“Afraid of you? “Tavi looks him up and down, “I can’t imagine why.”
“No, I’m not one of them!” he holds up his hands, the disarming effect lessened considerably by the gun. “I wanted to leave. I— “
“Yeah right,” Tavi hisses.
“I was with them. Then they killed my best— “
“Sounds like a trap to me,” Malia says skeptically, tapping my hand. Understanding what she wants, I turn to watch the door. The man being tortured isn’t making any noise, while the white-shirted man, Chad I think, runs knife along his bicep. The woman closes her eyes, shrinking against the wall. The children look frozen with fear.
“It’s not a trap, I swear. Please—you have to believe me. I didn’t know!”
“Keep it down!” I hiss, as Chad cocks his head to the side.
Malia’s voice is low, even, and deadly. “That’s bullshit. You knew. You knew, but you didn’t care until one day they hit too close to home and whatever shred of a conscience you have left couldn’t let you stay anymore. But you knew,” she gives a soft, grim laugh. “You knew.”
I pull Malia back toward the door and face the boy. He looks stricken, and his eyes find mine, pleading. “You’re right. I don’t deserve to live. I don’t deserve to have you believe me. But you have to save these girls. Please.”
Tavi shakes her head, and Malia scoffs, but I can’t throw him off as easily. I remember a different person, two weeks ago, sprinting through the woods because she couldn’t ignore it anymore, the screams and the late nights and the harsh laughter and yells of jubilation that made her skin crawl. Except that’s not what really made her leave.
What made her leave was the moment Ben looked at her and wouldn’t save her anymore.
Like this boy, she left to save herself.
“Where are the kids?” I ask.
The room across the hall is dark, but the door is open. I can make out a desk and an office chair. “They’re hiding behind the filing cabinet. Just get them out, please.”
I start forward, but Malia holds out a hand to stop me. “Tavi, you’re the quietest. You go. Be careful.”
Tavi ghosts across the hallway, somehow managing to move fast but make no noise on the tiled floor. In moments, she’s at the door. She winks at us before slipping inside.
The boy watches her silently, keeping his gun pointed at the ground. I draw a knife and hold it in my hand. It won’t do much against his gun, but I can see by the way his eyes keep flicking to the blade and back that he’s intimidated.
Moments pass, slower because of the adrenaline pumping through my veins, stilling my hands and making me zero in on the boy, evaluating his every movement. Gun or not, if he goes after any of my friends, he’s not making it out of this hallway alive.
Then Tavi emerges, stumbling a little under the weight of a dark figure. A child, a little girl, clinging to her like a monkey. Another girl, this one older, hangs onto Tavi’s belt loop.
In the room next to us, the man is still breathing, fast and shallow. The boy raises his eyebrows at me, as if to say, I told you so. Malia gestures to Tavi, motioning for her to exit with the kids. Tavi shakes her head; she wants to stay and help, but Malia is insistent. She won’t put the children’s lives at risk.
“Do you believe me now?” the boy asks.
“You aren’t one of them anymore, prove it.” Malia says. “Go in there and get those people out.”
“What? They’ll kill me!”
“We’ll be right behind you.” Malia motions with her head, and I move to the door at the other end of the room, further down the hall. I need you to distract them, and when you get close, use that gun they gave you. “
The boy swallows, but he doesn’t protest.
He squares his shoulders and calls out, “Travis? Chad?”
“In here,” Chad yells, reaching up to scratch his neck.
The boy saunters in, all traces of fear and desperation gone.
“Chase, my man,” Travis says, “Check this out,” There’s a soft thud, and the man groans in pain. “Still alive. I think we have, what, 10 or 15 cuts on his body?”
“Yeah about.” Chad grins.
“How is he still alive?” I think I can hear a quaver in Chase’s voice, but it might just be wishful thinking.
“We told him we wouldn’t take his wife until he was dead.” Travis sneers. “But I don’t know. She is awful pretty.” I hear his footsteps across the floor, and I draw a knife from my belt.
