Eventually, Vaughan backed down and put his hand on Hendrix’s shoulder, then Nelson’s. He pulled them back and Hendrix finally lowered his weapon. The guard never lowered his, but if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have either.
Hendrix loaded up the duffels into the trunk and they piled back in the Hummer; we were allowed to pass through gate one. Several tense seconds had me biting my nails until we were through gate two; I repeated the process until we were finally through gate three.
As soon as we were on the other side of the fort, the tension in the Hummer seemed to just lift off us. I watched the two rows of seating in front of me collectively relax their shoulders and let out a breath of relief. It felt so good to be out of there, so safe to be away and back where the Feeders roamed free.
I thought about that for a second, how I felt safer out where I wasn’t safe. But I couldn’t help it. There was just something so off with those guys. Something I never wanted to witness or be a part of.
Besides we were free of them now, I never wanted to think of them again.
“What’s wrong with the guns?” King asked, breaking the heavy silence.
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Hendrix bit out. “Except more than half of them are missing.”
“They stole our guns?” Harrison growled.
“And our ammo,” Nelson confirmed. “And then he wouldn’t even admit to it. He just kept saying he had no idea what we were talking about.”
“God, those assholes,” Harrison mumbled.
“Cuss jar,” Page whispered between Haley and me.
“Cuss jar,” I confirmed while my whole body felt sick with nausea. I had about fifty different curses for them in my head and none of them were as nice as assholes, but I didn’t want to owe Page’s cuss jar. She took it very seriously. And if we ever used currency again, I was already at least a hundred bucks in the hole to her.
“What are we going to do?” King asked anxiously.
“We’re just going to resupply,” Vaughan answered easily, in the way he always did, somehow with both assurance and authority.
But that was when the Hummer decided to die.
Chapter Four
The engine sputtered for a while. Vaughan stomped down on the gas so hard I thought his foot would go straight through the floorboards; he started rocking back and forth like he could physically move the car with his body motion.
“No,” Vaughan said simply to the Hummer while the rest of us held our breath. “No, no, no.” Then he let out a stream of curse words that would guarantee Page a full ride to college one day.
The engine continued to sputter while we slowed down to a crawl and then stopped moving completely. And then came the final death; the engine ceased living and everything was still and quiet.
We sat in stunned silence for several minutes, nobody moving, nobody talking. This could not be possible. We’d only been on the road for ten total minutes.
“The gas tank says full,” Hendrix finally pointed out.
Vaughan stared at it blankly for three more seconds before leaning forward and flicking it with his finger. The needle dropped down to below empty like it had been stuck on something near the full line.
“I should have noticed it before we left,” Vaughan ground out. “It doesn’t show how much gas is in the car until it’s on. The gas tank read full before I started it earlier and I should have known. I should have paid better attention.”
“It’s not your-“ I started sensitively even while I was reeling with my own rage inside me, but Vaughan cut me off before I could excuse his fault in this.
“Reagan, let me have a few minutes. Then you can soothe my ego. But first I need to get good and pissed off.” But he sounded so calm.
“We’re a thirty minute walk from their fort. We’ve got maybe a third of our weapons supply,” Hendrix ticked off our situation. “Vaughan they planned this. They did this so we’d have to go back.”
“We’re not going back,” Vaughan said needlessly.
“You’re goddamn right we’re not going back,” Hendrix agreed.
Page opened her mouth to say something, but I quickly shook my head. This was not the time for sarcasm.
“Reagan pass the duffels forward,” Vaughan commanded. “We arm ourselves with everything we have before we get out of this car, alright? Guns first, packs second. Page,” he turned around in his seat to give her his full attention. “Do you remember everything we’ve been over? Do you remember what to do?”
“Yes, Vaughan, I remember,” she nodded.
“Get your gun out, Pagey, and you stay right by my side. Don’t you ever leave my side,” he made her promise.
She nodded her sweet little head and held back the tears I could see threatening to spill over.
I repeated the routine from yesterday, pulling the gun bags over the seat and passing out the weapons and ammo. Then Haley and I passed up the backpacks.
We were able to strap on every piece of gun we had and pack the remaining ammo among us. That was not a good sign. Not at all.
Although it was more than Haley and I had been traveling with a week ago, it didn’t seem like nearly enough for this size of group. We seemed disturbingly unprepared and I dreaded the moment we would step out of the safety of the Hummer and have to walk again.
“Do you think they’ll come after us?” Haley asked while she retied Page’s boots.
“No,” Vaughan answered quickly. “I think they want us to come crawling back to them. We defied their idea of control and they want us to be keenly aware of who’s in charge.”
“I wish there were a way to warn others,” she lamented.
“Haley,” Nelson warned.
“No, I know there’s not. But I just can’t believe this is the world we live in. It’s one thing to have to deal with Zombies, but what happened to the rest of humanity? When did everyone become a douchy bastard?”
“Are those? Uh…?” Page looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Definitely,” I nodded. “Haley has two for the cuss jar.”
Haley stuck out her tongue at us.
