Mom had asked him over and over to stop, but he just laughed. “Why? I might die? I might end up one of them? Or I join the military and die then? Who the fuck cares?”
That was when I’d started sneaking into peoples’ houses at night, the ones who left before even the first case hit, who were rich enough or well-connected enough to book flights to the nearest island, get as far away as fast as possible. I’d lurk behind the crowds of drunken men that littered the sidewalks like their beer cans, and I’d creep into the houses they left after cleaning them out of booze and junk food.
I told Mom that I’d worked out a deal to earn it with helping load the rest into the truck that was being sent with survivors. She pretended to believe me, because helping load trucks sounded boring enough that she knew Jonathan wouldn’t want to come.
Until I found the drunkards rambling around a lawn, punching and brawling, fighting over the last case of beer. Everything was gone. The houses had run out of food, and I didn’t know where we were going to go, what we were going to do.
And then, walking through our front door to Mom and Jonathan, screaming at each other, because Jonathan wanted to go join the military anyway, to Hell with Ben, but Mom wanted us to stay together, and I was in the middle, trying to hold us together, and everything was falling apart, the precarious life I had built since the first case dropped everything else into nothing.
It turned out that it didn’t matter what we were going to do, because Mom and Jonathan were dead within a week, and I’d found food and shelter with Ben and Turk’s Jackals.
Perce nudges me on the shoulder, and I realize that he has been watching me intently, the way he watched for the zombies approaching, wary and alert. His eyes catch mine and hold them, and we stare like that, and I’m noticing things I hadn’t before. The dark shadows under his eyes, the redness around the edges. His lips, cracked and dry. A scratch on his chin that is rusty with dried blood.
“Stay with me, right now,” he says. “It doesn’t help any, to go back. It just makes it worse.”
I shake my head. I need to remember, I need to go over their faces over and over again, because it’s been a month since I saw Mom and Jonathan and a day since I saw Ben, and Mom’s face is starting to fade, and I’m afraid all I’m going to remember in a year is blood and dirt and blackness and the smell of smoke and Ben’s laugher echoing through the woods.
But the words stop in my throat as he looks at me, the same look he showed when I buried my head in his chest, like he’s lived a thousand years somewhere else, an old man trapped in the body of a young one, and I can’t tell him those things, because he already knows them. He knows them and he knows how much they hurt and he won’t feel better; he’ll feel worse.
He’s already tried that, and he’s already decided to forget.
Suddenly, I hear a shout from up ahead, and I’m hit by a whirl of limbs and hair, and Malia is dragging me by the hand, as joyful as a kid at Christmas, yelling, “We’re here! We’re home!”
“Um.” I’m confused, because she’s tugging me toward what looks like a dead end, the asphalt road circling around and going back the way we came, but she tugs on my hand harder, and before I can ask questions or complain or ask for water, I’m running, and so is everyone else around me. Our feet slap on the ground, all over the place, some trotting, some skipping, running and breathing hard.
Beneath the weariness and labored breathing, I can feel a steel, a hard edge that rests along our legs and our bodies, keeping us upright and together, and we’re at the end of the road, running into the forest beyond, ducking through trees, leaping over a stream that I try to stop at, I’m so thirsty, but Malia just laughs and pulls me harder, yelling, “Patience,” in an annoying voice I’m starting to find comforting.
I can see Mason up ahead, hair practically glowing, a white beacon through the trees, and then he disappears.
I’m running too fast, and I can’t stop, and suddenly I’m tumbling over the edge, rocks and moss and twigs, flying into a pond, and I’m whooping again, my thoughts whooshed out of my head as my t-shirt billows around me. Malia holds onto my hand and screams like she’s on a rollercoaster.
And then I’m underwater, surrounded by water, gulping and gasping and taking it all in, feeling the smoothness against my skin, letting go of Malia’s hand, gulping the water in over and over, and it’s heaven, it’s everything I ever wanted. It’s life.
