“Dad and I were poking fun at Jenny because Cliff phoned the house for her. I mean, who names their kid Cliff nowadays. Clifford the Big Red Dog. I mean, we wouldn’t make fun of him to his face, but you know, it’s fun to bug the hell out of Jenny about it.”
I could tell Shawn was stalling, trying to avoid getting to the next part. It made me think I didn’t want to hear what was coming.
Robby took up the story. “Maddy and Haley were in the kitchen getting the popcorn ready.” He rubbed his hands over his face and I noticed what I hadn’t before. His bottom lip was fat and he had a scabbed cut over his left eye. “I came into the house and all I heard was Jenny screaming. I ran into the living room and, Christ, at first I thought they were wrestling. I mean, fuck!”
Shawn was staring blindly at the floor. “They came out of the kitchen and just like that, Maddy was on top of Jenny, pulling her hair, trying to get her over on her back. Haley went after Dad. He didn’t even try to stop her. I think he was too shocked. I just… I don’t know. I know I couldn’t move for a second. She jumped on him and bit out his throat. Just like that. Like it was something she did every day.”
“That’s when I came in. I managed to grab Maddy off of Jenny. She screamed and came at me. I yelled at Shawn to get Jenny and Mom out.”
“I grabbed Jenny and I assumed Mom was behind me.” Shawn reached up and quickly wiped a tear before it could fall. “But Mom screamed when Haley turned on her. I pushed Jenny into the bathroom and told her to lock it. By the time I pulled Haley off of Mom, it was too late. She’d shoved her into the glass coffee table and the blood was starting to pool under her. I just… you don’t survive losing that much blood.”
“Every time I’d throw Maddy off, she’d keep coming back. It was like she was just… it was all she could think of. That her sole purpose was to kill me.” Robby sat, obviously shaken by reliving the memory. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he whispered. “I tried to get her off. I managed to get her on her back and she still wouldn’t stop. I choked her. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I stabbed Haley,” mumbled Shawn. “I tried to scare her by waving the fire poker around but she came at me and I held it in front of me. She ran straight into it.”
I wiped my arm over my face to dry the tears as they fell down my cheeks. I tried to think of something to say, anything, but nothing seemed appropriate.
“All I could think…”
We all looked up to see Jenny watching us, her face so white the scratches her sister had inflicted stood out like the stripes on a zebra. Her breath hitched and Max took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“All I could think was why were they trying to eat us when they were vegetarians?” She made no attempt to hide the tears as they streaked down her face in a steady flow.
Max pulled her into a hug and smoothed her hair. “Shhhhh.”
I glanced at Lizzy and was glad to see her put a hand on the other girl’s shoulder to offer support. Everyone stared at one another, speechless. We’d all seen the Yellow Eyes, but the thought of someone we loved actually turning into one had just been driven home. Lane was looking at me, dread in his eyes, and I knew he was remembering my dream. He swallowed hard and came to stand by me. I leaned into him.
“What are we supposed to do?” whispered Marie. She was sitting on Pete’s lap, baby Ashley cradled between them.
Brent turned the TV on and we watched as a black screen with a scrolling message popped up. Everyone gathered around and read the announcement twice in silence.
“They can’t be serious,” mumbled Shawn.
“I think they are.” Grant glanced at Brent then back to Lane. “What do you think, Lane?”
Lane read through the instructions one more time before giving a shake of his head. “I think they’re crazy. Nothing good’s going to come of it. Telling people to leave their homes and to all go stay in various public buildings in their cities… no. There will be too many people, too much stress…”
“It will be riots and then what?” added Robby.
I nodded. “I think we’re safe here.”
Lane stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “Payday was Thursday. Did you all do groceries?”
Everyone nodded.
“Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’ll hit up everyone’s houses, pack up all the food we can find, and bring it here. Robby, we should bring your deep freeze over. I’ll bring ours. Ours is still full of meat.”
Robby nodded. “Same here.”
“Alright. It’s decided then, unless anyone has any objections?” Lane looked at everyone, giving them the option to say they wanted to leave. No one objected.
Max caught his breath and we all turned to look him. Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth while Lizzy took a few steps away from him before going to stand by John.
“I think they found the shop.” His silver eyes met Lane’s.
Brent and Grant jumped onto the crates we’d put under the windows and scanned the area.
“Anything?” Pete made his way to the side window at the shake of the brothers’ heads. “It’s over here.” He looked at Lane. “Do we shoot it?”
“No.”
I nodded to show him I agreed. “These are still people. I don’t know what’s wrong with them, but until they give us just cause to do so, we don’t take them out.”
We all held our breaths for the next ten minutes until Max’s eyes bled back to green and he inhaled deeply. He let out a relieved sigh.
“It’s gone.”
“Alright.” I gave Lane a tug on the arm. “Come on. I’ll have a look at your head.”
Lane waved away the attention. “I’m fine.”
I turned his head and stood on my tip toes so I could have a look. “It’s still bleeding a bit. We’d better go clean it up.” I thanked the brothers again and led Lane to the bathroom. “Alright. Sit.”
“On the toilet?” He grinned.
