by Raymond Lee
Cruz glanced at her before standing his mop against the wall in the corner of the room, but said nothing.
Damian eyed him suspiciously before turning his attention to Raven. “Oh, so you can come in the kitchen now that all the nasty shit is off the floor?”
“Yes, but I appreciate you cleaning that all up for me.”
Damian flipped her off and loosened his scarf, safe to breathe the air. “Anything else we need to do before we settle in?”
“Check if you can find dry pants,” Hal instructed him. “I don’t want anyone wearing wet clothes. Raven and I are getting snow to melt down for water. Cruz, you check the kitchen for food. We don’t want to dip into our travel supply unless we have to.”
Damian left the room and Cruz dutifully moved across the kitchen to start looking through cabinets without a word. Hal handed Raven two pots he’d found in the cabinet space beneath the sink and they exited via the back door.
The cold air outside the house wasn’t much worse than what was inside, with exception to the family room that held a little warmth from the fire. The dead bodies they’d found in the kitchen laid in the snow not that far from the house.
“Were either of those bodies a teenaged girl?” Raven asked.
“I think they were both infected,” Hal answered as he bent to scoop snow into one of the pots he carried. “I think the family got away. They probably had supplies packed like we did.”
“Good.” Raven shoved her two large pots into the snow, heaping up the white powder. “Is this sanitary?”
“Snow is just frozen water,” Hal answered. “As long as it isn’t yellow, it’s good.”
Raven grinned. “That sounds like something my dad would say.”
“You lost your parents before this happened?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “I don’t talk about it.”
“Understood.” He started walking back toward the house. “Do you talk about whatever happened with Cruz? He came downstairs pretty sour after the two of you checked it out up there.”
“It was nothing. A little argument.”
“Did he do anything to you?”
Raven stopped following Hal, surprised by the look she saw in his dark eyes. She hadn’t seen anyone look at her like that since her junior prom when her father had questioned if her date had did anything out of line because she’d come home crying. “No, of course not.”
Hal looked at the house then back at her. “Be careful around him, Raven, and if he does anything you tell me immediately. Understand?”
Raven nodded, too puzzled by Hal’s display of concern to do anything else.
Hal added another piece of wood to the fire and returned to the recliner next to the fireplace. Carlos sat up in his sleeping bag next to him, watching his son sleep.
They’d found a case of ramen noodles in the kitchen and had prepared them using boiled snow. They’d shed their coats and shoes, basked in the warmth of the fire while enjoying the hot meal, and then retired for the night before the sun had fully dropped from the sky. With exception to Pimjai and Janjai who both slept under warm blankets on the two couches, and he himself who’d chosen the recliner, the rest had all slid into sleeping bags placed together to take advantage of body heat.
“You should get some sleep.”
“I could tell you the same,” Carlos replied. “Here you are doing the same thing as I, watching over your family.”
Hal smiled at that. They did feel like a makeshift little family, even Cruz despite what lurked inside him. “Everyone was so drained from the journey they fell asleep after they filled their bellies. It wasn’t even dark yet. By the time someone wakes up there will still be time for me to get some sleep before we head out.”
“Do you think it wise for us to keep moving from place to place like this? The temperature does not seem to be rising. When the snow melts we can just drive to Nebraska.”
“We have no idea how long it will be until the snow melts and even if we find a car that runs, we have to think about gas so there’s no guarantee a vehicle will get us all the way to Lincoln. If we stay here we also risk running out of food, and we can’t forget there is a baby on the way.”
Carlos shook his head. “This is not the time to have babies.”
“There isn’t much that can be done about that now,” Hal advised. “What’s keeping you awake, Carlos? You have to be tired.”
“Physically, yes. Other than that I am actually pretty wired right now.”
“We’re close to your home?”
“We will reach it tomorrow.” The man bowed his head. “I never planned on going back there. Even if the government had done its job and saved us from this plague, I didn’t plan on going back there.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Judgement.” Carlos looked over at where his son slept nestled in a sleeping bag in between Raven and Leah. “My son does not respect me. When he looks at me, I see contempt and disgust. When I picture my wife I see her eyes bulging out in terror as one of those monsters sank its teeth into her. I just want to see love in the eyes of those I love, I just want to be deserving of that.”
“This does not explain why you fear going back to your home.”
“I failed him once there. I do not want to fail him again.”
“You managed to get your son to a safe place and keep him alive. I wouldn’t call that a failure.”
“I kept him alive because we were safe behind the walls of Wally’s Club, fully supplied with everything we needed. I never had to step out into the madness of this infected world. I never had to fight. I could keep him safe there. I don’t know that I can out here.” He looked down at his palms. “My father used his hands a lot. I saw him wash a lot of blood off them. I was determined to never use my hands. Now I need them and I don’t even know how they work.”
Hal leaned down and pushed Carlos’s hands together, palm to palm, fingers pointed toward the sky. “Yes you do.”
“I am a man of God but even I know sometimes we have to fight. So do you. You’re a fighter.”
