Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “There’s no maybe about it. I lost an arrow back there, I only have five left and I don’t know how to make them.”

  “You don’t know how to make them?” he asks, his voice surprised. “I thought you loved shooting, how do you not know how to make an arrow?”

  “You like boats,” I point out. “Make me a boat. One that doesn’t take on any water, one that we can trust to function just as well as this one here.”

  “Okay, I get your point. So we need arrows.”

  “Yes. If we go to a pro shop I can probably find a book there that can show me how to make arrows. We can get you a bow too. I’ll teach you how to shoot it. And if we’re both going to start firing them, some of us with more accuracy than others, then knowing how to make arrows will come in handy.”

  Jordan grimaces. “A pro shop? That’s the first place a lot of people are going to go to loot.”

  “Then they probably already did it and it will be deserted. Or people will be hiding there, staying near the gear.”

  “All the more reason to not go there.”

  “We need to go.”

  “Tomorrow,” he says firmly. “Let’s give it one more day. Please? It feels too soon and I want to get farther south before we stop.”

  I stare him down and let my displeasure show but he doesn’t flinch.

  “Fine,” I say grudgingly.

  “Thank you. Now get of my way, I need to warm up and we’re losing ground drifting like this.”

  The trading of places is awkward and ends up with us hugging each other in the center of the boat and then pivoting until we’ve switched spots. He is freezing cold and the water that seeps out of his shirt into mine gives me the shivers. It took us four hours to make it a little under six miles, so I’m glad it looks like he’s gotten a second wind and starts rowing vigorously. The current isn’t terribly strong, thank goodness, and we make decent time. Less decent when I’m at the oars. I don’t have half his upper body strength and it shows when it’s my turn to drive.

  We’re well out of downtown Portland and I can tell Jordan is relaxing a little. We’re still in a really populated area, though I can’t tell exactly what part of the city or if we’ve moved into a new one yet. I do notice that the wind is getting colder, the sky darker and rain is definitely on its way. I point it out to Jordan who stops rowing and frowns.

  “Great,” he mutters. He’s dried off now, at least most of him. I imagine his jeans are still uncomfortably damp and getting drenched again cannot sound fun.

  “We should stop for the night.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About 4pm,” I tell him, and I know the answer the second I say it.

  “No way, too much daylight left. We should keep going,” he says reaching for the oars.

  I reach out and touch his shoulder. “Wait. Hear me out. It’s going to rain soon and our bags aren’t waterproof. The first aid stuff could get soaked. Also, you said we could loot tomorrow and there’s a Hank’s Sporting Goods in Lake Oswego. We’ve gotta be close to there, right?”

  He nods grudgingly but keeps his back to me. “I think so, yeah.”

  “Then we should stop there. We’ll get someplace warm and safe and wait out the night then hit the store early.”

  “Alright,” he says on a sigh. “We’ll stop in Lake Oswego. But we’re not staying in a house.”

  “Jordan,” I begin, trying to sound reasonable and not whiny but I don’t think I succeed.

  “You can if you want, I won’t stop you,” he interrupts, “but I’m not going into a populated area and opening myself up to being surrounded. Besides, it’s not even just zombies you have to worry about now. People will be crazy and desperate. If you try to bust into a house where people are hiding, they might have guns and most will shoot anything that comes through their door. It’s what I’d do.”

  He’s right. Last night in the apartment if anything had come through my bedroom door I would have at least put an arrow in its leg without blinking, and even if that’s the worst injury I receive, it’s still one we can’t afford.

  “Fine,” I concede. “But a roof over our heads at least, right?”