I feel something grab my hand, and there’s Perce, treading water next to me, the same dangerous half grin he held when we met, and he pulls me to him and kisses me on the mouth, sloppily and wetly, both of us treading water in heavy clothes. Breathlessly, practically into my mouth, he says, “Welcome home.”
Stay
I have no idea how Mason and Perce stumbled upon Heavenly Dreams Bed and Breakfast, when I didn’t even know about it. Even though we took the ‘fun way,’ as Malia called it, the main entrance is just as impossible to find. A dirt road leads from the front door into the distance, where I can see high black gates.
Malia tells me that the Bed and Breakfast was kept secret so celebrities could hang out without being bothered. Which explains why I didn’t know about it, even though I’ve lived in Chinook practically my whole life. No one bothers telling the people in the trailer parks about vacation spots.
“I found the room Matthew McConaughey stayed in when he was here,” she whispers. I think the sheets still smell like him.”
We both giggle. “What did he smell like?” I ask.
“Bourbon, leather, and hot man,” she’s giggling and blushing now, and we’re both pressing our faces into the pillows of the fancy couches in the lobby. I feel deliciously tired and sunburnt, the way I did after I went in the pool all day and I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing sunlight and water and mixed laughter and shouts, like the pool was somewhere I could go in my head whenever I wanted.
I feel a weight descend on the couch next to me, and Perce is there, putting my head in his lap. Mason dives on top of Malia and tickles her. They start giggling and kissing, but I still have more questions.
“So what exactly is this place?”
Mason waves his hand around. “Perce and I found it, and we started bringing people here. Anyone who had been left behind or didn’t want to join up with the military. We’d go out once a week to get supplies, and just like, look around. See if anyone was left. “
Perce never answered my question from earlier. “Why would you not want to join the military? I mean, that’s what y’all are doing here anyway, right? Killing zombies?”
I feel Perce shift under me, and Malia and Mason both flit their eyes away.
“The military wanted some things I wasn’t ready to give,” Malia says, face darkening with anger.
“Like what?”
She smirks, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “My freedom.”
There’s silence for a moment. Perce starts to run his hands through my hair, letting the damp curls slide through his fingers. I look up at him. He has a slight smile on his face, but he looks like he’s far away, like his hands don’t even know what they’re doing. He gives a slight shake of his head.
I change the subject. “So how many people are here now?” Perce’s mouth twitches up at the corner.
“Only about 30, but it ebbs and flows. Some people just want to be alone.” Mason inclines his head towards the fireplace, where a family sits, a mom, dad, and two kids, sleeping all against each other like puppies.
“But why would they want to be alone?” I ask quietly. “isn’t it safer with more people around?” I glance up at Perce, who has stopped playing with my hair. He’s just staring down at me, brow furrowed.
“Was it safer for you, being with whoever you were with before you came to us?” Mason’s eyes are a darker green now, boring into me like he can see the road I ran here on. I get the feeling Mason can see where I was before, the crashing through the forest and the way I didn’t care if it brought them all down on me,
because it was better, better than there, the woods and the tents and the screaming I pretended not to hear.
I swallow. “I guess I understand.” Perce squeezes my thigh.
Malia smiles, “I came here because I heard about the raids the Jackals were doing,” she said. “I got a lot of rage, and I need somewhere to direct it, without someone whining about protocol and uniforms and all that shit.”
Mason turns from his scrutiny of me and gazes right at her, and suddenly I feel like an intruder again, like they are all that exist to each other, in that second. His lips quirk up at one corner. “And then she became second in command, because Perce is a lazy slut son of a bitch, and Malia gets shit done.”
“And she’s a better kisser than me,” Perce says solemnly.
Malia laughs, still looking at Mason. “I’m better at a lot of other things, and you know it.” I slide my gaze to the ceiling as they move towards each other, noticing the cherubs placed in the corners of the light blue walls. This place is gaudy and tacky, like it belongs to a rich old lady who always has candy in her purse.
I feel a nudge at my back, and Perce is pushing me off him. “Come on, we’d better go before they start doing it on the couch.”