“We are all fighters when we have to be. You may have lost your wife, and I am truly sorry for your loss, but the two of you fought together to save your son. You won. There are always casualties in war and even though none of us signed up for this, this is a war we are in.”
“I avoided violence my whole life. I never expected it to barge into my home.” Carlos’s shoulders slumped. “What if she is still there? I don’t know if she turned or if they killed her right then and there. What do I do if we go into the house and see what’s left of her lying on the kitchen floor where we abandoned her?”
Hal watched tears roll down Carlos’s cheeks and wished he could take the man’s pain away. There was no way to sugarcoat the answer he had to give.
“If she died, with as much time has passed, and the fact it was warm then, I don’t think anything recognizable would be left of her, and that’s only if nothing …”
“If animals didn’t get to her.”
“Yeah.”
Carlos wiped the tears from his face. “And if she turned? What if she never left and she is there waiting for us, waiting to get her vengeance?”
“On you? Carlos, that’s your guilt talking and you have nothing to be guilty about. I didn’t know your wife but I know mothers. Mothers protect their children above all. You saved her child and that was the only thing she would have wanted from you. Furthermore, you know that once someone is infected, they are dead. Everything that was ever truly them dies with the disease. What’s left walking around, killing, is not them. It looks like them but it is not them.”
“If she’s there I don’t think I can kill her. You’ll have to. Promise me.”
“I promise you I will kill it. Your wife has been gone a long time. She’s not there. No matter what you see tomorrow, she is not there. Remember that.”
Carlos nodded and yawned.
“Get some rest. Being tired will make getting through
tomorrow even tougher on you.”
Carlos yawned again. “I don’t think anything will make tomorrow easier but I’ll try.”
Hal watched the man burrow down into his sleeping bag and sighed. The world had been full enough of sorrow and pain before the Z-1219 virus had ever struck but the carnage that came after certainly would make it harder for many to stay on the path of righteousness. There was nothing like disease and the death of loved ones to pull people away from God and closer to the darkness. It had been so long since he’d spoken to anyone in C.R.O.S.S., he didn’t even know how many had survived to continue their work. He prayed they were well and that they’d been guided toward missions as he had.
He watched Raven sleep. She mumbled every now and then and moved around as if battling some unseen enemy. He could imagine the images that filled her dreams, surely her family visited her then. She carried a lot of weight on her shoulders, blaming herself for the deaths of all who’d died since coming into contact with her. He smiled, knowing she was not the blame for death, but the promise of life, the one who would save them all.
Cruz sat straight up in his sleeping bag, his movement unnatural and robotic, and turned his head toward where Raven rested.
Hal watched as an aura of red flowed around him and his mouth curved up into a snarl.
“Christo,” Hal spoke firmly.
Cruz looked at him, his eyes black as tar before he blinked and looked around confused.
“Go back to sleep, Cruz.”
“What?” Cruz attempted to raise his arm but it was still inside the sleeping bag, fully zipped. His upper body fell backward and he struggled with the zipper. “What the hell?”
“I think you were sleep walking, but your sleeping bag stopped you.”
The bag now unzipped, Cruz sat back up and scratched his head. He looked around, noticed everyone else was asleep, and turned onto his stomach. “Weird,” he mumbled as he settled back in to sleep.
Hal watched over everyone as they slept, paying close attention to Cruz and what he carried inside. He made a mental note to watch Cruz take his pills in the morning and to find out where the closest church was, or if it became necessary, the closest C.R.O.S.S. bunker.
“There it is.” Elijah started walking quicker now that he could see his home in the distance.
They’d filled up on ramen noodle soup, duct taped their pants legs beneath the shins, packed up their belongings, and headed out as soon as Hal had awakened.
The sun shone brighter than it had the previous day and the snow had begun to melt on the streets, but there was still enough of it to slow them down.
The combination of the duct tape and the snow boots made the walk much easier for Raven. The bitter cold was a lot easier to deal with when it wasn’t seeping into your clothes via liquid form. “Brilliant idea about the duct tape,” Raven complimented Leah as they trekked forward. Her voice was muffled behind her scarf but they’d all grown accustomed to understanding one another all bundled up. “I haven’t felt any wetness at all.”
“Yes, sometimes it is worth it to look utterly ridiculous,” Leah replied.
“The snow boots are great too,” Raven told Cruz, who’d been quiet the whole day. “Thank you for finding them.”
“You would have found them yourself eventually,” he said and moved ahead toward the front of the group.
“Trouble in paradise?” Damian asked, edging next to her. “He’s been all glum and grum since you two were alone in that house.”
“What’s grum?”
“Grumpy.”
“Why didn’t you say grumpy?”
“It didn’t rhyme with glum.”
“Why does it have to— never mind.” Raven shook her head. “I think I preferred you talking about your balls.”
“Now that you mention it, my left testicle—”
“Is about to be introduced to my katana if you finish that sentence.”
“Snippy, snippy … wait.” Damian shuddered. “Poor word choice. So what gives? Did you squash all of the prince of Hollywood’s romantic dreams?”
