by Annie Walls
I shake out my hands, “Something weird is happening to me. I don’t know how to explain it.” Palpable liberation overtakes my senses, and I know it’s the right thing to do by telling him, even as Mago’s warning flicks through my mind. Rudy’s brow dips, “What do you mean by weird?”
I tell him. Beginning with the dreams and lethargy, moving on to all the uncanny encounters.
“You felt better today, but you’ve been noticing the famished being drawn to you for days now?” he asks, getting his facts straight.
“Yes.”
Leaning forward in the chair, his hair falls around his face. “I wonder how that works.”
Trying not to get frustrated, I sigh. “Rudy, I don’t really care how it works. Why me? What the hell does he want?”
Staring at the empty space between us, he rubs the back of his neck. “You think it has anything to do with Pappers?”
“Maybe, but he took my hair before that happened.”
Standing up, he paces around for a second, and the wood creaks with his strides. “Okay, the only logical thing to do would be to wait for him. In the meantime, don’t tell anyone and try to stay up here.” He shakes his head, “I knew something was weird about them today. They were almost running by me, but I didn’t take any chances—” A sharpness fills his eyes, “You were controlling them then?”
Swallowing a lump, I nod.
“Wow.” An understatement. We both take in the silence before he speaks again, “You’ll stay up here?”
This brings a smile to my face. “The week isn’t up, anyway.”
My eyes stop on the box, which piques my interest. He notices and grins wide, dimples and teeth. “I brought something to help you fill the time. Might even be therapeutic.”
I peek inside. Jars and tubes of paint. Picking up a few, I get a better look. Paint of any color one could think of, and different kinds. Oils, acrylics, and a big palette of watercolors. There’s a box of pastels, a box of charcoals, and several large art pads. There are a few styles of paint brushes I’ve never used before, but my technique has always been simple—I don’t use fancy brushes.
“I don’t know what you like to use. I grabbed anything I could find. I hope I got it close.”
“It’s more than enough. I don’t know what to say.” I smile, dusting off a tube of paint, and I don’t know what he sees on my face. I know what I see in his, though. Hope. It’s contagious, and my chest feels light with it.
“You left me the painting, and I thought it might be something you’d like to pick back up.”
“You have no idea how much this means to me, Rudy. Thank you.” His gesture says more than any words can. “You looted this?”
“When I picked up the wood. I haven’t had much to do. Mac took most of the survivors to the Coalition. They’ve been gone a few days.” Of course, I’m aware of this information already.
“How are Julie and the baby?”
“They’re good. The baby’s name is Ariella Estelle. Julie named her after her mother.”
“It’s pretty. I think Julie is lovely, too.”
A mirthless smirk pulls on his lips before it falls. “It’s hard to think of her as lovely anymore.” Fiddling with paint tubes, his jaw works. It’s evident he doesn’t want to discuss it. Do I let it go?
“She’s pressuring me about Arizona,” he says, surprising me. Dex stretches on the bed, jumping down to wind his way around Rudy’s legs.
Biting my cuticle, I’m not sure how to respond, but I do anyway. “Maybe you should take her.” Now that I’ve said it, I want him to go. To stay. Especially after I put his life in danger today. He’ll be safe there. A grim silence takes over the air in the room.
The bedsprings squeak when he sits on the edge, inviting Dex for a rubdown. “You think so?” He asks, and I’m really not sure about telling him my thoughts because he’ll never agree.
“It would be the best thing for the baby, wouldn’t it?”
Eyeing me, he nods and sits up straighter, like he has an idea, “I want you to go, too.”
There are other pressing issues I have to deal with, but I’d feel better riding with them to make sure they arrive safely. “How long do you think it’ll take to get there and back?”
With slumped shoulders, he lets out an exasperated breath. “I mean to live.”
“I can’t just ignore the problem, Rudy. I have to come back.” Checking out the big wall on the far side of the room, I decide to paint a mural there. Not knowing what else to say, I open the dusty box of charcoals. It slides easily onto my fingers. Pushing a chair next to the wall, I climb on and start sketching. “And it depends on when…”
“As soon as possible.” There’s no hesitation. Running a hand through his hair, he lets out a breath. “Will you at least think about it?”