  He starts rowing again, this time more languidly. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Once we reach Lake Oswego, we hide our small boat in some brush on the shore and head cautiously inland. Jordan is nervous because we’ve seen people lately, people who look like us with packs on their back and fear in their eyes as they walk across bridges or down abandoned streets running along the river. They’re heading out of town I assume. Toward the interstate. I know that the Hank’s is near I-5, which is exactly where Jordan doesn’t want to be, exactly where all these people are going, and I feel bad about forcing him out of his comfort zone like this. He needs more protection than that bat, though, so this trip isn’t all about me. At this point I’m thinking a gun, despite its many potential failures and obvious downside of going BANG! really loudly and alerting the infected of your position. It’s still a better solution for him than the bat if he gets surrounded. Also good if we’re still alone when my meds run out and I’m a viable threat. I’m starting to wonder if I can get him hooked up with someone else before that happens. Maybe a group he’d be safer in.

  We make our way through the streets beside the lake and the neighborhood is decidedly wealthy. Mini mansions and quite a few real mansions span the shoreline. Then there are some mansions that I thought were mini mansions but turn out to be guest houses down by the water and up behind them are the super ultra-mega mansions. I’m convinced this entire city is run by drug cartels and I’m not even 100% sure what a drug cartel is exactly, but I know they make bank and the people living along the shores of Lake Oswego are definitely doing that.

  “I’m not even in the same tax bracket as that guy’s gardener,” I say, pointing at a jaw dropping four story home.

  “You are now,” Jordan says as he absently swings his bat in his hands.

  He’s fairly calm suddenly, especially considering we’re out in the open and could be attacked at any moment. We’re waiting to find a car to steal or borrow, whatever you want to call it now, but these people did not appear to flee. Maybe they were chauffeured out, possibly by helicopter. I’m guessing, though, that they are locked up tight in their fortresses of solitude burning Benjamins to stay warm.

  I’m worried I might be a little prejudice against the wealthy.

  “Look at that one! I bet they have a bathroom for every bedroom and a few more just for the hell of it.”

  “Heads up,” Jordan says quietly. “Incoming.”

  Ahead of us there are two shamblers coming up from a side street. It’s two women, both in fancy running gear, and I imagine they were taken by surprise on an evening run yesterday because they are not fresh at all.

  “I’ve got the one on the left,” Jordan says bringing his bat high. He catches my eye and smirks. “Or is it stage right?”

  “Shut up,” I chuckle. “I’ve got the one on the right. My right and yours. See how they’re the same?”

  “You think you can hit the temple this time?”

  “I’d have to swing around to the side.” I glance at him quickly, uncertain. “It’ll leave you wide open.”

  “That’s alright. I got this. Just don’t shoot me.”

  “No promises.”

  We split up, swinging around the pair, and I have to force myself to ignore Jordan in my peripheral and assume he’s okay. If I’m going to hit this chick’s temple, I need to focus. I quickly run alongside them and freak out a little because they both focus in on Jordan since he’s moving closer to them. Taking a deep breath I line up my shot, breath out slowly and release.

  I’m off. I strike her in the head, and if she were human it would have hurt like the devil, but for an infected it’s just annoying. She doesn’t even look away from Jordan who raises his bat and takes a swing that cracks against the other woman’s head. She goes down but still groans and writhes. Thei
r attention is focused on Jordan and the one I beaned in the head with my arrow doesn’t see me coming. I’m nervous about how close she is to him, so I swing my bow over my shoulder, unhook my wide hunting blade and stab it home, directly where I aimed my arrow. I don’t miss this time. As she drops to the ground, I yank the knife back and bring it out of her skull with a sickening grinding sound that had to be skull on blade.

  As Jordan takes a couple more kill swings down onto the other woman’s head, I wipe my blade off and put it back in its home on my thigh. When he’s done, Jordan spins his bat around his hand in a way that tells me he’s handled one for years, probably played baseball all through high school, and it’s a little hot. The only thing holding it back is the brain matter that flies off it and sprays in an arc through the air. That’s a little disgusting.

  Jordan leans down and retrieves my arrow from the pavement where it landed after harmlessly bouncing off the woman’s thick skull.

  “Couldn’t get a good shot?”

