Love and Decay, Boy Meets Girl

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Sure thing, boss,” Haley walked by, tapping Vaughan on the shoulder. She moved on to King and Harrison and asked about their accommodations for the night. Both boys were completely dumbstruck by a pretty girl talking to them and I needed to remember this so I could use it later to torture them with.

  I glanced back at Reagan while she talked with Vaughan and realized I didn’t have any room to judge. This girl had done something to me. From the moment I saw her picking through socks, I couldn’t shake the effect she had on me.

  And I didn’t think I wanted to.

  So the best thing to do would be to avoid her until she left.

  I didn’t like all these…. feelings. I wasn’t used to them and they didn’t belong in my world or in my body. I didn’t have room in my life for any other people- especially too-skinny girls, with too big eyes.

  So I avoided her for as long as I could.

  Well, it was kind of easy. The two of them got busy with their packs and took their time in the bathroom. When they emerged after a while, they had clean hair that hung in long, wet strands around their shoulders and made the entire floor smell like girly soap and water. Or maybe I was imaging the fresh, floral smell taking over our entire space.

  No I wasn’t.

  All of my brothers had tuned into the girls. Part of it was because they were girls, that had been in the bathroom together, getting clean. I mean, come on, even I wasn’t above playing out that fantasy.

  On top of that, they were pretty girls. They would have peeked our interest no matter the circumstances.

  But they were also different. We’d been staring at each other for way too long. They brought a new aspect of life with them, turning us inside out and reminding us of every single thing we gave up when Zombies took over the world.

  They were fresh air, light in our dark world, they were the change that would save us from the slow death of monotony.

  But they would be gone in only a few short hours.

  Something inside me rejected that idea- overruled the notion with a strong riptide of angry emotion. I was just starting to feel awake again- alive again- and all they’d done was arrive.

  How could I give that up?

  How could I give her up to the elements of this world that would fight tooth and nail to destroy her in one way or the other?

  The answer: I couldn’t.

  But how to activate my plan….

  I looked up to realize I was pacing, wearing a track in the cold tile beneath my feet. I felt like a caged tiger, hot with energy and unfamiliar emotion. My neck prickled with the urge to act, my hands and feet felt restless with uncertainty. And my attention… my attention pulled constantly in her direction.

  Our gazes clashed together when my eyes obediently followed the desire I had been desperately trying to ignore. She had been talking with her friend, eating the peanut butter we all hated and kept only in case of emergency. She seemed a hundred years younger all clean and fresh. Her hair was the kind of hair that would wrap around me, get tangled in my hands, curtain us in if she were to….

  She tore her gaze away and looked down, a bright blush painting her cheeks that I could see from all the way over here.

  I had to talk to her again.

  I had to just be near her.

  My opportunity came when Page walked over to them. I probably should have intercepted my sister- we didn’t want her to grow attached to people that would only be leaving. But honestly I wanted my sister’s opinion. Page was wise well beyond her years and saw things in people we didn’t always catch.

  I wanted to see if Page approved.

  Because if she didn’t, I could end this weird infatuation. I could walk away.

  But it didn’t seem like that would be necessary. Page’s face lit up the minute she started talking with them and all of the girls started laughing and teasing each other.

  Something clicked together in my chest and I had the distinct feeling that this was what was supposed to be happening right now. I had thought to test them with Page, but in some deep part of me I always knew Page would like them. And that they would like Page.

  Now I had my chance to go over there. I moved quickly, prowling across the space between us like that same captivated tiger.

  “Hey, Page,” I said slowly, using my leadership and relationship to my little sister to enter their secret girl circle. Was that wrong of me? Probably. I didn’t care. “Making some friends?”

  “Hendrix,” Page looked up at me with those adult blue eyes that seemed so out of place on her angelic little face. “They have manners.”

  I almost choked on my laughter and then on something else when Reagan winked at me. Damn it all, she was so sexy. I shifted uncomfortably as a thousand sinful thoughts flashed in my head.

  I was a tiger. I was the predator.

  And she had no idea.

  “I think Page has given up on the male species as a whole,” Reagan explained. “As it turns out boys everywhere aren’t able to remember their manners.”

  I felt a little embarrassed by this. It was true, my brothers and I had fallen into a kind of barbaric rhythm without the supervision of our parents or other women. But we couldn’t be that bad. “We just tease her,” I mumbled.

  “And the male species is lost as a whole,” her friend put in- unhelpfully. “Probably best not to get her hopes up.”

  There was something I should say to that, although I couldn’t think of what exactly without coming off like a creepy stalker.

  Vaughan cut in before I could salvage the situation anyway, “Is that why you two are traveling alone?”

  The rest of my brothers joined us as soon as Vaughan was part of the crowd. Apparently they’d been as impatient as me. I didn’t blame them… but damn, they were obnoxious.

