Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  Snickers and I are eating frozen waffles when Jordan comes down the stairs freshly showered and hungry. I heat some up for him as well as he goes to get our clothes from the dryer where he left them last night. I take Snickers to the bathroom and get us both dressed while Jordan changes and eats his breakfast. When we’re all set, packs and weapons strapped on and Snickers clutching my left hand, we survey the situation outside.

  “How many are there?” I ask Jordan nervously as he looks out the second story guest bedroom window.

  “A lot,” he tells me honestly, his voice distracted. “And they’re at both doors, front and back. I checked.”

  “What about the garage? Can we get out that way? Take one of the cars? Run them over?” I say jokingly, feeling desperate.

  Jordan stops and stares at me for a moment, his face blank. I think he’s going to preach to me about what a terrible idea that is and how the zombie handbook says never do it, but he eventually shrugs.

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Seriously? I was kidding.”

  “Why not? It’s a better option than trying to fight our way out. Even if you had both hands free,” he says, gesturing to the kung fu grip Snickers has on me at all times. “We couldn’t take down enough of them to get clear of the house.”

  “Are they near the garage doors?”

  Jordan looks out the window again, straining to see along the side of the house.

  “Can’t tell,” he mutters. “I can’t see that far left. Either way, if we’re inside a car, we’ve got a better shot than anything else.”

  We run down to the garage and check the vehicle situation. It’s not ideal. If we had our truck we’d be better off, but these are eco-friendly people it appears and the best we’ve got are a couple of compacts and one is a hybrid. Jordan searches for keys and finds some in a box on the wall. He unlocks the hybrid, probably thinking of our pickup that ran out of gas shy of the mark, and I shove Snickers inside. She’s not happy about it and she fights me for a bit, but I sing to her softly and gently strap a seatbelt around her. She tries to keep hold of my hand, but I look her in the eyes, smile and keep singing as I pull my hand away.

  “Do you take requests?” Jordan asks as I slide into the seat beside him.

  “Shut up.”

  He starts the car and looks at me seriously. “Are you ready?”

  “As I can be.”

  When he hits the button to open the garage door and light starts leaking into the dark space, my heart is in my throat. He’s watching it rise in the rearview, the car already in reverse and ready to go as soon as we can clear the door, and I’m turned in my seat starting out the back window. I catch Snickers watching me and I force myself to smile at her briefly. I hope I don’t look like I’m about to fall apart, ‘cause I kind of am.

  Jordan hits the gas, tearing out of the garage and swinging us around to face forward in the driveway. There in the morning light ahead of us are the infected, a swarm that grew overnight to thirty at the very least. Most are at the front door, but some must have sniffed us out as we were in the garage or heard the door opening and had enough sense to understand what that meant because ten or so are converging on the car immediately. Jordan hits the gas and the little car’s tires skid on the pavement, sending up a small plume of rubbery smoke behind us. We catch traction and rocket forward, smacking straight into an infected that bounces off the hood of the car and rolls to the left. Another couple try to step in front of us but Jordan veers away from them, trying not to hit them if he can help it, and I’m wondering why it matters.

  As Jordan tries to navigate us out of the mess, hell is breaking loose in the backseat. Snickers, upon seeing the infected, is freaking the hell out. She’s unhooked her seatbelt and is clawing around in the back seat, trying to get away from what surrounds her. Before I can unhook my belt to climb back and stop her, she’s grasped the door handle and is pushing the passenger door on Jordan’s side open. I scream for her as she tumbles out of the car, knocking my bag out onto the ground with her.

  “Jordan, stop!” I shout, unhooking myself and already opening my own door.

  I tuck and roll as best I can, and luckily we’re not going that fast. I hit my knees and pull an arrow out, notching it as I rise and look frantically for Snickers. She’s on the ground, screaming and being surrounded by infected. I start toward her but I take aim as I do and I drop the closest one to her. I’m pulling my next arrow when I notice Jordan emerging from the now parked car, his bat in hand. I make a mental note to not shoot him on accident.

