“So they’ll have to make a new home,” I snapped back. His reluctance to see the bigger picture was beginning to piss me off. Something had to change, and maybe this wasn’t the best solution, but we couldn’t keep on much longer like we were.
“Most of those people wouldn’t last the journey. And if we came up against trouble…” He shook his head, and I wasn’t sure what stunned me more—his humanity or the fact that he seemed worried about coming in to trouble. “They’re not fighters. They’re old people and kids mostly. Do you really think they would have the stomach for some of the things we have to go up against? The things we have to do?” He ran his hands through his hair, looking even more frustrated. “Besides, the only thing really keeping those people mentally alive is the fact that they have a home. They wouldn’t live a life on the road. They need walls and a roof, carpets and furniture. They need the normalcy of a life that once was.”
I understood what he was saying: desperate people do desperate things. I’d seen more than my fair share of their desperation. There were risks, of course, but there were also advantages. In my eyes, the risks outweighed the advantages. The base had been a great place so far, but if the weather kept going much longer the way it was, we would all be screwed. Next year we would be more prepared—we could grow food and store for the winter—but right then, the people were freezing and starving to death. And the defenses of that place weren’t that good anymore. We didn’t have the manpower to cover it all. It was an illusion of safety, and one they had all grown comfortable with. Sure, most of the zombies had been kept away thanks to the booby traps surrounding the place, but if the Forgotten or someone equally organized found it, we would all be dead.
“I just worry,” I began, but Michael cut me off.
“Well, don’t. We’ve been holding this shit together since long before you showed up. If you want to leave, just leave. Don’t use us as your get-out. Fucking own it if you want to leave.” He stooped down, picked up another box of supplies, and stalked off.
I stared after him, half agreeing and understanding what he was saying, and half considering his suggestion of leaving. I looked up at the tall walls of the mall, and the fence protecting the access entrance. The place was secure, and there was plenty of stuff here. I knew our group wouldn’t be making many trips back, so there would be more than enough to last me for a long time. Besides, I hated staying in one place for too long. There were too many risks associated with that. Maybe it was time to move on. A chill moved down my arms, the hairs standing to attention. I was getting cold now, since I had stopped working, and I reached over and pulled my hoody back on.
Michael stomped up beside me and I looked across at him. He was frowning more than usual, his mouth pulled into a hard, tight line. He bent down to retrieve another box, and when he stood back up he continued to stare at me for a moment as if he could read my mind. I started to speak, but he shook his head to silence me.
“This group needs you, Mikey,” he said simply, and walked away.
TWENTY-THREE.
We were back on the road again, the journey to the base seeming a long and futile one. The rain lashed down on the windows, making the roads muddy and the truck skid from side to side every now and then on rotten, sodden leaves. We drove slow, keeping the speed down, meaning we got to take more of the scenery in than we usually would.
Normally it was just a blur of trees and road, with broken vehicles and dead bodies littered across the blacktop. I avoided looking too closely; it was the same shit I had seen for the past couple of years, and I had no time for reliving that. But driving slowly, you got a true sense of not just the destruction, but the beauty hidden beneath. Below the devastation, nature was trying to flourish. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking thing, that even with all the death in this world, something was thriving. Something was thriving. I hated that it gave me hope for the future.
Would mankind ever rule this earth again? I doubted it. There would always be death, and I don’t mean your grandpa dying at the ripe old age of seventy-eight. I mean, there would always be a zombie somewhere. There would always be one hiding somewhere, and people would always die, their bodies reanimating into a walking nightmare. I had heard enough about fake cures, and had given up on all that shit a long time ago. As long as people walked the earth, so would zombies. But to see nature still growing, still surviving, that definitely made me reconsider if there was hope for any of us. Because if Mother Nature could thrive after everything that had happened, then maybe we could to.
“You ready?” Michael asked, his voice thick with irritation.
“Always,” I replied, winding my window down and holding my gun out of it ready to shoot any crazies that jumped out at us.
We were at the worst part of the journey: “the road of the damned,” as Michael had named it. Anything could and likely would happen there, apparently, and Michael and Melanie had filled me in on enough horror stories of some of the shit these people had pulled to last me a lifetime. Apparently they would do anything to get a passing vehicle to stop, including throwing women and children into the road and to their deaths, or like what happened on our way to the mall—barraging us with rocks from above. The windshield had a large crack in it just to prove it. That was just another reason I didn’t want to continue making the journey anymore: those people were crazy, and so far, their level of crazy hadn’t paid off, but sooner or later it would. Sooner or later they would get lucky, and us not so much. Or sooner or later we would have to do something about them. Neither option rested easily on me.
Michael stepped on the gas, making the truck lurch forward and simultaneously slide to the side. Melanie muttered a curse under her breath but kept her eyes trained ahead. The air smelled damp and earthy, but underneath all that I could smell something else.
I stared into the tree line, seeing nothing moving and I frowned. Something wasn’t right; it was too quiet, too still. There should have been something happening by then, but instead there was just silence.
“Michael?” I began.
