Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology)

by Chrissy Peebles

  I did as he said while he fumbled beneath the seat for something. It was all I could do to maneuver around the obstacles in the road from my position. I was terrified we would wreck soon. Finally, Cage found what he was looking for and plunged a screwdriver into the hippie's hand. Blood shot all over Trent and Rose as the man finally released his shoulder and growled angrily at Cage.

  Cage slammed on the brakes, throwing him so hard against the tailgate that he toppled over the back to the ground. Speeding off down the road, Cage turned the truck around so quickly we were all thrown into one another. He sped back towards the hippie zombie, who now lay in the road.

  He gave a strange, satisfied victory cheer as he ran over the zombie and headed back to the four lane highway, dodging some of the walkers and hitting others. There was blood spread across the window and he simply turned on the windshield wipers and hit the spray button, smiling his ass off. I wondered if he was losing it.

  Back on the highway, he calmed down a bit, and no one wanted to say anything. It was pretty obvious that Evelyn was not going to be found alive. The church van being turned over, and the church member, currently flattened on the road, told us the story. No one wanted to say anything, and it was hard to imagine that just a few hours before we had been trying to pass the time with a road trip game. It was around three o’clock in the afternoon, and I wondered where we were going. The road was still littered with abandoned cars, but it wasn’t anything like the dozens of them we had seen on the exit to Alexander. Something told me Cage was just driving so he didn’t have to think and Trent was thinking too hard.

  When we finally stopped, it was at an actual rest area, and Rose and I went inside to check out the snack situation. We found that the machines had been turned over and the fronts of them were busted. Nothing had been left behind so we headed back to the truck for some jerky and bottled water. I chewed on the tough jerky and waited for someone to say something. After stretching our legs a bit, we all crammed back into the truck and continued on the path down the highway to the next safety camp Trent knew about. His goal had switched from finding his wife to saving his son, or so I thought. After a couple more hours, he announced that we needed to find somewhere to camp because the safety camp was still two hours away and he was tired.

  The air between everyone was awkward after the events of the day. Even the uncomfortable truck bed seemed welcoming as a way to escape. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t even supper time yet, I was sleepy. Exhausted and emotionally drained, I fell asleep, hoping to erase the day from my memory.

  ***

  Someone was violently shaking me awake. It was dark, meaning I had slept the afternoon away. It took me a minute to figure out what was happening to me.

  “Cassie, get up.”

  I sat straight up in the truck bed, trying to remember where I was. It was Trent that had woken me and he looked frantic.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He pulled me up out of the truck bed and down to the ground, with Cage’s sleeping bag still around me. I almost fell trying to get my legs out of it to walk behind him. He was pulling me away from the truck, by the arm, and he wasn’t being gentle.

  “We don’t have much time before Cage or Rose wake up.” He stopped and released my arm. I rubbed it to try and get the blood flowing freely again. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “What are you talking about?” I watched in horror as he took off his shirt and started towards me. I froze where I was, not sure what he was going to do. I started to feel like he had snapped after the trip to the safety camp.

  “You have to bite me, Cassie.” He was trying to pull my head towards his chest. “You have to bite me now.”

  I was shocked, and even though I didn’t know what to expect, this was far from what I thought he was going to say.

  “Trent,” I hissed at him, angry that he had suggested it, “I am not going to bite you.”

  “You have to, Cassie; I can’t let Cage go through this alone. And if you don’t do it, then it is just a matter of time before another one of the walking dead latches on to me. I am begging you, don’t resist. I will have to make you do it, and I really don’t want to.”

  I stared at him, for a minute, with my mouth open. I understood that he loved his son, but who would willingly become infected? I still didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I wasn’t going to bring my curse on someone who had been lucky enough to escape.

  “No, Trent.” I turned to walk back to the truck, but he tackled me. He flipped me over on my back and held my arms above my head, getting in my face.

