“Wait,” she said in a low voice.
She moved toward the the horde and lifted a hand like she was a crossing guard. The Zs paused and studied her. Then, the guy with the bloody goatee turned around as if some other delicious meal of human morsels had appeared. As one, the rest of the horde did the same. Some took their former places on the ground among the dead, while others simply wandered off.
Roz didn’t speak. She looked me in the eye and gave a nearly imperceptible shrug as if to say See what I did?
I sighed and lowered my gun. I could have easily spun and shot her. Then we would have had a fight on our hands, although it would have made more sense to just get back in the vehicles and drive. More than likely, Joel would have gone nuts and tried to kill me.
“See?” he said.
“I don’t know, Joel, I don’t know.”
“Same thing happened at the house. See how she communicated with the other shufflers and they didn’t attack? She’s on our side.”
Roz approached me. She was still herself, in a way. Her mouth was a mass of wounds and her skin was pale. Formerly a dusky shade just south of a seven-day tan, she was now much lighter. She walked, but not like she used to. It was more of a stuttering step that would look perfect for a shuffler if she were on all fours.
Anna opened her door and joined us.
Roz stared between the three of us.
“Heeelp,” she said in a low hiss.
Ever tried to hiss words? Can’t be done. Roz, on the other hand, made it sound like a drunk snake had suddenly been given the power of speech.
“You need help, no shit, Roz,” I said.
“She means she’ll help us,” Anna said.
Anna moved next to me and touched my hand. I reacted by grasping her fingers with mine. There was something comforting to holding Anna’s hand, like we’d suddenly decided to reveal a secret relationship. She slipped to my side, shook my hand loose, and put her arm around my waist.
“It’s hard to fucking accept, okay? That’s our friend and now she’s one of them.”
Anna put her other arm around me and looked up into my eyes.
“She’s still Roz, in there, she’s still a friend. We couldn’t abandon her. When we found her she was stuck, and I couldn’t see the damage or the change. We were running out of time, trying to free her and avoid about fifty Zs.
"When we dragged her out I took one look at her and almost blew her away. She grabbed my gun and pushed it to the side. Then she got up and approached the Zs. She held out a hand and they pulled the same act they just did for you: they left.”
“Fuck.” I’m a man of few words sometimes.
“That’s what I said. We tried to communicate, but she kept covering her eyes and ignore me. She walked away and sat down on a curb while the Zs milled around.”
“I can heeeeelp,” Roz said.
Joel nodded, but didn’t speak. He stood next to her, hand keeping the stock of his assault rifle next to his shoulder, and watched me.
Roz focused on the Zs again, and the ones who were still on their feet wandered away. She turned to me and smiled, something that was horrifying. Between getting in a wreck, turning into a green-eyed shuffler, and whatever other damage she’d sustained, her mouth was a mess: teeth missing, tongue half bitten through, and the wounds on the side of her cheek.
I dropped Anna’s hand and approached Roz. Joel moved to intercept, but I holstered my Springfield and held up a hand in peace. He let me past with a wary look.
“Roz?” I said.
She looked at me.
I reached out with a tentative hand and touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. It took me a few seconds but I found it, strong but very slow. If her heart was beating more than twenty beats per minute, I’d be surprised. Her skin was cold and clammy, and when I removed my hand I smelled it. The faint scent of something fishy made me lower my limb.
“What are you?”
She studied me for a few seconds.
“Your frieeeeend,” she said in a slow hiss.
“Jesus, Roz.”
“Jesuuuus isn’t here,” the smile she tried to display almost made me run away for good.
She turned away and shuddered. Her head shook slightly like she was fighting something. Then she regained her composure and regarded me again.
“Fuckin’ A,” I nodded.
Mateo had joined us at some point and listened in to our conversation. He leaned in to look Roz over, and shrugged.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“I think that since all this end of the world stuff went down I’ve seen some crazy shit, man. Crazy. How is this any crazier? If I sit around and analyze all of this for too long, I’ll be looking for a loony bin. What I know is that she saved our ass, and I think she’s going to come in very handy, bro,” Mateo said.
Anna took my hand and led me a few feet away.
“I was skeptical at first, but now I’m sure she is going to be essential to our survival. I’m not happy with what’s become of Bright Star. Not gonna lie. This is not what I signed up for. But they don’t care anymore. All they want is to sterilize this area of Zs. That horde is on the move, and they mean to eliminate as many as possible.”
“So it’s true, they’re going to nuke the area,” I said.
She pulled me further away from Mateo, Roz, and Joel, around a small copse. She took my other hand and drew me close.
“That’s the plan, Jackson. I talked to some guys in charge back at their base before we left. Nothing is right over there, nothing at all. Secrets everywhere. Lies. I don’t know who to believe or who to trust. Time was I looked up to Lee but he’s not there either. They want to be the ones in charge. Anyone else tries and they get eliminated.”
“It makes no sense. Why all the fighting? Everyone should be working together,” I said.
“I know but they are more worried about the shufflers than anything else. When they find a large contingency they take them out. Doesn’t matter who or what is in the way,” she said.
