After two right turns, Luke stopped in front of a two-story brick home with a large front porch. The heavy front door and storm door were closed, which was a good sign. He let out a sigh as he gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands. It was the moment of truth. Either he would go in there and find his ex-wife, daughter, and her new husband and his boy. Or if I’m lucky I’ll find my ex-wife and daughter, with no trace of anyone else, alive or dead. He blinked a few times to try to dissipate the thought. He felt sick just thinking it, but at the same time still hoped it was true. But he knew there was a chance he could go in there and find no one. He didn’t even want to think of the worse-case scenario. It was too gruesome and sent shivers down his spine.
Before he could scare himself out of going in at all, he jumped out of the car and shut the door quietly. It was best not to draw any attention to himself. There might be other people in the surrounding homes, watching to see if they could take advantage of someone alone. And Luke wasn’t dumb. He knew that even though he couldn’t see any of the dead lurking around at that moment, they wouldn’t be far off and they could be on him in a matter of seconds if he wasn’t careful.
He strode up the porch steps two at a time and opened the storm door. When it came time to grab the handle of the main door, he froze. Would he really be able to handle it if he found them dead? His eyes glossed over, making it hard for him to place his hand properly on the door handle, but he did. He gave it a turn. His chest clenched when it opened freely.
Inside, it was quiet and dark. The foyer blinds were open, allowing the light from the moon to stream in, but everything beyond those two windows was blackness. Slowly, he stepped inside. He shut the storm door behind him and locked it, but left the front door wide open. He wasn’t sure why he did this. He only knew that it made him feel better, like he had an easy getaway and security from the outside world. With his left hand outstretched, he felt his way down the hallway and to the living room. He stood in silence, his ears tuned to hear the slightest of movements. But he heard nothing.
He felt his way to the kitchen. As he passed the open door to the small bathroom his heart beat against his chest. He pictured a gnarled, grizzly hand pulling back the curtain to the shower, the tub filled with deep red water as blood oozed from the rotting corpse stepping out, its arms outstretched to grab ahold of him.
Luke shook his head and the images disappeared. He realized he had stopped and was staring, but there was nothing in front of him. Only an empty bathroom with a pile of soiled towels on the floor. He inched his way into the kitchen. The open concept didn’t leave much room for hiding, which was a relief to him. There was nothing lurking unless something was flat on the floor behind the small island. He counted that room empty as well.
That only left the upstairs bedrooms to search. He took each step carefully, trying his hardest to distribute his weight evenly so the creaking of the stairs was minimal. His heart raced again, but this time it wasn’t out of fear. It was from excitement. He was sure he’d find Kiana and Imani upstairs, huddled together, just waiting for him to come and rescue them.
The first bedroom he came to was Imani’s. He pushed open the door, which wasn’t latched shut all the way, and leaned in to look around. It was impossible to see anything unless it was within a foot’s range from his face. Reluctantly, he took out his cell phone, which he’d been charging with the solar charger Liam had given him, and turned on the flashlight.
Blueish-white light immediately filled the room, leaving only the deepest corners and crannies shadowed in darkness. Each breath he took rushed from his nostrils heavily. He tried to slow it down, to control it, but there was nothing he could do. His chest was weighted down by the many fears of what he would find. But as far as he could see from the doorway, no one was there.
He crept over to the next door and opened it slowly. Inside, he saw a familiar room. The sweet smell brought tears to his eyes. It was the room he had shared with Kiana. The bed was torn apart, but the comforter was the same one they used to cuddle up under years ago. His eyes wandered around the room until they landed on a strange mass moving in the corner on the opposite side of the bed. He took a step forward, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. Quickly, he aimed the light from his phone at the shaking figure.
“Kiana? Imani?” His voice elated with joy. He ran over to them and knelt on the floor to wrap his arms around them both. “I’m so happy to see you!”