I put both seats down and gestured regally at it. “Yes, on the toilet.”
“Fine.” He sat and closed his eyes as I carefully moved the hair aside to see how deep the cut was. He let out a small hiss.
“Sorry. Hang on. There’s a big spot of hair that’s matted because of the dried blood.” I went to the small linen closet and put the facecloth under the running water. It ran over my hands, soaked into the material, and continued on its merry way down the drain.
“What are you thinking?” Lane shifted on the toilet seat to get more comfortable.
“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and realize this was all a bad dream.”
He grunted and watched as I shut the water off and squeezed the excess out of the cloth. Had it been anyone else, I’d have been a little freaked out by the way he followed my movements, but this was Lane. It was something he did, something he’d done since we were little. I’d asked him about it when we were nine. We’d been sitting by the riverbank, throwing rocks into the current. He’d told me he was making sure he remembered what I looked like so he wouldn’t forget in case I ever left him. I’d frowned and told him I’d never leave him; he was my best friend; we’d be together forever.
My heart skipped at the memory and my mind flashed a few years forward. We were eighteen and the last two people awake out of our group of friends at the campsite. We’d grabbed our sleeping bags and gone to lie on the beach. I’d snuggled into his side, looked up at him, and smiled because he was watching me. The urge to let him know I loved him was overwhelming and I’d whispered it in his ear. The look in his eyes had softened and he’d smiled, his whisper telling me he felt the same way. I’d been sure he would kiss me, but he’d stopped himself and pressed his lips to my forehead instead of my mouth.
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
I jumped as Lane voice cut through my thoughts. “I was just remembering.”
“Oh?”
“Can you… I mean, do you remember… Name some good memories you have.”
“Um, okay. How far ba
ck?”
I shrugged. “Start as far back as you can remember and move your way up to now.”
He took his time and I smiled at the way his lips curled slightly as he went through his good memories. “The day my mom took us to the petting zoo and we got to ride real ponies for the first time.”
I grinned. “We were six.”
He nodded. “How about the time we went exploring the old abandoned farmhouse by Mister Granger’s house?”
“The one in his canola field.” I pressed the wet cloth against the matted hair.
“That’s the one. I think we were eight. Then there’s that day on the river bank when we were nine.”
“You told me you watched me so you’d remember what I looked like if I ever left you.”
“And you told me you’d never leave me.”
“And I haven’t.”
“No, you haven’t.” His voice softened. “The day we all went camping and we ended up sleeping on the beach. Graduation day, the day we started our business, the day we got our first community service kid, the day we signed the papers on the mortgage.” He took a deep breath. “Two nights ago.”
I frowned and laughed out loud, surprised. “What?” I managed to part the hair so I could have a look at the cut under it and smiled. Nothing serious.
“When you picked up your phone and I realized you were still alive and then I turned the corner and there you were. Very best day of my life.” He cleared his throat. “Why did you want to know?”
“Every good memory I have has you in it, Lane.” I took a step back so I could look at him and suddenly I was sure that the past twenty years of simply being best friends had been a mistake. “Every bad memory I have somehow is made better because you were always there.”
I looked into his eyes, trying to see if he understood what I meant.
His brows knitted together slightly. “What are you saying?”
“I wasn’t lying on the beach.” My heart was pounding its way out of my chest. What if I’d been wrong? What if to him I really was just his pain in the ass best friend. His eyes widened with surprise. Shit, he wasn’t going to profess his undying love after all. “I… I always wondered why you never kissed me that night.”
He caught my hand gently and pulled me so that I stood between his legs. He moved his hands up my arms so that they came to hold my face. His thumb ran over my cheek.
“Because I knew that if I kissed you, there was no going back for me. I also knew you were scared that if we took it to the next step and it didn’t work out, that things would never go back to how they were.”
“You were never scared of that?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “I knew it would work out.”
“So why didn’t you say something to me about it?”
“Because it had to be all you. I wanted to make sure you came to that decision on your own. You were so scared about it. I didn’t want you to do it just because that was what I wanted.”
“You could have given me a clue about how you felt, you know.”
“I did. I told you that night. And to be fair, you didn’t kiss me, either.”
So that was it. All this time, he’d been waiting for me to make a decision. That was fourteen years of spending every day together, both of us waiting for the other to make the first move. I brought one hand up and touched his cheek and let my fingers linger like I’d thought of doing. He closed his eyes and shivered at the touch. I slid my hands into his hair so his head was tilted up and I let myself look at him in a way that echoed how I felt about him. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe I was finally letting myself feel how I actually saw him. I trailed my fingertips over his face, somehow knowing exactly how he would feel. I could hear my heart pound harder and I started to wonder why he wasn’t doing anything. He was breathing faster, there was no doubt about that, but he simply stayed where he was. My heart gave an extra hard pound. Like he was waiting. He was still waiting for me to decide.
I wet my lips. There was no way in hell this wasn’t right. I had to tell him. If something was to happen and I didn’t tell him, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
“I didn’t kiss you because I was scared.”
He nodded slightly.