“Heading North sounds like a good plan. Away from all of this,” I muttered.
“I agree. And listen, Jackson, I haven’t been very nice to you, and I’m sorry,” she said. “Bright Star was my life for a few years but I’m over it. I just want to survive now, okay, and I don’t want to lose you again.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Anna. Truth is, I missed you, but you’re right, you weren’t very nice to me,” I said, and wondered when I’d get a shot at acting on a soap opera.
“No, listen. It was so hard at first. It was just a few weeks after I'd lost everything, and I didn’t think I’d ever recover. Then you came along, and I should have shown a little more respect. I know I can be cold.” She looked away for a second.
“Seriously, we don’t have to talk about this now.”
“Yes we do. We might not have another chance for a while, and we might buy it at any time. I just wanted you to know that our time together meant a lot, and I’m sorry that I treated you badly.”
“Isn’t this the speech a guy gives a girl?”
She smacked my chest with her open palm, but it didn’t hurt so much.
“Just stop it and kiss me before they start wondering what we’re doing over here.”
“The only ones wondering are the Zs milling around,” I said.
She smirked that little half upturned lip at me, so I did the smart thing and kissed her.
###
15:00 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
Mateo snatched up his radio and spent a few minutes speaking with home base, giving an update on our location and the lack of Zs. Sure, we’d seen a few, but it was far from what we’d expected.
“So where are they?” I asked.
“Got to be around here somewhere. A mass that size doesn’t just disappear,” Mateo said.
“Maybe we’re in the wrong location?”
“Ya think?”
We poked along yet another road that was shadowed by abandoned buildings, stores, and more than one strip mall. All showed signs of abuse, and all showed signs of very few Zs.
The radio buzzed again. Mateo picked it up and talked for a few seconds.
“Shit, man. We got this all wrong.”
“What?” I asked.
“Just heard back from base. Sounds like the horde broke up and the other half is approaching from the southeast. Not a little bunch of Zs either--a massive force. Might be that these fucking things are getting smarter by the day and one was a diversion. We’ve been called back.”
“For a bunch of civilians, these assholes are militant as fuck.”
“I hear ya, but they’ve also provided a very safe place to live.”
“I’ll give you that much,” I said, nodding.
Roz must have been doing her thing back there, because we weren’t being hassled. Mateo stopped a few times to check the map. One time he motored through the center of a four-lane road, then backtracked a half mile. He had to stop again and find an alternate route.
I waited patiently, hoping we’d reach wherever the hell we were going so we could get the hell back to the Costco. Things were getting tense, sure, but I was worried about Christy. If we didn’t get back in time, she might be trapped, and there was no way we’d be able to fight through a few thousand Zs.
I also hoped to get a few minutes to talk to Anna.
I’d been the best person I could for her and always treated her with respect, but she’d been cold to me; that much was true. But Anna had shown me more than once that she had a soft side. I liked both sides. She could be a badass, hand steady as she held that .357 extended, or she could be vulnerable, like the night we’d been stuck in that abandoned apartment building.
Mateo interrupted my thoughts by coming to a halt again.
“Do you want me to drive while you fucking navigate?”
“No man, I like this. You keep your eyes on the Zs while I jerk off with this map, radio, and car.”
“Sarcasm?”
“Not really, bro, just blowing off steam. Your friend back there just flashed us.”
“Anna?” I asked in confusion.
“I wish. No, the dangerous-looking dude with the big gun,” Mateo said.
“Hah, Joel’s a big old teddy bear Marine. He was born with a gun in hand, but he rolls over if you rub his belly.” I said the last part loud enough for Joel to hear me, because he’d left his truck and approached my side of ours.
Anna opened her door and covered him. She kept an assault rifle trained around the area, spinning as she assessed threats.
“Roz says there are a lot of Zs coming this way from the East,” Joel said, ignoring my joke.
“That must be one of the masses,” Mateo said.
“One of?” Joel raised his eyebrows.
I told Joel what had been reported back from the base. He chewed on that for a second while he shifted from foot to foot. He held his weapon close to his chest, but his finger was never far from the trigger.
“What’s the big deal? One horde, two horde, three horde, run for your fucking life,” I said in a singsong voice.
“No way they can take on two hordes. They may actually cancel the strike and hold out until they figure out where the Zs are actually heading,” Joel said.
“What are our options?”
“Not many unless you want to just run and leave Christy behind,” Joel said.
“Can’t do that. She’s one of us. Plus she’s like a kid sister to me. But we got fucking problems, man. Look at us. We’re four people with an honest-to-god shuffler along for the ride.
"The Costco is a fortified base with full coverage from the roof. No way for us to sneak in. Not only that, but they have a damn shuffler with them too, and he’s not in the mood to play nice. So what the hell do we do? Show up and hope our two shufflers don’t sense each other and explode or something? Roz ain’t like them now, but what if she changes her mind?”
“She won’t,” Joel said with confidence.
“Okay, but let’s say that fucking hell freezes over and she does. What are the consequences?”