“What are you doing here?” Kiana asked. It wasn’t with the usual dark tone she reserved for when he showed up unexpected to see their daughter, but landed softly with hot breath in his ear.
“I came to get you out of here.”
“Oh, thank you, Jesus,” Kiana breathed out.
Luke helped her and his fourteen-year-old daughter up from the floor. He checked them over to make sure they weren’t hurt, fussing over every little scratch or bruise they had.
“Luke, we’re fine, I’m tellin’ ya, we’re fine.” Kiana brushed him off, but then pulled him in for a tight squeeze.
Imani stood next to them, her eyes gazing up at her parents as they embraced. It should have been a moment every little girl whose parents are divorced waited for, but it wasn’t. Not with the power out, the room sweltering from the summer heat, and monsters roaming the streets looking for someone to take a bite out of.
“Daddy, what happened to Johnathan?
Luke released his hold on Kiana and looked down at Imani. “I have no idea, sweetheart. What happened to him? Where is he?”
The young teen’s shoulders shrugged, bouncing her black spring-loaded curls around. “Last we heard, he was in the kitchen.”
Luke’s chest compressed till it hurt. “The kitchen?” There was no way he had missed a twelve-year-old boy walking around. Even though he didn’t know Luke that well, only from the times he would come by to bring Imani home or pick her up, he knew the boy would be scared and run to him if he saw him. There was no way that child was walking the dark halls of the house alone unless…
Guttural growls and hissing gave away the young boy, but a second too late for Luke to react. He turned around and saw red as the boy lunged forward to sink his teeth into Luke’s dark, soft flesh. On instinct, the librarian stepped aside, throwing his arms around Imani in protection. The high-pitched scream that followed tore his heart in two.
Kiana reached up from the ground, pinned under her ravenous step-son as his teeth ripped shreds of her skin from her body. When his teeth clamped over her throat, the screaming stopped and turned to volatile gurgling. Tears streaked down Luke’s face.
“Mama! No! Mama!” Imani yelled, struggling to escape her father’s grip. She kicked and fought, but her father was too strong.
Luke dragged her from the room as Kiana lie still on the floor, her only movements created from the jerk of Johnathan’s head as it whipped back to tear another chunk of skin away. Luke’s arms tightened around his daughter as he dragged her down the stairs kicking and screaming.
“We have to help her! We have to save her! Let me go!” Imani yelled.
Once they were outside, Luke shoved his daughter into his car and knelt in front of her to speak on her level and to block her in.
“Sweetheart, she’s gone. Your mama is gone.” His voice was steady, but his lips quivered as he spoke above a whisper.
Her cheeks were soaked with tears. “You’re a coward!” she screamed.
Luke wanted to look around to make sure nothing had heard her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the hatred burning behind Imani’s glare.
“You could have saved her! You didn’t have to choose! You could have saved both of us if you tried! You didn’t even try! You ran! You just ran!”
Luke stood and shut the door, trying to drown out the accusations, but they rang loudly in his head. He knew his daughter was right. He’d always been a coward, but he had hoped she would never find that out. He hoped she’d never have to see him make the
coward’s choice that turned her from him forever, but that’s exactly what had happened.
VII
Everyone in the apartment stared unblinkingly at Luke as he finished his story, fighting back the tears that clouded his vision. He couldn’t take it. Their judgmental gazes fell heavy on his heart until he had to turn to look at the floor. His feet kicked at the ragged carpet, spreading the dirt that was caked into the fibers.
Zack cleared his throat as he processed what he’d just heard. None of it came as a shock to him, but the fact that Luke said it aloud was. He figured the man to be such a coward that he would lie. But Zack was sure the little spitfire would have called him out if he changed an ounce of her beloved mama’s death story.
Imani looked at the back of her father’s head with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. Her small hands gripped the handle of her bat with knuckle-bearing intensity. She wasn’t letting her guard down. It didn’t matter if the group knew her father.
