The room’s furnishings grew brighter as they caught their breath. Sophia ran her fingers across his seven day stubble, grinning from ear to ear. “Now I remember why I like older men.”
He kissed her softly on the lips and drew back, breathing her in and staring into her eyes. “You’re so beautiful.”
An easy smile shaped her lips. “I wish we were in our own bed.”
“Me too, hotstuff.”
“We’d spend the entire day in bed watching Netflix and eating popcorn and Junior Mints.”
Paul exhaled a forlorn breath and kissed her on the forehead, so she wouldn’t see the sadness creeping into his eyes. Those days were as dead as everything else and it made him want to cry. “What I wouldn’t give to spend all day with you in bed,” he said, rolling onto his back to find Mike and Matt peeking over the back of the couch. Paul’s face fell. “Jesus Christ,” he said curtly.
Sophia shrieked and pulled the blanket over her head, leaving Paul alone in the light.
“What’re you guys doing?”
Mike furrowed his brow as he thought it over. “Were you guys wrestling?”
“No, we weren’t wrestling!”
“It sounded like you were hurting her,” Matt whispered.
“I wasn’t hurting her. She’s fine.”
Mike’s eyes flickered to the lump lying next to him. “She’s not moving.”
Paul elbowed Sophia in the side, making her giggle. “See? She moves.”
Mike nodded. “Cool. Hey, do we get guns today?”
Chapter Seven
The early morning sun was a welcome invasion. The SUV’s heater worked fine but the sunshine was nice, giving the false impression it was just another pretty day in the heartland. The fresh powder slowed their speed but did little to dismay the SUV’s four-wheel drive. Paul couldn’t stop a slight grin from playing on his lips. After a bit of hedging last summer, he decided to spring for the Trailhawk package even though Sophia thought it was a waste of money. It wasn’t. Not in this snow. Pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, he gave it more gas and scanned the sparkling landscape ahead. Interstate 35 was eerily clear of vehicles in either direction, lulling the group into a somber trance. They passed an abandoned car or truck every few miles but nothing blocked the road. Nothing moved. It was quiet. He took a drink of Folgers made with cold water back at the house. Every hill they crested, Paul expected to find a police blockade or a makeshift military base or a FEMA tent or something waiting on the other side, but they never did and the whole thing left as bad a taste in his mouth as the shitty-ass coffee.
Unless everyone was hiding, they could be talking human extermination. In the past two days, they’d seen three people – the three riding in the back with Dan. Instead of a mass exodus of vehicles, snow blew across the lonely roadway in skittering lines. The nationwide travel ban did little to stop the spread but, for the most part, kept the interstates wide open. Everything happened so fast there hadn’t been time for much else. No quarantines or tornado sirens or presidential PSAs and Paul figured that when people started getting sick they called into work and, ultimately, became entombed in their own homes. Some, like Paul and Sophia, broke the travel ban and got the hell out of Dodge before it was too late.
Snow crunched beneath the tires. Dead trees and white fields rushed past on both sides of the road. Houses and buildings sat with no signs of life, each one quieter than the one before it. Every now and then, something minor would catch Paul’s eye that didn’t quite sit right: A car door hanging open with no one around, an orange snowplow parked in the middle of the road, a spilt basket of laundry outside a laundromat – small things that poured salt onto the wound nonetheless.
They crossed the state line into Missouri and a triumphant feeling surged through Paul’s veins, filling him with hope. Considering the snowfall, they were making good time. He looked into the rear-view mirror at the others stuffed in the back. Matt sat between Dan and Carla in the backseat while Mike rode with their gear in the back end. Paul turned to Sophia in the passenger seat, keeping the Jeep at a cool thirty-five miles per hour. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. The morning sun drenched her olive skin that never burned, even on the hottest of days. She was beautiful and he loved her more than anything in the world, which is why he worried about her the most.
She flashed him a quick smile. “I love you,” she mouthed over the Black Keys.
Paul kissed her hand. “I love you.”
“I would love to take a leak!”
Paul looked at Dan in the rearview mirror, eyebrows dipping. “Grab an empty water bottle and make a trucker bomb.”
Mike and Matt groaned their disgust before morphing into a slow moving laugh while Sophia peered at Paul over the top of her sunglasses.
“Don’t be gross,” she said, pushing her shades back up.
“Mom?” Matt said in a high voice. “What’s a trucker bomb?”
“Never mind, Peanut.”
Mike laughed. “It’s when you pee in a bottle, kid!”
“You’re a kid!”
Carla chuckled, shaking her head at Paul in the mirror.
They could be loud now as the Jeep rolled down the interstate with Dan’s iPod plugged into the deck. Paul jerked forward when the vehicle slammed into a deer that came sprinting from the tree line. Blood sprayed the windshield, blocking his view. He fought the wheel for control, everyone falling deathly silent as the SUV fishtailed through the milky powder. The brake pedal clicked beneath his boot, doing little to slow their speed. The rear end swung out to the right and slid back hard left, sending the vehicle careening into the right hand ditch. A booming crunch filled their ears as the front end plowed up a mountain of snow and earth, snapping them to a shuddering halt at an awkward angle. The engine sputtered and died. Time froze as they caught their breath in the thunderstruck silence that followed.