  “Who’s left to travel with?” Haley growled. “Everyone we know is dead.”

  “Except us,” Reagan added with some conviction- like she needed to remind herself.

  “Except us,” Haley whispered.

  That pain in my chest was back and I knew I wouldn’t let these girls leave in the morning. This, right here. I needed to keep them safe. Possibly, I had a hero-complex. Or possibly, Reagan had shown up and unearthed some great piece of humanity that had been missing in me since humanity went missing. They had survived this long, but it didn’t mean they would continue to survive. They were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and I knew exactly how heavy that burden was. I would do anything to hold it for them, to give them a little more room to breathe.

  “How did you girls survive? How have you survived this long?” Nelson asked. I wondered if his thoughts went in the exact same direction as mine.

  “We got kind of lucky. Everything fell apart for us in three days. When Reagan’s boyfriend tried to eat her we decided it was time to skip town and head south.”

  Reagan’s boyfriend tried to eat her?

  Too much anger- too late- burned inside my blood, hot like lava and more dangerous than was acceptable.

  “Where are you from?” Vaughan asked.

  “Iowa,” Haley answered.

  But that was not the question or answer I wanted to hear.

  “What do you mean your boyfriend tried to eat you?” I demanded.

  Reagan looked up at me with lost, helpless eyes and then explained, “In two days, we’d both lost our parents. We hadn’t really taken the Zombie threat seriously until then. I mean, honestly, who could have known Zombies turned out to be real; they were supposed to just be this thing in movies. Our parents got off easy. They were in a town assembly, with most of the other adults, trying to figure out what to make of the military and news reports and the assembly was attacked. Some were turned into Feeders, but a lot of them were just slaughtered. Our parents were the lucky ones.” She paused and we all took in the meaning of that admission. She meant they died- on the spot. A quick death was by far the better way to go in this world. It was definitely the way I hoped my parents went. “We
thought about sticking around, making a haven of the place we’d lived our whole lives, but when Chris came over to stay with me….”

  She trailed off as the name “Chris” traveled like acid through my veins. What was with this outdated jealousy? Obviously she’d made it out just fine.

  Still.

  Haley continued for Reagan, where she’d left off, “He tried to gobble her up. So she stabbed him in the face with a butcher knife and then practiced parallel parking on his body until his head wasn’t attached to his neck anymore.”

  Holy shit!

  No wonder these girls had survived this long. They could do what it took to survive. That was the hardest part- putting your humanity aside and finding a way to commit unspeakable acts of violence.

  “Impressive,” my older brother whistled.

  Reagan bristled a little, uncomfortable with the compliment. “Necessary,” she said instead.

  “Definitely,” I assured her.

  “And then you guys just booked it?” Nelson asked.

  “First we confirmed that neither of us had added brains to our daily food pyramid and then we packed up the still bloody Escalade and drove it till there wasn’t any gas left,” Reagan answered.

  Haley added, “Which wasn’t very long. We’d only had a half tank to begin with and by the time we needed to fill up, the gas stations were war zones. We ditched the car and started walking.”

  “Smart of you not to risk gas,” Vaughan sounded impressed.

  And I had to admit, I was impressed too. Gas stations were some of the most dangerous places when the outbreak first happened. Man killing man, insane Zombie playgrounds in which people didn’t stand a chance, and then the wild animals after the carnage.

  “What’s your ultimate plan?” I asked, mentally daring Reagan to look at me again. She did.

  “We’re going south,” her friend said, but I didn’t take my eyes off Reagan.

  “South where?” This didn’t make sense. After everything I’d learned about Reagan in this short amount of time, this was the first truly irresponsible thing she’d said.

  She cleared her throat and gave Haley a desperate look. However, when her eyes met mine again, they were steely, confident and full of conviction. “South America, compadre. Or what used to be that general vicinity.”

  No. Nope. Not a chance in hell was this girl going down there.

  At least not alone.

  No wait, now I was completely crazy.

  “You can’t be serious,” Vaughan said. We shared some more nonverbal communication and I realized these girls had started to grow on him too. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  “Dead,” Haley smiled innocently at him. “Serious that is.”

  “Why in the hell would you want to go down there?” Nelson demanded.

  “Language,” Page reminded him.

  “Sorry, Pagey,” Nelson apologized quickly and then snapped his attention back to Haley. “Why in the world would you head south? You have to have heard about the drug cartel? The slaving? The armies of Zombies?”

  My thoughts exactly.

  I expected some great explanation, but Reagan just lifted her shoulder and said, “Sure, we’ve heard of those things.”

