“Because I’m thirsty, why the fuck else would I be asking?” Cillian thought it was a very stupid question.
Cender passed the bottle up to him. Cillian cracked it open and downed half of it in one go. He then put the cap back on and stuck it in the cup holder.
“Any food back there?” The water reminded his stomach that it was hungry. It sent frustrated signals to his brain, telling it to eat something. Anything.
“I’ll look.” Cender started digging through the mini fridge and the cupboards.
Cillian took a look in the rear-view mirror to check on Tobias. The whole little radio console had been ripped down and was hanging from the ceiling by its wires. He was busily looking over everything and taking stuff apart while Abby watched.
“He’s weird,” Jessi said quietly next to him.
“Who is?” Cillian gave her his attention again.
“That Tobias guy,” she was speaking quietly, “he’s kind of weird.”
“I think he’s all right.” Cillian glanced in the mirror again quickly. “He seems normal to me.”
“He’s weird.” Jessi sounded very sure of her statement.
Cillian shrugged. He didn’t think Tobias was weird. A little quirky sometimes, but who wasn’t when you first met?
“I found some power bars!” Cender sat up, holding up the power bars triumphantly. He passed them around the limo, handing two up to Cillian.
“Here.” Cillian held one out to Jessi. “The label says that no animals were harmed in the making of this food.”
She looked at it with a blank expression, then turned to look out the side window again. “No thank you.”
“You should probably eat.” Cillian put the power bar into the second, empty cup holder and started to open his own with his teeth. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know.” Jessi had withdrawn into her expressionless shell again. “Back at the hospital I had something.”
“Well, I’ll leave this in the cup holder if you decide you want it.” Cillian started devouring his own bar.
Jessi didn’t respond.
He would have loved to eat the second bar. In fact, he would have loved to eat five of them, with a steak, and fries smothered in cheese, and an ice cold beer to wash it all down. He saved the other one for her though. She might get hungry and he wanted to make sure there was food for her when that happened. He washed down the rest of his power bar with some more water. There was only about a quarter of the bottle left now.
* * *
They drove for quite some time in silence after that. No one even asked to have the French radio station put back on. Everybody was off in their own thoughts. Cillian couldn’t help but remember his time with Jessi. How happy they had been.
They had first met because she reported a fire. There was a small amount of smoke coming out from under her neighbour’s door and she was concerned. Admittedly, she was more concerned about the fire spreading to her own apartment than whether or not her neighbour was all right inside, but as long as the call was made, the fire department wasn’t picky. The fire had started because the old woman who lived there had fallen asleep with something on the stove. The fire in the pan had spread first to a dirty dishtowel, and a piece of that burned off and landed in some newspapers piled up next to the door. If Jessi hadn’t come home at that exact moment, noticed the smoke, and decided to call the fire department, the whole building might have burned to the ground. The woman inside would have died. She didn’t wake up until Doyle shook her and by then, the fire had spread to the kitchen cabinets.
Cillian had been the one who questioned Jessi, and so they met. He thought she was hot, so he flirted with her a little. He liked to think she flirted back, but he had never actually asked her if she had. They didn’t make a date then; that came later, after two random encounters. The first was in Marble Keystone Park, where they had a much longer and more personal conversation. The second was at a bar where there was a lot of booze involved. Although they had spent that night together, their first real date didn’t occur until two days later, when Cillian called her and set up a date. He remembered she sounded surprised when he called her, as if she didn’t think he would. She sounded even more surprised when he asked her out to dinner. She didn’t hesitate to say yes, though.
“Hey, Jessi?” Cillian turned to her. She turned her head to look at him, but her eyes were blank so she wasn’t truly looking at him. “Do you remember when we first met?”
“In the park?” She seemed to come slightly more into focus.
“No, before that, at your apartment,” Cillian reminded her, “when you called in the fire at your neighbour’s place.”
Jessi looked down and thought for a moment. “Oh, yeah. I remember.” When she looked back, there was a little more light in her eyes. She was more with him again.
“When we were talking, were you flirting with me?” No time like the present to ask.
The corner of Jessi’s mouth tugged in an attempted smile. It didn’t make it out though. “No, I wasn’t.”
Cillian laughed. “I always thought you were.”
Jessi shook her head. “I thought you were kind of creepy.”
This made Cillian laugh harder. He assumed those in the back were looking at him strangely, but he couldn’t help it. The girl he had intended to marry had, at first, thought he was creepy. Maybe if he had learned that sooner, their falling out wouldn’t have been as bad as it was.
“Cillian?” Jessi sounded concerned.
“Yeah?” Cillian got his laughter under control, but it was hard to keep the smile from tugging at his face.
“Why didn’t you want to come with me to Australia?” That got it to go completely.
Cillian sighed. “I thought we had already talked that to death.”
“I know.” Jessi sat back in her seat, turning toward the window again.
“I’m sorry.” Cillian tried to get her to face him again. “In hindsight, it was a stupid mistake. The stupidest, really. Unfortunately, I can’t change the past.”
“Not like it would have mattered,” she said to the window.
