by Tracey Ward
“So we’re trapped,” he says, his tone dead.
I fidget with my phone and look out over the water, squinting against the reflected sunlight on its surface.
“Looks that way,” I say quietly.
“Hell.”
I think of his family on the outside and how he may never see them again. I think of his sister who died that first day and how he never stood a chance at saving her. I think of how he burst into my apartment to save me and his insistence that he could keep me safe, and I think I understand.
“You came to help me because of what happened to your sister, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t answer right away, but he does stop rowing. His back is still to me and I can see him taking deep breathes.
“Yeah,” he answers, his voice low and gruff. “I’m not a hero. If she was alive, I probably never would have crossed that hall and come running in like that. It was stupid and reckless. I easily could have been killed too.”
“But you didn’t care.”
“No, not even a little.” He leans forward and buries his hands in his hair. “When I heard you scream, it sounded exactly like her. I thought I was going crazy. I thought it was happening again. I ran in there before I even knew what I was doing. Then I saw you and… Beth had red hair. It was nothing like yours and I knew it wasn’t her, but you still reminded me of her. She was pretty like you. Then you snapped at me, even after I saved your life and…” I hear him chuckle softly, see his shoulders shake. “That was Beth too.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. I reach out my hand and touch his back lightly, rubbing slow circles across the broad expanse of his shoulders. He’s a big, strong guy and I can’t imagine what it is to him to feel weak like this. To feel like he failed someone he was meant to protect. It’s why he’s so adamant about protecting me. I’m his redemption.
“Jordan, you don’t have to stick with me. I’m not your responsibility. You already saved me, you’ve done it several times now. I know it doesn’t make everything right, but it has to count for something.”
He turns to face me and the fact that he doesn’t even try to cover that his eyes are red with tears is meaningful to me.
“What?”
“I don’t want you to stay with me because you made me a promise or because you’re trying to make amends for something.”
“That’s not why I’m here. Not anymore.”
“Then why?”
He scoffs and looks at the sky. “Where else am I gonna go, Ali? My family is in Boston and I can’t get there. I wouldn’t even want to if I could. I haven’t called them since it happened. I can’t be the one to tell them that Beth is dead and I’m alive. How will that look?”
“It’s not your fault that—“
“So I won’t call them. Ever. As far as they know, Beth and I both died in the first wave. And that’s how I want it.” He looks at me then, his eyes bright and searching mine. “But you, I’m still trying for you. We’ll get to Corvallis. I need to get you there.”
“Why?” I whisper.
He reaches up and runs one fingertip from my temple to my chin. “Because I need to know you survived this.”
“What about you? What happens when we get to Corvallis?”
He frowns, his eyes turning sad. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I tell him earnestly. “You’ll stay. I want you to stay.”
“Why do you want me to stay?” His voice is so deep now, so throaty and meaningful.
Somewhere, this conversation shifted. The tone of it moved to something else, something beyond the hurt and sadness of the world we’re living in. He’s asking for a lot of honesty and I don’t know if I can give it. I don’t know if I have the nerve. My heart hammers in my chest and my breathing is strained. When I open my mouth to answer, nothing comes out. He has to see the fear in my eyes, has to understand what it means. His hand opens and his palm slides along my jaw, his fingers slipping slightly into my hair.
“Why, Ali?”
I close my eyes briefly, unable to hold his gaze, and when I open them again he’s closer. Much closer. His breath is on my lips and his blue eyes are all I can see. His free hand slips around to my back, pulling me closer until we’re both on our knees on the floor of the boat, our bodies no more than an inch apart.
“Ali,” he insists one last time, his voice nothing more than warm breath across my face.
“Because I want you,” I whisper back as my heart stops, waiting for his response.
Luckily, it’s immediate. He closes the distance between us, pressing his mouth gently on mine and I collapse into him. My arms reach around his neck to hold me up and he wraps both of his around my waist, pulling me against him and I’m lost in the heat of him, the scratch of the stubble on his face, the strength of the pull in his arms. Most of all, I’m aware of the uneven beat of his heart against mine and his erratic breath pushing against me, into me. For all of his certainty, all of his calm, all of the times he’s faced me with such perfect composure, this is definitely not one of them. It’s confusing because he’s hurting and holding me like I can heal him, but I don’t know if I can. I’m damaged and broken myself, I’m not equipped to make the world bright and right for anyone, but as he clings to me as though I’m the answer to everything, I sure as hell want to try.
Chapter Seventeen
Two hours later, I’m not sure I can try after all.
Two hours later, my warm, happy glow ignited by that kiss has morphed into an aching ball of dread pitted deep in the bottom of my stomach.
Two hours later, I’m convinced we’re going to die.
Oregon City is a bit of a nightmare. There are so many infected here roaming the streets and pacing the riverbank. When they see us, they stop to watch, and when our scent hits their noses, they plunge single mindedly into the water to get to us. They’re so damaged and atrophied that they can’t swim or float and we watch as they are whisked away, one after another by the current of the river. It’s creepy how they float by us, reaching and groaning, and I think of the River Styx leading into Hell.