I nod because a part of me wants to. “I’ll think about it after I figure out what the hell Mago wants.” We descend into a silence when he doesn’t respond, both of us knowing this problem needs a conclusion. Fast.
I think Rudy watches me sketch for about a half hour, when I get warm from my movements. Throwing self-consciousness out the window, I strip to my black undershirt and sketch some more before I notice he’s fallen asleep.
*
A light tap sounds at my door before it opens. I stand on my chair, gawking at Guido. “Yeah, sure. Come on in.”
“Just makin’ sure yer still alive, chickie.” He glances to Rudy, whose chest is rising and falling deeply. Dex is curled up next to his head. “Wear ‘im out, did yew?”
“Stop being lewd. I’m alive.”
He shakes his head and pulls out a piece of paper, sauntering it over to me. “Stuff I need. Yew go and get it.”
I scan the list and realize the crap on it is completely bizarre. “What? Sequins?”
“Tomorrow?” He doesn’t give me any information.
“Fine. Gas up the jeep.”
A crooked smile forms on his lips as he walks out. Watching Rudy, I wonder if he heard any of it, but he’s still sound asleep.
I have the outline sketch and the base of the barn color, finishing up a spot over the charcoal, when large hands slip around to grip my hips. My body burns and my breathing picks up. I trace Rudy’s rough fingers with my own.
His face presses into the small of my back, pushing up my T-shirt and his breath teases my skin. Heat shoots straight between my legs. I squeeze my eyes closed in relief. Glinda was right, I’ll be fine with time.
“What are you doing?” I manage.
With a sigh, he sends goose bumps up my back and down my arms. “Just wondering what it’d take to convince you to change your mind.”
The feel of his lips against my skin is enough. “Not much.” I swallow, “But for clarification purposes, change my mind about what?” He might have heard my conversation with Guido.
“Arizona. You wouldn’t have to be a gopher for him. Since there are no zombies, you won’t have to worry about that either.” I tense up, and his hands slip from me. “Sorry, I don’t mean to push the situation,” he grumbles. “Think about it.”
Without a backwards glance, the door shuts behind him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning I head out to the jeep and find Mac and several guys unloading stuff from a truck. It’ll be a while before the jeep gets gassed up. Mac ignores me as I follow him through the parking lot with an armload of my own. Setting supplies down next to the Clap Trap door, he turns and takes my armload from me to set it down.
“You didn’t have to take the survivors to Birmingham without me, you know?” I mention.
A cigarette hangs out of his mouth. He stops to glare at me, flicking it away. Letting out a frustrated breath, he says, “You needed to stay. You look and sound a million times better. Not to mention the little matter of staying away from the Coalition. Just fucking drop it.”
“But—”
“I said, drop it. And anyway, I have something for you. Meet me in your loft
in a few.”
I stop myself from asking what it is at his stony face.
A few minutes later, he strides in. “When was your—” He cuts off when he takes sight of the mural. I painted through the night and it’s almost finished, but I don’t really have patience.
“When was my what?”
Peeling his dark-ringed eyes away, he pulls something from his pocket. “When was your last cycle?”
“What?” Why would he want to know that? Unless—
“Your period, Kan.”
Being an asshole usually wouldn’t get him anywhere with me, and he’s already met his quota for the day. Taking a deep breath, I let it go. “A few weeks.”
He hands me a package and a vial. It’s a sterile syringe. “You need to take this in the arm or ass within a few days of beginning your next period and then every three months after.” He indicates how much by pointing to a line on the syringe.
“Oh,” I eye the syringe warily before glancing away. “I’m not going to need it.”
“Bullshit. You might not be planning to need it, but anything can happen. Just take it.” An intense stare comes into his eyes as he holds it out. “Kan, I know it was more about having the choice than actually taking it, so now you have a few weeks to think on it.”
