I prod it with my spear to make sure it’s dead. It doesn’t move. Carter slides in and detaches the first of the kegs. The fact that they’re still here is a sign of just how deserted the campus is.
“How are we going to tap into them when we get back to the dorm?” Eric asks.
“We’ll have to take one of the tap handles,” Carter replies. “Here, I brought my mom’s screwdriver.” He passes it to me.
I decide not to read anything into his action. I just happened to be standing closest to him when he pulled out the screwdriver.
Within a few minutes, we have a keg and the tap handle in our possession. Carter removes a second keg.
The fading light illuminates his profile. For a moment, I let myself imagine things are good between us. I imagine we’re not surrounded by dead bodies in a shot-up college cafeteria. Instead, we’re at a trailhead somewhere, selling our beer to racers after they cross the finish line.
For just a few seconds, I let myself be transported to another time, another place. I miss Carter so much I ache.
“Boo!”
The unexpected voice rings out like a gong.
17
Neighbors
JENNA
The shout sends me into a crouch. In my surprise, I drop the tap handle. It hits the ground with a loud clunk.
Eric and Johnny drop to all fours and crawl behind the bar with me and Carter. We fill in around the dead body, trying to hide and avoid the corpse at the same time. Carter is mashed up against me, the smooth skin of his shaven cheek wedged against my elbow.
“Who was that?” Eric hisses.
“I was hoping it was one of you guys,” I whisper back, even though I know they wouldn’t be hiding behind the bar if that was the case.
“If it wasn’t us and it wasn’t you guys, then who was it?” Johnny’s whisper is thin.
“Probably just some jackasses who survived the outbreak,” I say in a soft voice. “Maybe it’s those people we saw earlier.”
“They’re messing with us.” To my horror, Eric raises his voice loud enough to carry. “You got us, assholes. You scared us. Now come out.”
Silence.
We wait. Somewhere outside is the squeal of a bat. Then the growls of the buffet zombies roll through the room.
I decide Eric is right. Someone is messing with us. “Hello?” I call.
Only the snarling zombies answer us.
Unease drips across my shoulders, followed by an urge to get the hell out of the Depot as fast as we can.
Palms sweaty around my spear, I creep around the edge of the bar and peer out into the common room. It’s darker than ever and difficult to see. In the gloom, nothing moves. The growls of the buffet zombies still roll across the tile, but there’s no visible sign of them.
“It’s clear,” I call back in a low voice. “Come on.”
Reed and Johnny each heft one of the kegs. They’re five-gallon kegs, a smaller format preferred by many of the local microbrews. I jam the tap handle through my belt. The four of us scurry across the commons, Carter and I in the lead.
As we near the exit, a figure rises from behind one of the buffets.
“Howdy, neighbors.”
To my dismay, I let out a girlish squeal and jump at least twelve feet into the air. Reed drops one of the kegs. It rings against the tile floor with a reverberating bang. Carter jumps in front of me.
The figure doubles over laughing. It’s a boy, a student in his university sweatshirt. Two other figures join him. It’s three boys, all of them in baggy sweatshirts and jeans. All of them laughing at us.
“You should see the look on your faces,” says one boy, pointing a finger at us. They practically fall over one another in their hilarity.
“Assholes,” I growl. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Wait, wait,” says the first boy. “Just hold up a sec.”
He looks me up and down, scanning me in a way that makes me want to scream. Even in an apocalypse, guys are all the same. I cross my arms over my breasts, blocking them from his view, and scowl at him.
If he notices my hostility, he covers it with a grin. “Look, we were just messing around.”
“Yeah, we were just messing with you,” says the second boy.
“We’re survivors from College Creek,” says the third boy. “We were out gathering supplies when we saw you.”
“College Creek?” Carter says. “We heard that place was overrun.”
That sobers the boys. “It was,” says the first one. “A few of us survived after the military took down the zombies.”
“How many of there are you?” I ask.
“Sixteen of us back in the dorm.”
Sixteen. More than twice our number.
“Do you have a good set up?” Eric asks.
The lead boy shrugs, eyes flicking toward me. “It’s okay. What dorm are you guys in?”
“Pepperwood,” Johnny says, flashing all of us a look. I don’t correct him, glad for the lie. “We have two kegs of beer. Do you guys want one?”
“Really?” The second boy takes a few steps in our direction.
“Sure,” Johnny says, giving us all that look again. I’m not sure what he’s trying to tell us but we go along anyway. Maybe relinquishing one of our kegs will dispel the uncomfortable tension in the air.
Johnny takes a few steps forward and deposits his keg in front of the College Creek boys.
“I’m Johnny. My friends are Carter, Eric, and Jenna. Who are you guys?”
“I’m Ryan,” says the lead boy. “My friends are Henry and Adam.”
“Nice to meet you,” Johnny says. “Maybe we’ll see you guys around sometime.”
“Maybe we’ll come visit,” Ryan says.
God, I hope not.
“Cool. See you around.” Johnny waves a noncommittal hand before hustling us all for the exit.
Right before we pass through the shattered windows, I spot the buffet zombies. Carter sees them at the same time. “What the ...”