I had been rowing when we entered the city, but Jordan immediately took over, powering us through the water to get away the second we heard the mass groans. We know they can’t reach us, but it is still unnerving being so close to so many. The twenty four arrows we have between us suddenly seems very small.
I keep watch on all 360 degrees around us, my head swiveling around like an owl, and even though I know they can’t swim, I am convinced that the second I let my guard down they will grow fins and come out to capsize us.
“What happens if we end up in shallower water?” I ask Jordan, scanning the bank and watching five or six walk straight into the current and disappear.
“We die,” he grunts out on a long pull of the oars.
“Oh.”
We cross under a bridge, I think it’s the 205 freeway, and see lines of infected walking slowly, single file between the stranded cars that pack the road. They look so orderly, so calm. They’re in no hurry. Not like the people were, I’m sure, when they were trying to leave the city. I wonder how many actually made it out and how many were meals on wheels for the descending mass of infected that sniffed them out.
“Why are there so many here?” I wonder aloud.
He looks over his shoulder at me, then behind me and hangs his head with a muttered curse. I look behind me as well and see another bridge, slightly smaller, with just as many infected and cars crammed onto it. The river under it is much narrower and I know what Jordan is thinking. The water will be shallower.
“Let me take over,” I tell him, thinking he has to be exhausted.
He shakes his head, stretches his arms and picks up the oars again. “You can’t row as fast as I can and we need speed right now.”
“Use the motor.”
“We’re saving it.”
“For what?”
He doesn’t answer me but starts
rowing again, harder this time and I’m amazed he has the energy for it. I turn full around and face forward, my bow at the ready as we enter the narrower section of the river.
There are less infected on the banks here. Most of them are up above on the bridge, doing the smart thing and crossing the water this way instead of trying to swim. I don’t believe they’re using any kind of reasoning skills, however. They’re following our path, the scent left by humanity as we ran. When they smell us passing by, though, they start doing something truly horrific. They fall from the bridge and into the water. One does it, then two and three, and before long the little lemmings are all crawling over the railing and tumbling teeth first towards us. A curtain of infected is being rained down from the bridge, right across our path.
“Jordan!” I cry, and I don’t know if it’s my voice or the sound of them all taking the plunge, but Jordan stops and turns to look.
“Oh, come on,” he moans.
The river is so much narrower here and I can see some of the infected hitting the outer banks where it’s shallow then trying to stand back up. They had to have broken something, not that they care, but a busted spine is still a busted spine. Whether you feel it or not, you can’t walk anymore. Some of them crumble, thank goodness, but some of them hit the water just right, or just wrong, depending on your perspective, and start wading toward us. The water is still deep enough that they’ll never reach us, not if we stay in the center, but it’s not the waders I’m worried about.
“What can we do?” I ask Jordan, my voice tight. I look at him and shake my head. “We don’t have a choice. We have to push through.”
He nods his head stiffly and I can tell he’s so pissed off that his safe water way is being invaded. “You’re right.”
“Now can we use the motor?”
He almost grins, I see it in a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He turns and heads for the motor, cranking it to life and seating himself farther back.
“Yes,” he responds, pulling his bat free and holding it in his spare hand. “Now we can.”
I shoulder my bow and pull free my knife, knowing that it’s time for close contact weapons. I sit all the way at the front of the boat, leaving as large a gap between Jordan and I as I can and we both face it. If anything lands in the boat, we’re both ready to beat the crap out of it or toss it overboard.
“Ready?” Jordan asks.
I take a deep breath and nod. “Ready.”
He guns the little motor and we cruise forward, not nearly as quickly as I’d like, but still faster than either of us can row, even at the height of our strength. We near the bridge and they’re still going strong, plunging head first into the water, one right after another. Jordan aims the boat a little, making small corrections, and I think he’s trying to shoot for a gap in the line, trying to make a break through where one has just recently jumped and the next on the bridge behind him is still trying to flip himself over the railing. It’s a good idea and it works, this time. But there’s still another side to this bridge and when we pass beneath it, our motor echoing off the underside and infected raining down around us on each side, we’re going blind into the next section and we’re not so lucky as before.
An infected drops right into the boat and another lands almost on top of my head, grabbing at me with impressive strength and hanging half out of the boat and half on my back. I’m arched backward with her, and she almost pulls me clear out of the boat. I hear Jordan shout something but I can’t make it out over the motor, groaning, splashing and blood rushing through my ears in panic. The one who landed in the center of the boat is going to have to be his problem because I’m suddenly doing all I can to push up over my head at this infected’s face, trying to keep her teeth off my neck. She’s gotta be relatively fresh because her skin doesn’t feel stiff and dead and her grip is way too strong, far too human.
