t care how secure this base is, I want to be able to defend myself if necessary,” he said through clenched teeth. I reached out and put a hand on his arm. His eyes found mine again and his shoulders relaxed another fraction.

  “We need to talk,” I said softly, glancing around the room. He nodded and led me off to another hallway.

  “Let’s go grab a bagged lunch and talk back in the room,” he suggested. We grabbed the lunches and left the mess hall as quickly as we entered it, both of us deep in our own thoughts. I was also in awe of how easily Jude had already memorized the layout of the base. It was completely unfair. I sat on the bed while Jude sat on the floor with his back against a wall in our room and quickly polished off our small meals.

  “So, what have you found out?” I asked around a mouthful of peanuts.

  “You want the bad news or the worst news first?” he asked before taking a swig of water.

  “Give me the bad,” I answered with a frown.

  “Well, it looks like however many soldiers are left, they are kept literally under lock and key twenty-four hours a day. Add to that several guards and it would be next to impossible to free them,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. I nodded. His eyes met mine. “You knew that much?” he asked, a bit surprised.

  “I did. And there are maybe twenty soldiers left now.” I confirmed. Jude whistled through his teeth.

  “Even if we were able to free them, we don’t know what kind of shape they’re in or how in the world we would be able to get them through the zombie hordes outside. If we made it that far.” I grimaced. It seemed even worse once I thought it through for the fifth time.

  “If that’s the bad news, what’s the worst?” I asked.

  “It seems Jim and Jessica have something in store for us this afternoon, something we should probably worry about since it takes place during this assembly of theirs. At least, that’s what my source said.” His jaw clenched and then he glanced up at me. “Holy shit. You knew that too,” he said in outrage. I shrugged.

  “I’d heard something like that,” I answered softly. “I also heard that they are probably onto us and don’t plan on letting us get out of here in one piece. Also that Jessica Germain is more monster than human, that she was the one who slipped into the base with only the intent to let her group in while everyone was asleep, that she hates anyone and everything military, and that she gets off on banishing people weaponless into the zombie infested city streets when they cross her.” I took a deep breath an
d let my head fall back on the wall behind me. What was the point of surviving if you lose your humanity in the process? What did everything matter if we just let ourselves turn into a different breed of monster?

  “What do you plan on doing, then? Jude asked gently. “About Germain, I mean? I know you two were close not so very long ago.” God, could it have been only a little less than three years ago that we were both in high school and giggling over hot guys and the shallowness of half the senior class girls? It felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like someone else’s life. I didn’t know this version of Jessica. She was a stranger to me in this new world surrounded by the dead and dying.

  “I’ll do what I have to do,” I said after a moment. I sat up straighter and caught Jude’s eye. “I’m going to kill Jessica Germain.” Jude’s eyes searched mine and his mouth set into a grim line.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that, Mel,” he said with a sigh.

  “I hope it doesn’t either.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” he asked. I raised a brow. “What?” he asked with a crooked grin. “You seem to know more than I do,” he said with a hint of chagrin. I smiled, despite myself.

  “Well, I’m not really sure. We are supposed to have some help,” I said quickly. The smile disappeared from Jude’s face instantly.

  “Help,” he said. Not really a question. I swallowed and pushed ahead, quickly blurting out most of what happened with Tex, but leaving out a few little details of a certain toe-curling kiss that probably should never have happened.

  “So, yeah. Help.” I let out a long breath after my tale and watched as Jude digested everything I’d just told him.

  “So, we’re not only supposed to trust him, but also just wait for his signal, his big distraction.” His words dripped with sarcasm. I opened my mouth, but he was quick to cut me off. “Oh! Don’t let me forget … we also have no idea what this distraction is supposed to be or if it will even work. That is our plan.” His eyes cut into mine, asking me if I even heard what I’d just said. I admit, it sounded lame, but, what choice did we have?

  “It’s the only plan, Jude. What else can we do?” I asked. “Do you have any other ideas?” His jaw clenched and he stood, striding back and forth in the room, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

  “I don’t. But surely we could come up with something. Anything. The guy probably just wants to get in your pants.” I gasped and bounded off the bed to stand directly in front of him.

  “That was uncalled for, Jude,” I said through clenched teeth. Jude’s gaze pierced me, searching my face. His eyes widened and his mouth settled into a straight line. “The son of a bitch made a move on you,” he gritted out. My face flamed, but I shook my head.

  “That has nothing to do with me trusting him or the fact that this is the only course of action we can take,” I said calmly.

  “The hell it doesn’t. It’s pretty hard to mistrust a guy who has his tongue in your mouth and his hand down your panties,” Jude said in disgust.

  I don’t remember actually making a decision to get pissed off, but I guess my hand made it for me. The sound of my palm striking Jude across the cheek echoed in the room and jerked his head to the side. We both stood there with barely a foot of space between us, our chests heaving. My palm was stinging and I imagined Jude’s cheek was smarting like a bitch. And just like that, the wind left my sails in one strong whoosh.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …” My words were cut off, my breath robbed from me as Jude gathered me into his arms and hugged me to him so forcefully that I thought my back might crack. His face and nose were buried into the sensitive area between my neck and shoulder and his hands roamed my back, trying to pull me closer, as if to absorb me into himself.

  “God. You slay me, Melody Carter. I’m sorry. I’m a jackass,” he murmured against my neck. The last bit of fight melted out of me and I buried a hand into the back of his shirt and held onto him as tightly as possible. “You’ve completely invaded me, Mel,” he said gruffly. I pulled him gently until we were next to the bed.