I don’t dare lean forward, not where he can see me, but I need to do something.
But if I go in, one of them could shoot me.
There’s a whimper, and the rustle of clothing. “Aw, isn’t that cute,” Travis says. “She’s puttin’ her babies behind her. You can’t protect them,” he says in a soft voice.
“Why are you doing this?” she bursts out, her voice hoarse from crying and screaming.
“Sweetheart,” I dare a glance over. Travis is standing over her, knife in hand, leering into to her face. “Because we c— “
Faster than I’ve seen anyone move, the woman grabs his knife hand and pulls, snatching the knife from his hand and making him slip on the tile floor. In seconds, she’s holding him with his own knife against his throat. “Let my husband go,” she says, “Or I’ll cut your little friend’s throat.”
Chad laughs, “My, my, we’ve got some fight in this one.” Travis forces a laugh too, but it sounds even higher than before. I press back against the wall. I’m exactly in their line of sight. There’s still no way I can go in. If they even look over to the side, I’m done.
I hear the click of a safety being thumbed off.
“Oh ho, Chase m’boy? You finally want to do the honors? Excellent.” Chad’s practically preening. “Here’s how it’s gonna go, ma’am. You’re gonna let my buddy go, and maybe I won’t check out what’s under them clothes while your husband tries to hold his insides together.”
I hear footsteps, then Travis’ voice, half-laughing. “Hey man, why’re you— “
A popping noise, loud enough to make me cover my ears. Then another. And another.
I look around the corner.
Travis is choking on his own blood. The woman is kneeling beside her husband, her children clinging to her, still clutching the knife.
“Nobody move!” Malia’s voice rings out over the sudden silence, and I step inside, surveying the scene before me.
Chase is kneeling next to Chad, a pool of blood surrounding them.
He doesn’t look dangerous now, just the shadow of a mustache and a torn throat where the bullet went through. My boots squelch in his blood.
At the sight of me and Malia, the woman raises her fists.
“Don’t worry,” I put my gun away and hold out my hands. “We’re here to help.”
“That’s what they said,” the wife nods at the two men. “They said they could show us a place to stay.”
“Look— “I begin.
“No.” She clutches onto her children tighter. “We’ll be fine on our own.”
“Your husband needs stitches. I know someone with medical training back where we live.” Malia is the softest and kindest I’ve ever seen her. “Please let us help you.”
“I’m an army medic. Served in Afghanistan. Two tours.” She spits on the ground. “One thing I learned over there: the only person’s gonna look out for you is you.”
“Please,” Malia says, “You at least need supplies.”
“We’ll be fine.”
Malia looks like she wants to say something else, but I stop her. “No. We’ve got to get back to the others.”
She glares at the woman. “Fine. Don’t let us help you. Have a nice life.”
The woman laughs, long and cold, clutching her children to her. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” The kids, a girl and a boy, gaze at us with narrowed eyes. They can’t be older than six or seven, but their suspicion makes them seem older, and dangerous.
> Her husband is breathing rapidly, turning pale. He doesn’t look good.
“He’s gonna need to rest,” I try to persuade her. “We have food, shelter, electricity. Please let us help you.”
But she’s not even listening anymore, just leaning over her husband, pulling gauze and bandages out of her backpack.
Still focused on him, she says, “If you’re still here when I’m done cleaning him up, I’ll kill you. Don’t make me kill anyone else in front of my children.”
The kids glare at me, and I throw up my hands.
Malia scoffs and stalks off. I leave through the door I came in, meeting the others in the hallway.
She walks in silence, back the way we came. The rest of us, including Chase, stay a few steps behind.
Suddenly, she turns around, nearly trampling Chase in the process.
“How many came here?” she demands.
Chase takes a step back. “Around a dozen.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“We split up. I was supposed to be the lookout. I think the rest of them went into the pool area. They heard that someone was hiding in the locker rooms.”