Cillian went quiet again. This time, he tried not to think about the past as he drove. He tried to think about the future, but that was hard and, actually, rather frightening. Cillian couldn’t even be sure what would happen in the next minute let alone the coming days, weeks, months. Years. Although life was unpredictable before, at least there was some semblance of guidelines. You knew work sucked, nearly everybody thought work sucked. You knew you were supposed to find a partner to go through life with, unless you were weird. You knew you were supposed to, at least, think about having a family, something Cillian thought about quite often. You worried about being hit by a drunk driver, mugged on the way to work, being passed over for a promotion, your neighbour burning the apartment down. Cillian didn’t know what to focus his worry on. Food? Water? Shelter? Those were all things he was used to having at any given moment. Now he had a quarter bottle of water and a limo. There were people with guns who might want his limo. There were insane and infected individuals who would tear you apart the moment they spotted you. Every driver could be considered as dangerous as a drunk driver, if not more so, just from the panic alone. Then there was that military convoy doing who knows what.
Cillian couldn’t keep his thoughts together. He couldn’t keep his head on straight. In the end, he resorted to thinking about the Hummer in front of him. He memorized the license plate and all the dents, dings, and dirt patches on the bumper. He started to make up a story about who the people inside were. He decided that the driver was the only one in the car. It was probably some big burly man, a biker. He had a bandana on his head and a great big beard. He was a loner who had left his wife and child years ago, but when everything started to go wrong, he feared for their safety. He was driving to them now to pick them up. They would pile into the big car, and he would drive them off to some back woods hunting cabin of his where he would hu
nt deer, and his wife would grow vegetables in window boxes. Cillian realized that that was what he was hoping would happen with them. Problem was, he had fuck-all knowledge about hunting deer.
“Hey, we’re in the suburbs.” Cender drew everyone out of their personal thoughts.
Cillian looked to the sides and saw that they had indeed made it to the suburbs. “What street are we looking for?”
“Uhh…” Cender frowned while he thought, tugging the slip of paper out of his cast. Cillian had seen him look at it a few times and assumed it was a rudimentary map. “Well, where are we right now?”
Cillian looked for street signs. “We’re passing Yeller and I think we’re on Possum.”
“Yeller?” Cender clearly didn’t recognize the name.
“I don’t know.” Cillian shrugged. “Probably a small street.”
“There are lights up ahead,” Jessi muttered.
Cillian shifted to see around the big Hummer. She was right. There were lights, which meant a major street. They were still driving as slowly as they had been downtown, so there was no need to slow down any more to read the sign.
“Ressen,” Cender read aloud. He was also leaning against a window to see. “Okay, I know where we are now. We need to get to Hurly so that would be… You’ll make a right on Gesture and that should take us across to Hurly, which you’ll make a left on. The street we’re looking for is Davon and should be right off Hurly.”
“Got it.” Cillian started paying a lot more attention to driving.
It took them only a few more blocks to reach Gesture. As they turned to head down it, they left the convoy. The Hummer continued going straight down Possum and Cillian couldn’t resist. After following the big car for so long, he felt like he knew the people in it and gave them a friendly goodbye beep. He was surprised when it beeped back. Or maybe it was the people behind them that beeped. It was hard to tell.
They headed down the new street on their own now. Nobody was coming this way, as it didn’t lead directly to the highway. It was somewhat unnerving to be on their own. Cillian’s mind always believed in safety in numbers but now they were moving away from the pack. Of course, he had never been in a situation like this before, and the opposite was most likely true. People were dangerous. That was something that no one in the group had brought up yet. No one knew if anyone else was infected. The way the woman on the radio described it, being bitten was only the most obvious form of infection. Cillian didn’t know if Doyle had somehow become infected and through living together had passed it on to him in some way. Not to mention all the blood he was wearing. Both his jacket and gloves were covered in it. He didn’t think any got into his mouth or eyes, and he was fairly certain he didn’t have any open wounds, but who could say for sure? Even if he wasn’t infected, someone else in the car might be. Anyone else could have picked it up from anywhere and could suddenly turn. Even if somebody brought up this problem, it was highly unlikely that one of them would know, without a doubt, they were infected. Even if they did, would they say something? Not likely.
They reached Hurly next and in good time, since they weren’t pacing anybody. The long vehicle just blew through the lights. It was dangerous, but right now, Cillian wasn’t overly concerned about that sort of thing. He made the left turn and slowed, not knowing where Davon was.
“How far is it from Hurly?” Cillian asked Cender over his shoulder.
“I don’t think it’s too far.” Cender shifted himself to the seat next to the open divider. “It doesn’t look very far on the map.”
“You’ve never actually been to this person’s house?” Cillian frowned.
“Nope,” Cender shook his head.
Cillian didn’t like the sound of that. They had no idea what they were walking into.
“There it is!” Abby cried out from the back. “You just passed it!”
Cillian stopped the car. The street sign was covered by the branches of a large tree, but he could read the sign on the other side of the street using the rear-view mirrors. He put the stretch limo into reverse and backed up. He then swung the long car around and onto the street.
“What’s the number?” Cillian read the numbers on the nearest houses to get a quick bearing.