  “I was nervous about them converging on you,” I admit. “I rushed it.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “So can I, but you worry about me.”

  He’s silent for a long time as we walk up the street, a little more alert now, but finally he says quietly, “I know you can, Alissa.”

  The plan for the moment is to find a place near the water but on the far western side of the lake, closest to I-5 and the sporting goods store. We’ll stay the night there and hit the store early in the morning then hopefully be back at the boat by early afternoon. That’s the preferred, perfect plan. What’s not in the plan, however, is where exactly we’re staying for the night.

  “You know what’s in the bathrooms in that house?” I ask Jordan, pointing wildly to an entire bank full of huge homes.

  “Cocaine?”

  “A shower. Still equipped with warm, running water,” I say longingly.

  I refuse to let up about the house ban. It’s too much, in my humble opinion, but I didn’t see Dawn of the Dead so what do I know? “Don’t you wish you could have a warm shower, Jordan? I do. We could go in just for that. I’ll stand guard for you, you stand guard for me.”

  He chuckles, but still refuses to look at the houses. “I scrub your back, you scrub mine?”

  “If it means I can take a hot shower, you can scrub anything of mine you want.” I stop walking, a furious blush exploding on my already sun pinked cheeks. My hand goes over my mouth and I stare at him wide eyed. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah,” he says smiling, enjoying my discomfort. “Wow.”

  “I feel like I went too far.”

  “I don’t know, I’m kind of warming up to the whole four walls of a house idea.”

  “The world has been over for barely a day and I’m already selling my body.”

  He bumps my shoulder with his. “Hey, we work with what we’ve got and you have a lot of currency.”

  I frown, confused, and look sideways at him. “What does that even mean?”

  He’s frowning too, his face as confused as mine. “I don’t really know.”

  “What was it supposed to mean? ‘Cause it sounds like you’re saying I have a lot of body to sell. Did you call me fat? A fat prostitute?”

  “Okay, yeah. It absolutely did not come out the way it was meant to.”

  I wait for him to tell me what it was supposed to mean but he keeps walking silently. I want to let it go but I can’t.

  “What was it sup—“

  “It meant you’re beautiful,” he blurts out, interrupting me.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We walk in silence for a long time, several blocks of shower and cocaine sheltering houses passing by.

  “Hey, Jordan.”

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitate, but then smile up at him as the first fat drops of rain begin to fall on us.

  “You’re quite a chubby whore yourself.”

  Chapter Ten

  It’s not a bad compromise. There is a roof as I requested. There is not, however, a shower. There are four walls as Jordan explicitly said he did not want but there is also no floor, not really, so it all evens out. The boathouse is also bigger than my apartment. It’s honestly a two boat garage and both spots are taken by gleaming, glorious speed boats that make me ache for summer time. I wonder if I’ll BBQ on a dock again. Maybe I’ll never again watch fireworks over a lake like this on the 4th of July. Was that really my last candy bar? Probably not, I have more in my bag, but it’s still depressing. There are so many questions that are unanswerable right now. I wonder how much of our society will break down and disappear. What pieces will we cling to and what will be cast aside immediately in order to save our own skins? Are we already at the every man for himself level or is human decency and a sense of community still holding strong? Jordan’s plan is good and it’s kept us safe and alive, but I wonder what’s been happening in these buildings, in these streets, as we’ve been alone on the river.

  I use my phone to look up the news, but it’s the same as before. They don’t mention The Fever spreading and I haven’t heard from my uncle, so I assume it’s still contained to Portland and Vancouver.

  We end up sleeping stretched out on sun chairs using beach towels as blankets, listening to the sound of the rain on the roof. It should be soothing but it’s a little off putting because it drowns out any other sounds from outside. Sounds of groaning or shuffling. I sleep fitfully seeing as I’m cold and a little freaked out. Several times when I open my eyes to roll over or check to make sure there’s not an undead standing over me drooling, I see Jordan wide awake. I wonder if he slept at all. I ask him as much in the morning as we’re eating breakfast and he shrugs the question off.