Zack was amazed at the level of smarts the girl seemed to have. He didn’t trust anyone with his life except himself either. But that wasn’t all that was there. Behind her hatred, Zack could see a sense of responsibility, a need to protect. Maybe because her dad proved himself to be such a worthless coward time and again she felt she had to protect them both. His mind wandered to the things the poor young teen had to have done to keep them alive all this time.
“I’m so sorry, Luke…Imani,” Christine said softly as she held eye contact with each of them.
“Thank you,” Luke muttered. Though Imani didn’t say a word, her brown eyes conveyed gratitude.
“So what’s the plan, Luke,” Zack said, punctuating the man’s name with contempt. “If I hadn’t pulled you in, where would you have slithered off to?”
Right away, Luke turned his eyes to look into Imani’s. Zack noted the intense yet silent warning the father gave his daughter. It was a look he’d gotten from his own father throughout his teenage years, when his dad wanted him to keep his trap shut about something. It was obvious there was something Luke didn’t want the group to know.
“Where have you been hiding out all these months?” Zack demanded.
No one said a word. The air felt thick as the silence penetrated and sank into it.
“Would you like something to drink or eat?” Gretchen interrupted when the silence became too awkward to bear. “We have water, crackers, spam, um, I’m not sure what else at the moment…”
“Gretchen, please,” Zack said without turning to look at her. “Luke was just about to tell us where he’s been all this time.”
It seemed as if everyone in the room held their breath in anticipation. Could there possibly be another group somewhere, surviving? Maybe even surviving better than they were?
Luke shrugged his shoulders and looked back at Imani again before answering. The girl furrowed her brow, as if now to warn her own dad not to say anything. He turned back to the eight onlookers and smacked his lips.
“We’ve been driving, walking the area, looking for somewhere safe to hide. We spent some nights in abandoned houses. Nothing spectacular, but it’s kept us going.”
Zack’s head nodded in contemplation. The room fell into complete silence once more as everyone, including Luke and Imani, waited to see what Zack would say next. Without a sound or warning, Zack held his longsword up to Luke’s throat.
The middle-aged man whimpered, his face scrunched in paralyzing fear as he tried to shrink back from the sharp tip.
“Put it down!” Imani shouted, moving to Zack with the speed and gracefulness of a ninja. Her bat was poised to strike, the nails driven in at random darkened with red.
“No way!” Olivia Darling laughed from the back of the room. She stepped out from behind Lee Hickey’s broad frame. “Move over, green giant.” She gave him a playful shove, but Hickey didn’t budge. “I have a bat too! Nice weapon choice. They’re the best, aren’t they? Silent but deadly, easy to handle. I like the nails, too. Nice touch.”
Everyone turned to look at Olivia, their faces widened in disbelief.
“What?” she asked, nonchalant. “I appreciate a strong chick with a bat.”
As a group, everyone seemed to roll their eyes and turn their attention back to the situation unfurling in front of them.
“What I think—” Zack said slowly, never taking his eyes off Luke’s. He never once met Imani’s gaze, even though she was the one with his life in her hands at that moment. “—is that good ol’ Luke here is lying to us.”
Imani took a step closer and raised her bat even higher above her head. Zack didn’t flinch, didn’t move a centimeter, keeping his sharp sword at Luke’s throat without a second thought to what would happen to him.
“I think these two have found a new community.”
VIII
Zack scrutinized the two newcomers with darkened eyes. The muscles of his jaw clenched, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t want to beat the information out of them, verbally or physically. Emotionally, he was spent. After yesterday’s food run, his body ached and his head pounded. All he really wanted to do was check in with Christine privately, make sure she was okay, and maybe sleep the rest of the early morning away. That was all. But this was too important to blow off. If there were others out there surviving, he wanted to know about it.