Vaughan ignored us and then instructed, “Alright, stick together, be alert, be on guard. We’ll find the first empty building and regroup. Keep your eyes open for another vehicle. If it’s not too far from this one, we’ll syphon gas and circle back.”
The doors opened and everyone climbed out. Nobody bothered to close a door; we just grouped tightly together and started walking down the highway in the direction of south.
America was an interesting place to spend the end of the world. We drove everywhere, houses could be miles apart, towns even farther. When you had to walk across the entirety of the great fifty states, you realized how much freaking space there was. And on a quiet morning like this, with not even a bird to keep us company, Missouri felt infinite…. impossible.
“If it makes anyone feel better,” Haley broke the silence first, “Reagan and I walked from the middle of Iowa to where we found you guys. So walking is possible.”
She said this to a group of guys that were walking with guns literally pointed in every direction as they moved as a military unit over the roads in Middle America.
“And how long did that take you?” Hendrix asked.
She cleared her throat, “A little under two years.”
“So, going by your timeline, which is being a bit generous at this point with all of us traveling together, we’ll reach the Andes mountains in the middle of Peru in about…. fifty years.”
Haley shot him a saucy grin and said, “Just in time to retire. Think of this as like your 401k. Any good plan takes hard work.”
“Was that a commercial slogan?” Nelson laughed.
“For a bank back home,” Haley shrugged.
“Here we go,” Vaughan barked out suddenly.
And there they were; the first of the Zombies we would meet on foot. The smell should have tipped us off, but most places smelled like them now, both inside and outside. I
t was like one of those Axe cologne commercials, whenever you could smell it, people were ravaged and attacked. Only instead of hot guys getting mobbed by hot girls it was every kind of person getting mugged by Zombies. So exactly the same…. only not.
I was actually kind of surprised to see the ten Zombies, lured in by our pumping blood and beating hearts. I really wanted to make it farther than twenty minutes this morning without getting covered in blood and gore. But this was the end of the world, after all, so I really shouldn’t have had unrealistic expectations.
“Page?” Vaughan reached out behind him to make sure she was there. She clutched his hand and drew herself into the back of him.
“Reagan?” Hendrix asked quieter.
“I’m here,” I promised, following Page’s lead and slipping my hand into his for just a moment. I quickly withdrew it, though, in favor of a semi-automatic handgun I thought would be more appropriate.
The first shot rang loudly through the air. Harrison caught the closest Zombie right in the throat. Deep, crimson-colored blood started to shoot from the wound, spraying his companions in his carnage.
It was, frankly, disgusting. But there was so not time for things like emotions and revulsion. We had to survive…. together. Because that was apparently what we did now.
The Zombie didn’t react in any way, shape or form. He just kept coming at us, blood spurting everywhere like the fountain of death. His homies were gaining speed, running at us now with their superhuman speed.
We spread out, so as not to hit each other with our gunfire, and started aiming at the group of ten. There were more of them than us, but we were faster. They groaned and moaned as they set about attacking us, their grunting sounds very reminiscent of the movies from before the initial infection. For some reason, I didn’t expect that early on, I didn’t expect them to be so… Hollywood-like. At least they weren’t running around groaning “brains, braaaaaains.” That would have just been overkill.
I hit one that was missing a foot and an arm right between the eyes, then moved my attention to a once-upon-a-time, elderly woman who had lost her life to the Zombie disease that took over her mind. I cringed as I shot at her, but what choice did I have?
Hendrix stood to my left, hitting target after target and Haley to my right, not doing so badly herself. Page hid behind Vaughan, clutching his shirt, clinging to him for security.
There was no way this child was going to grow up with a healthy perspective for this world. Not that I had one, but if the youth were our future, I wondered if it would be better or worse than it was now.
Gary and his good ol’ gang couldn’t be left in charge of things forever, but what did a future look like when the children grew up killing things daily and hiding in the shadows, scavenging for food.
Were our options really this bleak?
I took out another Feeder, just because thinking about how f-ed up they made everything really
pissed me off. Bang. Bang. Another one bites the dust, Bitches.
We finished those ones off easily enough and continued our walk toward Peru.
“Ok, I quit,” I declared loudly when we had stepped over the finally silent bodies of the dead Feeders. “We can’t seriously be walking to Peru- to f-ing Peru.”
I stopped in the middle of the road. The blooming trees of spring rustled in a light breeze, and shaded the stretch of highway we were on from the bright morning sun. Behind the putrid stench of rotting Zombies, was the faint scent of new grass and fresh buds on trees. The air was light and the breeze, gentle and caressing; the sweet undertones of plant life and warm nights filled the space in between rotten flesh and fresh gunshots. It was frustrating how close I was to something beautiful, yet it was completely overshadowed by the death surrounding me.
It was like this metaphor for my life and I freaking hated it.
“That’s it?” Hendrix scoffed. “You’re giving up?”
Peru is super far away,” I reminded everyone needlessly. “It was a stupid dream, a stupid goal.”
