Cody looked at her, then turned to the guys.
“Um,” he hesitated for just a second. “Anyone care if I sleep there?” He pointed to the other end of the couch where Emily was passed out. He looked like he was going to say something, but Neil didn’t make him explain. Cody tried to be tough, but the truth was he’d messed up his back in high school and had never quite recovered. He would sleep on the floor and he’d do it with a positive attitude, but he’d be sore for days.
“Go for it,” Neil nodded, looking away, trying not to make a big deal about it. Butter made himself a bed on the floor and soon it was just Neil and Robert, sitting in silence, listening to the wind howling. He’d heard Kansas storms were a bitch, but this was his first experience. The weather was unpredictable in Colorado, but it was never quite as loud as the weather in Kansas was turning out to be.
“I’ll take first watch, boss,” Robert said, and Neil knew there would be no arguing with the man.
“Let me know when you’re ready to switch.” He climbed onto the recliner and closed his eyes, yet sleep eluded him for a long time. When was the last time Neil had just…been?
The world had changed in the blink of an eye and while he was grateful to be alive, he sometimes wondered what the point was. They had been traveling for a month, trying to find a place to live, to be, to escape.
They hadn’t found an escape.
The whole world, as far as they could tell, had been taken. The world had been overcome, at least in the Midwest, and help was not coming.
They could keep pushing, he knew, and try to get to a coast. Then what? They’d still be boxed in. They’d still have to deal with hurricanes and tropical storms, earthquakes, Infected.
What was the point?
Soon the leaves would begin to fall and winter would arrive: a harsh bitch of a cherry to top off the zombie sundae he’d been eating all month.
Would they make it to a coast in time?
Should they go south?
Somehow, Neil didn’t think it really mattered. There was no such thing as the “right” choice anymore. Just look at Emily. She had gone somewhere, she’d gone somewhere for a whole month, and she had come back alone.
What had she been doing?
What had she encountered?
He wished he knew her better so he could pry, carefully extricating information that might make it easier to know what to do, how to proceed. He wanted to know what he should tell his men. He wanted to know how he should lead them.
Maybe they should just hunker down somewhere and let the world pass them by. Maybe they could make a life in Nowhere, USA.
Maybe they could find a way to live in spite of their surroundings.
Maybe.
**
When Emily woke up, the candles were out. One lone flashlight shone in the middle of the room. Around it, everyone was asleep. Cody was curled up on the other end of the couch. Neil was passed out in a recliner. Kari and Butter were asleep on the carpet, covered in blankets.
Robert sat up next to the flashlight, gun in hand, eyeing the staircases. His eyes flittered back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
He looked tired.
Outside, the storm howled and the house shook. Plates fell and cracked upstairs. Pictures fell off the walls and the sound of frames shattering could be heard throughout the basement.
Still, the group slept.
Emily wondered how long it had been since they had a decent night’s sleep. Were they like her? Were they wandering around, trying to return home?
She had heard once in an English literature class that the most important element of a story was the journey home, but what happened when you had no home to go to? What happened when your home was gone? What happened when your home was destroyed?
What happened when everything you held dear vanished?
Then what were you supposed to search for?
“You can come over here if you’re scared,” Robert said. He didn’t look at her, he just kept moving his eyes back and forth. “I don’t bite,” he said.
Emily hesitated for a moment. Robert reminded her of a boy she knew once who had gone into the military. He had returned home years later a changed man. He still looked the same, but there was something about him that was different, something hard.
Robert didn’t scare her, but she thought he probably should.
After a moment’s hesitation, Emily decided that if he was going to rape her, he would have done it while she slept, so she was probably safe. Well, safe enough, anyway. She slipped from the couch and walked across the room to the chair. She sat down next to Robert and watched as he stared at the two entrances.
“We should have barred one,” she commented, realizing their stupidity, but he shrugged.
“No point,” he said. “If an Infected managed to make it all the way out here, I’d shoot it easy enough.”
“And survivors?” She asked.
“Throwing some furniture in a stairway wouldn’t do much to keep out the kind of survivors we’d want to keep out, now would it?”
She nodded and reached for a bottle of water. She opened the top and took a sip, then handed it to Robert. He set his gun down and took the bottle from her.
“Thanks,” he said after he drank. He handed it back to her and she silently finished off the bottle. It was probably wasteful to drink the whole thing, but she didn’t really care too much. They would all be dead soon enough, anyway.
“What did you do for work before this whole happened?” She asked. It was a bullshit question, but small talk was all she had right now.
“Air Force,” he grunted.
“Were you guys all in the Air Force?” She asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Except for Cody.”
“What did Cody do?”
Robert’s eyes twinkled. Even in the darkness of the basement, Emily thought that in another life, Robert would make a very good Santa Clause. He could dress up in a suit and promise little children to give them their heart’s desires and if his eyes twinkled like that all the time, the lines would be very long all of the time.