Luke tried to avoid eye contact with everyone in the room. All eyes were trained on him and his daughter. He felt their questions and accusations burning into him. How did Zack know they’d found another group? The two of them didn’t look particularly well taken care of. Luke wore beat up, dirtied jeans that had belonged to another man. His long-sleeved, gray shirt had two gaping holes, one in the front that exposed his belly button, the other on his shoulder. The faint red stains around the openings told him what happened to the man who’d worn it before him.
Imani dressed in layers to keep herself as warm or cold as she pleased. It mostly depended on what activities she had planned for the day—fencing, archery, practice swings, running, gymnastics, soccer, karate—whatever she could do to expend the energy built-up inside her. And she was good at all of it, the very opposite of her dad. He was all numbers and words. He couldn’t catch a ball to save a life. It was amazing all the things she found out he couldn’t do to save someone’s life. But Imani, she was ferocious. She was going to survive this world in her pink tank-top, white and grey stripped shirt, black zip-up hoodie, black leggings, jeans shorts, and boots. She took care of her father. She was the one out there slaughtering every day for their survival, and every day it made her see him as more and more worthless. She didn’t want to think these things about her father, but she could feel the bitterness growing inside her.
But no one in the room knew these things. As far as they could tell, he was doing a phenomenal job at taking care of himself and his fourteen-year-old daughter. To them, he was the reason they were still alive. Well, except to Zack. That brute had jumped right to the conclusion that Luke wasn’t capable of taking care of anyone, so they had to have found a community to take them in. Luke’s face turned red at the accusation, not because he was offended, but because he was ashamed. Zack was right. Luke wouldn’t have made it on his own. They had enlisted the help of another community the minute they found one. Luke vowed to serve in any capacity he could just to gain their protection. He wanted to think he did it all for his daughter, but he had no doubt she could take care of herself after spending two days on the road with her. No, he did it selfishly, for himself.
“Yes, we did find other people,” he said solemnly.
“Dad!” Imani barked. Her face was scrunched tightly with betrayal. “How could you? We weren’t supposed to tell anyone!”
“Trust me, Imani. This one—” Luke nodded his head at Zack “—wouldn’t have given us much choice in the matter.”
Imani turned her eyes to Zack and looked him up and down. He wore a proud smile as he shrugged his shoulders in agreement. Her nose wrinkled in
blatant disgust, as if he smelled of decomposing carcass. “I could have handled him.”
“You go, girl!” Olivia shouted from the corner.
Imani tried not to smile, but her eyes gave her away. She was proud of the fact that she could protect herself and her father, who often hid behind her when a zombie came their way. She had no idea what the word coward truly meant until she journeyed through the apocalypse with that pitiful man. Her mom had always called Luke a coward after the divorce, saying he abandoned his responsibilities and the relationship when it got tough, but Imani always defended him. She always stuck up for him, saying he hadn’t abandoned her. He still came around and brought her over for weekends, even though sometimes he’d leave her alone to go into work for a few hours here and there. Now that the world had gone mad, she looked back on those situations with new insight. He’d always been a coward. She was just too naive to see it before.
“So,” Zack said with wide eyes. “Where is this group you found?”
Luke’s eyes darted around the room. There were people he knew and some he didn’t, none of which he could trust. “Halfway between here and Whiting in New Chicago, about a twenty-five minute drive…before all the road blockage. Now, it’s about a fourteen mile hike. Took about 6 hours with all the detours and the dead out there trying to get us.
“I’m guessing this one here kept you at a good pace, too,” Zack said, pointing at Imani with his sword.
“I made sure we got here,” she rebutted.
“I bet you did.”
She couldn’t tell if he was angry or impressed.
The room fell into a silence as all parties thought about where to take the conversation next.
“New Chicago is halfway to the real Chicago,” Christine said, the meekness leaving her voice for once to exude strength and eagerness. “It would be a great stopping point for us during our travel. Can you take us there?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up,” Zack said, waving his hand and sword through the air. “No one said anything about joining this guy.”
Dead Soil (Book 2): Dead Road Page 3