Zombpocalypse (Book 1): Contingency

by Mariah Lynde

  Until someone or something eliminated the amount of variables that were in play, things would only get worse. There would be no managing things in an easy, appropriate fashion. Instead there would be something akin to organized chaos and possibly in the end of it all, downright anarchy.

  “I will be careful. I promise.” Even as I answered him, I heard the weariness in my own voice and flinched. No wonder he was worried.

  “You’re going to take the spoon- I mean, Cal with you today right?” Robbie asked with feigned disinterest.

  “I’d really prefer not to, but I suppose so. I kind of shot myself in the foot last night with that first rule.” Speaking softly as I turned my head to eye the door and make sure that said male wasn’t looming there.

  Seeing that the coast was apparently clear, I shook my head a little. This whole zombie apocalypse thing was making me far more paranoid then I needed to be.

  “Yeah, you kinda did. It’s your rule. Never go anywhere alone.” Robbie snarked back and then chuckled as I gave a small groan.

  “Don’t remind me. I should have held off on that until he was gone.” While he might be in a snarky mood and quite enjoying this whole scenario, for me it happened to be a nightmare.

  “Aw, come on, Angel. He can’t be that bad.” Best friend or not, I wanted to strangle him. This whole conversation had nothing to do with my safety and everything to do with Robbie's interest in sparking my love life.

  “Then you take him.” I sighed and shook my head a little. “You know me, Robbie. I work better solo. I don’t mesh with other people well. Especially people like him.”

  “Sweety, pick and choose your battles. You’re up there on your own with no one to help you. Much as I love you, you can do all the planning in the world but if you fight alone you’ll die. It makes me feel better knowing that someone is there with you to help. If nothing else, when he gets to annoying, you can make him zombie bait.” Robbie’s chuckle had me smirking in amusement. I had to give it to him, he did have a point.

  “I get it, I do. Doesn’t mean I like it.” I moved to switch the phone to my other ear before I continued, “However, I did promise to follow the rules last night, so I won’t go out there alone today.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. So how’re things down there? We only really talked about what I saw last night.” The lethargic dimness that had fogged my brain had lightened. That veil lifting brought a kind of clarity that made me aware I had not been given any information outside of what I had been dealing with locally.

  “Nothing really to tell. Everything here seems normal, well except for the lack of G.I.’s around town. They say they’re doing some kind of base security protocol, so we haven’t seen much of the soldiers in the last day or so.” I could hear it in Robbie’s voice. That quiet panic where you knew something was wrong, just not what it might be.

  Not that I could blame him at this point. If the base was going silent, it indicated a much bigger problem than simple base security. Our hometown thrived around the military way of life, but that also meant if something happened to be going wrong on the premises it would bleed over into the general populace quickly.

  “So, they’ve locked down the base and you’ve not seen signs of attacks?” I asked softly, still not quite sure what to make of that particular piece of information.

  “I haven’t, no.” Robbie began and almost immediately I heard the ‘but’ in his voice. Much like myself, he was all too aware of just how huge an impact that base could be.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” This time when I spoke, it was laced with an underlying urgency. I knew, without having to see the look on his face just how bad things had to be getting for him to try and skirt around a subject. “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know that it’s bad per se.” Robbie began to speak and I couldn’t help but scowl. Despite my rather tetchy mood, I waited patiently (at least what could be considered patient for me) to have him explain. “I haven’t seen any more of the reanimated dead attacking, but a couple of people at the store were talking about some guy going crazy at the base checkpoint yesterday morning before the lockdown.”

  “You didn’t think that this was something you should have mentioned last night?” My voice echoed off my bedroom wall as a dull shriek.

  “Like I said, I didn’t witness another attack, I didn’t think it would be that big-”

  “A deal?” I finished for him again and gave a small growl. “You know as well as I do, that base is huge. My God, the whole city revolves around it! Damn it, Robbie.”

  “Yeah well, you’re the one that’s beating off deadites with a stick, so I really don’t think you have room to talk.” He shot back defensively. Again, there was a small flicker of guilt at railing on my best friend, but, in this instance, I ignored it in favor of talking some sense into him.

  “You need to get your family out of the city limits and away from the base.” My words came out as a snarl. Moving quickly, I rolled up onto my side and scooted towards the edge of the bed.

  “Where are we supposed to go, Angel?” Robbie shot back, “Mom’s family all lives in New York or Florida, and Russ’ family are in the mountains of West Virginia. Traffic trying to get in and out of major cities is going to be a mess, so even if we wanted to go we couldn’t.”

  “I’m not saying go out of state, I’m saying get the hell out of Fayette-nam.” Slipping back into my vocabulary from back home, I hadn’t even noticed I’d used the nickname most often used for the city area around the base.

  “I’m sure Mom and Russ have friends around they can stay with. I’ll just go with them.” Robbie began and I snorted which caused him to snap at me in an irate tone of voice, “What?”

