by A. J. Snyder
Growing up as the nerdy science geek, I never really had friends, and I certainly never had girlfriends. I had friends that were girls, but I was always held back in the friend zone while they made out with their popular, jock boyfriends and went to dances without me.
I was bullied mercilessly all through school, but I think in a way it made me who I am today.
I wanted to get the hell out of school, so I pushed myself, academically speaking. I graduated from high school at the ripe old age of fourteen and went straight to college. Several years later, I had a Ph.D. under my belt and something to feel proud of.
With a successful and busy career, my love life was put completely on the backburner. I never had time for relationships, but it's not like women were waiting in line or anything to date me.
And then, when the apocalypse hit, I truly never thought I would meet anyone special in my life. Never find the one.
Never lose my virginity. That's for sure.
Those things used to depress me and keep me up at night.
But what I didn't know was that the universe had a plan for me all along. Trinity turned my entire world upside down just when I had lost all hope. And when I made love to her for the first time, I knew I wanted to experience that again and again with her.
She's the one I want to be a better man for now. She makes me want to be a better person.
As we cruise down the empty and forgotten highway, I miss her terribly. She has become very important to me in such a short time, and I hope she stays with us. Forever.
And so when Carter asks me if I want to go anywhere special today on our supply run, I instantly tell him, "A library," before pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
There's a specific book that I want to find for my girl, and I can't wait to see her face when I bring it home for her.
CHAPTER 27
LUCAS
AFTER I'M FINISHED feeding the animals and giving them water, my stomach rumbles loudly, echoing in the barn. Feeling famished, I decide to go see if Trinity is ready for some lunch.
Exiting the barn, I lock the doors up tight.
Staring off in the distance, I see Trinity bent over, weeding in the garden. The way her ass moves around makes my cock twitch.
Even though we've fucked almost every night she's been in my bed, I just can't get enough of her. And now that the guys are gone today, my mind starts thinking of all the ways I could dirty her up…on every surface of the house.
My cock jumps in my pants, straining against the material, begging to be let free. "Down boy," I whisper.
Grabbing the empty water bucket, I double-check the locks on the barn before walking towards the garden.
Suddenly, I feel an intense pain in the back of my head. I blink, and I'm falling to the ground. I blink again, and I'm sprawled out on the grass.
"Fffuucckkk," I drawl out groggily, not knowing what the hell just happened. I touch the back of my head and my fingers come back covered in blood. Was I shot?
Through blurry vision I see a figure appear at my side. The man is haggard with long, matted brown hair and crazy, dark eyes. His clothes are dirty and torn, and his feet are bare and covered in blood and mud.
And then I spot the shovel in his hand and can only reach one conclusion in my foggy brain. He snuck up on me and hit me in the back of the head with the damn thing.
"Where is she?" he hisses at me, dropping the shovel and brandishing a large knife.
"Who…who are you?" I manage to croak out.
"Doesn't matter who I am. Where. Is. She?" he asks, enunciating each word.
I open my mouth to tell him to go fuck off, but the dark fog in my brain begins to pull me under, and it suddenly feels like I'm drowning.
The last thought I have is that I've left Trinity unprotected against this mad man and that I may never see her beautiful face again.
CHAPTER 28
TRINITY
WHILE LUCAS FEEDS the animals, I busy myself in the garden. I'd do anything at this point to keep my mind off the fact that the rest of the guys are currently risking their lives on a supply run. Just the thought of one…or all of them…not making it back makes me physically ill.
And so I keep my hands busy and try to keep my mind from straying to the horrible possibilities that could occur today.
I'm so distracted that I don't even hear Lucas's footsteps until his shadow casts over me. With a smile on my face, I stand and turn towards him.
But my smile instantly fades when I realize Lucas isn't standing there, but instead there's a strange man. I take a step back, ice crystallizing in my veins with terror.
"Hello, Trinity," the man rasps out in an eerily familiar voice.
I gasp, almost not recognizing the person in front of me. "Henry?" I question in disbelief. He's covered in dirt and his beard and hair have grown long and scraggly. But the crazed look in his eye is what gives me pause the most. "What are you…" My voice trails off as my eyes zero in on the knife in his hand. A knife that's covered in dried blood. My mind races as I begin to wonder if that's Lucas's blood or not. "What did you do, Henry?" I whisper.
"What I had to," he says enigmatically.
Did he hurt Lucas? Is Lucas even still alive? I have to go to him. I try to run past Henry, but he reaches out and grabs me from behind, pulling my back to his front in an unrelenting grip.
"You're not going anywhere!" he hisses in my ear.
I struggle against him, fighting with all my might, but he's insanely strong. My shoes tear into the ground below me as we struggle. But when I feel the cold steel of the blade pressed up against my neck, all my fight instantly flees my body.
"Don't make me hurt you, Trinity," he says, desperation lacing his voice. "I came all this way for you, and I'm not leaving without you."
I go pliant in his hold. "Okay, okay. I'll go with you. Just don't hurt anyone." I wait to hear him confirm that he won't or that he hasn't, but he doesn't say any of those things.