  “I slept enough,” he says evasively.

  I frown at him but don’t push. I feel bad for the four walls I forced on him but I can’t imagine we’d have felt any safer being out in the open in the woods.

  “Want to share my apple?” I ask brightly, changing the subject. “It’s the last one…”

  “Sure,” he says with a smile that plummets into a grimace when I pull out my knife. “But not if you’re going to cut it with that.”

  “Why wouldn’t I use my—Oh my God, that’s right!” I cry sheathing the knife quickly. “Sorry. We’ll pass it back and forth taking bites?”

  Jordan is eyeing the apple like its already contaminated, but he nods. We strike out into the wet, gray morning leaving our packs behind. We have nothing but our weapons with us for easier, faster travel and also because we have no idea what we’ll encounter along the way. If we come across other looters, we don’t want to run the risk of them cleaning us out at gunpoint. Leaving our packs made me nervous seeing as the last of my dwindling drugs are in there, but when Jordan stepped outside to empty his bladder, I pocketed what I have left and popped one in my mouth. I have two left, just two, and it scares me more than the infected.

  It’s a long walk into town but we do it quietly and quickly. We see quite a few infected as we go but we don’t engage them unless they are in our path, and even then Jordan asks me to take them down silently if I can. I’m getting better at the eye socket shot, discerning the cadence of their gait and adjusting accordingly. It’s good practice and I even stop a few times to show Jordan how it’s done. I offer to let him shoot but he declines, afraid he’ll lose one of our precious few arrows.

  When we’re nearly to the sporting goods store, when we can see it in the distance across the parking lot, we hear it. The mass shuffling and groaning of a horde. They’re close; just across the parking lot near the Safeway at the end of the shopping center, and my mutinous brain latches on to the fact that Safeway would have a pharmacy that could have my meds.

  “Hey,” Jordan whispers low and touches my arm. “You ready? We’ll have to run.”

  I stare into his blue, blue e
yes, so bright and earnest, and I almost tell him. I almost tell him to run from me because I have so much baggage I will weigh us both down six feet into the ground if he doesn’t get away. I’m thinking about abandoning him right now and running like crazy for that pharmacy on the off chance I will find one pill that will give me one more day. Just one. I’ve been so scared of these new things like the dead rising and a guy seeing me, really seeing me, that I’m forgetting the most terrifying thing in the entire world is actually me. My mind and the lies it tells, and the thought of leaving this insanity for that one is crushing down upon me. I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to leave here. This reality is deadly and dangerous but it is a paradise compared to what awaits me on the other side. What awaits me if I don’t walk away from those blue, blue eyes right now.

  “Ali,” he says, sensing my hesitation. His hand moves from my arm to my shoulder and he squeezes it gently. “Are you alright? We don’t have to do this.”

  I blink hard.

  “Yes we do.”

  I take off at a dead run, my bow cast over my shoulder where Jordan’s hand had held me. I hear him fall in behind me, and there’s the pounding of our feet on the pavement, the rush of blood and wind in my ears and it’s all I can hear. I don’t hear the infected, I don’t see them in my peripheral. I’m running hard, as though I’m trying to hurt myself. Punish myself. Get the hell away from myself, though I’ll never outrun this.

  Two pills left.

  Two…pills left.

  Two… pills… left.

  I make it to the door and slam against it hard, not even bothering to slow myself down, and it hurts and it’s good. I need to wake up and focus or I may as well just shoot Jordan now and get it over with. He comes up behind me but slows himself down like a normal person does and huffs and puffs.

  “You’re fast,” he breathes.

  I shake my head and want to tell him that normally, no, I’m not. I hurt from running so hard and my breath is burning in my lungs, but I keep quiet because there’s no explaining what’s wrong with me right now.