by Siara Brandt
“A zombie apocalypse would put a strain on any marriage, I suppose,” Jae said as he thought over her answer.
“Our relationship was strained long before everything fell apart. I can’t even remember a time when things were good between us. I just wish my son had grown up in a better environment, but it’s too late to change that now.”
Touched by her emotional confession, Jae opened up to her, too. “I was a mortician. A dead body, or what was supposed to be a dead body, got up off the table. I didn’t know what was going on yet. I thought someone had made a horrible mistake and I was thinking that I was going to have to have some strong words with the coroner. Until the corpse tried to take a bite out of me. I got out of there and went to get help. The deceased was locked in a room and we were worried about him hurting himself, not knowing the danger he was to us. They finally got him restrained. Miraculously, no one was bitten. Right away, I headed into the city to inform his nearest relatives. I thought I needed to do it in person. That’s how I ended up here. I’ve been waiting for a reason to leave, and now I have it.”
RYLAND BIGGERS WAS A SURVIVOR. He didn’t know if that was a good thing any more, not with the depths of grief and loss that he was carrying around in his heart. As it was, he was now also living with the horrible burden of guilt. He told himself that he should have done things differently, he should have planned more carefully. Above all, he should not have left his mother behind, no matter how desperate and hopeless things had seemed. No matter how hard his father had begged and dragged him away.
If she was in his place, he knew she wouldn’t give up looking for him. Not until there was absolute proof that there was no hope. So he continued to search everywhere but he didn’t find any traces of his mother or her body. He also didn’t find any pieces of her clothing or the back pack she had been wearing. Her bloody bat was lying in the grass halfway down the hill. There was the empty greenhouse at the bottom of the steep slope, and signs that people had once been there, but it had already been abandoned by the time Ryland got there and there was no sign of her.
He might have yielded to his unshed tears then and there, but he pushed them deep inside to a place where they weren’t so debilitating. Tears weren’t going to help him find her. He couldn’t fall apart. Not yet. As he tried to think what he should do next, something in the tall grass caught his eye and everything changed for him.
It was an orange. A single orange.
Chapter 14
“Reyne, where are you?” Emma cried silently as she ran down the street. Heavy footsteps followed her, gaining on her with every second. Whatever the men wanted with her, she knew it couldn’t be good, not with the coarse, raucous comments they had made the moment they had become aware of her.
Laboring for breath, she turned a corner and found herself in a dead-end alley with brick walls looming all around her. There was nowhere for her to go, no doorways, no exits. She was trapped.
She turned to see her pursuers round the corner right after her. They paused only a moment. And then hands were reaching for her. She struck out at them and backed away. Panting breaths swore, angry that she was putting them through so much trouble. Someone grabbed her arm and swung her against the brick wall beside her. Pain jarred violently all through her and something sharp cut into her arm. She was sure she was bleeding.
But it was all right because there was Reyne. Reyne looking like some dark, avenging warrior as he blocked out the sunlight behind him. She was more relieved than she had ever been in her entire life.
The hand was still ruthlessly gripping her arm, holding her against the wall. She turned to glare at the man. Then she turned back to look at Reyne. Even though she couldn’t see his face, she could feel the anger emanating from him. She imagined his eyes were positively glacial.
In a voice like suppressed thunder, he said, “Let her go.”
Two of the men backed up slightly. They must have heard the same warning in his voice that she heard. The hand fell away from her arm.
“We’re going to get in that truck over there,” Reyne told them. “If anyone tries to stop us, I promise they’re going to regret it.
“Get behind me, Emma,” Reyne said next.
No one tried to stop her. They made their way to the truck together. Emma slid into the passenger seat, slammed the door and locked it. She felt pain in her arm, touched her sleeve and felt her fingers come away wet and sticky with her own blood.
Reyne had seen the blood on her shirt. But even now he didn’t ask how badly she was hurt. He couldn’t. His heart was still pounding in his throat. Why had the woman taken such a chance?
“What the hell were you doing?” he asked in a tightly-compressed voice. “I told you to leave the dog alone.”
“I couldn’t.”
He should have known that.
He turned to look at her. She was staring straight ahead, a distressed look still on her face.
“I almost had him,” she whispered.
“You almost got yourself killed.”
She didn’t reply to that. After a while, still thinking about the dog, she said, “He’s not going to make it. He had a family once, someone to take care of him, and now he’s all alone.”
Obviously the dog had once belonged to someone. It wasn’t the kind of dog to survive on its own, even if there wasn’t a zombie apocalypse. The dog had been skinny and matted, with its ribs showing and a patch of fur missing from its back.
“You can’t save everything you see,” Reyne told her, trying to force sternness into his voice.
“But I could have saved him. I didn’t want him to end like that other . . . ” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Him was another dog they had seen. It had been lying in the street, bloody and limp, the wind lifting its fur a little. That one had been beyond saving.