  “I don’t want to, but I will hurt you. I need you to bite me, and I am not letting you up until you do. My wife is gone, and my son is dying” He was a desperate man, and desperate men could be really scary.

  I struggled against him but he had me pinned with his body and I couldn’t move. Flashbacks of the man doing the same in Kelmart jumped into my brain and I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I was beginning to panic, and part of me wanted to bite him to get him away from me. I still couldn’t bring myself to do it, so he sat up and put his knee in my stomach, causing me to cry out in pain. He kept the pressure there and then reached down to where my wrist was infected. He stuck his finger inside the wound and pressed. I screamed in agony, just wanting it to stop.

  I made the decision to bite him if he would just get off of me, but the pain was making me woozy. I was going to lose consciousness. I tried to call out to Cage but my voice was a whisper. Trent started to become blurry and my head rolled back, uncontrollably.

  Chapter 11

  An Impossible Situation

  I felt Trent lift off of me and struggled to breathe, until the pain eased off. Sitting up and hugging my knees to my chest, I tried to process what had happened.

  “What the hell are you doing, Dad?” Cage was my rescuer, and he was unhappy. I started to focus on what was going on around me. I saw Rose kneeling next to me with concern in her eyes. Trent was pushing his son away as he stormed off into the night. Cage was running his hands over his face as he walked back over to where I was. Rose moved to the side, as he knelt in front of me. My finger was on fire where he had pressed his finger into the wound. I wondered briefly if he could become infected that way.

  “Cassie, are you okay?” Cage put his fingers under my chin to tilt my head up towards him. I felt the sting of tears and turned my head away from him. I pushed myself up off the ground so fast I fell right into him. He held me up by wrapping an arm around my waist. I was not able to walk yet apparently, and I was more embarrassed than anything.

  “I’m fine.” He helped me back over to the truck. “Cage, don’t be too hard on your Dad.” He looked at me with disbelief. Rose gasped as if that was the last thing she thought I would say.

  “Cassie, he just attacked you,” he was saying, as he paced. “What if he has really been infected the whole time and it’s starting to show?”

  “He’s not infected, Cage; he wanted me to bite him. When I refused, he tried to make me. I wasn’t going to do it until he pressed on this.” I held my hand up and showed him the gash that spread across my wrist and was now a bloody mess. Cage shuddered and pulled his shirt to the side. He didn’t have to tell me his was getting worse too. It was a lot wider than it had been. He pulled up his shirtsleeve and I saw that it had spread to his arm. The edges of it were starting to turn black and grey.

  Sitting next to me on the truck bed, he sighed and placed his hands in his lap.

  “Who would want to be infected? That just sounds crazy.”

  I agreed that it did sound crazy. I also thought the fact that I could infect him was crazy. The possibility of becoming one of those slow-walking groaners was getting more likely. As the infection spread, I was sure that it would be taking over.

  Trent didn’t come back for a while. I knew he was frustrated. I had already forgiven his attack on me. When he did come back, he stopped by the truck and mumbled something that sounded like, �
��Sorry.” Cage and Rose had climbed in the back of the truck and were on either side of me. I guess they were worried they should protect me. I was aware of how close Cage was to me. I was glad I felt no desire to bite him. It had to be because he was infected as well. I had wanted to bite Trent when he was attacking me.

  Fortunately for him, I still had some control over my urges. I fell asleep, finding solace in this miniscule silver lining.

  When I woke up, the sun was already shining down on me in the truck. Cage was no longer beside me. Rose was snoring loudly in my ear. She had her leg thrown over me and her head completely off of the pillow.

  I sat up and looked around for a minute. Cage and his father were standing a few feet away, discussing something. I wiggled out of my sleeping bag and jumped down from the truck. I assumed, somehow, no walkers had happened by while we slept, but I saw two dead ones lying just feet away from the truck and knew I was wrong. Knives were sticking out of the heads, and I figured Trent had taken his frustration out on them.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning, Cassie.” Cage turned his bright smile towards me. “Would you like a cheese sandwich?”