  “Don’t you ‘what’ me. Get your ass in the car, go to your Mom’s and grab the family then head to my parent’s place. You know my family is always stockpiling shit like the world will end tomorrow. It’ll be safer there for Andi, too. She knows the property and has space to move. We don’t have to worry about trying to find someplace that will make things work for her. Besides, my parents are far enough outside the city limits you should all be okay for a while.” Sighing a little, I tucked the phone in against my shoulder so I could unlock the display on my cell to pull up my mom’s contact information. Without waiting for an answer my fingers were already moving over the keys rapidly to type out a quick message. I could only hope that my mother would reply just as quickly.

  “You’re already texting her aren’t you?” This time I could hear the exasperation in Robbie’s voice. Unlike many, I could tell the difference between angry and slightly amused, fortunately for me he seemed to be settled on amused.

  “Yep.”

  “Just because you bring up some valid points doesn’t mean I’m going to…”

  “Yes it does, because Andi is involved and you will always do what’s best for her. We all will.” At this point, there was no turning back. If I had to launch a nuclear strike to get Robbie to see reason, then I would do so. Mentioning his little sister as a form of coercion definitely qualified as nuclear strike type of warfare. Andi had been and would always be something precious to anyone who knew her. So, pointing out the benefits to her in my little plan was a nearly surefire way to get Robbie to seriously consider it.

  “You play dirty. If you were anybody else, I’d be on my way to kill you right now.” As amused as he may have been, Robbie and I knew one another well enough that we could call the other out on bullshit. This had been a huge form of it on my part, because using Andi in anyway was something we considered close to sacrilege.

  “I know you would. I’ll apologize, but not right now. Once I know you and your family are safely out of direct line of fire from the base, I’ll spend my time groveling. In the meantime, you get yourself and your family out of there and to my parent’s house.” Even as I said it, my phone buzzed and I looked down to see a message from my mother. Smiling a bit at her reply, I chuckled and told Robb
ie, “Mom says she’ll be looking for you and to tell Andi that there is a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies with her name on it.”

  “You so don’t play fair. I was supposed to be getting us supplies today, remember?” Robbie’s voice wavered a little as he spoke. From my end it sounded like a strange mixture of annoyance and gratitude, not that either of us would ever admit to such a thing.

  “You still can, just get Andi to safety and all of you set up at my parent’s place first.” I sighed softly. I knew full well that when it came down to it, my tactics this morning had been a lot more personally hitting than either of us were comfortable with, “You know I love you, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. I love you too, but Angel…”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can be a real bitch sometimes.”

  Without another word, the line went dead and I spent a good thirty seconds just staring at the phone. The call with Robbie this morning had ended on a less than high note and made an already hellish day of gloom seem far worse. After hanging the phone back on the charger, I forced myself to get up out of bed to get dressed. With that accomplished I wandered out into the living room to find Cal watching me like a hawk from the couch.

  Without speaking a word I made my way across the room and into the kitchen to set about brewing a pot of coffee. That whole time was spent with my mind whirling over the implications of what Robbie had just told me. True, it all could end up being nothing. But, never in the whole of my childhood, had the base been completely locked down for security procedures of any sort. Not even on the notorious day of September 11th.

  So, that left the question, why now? What about all of this was so bad that they had completely locked down the military installations back home? More than that, if it really was that bad, would sending Robbie and his family to my parent’s house be enough to protect them?

  Those questions plagued me incessantly even as I filled the coffee machine with water and flipped it on. My distraction had been so complete that when Cal spoke I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Are you okay?” Deep baritone notes echoed inside my small kitchen and drew my attention straight to him. Rumpled as he was, the man still looked formidable. While I had no reason to believe it to be true, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Cal would surprise me in some way or another when things came down to the wire. At least, I hoped he would.

  “Yeah, fine. I’m just thinking about a few things that I talked about with Robbie this morning.” I muttered back.

  “So…that was him on the phone?” The question was tentative, almost like he was scared to ask me about it. The idea that this towering male specimen seemed off put over me, was highly amusing.

  “Yeah, he told me about a couple of things going on back home.” Turning to peer at Cal, I frowned.

  “I take it then, that you two speak often?” His question was not only unexpected, but almost kind of groaned out in a manner that suggested annoyance.

  “Almost every day…you have a problem with that?” Something about his line of questioning and the tone of his voice irked me. Suddenly, every radar of warning that I had in my head when it came to guys went off like it was the Fourth of bloody July. I couldn’t understand why Cal seemed to be zeroing in on my contact with Robbie, but the annoyance in his voice had me going on the defensive.

  “I take it that you two are a thing, then.” When he actually used air quotes to say the word thing, I almost launched myself across the kitchen to deck him one. Instead, I settled for arching an eyebrow at him while I leaned against the counter.

  “If by thing…” I began, my hands lifting so I could do my own set of air quotes before giving him the finger as I finished, “…you mean that he’s my best friend. Then yes, we’re a thing. Not that it’s any business of yours.”

  “Well, since we’re now paired up to get to the rest of the group, I think it’s every bit my business. I need to know just what I’m dealing with.” Unlike the day before, Cal seemed to have finally settled himself about what we were facing. Now that it was done, he was a true opponent for me. I could see it in him shooting back snarky answers and offering me true opposition and honestly, I welcomed the challenge.