Reyne ground his teeth and stared silently at the road ahead of them. He needed to be making logical decisions for the both of them, since she obviously couldn’t do that for herself. They should be watching out for any more threats, not thinking about saving strays. There had to be a million of them out there.
But this woman- Every death affected her.
“You can’t make everything right. You know that.”
She didn’t answer him. There was a mile of silence between them as she continued to stare out the passenger window, keeping her face averted from his.
Reyne knew he had to use common sense here. Someone had to.
The day was warm and so was the interior of the truck. As he drove he jerked his black armored vest off. He tried to harden his features into a dispassionate mask as he reached over and took a swig of water from the bottle beside him. After he swallowed, his lips settled into a tight, hard line.
“It’s not practical,” he began again, trying to reason with her. He didn’t know what to say after that.
“Don’t,” she muttered without looking at him. “Don’t talk to me. Not for a few minutes. I can’t stomach any more practicality today.”
Emma kept her face to the window, not wanting him to see her cry. By now she was fighting back the tears. If she let them begin, there was every chance they might never stop falling. And crying wasn’t going to help anything. Not even that little dog.
With an effort, Reyne kept his gaze on the road straight ahead. The woman had him all twisted up in knots. That was becoming more and more apparent with every passing day. Survival should be his one and only priority. Period. So why was he worrying about her emotional state right now? They were living in a virtual war zone, and in war zones staying alive was all that mattered. Not saving stray dogs. No matter how pitiful they might look.
How could he get through to her that trying to save a dog might just might head the list of stupid things to do in a zombie apocalypse? In fact, it could be damned near suicide. As she had just proven.
He glanced at her profile again, the one she was trying so hard to hide from him. Her breast rose and fell as she drew a shuddering breath. He
saw her lip quiver.
“He’s all alone out there,” she repeated, still looking out the passenger window. “He was shaking because he was so scared.” She sniffed. “He probably misses the people he lived with . . . who are never coming back . . . ”
She was right. The dog had looked like he was afraid of his own shadow. Reyne knew he didn’t stand a chance. He’d end up like that other-
He swore under his breath, which earned him a brief, startled glance from her before she turned back to the window.
Reyne wanted to comfort her, but there was nothing he could say to change any of it. He told himself again that he had to be the sensible one here.
“How is he going to survive among so much death?” she asked plaintively.
He knew she was talking to herself, not to him.
Despite her efforts at control, tears continued to fill Emma’s eyes. As the muscles in her throat contracted, she blinked hard to try and keep the tears from falling. If she had been alone, she might have given in to them and wept bitterly. But she wasn’t alone. She was not going to let herself fall apart, she told herself sternly as her eyes brimmed with the tears she refused to shed.
But she kept thinking about that little dog, and the sad look in his eyes and the happy days he must have spent with his family, days that would never come again.
She bowed her head and could not suppress a sob. In spite of Reyne sitting right next to her.
Aw, hell, Reyne thought.
Not tears.
Anything but tears.
He jammed his foot on the brake. His arm shot out to hold Emma back as she flew towards the windshield as the truck came to a fishtailing, screeching halt.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Going back.”
He didn’t say anything more than that. He just turned the truck around and floored it. Emma didn’t say anything, either. She couldn’t.
Luckily, the dog was still cowering behind the fence where they had first seen it. Like it was fate or something.
Reyne stopped the truck, got out and sprinted to the fence. He scooped up the dog with one of his muscular arms and headed back to the truck.
“He barks, just once, and we leave him behind,” he warned as he thrust the dog into Emma’s arms.
But he knew the dog wasn’t a barker. Or it would be dead by now. No, the dog had obviously learned when to keep quiet. Just like they had.
At least he won’t eat much, Reyne muttered to himself, kicking himself mentally for weakening. But then he saw the look in her eyes and he realized it had all been worth it. That look of gratitude, relief and damn near idolization as she stared silently up at him, was all worth it.
For a moment, the emotions welling up inside Emma almost made her want to cry all over again. She couldn’t have uttered a single word to Reyne if her life had depended on it. But to the dog, she said, “I guess if you’ve made it this far, you’ll make it the rest of the way.”
And then she smiled, looked at Reyne and asked, just as if a zombie apocalypse had not brought the world crashing down around them, “What should we name him?”
VAYNA COULD NOT BEAR THE THOUGHT that she would never see her son again, so she refused to let herself think that way. For the first time in her life she did not feel like she was alone. She was also realizing just how much of a prison the condo had been to her for too many years, and how much her marriage to Arlend had restricted her life, her days, her self. Only Ryland had made her existence bearable.
Lee Young-Jae kept her hoping. At first, she had to adjust to the idea that someone was not constantly criticizing and belittling her, and it was sobering for her to realize just how much she had grown used to it over the years. More distressing to her, however, was that Ryland had grown up in that world of mental abuse and constant contention. How she wished she could have given him a more loving, nurturing home life with a father like Jae.
As for Arlend, she felt that he had probably survived because Arlend surely had done what he did best. He took care of himself first. And if Arlend was alive, there was a good chance that Ryland was, too.