  “Sure.” I tried to smile at Trent. He looked uncomfortable and shoved his hands into his pockets, turning away from me.

  Cage walked to the front of the truck and pulled a knapsack out. He set it on the ground and kneeled beside it. I watched him pull out a loaf of bread and put the bag back in the passenger seat. He went into the cooler in the floorboard and pulled out some cheese. He handed me the sandwich, after putting the cheese on the bread for me. It was the simplest sandwich in the world. It was delicious and I asked him to make Rose one.

  As he made it, he started to tell me about his conversation with his father. “He thinks we can find a safety camp that will help us find the cure.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I assume we don’t have a choice. What makes him think that the other safety camps won’t react the same way that those did? “

  Cage handed me Rose’s sandwich after I finished eating mine. “I don’t think he knows, Cassie. I think he is just desperate to help me. His two choices are helping me, or becoming like me.”

  Cage looked like a young boy caught in between two hard places. His eyes told a story of a guy who loved his dad. I knew he wanted the best for his Dad, but he also knew that his infection was causing his father a lot of pain. Without thinking, I pulled him into a hug. I stood on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck. He stood stiff for a minute but then encircled my waist with his arms. I realized, too late, that I had smashed the cheese sandwich into the back of his neck. I heard Rose snoring, as the sandwich dropped to the ground. At least we could make her another one.

  When Cage buried his face in my neck, I felt the wetness of his tears. I fought back my own waterworks simply to be strong for him. We really were in an impossible situation. I didn’t want the hug to end, but Rose sat up at that moment, letting out a loud sigh as she stretched. We jumped apart and I could still feel the heat from his body on mine.

  “Rose, would you like a cheese sandwich?” Cage grinned at me, as he went to get the bread out again.

  “That would be nice.” I wondered if Rose noticed the blush that was burning my cheeks.

  Trent decided that was an opportune time for us to hit the road. We all piled into the truck and he took off. I didn’t realize, until Cage asked why we were going back towards Alexander, we were headed in the wrong direction.

  “I have to find her, Cage. If she is one of those things, then fine, I will leave her, but I would never forgive myself if somehow she is still alive.”

  “Dad, you saw what happened. That place is crawling with them; we were lucky we made it out of there.” Cage was trying to reason with him, but I could see the internal struggle he was having about the thought of finding his mother.

  “My truck, my rules, we are going back and that is final.” Trent continued to drive back to Alexander and none of us could really protest.

  Trent took us back to the same exit and maneuvered around the discarded and wrecked vehicles that blocked the road. A feeling of unease settled in my stomach and no one said anything as we pulled into the town of Alexander again, just asking for trouble.

  I was about to ask Trent how he was going to find anyone, alive or dead, in this ghost town when he put the brakes on and turned the truck off. We were in the middle of the street at the same location we had seen the woman from Evelyn’s church group.

  Trent got out and stood in front of the truck.

  “What is he doing?” I looked at Cage and he just shrugged. Trent took out his pistol and fired it into the air one time. He looked back at us and nodded. I assumed that was how he planned to get their attention.

  At first I didn’t think anything was going to happen, but then I saw them coming. There were two of them and they were moving fast.

  “Trent, look out!”

  I screamed too late, as one of them jumped on him and squeezed him tightly. Realizing she was hugging him, I assumed we had found Ms. Trent. I was going to have to ask them what their last name was. She was a little shorter than Trent and had the same color dark hair as Cage. I could see tears rolling down her cheeks as she kissed her husband and then turned to her son, who finally ran to her after staring for an uncomfortable minute. I knew why he was hesitant; her face had been scratched, badly. The open gash started at her temple and went diagonal across her nose, down the other cheek. She had been bitten on the neck and the wound was spreading its black poison in both directions.