I remove it from his hand and he nods looking relieved. It seems like I have a lot of things to think about. “Thank you for taking the overflow to Birmingham. You should stay in here.” I wave my hand around. “Rudy’s rigging the stairs so they aren’t as wobbly.”
“I have my room back now. Plus, you already marked your territory.” His hand motions to the mural.
“I guess so,” I agree quietly.
“You can do my room next,” Mac jokes, making me remember he loves my barn scenes. He still has an album of them that I drew in the old life.
“Sure. When I get the time. I’m going on a loot for Guido.”
A chair screeches against the floor as he pulls it out and makes himself at home. “You really think you should go alone?”
The fire escape stairs squeak and wobble through my silence. I shrug as I open the door for whoever is making their way up.
“Suga! We brought food.”
“I’m sure you guys need it,” I say in a dry tone since they were noticeably absent yesterday. Reece chuckles as I grab an apple from Glinda. It’s bright green, so bright it makes the rest of the world dreary in comparison with its color.
Reece slaps Mac on the shoulder and turns his chair backwards before straddling it. “Did you find anything out about the vials the team took to Birmingham?”
At his question, I try not to get frustrated with myself. I should have thought of this.
“Nope.” Mac’s lips pop on the P. “I was more concerned with finding out more about Arizona. I think we have some guys stationed there, secretly.” He takes a bite out of an apple, and it pokes out against his jaw.
“What do you mean by secretly?” I ask, using finger quotes.
“No one in Arizona knows they are with the Coalition and vice versa. As in, no one here knows they are there, but I couldn’t figure out who and why they’re there to begin with.”
Maybe it’ll benefit me to go and find out for myself. I’m about to suggest it when I catch Mac staring at the laptop. The sequence has stopped at nine characters and the electronic notepad is lit up.
We both jump for it at the same time. I fall across the table in my bound, scattering everything to the floor, but Mac is faster, unplugging it. Glinda curses when I scoot the table and lunge at it. He’s caught off guard and we tumble to the floor with grunts, grappling for the tablet. Our heads butt together, making us more frantic.
Two huge boots step into my line of view, and Rudy bends down and snatches it out of Mac’s hand.
“Asshole,” Mac mutters to him. I push from the floor.
Rudy raises his eyebrows at both of us before his gaze lands on me. “Your only child syndrome is poking out.”
I huff, noticing the door is still wide open from Rudy’s covert entrance. “He did it to piss me off.” And he did if the big grin on Mac’s face is any indication.
Mac lifts a shoulder and hops up from the floor. “It’s good to see you’re practically back to your old self.”
Rudy taps at the screen on the tablet for a few minutes, scrunches his face, and hands it to me. “Good luck with that.”
Dismay runs through me when I see exactly what Mac had suspected. Shorthand jargon. I go through a few more screens, and it’s all the same kind of shit. Reece peers over my shoulder at it and laughs, which only further pisses me off. “Ah, fuck me!” I hiss under my breath.
Mac holds out his hand, but I don’t give it to him. “What are you going to do with it?” I ask.
“Turn it in.” His fingers wiggle in the give it to me motion.
Reece scratches his head, “They might get more out of it than we will, Kan.”
I hold my tongue, knowing there’s nothing I can do with the tablet. It’s useless to me. I reluctantly hand it over, and we all watch him as he writes down the passcode from the laptop on a piece of sketch paper and rips the page out.
Everything keeps stacking against me. Higher and higher and my brain can’t keep up. Maybe it’s spending all this time cooped up. Needing to get out of here, I pick up my pack, “I have to go.”
“Good. I need to talk to you.” Rudy grabs my arm. None of them respond as we leave. He keeps silent the whole way to the parking lot. Hopping in the jeep, I check the gas gauge and it’s half full.
“I have an idea,” he says and leans down in my door, bracing himself with his arms. “We should go to the base.”
There’s only one reason he wants to go to the base. To get Jonathan. “Rudy, I really don’t know how this works. And there’s only a half tank of gas.” My voice gets higher as I speak. “What are you going to do? Hog tie him and bring him back? Plus, not all of the famished…” I struggle for the right word. “Cooperate?”