“He worked at the CDC,” Robert said. “Child development center. Air Force daycare,” he clarified when Emily looked confused.
“I guess I don’t know a lot about the military,” she admitted. She knew there was an Air Force base that wasn’t too far from Howe. It was five, maybe six hours away by car pre-apocalypse. She didn’t know how long it would take these days. She had tried to drive to Worthington to get Melanie, but shortly after making it through Howe had abandoned the car. There were too many roadblocks and too many abandoned cars and too many damn Infected.
“Most people don’t,” Robert said. “Only what they see in movies, but we all know that movies ain’t worth shit when it comes to information.”
“I dunno,” Emily said. “They seemed to get it right when it came to zombies.”
“Zombies?” Robert laughed. “Call ‘em what you will, sweetheart.”
“What do you call them?”
“Infected is fine enough. No reason to glorify what they are.”
She stared at Robert for a minute, but he looked away. His eyes never stopped roaming from one staircase to the other.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Outside, she could still hear the wind howling and the storm crazing. She didn’t know how they were going to get out of this alive, but at that moment, she had a more pressing question.
“Who did you lose?” She asked softly, but her words hung in the air. Robert’s body tensed and she wished she hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” Emily said quickly. “I’m sorry.” What was wrong with her? Robert didn’t want her here anymore than she wanted to be here and she had to start with the which-of-your-loved-ones-died question?
Fuck.
“It’s fine.” Robert gruffed out. He was probably only 31 or 32, Emily thought, but he was hars
h and edged. There was something dark about him, something broken that she thought he had probably lost long before the apocalypse happened.
Robert had lost someone. That much was obvious, but Emily didn’t think they had turned into a zombie or an Infected. No, his loss was more personal than that. His loss was more sacred to him.
She turned back to the room and stared at the sleeping bodies. She knew she should go back to sleep, but she had too much on her mind now. That was the problem with sleep, Emily knew. If you were too tired, you couldn’t think about anything. If you weren’t tired enough, you thought about everything.
Each person in this basement had a story just begging to be told. Emily was a writer. Telling stories was what she did. Now that she had calmed down, she wanted to find out why this group was together. Why them? Where were they going? What had they left behind?
What secrets did they carry?
What burdens did they hold?
“You should get some sleep,” Robert’s voice broke the silence and she nodded quietly.
“Okay,” she whispered, and went back to the couch. Emily curled up on her end and leaned her head on the armrest. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the howls of the storm as she thought about a better time.
Chapter 8
“Wake up,” Neil said, shaking Emily’s arm. She opened her eyes and peered up at him. Rays of sun streamed down into the basement from the two stairwells.
“Go away,” Emily grumbled, frowning at him. She wasn’t ready to face the day yet. Not with him glowering down at her. Was this the same guy who had grabbed her and kissed her only yesterday? Or had she simply imagined that?
“Get her some coffee first,” Robert said from behind him. Emily couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile in his voice.
“Don’t,” she said, sitting up. “You have no idea what I would do for a mocha right now.” She turned back to Neil and mouthed “anything,” but got up and walked away before she could see his reaction. She took the can of caffeinated soda from Robert. It was a brand she’d never heard of. Not coffee, not even close, but it would do.
She popped the tab listened to the sound of fizzing she hadn’t heard in weeks. Finally, she tasted it. The soda was warm, but sweet, and it got the job done. She shot Robert a grateful look and finished the soda. She should have savored it, but she was hungry and thirsty and tired.
Emily set her empty can aside and walked upstairs to survey the damage. She wasn’t sure if there had been multiple tornadoes or just a bad wind storm. This was Kansas, so it could have been anything: thunderstorm, lightning storm, ice storm, fucking zombies.
She looked around and immediately saw that the truck was toast. Her heart sank. A tree had landed on it.
“The one fucking tree on this whole property,” Butter growled, pointing at it. He was standing behind the truck with one hand on his hip. The whole situation was so ridiculous that Emily almost laughed out loud. It was just her luck, really.
Her sister was dead and she had made it home just in time to find her house overtaken – not by zombies, but by soldiers – and now her ride was gone.
Just her luck.
She walked down the few steps to the grass to see what everyone else was doing. Cody and Kari were walking the property, taking out Infected with baseball bats.
“I see the storm brought us some friends,” she commented, but didn’t make a move to help. There weren’t very many and the duo seemed to be having a good time taking out their aggression.
“Some storm,” Butter muttered, glaring at the car. They stood in silence and watched as Cody and Kari killed a few more Infected. No one wanted to waste bullets killing them, not when they were so damn slow. Kari lifted her bat and swung with impressive accuracy, hitting an Infected in the head. You always had to go for the head.
“Messy, but effective,” Kari said when she turned back to the group. She was covered in blood. She didn’t seem to mind and stripped out of her clothes, oblivious to the fact that the group was standing in front of her.
