“Not the point, Reagan,” he whispered after I’d thrown them back in my pack and zipped it. He tugged on my arm so I lay down next to him. He turned to his back and so did I, our shoulders pressed into each other. He slid his foot over so that our boots touched as well, and I thought this had to be the sweetest moment in all of time. “I just need to know they’re there, that they’re an option. I can wait patiently. I can wait as long as I need to before I see them in action.”
My heart fluttered uncertainly for a few beats before I was able to ask, “Is that like a metaphor?”
He turned his head to face me, so I mimicked him. We stared at each other for a long time, even though his face was obscured by darkness. I knew he was there, and I knew he was looking at me and that was all that mattered.
I heard the smile in his voice when he answered dryly, “Yes, Reagan, that’s like a metaphor.”
I smiled back, although I was positive he couldn’t see it, and turned back so I was looking at the ceiling obscured in darkness again.
Vaughan and Nelson were on first watch. Page lay next to me, sleeping so soundly that her soft breaths floated in rhythmic patterns like a melody of peace. Haley was safe. King and Harrison were safe. And I was next to a boy I’d started thinking of as more than a stranger, more than a friend. He was somewhere in between my future and my present, I just didn’t have a word for him yet. Other than safe.
He was my safety.
He was what made me feel protected.
Vaughan was right; love wasn’t what motivated me yet. But I could feel it coming, feel it rolling into my life slowly, securely, in a way that wouldn’t get erased or replaced. And while I waited for love, I would fight this decay and live with hope. Because if it was all I had, hope when everything was hopeless, wasn’t so bad.
Episode Three
Chapter One
665 days after initial infection
“Haley! Get it off! Get it off!” I screamed, okay, no I screeched like a banshee into the quiet afternoon stillness. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, get it off of me!”
A flock of birds took flight. An irrational pang of guilt sliced through me when I realized I’d disturbed their peace. It didn’t make sense; they were birds and could find harmony anywhere and fly above the chaos of the rest of the fallen world. But there it was. I felt remorseful.
I wasn’t a psychologist, but it didn’t take much to figure out these feelings were misplaced and pulled from other issues in my life.
Nice, Reagan- psycho-analyzing yourself in the middle of nowhere. That’s just perfect.
Probably, if I had to guess where all this guilt was stemming from, it would be the endless body count I had piling up behind me. True, I was only killing infected Feeders already trying to kill me, or worse eat me bit by painful bit. But it’s not like I was a born murderer. This instinct to kill was drilled into me out of necessity. At some point my once do-gooding, cheerleader of a brain was going to remember that and break. Until then, I just wanted to survive.
However, all these shameful feelings might have less to do with the long laundry list of RIP Zombies and more to do with the particularly gruesome kill I’d accomplished not twenty minutes ago. The big guy’s carnage still painted my body with his sticky, foul-smelling blood and stuck to my hair in big globs of chunky flesh. Gag.
“Okay, just hold still,” Haley attacked my scalp again, scrubbing thoroughly along the bank of a slow waterway called Little Sugar Creek. “I mean, it’s like you have Feeder brain everywhere.” Then she gagged- for real gagged, right over my shoulder. “Did you try to take a shower in corpse?” She gagged again- a throaty sound, her whole body going rigid with the effort not to puke.
Which of course made me start gagging.
“No, I didn’t try to get him all over me. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences of shooting him so close, I was just trying not to die!” This guy had gotten really up-close and personal. He almost had me. But at the very last second, I managed to jam the barrel of my gun directly under his chin before pulling the trigger, but that meant splatter…. everywhere. And not just like sprinkles of blood; oh, no, we’re talking huge buckets of gory bloodbath. More gagging.
Part of the problem was my giant-barreled handgun. We were out of all the good ammunition and easy to use weaponry. So I had to resort to some kind of piece I’d only ever seen in movies. The barrel was cartoonish it was so big, and the entire thing weighed at least twenty pounds. But it got the job done. Obviously.
