Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “Do you believe in it?”

  “In what?” she mutters

  “In hemorrhoids,” I say sarcastically.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you care if I don’t believe in it?”

  There’s a long silence before she answers and I wonder what, or whom, she’s thinking about.

  “Because if you believed,” she says so softly I have to strain to hear her, “I think I could consider it.”

  I can hear the blood rushing in my ears, the water rushing in the river, the infected feet rushing through the forest. It’s all so loud I can’t even hear myself think anymore. So I don’t. Instead I give up, I roll over, away from her, and I stare at the fire until my eyes burn too painfully to keep open. I let them fall shut and I fall asleep. Finally.

  ***

  She’s dead. She’s rotted out. Her pale skin is turning gray before my eyes as it begins to hang from her bones loosely. Her lips fall useless around her yellowed teeth tinged with black around her sickly green gums. It’s her eyes that bother me most, though. Her once vibrant, warm eyes are Death staring me down. There’s a want there, a need to see me dead and destroyed beneath her gnarled fingertips. To see me just like her.

  I want to give that to her. I want to die beside her, for her, by her hand. Whatever it will take to make her happy. To show her I love her. That I’m sorry. I want the wrong things and I know it, but I still want them. The worst is, though, that I’m also still terrified. I’m as scared sitting here across from her in the nothingness of this dark room as I was in the dorms when it first began. When everyone was running and screaming and tearing each other apart with their teeth. I’m a coward running for my room so I can shut the door and hide from the madness. I should have gone looking for her. I should have grabbed my bat and ran through the masses of terrified people looking for her pretty, horrified face. But I didn’t. I let her come to me, to them, and they found her first. I let her die.

  I should have died then too.

  I shouldn’t be alive.

  Right now, I’m not so sure I am.

  Chapter Nine

  “I think we’re in the clear,” I say, crouching in the bushes on the far edge of our island. This is day two and I know we’re all itching to get out of here. Luckily the zombie noises have died down and we haven’t seen or heard anyone or anything in the trees for hours. If there are still infected, there aren’t enough to be so concerned about. “Are you ready to move?”

  Alissa nods beside me, her pack already on her back. Syd is behind us stuffing the last of his gear in his bag hastily. I woke him up late. I waited until Alissa and I were already set to go and he’s scurrying to catch up with us. Was it on purpose? A power play of some kind? A petty manipulation on my part to feel in control?

  You bet your ass it was.

  “Syd?” I ask, feigning infinite patience.

  He gives me a quick glare but otherwise ignores me.

  “Alright, let’s head out. We don’t have far to go and we might be able to touch bottom for a while so try and hold your pack above your head. It’ll save us the drying out period again.”

  So that’s how we cross, arms held high with our bags above us. Eventually we have to swim, our legs being swept out from under us, and I’m reminded briefly of playing Oregon Trail as a little kid. I always, always lost at least one of my oxen or a family member to drowning in the crossing. Or later to typhoid. Scarlet Fever. Indians. The common cold. Really, it’s a miracle anyone survives the opening credits to that thing.

  Once we touch land, we’re on the move, running through the bushes as fast as we can. Its all clear the entire way, something that bothers me more than finding infected, and soon the RV is gleaming in the distance. Despite the time it spent surrounded by infected, it’s none the worse for wear aside from some nasty black smears up and down the sides. Oh, and the cracked windshield I’d managed to forget but now it sends my heart plummeting. The tire I hadn’t forgotten. That suck was always on my mind, even on island time.

  “You know how to change a tire?” Syd asks me as he unlocks the RV and tosses his gear inside.

  “I do, yeah. We go mudding a lot back home. I’ve popped my share of tires.”

  He frowns at me. “In Boston?”

  Alissa chuckles. I glance at her with a smile. This is the same reaction she had when I told her I could fish and had a four wheeler.

  “They have mud in Boston,” I tell Syd, pushing up my sleeves.

  “Ask him about his beer cozies,” Alissa says.

  “You’re both underage,” he reminds her.

  “By a matter of months.”

  “Some of us more than that,” I say.

  Ali snaps her eyes to me. “Wait, what? How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “What?!”

  “Cradle robber,” Syd scolds.

  She glares at him. “Fix your tire, old man. Jordan, you’re seriously eighteen?”

  I shrug. “Last time I checked.”

  “I am a cradle robber,” she whispers to herself. Then she yells at the tree tops, “I want a drink so bad!”

  “Can you wig out quieter so we all don’t die today?”

  “Some laws are still going to apply,” Syd tells her sternly, turning serious.

  “Are you for real?” Alissa asks incredulously. “You’re going to enforce drinking age?”

  “I shouldn’t have to.”

  “Well, you’re gonna.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means I’m finding booze and you’ll have to rip it from my cold, dead fingers to stop me from drinking it.”

  “That threat has a lot more impact these days,” I tell her, not enjoying the imagery.

  Syd drops down with the jack to get to work on the tire.

  “Al, you’re on watch.”

  “Booze watch,” she mutters, pulling out her bow.

  “Al.”

  “Syd,” she growls back

  “Jordan,” I say for the hell of it.

