by Annie Walls
My head snaps up as I peer at her sharply. I fiddle with a loose string on my jeans and nod. “Where did they take Rudy?”
Pity softens her eyes, but smiles tightly. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was gone.”
The outer body thing I’m experiencing, keeps on going. I can’t believe any of this is happening, but Mac warned me. Rudy warned me. Over and over again. When I first woke up, I was glad they kept Rudy and I separate so they couldn’t use us against each other. It’s happening anyway.
*
A group of soldiers drop me off at Rudy’s truck five hours later. They leave me a barrel of gas and give me my weapons. They are gone before I can really think of anything to ask them. I doubt they would know anyway. I have a satellite phone to connect to my laptop. So I can always get in touch with the general, especially if I need anything. This is going to be hard to keep from the team.
Looking inside Rudy’s ransacked truck, all of his personal belongings are missing. I search for anything he might have left me, but there’s nothing so far. All weapons are gone. All the bombs are gone. I pick up a sleeping bag from the walkway and fall to my knees when I see Rudy’s guitar. Broken strings bounce up and down against the smashed face as if someone stomped on it.
I climb out and glance at the late afternoon sun. If I’m such a rebellious zealot, then I better keep up appearances. Gripping my crossbow in one hand, I head toward the community.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
On my way, I pick up a few zombies. There aren’t many because it’s getting warm out. They will make for a good distraction. Walking by Stanley’s livestock yard, I freeze. There’s chicken feathers and blood everywhere. A chicken runs and squawks around the yard. A wing waves awkwardly as if broken. A famished chases it, snarling in frustration. Little chicks flock around the yard, too, but the zombie is after the bigger meal. Lifting my crossbow, I shoot it and leave. A sense of deeper dread slithers through me. What can possibly go wrong now? I’m sure the team is freaking out about Rudy and me. Especially after finding the truck in the condition it’s in. I wipe sweat from my forehead. What am I going to tell them?
Upon entering the community, it’s dead silent. Glass glitters among the fallen greenhouse. I pick through debris and go into the Trap. It’s completely dark and everything sits in disarray, devoid of the people that make this place come alive. One lone zombie wiggles beneath its binds, snarling. A light shines down beaming and casting a weird light upon everything it touches.
In the window overlooking the room—the source of the light—he stands in the window watching and waiting on me. I flash him a menacing smile. Dropping the crossbow and my pack, I run down the hall and take my gun from the small of my back. The stairwell creaks and I slow down, making my way to the top of the first landing where the stairs turn at an angle. There isn’t any commotion, but a gunshot echoes in my ears. I barely duck under the second set of stairs before another bullet ricochets behind me.
Peeking around the corner, an unfamiliar man stands at the top of the stairs next to Guido’s loft door. I fire my Bersa, sending bullets up to him. The man drops, but soon I see his head pop up to look down at me. More bullets fire and ping over my head and next to my face. I squeeze the trigger of my gun and stop when I can’t get a good sighting. Sweat runs down my face, but I ignore it when his gun clicks empty. Silence deafens as my heart beat pounds inside my ears and I wait for what he’ll do next. I have to save the rest of my bullets since my spare cartridges are sitting useless in my pack. How many bullets have I used? Eight? Nine? Guido’s door opens and a second later, the man stomps down a few steps with a rifle. It sprays bullets down at me the whole way. Something hits my arm, and I lose my footing, tumbling down the stairs. Wood, dust, and other debris float around from all the bullets. Gunpowder is thick in the air. My left arm and left leg scream at me not to move.
Silhouettes form through the dust. The rifle clicks empty, and it almost makes me smile. I’m beyond the staircase, and they can’t see me yet because I’m still on the floor. “Empty, gimme yers, I’ll find ‘er.”
“Hurry up. My place has done an gone ta shit. It’s her and them fucks! They’re back to off me like I told yew.” His words make me think the team is responsible for this mess and apparently they left Guido to his own devices. Maybe he hid from them since everyone else seems to be dead or gone. The man becomes clearer through the dust as he steps forward. Squeezing the trigger, I shoot Guido’s bodyguard. He hits the floor with a loud thump, stirring up dust.
“Don’t move,” I say, surprised to hear I sound calm despite my injuries. I hobble to stand, watching Guido as he comes into view. He stares at me with cold, piercing eyes.
He tsks at me. “Chicka, thought I told yew to stay away. Ol’ Mac boy no more?”
“Shut up. Get on your knees.” My gun follows his head as he slowly lowers himself. “What the fuck happened here?”
“No, Kan.” I glance over to see Dalton standing in the doorway of the Clap Trap with his hands where I can see them. I pull my trigger; warm wetness splatters my body and face before Guido’s body slumps to the floor. Dalton’s eyes widen as I point the gun to him.
“I hope killing Mac was worth it to be posted at this shit hole.”
