The extra clothes were passed around to make damp beds on the ground. Micah and Austin rolled themselves up in the blanket to use each other for warmth. Elania mumbled from her bed of clothes, “I can’t help it, and I apologize for reiterating that I hate being cold. So very, very much.”
Given the ugly jacket from the Waste Less, Zaley spread it on the dirt. Her bra remained in the tree. The clammy underwear was bad enough, so it was that and the T-shirt. Her toes were going numb. She pinched her clothes on the branches, debating what was tolerable to use as a blanket. Everything was cold and soggy.
“If you three were smart, you’d combine your things into one big bed,” Micah called.
So that was what they did, Elania reorganizing everything into a damp mattress. It was weird to lie down like this, barely dressed between Elania and Corbin. The dog settled down by Corbin and all of them shivered together. His arm snaked around Zaley’s waist and he mumbled against her shoulder, “Okay?”
“Okay.” Having him pressed to her back helped. She put her cold feet to his shins and said, “Elania, back up into me. It’s the only way.”
“For God’s sake, it’s not an orgy. You’re just keeping warm,” Micah said. “You and I are having the orgy, Aussie.”
“Ladies love my orgy skills. I can go all night,” Austin yawned.
Zaley didn’t think that she could sleep like this, but she did. In some black hour she woke with her arm on fire from its position. Corbin rolled over unconsciously and she snuggled up to his back with her arm supported along the length of his body.
If she dreamed, it was gone the instant she woke. Her eyes felt heavy but the sky was gray, and it was time to get up. The jeans were still a little damp. She pulled them on with difficulty. The sports bra she stuffed into her backpack, the chafed lines on her skin yowling at the thought of putting it back on. Three cans of soup were passed around for breakfast, and they cut through the trees to the fence.
“Wait,” Austin said as Micah was wrapping the blanket around the barbed wire. He trailed along the fence and crouched down. “Hey, come here.”
“Oh, thank you for seeing that,” Zaley said. The links were snapped. Someone had come through this way before. Austin lifted the snapped portion and she got down on her hands and knees. That was still too high, so she lowered to her stomach and slithered out.
“Go to Zaley,” Corbin encouraged. The dog wriggled out to her waiting arms. Once everyone was through, Austin and Elania looked at the damp maps.
“How much money do we have?” Zaley asked. The store was close by.
“Not enough,” Micah said. “That’s okay. I know what to do. Come here, Zaley, let me fix your hair. It’s a mess.”
They walked over to a big rock and Zaley sat for her hair to be combed through by fingers. A car hummed by on the road. So distant that she wasn’t sure if she really heard it, the bridge rattled. Micah pulled at a tangle and said, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Zaley said.
“We have a long walk ahead of us through the Wildlife Preserve, and only a few bucks,” Micah said. “I have a fix-it for this, but I need you to do something for me. Will you?”
“Yes. I can get anything on sale-”
“That’s not important. I want you to go in there and get a basket. Fill it as heavy as you can hold. Beef jerky, cheese, water, chips, soup, granola bars, whatever is there, whatever you think is best. There’s undoubtedly a candy counter by the register, but don’t bother with that. Get real food. Okay? Pretend that money isn’t a problem. That’s what you’re going to do for five minutes. And then I’m going to come into the store.”
“But you have a stamp.”
Micah chuckled. “Yes, I do. I’m going to come inside and give you a direction, and you’re going to hold onto that basket for dear life and obey it. You’ll pretend that you don’t know me. It’s only you and I who can do this, Zaley Mattazollo, get the food and water we need for everyone.”
Zaley held still as her hair was braided. “What are you going to do?”
“Come into the store and give you a direction. What are you going to do?”
“Obey it.”
“That’s right. Then we’ll have food and water, enough to see us through to Charbot. Leave your backpack with Corbin. Your job is filling the basket and doing what I say. Don’t let go of that basket. You won’t have to carry it long.” Micah tied the band around the bottom of the braid.