  “I don’t think so there, Sparky.” I shot back, moving to push off the counter and point at him, “Anything you think you need to know about me dealing with my personal lifeis gonna be the fastest way for you to get the boot. If you want or need to define my relationships with everyone we come in contact with, you can take a hike now and save me the trouble of putting up with your shit.”

  “If you two aren’t a thing then why the hell are you in contact so often. That seems like more than a friendship to me.” Each word that Cal uttered was accompanied by a step forward to draw him closer to me. As far as a tactic for intimidation, it might have worked on some, but for me it was just an annoyance.

  When almost eighty percent of the people in the world were taller than you, height and looming over a person didn’t work so well, “As for why it’s important, I want to know if you’re going to risk my life in some damn foolhardy move to get back to your friend. I didn’t sign up to join your group just to become a bodyguard for some hormonal chick to get back to her boyfriend.”

  Again, the use of air quotes both surprised and infuriated me. His little speech however, had definitely helped to ramp my temper up several notches.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I had promised Robbie I would not venture out alone, I probably would have slapped the shit out of Cal. Afterward there might have been a slight mishap with one of my kitchen knives followed by an epic adventure while I looked for a place to hide the body once I had finished with him.

  While I knew I needed to keep to my word, my hands were clenching and unclenching at my sides while I debated doing bodily harm to the man in front of me. Another part of my brain, the rational part, tried to figure out just how to deal with him without committing brutal homicide.

  In the end, I compromised. While Cal leaned forward, looming over me in an act of intimidation my hand shot up and cracked across the right side of his cheek with enough force my fingers began to throb. Even I was shocked by the loud ‘snap’ of flesh meeting flesh. In my small little kitchen it had sounded almost like the crack of a gunshot.

  For a good two minutes we just stood there staring one another down. The only sound being the soft gurgle and pop of the coffee maker as it brewed a fresh batch of liquid fuel behind me.

  “What the hell was that for, Miss Warren?” Gray eyes glared down at me with a mixture of emotions I couldn’t quite make out.

  “Miss Warren now is it?” My lips curled up in a smirk as I looked up at him and slowly pushed away from the counter to step closer to him. My choice of action had the desired effect as Cal broke his gaze away from my own to step back. Unaccustomed to anyone stepping towards him while he was in towering He-man mode, he struggled to gain control of the situation as I spoke again, “As for slapping you, it happened to be because you were being an asshole.”

  Watching Cal as he took another step back, I could see the look of confusion on his face. That look, however, was quickly replaced by outright anger as he straightened to glare down at me.

  “I’m an asshole for not wanting to risk my life so you get a piece of ass?” This time, he took a step forward to try and regain ground. “Sorry, that won’t work for me, Miss Warren. You said it yourself last night…this is about survival.”

  “No, this is about you being bossy and wanting to get your way again.” I snapped back, one hand coming up so my finger could poke him in the chest, “So allow me to answer your question and make something abundantly clear to you. Robbie and I are not a thing. We are not a couple, we never will be. He’s my best friend in the world and like a brother to me. Other people, significant others, and seasons will come and go, but he will always be there. If you EVER try and talk down about my relationship with him or make it seem like something as tawdry as a physical relationship, you will
join the ranks of womanhood, get me?”

  “You expect me to believe you have a male for a best friend and you never…”

  “If you finish that sentence, I swear to god I am not going to be held responsible for what I do.” My eyes narrowed on Cal and he must have seen how much I meant what I had just said. In a single blink he backed all the way across the room and put the counter between us like it would act as some kind of shield.

  “Okay, okay! I got it.” His hands came up at his sides in a motion that showed he didn’t want any kind of trouble. Despite his obvious withdraw from the conversation, my temper remained in full flare. When it came to my friends and family, once someone ruffled my feathers it would take a good while before I calmed back down. Sad to say, for the man standing across from me, I had woken up in a decidedly foul mood and this conversation had only made it worse.

  “Can I ask a question without you biting my head off?” This time his tone seemed docile, almost meek. Exhaling harshly, I turned to grab a coffee mug out of the cabinet and set it down on the counter as I considered my options before answering him.

  “Depends on the subject you’re planning to bring up. If you’re intending to continue with the line of conversation you were on about five seconds ago, Zombie boy is gonna be sleeping with a pal.”

  “Well, not on that exact subject, no.” He began tentatively.

  “Let me guess, you want to know something about my relationship with Robbie.”Rolling my eyes as I poured myself a cup of coffee, I weighed my options on the matter. I could choose not to answer and in turn have the man drive me up the wall all day. Or, he could ask his question and get an answer that would shut him up, at least for a while. Lifting the mug to take a sip, I mentally counted to ten before I turned to face Cal quietly.

  “Well, yes. I mean, the way you two are, with the constant contact, how is it you can be that way and not be…closer than you are?” Well, it wasn’t exactly what he’d been talking about before, but it seemed close enough that I found myself seriously debating the virtues of homicide. Taking a deep breath, I gripped my mug tightly between my fingers to keep me from attacking the man while I answered him.