“Get it out, Hales,” I whimpered. This was me at my most pathetic. I could handle shooting, killing, going a week without bathing. I could handle smelling bad and dealing with greasy hair. I could handle sharing a toothbrush if I had to. What I could not handle was the sticky, oozy remains of a dead Zombie all over my body and glued to my hair. At the very least, I’d had the foresight to duck my head so nothing dead or bloody landed on my face- or worse, my mouth.
There wasn’t a whole lot of research done before the world fell apart, so nobody was really certain what constituted contact between Feeder and human. Was it just the bite? Like a vampire? Or fluids mingling?
It was hard to tell. And I wasn’t exactly on the mailing list for The New England Journal of Medicine. Plus, this wasn’t the first time I’d been covered in Zombie goo, but never before had it been close to getting in my mouth. Ack!
“I can’t-“ Haley ran off and puked in the bushes.
At least this wasn’t all in my head. This was for real disgusting.
I pressed the back of my hand, my firmly scrubbed and disinfected hand, to my mouth and squinched my eyes shut. I would not puke. I would not puke.
The sound of Haley retching behind me did nothing to support that argument.
“Come here, Reagan,” Hendrix’s firm, commanding voice sounded from behind me.
I winced and this time it had nothing to do with my current gore-covered condition. I wasn’t exactly at my sexiest. That thought alone annoyed me. Hendrix had seen me in all sorts of stages of disarray over the last couple weeks and still his interest had not seemed to fade. And I wasn’t interested in him, so it shouldn’t matter anyway.
Ok, that was a lie.
But I wasn’t interested in being interested in him and so…. yeah.
I held out my hand while keeping my eyes shut and let him pull me closer to the bank. The crisp autumn air was a little bit chilly, but the sun was warm today. I felt the water rush over my bare feet and while the coolness of the river was refreshing, I shivered from the temperature. I was stripped down to almost naked, underwear and a tank top, and I was annoyed that Hendrix had followed us out here and seen me like this.
Although I had shaved recently, thanks to the gas station we stayed at a week ago. Not only was I able to restock on razors, but they had ponytail holders and tweezers. Jackpot.
“You weren’t supposed to follow us,” I grumbled.
We were just about to the Missouri-Arkansas border when we ran into a pack of five Feeders. They should have been easy to take out, but since we were so exposed on the road we had to improvise our defensive strategy. Hendrix, Vaughan and Nelson had moved to take out the undead road warriors and Haley, King, Harrison and I stayed back to protect a vulnerable Page. I was holding the rear of the group, when the Feeder came up from behind me unexpectedly.
I turned around just in time to get him from under the jaw. It was a totally badass move. Or at least in my head it was; in my head there was some kind of ninja spin and a smooth but aggressive lodging of my gun right where his throat met his chin. Without a second thought I pulled the trigger, fluidly, fast and instinctively. But it had been a close call. A very close call. One more step and he could have easily taken a bite right out of my shoulder. I would have become an all you can eat lunchtime buffet and that was really not okay with me.
The worst part was that I hadn’t heard him until he was almost too close.
Thinking back on that now, I couldn’t decide i
f he’d managed to be quiet and kept his moaning to a minimum or if I had been so focused on Hendrix and Vaughan needing help, that I’d missed the warning signals.
Neither scenario was acceptable.
At least I was still alive and not craving brains for dinner.
“I could hear you whining,” Hendrix explained. He put a warm, strong hand on my lower back and slipped the other around my waist. He tipped me so that I was forced to lie down in the shallow bank and let my hair fan out with the current. “We made a lot of noise, Reagan. We can’t waste any time.”
I was now almost all the way submerged in the water. The gritty, sandy bottom caressed my back and unforgivably slid beneath what little clothes I had on. But the water felt nice in my hair, despite the freezing temperature. And I was starting to feel clean, a feeling I didn’t expect to experience for maybe the rest of my life.
I heard Hendrix fiddle with something above my head and then his long fingers were massaging their way through my scalp.