“Thinking the same thing, man. Something’s up,” he called back.
I was relieved to know that it wasn’t just me getting a bad vibe, and as the truck went around a sharp bend I spared myself a second to look away from my side of the truck and out of the windshield, toward the road. I sucked in a sharp breath. Now I knew something was really up.
“I don’t think this is another trick,” Melanie said, her words almost getting lost in the sound of the noisy truck engine, the rain, and the heavy beating of my heart. “I think this is for real.”
I looked back out of my window, feeling the truck slowing down but thankfully not stopping. Bodies littered the road, the devastation something that I wouldn’t be able to erase any time soon. Corpses literally torn in half. People, now reanimated, hanging from trees, their clothing the only thing stopping them falling as they reached hungrily for us. Water ran two inches deep on either side of the road, an outcome of the heavy downpour we were having. But it wasn’t colored in mud and dirt; it didn’t look like rainwater. It was red—small rivers of blood running parallel to each other.
I swallowed hard as a gust of wind caught the scent of death in its grips and fanned it toward me, the smell hitting me with force. I gagged, but felt better when a second later I heard both Melanie and Michael do the same.
“What the hell happened here?” Melanie asked, her usual acid-laced words missing, replaced by sad curiosity.
I shook my head, not knowing how to answer. This was a nightmare come true. Men, women, children—all of them were dead, their bodies torn apart, their blood flowing like a river.
“A horde,” Michael offered, and I nodded, still feeling too numb to talk. “A big fucking horde took them out.”
I had seen death, experienced death, I had even delivered a lot of death. But there was something about seeing this sort of destruction of a group that tore you up inside. These people deserved to die, no doubt—at least most of t
hem did—but not like this. No one deserved to die like this. Certainly not children. I wouldn’t even wish this on the Forgotten. My thoughts drifted to Nina and the scar across her cheek, the way she still flinched when I held her, and I knew that last part was a lie. I did wish this on the Forgotten. On Fallon.
I swallowed, gaining some composure. “If it was a horde, it had to be a huge one,” I turned to look at my companions, “to take out this group.”
They both nodded. I realized that Michael had stopped the truck. It idled in the road, the engine, the rain, and the faint groans of the dead the only noises to be heard. There were zombie bodies scattered around, and I was glad that this group had put up a fight, but something else was bothering me, something I couldn’t quite figure out enough to put into words.
“At least we don’t have to worry about being attacked by them anymore,” Melanie said darkly, and I found myself nodding in agreement.
She was right: this eliminated most of my argument for moving us to the mall. If this road was now clear then it made the journey a helluva lot less dangerous. Michael started the truck again, and I put up my window. It didn’t block out the images outside, but it at least stopped the rotten death smell that hung in the air. We started to drive again, leaving behind the death, when the rain suddenly stopped as quickly as it had started—as if God himself had turned off a tap—and I was at least thankful that something seemed to be going right. I wondered if it was an omen, a sign that things were about to turn for the better. Because it was about damn time.
No road of the damned to worry about. The rain had stopped. And I had come to the decision that I would—no, I needed to—speak to Nina, to at least explain and apologize. In the midst of all this death and destruction, it had solidified my resolve on the matter. She deserved better than me, but damn it, I loved her crazy ass, and I was not willing to let her go—not without a fight. Everything I had just seen had proved it to me. Life was too short—way too damn short. Every day was a danger, a risk we took when we stepped outside whatever walls or gates were supposedly protecting us. If I could risk my life every day to get food for people I hardly knew, then the least I could do for myself was risk getting my heart trampled on by telling Nina how much she meant to me.
It was ridiculous, really. In the middle of an apocalypse, surrounded by danger and death at every turn, and all I could think about was the crazy woman that haunted my dreams. The way she smiled when she thought I wasn’t looking, the protective look she had when she was near Emily, and the soft feel of her skin against mine. What had started out as sex had grown into something much more. I had never believed in true love—that sort of crap was for books and movies, and I didn’t have time for that shit in my life; but I’ll be damned if I didn’t love Nina with every part of me. She owned me. She completed me. She made me want to be more than I ever thought capable. Instead of running from my past, I wanted to turn and face it, to tell my past that I did have a future, and I damn well deserved to have one, because I was more than what everyone believed me to be.
I was a good man.
My heart sped up, a small quirk at the side of my mouth as I thought about her. She was going to give me so much shit, but it would be worth it if she would take me back. I had been an asshole, and she had been no saint, but for the first time in my life I loved someone, and I wanted to fight for them and for that love.
As soon as we got back to the base I would find her, and I would tell her, and she would likely kick my ass, but it would be worth it. And if she wouldn’t listen to me, I would damn well make her.
“What are you grinning about?”
I looked across at Melanie, still grinning, still thinking about Nina, where she was and how embarrassed she would be when I declared how I felt about her in front of everyone. She would go red in the face. The sexy blush she got when she realized someone gave a shit about her had always been one of my favorite things. My smile froze and then slowly fell as the thought that had been niggling away at me finally revealed itself.
