Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

“What do you mean they can’t save us?” Alissa demands.

  I told her something similar the first day we met and her reaction was the same, only a little angrier. She still thinks there’s a chance we’ll get out of the quarantine. I admire her hope, even if it is deluded.

  “Al,” Syd says patiently, “they’ve boxed us in.”

  “They’ve stopped the infection from getting out, yeah. But I figured that was step one and step two would be looking for a cure.”

  “They will,” I tell her, “but they’ll do it in order to save themselves in case this thing breaks their barriers. They have to do whatever they can to stop it from going global.”

  “Most likely, they already consider us lost. Dead.”

  Alissa silent beside me. I want to reach out and touch her, to comfort her. I want to let her know that we won’t stop, that we’ll keep trying. But with Syd sitting right here and the words sounding hollow even in my head, I keep my hands and thoughts to myself.

  “Where are we?” she asks, breaking the silence.

  “We’re coming up on Lebanon,” I tell her.

  “Are we going through or around?”

  I don’t know the answer to that. It would save us time to go through but without knowing what the city is like, it could end up being a disaster. I wouldn’t be so worried about running across any infected were it not for my injured arm. I can’t swing a bat like I used to, like I’d like to. That worries me. I’ve got the handgun which is great but I’m a terrible shot. With a bat I had to let them in my space but I know myself with it. I know what I’m capable of. The handgun is a huge looming question mark that could get me killed if I’m wrong.

  “We go around,” Syd says confidently.

  I exchange a look with him that tells me instantly we’re on the same page at the moment. I can see it in his eyes, exactly what I’m feeling. We keep clear of people because push comes to shove, groaning comes to biting, and we will ditch anyone but Ali without looking back. Syd has survived too much in his life to go down at the hands of the dead refusing to die.

  Then there’s Alissa. She’s been through more than I can imagine, seen more than any person our age has a right to and still be sane, yet she keeps on ticking. She’s resilient, determined, funny and too beautiful. It’s distracting. Her staring down a mass of zombies with her bow in her hands and a knife on her thigh… Well, it does something to me. She’s like a female version of Hawkeye and I’m a little disturbed about what that says about my feelings regarding Hawkeye. I try not to analyze it too much.

  Sirens begin blaring behind us. I check the mirror to my right to see the flashing lights of a police car coming up fast. I get the knee jerk adrenaline spike that always accompanies the sight of those lights and I immediately start wondering what we’ve done wrong. I wonder if my alcohol levels are still up from last night even though it wouldn’t matter since I’m not driving. Old habits die harder than zombies, I guess. Syd slows down and pulls halfway off the road. The sirens get louder, the lights closer.

  “What the hell?” Syd mutters.

  We’re both watching the car in our side mirrors. I see it too. It’s coming up right behind us, only it’s not slowing down.

  “Is he going to ram us?” I ask incredulously.

  Syd doesn’t answer. He quickly pulls us farther off the road, nearly putting us in the ditch running parallel to it.

  Just as our tires leave asphalt, the cop car goes wailing by. The RV rocks as the car skims past, nearly sideswiping us. The sound of the siren is unnervingly loud for just a moment but then it’s gone, headed off down the road.

  “He almost hit us,” Alissa says in amazement. “Why didn’t he get in the other—“

  “Oh!”

  We all cry out in unison as we watch the car come up on a bend in the road, but it doesn’t slow. It doesn’t even try to turn. Instead, it sails off the end of the road and into the orchard beyond. A cloud of dirt and dust explodes into the air around it when it makes impact, the earth and surrounding trees stopping it dead.

  No one moves. No one speaks. There’s only the sound of the idling RV engine and the mournful, off key moan of the busted siren.

  Chapter Two

  “Should we help them?” Alissa whispers. “Do you think they survived?”

  I swipe my hand over my mouth. “Maybe. If they weren’t dead already.”

  “You think it was a zombie driving?”

  “Either that or someone on their way to becoming one.”

  “We have to check it out. They might still be alive.” Syd grabs his gun from under his seat, checks the clip. “Alissa, wait here. Jordan, you’re with me.”