Standing up, Zaley looked to her uncertainly. “Micah, are you going to hit the cashier with Elania’s bear spray?”
“Is that part of your problem? No. Your problem is filling up the basket.”
“I’d feel better if I knew what you have planned.”
“What I have planned is a way for you and I to get supplies so we’re strong enough to last this walk. You do want to get to Charbot, don’t you?”
Zaley was insulted. “Of course I do!”
Visibly relaxing, Micah said, “Because you realize that we’re not abandoning you there to go off with our families. You’re with us. My family is loaded, Zaley. We’ll just buy a house in a green place and you’ve got a room. We’ll go somewhere far away and you won’t have to worry about your parents finding you. Eighteen is coming up fast for both of us, and then you’re free. No one can ever make you go back. But first we have got to reach Charbot.”
“We’ll get there.”
“I know we will. The two of us, we’re hardcore. We do what it takes to keep our friends safe, and we’ll see everyone through to the end. So let me talk to the others for a minute, and then I’m going to walk you to the back of that store. Pretty soon, we’ll be on our way.” Micah took Zaley’s backpack and left.
Unable to hear their muttering voices, Zaley patted her braid and waited for Micah to return. She did so in a minute, just as she’d said. They cut through the trees and bushes to the store. Then Micah nodded and Zaley set off alone. Around the front was an empty parking lot. Beyond it stretched out a quiet street with no other buildings. The road went north for a short distance and forked, one leg continuing in that direction and the other going west.
What if there weren’t any baskets in the store? That wasn’t likely, nor was it allowed to be an issue. If there weren’t stacks of them by the door, she’d ask the cashier for a bag. This had happened far too fast, the conversation with Micah, and Zaley hadn’t gotten an answer about the bear spray.
When the automatic doors slid open, both bearing NO STAMPED signs, she was relieved to see dozens of blue baskets. The cashier was watching a television by the register. He looked up to check her neck and returned to his show. She pulled a basket from the stack and quickly gauged the store. Three aisles, several circular candy displays, two more aisles, and then the register. It made sense to do this in order, one side to the other, and she remembered that the candy beneath the register wasn’t her target. They wanted real food. Going to the far side where the refrigerators were, she opened up the third door down and plucked out four large, sturdy bottles of water.
A cell phone rang and the cashier answered it with a mutter of hello. In the last few days, Zaley had stopped missing hers. To not be enslaved to her mother’s texts . . . that was a revolutionary change in her life. She wasn’t ever going to have a cell phone again. The cashier hung up as Zaley walked down the aisle, canvassing the goods within the refrigerators.
There was an entire box of string cheese. If money weren’t a concern, then she’d get all of them. Zaley dumped out the sticks over the bottles of water and moved on. The aisle behind the refrigerators had nonessentials like shampoo, so she went around it to a paradise of microwave spaghetti and soups in little cans. She dropped a bunch of them into the basket, which was getting heavy but still had room for more. How long had it been? A minute or two? The next aisle had bags of peanuts and beef jerky. She set the basket on the floor and jammed the bags in.
To spare her back, she moved the basket along with her foot. No, they didn’t need ma
gazines or greeting cards. No, they didn’t need DVDs and gift cards. Three minutes or four now . . . Spotting boxes of doughnuts, she balanced one on top of the very full basket. The plastic cover brushed against her fingers when she lifted it.
It was hard not to get a second basket and drop even more food inside. Light things that her right hand could hold. Just as she was considering doing this, even walking back toward the stacks to claim another, the doors slid open and Micah came in with the gun. Her stamp was showing. The cashier cried out and Micah screamed, “Put your fucking hands where I can see them!”
Obey. Zaley was supposed to obey, but the direction hadn’t been given to her. Swinging the gun around, Micah aimed it right at Zaley’s forehead. “Get the fuck out of here or I’m going to shoot you in your fucking face!”
“Please don’t!” Zaley cried, having never seen such insanity in Micah’s eyes. Micah wasn’t going to shoot her, but a small part of Zaley almost didn’t trust that from the intensity of the expression.