Their legs have been hacked off, leaving nothing but bloody stumps protruding from their hips. Their arms have been cut off just below the shoulder. The discarded limbs are scattered between the salad bar and drink station.
Johnny and Eric, now holding the keg between them, crash into us. They curse before catching sight of our faces.
“Holy shit.” Eric’s voice is thin and high-pitched. “Did you guys do that?” he asks Ryan and the others.
“What, that?” Ryan points to the writhing undead, who are no more than three feet away from his shoes. He shrugs. “Just messing around, that’s all. Not like they can feel it.”
“They’re nasty enough when they’re in one piece,” Johnny says.
My feet feel like lead. I’m glad Johnny didn’t tell these fuckers where we really live. I’ve dispatched my fair share of zombies, but not like this. Their dismemberment is a mockery and disrespect to the people they once were. Mouth dry, I advance on the struggling things.
“Jenna, no.” Carter lays a hand on my arm.
I ignore him, licking my lips. I recognize one of the creatures. Reggie. He lived in a neighboring dorm. We took statistics together. He was a nice guy. He doesn’t deserve what happened to him.
I pass the College Creek boys, untouched by their amused disdain. Carter is by my side. For the first time today, I’m grateful for his presence. He’s like a shield between me and the College Creek guys.
I stop in front of Reggie’s wriggling body, the smell of the rotting food and rotting bodies washing over me.
I slam the sharpened end of my chair leg through his skull. Reggie shudders, then goes still.
I administer the same mercy to the second creature, a girl with a pixie cut who had been cute and petite when she’d been alive. My spear punches through her skull, the impact of the crumpling bone traveling all the way up my arm.
“I like to make sure they’re really dead,” I say to Ryan and his friends. “Just in case. See you
guys around.”
When I rejoin Carter and the others, no one says a word. We hurry into the night with our beer keg.
18
Goodnight
JENNA
By the time we get back to the dorm, the last thing I want is a beer.
“Now that was straight out of a horror movie script,” Johnny announces as soon as we are inside. “We need to steer wide of those guys.”
“What guys?” Reed sits up on the couch. His eyes are no longer bloodshot.
“I can’t believe you guys left so close to dusk,” Lila says. “That was stupid.”
“What happened?” Kate asks. “Are you guys okay?”
I deposit the keg handle on the table and leave the others to relate the tale. All I want to do is shower and go to bed. Since there’s no hot water, and heating up water on the barbecue is tedious, bed is the only option left for me.
“Jenna?”
My hand freezes on the door handle. I turn as Carter enters the hallway after me.
My heart swells at the sight of him. I want so badly to bury myself in his arms, but I force myself to stand tall. His blue eyes pin me in place as he approaches.
“What?” I ask, voice raspy with fatigue.
He stops a foot away, so close I could reach out and touch him. I don’t.
“I just wanted to say ...” He pauses to swallow, dropping his eyes. “I just wanted to say you did a good thing at the Depot today. Killing those maimed students.”
His words warm me, but it hurts seeing him hold back from me. “It was the right thing to do. Those College Creek guys are sickos.”
“Yeah.” He stands there, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, not quite meeting my eye.
Out in the sitting room, Johnny gives a loud, dramatic blow-by-blow of the encounter with the College Creek students.
“Carter ...” I struggle to form words.
He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t leave, either. His blue eyes are guarded as he looks at me.
There are so many things I want to say. I’ve worked on at least half a dozen long-winded speeches in my head the last few days. Now that I’m finally face-to-face with him—now that he isn’t giving me the cold shoulder, or telling me to go away, or straight up being a jerk—they all fly out of my head.
“Carter, I ... I wanted to say you look great. With your new look, I mean. I like it.”
“Do you think your mom would like it?”
I flinch, but I don’t back down from the challenge. “I deserve that.” I swallow, searching for more words. “Do you remember the night when we met? At the Creekside dorm party?”
“Of course.”
“I never told you this, but I’d had a crush on you for a while. I wanted to meet you. I made it a point to bump into you at that party.”
“What do you mean?” he asks with a frown.
“I saw you the first day we all moved into the dorms at the beginning of the year. Do you remember when that girl dropped her mirror and cut open her hand?”
“Mary. Yeah, I remember.”
“You took off your T-shirt and wrapped her hand to stop the bleeding.”
He shifts, frown deepening. “I had on an undershirt. I wasn’t trying to show off or anything.”
“You don’t get it. It wasn’t about you taking off your shirt. It was about you taking off your shirt to help a girl with a cut hand. All I could think was that I wanted a guy who would give me his clothing if I was hurt and bleeding.” I chew my bottom lip. “It wasn’t about how you looked. It wasn’t about getting back at my mom. It was about you. Beard or no beard. Short hair or long. You’re still the guy who gave away his shirt to help a bleeding stranger. I-I ...”
I love you, I want to say, but the words won’t come out. They seem all wrong. They’re not the sort of thing you say to someone you’ve hurt.
“You never told me that.” Carter’s eyes are wide in the darkness.
“I know.” I give him a sad smile. “I’m sorry. I should have.”