  Thus ends the debate on underage drinking. Personally, I don’t care. He’s not my dad, and if I’ve mastered one thing (aside from surviving the zombie apocalypse and the Veteran difficulty level of Call of Duty 4) it’s sneaking alcohol. It’s a terrible idea in these ugly times because we need to stay sharp always and forever, but if I’m going to be listening to these two bicker for the rest of my life, I’ll need a little help from Uncle Jack.

  Once the tire is fixed we hit the road. Still no zombies. It sounds great, like a dream come true in this waking nightmare we’ve found ourselves in, but it’s unsettling. You get used to seeing them everywhere, and to suddenly find yourself Z free? Well, it’s off-putting to say the least.

  “Where are they all?” Alissa muses quietly, scanning the roadside as we cruise along.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Ahead of us, I guess. That swarm moved past us only recently.”

  “But they walk so slowly,” Syd disagrees. “And we’re doing 60. We should have caught them by now.”

  “If they stayed on the road, which they must not have.”

  “Where would they go?” Alissa asks. “A town?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter.” Alissa flips on the radio, filling the space with static. “They aren’t around. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “—peat, all persons must vacate the Portland/Vancouver area immediately!”

  The announcer is coming in loud and clear, not at all like the broadcast before. The voice sounds cold, efficient. Distant. Whoever it is, they aren’t inside the quarantine.

  “The Portland/Vancouver area has been found to be unrecoverable. Proceed quickly and cautiously out of the city limits taking care to avoid other heavily populated areas as these too are highly dangerous and prone to the spread of infection. We repeat, all persons must vacate the Portland/Vancouver area immediately. The Portland/Vancouver area has been found to be unrecov—�
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  Alissa spins through the channels, landing on one at random.

  “Proceed quickly and cautiously out—“

  She scans the band again, coming to stop on another channel. The broadcast is crystal clear on every one of them, continuing on its loop.

  “That’s the government, isn’t it?” she asks of no one in particular.

  “Yeah,” Syd answers. “They’re the only ones with the means to take over all the stations like that. It’s the Emergency Broadcast System.”

  “Emergency Alert System,” I correct quietly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You’re right, it’s the government. They’re evacuating Portland.”

  I hear Alissa sigh as she flicks the radio off. “Do I dare ask why?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “They’re gonna bomb it, aren’t they?”

  “Probably,” Syd says darkly.

  That truth effectively sucks the life out of the vehicle. We all fall silent for a long time afterward, each of us probably contemplating what a loss of life this is going to be. It’s not like we haven’t seen it enough out here. It’s not like it isn’t a daily, even hourly occurrence. But this is different. This is preventable. This is unnecessary. Unless, of course, you’re not trying to survive but rather trying to eradicate the issue. Trying to put a lid on Pandora’s Box. It makes you wonder how long before the lid comes our way? How far can we run? They’ve set up barriers, so not far. Never far enough.

  “We’re going to die in here,” Alissa says quietly, running her fingertips down the glass of her window slowly. They leave behind a trail in the forming condensation created by the cold of the outside colliding with the heat of our inside.

  One way or another, I think.

  I actually consider saying it. I open my mouth to do it, but then I stop. Her tone reminds me of lying beside her by the river, of what she asked of me. Of what I didn’t understand.

  “Because if you believed, I think I would consider it.”

  That’s a lot of pressure to put on a guy, to base your faith on his beliefs. It’s out of character for Ali to lean on me like that. To ask me what to believe. I don’t especially like it but I think I understand it. I went at her about her dad and my issues with him. I’ve been thinking about Beth and Snickers, never wondering if Snickers is heavy on her mind as well. I didn’t think about her condition and her stress level, about how high I amp it with every conflict. I don’t regret being honest, but I should be ready for the aftermath. For the pain and doubt she’s plagued by to pull outside the reach of her meds and begin to drag her under.

  Most girls I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but Ali isn’t most girls. While she comes with a big side of kick ass that makes me wonder what I ever saw in other girls (even before they all became undead, brain cravin’ crazies), she also has a staggering amount of baggage that I haven’t even begun to figure out how to handle.

  But that’ll never change if I don’t even try.

  “Hey, Ali,” I call out to her. She turns slowly to look at me over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about it. I do believe. In the Easter Bunny, in Mentos, in snozzberries. All of it.”

  She doesn’t react. She only stares at me with a blank expression that gives nothing away because maybe there’s nothing to give. Maybe I’m too little too late or she doesn’t even care anymore. Maybe she’s so far under, my helping hand can’t even be seen.

  “Did you know?” she asks slowly, her face still blank. “That Roald Dahl wrote an adult novel later in life? And that in that novel he referenced snozzberries?”

  “I did not know that, no. Did he explain what they are?”

  She nods slowly.

  “What are they?”

  “Penises,” she deadpans.

  I burst out laughing. I’m happy when I see a grin creep onto her face.

  “So the scene where they lick the wallpaper and say, ‘The snozzberries taste like snozzberries’…”

  “Is utterly disgusting.”

  “And disturbing.”