“Uhh…” Cender thought, “57.”
“You sure about that?” Cillian didn’t like his hesitation.
“Positive,” Cender nodded. Why he didn’t just check his map again, Cillian didn’t know. “I remember because it was the lowest mark I ever got in high school.”
“Doesn’t sound like it’s a very lucky number then,” Abby frowned.
“Are you kidding me?” Cender smiled. “It was in French class, and my mom got me a tutor. She was this hot chick a few years older than me from another high school. She was my first lay.”
“That was a little too much information,” Half of Tobias’s face agreed with his statement, the other half clearly thought it was funny.
Cillian just thought it was funny.
“I think it might be just over this rise,” Cillian told the group as he counted down the numbers.
Everyone but Jessi became alert, interested in where they were going. This was going to be the place they would take shelter, or at least get some help. Cillian wondered what kind of girl this person would be if she was friends with Cender.
They reached the top of the hill and found bungalow number 57. It was on the corner of another street called Jackson. It didn’t look like much of a shelter, although there were large boards over the front window, which was a good sign. Cillian pulled up to the curb and turned off the engine. Nobody moved; they all just sat still and looked at the home.
* * *
“I guess we should go knock?” Tobias finally offered.
Cender grabbed his crutches and started making his way toward the rear door.
“Wait.” Cillian held up an arm. “Why don’t I go first and make sure it’s clear?”
“You have no arguments from me.” Cender sat back down on the nearest seat.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Tobias asked.
“Do you want to come?” Cillian asked back.
“Not really,” he answered honestly.
“Then don’t. Stay here with the others.” Cillian opened his door and slid out. He grabbed his bloody jacket and put it back on. He then donned the matching gloves he had stuffed in the pockets, and grabbed the crowbar. Jessi met his eyes.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her, then closed the door. At least that’s what he hoped.
As he headed across the lawn, he tried to be aware of all his surroundings at once. His body had somehow managed to store up some more adrenaline while they had been leaving the city and it now promptly dumped that adrenaline into his system. He used to kind of like the rush, which was probably why he became a firefighter in the first place. Now though, it was all danger, all the time. It was stressful and exhausting.
Cillian reached the front door and peered in through the glass. He didn’t see anyone or any shadows moving about. He saw that there was a doorbell, but he didn’t want to try it. Instead, he knocked, very quietly at first. There was still no movement from inside the house, so he knocked louder. Again there was no movement. He thought he heard glass breaking somewhere up the street, so he didn’t dare knock any louder. When he finally tried the handle, he found that the door was unlocked. That wasn’t a good sign.
Cillian inched the door open. He stuck his head inside and scoped the place out. It took him only a moment to notice the little sign on a table with Cender’s name on it. This suggested that his friend had left without him. What a great friend. He entered the house completely and closed the front door behind him. He didn’t want anything jumping his ass while he looked around. He ignored the note to Cender and the bags piled beneath it. He would check those out after he was sure the coast was clear. Next, he took a look around the living room and then headed down the hall to the bedrooms. So far, he hadn’t found anyone.
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As he was checking out the bathtub, he heard the front door open. He stood stock-still and listened. Whoever it was didn’t announce themselves, which led Cillian to believe it wasn’t anyone from the car. Some zombies were smart enough to open doors; the woman on the radio had said so. She said their intelligence varied, and while most were as dumb as stumps, some had trace memories and reasoning skills.
Cillian raised his crowbar and headed back into the hall. The hall was covered in a plush carpet that muffled his steps, so that even he could barely hear them. He heard the creek of a board just around the corner. He took a slow, deep breath and rounded it, fully planning to beat the head in of whatever was there.
He nearly beat in Jessi’s head and just managed to stop at the last second. She didn’t though, and he got a good wallop to the shoulder, which was already bruised from his slip on the limo’s hood. Thankfully, she was too close to the wall to get a full power swing going or else his arm might have broken.
“Jesus, Jessi!” Cillian whisper-hissed through his teeth and grabbed his arm as pain shot up through it. “We could’ve killed each other!”
“Sorry,” she also whispered but didn’t have much emotion behind it. She didn’t sound all that sorry.
“What are you doing in here? Why didn’t you wait in the car? And why didn’t you announce yourself when you came in?” Cillian was very annoyed. And hurt. Shovels to the shoulder really, really hurt.
“I didn’t know if there was anything in here, so I didn’t want to make noise,” she frowned. “I came in because I was scared.”
“And you thought being in an unchecked house was safer?” he raised an eyebrow at her. Then looked behind him because he hadn’t checked the whole house, and something could still sneak up on him.
“No,” she shook her head, “but I feel safer with you. You always protect me. You’re my white knight, you always have been.”
Cillian felt an actual pain tug at his heart. He thought maybe it was from his shoulder rather than from what she said. It wasn’t the first time she had called him that. It was her pet name for him. This was the first time it was used in a more literal sense, though. Probably the first time she felt physically safer around him. Before it used to be just a comfort thing. He had saved her from something inside herself, now he was trying to protect her from the outside world.
Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel Paperback Page 49