“Would they really do that?” I start walking with him toward the winding, wooden staircase.
I don’t know how normal people act anymore. It’s been months since I’ve seen anyone but Ben and his friends. The other girls at the camp got captured, and they wouldn’t speak to me. They wouldn’t do anything but stare slavishly at Ben and the others, like they’d sucked the life out of them, like Ben and his friends were the only things in the world to them.
Malia and Mason, staring into each other’s eyes, telling about how they met, don’t look at each other like that. It’s intimate, and challenging, every glance a skirmish in an ongoing war that they both love to fight. Like every glance supercharges them with strength and daring and recklessness.
“Not here, probably. They’re not animals, Jesus.” Perce snorts. “But someone needs to show you where you sleep, and they do have a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yep. One make-out session per zombie. But if it’s a whole crowd, like tonight.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“I heard something about points.”
“Yeah, it’s some scale point system. Mason was a math major in college.”
“What were you?” I ask.
“Engineering,” he laughs. “I actually wanted to change to art. I used to paint before everything went to shit.” He leads me down the hallway that leads to the staircase, our feet padding softly on the plush, off-white carpeting. “Anyway, here’s the upstairs. This is where everybody sleeps. There’s a bathroom in each room, but there are only four rooms.”
“How does any of this even work? My family lost electricity a couple days after the zombies showed up. We assumed it was out everywhere. The church, lit by candles in every sconce, certainly didn’t appear to have any power.
Perce shrugs. “No clue, but it does. I’m guessing they just left it all on when everybody lost their shit and left. Or the government took over the electricity. Fort Sam isn’t that far from here.”
I nod, even though I’m still confused. There’s no way this place just miraculously has everything you’d ever want to survive. There’s no way the government could ‘accidentally’ give a place full power and not notice.
I shake my head. I don’t have time for this now. I need a place to sleep, a place to get some food. I look at Perce again, and he’s watching me, too. One of his lips is cracked and bleeding, and I long to brush my thumb over it.
Something about that feeling makes me want to run again.
The bed and breakfast is small for something celebrities used to visit. Four doors mark the hallway, each marked with a knocker in the shape of a Texas flag.
Along the floor are people sprawled in various stages of undress, some in underwear, some in full jeans and boots. They’re talking quietly or sleeping, cuddled on top of each other.
He grabs my hand and leads me through all of them, barely apologizing when he treads on someone’s hand.
A girl on the floor with blonde hair reaches up, taking his hand and pulling him down for a lingering hug. “I missed you,” she giggles into his ear. “Meet me outside in an hour.”
Perce smiles and whispers something in her ear, something that makes her duck her head and blush. She pushes him away, and he starts pulling me behind him again.
I feel a twinge in my stomach. I tell myself it’s hunger.
Perce leads me into Room 3. The bed that takes up the center of it is impossibly huge, piled with pillows and sheets. People are sprawled on it, taking up almost every available inch, talking. I wonder if it would be rude to collapse onto the bed without talking to them.
They all look around my age, and I recognize some of them from earlier. The older couple, a man with the neck tattoo and a woman with hair too vibrantly red to be natural, fading to brown at the roots. The young kid, Peter or Neverland, who complained at Malia’s order.
“Perce, Rogue!” they all yell like we’ve just come home from vacation. The neck tattooed guy gets up and hands me a blanket, clearing out a space for me on the bed.
The bed looks too nice for someone like me, new to this whole thing and clearly uninjured, to sleep on. “Why aren’t the people in the hallway sleeping here? Or the family?”
“Because they’re only here for a night, and they don’t go on raids. And dammit, we killed the most zombies, so we get our own room!” This from a girl in the back, who can’t be older than thirteen. She has short black hair and wears a blue t-shirt with fluffy clouds, bearing the legend, “Where Dreams Are Forever.” “Hey, Perce,” she smiles tentatively.
“Hey Lucia,” Perce smiles at her, and I think I may have to pick a Lucia-sized puddle up from the floor.