  Now she smiles. “Not if you’re the wallpaper.”

  Chapter Ten

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Syd tells me.

  “What doesn’t work like what?” I ask, feeling confused. “What are we talking about?”

  He glances over his shoulder quickly before resuming his watch. We’re standing on the shoulder of the road letting Alissa have some privacy behind a bush to relieve herself. Apparently the bathroom in this RV is useless. Something about a cracked waste tank. You know what I think about that? Pull the entire thing off and leave it behind. Who cares? I’d be completely fine with using a toilet that emptied into thin air, trailing my business down the road behind us as we go. Honestly, who are we going to offend with that? A few miles back I saw someone’s half eaten torso in the middle of the road, intestines trailing behind it toward a black puddle on the cement that was probably once its legs. It was messed up, way more messed up than anything my living, breathing body could leave behind.

  “I mean the cheery bit,” Syd says under his breath.

  “I wanted to make her feel better. It worked.”

  “Tell me again how much it worked in an hour when something else has brought her down.”

  I scowl at him. “What do you want me to do? Ignore her when she’s down?”

  “No, I want you to know you can’t always make it better. She needs her medication.”

  “I know that. I’ve seen that.”

  “Good. Remember it. And remember this; you aren’t the solution. All the charm and good looks in the world can’t fix the chemical imbalance in her body. Her problems are beyond you. They’re beyond me too. Don’t ever think you can cure her. If you spend your time trying to save her, you’ll just beat your head against the wall until you’re just as depressed as she is and then where will you both be?”

  I look over at him, not surprised by the conversation but surprised by his tone. It’s not angry or bitter as I expected. It’s almost… fatherly.

  “Is that what happened with you and her mom?”

  He chuckles darkly but shakes his head. “No. Not even close. That was a whole other mess. But remember that. Remember that I was with her mom for a long time, that I’ve been with Alissa almost all her life.” He looks over at me with serious, sad eyes. “Remember that I know what I’m talking about.”

  I find myself nodding in agreement and mumbling, “I’ll remember.”

  “Good,” he says with a sharp nod.

  I should leave it at that. This is where this conversation ends, with Syd and I having formed something of an uneasy alliance for Alissa’s sake and the sake of survival. But I just can’t take it. It’s just not me.

  “I’ll keep it in mind if you remember that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the infected,” I tell him firmly. “I get that you were in a war zone before and you know combat but you don’t know this enemy. I do.”

  Syd sizes me up, looking down his nose at me. When he steps into my space I’m made very aware of the fact that he’s a couple inches taller than I am. But I remember him panting in the woods and that he’s at least twice my age. Two inches of added height, while great for intimidation tactics, can’t change the fact that I can outlast him in just about every way. He’s welcome to come at me if he wants to prove that fact.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that girl alive,” he snarls, “and your input is limited in its value to me. If I think for one second you’re making it up as you go along or quoting some comic book, I’ll question you.”

  “Zombie fiction is predominantly found in the form of graphic novels.” I take a step to the side to lean against the hood of the RV. It gets him out of my space but it wasn’t a step backward. It wasn’t a retreat. Navigation is very important in a pissing contest. “Comic books are archaic. It’s the stuff your granddad read.”

  He shakes his head at me in disgust, turning away from me.

 
“By the way,” I call out to him, “my input has kept her alive this long.”

  “Has it?” Syd chuckles. “Or has Alissa kept you alive? Far as I can tell you can’t fire a gun, can’t handle a bow, can’t handle your hooch. So think long and hard about your trip down here and tell me again who saved who.”

  “What are you guys fighting about now?” Alissa asks, jogging up the embankment back onto the road.

  “Nothing,” Syd mutters, heading for the driver’s door. “Load up, let’s go.”

  Alissa looks at me with raised eyebrows, asking if I want to tell her what that was about, but I absolutely don’t.

  Once we’re on the road we’re silent again. I wish we weren’t. I wish we were playing I Spy or something because the longer we sit here in silence the more time I have to think. And what am I thinking about? Yeah, of course. I’m doing the math on how many times Alissa and I saved each other’s bacon on the trip down here. All in all, it’s been pretty even. I wouldn’t have made it without her, she wouldn’t have made it without me. But now here we are with Syd and while having another person around helps with the work and the watch, it also brings a new set of opinions in. Opinions that are starting to piss me off.

  “We need to loot,” I remind Syd, speaking for the first time in an hour.

  “I know.”

  “We’re coming up on a town here. Mill City I think the sign said,” Alissa says.

  “We’ll find a grocery store,” Syd tells her. “We’ll stop there and grab supplies.”

  “A convenience store would be better,” I warn him.

  He sighs. “And why is that exactly?”

  Apparently that advice sounded like a comic book quote. I think about ending all my sentences with KAPOW! from here on out but I imagine even I’d get annoyed with me for that.

  “It’s smaller.”

  “Tighter. Easier to get jumped in,” Syd says, cutting me off.

  “Yes, but it’s also less area to worry about. The shelves are shorter, you can see what’s in there. You’re less likely to be cornered, the exit is always in sight. All around it’s easier to get in and out quicker.”