  Jordan reaches her first and takes a couple swings at an infected closing in on her. I hang back to keep him clear, give him some room to reach for her, and I put an arrow in the skull of another one near them just as Jordan is reaching for Snickers. He’s trying to pull her away with him, but what he doesn’t know is that his escape route is already disappearing. The infected are encircling them, and I don’t have the arrows and he doesn’t have the upper body strength to stop them all. What also doesn’t help matters is that Snickers is fighting him. She’s gone dead weight and is screaming and crying at his feet, clawing at his hands and opening bright red gashes across his arms.

  Open wounds and he has a melee weapon that’s heavy on the blood spatter. My heart has stopped beating.

  I take down two more infected at Jordan’s back, trying to clear his exit again so he can get back to the car, but they’re closing in front of them now as well. Jordan is screaming at Snickers to get up and she’s screaming unintelligibly and refusing to do so, and just as I’m rounding the car to try and help him get her, an infected grabs her ankle. Jordan raises his arms to take a swing at the guy and I’m raising my bow to put a bolt in his face, and both of us have our attention elsewhere and it’s so foolish. Neither of us sees the infected coming that reaches out and grips Jordan’s shoulder.

  The world freezes in a crystal clear moment for me, a moment that I will revisit and relive with painful acuity for the rest of my life and always wonder if there was something else I could have done. If I made the right choice. But I never even thought about it, didn’t take any time to debate and decide. I simply acted on instinct and the choice was made before I even knew there was an option.

  I put my arrow through the ear of the infected holding on to Jordan and he goes down at the same instant the other infected bites into Snickers’ leg. I scream so loud, I know my voice will be hoarse for days and I run out of oxygen to force it out anymore. Jordan crashes the bat down on the infected’s head several times and it stops, but two more take its place and the situation is hopeless. She’s gone and if Jordan stays there to stop them, he’ll be gone too. He meets my eyes for one split second and then we’re both running to get back in the car. Infected have closed in on my back as I was shooting, but I use my bow to hold them at bay as I did that first day leaving the apartment, and I make it into the car without being grabbed. Jordan slams Snickers’ door shut as he leaps into his seat and we’re moving before he’s even closed his door. He doesn’t dodge them as we tear out of the driveway. He hits every last one in our path.

  We drive in silence for miles. Jordan navigates through the country roads and eventually finds his way back to the bridge we crossed with Snickers yesterday. On the way out, he runs over the two he killed on the bridge. The bumps are jarring and awful because no matter what they were, they’re dead people now. Jordan has gone somewhere though, somewhere dark, and I’m not about to disturb him while he’s there.

  I don’t cry and that makes me so angry I can hardly stand myself, but no matter how fierce my emotions, the tears don’t come. My hands shake and I can’t even grasp my bow, so I let it fall at my feet and I stare at the landscape screaming by. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m worried Jordan is going to crash us, but I can’t bring the rest of me around to truly care.

  “They’re eating her,” I whisper to myself, my guilt spilling from my lips in uncontrollable sounds. “Right now. Because we left her. I s
hould have shot her but I couldn’t. Now they’re eating her.”

  “Don’t,” Jordan says, his voice shaking with rage. “Don’t, Alissa.”

  I shut my mouth, pressing my hand over it and wondering why the hell I said it. I remember that his sister died the first day, probably a lot like this, and I feel awful. Like I just twisted a knife in his gut.

  Jordan curses loudly as he slams his hands down on the steering wheel hard.

  I flinch. He hits the brakes, jerking us to a violent stop, and climbs out of the car. I don’t know how I know it, but he’s not getting back inside. I slowly open my door and climb out as well. I can see him farther down the road, pacing. I reach into the back and pull out his pack, remembering with a jolt that mine is gone, lying on the ground beside Snickers. I don’t think about what that means, not yet. For now, I pull on Jordan’s pack, gather up both of our bows and quivers, then his bat and I leave the car behind, every door open and the keys in the ignition. I follow Jordan slowly, silently, and when I reach him, he stops with his hands on his head and stares at me.