“I said hands up!” Micah screamed at the cashier. The gun snapped his way. Zaley clutched the basket and rushed out the doors. The others waved frantically at the side of the store, all of them looking as freaked out as she felt.
Around the corner, Austin snatched the basket from her and set it down on the ground. The other two dropped and held open empty backpacks for him to shovel everything inside. Bleu Cheese snuffled with interest at the contents of the basket, her big blue head getting in the way, so Zaley snagged her leash and pulled her off. There wasn’t any more screaming from the store, and thankfully no gunshots. The automatic doors had hissed closed.
When the basket was empty, Austin said, “Let’s go!” Corbin and Elania did the zippers and whipped on the backpacks. The four of them and the dog ran through the parking lot and across the street, aiming for the fork that led west.
Please don’t shoot that man, Zaley begged Micah internally. Micah was a little wild and unpredictable though, and she always had been. The brick through the windshield, the sporadic rude explosions in Welcome Mat, the V-6 over the lawns, giving away free ice cream at work, breaking into that house with the writing on the walls . . . but that didn’t build up to a bullet through the head of an innocent man. Zaley didn’t want a guy to die over string cheese.
Turning west on the fork, she sprinted along and wished that she’d put her sports bra back on. Their speed was hard on Elania and Corbin with all the weight on their backs, their breath ragged and spittle flying from their mouths. One drop of it could infect Zaley, who wasn’t fast enough to run ahead of them. But she didn’t care enough about Sombra C to drop back.
No gunshot. She threw a glance over her shoulder. Micah wasn’t there. It wasn’t with one hundred percent certainty that Zaley could say that Micah wouldn’t shoot that cashier. Ninety-nine percent, but not one hundred. Zaley never saw the brick or the car over the lawns coming.
They were forced to slow to a walk at the Shovolen Wildlife Preserve’s steep driveway, going past a sign that read Klaman Trail. The gate was closed past that. A sign hung from it. The trail was closed for the time being due to budget cuts. The date beneath the message was eight years old.
The gate was only a single long bar to deter cars. Zaley dipped under it as the others swung over it. The driveway leveled and curled around to a parking lot with bleached out lines. Zaley said, “How far does this trail go?”
“Thirteen miles,” Austin panted. “It connects to another trail which goes on to Charbot. That one isn’t closed. Oh Jesus, I’m going to die.” He wiped sweat from his forehead and braced his hands on his knees to breathe. Elania had a stitch in her side, which she clutched.
Micah still didn’t come. They got their strength back and cut across the parking lot to the trailhead. A chain was drawn across it. A path pinched between trees led away into gloom. Thirteen echoed in Zaley’s mind. It was nothing in a car, a number that meant one was nearly home. Walking was something else.
Fresh footprints were on the ground. Zaley pointed to them. “People still use this trail.”
A bulletin board stood by the chain. It was covered in warnings. Hiking here was illegal, and zombies were known to be in this area. There had been three attacks on hikers last autumn. Another sign said in thick red letters that dumping was prohibited, and beneath it was a picture of a Sombra C stamp. Elania read the little print under the stamp, all of which had been splashed by some brownish substance. “Wow. People have intentionally brought their Sombra C family members here when they’re going feral and dumped them.”
“Why not just take them to a legal confinement point?” Corbin asked.
“These are the attic Sombra Cs, I believe,” Elania said. “The ones people hide to avoid the stigma, until they go nuts. What do you do with them?”
“Put them on a trail to attack trespassers, of course,” Corbin answered.
Zaley stepped over the chain after Austin. The leash she slipped under the chain to keep the dog from getting tangled. The others followed into the murk of this path. Footsteps rang out and they jerked around. Micah was sprinting over the parking spaces to catch up.
“Go, just in case he calls the cops!” Micah exclaimed. She was wearing a scarf now. They jogged to get distance between them and the trailhead. One could never see very far ahead on the path with the trees so thick and the curves so numerous. Micah swung around a curve and cut away from the trail to climb the short, rocky distance to a ridge. Going up tiredly, Zaley arrived at the ridge and looked down to a private nook that couldn’t be seen from the trail or the parking lot, or anywhere.