Paul turned to Sophia, hands still glued to the wheel. “Are you okay?”
She looked down and watched her chest undulate beneath her coat. “I think so. Are you?”
Releasing his seatbelt, he twisted around to face the others in back. “Is everyone alright?”
“Holy shit.” Dan looked up from his lap, face drawn and white as a ghost. “I just peed my pants.”
Matt wrinkled his nose and scooted closer to his mom.
Chapter Eight
The good news was they crashed next to an empty field where nothing could sneak up on them except the wind. The bad news was the rig wasn’t going anywhere ever again. The crinkled right front end looked like an accordion, the tire beneath it peeled off the black rim.
“Unfuckingbelievable,” Paul muttered, staring at the mangled tire. “Of all the times for something like this to happen.”
Dan frowned at him. “Don’t tell me you let your Triple A run out.”
“Are you ever serious?”
“Oh yeah, look who’s talking!”
Paul kicked the tire. “Fucking airbags didn’t even deploy. We could’ve been killed.”
Dan released a white stream of breath. “My underwear is starting to freeze.”
“Shit!”
The wind stung their cheeks and eyes and the worried looks staring back from inside the car broke Paul’s heart. This wasn’t good. They had kids now to think about for fuck’s sake!
“There’s gotta be a car we can snag at the next exit,” Dan said, shielding the sun with his hand.
Paul followed his distant gaze south, squinting against the bright white. What other choice did they have? They would have to hoof it from here, and even though six or seven hours of daylight remained, they had to hurry. “Let’s grab everything we can carry and get going.”
Sophia was a strong twenty-eight year old woman and had grown a lot stronger over the past week, but when she found out they would have to walk…she finally lost it. This would be the first time they went anywhere on foot and she didn’t want any part of it. None of them did.
“
I don’t wanna do this anymore,” she said faintly, tears glistening on her cheeks.
“I don’t either, Sophia, but we don’t have a choice.”
Fortunately, they’d only come across two walking corpses all day and that was way back when they got on the interstate. At first glance, Paul thought they were hitch-hikers, but quickly realized they were two Schwan’s guys with no interest in delivering frozen pizzas and corndogs anymore. Purposely ambling into the SUV’s path, the men tried stopping them on the ramp but Paul swerved around the gruesome twosome and kept going. He prayed their luck held out on foot and things remained just as quiet.
“This is a bad idea,” Carla concluded aloud, literally shaking in her boots outside the open tailgate.
Paul stuffed his coat with full clips and boxes of ammo. “You got a better one?”
Carla looked around. “Yeah, let’s stay in the truck and wait for someone to come along.”
“The only person that is going to come along,” he started, looking down to Mike and Matt and swallowing the rest of his statement.
Dan clipped a spare holster on Carla and showed her how to shoot a nine millimeter without actually firing it. The last thing they needed right now was to attract unwelcome attention. Her new weapon clicked as she practiced loading and ejecting the fifteen round clip.
Paul insisted everyone keep their safeties off. Safeties were for dead men now and reaction time was everything. He assured Carla they would get some target practice in after finding another vehicle, but for now silence was golden.
“Where’d you get these guns?” she asked, aiming out over the field and staring down the sight with one eye closed.
“Some we had, the others we looted from a gun shop on the way out of town,” Dan told her, straightening her arms. “There was hardly anything left.”
She popped off a pretend shot and turned to Dan. “Once in the head, huh?”
His brow folded. “Yeah, haven’t you ever seen Night of the Comet?”
She snorted and holstered the weapon. “I’m more into rom-coms.”
Paul rolled his eyes and didn’t bother shutting the tailgate. A few hundred yards later, they crested a gentle hill, the wind painting their cheeks red. He took one last look back at his incapacitated truck. Sunlight gleamed off the black paint. The Jeep winked at him and then it was gone. Turning back around, he plodded through the thick snow and wiped his nose with his glove. “Unbelievable.”
“Two Miles!” Dan shouted out from behind a pair of binoculars.
Paul squinted up ahead. “Gas station?”
“And a McDonald’s,” Dan reported, focusing on a blue interstate sign down the road.
“There has to be a car there,” Carla said, fidgeting with her new sidearm.
“And a kid’s meal!” Matt added.
“You hungry, buddy?” Paul asked, watching his boots disappear into the snow with each step.
“I’m starving.”
“We’ll find something soon. I promise.”
When the woods crept closer to the road, Paul kept seeing blood-thirsty fiends spring from the tree line out the corner of his eye. Just like the deer. The trees were bare but there were so many of them in places it would be easy for someone to get the jump on them. He flexed his cold trigger finger, worried his stiff joints would flub the shot at the worst possible time.