He hesitates, then reaches out and draws me close. I fall into his arms. Burying my nose in the crook of his neck, I inhale deeply. I pull his scent into my lungs, drawing comfort from it.
He kisses the top of my head and releases me. I watch him, desperate for more, but all he says is, “Goodnight, Jenna.”
The smile he gives me is the first one I’ve had since our fight. And even though he turns and walks away, I’m left feeling lighthearted.
19
Reunion
KATE
I wasn’t happy when the kids left on their beer run. However, since it was the first thing they had done that resembled a supply run, I didn’t try to stop them. As Johnny wraps up details of the College Creek encounter, I vow to go with them next time.
Reed taps the keg and Eric rounds everyone up for God of War. I watch the entrance to the hallway where Carter and Jenna disappeared, silently praying they’ll make up.
When Carter emerges a few minutes later, eyes brighter than they’ve been in days, I inwardly cheer. I wait a few more minutes, hoping Jenna will show.
When it becomes apparent she isn’t coming, I sigh. Maybe things are going in the right direction, but they haven’t completely made up yet.
I retreat to the kitchen to find dinner. I select a can of baked beans and join Johnny at the kitchen table, clearing myself a small spot between his notebooks, radio, and maps.
“I’m glad you all made it back safely,” I say to Johnny, cracking open my can. I could warm up the beans, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. Besides, room temperature isn’t all that bad.
“I got good material for my piece on the fall of Humboldt University.” Johnny extracts a notebook out of the stack, scratching a sideburn with his pen cap. “The run-in with the creeps makes for a good story.”
“How long have you been writing?” I ask.
“Ever since junior high when I joined the school newspaper,” Johnny says. “I never wanted to go to college. I wanted to travel the world, meet people, and write about them. Mom and Dad freaked out when I told them my plan. They said that if I agreed to go to college and get my degree, they would sponsor a one-year trip around the world when I graduated.”
“Sounds like a pretty good deal,” I say around a mouthful of beans.
“I thought so.” Johnny fills two cups with beer from the keg, passing one to me. “That’s when I got my idea to interview people around the world using a high-frequency ham radio. I put an antenna up on the dorm roof at the beginning of the semester when I first moved in. Did you know that if you lock into the right receivers, you can talk to people on the other side of the globe? It was sort of like traveling. Before all this zombie shit happened, I was interviewing two ladies from Manhattan. They sold all their possessions and moved to Thailand to run an elephant sanctuary. I probably know more about elephant breeding habits than most people. Did you know the average elephant is pregnant for twenty-two months? And that baby elephants are blind when they’re born?”
I shake my head, guzzling down half my beer. It’s warm but still tastes delicious.
“Anyway,” Johnny continues, “that book is called Voices From Around the World. The subtitle is Why Are We Here? The premise is that I ask each person what led them to being where they are today.”
“So, what led the two women to sell all their belongings to open an elephant sanctuary?”
“One was a life-long vegan who ran a successful bakery in Manhattan. She felt like she needed to give back to the world in a big way. Her partner was a corporate lawyer who got sick of all the greed. She wanted to find work that was rewarding for her soul, rather than her pocketbook.”
Up until this point, I hadn’t realized how interesting Johnny was, or what part the ham radio played in his life.
“You said you’re compiling a story about the fall of Humboldt,” I say. “What’s that one about?”
“It’s going into my collection entitled Voices of the Apocalypse,” J
ohnny replies. “Subtitle, First Days. I’ve been writing down all that’s happened to us, but I also have eight interviews from other people so far. Five in the U.S., two in Canada, and one in Germany.”
I still, his words sinking into my chest. “You’re interviewing people in other countries?”
He nods.
My mouth goes dry. I had assumed the world—or at least my world—was changed forever. In my head, I saw wasted American cities cluttered with the undead.
What I had not considered were other countries.
“You okay, Kate?”
“Have you had contact with any countries besides Canada or Germany?” I ask.
“Sweden and India, but no official interviews so far.”
The scope of the outbreak spreads in my mind. I glance up as Reed lets out a whoop in front of the Xbox.
“Have you mentioned this to anyone here?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Even with this information, Johnny hasn’t stepped into the new world. He’s so consumed with his project that he’s let important details—like the gathering of food and water—slide.
Johnny rifles through the maps on the table, pulling out one of Europe marked with red dots. “These are the places where I made contact with people.”
I sort through the maps, noting red dots in the towns and countries where Johnny interviewed survivors.
“What are people saying?” I ask. “Is it as bad in other places as it is here?”
“Yeah. As far as I can tell, it started here in the U.S. in Portland. At the port, to be exact. But there were attacks in other ports around the country not long after. Same thing in Europe.”
“What about other continents? South America? Africa?”
“I haven’t talked to anyone in those parts of the world. But some of my contacts have mentioned outbreaks in those places. I-I think there’s a chance it’s worldwide.”
“Johnny.” I search his face. “You more than anyone else here knows we’re at the beginning of a new world. Why are you spending your days with your notebooks and ham radio when we need to be stockpiling food?”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 43