“I think he just realized that he loves his woman,” Michael said with a dry laugh.
“Took him long enough,” Melanie replied. “Did you hear me, asshole? It took you long enough.”
I stared into Melanie’s eyes, my words not coming out of my mouth.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop staring at me, you pervert.”
I looked across at Michael. “The base,” I finally said, horror lacing my words.
Michael met my gaze, a deep frown cutting between his eyes. “What of it?” All humor was lost now as I watched the same dread-laced realization crawl across his own face.
“The horde,” I gasped. “We haven’t passed the horde.”
“Shit!” he yelled out angrily and stepped on the gas.
The truck shot forward and I listened as things fell over in the back, but it didn’t matter—nothing mattered at that moment except getting back to the base.
“What? What’s wrong?” Melanie at least had the consideration to sound worried.
“The horde that took out the road of the damned—it’s heading toward the base,” I said, my eyes meeting hers.
Her eyes widened, her mouth tightening into a thin line. “Get us back there, Michael. They need us.”
TWENTY-FOUR.
“How much longer?” Melanie asked.
“An hour—two, tops, if I keep this speed and we don’t hit any problems,” Michael replied.
“They could be okay, right? I mean, the horde could be just around the next bend for all we know,” she said, her words sounding forced and disbelieving.
“They could,” I said as I stared grimly out the window.
“We’ll be there soon. It will be fine. The horde will be slow, we’ll catch up to them. Maybe we can take them out before they even get there,” Michael replied without taking his eyes off the road, his sole concentration on stopping the truck from skidding and crashing into a tree.
“They’re not helpless. They have help. Matty is there, he can shoot. Susan is a mean shot too.” Melanie began checking her guns, though I knew it was more to keep her hands busy than anything else.
I felt the same; the restlessness that ran through my body—urging me to do something, to stop feeling so fucking helpless—was nauseating.
“They have Nina, she can fight,” I said, wishing I had taken the time to show her more with the katana. Maybe show her how to shoot. Because she was great with a knife, a katana, a machete, but her shooting skills were terrible, and that would mean she was going to be in the thick of it. Hand-to-hand fighting. I swallowed hard, feeling even worse.
“Nova is there. Nothing will happen while Nova is there,” Michael said matter-of-factly.
“And Zee, and James,” I added.
It helped. It helped a lot. Listing off the people that would be useful in the fight, thinking of the weapons that they would use, the skills required. Of course there was still a hole in it all—and that hole was us. We weren’t the superheroes of the group, but with a huge horde attack, our presence would be sorely missed. If we could get back and warn them, prepare them, they would be fine. The group had gotten lax with security; we were so far up and out of the way that it was easy to. The booby traps surrounding the place kept most of the zombies away from the fences, and the ones that did get close were easy to take out. But a huge horde would push through those small defenses easily.
“Can you not go any faster?” I asked, my voice filled with desperation.
“Hold on,” Michael replied.
The truck moved quicker; the skidding it was doing was scary as shit, but I didn’t care. The thought of Nina dying, of my friends being eaten alive, was scarier. I trusted Michael to control the truck. I trusted that he would get us there in time to help those people.
The base was a perfect place to hole up in an apocalypse—as long as there were enough people to man it. And there weren’t, not by a long shot. Every trip out left a bigger and bigger hole. If
one of us never made it back, or someone was injured, it affected everyone and everything. I felt sick. Worry drenched me from the inside and soaked me to my core. I didn’t believe we were the saving grace of all plans, but we were three of the best fighters and we weren’t there.
We drove in silence for over an hour, our thoughts consumed with worry and anxiety about what we would be greeted with. I knew that both Michael and Melanie were praying as much as I was, with every mile that passed, that we would run into the horde and overtake them. That we would get to the base before the inevitable attack hit. That there would be enough time to warn our friends and get everyone to safety, or at least be prepared for the slaughter. But with each mile that passed, and no signs of the horde, our hopes dwindled more and more.
As we came around the final bend toward the base, our hearts froze and we collectively held our breaths. The horde had definitely been there. The ground was stained with dried blood and gore, the slow trudge of their collective footsteps leaving a trail of grime behind. The muddy grass on either side of the road was trampled, a shoe or two left behind from a bumbling zombie. I wound down my window, and the smell of their rot hit me. They had been here recently, or maybe they were still there.
The silence that clung thickly in the air dashed my hopes for seeing anything good as we entered the base. We stopped outside the main guard post and sadness beat at me with a heavy hand. The insides of the windows were splashed with blood, and bloodied handprints smeared across the door that swung open and banged every once in a while against the side of the small hut. I wondered who had been on guard today. Who it was that we had lost to this attack? Had they had chance to radio up to the main base and warn them before they were swarmed?
We drove further into the base, the road covered with the same telltale stains leading up to the main gate. As we came up to the main drag and saw the metal gates collapsed and lying flat against the ground, we all knew that it was over. The air wasn’t filled with gunshots or screams, the moans of zombies, or cries for help. It was silent, a slow breeze drifting across a quiet base filled with our nightmares.
The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III Page 16