Uh….
I didn’t want to kick a gift horse in the mouth, especially one that felt this amazing, but this was getting weird. The faint scent of lilacs from the small bottle of travel shampoo I’d been hoarding in my backpack blended with the clean fall air and fresh water to create this fantastic perfume that actually erased the traces of rotting Zombie left behind.
I opened my eyes and blinked up at Hendrix through the almost blinding sunlight. He was kneeling down on one leg, leaning over me. When he noticed me struggling against the bright daylight he shifted his body so he could shade my face. His hands worked slowly and thoroughly through my long hair causing a shiver to travel down my spine that had nothing to do with water temperature.
He smiled down at me, through the frame of his sinewy forearms.
I became speechless, utterly breathless.
I’d never seen Hendrix smile- at least not like this. It was genuine and sincere and it made my heart do this weird fluttering thing in my chest.
“I don’t mind, Reagan,” he explained before I could protest. “I just want to get back on the road.”
His fingernails scraped gently against my scalp; I really tried not to purr. Good grief, this was heaven.
Finding whatever self-control I still possessed, I argued my weak objection, “I can wash my own hair, Hendrix.”
His smile settled into an amused smirk, “You’ll get Zombie brains underneath your fingernails.”
He was taunting me and it worked. A shudder shook my body and my stomach clenched with an ominous threat. I resigned myself to Hendrix playing hair stylist.
“Fine,” I conceded, closing my eyes again to avoid staring at the rough angles of his face, and how the early afternoon light lit up his skin in golden perfection. His jaw was accented by his facial hair and there was a smudge of black dirt streaked across the tight cords of his throat.
Yep, closing my eyes was definitely in order.
His hands slipped under my scalp, palming my head between the two of them while his fingers continued to massage each strand of hair. This was a very thorough washing and the best part was: he wasn’t gagging constantly over my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He was silent for so long, I had to peek at him, daring my eyes to open and take him in.
He met my stare with the full force of his somber intensity. “You’re welcome,” he rumbled.
Our faces were closer than before, his strong, capable body hovering over mine and his hands cupping my head gently. Hendrix had this way of making everything else disappear, of creating a world that only the two of us shared. It was in his captive attention and serious nature that I stayed prisoner. This was one of those moments. I kept thinking he was going to kiss me.
Which would have been bad, because I was pretty sure that would seriously complicate things with the Parker brothers. I still wasn’t convinced they were on this road trip for the long haul and I was not prepared to nurse a broken heart for the rest of the Apocalypse. It wasn’t like I could blow up his phone with pathetic take-me-back text messages, or Facebook stalk him to figure out which eHarmony whore he was hooking up with now.
Oh, no. We would do this breakup medieval style with straight up sonnets, and searching the ends of the Earth and all that.
I didn’t have time for that, or the stamina.
It was better to stay unattached and unaffected. If in ten more years, we were both still alive, still single and still needing to repopulate the planet with a non-brain eating species, then sure, I could revisit these…. emotional developments.
Until then I was just going to close my eyes again and pretend he was Haley.
And pretend like doing that was totally not the weirdest thing I’d ever done.
Loud rustling sounded from a few feet away and my eyes popped open again, only this time I was reaching for my pocket knife and pushing Hendrix away so I could sit up. He lunged for his own gun and slid to his feet so he was equally ready for the fight.
“If Hendrix and Reagan get to go swimming, why can’t I go?” Page demanded as soon as she popped through the bush.
Whew, not more Zombies. I reflected for a second why I had just been more concerned about my freshly cleaned hair than my actual life. Was I really that cynical already? Yeesh.
“You’re not allowed to go swimming for another fifty years,” Nelson called after her.
“What?” Page demanded, arms crossed, foot tapping.
“What?” I echoed, utterly mortified by the interruption and the compromising position Hendrix and I were in.
Nelson paused, too, and took us in, looking more confused than I felt. “Oh,” he finally observed. “You’re not swimming. Your clothes are on.” His eyes swept over my bare legs and he amended his statement, “On-ish.”