  “I’m not waiting here,” she insists, already grabbing her bow.

  Syd runs his hand over his forehead. “Just stay here.”

  “No. Jordan is injured. I’m coming with you to cover his weak side.”

  I bristle at any part of me being called ‘weak’, even if she’s got a point.

  “I got this,” I tell her.

  She raises an eyebrow at me. “Really? How’s your arm?”

  “How’s your leg?” I shoot back, since apparently we’re calling people out on their ‘weak sides’.

  “Better than your arm,” she replies, not missing a beat. Without another word she launches herself out of the RV.

  I glance at Syd out of the corner of my eye as I follow Alissa out of the RV. His face is made of stone, showing us both just how much he hates this. It’s a risk to even get out of the RV right now and he knows it. Corvallis just recently fell, going down hard and fast. There were so many people in the area. They were trying to hide, trying to run, but what they found instead of a safe haven was a breeding ground for the illness. It consumed the bloated population in a matter of one night. Just like Portland.

  And now, after all our efforts to escape it, we’re in the thick of it again.

  When I catch up to her, Alissa falls into step a few paces behind me. We take the same configuration we took the first morning when we stepped out of her apartment. I like that we have a system. I also like having backup because my arm hurts like I cannot believe. I try to surreptitiously roll it, testing my range of motion. It’s crap.

  “Are you hurting?” Alissa asks quietly.

  I lower my arm. “It’s fine.”

  “Liar. Use the gun.”

  I can feel the steel of it pinching into my skin at my hip. It irritates me.

  “I don’t like guns.”

  “Zombies like ‘em less,” she insists. ”Use the gun.”

  I don’t respond.

  The car is a disaster. I doubt anyone could survive it, undead or living. The entire front end is wrapped around a tree, the windshield burst from the frame and laying on the ground among the fallen, rotting apples. Both tires on the back are flat.

  Syd moves quickly around the driver side of the car, giving it a wide berth. He keeps his rifle trained on the window as he bends down to look in the fractured side window. He studies the interior for only a moment before he quickly and silently retreats, shaking his head at us.

  “It’s a cop. He’s turned,” Syd tells us. “He’s buckled in, though. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “We have to kill it,” Alissa says immediately. “We have to kill any we can or they’ll always outnumber us and we’ll never take back control.”

  I look at her in surprise. A month ago this girl didn’t know the first thing about zombies, now she’s planning big picture eradication. I’ve created a monster. A sexy, vengeful monster.

  I spin my bat in my hand, grinning at her. “Let’s go get ‘em, then.”

  She shoulders her bow to pull her knife out, grinning back at me.

  “What’s your plan exactly?” quizzes Captain Buzzkill.

  Kill zombies, I think sarcastically.

  “Open the door, release the kraken, beat its head in. Simple.” I tell him.

  He frowns at me. I think it’s the only expression he has.

&
nbsp; “What happens when you can’t swing that bat? Al has to save you again?”

  I feel my temper rise but I keep my voice cool. Indifferent. “I won’t need saving. I told you, I’ve got this.”

  “No one is saying you don’t,” Alissa says, giving Syd a pointed look.

  He ignores it.

  “I am,” he pipes up. “I’m saying he doesn’t have this.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything about any of this,” I tell him, my tone tightening.

  “You think I don’t know about combat? I know more than you’ll ever dream of, kiddo.”

  “Kiddo? Really? You know what, old man, you might know about combat but you don’t know this enemy. You don’t know jack about them, so you can keep your condescending ‘kiddo’ to yourself.”

  I’m seething angry now. I hate it. I’m not the type to lose my cool like this. I need to pull it together or he needs to back off.

  Alissa abruptly walks away from us without a word. Her gun is in her hand.

  “Al, where are you going?” Syd demands.

  In answer, she throws the car’s driver side door open. Her gun raises swiftly. She fires once. The interior explodes in red, white and brain. Blood, bone and gray matter splatter across every surface. Then it’s still, inside and out. We all freeze at the sound of the gunshot, at the finality it brings when in the right hands.

