“Where?” Nova said, her eyes going to outside and widening when she saw the truck coming toward us. “Nina! There’s other people, why didn’t you wake me?” she yelled angrily.
I got up from my position and scowled. “I did,” I said with irritation.
“No, you yelled ‘spiders.’ Other people are way more important than spiders, darlin—you should know this by now. What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stared incredulously at her, my brain working around a hundred different insults at once, until Nova broke out in a smile.
“I’m just fuckin’ with you.” She pulled out her guns, clicked off the safeties, and sat back down, waiting for the truck to get closer.
“Who is it?” I wondered out loud. I didn’t expect her to know, but I voiced the question anyway.
Nova shrugged. “No idea, but I don’t like them already.”
“Me neither,” I mumbled. “Shouldn’t we do something?”
“Like?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels kind of stupid to just sit here and wait for them, though. They could be anyone.”
“They might just pass us by,” she said unhelpfully, because we both knew that was unlikely.
I ignored her comment and watched the truck get closer, dread pooling in my gut. But really, what was new? I didn’t want to be afraid. I wanted to be brave. But all I could feel was trepidation and worry.
The truck stopped, and I could make out two, possibly three people moving around inside it. They could be harmless, but my gut said otherwise, and I had learned to trust my gut in these situations.
We stared out the window in silence. The thing was, none of us were doing anything at the moment—not the people in the other truck and not us, not with all these deaders in the way. Before we could even reach each other, we would have to deal with them. I looked over at Joan, seeing that she was still sleeping soundly, and I almost laughed. Almost.
“So, what are you thinking?” Nova asked, her eyes searching my face for something when I turned to look at her. “You got a plan in that pretty little head of yours?”
I laughed then. A lot. Some of it was still the fear that was clogging my veins, and some of it was nerves, but most of it was just the simple amusement of her question.
“When do I ever have a plan?” I managed to say between breaths.
“True,” she retorted. “So?”
“So?” I repeated.
“Lock and load?” she asked.
“Lock and load,” I replied.
“Fuck yeah!” she laughed, in her true Nova style.
I dragged her bag over and unzipped it, pulling out guns and loading them, stashing knives in my pockets, and handing guns and weapons off to Nova. Not that she wasn’t previously loaded up to hell, but as she always said, a girl can never carry enough guns.
I sat up and looked over at her. “Shit, I lost my katana back there,” I said, referring to the place where I’d nearly become zombie chow.
Sometime between nearly hacking myself in half and running for my life, I must have dropped it. It was a damn shame, too, because I loved that sword. I was just getting good with it, and it reminded me of Mikey.
She smirked. “What about a good ol’-fashioned machete?”
“I could use that.”
She reached behind her chair and dragged it out. It was sharp and deadly, and looked expertly kept—if there was ever a way to expertly keep a machete, anyway. My eyes appraised it and I gratefully took it.
“Don’t lose that,” she said dryly. I couldn’t tell if she was joking because I was always losing my weapon, or if this thing was actually really important to her. Either way, I hoped to keep ahold of it for a long time to come.
We glanced back up at the other truck, finally making out three people, and all looked to be doing the same thing as us: gearing up for a fight.
“You ready for this?” I asked.
“What do you think?” she retorted, and without waiting for my reply, she opened her door and kicked out as the first deader reached in for her. It stumbled back a step and she aimed and shot it in the forehead. The gunshot sounded out loudly and then it echoed across from the other truck as they, too, made their move and began shooting their way to us.
Nova shot the next deader in the head as it trampled over its fallen brethren and then she jumped down, a gun in each hand, and she aimed at them, putting them out of their ungodly misery without a second thought. I followed her out, jumping down and landing feet first onto one of the dead deaders…re-dead deaders…completely and totally dead deaders. Whatever! It mushed under my boots and I slipped and then gagged, and maybe even vomited a little as his guts exploded around my feet. Because of course I couldn’t even be cool about getting out of the truck, I had to go and look like an idiot right off the bat.
I moved out of the way of the door, pushing it shut with my elbow to keep Joan safe, because I was hoping to make it through this mess, and I did not want to find our truck full of the undead afterwards. And yeah, the crazy old broad had grown on me.
The zombie child lunged for me, its pigtails swinging as its mouth tried to take a chunk out of my kneecap, because that was as high as the little shit could reach. I felt the tiniest amount of guilt when I kicked it away and danced circles around it until I was finally standing behind it and I squeezed my trigger. Nothing happened, and I squeezed again and again as the child deader lurched closer. I dropped the useless gun and reached for another gun. I was a terrible shot, but I didn’t think I could go wrong with such a close-up kill.
Gunshots were going off all around us, and the growls of more deaders were escaping from the tree line as they came at us, attracted by all the noise. As quick as we were putting them down, more were coming. I didn’t even have time to look up and check on Nova or the people from the other truck, but at least I knew that we were all fighting for our lives at the moment. And while we were fighting for our lives against the deaders, at least we were not trying to kill each other.