“I was covered in Feeder goo,” I pointed out needlessly, since we’d all been a part of the same fight.
“And Hendrix?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“Was helping me.”
Hendrix cleared his throat from where he was crouched over me. I glanced up at him but he was busy glaring daggers of death into his brother.
“I was helping her,” he repeated with an angry tone.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Nelson huffed, arms raised in surrender. “Blame your adorable, sweet, loving, completely innocent little sister. She thought everyone was invited to go swimming.”
“Why do you keep saying that? Nobody was going swimming!” I demanded. I felt like Nelson and Hendrix were having an entire conversation in a foreign language.
“Exactly,” Hendrix growled. He stood up and reached down a hand for me to grab onto.
King stumbled through the thick brush, looking confused and jostled. “Nelson, I thought you said swimming was code for-“
“Page, go ahead!” Nelson declared suddenly, shoving his sister towards the creek gently. “Go swimming. We’re all going swimming. We are all going regular, normal, completely not-code-for anything swimming.”
Harrison, Haley, who had mysteriously disappeared after she puked, and Vaughan all joined us next, stripping pieces of clothing along the way.
I placed my hand in Hendrix’s and his swallowed mine in warmth and strength. He pulled me to my feet and stared down at me, with that familiar gravity marking his expression.
“This isn’t over, Reagan,” he promised.
I shook my head, my wet hair falling around my shoulders. Cold water dripped in tiny rivers over my body, my skin pebbled with goose bumps and my feet sunk into the sandy creek bottom. I didn’t really feel like I was in any position to argue, but that never stopped me before. “You are literally always saying that to me.”
A smile broke out across his face, the same relaxed and alarming one from before. But instead of explaining anything, he just turned around and walked away. He tugged his t-shirt off and threw it along the bank, before stepping further into the waist-high creek. The current was lazy and gentle and all five boys surr
ounded their little sister so she could swim back and forth between them without getting swept down river.
“Holy shit, Reagan,” Haley whispered, sidling up beside me. She had slipped her shoes and jeans off too, leaving only her boy cut undies and a tank top and bra. “The end of the world does a body good.”
I followed her attention to Nelson, Hendrix and Vaughan and viewed their shirtless, and practically stripped except for shorts, muscular bodies above the water.
“What is this?” I hissed. “A communal bath? When did we become sister wives?”
“Don’t ask questions. Just enjoy the view.”
I snorted a laugh, but did what I was told. These boys…. There was definitely something to be said about a life full of hard work and manual labor. Even Harrison and King, not that I was checking them out because…. Ew, were all corded muscle and lean frames.
Haley and I walked further into the river, the water splashing cold waves against our bare skin. In the middle of the creek the water came up to my ribs. My breathing was fast and stuttered, thanks to the iciness of the temperature, but it really did feel good. I slipped under the water, washing out the last of the shampoo and rubbing off every last trace of blood and guts.
Surfacing again I came face to face with Vaughan, who had left the game with his sister behind. His eyes were more serious than normal and his mouth pressed into a grim line.
“You okay?” I asked, running my hands through my hair to wring it out.
“That was a close call back there,” he nodded toward the direction of the road. “Are you okay?”
I gave a reassuring smile and said, “As long as there’s nothing leftover in my hair, then yes, I’m fine. That was gross, right?”
“Gross,” he repeated with a nod. “But that’s not really what I’m talking about. That was too close, Reagan. I want to know that you’re alright in here.” He pressed his hand against my chest, right over my heart. My breathing picked up again and I leaned into the heat of his palm- he was so much warmer than the water.
“I’ll be fine, Vaughan.” I tried to sound strong, hopefully confident, but the intensity of his gaze and aura of concern had my defenses crumbling around me. “This is day-to-day stuff, right? If I’m not okay now, I never will be.”
Love and Decay (Season 1): Episodes 1-6 Page 13