  I know we’re both shocked when Alissa reaches inside to rummage around. I’m not breathing as she hovers half in, half out of the car, nestled up next to a dead zombie. Then she yanks hard on something several times, finally coming away with the cop’s belt. It looks to be complete with handgun and what I think is a Taser.

  “If you ladies are done bickering,” she says, her voice sounding tired, “I’d like to get the hell out of here.”

  “Agreed,” I say, watching her hand still clutching the gun. It’s steady as a rock.

  “The siren and that gunshot might…” Syd trails off, his eyes focused on a spot over my shoulder, toward the south. There’s a rumble like thunder in the distance. “Get down! Now!”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Alissa hit the deck without hesitation. Syd shoves me and I fall down as well, reaching my hands up to cover the back of my head. My arm is screaming. I might be too, but if I am it’s drowned out by the sound of a jet streaking overhead. Then the thunder is right beside us. The ground is shaking, taking me with it. I can’t hear anything anymore, not even my own breathing. All there is now is the percussive sound of the earth being bombarded three times.

  Boom, boom, boom!

  I feel a shockwave roll over us, hear the scream of the jet moving on. I lift my head to look at Syd and Alissa. To make sure we’re all still alive.

  “Are they blowing up the roads?” I shout.

  “Keep your heads down! It’s not over!” Syd shouts back.

  Almost immediately I hear more explosions coming from the north. Then the rain starts, hot and jagged. Pieces of shrapnel are falling all around us. I hear them land on the pavement and ping off the metal of the police car and the RV. A couple of pieces land on me, pelting my back, none hard enough to hurt. I hear Syd swear near me but I keep my head down like he told me to. More thunder rumbles. It’s becoming distant again, rapidly reaching north.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” I tell Syd. I wince as I push off the ground. My arm is hot and sticky under my shirt. I have no doubt I’m bleeding again. “No new injuries, anyway.”

  “Al! You okay?!”

  “I’m fine!” she shouts, standing up from her place in the grass beside the car.

  “Good.”

  Syd gazes at the smoky remains in the distance. There’s a long line of fire blazing happily. It can’t be more than two miles away from us, just on the outskirts of Lebanon. Highway 34 and all of those people running for their lives are only a couple of miles north of here. All of these people so close and they’re bombing us.

  “What’d they blow?” I ask Syd. “It’s not a bridge or the freeway, right?”

  “No. It was the airport. There was a small one over here. Few more north and south of us.” He takes Alissa’s hand to help her up the last incline out of the ditch. “You sure you’re alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. But Jordan’s bleeding.” She points to my arm where I can see my shirt darkening.

  “I thought as much,” I mutter, glancing at it. “So they’re blowing all the airports?”

  “They blew the seaports already, airports weren’t going to be far behind. And those bombs weren’t big enough to destroy the runways. They were meant for the hangars.”

  I nod in understanding. “A plane can take off from a straight stretch of highway if it needs to. You don’t strictly need a runway. They’re eliminating planes in general.”

  “They can’t possibly get all of them,” Alissa says. “What about farmers with crop dusters? They wouldn’t store those at a local airport. People could have them on their property.”

  “Float planes would be a problem too. Did you see the one on the river when we were heading down?”

  “If anyone takes off from anywhere,” Syd tells us, “land or water, they’ll blow them out of the sky. They know Corvallis was flooded with people and they know it’s falling. They have eyes in the sky so they must have seen the zombies coming for us. It’s why they acknowledged the wall in Eugene and started broadcasting images of it before the power went out. They want us to know it’s useless to head down that way.”

  “People will still go there,” Alissa insists. “They’ll still hope the government will help them.”

  “It can’t and it won’t,” Syd tells her plainly. “It’s a harsh reality but we’re in this alone. We have to plan accordingly and that means not expecting handouts from Uncle Sam.”