The zombie child had turned around to face me, and I got a full-on feature of what was once probably a very beautiful little blond girl, but was now anything but beautiful. She was worse than the stuff of nightmares. A vision to haunt your dreams. She opened her mouth, revealing broken, jagged milk teeth and a mouth full of horrors, and lunged for me again.
I jumped backwards, bumping into another deader that had been sneaking up behind me, and yes, I did realize that this was the second time this had happened to me in less than twenty-four hours. I ducked just before either of them grabbed me and made me their brunch, and they clashed together clumsily, not being able to stop their own forward momentum because they were stupid. Ha! Score one for Nina, I thought bitterly. They untangled themselves and turned toward me, their eyes wild with hunger and hatred.
“To hell with this,” I mumbled to myself, withdrawing my newly acquired machete, and I took another step backwards to allow myself some space to swing. Luckily, the shoulder that had been stitched together was not the one with my machete-slashing hand. Now that was a statement I never thought I would hear myself saying.
I slashed through the air and took the first deader’s head off, but I didn’t get to cheer in victory as black gunk splattered my body and my shoulder throbbed painfully from the swift movement. In some sick and twisted way though, I was enjoying the thrill of the kill, the thrill of ending its life and preserving my own. I used to feel bad for every kill, guilt eating away at the death I was inflicting. Because even though these monsters would gladly kill me without batting a rotten eyelash, I was a human, and I did realize what I was doing. I guess that was the difference between monsters and men. Now, though, I felt delight as I watched the head of the deader roll under the truck, and the body slump to its knees before falling forward. Maybe I’d lost my humanity after all, or maybe I’d realized that there was no way to survive this but to kill. Because it really was a kill or be killed world.
The deader girl came for
me once more, trampling over the fallen deader, and I swung and sliced through her scrawny, pale neck, watching as her head fell from her shoulders. Her body fell forward, but I didn’t stop to see it come to its final rest as I was too busy jumping over the deader bodies and joining the thick of the fight again. Because this was where I felt alive—killing them, putting both them and me out of their misery. So maybe I wasn’t a monster after all.
Nova was firing with both guns, her shots almost always accurate and dead center into each of their filthy rotting foreheads. I sliced and stabbed my way toward her, helping to finish off the last of the ones within our range. My eyes looked up to see that the three men were also coming to the last of their zombies, and I knew that our time was almost up.
We had fought the dead, now it was time to fight the living. And that was something I could never take delight from.
THIRTY.
The groans were minimal, and generally coming from the random heads littered across the road—the ones that were still in their eternal torment, that hadn’t had a bullet or blade through their brain and so continued to hunger on, despite their lack of bodies (and as such, stomachs to fill with flesh). It didn’t seem to bother them. In fact, they kept on in much their usual way despite their lack of torso. It was both deeply disturbing and hilarious.
Nova had reloaded in the seconds it took for me to dispose of the last deader, and she now had both her guns trained on the men in front of us.
“It’s okay, ladies, no need for any more killing today. We just thought you might need a little help is all,” the first man drawled out. He watched us beneath the peak of his filthy red cap, his jaw twitching beneath a long beard. He lowered his gun, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Certainly not Nova.
“Well, thank you for your assistance, you can be on your way now,” she said calmly.
Her words were steady, but I swear to God I could hear her heartbeat pounding furiously in her chest. I still had my machete in my hands, and that wasn’t much good in a fight from this distance, but there also wasn’t much I could do about it now. I also realized that with all the swinging and stabbing actions, despite it not being my fighting arm, my shoulder wound had eventually opened up, and I was seeping hot, sticky blood down my front and back.
“Looks like your friend there could use some help,” red cap man said with a nod of his head toward me. “You all right there? Did a zed take a bite out of you?”
“Not today,” I replied with as much calm as I could muster from my shaky vocal cords. And really, his words were appropriate—considering a deader had taken a bite out of me yesterday.
“Looks real bad from here,” one of the other men said, and he must have thought I was as dumb as a bunch of rocks if he thought I’d missed the small grin on his face and the shifty look he’d given to his friends.
“Well, it’s not so bad from over here, so you can get going now,” Nova said.
We were at a stalemate, I realized. They weren’t leaving without us, and we weren’t leaving with them. Bodies were going to fall, hearts would stop beating, and blood was going to flow. This was the part I hated the most. Man against man. Why did we have to kill each other when there were already so many other things trying to kill us? Couldn’t we just work as one happy freaking family, for God’s sake?
“I think you should come back with us. We have people that can look after you, treat that wound,” red cap man said, his finger on the trigger of his gun making it painfully obvious that this actually wasn’t a question, but an order.
Well he was shit out of luck, because neither Nova nor I were very good at taking orders.
“What do you think, Nina? Do you want to go with these kind men and get all fixed up?” she asked, a playful lilt to her words while she kept her eyes fixed on her prize. And by “prize” I mean the bearded dude that was about to get his head blown apart the moment he made his move.
“No, ma’am, I’m just fine right here,” I replied tartly.
I wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. Ignoring the fact that my shoulder was now bleeding heavily again and coating me in blood, I was about a minute away from turning psycho on their asses. Fear had worked its way through me and was now a tiger waiting to be unleashed. I was ready to unload my own special brand of crazy if they as much as tried to take me.
Because I would not—could not—go with them. Not only would they make my last days on earth very painful ones, but I would never get to see Emily again. I would never get to say how proud I was of her resilience, and how truly sorry I was for being such a total bitch to her when we first met…and for most of the time after that. I would also never get to tell Mikey that I loved him and explain what had happened with Rachael. I wouldn’t get to say a proper goodbye to him or Emily. And that couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t allow it to. I had to make amends.
The third man—a slim white guy with shaggy hair that clung to his neck like a second collar—grinned, and I knew it was time. I cleared my throat and breathed, readying myself to run behind the truck as quickly as I could. I needed a gun, or close contact with my machete, and right then I had neither.
“We’ve got this, darlin’,” Nova said quietly. And just like that I felt strong and ready.
A gunshot sounded out, making me jump into action, and I ran to the truck, dragging Nova with me. She fired several times as I pulled her away, until finally we were crouched beside our truck and a final gunshot rang out.
Nova quickly looked around the side of the truck and then moved over to me, and I glanced over at her and shook my head.
“You’re smiling,” I noted as calmly as I could.
I dropped to my belly and peeked underneath, not quite sure about what I was seeing—other than lots of dead zombies and someone walking around.
Nova lay down next to me, still grinning. “What are we looking at?”
I turned to her with my best “what the actual fuck” look. “Were you hit? Did you bang your head? I’m looking for the three men that were just shooting at us, asshole,” I snapped, my voice rising when I knew I should have been keeping quiet.
“They weren’t shooting at us, Nina,” she replied with a grin.
I looked back under the truck, but all I could see was the bodies on the ground, a mass of limbs, both rotten and not, and someone walking in between them. The feet stopped and a second later another shot rang out and a zombie body shook from the force of the bullet entering its skull.
“Well who were they shooting at then?” I whisper-shouted, pulling out my gun.
I was a terrible shot, but maybe I could shoot a foot from here. That would definitely give me an advantage.
“They’re dead,” Nova said with a chuckle, and sat up. “That was your boy out there.” She stood up, and like an asshole she pointed at me and laughed. “You look ridiculous—get your ass up of the ground.”
I looked from her to the feet coming toward me, and then back to her before slowly standing. The footsteps came with a soft crunch of gravel underfoot, and then he was there.
Mikey.
His face as handsome as I remembered it and his gun poised. There was a small curve to his full lips as he took me in and his dark eyes soaked me up.
“Where there’s trouble, there’s Nina,” he said playfully, but his words were thick with emotion.
“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth,” Nova laughed, and threw her arms around him. “You took your time,” she mumbled against his neck.
I continued to stare in shock and amazement, and he, despite Nova having thrown herself at him, was still staring at me. She finally pulled back, slapped his cheek playfully, and flounced away, leaving Mikey and me alone.
My mouth opened, and then closed again. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, now that it came down to it, so I said nothing. I stared, and the more I stared the more embarrassed I got by my own silence. It was Mikey who finally broke the silence.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I squeezed out through my
tight throat.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Aren’t I always?”
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
Mikey took a hesitant step forward, one hand moving to the back of his neck, where he rubbed along his hairline—a gesture so familiar to me that my heart panged at the sight of it. I had missed him—his movements, his voice, his kind eyes that didn’t stare at me like I was a horrible person. His beard was longer, his shoulders ever so slightly broader. He’d been working out more in our separation and it was paying off. Back at the base there was always something to do, but when your job was done, you were left with time on your hands.
“What are you doing here?” I asked incredulously.
The words came out harsh and mean, and I rushed to correct myself, because besides the fact that he’d just saved my life—again—I was ridiculously happy to see him, and the sappy female side of me, hoped that he had come for me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just in shock, I guess.”
“I was just passing, saw there was trouble, and like the good Samaritan that I am, I stopped to help. I didn’t even know it was you until Nova stood up,” he said with amusement.
“Oh,” I replied, my heart sinking.
“Nina?”
“What?”
“I was joking.” He smiled at me.
“Oh!”
“I came for you, Nina.”
Without another thought, I rushed forward and threw myself at him. I ignored the sarcastic eye-roll I wanted to give myself for being such a chick about it, and I ignored the pain in my shoulder and stomach, because the song playing in my heart just then was so much more important to listen to.
Vomit! Okay, okay, it’s sappy, but it was my sappy, and I needed it—wanted it—and was grasping at it with both hands, desperate for more of it. So freaking sue me.
“I’ve missed you so much.” He spoke against my neck, and I almost sobbed with relief at those words.
Holy shit, I was a walking, talking female cliché, but right then I didn’t care. All I cared about was that he was here, he had come for me, despite everything that had happened, he cared enough to come and find me.
The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III Page 20