“Meaning?”
“There was one in front of the library, running right for me. If I hadn’t slammed the door closed, well,” I point to myself. “Zombie food.”
“This is fucked up.” He pushes off the jeep, making it rock. “We’ll talk about it more when we’re on the road.”
“You’re inviting yourself along now?”
He grins wide, “Of course, Darlin’. Be right back. I need to get a few things from the truck.”
The gravel crunches as his steps fade. For a split second, I’m ready to start the jeep and leave. In the end of the split second, I smile and sit back to wait.
*
“We should stop when we see zombies,” he says. “I’d like to get a good idea of how they react to you.” As we ride through Clarksville, we don’t see any. With my magnetism for them and the cool weather, I’m surprised. We keep driving, getting closer, but he tells me to turn down a road away from the base. He knows where he’s going.
“Where does this lead?”
“This road will take us to another one. A road Mac and I used for looting off base.”
“When you lived there?”
He nods, “Yeah, but they never let us leave. We rigged a spot for whenever we wanted to.” I glance at him, but he’s far away in a memory. He shakes himself out of it, smiling, “It was a crazy time. He was a bastard.”
“That’s changed?” We both laugh as he points out another road. I would have missed it because of overgrown brush. When we park, we bundle up and arm ourselves before walking a good way, keeping an eye out for famished.
A giant fence emerges ahead, and Rudy uses heavy-duty lock cutters to cut the fence. I help out by removing weeds in the way. This part of the fence is newer than the rest, but the brush isn’t as bad. Rudy notices, too. “They must have fixed our rigged spot.” His breath fogs in the chilly air.
Trudging through more woods, I strain to listen. A few birds fly overhead. My stomach sinks when we come out into the famil
y residential area. It’s all too familiar. Squeezing my eyes tight, I take a breath.
It’s deserted. Not one sound or person. The bodies that were on the ground when I was last here are gone. Damage from the homemade bombs Reece and I concocted is clearly visible. Broken glass litters sidewalks. Brick dust has settled on top of the grass. The buildings themselves are scorched or cracked in places.
Rudy’s thick voice cuts through the silence. “Where did she live?” It takes me a second for my brain to catch up. He eyes me when I don’t answer. “Do you know?”
“Um, near a playground.” He knows exactly what I’m talking about because he finds it. Knots form in my stomach when I see it—I clearly remember children playing there. I get ready to point to the house, but he’s already moving toward it.
“Same house she was in before I left.”
The door opens easily. Everything has been removed except for the furniture. Stagnancy fills the air making the house feel abandoned.
“Did you live here? I mean, before you left?” I ask, but he strides into the kitchen.
On a counter sits a kitten knickknack on top of a knitted pink blanket. I remember seeing it before. He picks it up, running his hand over its softness. “No, I didn’t live here. I shared a house with Mac.” He hands it to me. “He’s alive. Obviously, they moved the base.” He becomes thoughtful, somewhere miles away. For the millionth time in a week, I feel defeated.
I clear my throat. “Should we tell her? Maybe she wouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave.”
His chest heaves in and out.
“Rudy—”
He holds up a hand, “I don’t want to you to worry about it, Darlin’.”
Falling into a silence, we check all the buildings for useful things, or to see if anyone is left behind, while keeping our eyes and ears open for movement. There is nothing. No living, no dead, no undead. Not even a putrid lurks about.
On our way out, I leave Rudy to his pondering. He drives this time, going out of the way for looting. There’s a list of his own things to get, mostly things for a baby. In turn, it makes me think about everything Rudy has done for me. He saved me from the car wreckage—he fed me, and gave me knowledge, more than that, companionship. Strumming me to sleep with his guitar, I’d wake up with him still there. He fought in the betting ring to get me medication for an infection that we both thought was blood poisoning. Most of all, he pulled off Gray, and let me beat him with a bat until he thought my sanity was in jeopardy. The deal he made with me earlier in the week just so I could rest and eat, most of the time bringing me food himself. He brought me the art supplies. All in all, it doesn’t surprise me he’d do the same for Julie.