  “Lie down with me, Jude,” I whispered softly. We laid in each other’s arms for a while, my head on his chest, before I was able to speak past the lump in my throat. “I’m going to make love to you, Jude.” He stiffened. “Not right now, not here,” I said conversationally. “But once we get out of here, alive and well, I’m going to make love to you because I want to. Because I want you to be the first and last guy I sleep with in this new world, in this new life. The only guy who means enough to me that I would put my heart and my life on the line for.”

  Jude understood what I was saying. He understood what it meant to open yourself up to the possibility of love and living when everything could be ripped away from you at any moment. He knew it meant that I was halfway in love with him and he let me know that he felt the same with a kiss that couldn’t have been mistaken for anything other than an “I love you too” in any world.

  WE WERE UP AND FOLLOWING behind a guard who was toting an automatic rifle after a hard knock on our door a few hours later. Jude and I glanced back and forth at each other uneasily. There really was no telling what we were getting ourselves into. I could only hope and pray that whatever Tex had up his sleeve would be good enough to give us an edge for what was in store for us. When we passed through empty hallways and an equally empty wreck room, I felt a stab of apprehension in the back of my skull. Where was everyone? What was worse was that we climbed the stairs that had led us into the base the first day … the ones that led back out into the toy factory and then out into the open city. Surely we weren’t just going to be tossed out into the zombie fray. By the time we entered the toy factory, my uneasiness had tripled and I wondered if I should make a move to take the guard down. I glanced over at Jude and he shook his head once. No.

  It took me a moment to realize that we were headed to the very back of the factory instead of the way we had entered. I didn’t see what we were headed into, but I could suddenly hear something. When we went through the double doors in the back of the factory it took me a full minute to really grasp what I was seeing through the blinding sunlight. To understand what it was I was hearing. Jude sucked in a breath through his teeth next to me and it was only his presence that made me feel grounded, feel like I wasn’t dreaming or imagining the awfulness that was reality.

  The scene in front of me made no sense, but then again, neither did a world chockfull of the living dead. We had walked out into what appeared to be a fenced-in shipping and receiving area for the abandoned toy factory. All of the semi-trucks had been arranged around in a circle—bumper to bumper—and on top of the trailers there sat tons and tons of people. They were screaming and cheering. I took a step out of the opening that I was standing in and realized they had lined the trucks up out of the shipping area in such a way that people could walk out of the factory and up a ramp, straight to the tops of the trucks. The guard that had led us out of the base nudged me and I took another step forward with Jude right beside me. When I reached the top of the first truck, I stopped, feeling dizzy from the view before me. Two semis divided the circle in half, parked with the back bumper of each one touching one another to make a bridge of sorts across the circle. Swarming the middle of the two half circles below us were no less than a hundred zombies. I immediately stepped away from the edge, my hand going to place that my knife should have been.

  “What the fuck?” Jude hissed.

  I glanced across the circle and spotted barbed wire poking out from under each truck. Large, wooden pikes pointed straight out toward the arena of undead to keep them corralled within the circle of semis. These people thought that made them safe, they thought they were in control of the situation. A small bubble of laughter worked its way past my lips.

  “Finding something funny again, Mel?” Jessica’s voice threw a bucket of ice-cold realization in my face as I turned to face her.

  “Well, it kind of tickles me to think of all the arrogance the person who b
uilt this must be burdened to walk around with on a daily basis.” I shrugged. “Yeah, I find that funny.” I didn’t see her hand whip out, but when I turned back to meet the hatred in her eyes, I wiped the blood away from the corner of my mouth and smiled. “Oh, that wasn’t you, was it?” I asked, my eyes wide in mock horror. The second open-handed slap was well worth the look on her face. Besides, she still hit like a girl. I barely bit back another laugh. I didn’t want to goad her into pushing me over the side of the truck too early in her day’s planned festivities.

  “What is all of this?” I asked, motioning towards the screaming and cheering people and down to the gurgling, moaning zombies just below us. Her smile told me everything I already knew, but didn’t want to believe.

  “This? This is just a little entertainment that I’ve had prepared for our guests,” she said loudly. Everyone nearby cheered at her words. The blood in my veins chilled. “Let’s go.” The guard behind me gave me a tiny shove and it took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to turn around and smash his nose into his skull. When we reached the center of the circle where the semis formed a bridge, Jessica and Jim were given folding chairs to sit on. Someone else sat a third chair in between the two of them. “Come and sit by me,” she purred from her throne.

  I glanced over at Jude and then back at the chair. Jessica laughed loudly and then motioned for me to take the seat with a raised brow. Jude nodded at me. I clenched my teeth and took the seat in between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. When I sat down, I saw several more armed men headed our way. They also had a familiar face with them. I watched as they brought the man who I’d threatened with a knife the day before in front of us, my heart pounding a little too loudly. What the hell?

  “We’ve been having troubles with Hosea here for a while now. After your little altercation yesterday, I decided to make an example of him and have him punished.” I narrowed my eyes and waited for the other shoe to fall. Jessica smiled as she spoke the next words. “I’ve decided to let Jude do the honors.” She nodded over at Jude as if she were bestowing some great honor upon him. “A fight to the death,” she finished. I jumped to my feet only to find myself with Jim’s hand around my throat and his knife biting into my jugular. He made a clucking sound of disappointment with his tongue. It took three men to hold Jude back and even then they had a hard time.