“I’m so scared,” Sophia whispered, peering into the woods like she’d just seen some of Paul’s imaginary flesh-eaters herself.
“Everything is going to fine.” He wrapped an arm around her as the snow crunched beneath their boots and the cold wind stung their faces. “We’re almost there.” A shriek went off up ahead, making them stop. Even the sunshine couldn’t wash away the horror lurking in that scream.
“Damn,” Dan muttered, stopping to rest his shotgun between his legs and break out the binoculars again.
Carla drew her gun, eyes wild and jumpy. “Why do they keep doing that?”
“You just take it easy,” Paul told her. “And keep that thing holstered for now. Do not shoot me.”
“Looks like we’re definitely going to have company,” Dan said glumly, peering through the glasses.
Paul sighed, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Let’s just get there before we freeze to death.”
The snow made it a much longer walk than it appeared. The quiet didn’t help matters either. It was too quiet. No cars, no planes, and no snowmobiles racing up and down the white countryside. The woods crowded both sides of the interstate now, pressing against Paul’s lungs.
“I wish I could talk to my mom,” Sophia muttered, concentrating on her footing.
“I know you do.”
Her watery gaze swung over to him. “I’m sorry, Paul. I don’t why I said that.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure she’s fine.”
Sophia studied him for a moment and could tell he was lying. “I just really miss her.” She turned her attention back to where she was stepping and Paul didn’t respond. Two years ago, her mom took a job in Chicago and Paul knew she didn’t stand a chance in a city that size. Not without guns. Sophia knew it as well.
“I don’t even have a picture,” she said distantly, her sniffles multiplying like wet Gremlins. “Sometimes I think I’m starting to forget what she even looks like.”
Paul blew out a long breath. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to throw a pity party. They needed to stay on point. Anything could happen at any second. His heart ached for her as he searched the woods for the perfect words to make everything better. But there was nothing to find. Right now someone had to focus because another scream just came from the gas station gradually getting closer.
Chapter Nine
Paul passed the binoculars back to Dan, who peered through them again. They stood at the beginning of an exit ramp with an old Shell station sitting on the other end and a new McDonald’s across the street.
“He’s just doing circles,” Dan whispered, rotating the dial in the middle.
“Just the one?”
“Hard to tell. There’re two cars at the pumps but that’s all I can see from here.”
“I say we cut through this field and sneak up from behind,” Paul said. “Come around the front and start blasting until we find some car keys in somebody’s pocket.” He looked back to the others for any better ideas. No one spoke and, in his book, silence was consent.
He eyed Carla and the boys. “You guys ready for this?”
They nodded with chattering teeth, looking like they were about to skydive for the very first time.
Dan stuffed the binoculars into his coat pocket as Paul double-checked his weapons for the umpteenth time before quietly leading them into the snow-covered field basking in the sunlight. A pheasant fluttered into the air from a nearby patch of thickets. Everyone drew on it in a heartbeat. Cooing, the game bird stopped flapping its wings and glided across the field ahead of them, scouting out their bumpy path.
Dan lowered his shotgun, watching the ring-neck disappear into a distant tree line. “We should’ve shot it. Could’ve had pheasant McNuggets for lunch.”
“Gross,” Matt groaned.
Paul trudged onward. “Let’s keep moving.”
“Hey, shouldn’t I have a gun or something?” Mike whispered to Paul, plodding through the deep snow.
“Maybe we’ll get you a knife instead. How does that sound?”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah, maybe a Rambo knife or something.”
Mike frowned. “What’s a Rambo knife?”
“Ya know, from the movie.”
His eyes narrowed. “What movie?”
“Never mind. We’ll get you something later, big-timer. I promise.”
“What about me?” Matt piped in, trying to keep up. “I’m a Cub Scout!”
“You are?”
“And this one time I helped an old lady cross the street.”
“Wow,” Paul smiled. “That was really nice o
f you, Matt.”
“Yeah, but she smelled like chicken soup.”
“That’s not good.”
“Yeah, and this other one time I killed a werewolf.”
Paul stared down at Matt, eyebrows dipping beneath his ski cap. “You did?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Mike said. “He also thinks he can create force fields around him.”
“I can and you know it, Mikey!”
“Then let’s see ya stop this.” Mike pelted his younger brother in the face with a snowball and laughed.
Matt brushed the snow from his eyes, face turning a bright shade of blistering red, and charged, tackling Mike to the ground in a plume of white powder.
“Whoa!” Dan said, stopping as they tumbled at his feet.
“Matthew!” Carla rushed over to untangle them. “You two are going to get us all killed! This isn’t a joke. People are dying and you’re out here playing?!”
Paul glanced at Sophia, who mirrored his nervous expression.
They looked around and then kept walking, the backside of the dated gas station getting larger with every step.
“So,” Matt said, working his short legs to catch back up to Paul. “Can I have a rainbow knife too?”
A Little More Dead Page 4