  I couldn’t hold back, “And you’re still going there?” Anger built like a volcano inside me. I refused to let these girls make such a huge, costly mistake. They would die down there. They’d barely made it out of southern Missouri. Things only heated up from here. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Or maybe they did and they were just foolish enough to believe they were better than legions of Zombies and men who decided human life meant little more than the Feeders that hunted them. “What’s down there that would make you willing to face Zombies in hordes, or worse, ex-cartel that would enslave you and make you entertain whole encampments of men?” My hands had started to shake at my sides from the frustrated feeling of helplessness and I hated it. I flexed and clenched them trying to get my emotions under control. But Pandora’s Box had been opened and I had been completely reawakened with Reagan’s entrance in my life- a corpse resuscitated, a soul revived, a future reimagined.

  “It’s the mountains,” Reagan whispered as if it cost her something.

  I pulled all those intense, consuming emotions back, regained some mental stability and tried really hard to look at this from her perspective. She had been on the run since her parents died- probably hadn’t even taken the time to grieve for them or her dead boyfriend. Her life had gone from completely normal and probably a little spoiled to upheaval and constant danger. She didn’t have a home anymore, a permanent place to stay or anything but the pack on her back and her friend at her side. And both of those things could be taken from her at any given moment. She wasn’t suicidal… she was purposeless, lost, alone. She needed someone to give her something to work for. She felt out of control and needed a way to grapple back some of the stability she’d lost the moment Feeders entered the world.

  “We have mountains here,” I reminded her, testing her. I hoped that would persuade her away from the worst place she could possibly go.

  “My dad’s cousin lives, or um, lived down there. As far as I know, she’s still alive. Anyway, she was this missionary. She had an orphanage in the Andes Mountains. When things started to get bad, she begged my dad to move us down there. She said it was safer than Iowa. She was protected by the mountains, there were very few people up there and she knew of this ancient Mayan city that had walls. She said we’d be able to protect ourselves, rebuild society,” Reagan explained with that same confident voice.

  “Yeah, and when’s the last time you talked to her?” I pressed, feeling the anger rise again. Why couldn’t she see this plan was just completely bat shit?

  She didn’t miss a beat, “Right before my parents died. The phones were still working and my parents were considering it. They thought they would see how the assembly went, what other news was being floated around and then we would either stay or buy a plane ticket.”

  The length of time that had passed didn’t seem to faze her at all. This girl was an enigma- a surprising dichotomy of careful, world-wise cynicism and naïve hope and sweet belief. And there was something in that, something magnetic and irresistible.

  While I struggled with something helpful to say, my little sister caught a different point to the story than the rest of us. “Your parents died early,” she whispered. She looked at Reagan with a swelling compassion that kicked me in the chest. Even Page could see how hurt and broken Reagan and Haley were. I could probably give them and their crazy plan a break.

  Maybe.

  As long as they agreed to give it up before tomorrow morning.

  “You’ll never make it through Mexico,” I warned her.

  And I was right about her indomitable will because the next thing she said was, “We’ve made it this far.”

  I couldn’t indulge this fantasy anymore, “By pure luck and our generosity.”

  She snorted and shot me a patronizing glare, “Hardly. We would have made it out just fine. In case you didn’t notice, Haley swept up down there.”

  “Yeah, fine,” I conceded. “But now her gun is empty. And how much ammo do you have left, Reagan? You hadn’t even drawn your weapon when you came flying through that door. I bet you have less than a handful of bullets left. I bet you’re on the last of everything.”

  “That’s not entirely true. I’ve got plenty of makeup.”

  God, she was such a smartass. And it was kind of turning me on.

  “My point exactly.” I was right. She needed to admit that I was right.

  “Ok, great plan-maker, what’s your long term goal? You can’t stay here forever. Eventually you, too, will run out of supplies, water and food. Then, what?” She vibrated with anger and tension. Her cheeks blushed with frustration and her perfect lips pouted adorably at me.

  I wanted to keep her mad- keep her like this. And then kiss her until she turned all that passion and ener
gy on me.

  I really needed to get my life together. What was going on with me? It had to be the two years of celibacy. It had to be.

  And that smart mouth.

  “We’re heading north,” Vaughan answered when I couldn’t. “Nova Scotia, or anywhere isolated in the Canadian provinces.”

  Nelson explained further only it sounded like he might be trying to sell it to them. “No slavers up north and not as many people-turned-Zombies to run into. We’re going through the Dakotas, taking our time so that we can stay strong, well-fed.”

  “Racing your way anywhere, so that you’re starving and unarmed is foolish.” Ok, probably that was low even for me, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Going the pace of a snail, so that all that glorious land you were gunning for, is occupied and settled, is just as foolish,” she countered.

  “It’s not the California Gold Rush, Reagan. You’re playing with your lives when you expose yourself like this. You’re obviously starved and undersupplied. What would have happened to you if we wouldn’t have found you digging through the women’s clothing? Where would you have slept tonight?” I demanded. And I was honestly curious. They had survived this long, I could admire them for that. But they were playing with fire. They were risking their lives every moment they chose to live this vagabond existence. It was fine for them before. But now they had me. They had us.