I feel the boat jerk and veer to one side and I’m worried about Jordan and the other infected, but I can’t look up to check on them because of the dead weight pulling me backward. I hear her snarl coming closer to my ear and I remember my knife. I dropped it when she grabbed me, more concerned with staying in the boat and keeping her teeth away than anything else, but now I risk removing my fingers from her eye socket where I’d been pushing against her and I reach down to find it. She starts to climb farther into the boat, farther up onto me and I reach around wildly. My fingers hit the blade and I grasp it tight, the sharp edges slicing into my fingers, and bring it around. I spin it in my hand as fast as I can, pivot my body and kick out with my feet, hoping I hit the other infected and not Jordan. I make contact with something solid and moving, push off of it, shoving her back, and bring my knife down into her face. It slices into her open mouth, through her tongue and out the soft tissue below. I had wanted to hit her in the eye, go into the brain, but I didn’t have the angle for it and now I’ve embedded my blade through her face and into the raft.
It’s a small victory that I’ve escaped the jaws of this infected because she may not have killed me, but when Jordan finds out I’ve effectively sunken our boat, he most certainly will.
I leap up off my back, never taking my eyes off her, and reach around to my quiver. Pulling an arrow free, I ignore my bow and use my hand to ram the tip into the tender spot of her temple. It goes in easy, my blood making it slick and my palm sliding down the shaft until I’m almost touching her head, and she goes limp. I jerk my hand away and quickly shove it in the river, hoping none of her blood from her skull mixed with mine on the cut on my hand.
“Are you okay?” I hear Jordan ask over my shoulder. “Did she bite you?”
“No,” I say quickly, pulling my hand from the water. The cut begins to bleed again immediately, but it’s not deep. “It’s from my knife. I had to grab it by the blade.”
He sighs heavily with relief and when I turn to look at him, he’s scrubbing his hand over his face. I notice that we’re minus the second infected and ask him what happened.
“You did, actually,” he says with a grin. “I was trying to keep us moving, keep us away from the shore, and it stood up to lunge at me. I used my bat and one arm to keep him away while I steered, but I didn’t want to push him too far back and onto you. He was just slipping past my bat and coming for me when you kicked him from behind, sent him flying over me and out the back of the boat.”
I grin as well, hugging my hand to my chest. “Happy to help.”
“Nice hood ornament, by the way,” he says gesturing toward the girl. She’s dangling almost entirely out of the boat now, her body held in place by my knife protruding from her lower jaw and my arrow still stuck in her skull. “Is your knife…?”
“Yeah,” I answer glumly, and wince at him. “Sorry.”
“We’re both alive, Ali. Nothing to be sorry for.”
“You say that now,” I mutter, thinking of the time we’ll now be forced to spend on land surrounded by the infected. “Why do you think there are so many here? There are way more than we saw just a little north in Lake Oswego.”
Jordan frowns, thinking. “I don’t know. Maybe because this is the last populated area for a while. People ran south, some north and it’s probably like this up that way too. They’re following us. This is the last big city south of Portland. You get into farm land for quite a ways after this so they’ve probably been milking the last of humanity out of this place. Plus there’s I-5 not far from here and the 205 cutting through and heading straight for it. This is definitely where a lot of people tried to flee. Probably on foot and in cars.”
“So whatever path we take, they’re going to follow?”
“Whatever path the masses take,” Jordan corrects me.
“Let’s not take that path.”
He grins. “What a great idea.”
“Bet you wish you’d thought of it,” I say smiling.
“You gonna start taking credit for the boat, too?”
“Nah, keep it,” I say, looking at my knife. “It’s busted now any
way.”
“Yeah, about that.”
I hear a sound, a rushing in the distance and I’m distracted from whatever he was going to say. I look at our surroundings and feel panic setting in. There are industrial buildings all around us and the river has narrowed down considerably. It’s also much shallower. I can see river rocks in the water near us and the water is foaming slightly on the surface. I see and hear infected on the banks and roaming the catwalks of the buildings flanking us, but the part that really worries me is the rush of water ahead of us, cascading down and sending spray into the air.
“It’s a waterfall,” I say in surprise, and then frown. “No, wait, it’s a dam.”
Walls of buildings and infected rise around us and ahead of us stone and foaming water block our path. In the swirling cauldron we’ve entered, our scent has risen to the catwalks and the infected are onto us, slowly making a path down to the water.
I look at Jordan and I know he sees it too; the walls collapsing in on us. Our eyes meet and his face is grim.
“It’s a dead end,” he says.
Chapter Eighteen
“Cut the engine,” I tell Jordan, glancing around at the terrain.
To our left is our only chance. There are buildings with a maze of ladders and catwalks, all crawling with infected to our right. In front of us are the falls, water spilling over the dam and down the natural rock surface that looks too steep to climb. Even if we did climb it, we’d have to fight the current and swim out which would exhaust us and soak our packs, assuming we made it. Behind us is an ever growing crowd of infected more than happy to toss themselves off bridges to get to us. It won’t take them long to reach the shallow waters we now find ourselves in, even with their labored gait. No, the left is our only shot. There are angled rock walls here that lead gradually up to the dry land, and eventually to the shoulder of the road running parallel to the river. Of course, there are infected there as well, the lucky ones that have already crossed the bridge and are happily following the lingering scent of the living to the next town. Or down into this basin where we wait so patiently.