Joel didn’t reply. Stubborn Marine.
“Stick to the plan,” Mateo said.
I nodded, because we didn’t have a choice.
“So we’re going to continue along this path?”
“Let’s just get a quick look at this horde so we can report back to Douglas and crew. Besides, I heard back that they are packing up.”
“Really?”
“If this place is about to get cleaned out, then they want to be far far away,” Mateo said, nodding.
That made sense. No matter what we did, the perception would be that we somehow betrayed Bright Star or the survivors in the Costco.
Did it matter? Why should anyone else decide who lived or died? We were out here on our own, and the first thing you learned about this whole damn mess was that you looked out for yourself first.
The US of A had been completely fucked over by this virus. I used to wonder about how it started, but now it didn’t really matter. The goal now had to be survival. If we didn’t get our shit together, all of these large and small splinter groups were going to do what the Zs wanted in the first place: to wipe us off the planet.
“What do you think, Joel?”
“We might have time, and Mateo’s right. We need to get a report in to the Reavers. This gets us into the warehouse so we can retrieve Christy and Frosty. Then we hightail it anywhere but here,” he said.
“Another Marine base?”
“No man, that dream's gone. I got word from the base that the majority of military installations have been overrun. There’s also word that some people are setting up Portland as a large center. We could make for it.”
“Long fucking way to Oregon,” I said. “Mountains, rivers, forests, and a bunch of Zs in between,” I said.
“We’re going to fly there,” Joel said.
“Magic carpet?” I asked.
“Anna almost had her pilot’s license before the Zs so she can fly us out of here if we find go find a plane. There’s an airport about five miles northeast of here. We figure out how to get it started, and then we’re airborne.”
“Sounds like a perfect plan. What could possibly go wrong?” I said.
Joel rolled his eyes.
Mateo stood around listening to us but didn’t interject. His face was tight.
A Z picked that moment to come upon us. The rotter was the oldest Z I’d ever seen. At least seventy years old, he staggered toward us on a bad leg, thanks to a broken ankle. He dragged his foot and moaned. He wore a San Diego Chargers cap, but it was holding on for dear life as the old guy lurched.
I snatched my wrench out of the truck and put him out of our misery with a sharp blow. The man’s legs crumpled under him, and he didn’t move again.
“Poor dude,” Mateo said.
I rejoined my friends after using the old man's shredded shirt to clean the pipe wrench.
“Jackson’s got a way with the elderly,” Joel said.
“That did not feel good at all. Guy should have been with his family, not wandering around as a Z,” I said, and shuddered.
“So you guys going to bring me with?” Mateo asked.
“Thought you wanted to stay with your pals,” I said.
“I want to get anywhere but here. I’m sick of this city and how infected it is. I appreciate the safety the Costco has provided, but all that’s about to change.”
A pair of cars zipped up a side street and disappeared. The lead car was sporty and might have been some kind of Hyundai. The second car wasn’t as new and had a city maintenance sticker on the side.
By my guess, we’d been heading back to the Costco for about fifteen minutes, and had to be close to the warehouse. Those cars could only have come from there.
The lead car came to a halt and then waited while the faster car zipped ahead. In a few se
conds, it was gone from sight.
I scratched my head.
“Joel, come here,” Anna called.
In the back of the jeep, Roz was shaking and pointing. She clenched her teeth and tried to make words, but all that came out was a loud, keening noise.
“Roz?” Joel touched her shoulder.
Roz’s green eyes snapped open, and she looked at him like she was seeing a stranger. Her lips pulled back, revealing her teeth. Then she settled, and her expression turned blank again.
“They have onnnne,” she said, and pointed first at herself, and then in the direction the two cars had fled.
“One what?” Joel said.
Then it all came together in my head, and I gasped.
“What?” Mateo said.
“Fuck. We need to go and now. I just realized what’s happening here.”
“What, man?”
“They have the shuffler, he’s bait. I think they…” I didn’t get another word out.
A mass of Zs stumbled into view and made for us. Among the fifty or sixty people lurked at least six shufflers. They moved among the group, snarling and hissing. A pair of them stuck together and hugged the road as they did their weird crab walk.
Roz reached out and grabbed my arm, squeezing so hard I knew it was going to leave marks.
I tried to jerk away. “The fuck, Roz?”
“They want us deaaaad,” she moaned.
“Even you?” Joel asked, concern etched across his face.
Roz just nodded.
Then a second mass came at us on our flank, and I knew we were in deep shit. What I didn’t understand was how they’d managed to get around our guard.
41 – The Coming Storm
15:15 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
Joel, Anna, and I had been really good at getting into trouble. Just a week ago we’d been stuck inside a camper while a mass of Zs and shufflers surrounded the vehicle. The five of us had barely managed to escape with our lives, and that was only with the help of Bright Star.
Now we were once again surrounded. My first thought was that we needed to make for the warehouse and get inside as soon as possible. At least we’d be safe, but we’d also be stuck. We needed to get Christy the hell out of there while we could and then make a clean getaway.
Reavers (Z-Risen Series Book 4) Page 15