“Years in the military,” Butter shrugged when Emily gave him a questioning glance. “You get used to no privacy real quick.” Kari walked inside and Emily followed her, trying to avert her eyes, but it was no use. There was too much nudity and not enough other stuff to look at.
“Truck’s done,” Butter told Neil when he came inside. Kari rustled through a bad, presumably looking for clothes. She pulled out a shirt and yanked it on. It was too big, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Figures,” Neil muttered, kicking the wall. His boot left a small hole in the sheetrock. He glared at it, as if it were the wall’s fault for breaking and not his fault for putting his foot there.
“We could go back to my place,” Emily offered. She wanted to go home. Even though she knew she wasn’t going to be able to get rid of the ex-airmen that quickly, maybe being around other people wouldn’t be so bad. Neil seemed surprise at her offer and raised his eyebrows, but she just shrugged. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “The road’s too close to the house.”
“She’s right,” Cody said. “Storm’s barely over and I already saw a car go past.”
“A car?” Now Emily was the one surprised. Who would be driving way out here?
“Guess the house looked fucked up enough that they didn’t stop, but we should get going. Standing around we’re just sitting ducks waiting to get picked off.”
Kari finished dressing and grabbed her bag. She walked to the door and looked back over her shoulder.
“You guys coming or what?”
Emily followed her out the door and the group gathered again. Emily’s house was only two miles away and the walk back took about half an hour with their heavy packs. She was tired and sore from her recent journey, but it wasn’t really the time to complain.
When they got back to her home, she realized it had been a good choice to find a basement during the storm because her home was gone.
The barn was in shambles and her mailbox was still there, but the cabin itself had collapsed. There was nothing left to salvage. Even if she had been a woodworker or a construction worker or a fucking farmer, she wouldn’t have been able to rebuild the cabin from what was left.
It was destroyed.
She stood at the end of the driveway and considered her luck. Who else would something like this happen to?
“Fucking tornadoes,” Robert said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She appreciated the sentiment, but was feeling more angry than sad. She had lost her sister and now her home. The only things she had left were in a nasty duffel bag that was already covered with grime.
She glanced at the barn, but knew they couldn’t stay there. Not long term. Not in this world. Without a car, they’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere if anything went wrong. No, there weren’t many Infected out here, but there also wasn’t a lot of food and it was already September. There wasn’t exactly a lot of time to plant a garden and play farmer before the first cold front came in.
She turned back to the group and took a deep breath. If they were going to survive, they would need to get out of Howe together. They were a strong, sturdy group. They could get to safety somewhere. Then, if they wanted to split up and leave Emily behind, they could.
But they were taking her somewhere.
She wasn’t worried about being alone. Not really. Emily had been alone for most of her life. While Melanie had always had large groups of friends and enjoyed the company of boys and girls and gone to parties, Emily had been focused on studying. She had been focused on her writing. She had been focused on creating a career that would put her stories in bookstores and get her appearances at conventions.
The loneliness had never bothered her.
Now Emily worried not about being alone, but that if she was left at her cabin by this group of survivors, she would simply think about her sister until she picked up the gun and joined her.
She couldn’t give up that easily. Not after all they’
d overcome.
Emily turned back to the group.
“Where are you guys from?” She asked.
“Not really the time for small talk, princess,” Robert grunted. Emily glared at him.
“I’m asking so I know where you guys have been. I’ve been that way,” she pointed north, toward Howe. “It’s four miles from here to Howe. Road blocks. Broken cars. Abandoned houses. Some Infected, but not many.”
“What was the population pre-infection?”
“15,000,” she said.
“And that’s not many to you?”
“My sister was in Worthington,” Emily said. “I went there and back. Howe is nothing compared to Grimsby.”
Neil let out a long, low whistle. Everyone stared at her for a minute. Finally, Kari spoke.
“We came from the west,” she said. “I-70 isn’t nearly as desolate as it should be. Lots of farms and empty spaces, but some of the small towns have banded together to either kill anyone who tries to come through or to scare them off. No one wants to share resources.”
“We got lucky a few times,” Butter commented. “But only at the beginning. The more time went on, the stingier people got.”
“With what?” Emily prodded.
“Information, food, everything.”
“Your base was out that way?” She turned to the west, as if she could picture where they had come from.
“In Colorado, across the border.”
“So north is out, and west. We can go south, but there’s not really anything there. I suppose it depends on whether we want to find a place to shack up or whether you guys are on some special quest to figure out what started the apocalypse and how you can save humanity.”
Neil glared at her.
“I’m no hero,” he said. “We go east.”
Surprised there wasn’t any arguing or discussing, Emily silently grabbed her bag and followed the rest of the group down her driveway and up the road. At the first intersection, they began walking east on a gravel road Emily had only driven down a few times.
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