  He’s not emotionless now. He’s not calm and collected and sure. His face is written in agony and rage, plain and bold for me to see and I finally feel the sting of tears prick my eyes. I lock them down, though, because it’s not my time. It’s not my turn. He’s lost control and is spinning out and I need to be the face of calm and composure now. I need to do this for him, just as he has done for me. I don’t touch him because I know he is beyond comfort and I understand the drowning feeling physical contact can bring when you’re on the edge. I simply meet his eyes, nod my head in understanding and begin to walk. I don’t look back, but I hear his footfalls behind me.

  I start heading south, taking us in the general direction of Corvallis, but I know we’ll come across the river again before then. I want that for him. I want him to feel like he’s in control again, that he has what he needs to keep us alive, and I’ll get us there eventually. For now, though, I want him to walk. I want him to wear himself out and run himself down into the ground so there’s nowhere to go but up.

  It’s while we’re walking down the lonely stretch of highway that I realize I was so consumed with taking care of Snickers this morning that I forgot to take my pill, and now I don’t have any more. The clock is ticking and my hands shake nervously in time with the beat.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We hug the river as we walk. We met up with it again about two hours after we walked away from the car. We should have stayed in it, I understand that logically, but I also know that Jordan couldn’t handle it. We haven’t talked, he and I, not beyond choosing which direction to go and when he took his pack and weapons from me only ten minutes after we set off. He asked where my pack was and when I didn’t answer, only stared off into the distance, he knew where it was. He’s walking beside me now instead of behind me and I’m glad for it. I like it better being able to assume any sounds behind me are trouble.

  I don’t know what to say to him to make this better, and I think that’s because there’s nothing to say. I know there’s nothing he can say to me to make me less devastated at having seen a young, scared girl die. I’ve accepted that silence works both ways and it’s not that Jordan isn’t speaking to me; we’re not speaking to each other. I don’t like the feel of it and I would love nothing more than to talk to him, about anything but Snickers, but I can’t bring myself to speak and obviously neither can he. So we walk.

  It takes twelve hours of walking with the river to get close to Salem. We haven’t found a single dock or boat on either side of the bank and I know we ought to regret not heading back into Newberg to get one, but the more distance between us and what happened, the better.

  When we stop for the night, surprisingly at Jordan’s insistence, we make camp in the trees beside the river. The spot is eerily like the one where we found Snickers and I don’t know if Jordan picked it on purpose or not, but I’m careful not to say anything about it. He builds us a small fire in the sandy area near the shore, and as the temperature drops with the sun, I find myself huddled up close to it. He sits across from me, staring into the flames and not speaking. I offer to take the first watch and let him sleep but he shakes his head silently. As I lie down to try and sleep, I pray I won’t dream of her.

  ***

  “Are you asleep?” Jordan asks.

  His voice is low but it sounds loud in the darkness. I’m not asleep, not a chance. My eyes are open and staring up at the stars as they peek through the slowly swaying branches of the trees overhead. I haven’t been able to shut them, not without seeing blond hair streaked with red, so I’ve given up trying and am going for numb instead. I can’t get there. My heart squeezes every time I think of her, and I think of her every five minutes.

  “No.”

  He’s silent for so long that I assume that was the extent of his interest, but then he speaks again and his voice is even lower than before.

  “What else could we have done, Alissa? What could we have done differently?”

  He’s not asking in an effort to draw me out of myself. He’s not posing a rhetorical question that’s meant to be pondered and bring closure for both of us. No, he’s honestly asking me to help him figure out what we could have done differently that would bring about a new outcome. As though by some miracle we could sort this out here together beside this dying fire and thereby turn back time and save a young life. I want to tell him that it doesn’t matter, but I can’t because to him, I know it does.