  I stifle a smile because the guy sounds so much like my dad when he’s gearing up on a rant. He loves to go on about handouts from the government and welfare and unemployment, how all of it is creating generations of lazy hippies. Hippies, yes, he uses that word. It’s hilarious. He even gave me a hard time about my scholarship. Told me to work a job and go to school, pay my own way, because that’s what he did. Walked to college two miles uphill in the snow both ways barefoot carrying his sister on his back and ate a lunch of hardtack and ale. In my mind my dad is a pirate cowboy. I miss him terribly. My mom too. And Beth…

  “We should get moving.” I say abruptly. “The bombings are going to make people crazier. This is going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “You’re right,” Syd agrees with a sharp nod. “Let’s go.”

  Alissa falls in step between us. She gingerly touches my arm as we walk.

  “You must have reopened your stitches. We need to bandage it.”

  “On the road,” Syd says gruffly. “Right now we’re getting out of here.”

  I notice he’s cradling his left hand with his right.

  “What happened to your hand?” I ask.

  “Nothing, just a burn from the shrapnel. It’ll heal.”

  “We have to bandage it before we go anywhere,” I tell him firmly, not caring that he’s decided he outranks me. “If any of an infected’s anything gets in there, you’re toast.”

  “We don’t have time,” he says dismissively, climbing into the RV.

  I climb in as well, eying him hard. “We also don’t have the luxury of letting you die. Bandage the wound.”

  “He’s right, unc—dad,” Alissa says awkwardly. “You can’t go on like this. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  “If that’s the case then his arm has to be bandaged too,” he tells her, pointing at me while somehow still acting like I’m not really there. It’s dismissive and impressive. “If we start playing doctor, we’ll never get out of here. We’ll do it later.”

  I can’t stand this. I pull out a roll of duct tape I saw earlier in the glove box along with a handful of spare fast food napkins.

  “G
ive me your hand,” I tell him coolly.

  He scowls at me now. I’m glad he’s branching out with his expressions of distaste for me. Gotta mix it up, keep it spicy, otherwise I’ll stop being offended by it. Tired of waiting, I take the napkins and slap them down on his hand where it rests on the steering wheel. I am not gentle.

  “Hold that there.” He surprises me when he does. I pull the duct tape free from itself and wrap it around his hand quickly. I rip the tape, toss it on the dashboard. “Done.”

  It’s taken under ten seconds.

  Syd doesn’t say anything. He throws the car into drive, spins us around, then we’re heading north. I’m antsy heading this direction, back toward the massive swarms of infected, but I stay quiet for now, letting myself get lost in my own head as I mull over our situation. I flinch when Alissa touches my arm to look at it again.

  “We need to take care of you too. Your rules,” she tells me quietly. Firmly.

  I grab the duct tape and offer it to her with a grin. She smiles but shakes her head.

  “Not my style.”

  “But duct tape solves everything.”

  “I think I’ll go old school, if you don’t mind,” she says, pulling gauze and med tape out of her bag. She raises her eyebrows suggestively at me. “Are you ready to play doctor?”

  “I know what that means,” Syd warns.

  “Then why did you say it? It was creepy.”

  Alissa motions for me to take my shirt off. Syd glances over as I lift it over my head.

  “No,” he says glumly, “this is creepy. Watching a boy get naked in front of you.”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  “Alissa,” he warns again.

  I’m with him on this one. Statements like that aren’t exactly going to help us become bros.

  “Calm down, dad,” she says wryly. “I’ve seen it before in general. I’ve never seen his it before, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “You know I’m not a virgin.”

  I cringe. “Now I don’t want to talk about this.”

  It’s not that I thought she was a virgin. A girl who looks like her, no way a slew of guys haven’t been trying to sleep with her for years. Statistically speaking one or two were bound to succeed eventually. That’s not to say she’s easy or loose, that’s just simple mathematics. And that’s not what bothers me. What I don’t want to talk about is how many. What’s your number?, that’s a woman’s game. Men don’t willingly play that game. It’s a no win. Either our number is higher than yours and you assume we’re players or our number is lower than yours and you think we’re lying. Either way, no one is happy. Your number is private. Keep it to yourself.