In the old world, Vayna would never have considered going off alone with a man who was a stranger to her, but Jae had saved her life and she was grateful for that. Since then he had kept her fed and made sure she had a safe place to sleep at night. And he actually talked to her like she was his equal. Not once had he ever treated her like she was less than he was.
If things were different, if the world hadn’t fallen apart around them, she thought she could almost enjoy the time they spent together. But the hope of finding her son consumed her. She would never stop looking for him. And so far, Jae was not ready to give up the search, either.
He was competent and practical when it came to the matter of their survival. He was resourceful, always thinking ahead, always carefully contemplating what their next move would be, so that for the first time in her adult life she felt like she could rely on someone else. It was strange, this feeling of having someone by her side that she could count on, someone she could trust. Someone who cared what happened to her and who planned a future for them both. Because they did, even if it was in the vaguest of terms, discuss the best way to survive after they found Ryland.
In some ways Vayna felt stronger and more alive than she ever had. She learned a lot about Jae, that he had been a mortician in his old life. Once she had asked him what it had been like working with dead people, a strange question to ask in a zombie apocalypse.
Unlike Arlend, Jae had an actual sense of humor. “They don’t argue, and they never complain,” he had told her.
He was well educated and had a degree in mortuary science. He had even studied grief counseling and sincerely cared about helping other people. He told her, too, how he had wanted to be a landscaper, how gardening had always been a passion with him.
“Someday, maybe, we’ll be able to start all over again,” he had told her. “And then we’ll plant the biggest garden you’ve ever seen.”
Chapter 15
It turned out there was no water in the radiator so Arlend Biggers hadn’t made it very far before the car started smoking and the warning light went on, letting him know that it was overheating. He didn’t know a thing about cars, but even if he did, there was no water anyway.
Still, in some respects, even he had to admit that he was lucky. Once he realized that there was an occasional pack of cigarettes on the dead bodies that were lying around everywhere, at least the ones that weren’t getting up again, he was able to accumulate a nice little stash of his addiction.
Now if only the same could be said of his food situation. Two small meals a day didn’t come anywhere near satisfying him. Food rationing sucked. Big time. Especially when he couldn’t see any sense in it. Especially when someone else was telling him how much he was allowed to eat.
A zombie apocalypse had not changed him. In fact, it had gone a long way in reinforcing his deeply-ingrained, negative behaviors. There was a lot more justification for his self-centered, cynical behavior now. He was just as petty and vindictive. And resentful.
He stood in the open doorway of the gymnasium, staring moodily in front of him, his belly churning with irritability, hunger and impatience as he ruminated over his new set of problems. The high school had been closed for the summer so it had been practically empty when they took it over. It had been an easy choice. They hadn’t done anything special to claim it. They hadn’t fought for it. They had just walked right in. He could have done that himself. The cafeteria had still been halfway stocked, so there had been no effort or risk there, either.
He kept those thoughts to himself, however, and because there was safety in numbers, not to mention a chain link fence surrounding the school, he stayed. And there was the food. It was better than nothing. They had put up barricades before he’d gotten there, so the zombies couldn’t see inside. That was a plus, too. Or else every hungry zombie in town would probably be gathering right outside.
As for Ryland, he still hadn’t gotten over his son’s betrayal and abandonment. It was one more grudge he continued to nurse against Vayna, something that rankled deep inside him. She had made Ryland go back after her. Even after her death she had influenced him.
We’re not far from Westfield, Ryland’s brief note had said. As soon as I get back, we’ll head there.
Well, Ryland hadn’t come back. Arlend had run completely out of food and water, so he hadn’t been able to wait for him. If Ryland ever did make it back to look for him, he would come here. That is, if Vayna hadn’t gotten him killed.
He still wasn’t used to not having her around to nag at him. There were times when he expected to see her, to hear her, to have her come up behind him and admonish him for something. It was what she had done best. She was gone now, but, unfortunately, once again, he had someone he had to answer to. He had found someone new to blame for all the afflictions and miseries in his life.
He hadn’t liked Benson Cabot from the moment he’d first laid eyes on him. Who did the bastard think he was, telling everyone what to do? Just because he’d gotten here first? It hadn’t even been his food in the first place. Cabot had only found it. The people around him weren’t smart enough to realize that he was probably hording all it for himself behind their backs. But Arlend knew. He could see right through the man.
In spite of that, Arlend did what he had to do to survive. He re-invented himself and made himself be as pleasant and as helpful as he could. Even to Benson Cabot. That’s why, when he lifted his cigarette to his mouth, even though there was a lot going on behind his narrowed gaze, he kept it hidden.
From the beginning he had known that Cabot didn’t like him. And he knew why. It was because Cabot knew that Arlend could see him for what he really was. And while Arlend pretended to go along with everything that went on here, he didn’t fawn and bow down to the man the way the others did. The arrogant bastard didn’t like that.