“And I’ve been scared every day since that night.” I inhaled deeply and pushed on, my fingers still moving over his face, his neck, and into his hair. “But not as scared as I was the other night when you told me you weren’t coming home and I realized that I was about to lose the only person I couldn’t live without. This morning, I thought… oh god, I thought you were gone.” I took a second to arrange my thoughts. “The thought of not having bagels and coffee together in the morning, of not driving to work together…” The thought of not having him around was causing a lump to form in my throat and I decided I could talk all night if I really felt like it. Even if I didn’t kiss him, it was too late. There was no going back.
Lane slowly opened his eyes and I found myself looking into blue eyes so dark they could have been black. Eyes so familiar, I could tell where each slightly lighter colored spot on the irises were with my own eyes closed. My fingers laced in his dark brown hair and I pulled myself down to him. His eyes closed as my lips touched his, his arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me to his chest. I have to admit that the few times I’d let myself think of this moment, I’d imagined fevered lips, a complete lack of self-control, all of which led to us naked and in bed in a matter of minutes. What happened instead was the softest of touches, our lips and tongues shyly exploring the other’s. All of it melted my bones and caused my breath to hitch in my throat.
I felt Lane smile before he pulled me down so that I was sitting on his lap. His free hand brushed the curly red hair out of my face. His lips left a hot trail along my jaw, down my neck, across my throat, and back up before finding my mouth once again. I caught my breath as his tongue found mine and his groan vibrated through both of us. My head started to swim, all of my senses getting lost in the feel of him, the taste of him. How in god’s name had I convinced myself this wasn’t right in the first place?
I pushed my hands up his shirt and smiled at the shiver that ran through him. He took a deep breath, slowed the kiss, and pressed his forehead to mine before burying his face in the crook of my neck.
“Please tell me you don’t regret that,” he whispered.
I put my hands on his face and lightly tilted his head so he was looking at me. “I regret not doing it fourteen years ago on that beach.”
He grinned. “Christ, me too.” His lips pressed lightly against my forehead then trailed lightly down the side of my face, along my jaw, and came to a stop over mine. I shivered at the barely there touch. His fingers were kneading small circles into my shoulders and the back of my neck. I moaned at the feel of his tongue trailing down my neck and along my collar bone. The soft kisses he was pressing up my throat were sending lazy snakes of heat from the pool forming in my belly to between my legs. I made a quick position change so that I straddled him which put me in perfect position to feel him pressing up against me through our jeans. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me to him.
I squeaked with surprise at the knock on the door while Lane swore softly under his breath.
“Hey, guys, are you almost done in there? You know there are twelve adults in this shop and only one bathroom, right?” John waited a half a second before giving another knock.
“Just about done.” Lane flashed me a crooked grin before kissing me again. I blushed at the heat in his eyes. “Hey, now. Don’t go all weird on me.”
“I won’t. I’m not. I’m just…” I glared at the door as John knocked again.
Lane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We’d better get out.” He took the cloth off of the counter, scrubbed his face clean of the blood, and stood, gently setting me on my feet. “Are you okay?”
I gave a quick nod and opened the door to reveal John with his fist up, about to knock again.
&nb
sp; “Thank god!” He rushed in and shut the door.
“So, is he going to live?” Jason grinned.
“Hmmm?” I frowned.
“Lane. His head?”
Lane grunted. “I told you it was nothing serious.”
I felt the blush rise up my neck and into my cheeks. “I’m going to go read a book.” I refused to look anyone in the eye as I made my way to the one ton. I popped open the glove compartment, and grabbed Lane’s emergency book without looking at what it was. Realizing there really wasn’t anywhere to go to be alone, I closed the door, leaned the passenger’s seat back, and looked at the cover.
The Stand by Stephen King.
Great. I hadn’t been able to finish watching the miniseries on TV because it freaked me out; reading the book while the Yellow Eyes prowled around was definitely out of the question. I looked over as the driver’s side door opened and Lane got in beside me.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “The Stand?”
“Yeah… sort of regretting that choice now that things are how they are.” He reclined his seat and looked at me. “I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice so no one outside the truck could hear.
I frowned. “What for?”
“I got a little carried away in the bathroom.”
I stared, speechless. He’d gotten carried away? I seemed to remember my hands going up his shirt and my legs straddling him. I flushed at the memory.
“Do you regret it?” His dark eyes bore into mine. “Do you want to pretend it didn’t happen?”
I reached over and took his hand knowing he meant it. He’d pretend nothing had happened if I thought we’d made a mistake. I shook my head. “No. I’ll never regret doing that. It’s just weird seeing you look at me like that.” I turned a deeper shade of red. “I mean, I like it. I’m just not used to it.” I gave his hand a squeeze.
“Will it make you feel better if I tell you I always looked at you like that, just not when you were looking at me?”
My lips twitched as I tried to hide my smile and my heart skipped a few beats. “Honestly? That sounds a little creepy.” I grinned to show I was kidding. I exhaled loudly. “I keep thinking we just wasted all those years, you know?”
Angered Seasons: Volume Two (Zombies, Aliens, and Meat-Eating Vegetarians?) Page 2