Malia wrinkles her nose. “Gross. Whatever, we need to see what happened to Tavi and those kids, then we can find the others.”
We trot back out the doors, into the light. It’s beginning to get dark now, the sun weakening as it sinks behind us, casting long shadows on the ground.
Outside, Tavi and the kids are nowhere to be found.
“Shit. I thought they’d be waiting for us.” Malia says.
“Maybe she went after the others.”
“But why take the kids with her? And where are Lisa and Traina?”
I shake my head, at a loss.
We walk around to the back, our boots crunching on the gravel mixed with grass. We pass the outdoor pool area. The padlock on the fence is broken, but no one’s around the pool.
I start to go through the gate, but Malia shakes her head. “We need to find where Jeffrey and the others went in first.”
We skirt around the pool area, approaching the back entrance of the building. A set of heavy gray double doors, one of which is propped open with a rock, greet us.
Malia motions me to her, careful to whisper so Chase won’t hear. “Lisa or Traina should have come found us by now,” she whispers. “I don’t like this.”
“Do we go in?” I glance back toward Chase. “With him?”
“No, not yet. I need to— “
She’s cut off as a red-haired figure plows into us, forcing us to the ground. Lisa, eyes wide, the pupils blown wide in fright, a trail of blood across one arm. Her quiver is missing several of its arrows, and she has a cut above her eye.
“Down,” she pants. “Follow me.” She gets up into a crouch and leads us towards the pool area, the way we came.
“We just went this way,” Malia hisses, trying to be as quiet as possible and keep up with Lisa’s frantic pace. “What are you doing?”
“They’re in the locker rooms, by the pool,” Lisa whispers. “Everyone.”
“Tavi? The kids?”
She nods.
“How many of him?” Malia jerks her head towards Chase.
Lisa stops her frantic shuffle and turns. I can see by the way her eyes look up and down Chase’s body that she knows he isn’t one of the people hiding here. His baseball cap, age, and the gun he holds mark him as one of them.
Then Chase is on the ground, trying to pry Lisa’s hands from his throat.
Malia pulls at her arms, but she won’t budge. “Lisa! Stop!” she says as loudly as she dares.
The loudest noise is the scuffle of Chase’s boots on the ground, scrabbling for purchase in the gravel. Even though his legs struggle, his arms remain limp.
“He’s helping us,” Malia’s voice cracks from the strain of whispering. “He can get Jeffrey out. Let him go!”
Finally, she hits Lisa’s hand with the butt of her gun, and Lisa drops back with a yelp of pain, clutching her wrist. Chase sits up, gasping, massaging his throat. No one helps him up.
Malia looks furious, but before she can say anything, Lisa interrupts. “They got Traina,” she whispers, and the tear tracks start to snake their way through the dirt and grime on her face. “I was covering the back, covering Jeffrey and Soren and Mikey, and they must have seen us split up, or she was covering y’all or something. They got her.”
“She’s dead?”
Lisa nods.
I feel the world spin around me, and I clutch onto Malia for support. She grabs me too, and I try to stay upright for her, try to be the solid thing to anchor her here, now, because we don’t have time to make this a big deal, we don’t have time to weep or to scream, and the tearing inside of us needs to go away, because they are coming any second.
“And you’re with—him” Lisa’s voice has such disgust and revulsion in it that Chase takes a few steps back.
Malia bows her head for a moment, and I start to panic. If Malia, of all people, breaks down…
“He helped us save two little girls and a family.” I say. Lisa looks up at that, her eyes lightening with hope. “Jeffrey, Soren, and Mikey are still alive?”
“I don’t know where they are.” Lisa says, still looking at Malia, whose eyes are dull and flat. “I lost track of them after the Jackals killed Traina.”
Malia’s face goes hard. “Well then,” she says, and her voice cuts through the air like steel, disregarding completely the prerogative to stay quiet. “I guess we’re going in,”
“Are you crazy?” Chase hisses. “It’s suicide. There are at least five Jackals in there!”