“Why are you so negative about him? You two were together when I met you. You survived the beginning of this crap together. Shouldn’t there be some sort of a bond or something over that?”
Damian shrugged his shoulders. “There’s just something about him rubbing me the wrong way.”
Raven raised an eyebrow, the only part of her face she knew Damian could see due to her hood and scarf.
“Stop it. If I can’t talk about testicles you can’t make innuendos.”
“You’re the one who said it, and what do you mean? He was with you when you went after Kurt. He helped you. He’s helped us all along and you can’t hold his mental illness against him. That’s just wrong and you know it.”
“He takes pills for the crazy so that’s not an issue so much anymore. There’s just something else about him bugging me lately, a bad vibe.”
“Look.” Janjai pointed ahead toward the small white house they were making their way to.
Raven tabled her discussion with Damian for another time as she noticed what had drawn Janjai’s attention, a cloud of smoke drifting out of the chimney. “Somebody’s home and I think we can rule out zombies.”
They all stopped in their tracks, on the snow covered sidewalk three houses down across the street from their target.
“Someone is in our house?” Elijah moved forward and Hal quickly extended an arm to hold him back.
“You can’t rush in there, son. People can be deadlier than zombies. People can think.”
“It’s my house.”
“It was our house,” Carlos said. “Someone may have claimed it.”
“It’s our home,” Elijah said more forcefully. “People can’t just take it over.”
“Maybe they didn’t,” Hal said. “Maybe they’re just house hopping until they find a secure location, just like we are, but we can’t assume that. We definitely can’t assume they’re friendly.”
Raven reached back and grabbed the hilt of her katana as she slowly turned, checking the other houses on the street for smoking chimneys or curtains pulled aside. “I don’t see any signs of people in any of these other houses. We could stay in one and watch to see if whoever’s in there leaves.”
“Or we could go home. It’s my home.”
“Elijah, you must think with your head,” Carlos urged him. “This is dangerous.”
“Oh, right. I forgot your spine turns to Jell-O when you’re near that house,” Elijah said.
“Enough!” Raven snapped, tired of witnessing Elijah’s belittling of his father even if the man had gotten on her nerves complaining about the loss of Wally’s Club for most of their journey. “We agreed to get you here so you could get a picture of your mother and we did. No one agreed to die for that picture, which we very well could depending on who is inside those walls. Do you know why I was on your side about the picture, Elijah? I know what it’s like to lose parents. Parents, plural. I’m sorry you lost your mother, I truly am, but you still have your father. Count your blessings and show him some fucking respect for saving your ungrateful life.”
Elijah’s eyes watered as if he’d been hit in the face and the others looked around, noticeably uncomfortable having witnessing the boy being put in his place.
“Daaaayum,” Damian attempted to whisper next to her but the high pitch of his voice could clearly be heard by the whole party.
“Thank you for that, Raven,” Carlos said softly, “but I am fine. My only concern is for my son’s safety. I can take his anger if it keeps him out of harm’s way.”
“I can check it out,” Cruz offered. “They might be friendly and I’m a recognizable face.”
He’d been able to shave that morning using supplies in the house they’d slept in and melted snow so his statement was true, but Raven didn’t like the idea of him putting his neck on the line for them.
“We were inside a superstore for months. We’ve only been out here
a few days. We don’t know who those people are or what they’ve been through. They could have been on the run since the very first day. They could be starving. People have killed for less.”
“Raven is right,” Janjai said. “I have seen people do horrible things to people since this virus started. We must be careful.”
“You saved her!” Elijah pointed at Leah, who looked away guiltily.
“We didn’t knock on her door,” Raven advised him. “She flagged us down and welcomed us inside.”
“And I had my hand on the gun in my pocket the whole time we were in her house,” Cruz added. “So did Damian and Hal. We didn’t go into that situation blind.”
“I’m not sure how to feel about that revelation,” Leah said. “I suppose I could be offended, yet part of me feels like a badass. Cruz Thomas, action hero, considered me a threat. If only Facebook were up, that is a golden status.”
“Um, guys.” Damian nodded toward the house. “I think we’ve been spotted.”
Raven looked ahead to see a curtain falling back in place in one of the downstairs windows. “Well, shit. That could be a bad thing.”
“Or it could be a good thing,” Elijah countered.
An upstairs window slid open and the barrel of a shotgun poked out.
“I’m sticking to bad thing,” Raven said before turning to inspect the house behind them. It was a small brick house with a privacy fence closing off the back yard. Fortunately, no lock adorned the latched gate at the side of the house. “Follow me!”
She ran toward the fence, unlatched the gate and slipped inside, ushering the others through before closing it.
“What now?” Damian asked.
“Guns out,” Hal instructed, extracting his own from his coat pocket and sliding the safety off. “We need to get inside somewhere.”
“I can pick the lock if I need to,” Raven said, moving toward the back door of the brick house.
“They’ll search this house if they want to come after us,” Hal advised. “They saw us go through the gate. We need to find somewhere else.”
“How the hell do you climb a six foot tall privacy fence?” Damian asked. “You supertall guys got a little advantage over us normal sized people.”