  I also don’t know what to say, what I could possibly say to make things, if not better, than at least not worse. I’ve been seeing a therapist for years, but it doesn’t make me an expert. I’m not equipped to handle this myself, let alone solve it for someone else, but I know I can’t simply ignore him.

  “I don’t know,” I say finally.

  “Me either,” he says, and his voice is distant and faint.

  It’s a lie; we both know a hundred things we could have done differently. We could have stayed in that house longer. We could have picked the infected off one by one somehow and cleared a path out of the house. We could have engaged the child safety locks on the doors. I could have sat in the back with her and stopped her from bailing. I could have been the one to run to her and pulled her back before the infected overwhelmed us.

  “I could have saved her,” I whisper into the darkness.

  “You were too far away. It was on me, I was there with her, and I let her die.”

  I swallow hard. “There was an infected holding onto her. There was an infected holding onto you. I had one shot, time for one arrow. I had to choose. I could have saved her. I chose to save you.”

  The silence that falls between us is unnerving. I have absolutely no idea what he’s thinking but I can’t imagine it’s good. He’s obviously feeling guilt over her death, as though there were something more he could have done, and now to find out that I could have saved her but didn’t; he has to hate me. I hate me a little and I probably always will, but it doesn’t change the course of events. I made a choice and now we both have to live with it.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Jordan. I didn’t take the time to analyze it. I didn’t have the time to analyze it. The choice was there and I made it.” I take a deep breath and sit up, careful to look at the embers of our fire and not at him. “If it were me, I would have wanted you to save her and I’m sure you feel the same way. It’s easy to give up yourself, to make that sacrifice. What’s not easy is sacrificing someone else. I didn’t debate it. I didn’t have to. Some part of me had already made that choice before we ever even got into that car.”

  “You should have chosen her,” he says, his voice hard.

  “I know that. But I didn’t.”

  “She was a child.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “What the hell, Alissa,” His voice shakes slightly. “She trusted you.”

  I hope it makes him feel better being able to shift the blame he�
�s been wrongfully carrying onto my shoulders, because if he keeps this up, it’s going to kill me.

  “I know she did,” I whisper. “But you did too.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “And if I hadn’t done what I did, you would be dead,” I tell him and I lift my eyes to meet his. His glare is hard to take but I face it head on. “You would be dead and so would she and I. Do you think I could keep her alive by myself? How long do you really think we would have lasted alone? If, and it’s a big if, I had been able to get her safely into that car after you died, how far would I get with her? How long would I be able to keep her safe? A day? Maybe two? Not long and we both know it. The first time I needed my bow and couldn’t use this,” I hold up my left hand, the one she had clung to the most. “We would have both been dead, because in the face of the infected, she would have never let me go.”

  He stares at me silently through the smoke rising between us and I wait him out with infinite patience. He can blame me all he wants, and I know I deserve it, but what’s done is done and I won’t be crucified for this for eternity. He needs to come to terms with the decision I made or walk away.

  “So you did it for your own survival?” he asks quietly, and I don’t know what it is about the quiet tone that sets me off, but suddenly I’m screaming at him.

  “No, you asshole, I did it for yours! Does it not occur to you that I saved you to save you!?”

  I stand up and head toward the river, unable to sit still with him anymore.

  When I reach the water’s edge, I’m desperate to keep going. To walk right into the streaming, dark water and keep walking until it takes my feet out and whisks me away with the current. I want to be washed away like an infected, unable to stop myself, driven purely by one single minded goal that I can never be dissuaded from. Right now, I envy them and the simplicity of the life they lead. There are no complexities, no emotions, no decisions, no hesitations. No doubts. They want what they want and they give everything in their being toward achieving it and never have to struggle with whether or not it’s right or wrong. What a simple freedom that must be.