“I thought you didn’t know,” Malia says, adopting the same demonic grin.
“I— “Chase begins, looking like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
“You wanted us to get you out,” my hands are shaking, and Lisa places on hand on my arm. Suddenly I’m the one who needs to be held back from leaping at Chase. “You didn’t care if anyone else made it.”
Chase looks into my eyes, and the shame in there awakens something in me for a moment, some dark memory of firelight and screaming and pleading, but I push it away.
“We don’t leave our friends behind,” Malia says. The point here is that we are quality. And they are quantity. And Chase over here is going to show them what quality we are.”
Chase shoots her a blank look that I’m certain he must have used in multiple classrooms a million years ago. “What are you— “
“You TOLD us you would get us to FOOD,” Malia shouts as loud as she can. “What kind of idiot do you think I am?” Her voice deepens, “I’ll make it worth your while if you help me out.”
Chase catches on quickly. He points his hand at the double doors, muttering, “Inside, waiting for you. Please— “
Malia’s laugh in high-pitched and fluttery. “Oh don’t worry,” she purrs. “Once I have my food, I’ll do everything I promised. And more.” She pauses for a moment, cocking her head to the side, and motions us away from her. Lisa and I pace to the other side of the doors, training our weapons on the entrance. I check my gun for ammunition and thumb off the safety, pointing it with both hands at the entrance.
“I’ll even throw in a couple favors for your friends, if they come out and see me,” Malia laughs.
“I think we’ll have to go in, just for a second.” His voice has the same accented drawl it dripped with when he was with Travis and Chad.
He takes her hand and leads her around the pool. When he gets closer, someone emerges from one of the blue doors to the side. The guy gives him a high-five, then gestures to the door like a courtier, inviting them in.
“Ten,” Lisa murmurs quietly. “Then we go in,”
“Ten what?”
“Ten seconds.” She’s already creeping forward, her back against the wall.
“Chase, you little shit,” a voice hoots, and several others laugh. “You actually brought one in willingly. I take back all I
ever said about you,” the laughter gets louder.
“Alright, you’ve seen her, lemme take her outside.” Chase’s voice is exactly the level of exasperated pride that comes from years of being the younger brother.
“No way, bro, I wanna see what she promised you. I think you should give us a front row seat.”
“Um excuse me?” Malia’s voice, high pitched and whiny. “I’m starving over here,”
“Come over here, I’ll— “
BANG
Lisa and I sprint inside. We come to a row of lockers and benches, facing shower stalls. The guy who let Chase in lies on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Chase, gun in hand, is staring down at him with shock and revulsion on his face. His hands are shaking, and blood spatters his cheek and t-shirt.
Malia stands next to him, pointing a gun at a guy with a thick beard and a red and black checkered flannel shirt. Four others, ranging in age from teenagers to men in their thirties, are grouped around the room, frozen in the act of drinking, a few still fumbling for weapons. They drop their hands as soon as Malia aims at them.
One, a red-haired man in his twenties, sneers at Malia, “Like you kids will win against any of us.”
As I watch, one of the guys next to the shower stalls, with a long, wicked looking knife, leans against it. His knife hand moves forward, and I hear a whimpering noise.
Lisa moves beside me, and the man collapses, and arrow in his thigh.
“If any of you even think about going for weapons, he’s dea— “
But they surge forward as one, too fast for her to notice, to be able to defend herself. I point my gun at the crowd for a moment, but I can’t shoot them. I might hit Malia or Chase.
And then someone comes at me, a flash of silver in a veined hand, and I move without thinking, swinging my gun like a club. Blood spurts from his head, and he drops, the knife clattering to the floor next to him.
And then I’m moving, scooping the knife off the floor, to where two of them are converging on Malia.
“I’ll shoot!” Malia shouts, but they don’t stop coming.
The gun fires, and one of them drops, clutching his side.
Malia keeps backing toward the opposite wall, and Lisa, Chase and I join her.
Call Me Zombie: Volume I: Rose Page 11