  I turned to the other woman who had run out with Mrs. Trent. She didn’t look like she had been bitten but the significant amount of blood on the bottom of her pale pink t-shirt suggested otherwise.

  “We have to go back to the house; it’s not safe out here,” She spoke to the woman, clinging to her family, who stiffened suddenly, as if she realized something.

  “Trent, you aren’t infected.” Inhaling her husband’s scent deeply, her eyes darkened a bit, and she changed her tune immediately. “Cage, get your father out of here; it won’t be safe for him here. You shouldn’t have come here, and you three shouldn’t be around him.” She glared at Rose and I and I noticed that her skin had started to turn gray. She was further along in this than we were, and I could tell she was struggling with her hunger when Trent was near.

  “Mom, we just found you. We are not leaving you out here.” Cage’s voice went up in frustration as he gestured to the desolate town. As he was pleading with his mother, a loud engine noise sounded from behind us, and I turned in time to see a big white truck barreling towards us. I could see passengers and a guy hanging off the bed with an assault rifle pointed directly at us. The first shot was followed by a loud holler and the truck speeding up. Where these people crazy?

  “Run,” the blonde lady was yelling at us as she tried to move. “Damn vigilantes trying to save the world.” She wasn’t moving very fast, and the truck was gaining on us. I found myself dragging Rose with me as I followed her, and vaguely heard Trent yelling behind us. I assumed she was leading us back to wherever she had been staying. The truck barely missed me as it raced past and ran over the blonde lady. The sound of her screaming mixed with the cackles of the gang of men was hard to take.

  “Cindy!” Cage’s mom stopped and screamed as I ran past her. I didn’t know where I was going. I was running for my life and couldn’t bring myself to look back at the woman in the street. I heard the truck stop, heard the footfalls of the men running up to her, and heard the gun shot that, more than likely, was to the head, ensuring she would no longer get up once she was dead, and then they were running after us.

  I heard Trent urging her on and heard a gun fire close to us, followed by the scream of one of the vigilantes, and then silence. I tripped over something on the ground and yelled as the dirt and my face became acquainted. Hearing a low groan, I scrambled to my feet and looked down at what I had tripped over. He was dead, but still
moving. It looked like he had been shot in the head, but the shooter missed his mark and only grazed it, blowing off a piece of his scalp, but didn’t end him. It was gross and he was reaching for me slowly, but, just backing up a little, I was able to escape his grasp. I was sure this was the work of the men who had just plowed over Cindy. They were retreating now due to Trent shooting one of them in the leg, a quick glance over my shoulder told me that they were swearing and promising to come back with more weapons. Trent helped his wife up off the ground, where she knelt beside her friend.

  “Give me the gun, Trent.” Holding her hand out and taking the forty five from her husband, she aimed and shot Cindy directly between the eyes. Handing the gun back, she moved away from the woman’s body as the blood pooled around her head.

  She didn’t say anything as she led the way to a building set back off the road. There were decaying bodies strewn around in front of the grey building, blood visible on the outside walls from where they had, undoubtedly, been executed after they had turned completely. I shivered as I realized that was my fate if there was truly no cure. I was close to being one of those monsters, and so were my companions. Trent was crazy to stay around us; he should hole up somewhere until we all had decayed away. Who knows how long it takes the living dead to expire?

  Walking inside their safe house didn’t give me much comfort, as the inside was similar to the outside. Blood was splattered on the walls and there was a horrible stench that felt like it would permanently be imbedded in my nose. At least there were no dead bodies inside, that we could see. Evelyn led us back through a hallway and down a set of stairs, where several people were sitting around, most of whom had been bitten. At least, I could see bites on most of them; the ones I couldn’t see were, undoubtedly, turning as well.

  “We were scouting for water and food for those of us who can still keep it down. The gun shots alerted us that someone was nearby. I thought it was the idiots who think they are going to save the world. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you standing there. I had to see you one last time. Now Cindy is dead because I was stupid. I should have turned around and let you think I was dead.”