“Get some sleep,” Perce says, turned that same girl-melting smile on me. “I gotta go. Got stuff to do.” He winks, and everyone oohs.
“I didn’t know that was Normani’s nickname,” the red-haired woman says.
“It’s not Normani,” Perce says. But he doesn’t leave yet. He doesn’t stop holding my hand, either. He just looks at me for a long moment, with the same frown from earlier, his forehead wrinkling like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to figure out. “See you tomorrow,” he says, finally letting go of my hand. And he’s gone.
I concentrate on the gold stitching of the comforter, trying to school my face into a blank expression.
Someone touches my hand, the guy with the neck tattoo. “I’m Jeffrey. And I’d like to tell you that a) Perce is a slut and b) he’s a slut that’s also a good person, so just keep that in mind from now on.
“I wasn’t aware that he— “I try to keep my voice down, but my voice rises at the end.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” the red-haired woman comes and sits next to me. “One thing that hasn’t changed, boys can be real dicks sometimes.”
“I just think it’s easier for him,” one guy says from the side. He has dark skin and hair, and a cut on his chin. “With the way things are now. I just don’t think he wants to get attached to anyone. He just wants to have fun.”
“Easy for you to say, Dom,” Lucia says from the back. “Don’t you and Perce have like, a system? Every other girl or whatever?”
“It’s not like that, and you know it. More like, some things are better left unsaid. Because saying them tangles you up too much.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” the red-haired woman says. “Y’all get attached to people whether you want to or not. The mistake is thinking you have any choice in the matter.” She reaches over and grabs Jeffrey’s hand. “Believe me. I definitely didn’t want to fall in love with this tattooed idiot.”
Jeffrey twines his fingers around hers. “But I’m your tattoed idiot,” he smiles, and it lights up his whole face.
Dom rolls his eyes, “Whatever. Welcome to the H
unters anyway, Rogue. Glad you didn’t die on your way to us.”
***
The next day, I’m in what Malia calls ‘the grounds’ in her most pretentious singsong voice, wearing an old shirt of hers, which is loose and flowy, giving me freedom of movement around my arms, with a pair of tight, Under Armor jogging pants. With my sneakers and fashionable outfit, I could be a rich socialite out for a morning jog.
If not for the teams of teens on the grounds in front of me, clothed in Rambo-esque headbands, running around from station to station, constantly chattering to one another. It’s so much like a summer camp, I’m thrown for a second, flashing back to the day camp the local churches held for poor kids when I was little.
We’d play in the pool and get the counselors to play hide and seek, and get out of the house for a few hours so Mom could sleep. She’d been working nights at the local inn, washing sheets and towels, and she always came home at dawn smelling of sweat and stuffy detergent.
Seeing the sun glistening on the grass, the excited chattering of the crowd, the heightened tension in the air that has no mark of fear in it, feels so normal. So safe. So reminiscent of the sunlit days where I was too young to worry about anything but whether or not Jason, the cute counselor with red-dyed hair, would play soccer with me the next day.
Malia, next to me, surveys them with her arms crossed over her chest. “We’ve got hand-to-hand combat, knife-fighting, and marksmanship,” she says, nodding at each group in turn, and I’m jolted back to the present with the reminder.
“When Mason and Perce first started this, it was just them teaching some twelve year-olds how to fire a gun, how to escape from someone bigger than you, stuff like that.”
“So is that what this is? Your own training camp for hunting zombies?”
Malia sighs. “Kind of. I mean, the zombies are obviously the enemy, most of the time. But the Jackals...”
“The Jackals?” I ask, trying to sound innocent and inquisitive, and not like the bottom has dropped out of my stomach. Ben and Turk, returning from an ‘outing’ with a girl with long brown hair and a vacant expression. Saying they’d ‘rescued’ her, asking me to take care of her, since I was the only girl there. Seeing the bruises on her forearms, the scratches along her ribs. Worst of all, the look of utter deadness in her eyes, like her body was only a shell, whose occupant had departed a long time ago.
Call Me Zombie: Volume I: Rose Page 5