Instead, he pushes the blade even further into my skin, and I can feel a trickle of blood running down the side of my neck. Tears fill my eyes as I beg him, "Please, Henry. Please tell me you didn't hurt him. Tell me you didn't kill Lucas."
He huffs with indignation. "He's not your concern anymore."
And then he begins to slowly drag me backwards with him, away from the farm.
Away from my home.
CHAPTER 29
TRINITY
HENRY HAD BEEN planning this for a while.
When we reach the front gate, I realize he has more weapons and a long rope stashed. He's quick to tie my wrists and waist with a length of rope left to use as a tether to keep me close on our journey…wherever we're going.
Once we're through the gate, he leads me through the woods with the rope in one hand and a large machete in the other.
I don't know where he got all the weapons or the rope, but I decide it doesn't matter. He hurt Lucas. I know he did. Perhaps even killed him. So, I make a vow that the first chance I get, I'm going to break free and go back to my home. And if I have to hurt Henry in the process, then so be it.
Henry walks in front of me with the rope taut between us. His head moves left to right as if it's on a swivel, looking this way and that, trying to spot creatures in the woods.
I look down at my bound wrists and notice the beaded necklace around my neck bouncing against my chest. If I break the cord and scatter the beads as a sort of crude bread crumb trail, Jack could track us. He was always making me look at bunny tracks and things in the woods, explaining that he could track them to their burrows. I'm sure if Jack sees the beads, he'd be able to follow our trail. That's a lot of ifs, but it's my only hope at this point.
With Henry's back towards me and his attention preoccupied, I decide this is the perfect opportunity. Reaching up with my bound hands, I grab hold of the necklace and pull. The string breaks and some beads fall down onto the forest floor, but I manage to gather most of the necklace in my palms, hidi
ng the evidence.
Henry stops walking and turns. I'm so afraid I've been caught that I cease breathing altogether and just stand there like a deer in the headlights as he stares back at me.
"Did you hear something?" he asks.
"No," I say quickly. Maybe too quickly. But Henry doesn't seem to notice the change in my demeanor. "I kicked up a few rocks. Could that be what you heard?" I ask more calmly this time.
He huffs and then continues dragging me along by the rope.
"Where are we going, Henry?" I ask, masking the sound of the next bead I drop on the ground.
"Shh, be quiet!" he hisses, glancing all around us.
He's paranoid. Beyond paranoid. And he very well should be. We're in the woods alone where anything could get us.
We walk for what feels like hours, and I carefully drop bead after bead after bead until I only have two left. Tears fill my eyes as I realize my bread crumb trail is not going to work if we walk much farther.
But after a few more yards, Henry finally stops. "Honey, we're home," he says cheerfully, glancing back at me with that crazed look in his eyes.
I look up ahead where there's an old, abandoned hunting cabin deep in the woods with smoke billowing from the chimney.
Quickly, I throw my last bead to the forest floor, praying that the trail will lead Jack right to me.
And then I'm pulled towards my new home.
A home that's straight out of a nightmare.
CHAPTER 30
CARTER
IF I'VE LEARNED anything on this supply run, it's that I miss Trinity way more than I thought I would. I miss her smile, her laugh, her beautiful face.
And when I get back, I'm going to tell her as much.
Next time the guys decide to go on a supply run, I'll be the one that stays behind. There's nothing out here for me in this world anymore. Not when I have a beautiful angel like Trinity waiting at home for me.
I'm so distracted in my thoughts that it takes a moment for my brain to register the chorus of growls coming from the hallway of the library we're currently in.
"Fuck," I hiss angrily.
I told Owen it was risky to go into such a huge, open space like this, but he insisted. We hit the grocery store and pharmacy first and saved the library for last. Most of the places were ransacked, with zombies dead on the ground, but the library remained untouched. And now I know how stupid it was to come here.
Whistling low and loud for the other guys, I make my way towards the exit. But when I'm almost out the door, I see Owen above me on the second floor, frantically searching for something.
"Owen," I whisper-yell.
The fucker acts like he doesn't even hear me, and it pisses me off.
The growls are getting louder and closer, and our opportunity for escape is rapidly closing in on us.
There could be three zombies. There could be seven…or fifteen. I mean, who the fuck knows at this point.
Jack is by my side in the next few seconds, and he's looking wearily up at Owen, who is still searching the bookshelves.
"Fuck, what is he doing?" I hiss.
Jack shakes his head in response and unsnaps his knives from his cargo pants, readying himself for a battle.
Cursing mentally to myself, I pull a long sword from its sheath situated on my back. I stole the damn thing from an abandoned museum several months back, and it's bad-ass. "Fuck it. I've been waiting to use this," I tell Jack with a grin.
He rolls his eyes and says, "Let's go get him before it's too late."
Armed with our weapons, we haul ass up to the second floor and straight to Owen. He's so focused on the books in front of him that he doesn't even see the zombie rounding the corner.
Knowing we wouldn't reach him in time, Jack pulls out his gun, aims and shoots the fucker in the head.