“You were planning on walking before,” Nelson pointed out. “When it was just you and Haley.”
“Besides, the Hummer only had a little more than a fourth tank of gas anyway. Gary probably added one extra day to our trip, that’s it.” Hendrix added.
“Plus, there are your goals, Reagan,” Vaughan chimed in. “What else is there besides your goals?”
“Love?” I answered defiantly.
“You’ve got love?” Vaughan asked, shocked and disbelieving. It was in that moment I confirmed he was talking about him and me. Brat. I should have known better than to trust these boys with friendship. They all wanted to get laid.
Okay, I knew better than that, too, so much better than that. But it was still shocking that we were thinking beyond terms of how to help each other survive.
“No, I don’t have love yet,” I threw back on a laugh.
“Alright, then you’ve got your goals. And Peru is a goal. A big, impossible, dangerous goal.”
“But it’s my goal,” I agreed.
“Damn right, it’s your goal,” Vaughan said seriously. “So let’s go already, it’s going to take us our entire lives to get there, we don’t have time to waste.”
“You know, you guys aren’t so bad,” I admitted once we started walking again. “I think I’ve decided to keep you around”
All five brothers looked at me like I had just lost my mind; they all wore the same look of disbelief, and all shook their heads in refusal to believe what I had just said.
“We spend a week going in the wrong direction- her direction. We lost three/fourths of our ammo and weapon supply. We lost our transportation. Hendrix risked his life, then I did, then Hendrix again and then Vaughan. I spend the night knowing the worst anxiety I’ve ever known- as in now I have an ulcer and no way to medicate it. Then we engage in the fifty-sixth Zombie battle to the death for her. And she’s just decided to keep us. After all of that,” Nelson griped. “Reagan, you are so lucky you brought Haley.”
Apparently every Parker brother agreed with that because they all made similar statements under their breath and turned back to Feeder Watch 2013.
We spent the day searching for a town, fighting the random Zombie and sticking together. We were melting into this unified entity, and it was hard to imagine what life was like before the Parker brothers, before every weakness was protected, every blind spot covered.
Eventually we came upon an abandoned gas station that was isolated in the middle of some forested area. In a past life this would have been the perfect setting for an ax murder or serial killer set up. Yet this was my life. My life the horror movie.
However, I did opt to protect Page and sit cover-duty while Hendrix, Vaughan and Nelson inspected the inside. Sorry, there was only so much courage a girl could pull on each day. They could take care of the potential Mike Meyers threat; I’d stay in my safe-zone picking off Zombies.
Once we were given the “all clear” we set about securing the interior, so it would be safe for the night. We had about an hour left of light and we needed to utilize every second of it to insure a peaceful night.
Haley and I checked the back door, locked it and shoved every heavy object in the back room in front of it. It opened to the outside, so that was probably all unnecessary. But for real, we knew how to trip a bitch if someone were able to rip that heavy metal door open and walk in here in the pitch dark. Then we set up a community sleeping room in the same back room.
The boys locked the front doors with a set of keys left near the cash register then moved all the racks, where food was once stored, in front of them. They blacked out some of the windows with some tarps from the back room, but there wasn’t enough to cover every window.
This wasn’t the most ideal place to stay, but we knew how to be absolutely quiet and how to not show any light. We hadn’t made much noise while we were in here. This had to work; we didn’t have any other options.
We made a meal out of some chee
se cracker packs, left over Pringle tubes, Twizzler Nibs and bottles of water that hadn’t been looted. It wasn’t chicken like the night before, but this might as well have been a feast. Nibs? Hello.
I grabbed a pack of razors, several sizes of batteries, tampons, a must, because believe me, Mother Nature did not abandon us all, and pens and paper. I was pretty sure Page hadn’t had a second of school since she went on the run with her brothers, and while it might not have been the most important part of our day, nor would I be all that great a teacher, but I could offer reading and writing lessons. No matter what the decline of civilization looked like for the rest of the world, anyone I was partially in charge of was going to be able to do both. I didn’t believe this was the end for humanity.
I couldn’t believe that.
I had to live for something.
I had to hold on to hope in some way.
“So was that like a mental breakdown earlier?” Hendrix whispered, bringing his make-shift pillow over next to me while I repacked my backpack, giving up some of my abundance of underwear to make room.
“I guess,” I shrugged, even though he could barely make me out in the dim light from the moon outside. “The enormity of what I’m asking of you guys just kind of hit me and I suddenly felt stupid for asking you to do this impossible thing with me.”
“Never feel stupid for asking me anything, Reagan,” Hendrix ordered. “We’re in this together; stupid things and all.”
“Alright,” I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Not those,” He said instead of “your welcome.”
“What?” I looked around as his hand covered a silky pair of lime green and black lace panties in my hand. Completely ridiculous. But when we looted Victoria’s Secret we weren’t exactly able to find practical pieces.
“Not those,” Hendrix repeated. “I like those.”
I snorted, “Like you’ll ever get to see them on me.”
Love & Decay (Season 1): Episodes 1-6 Page 12