Micah had robbed a store. They had robbed a store. And there wasn’t any other way. It was them against the world, and they would take what they had to have to stay alive. So it was good to have a person in the group who could hold that gun on someone. Zaley couldn’t have done it. What she’d done with the Shepherd was a reaction without thought; she wasn’t capable of the planning that this action took. And Micah knew it.
Unloading the backpack from her shoulders, Micah dumped out tons of candy. Mixed into it were dollar bills and coins and a switchblade. She was happy, passing out chocolate bars and licorice sticks. Sitting on a squat boulder a little apart from everyone, Zaley only watched as goodies were tossed in her lap. That cashier must have had the piss scared out of him.
Austin was getting over the shock to be happy about the food; Elania and Corbin looked worried. She fingered the candy bars like she was adding up their price, and he checked the trees repeatedly and listened to the wind. Gradually, their worry ebbed to acceptance. They picked out meals like Austin was doing.
It was okay that they had done this, Zaley told herself. Wrongness put them into this position, and it was only by wrongness that they survived. Zaley would do it again and again, as often as she had to, until this ended. But she had to know what they’d done. That was the part that troubled her, exactly what happened after those doors closed in her wake. Picking up a dollar when the breeze threatened to sweep it away, Zaley said, “Did you take the money from the register?”
Blue-green eyes read her keenly. Micah picked up two of the string cheeses and sat down on the boulder by Zaley. Opening the first one, she offered it and said, “No. That’s what was in the tip jar.”
Zaley took the string cheese. “Why didn’t you take the register?”
“Because that wasn’t what we needed from him. We needed this-” she said, gesturing to the food and water, “-and also that man’s silence. I worked in the Cool Spoon, Zaley, and I know how it works. At the end of the day, that dude has to match what money is in the register to what is on the register’s printout. If it doesn’t match, his boss will think that he’s stealing. So I couldn’t take it.”
“How did you get him to be silent?”
Micah chewed on her string cheese. After she swallowed, she said, “I told him to hand me his wallet. He did. I opened it up and read his license out loud. Ajeet Osman, 42 Chester Drive, Duncan City.
”
“Did you take his money?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“No. I returned the wallet and told Ajeet that I’d remember his name and address. Then I held the gun on him as he filled my backpack with candy. I took his switchblade, too. We need something if the can opener breaks. I said if he called the police, if I heard sirens as I left, I’d come to 42 Chester Drive and bite him. I’d bite everyone in his family. He promised that he wouldn’t call.”
They watched the others, who were contented over their meals. The dog was eating a sample pack of kibble. Everything was okay. Micah had just freaked him out and lied about coming back to infect him. She wouldn’t ever do a thing like that.
Now Zaley was proud of her part in supplying this food. So much of the time, they were making up for her physical shortcomings. And while she was busy feeling like she wasn’t as big a part of the team, minus an arm and the virus, everyone else was adjusting to her injury without complaint and grateful for her clear neck. She was one of them, and when this was over, she had homes with the Cambornes, with the Lis, with the Douglases.
From the poverty of her home to this wealth at her feet. She blinked back tears and smiled at Corbin’s offer of a cup full of spaghetti and meatballs. Giving the candy in her lap to Micah, she slid down to join him.
Austin
His house was going to be bigger than the Camborne home, and somewhere near the shore in southern California. From room to room, he looked out over the lights of the city below, or out to the ocean. Natural woods and glass, a private driveway with a forbidding gate, he wouldn’t have to leave for a gym or the theater because he had an exercise room and theater there in his home. Food was delivered to the driveway so he didn’t have to go to the store either.
He’d hire security guards, beefy guys keeping an eye out for problems. Austin could walk around his home and feel safe with the guards out there. And when Austin ordered a pizza for delivery, he’d tack on a second for the guards to share. They would all be friends.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 71