The sound echoes through the large library, and it sounds like a fucking cannon going off.
"Fuck," he barks angrily. "Anything within a one-mile radius is going to be coming for us now."
"Owen!" I grab him by the scruff of his shirt and haul his ass backwards. Clutched in his hands as if it's the most precious thing in the world is a copy of… "Sense and Sensibility?" I ask incredulously. "You're going to get us killed over fucking Sense and Sensibility?" I spit at him.
"Trinity wanted to add it to our library," he says in defense.
Rolling my eyes, I growl, "All right. Let's go, Romeo."
We take the stairs two, three, four at a time, bounding down them as fast as we can go. The zombies are just coming around the corner. Jack stabs a few through the head as I swing my long sword, severing one almost in half.
"Holy shit!" I say in total awe. "This thing is totally bad-ass."
"Let's go," Jack growls in annoyance.
We leave through the front doors, narrowly making our escape. Not wanting to waste any more time in this town, we go straight to the truck chocked full of supplies and get the hell out of Dodge.
As we ride towards home with the windows down and music softly playing on the radio, I can't help but chuckle at the fact that Owen risked his life for a fucking book just because Trinity wanted it.
And then I think of the lengths I would go for her, and I suddenly understand him risking his life over a fucking book. Because when Trinity sees it, the smile on her face will have made it all worth it and then some.
It's in that moment that I realize that we're all fucked when it comes to that girl.
Head over heels kind of fucked.
CHAPTER 31
JACK
THE MOMENT I park the truck, I know something's wrong. Usually Lucas hears the truck coming and opens the gate for us. Usually he's vigilant, ready with a gun just in case it's not us returning, but some outsider. This time he wasn't waiting by the gate, and he's not waiting on the front porch either.
I exchange a look with Carter, and the expression on his face tells me he's worried too.
Quickly, we get out of the truck, leaving behind all the supplies we just spent all day gathering and run towards the house.
But halfway there, I find out why Lucas didn't greet us at the gate.
His prone body is lying unmoving in the grass in front of the barn that holds the animals. I can smell the blood before I see it when I approach him. Kneeling down, I put my fingers to his neck and wait to feel a pulse.
Carter and Owen wait expectantly.
When I nod that he's still alive, they both release a collective sigh of relief.
I spot a shovel nearby covered in blood. "Someone hit him in the head with this," I explain.
Carter's eyes go wide when he asks, "Where's Trinity?"
Before I can even stem to guess, he's running towards the garden screaming her name while Owen takes off for the house. While they look for her, I tend to Lucas.
The nasty wound on the back of his head will need to be taken care of first before we do anything else. So, I gather him up in my arms and carry him inside.
Owen comes skidding to a stop in the kitchen, shaking his head with a sad look on his face.
He didn't find her.
Carter comes rushing into the house as I lay Lucas face down on the big farm table. "I can't find her anywhere," he says in a panic. "She's gone. Someone took her."
That's the conclusion I reached minutes ago. Someone came to the farm, put Lucas out of commission and kidnapped our girl.
"Owen, get Lucas's medical bag from his room. I need to bandage his head before we leave."
"Leave?" Carter asks as Owen races up the stairs, taking a few at a time.
"We're going to go find our girl," I tell him vehemently with anger coursing through my veins. "And we're going to kill whoever took her from us."
CHAPTER 32
CARTER
JACK IS A great tracker. He tracks small game, large game, humans — hell, even zombies.
So when he tells us that Trinity was in a struggle with someone near the garden, my stomach sinks.
Owen and I
are helpless as we follow Jack after loading up on weapons.
He's going to find her, I keep telling myself. This is what he does. He finds things.
Jack leads us through the front gate and into the woods. He looks left and then right, not sure which way to go. "We'll try this way first," he tells us. "I'm pretty sure their tracks are leading this way."
Pretty sure? I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut. If I learned anything over the time I've gotten to know Jack, it's that you never second-guess the dude. He knows his stuff.
We follow him for a while until he stops. Owen crashes right into his gigantic back, and I try to stifle a laugh but fail miserably. Owen flashes me a pissed off look, and I simply shrug. I can't help it. That shit was funny.
Jack glares at both of us before bending down and picking up one of several beads lying on the forest floor. "These are from Trinity's necklace. I remember watching her make it the other day."
I stare at the tiny bead in his large palm and nod my head in agreement.
"Our little bird left us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow," Jack says with a wry grin.
The three of us continue on, spotting bead after bead every several feet. Our girl was smart to leave the beads since they'll hopefully lead us right to her. But fuck, whoever took her really went far into the woods. It's beyond where I've ever been, and even Jack said he doesn't venture this far.
Because it's too dangerous.
And my biggest fear is that we'll come up on Trinity's dead body, half eaten by the zombies that roam these woods.
It's getting dark, and I worry that we won't find her in time. There's no way I'm turning back now, however. I'll stay out here all night if I have to, and I know Jack and Owen would feel exactly the same way.
When we come to the last bead, Jack points off into the distance. There is a cabin with dim light spilling from the broken windows.