He shakes his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. The general…” He steps forward.
I roll my eyes before I let him lie to me. “Let me guess, you’re about to tell me the general is behind it all.” If possible, his eyes widen more. “Do you know where he sent Rudy?”
“No, but I can find out.” This is the answer I expected. An answer so I won’t shoot him. Stevenson was genuinely surprised Dalton had anything to do with it. And thinking back, Dalton was very curious about me when we were both stuck at the base. I told him, although cryptically, how the team was coming in, and then Finnegan asks me about it all. Of course, I thought Julie was the one who let it all spill about the team coming to the base and Finnegan let me believe it. Then Guido kills Mac with Dalton standing there, which only makes me assume Dalton figured out Mac was hiding things from the Coalition. And then, the leaflet magically shows up with Mac’s ID tag. What a sham. Dalton probably doesn’t know anything about anything, or else he wouldn’t be here. The revolutionists might as well be dropping candy in my lap.
“I’m not going to risk you talking to anyone.” With that, I shoot him in the gut.
*
I don’t know how long I passed out, but I wake up in Mac’s old bed, staring at the mural. Linnie peers into my face close up, her big eyes blink behind her glasses. Her head turns as she waves her flabby arm. “Bruno! She’s awake.” When she turns to me she says, “He needs ta set yer wrist. Gonna hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.”
They proceed to tell me my leg isn’t broken, but a bullet is lodged in my left arm and I have a flesh wound on my side. My wrist is broken from trying to break my fall down the stairs. I feel Bruno’s hands before I see him. He flashes a grizzly smile and pain jolts in my wrist. I grunt, biting my lips and squeezing my eyes shut as tears leak out, but the pain is too much, so I turn in the pillow and choke out a scream.
I’m pretty sure I passed out because when I open my eyes again, Linnie gets close to my face again, searching it. “Where yew been? People out lookin’ for you and Rudy.”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammer, cradling my throbbing arm to me, letting my misery pour out. My body starts shaking. I’ve killed two people, my team is out searching for me, Rudy is gone, and my wrist hurts like nothing else. “What happened here?”
“Eh,” she grunts. “They take everyone to Arizona.”
“Who all is still here?”
“Me and Bruno. We stay to see if yew’d come here, got it?”
“What about Dex? Is he in Arizona?”
“Wha? Tha fur ball?” She grunts, nodding her head. “We take you there. Rest up. We leave soon.”
I have no one to blame but myself for this. If I had listened to Mac and ju
st left it alone, things would be different. If I hadn’t stuck my nose where it didn’t belong, Guido would have never shot Mac, and he would still be alive. If he was still alive, Rudy wouldn’t be off doing who knows what. If I stayed in my hole, I wouldn’t be going through this, again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Three months later…
My elbow flies, hitting Sam right in the nose. Pins and needles trickle up and down my arm, so I bounce in place, shaking it off. Luckily, my broken wrist was a clean break and healed easily enough, although I still baby it.
“Fuck! That was a cheap shot, Kan.” He spits blood onto the mat a few seconds later.
I shrug. “That’s what you get for leaving it open. Isn’t that what you told me?” I point to my busted cheek. “Learn from it and all that?”
He stares at me, dropping into a stance, but the lights go out.
“All right you two. There’s a fitness class coming in here soon, so time’s up,” Craig, the keeper of the building, says. “You should rest anyway, since you leave tomorrow.”
Another mission. Another day. Another opportunity.
Grabbing my small duffle, I stride out of the center with purpose and a voice cuts through the air. “You’ll have no one to practice with if you keep taking dirty shots, mamacita,” I spare Sander a fleeting glance, but keep walking. “You going to the going away jig?”
“Do I ever?”
“No.”
“Then leave me alone about it.”
Hopping on the dirt bike I use to get around, I crank it up and hit the back roads to my house. A house I thought about moving out of, but could never bring myself to do. He knows where to find me.
Dex sits on the back porch waiting on me. We have a routine of sorts. I think he likes the stability. The screen door screeches as we go in and I like it that way. It’s one of the things Rudy wanted to take care of, but I keep it this was as an alarm of sorts. I glance out my darkened window. I’ve come to love nights here. A group of coyotes sing a song and the chorus floats through my open window.
I walk into the living room and Kyle waits for me, lounging on the couch.
It gives me pause, “You found something?”
“Yes. There’s a bunch of us at the compound in Seattle.”
I clap my hands. “Awesome. That’s our next mission after this one. I’ll get on making contact.”
“You think the council will agree to a Seattle mission so soon?”
I wave him away, grabbing my liquid cacti in a bottle. “Eh, that’s only a small seed that needs to be planted. As long as I go along with them, they won’t get suspicious.”
He nods. “There’s something else.”
“Shoot.”
“The spyware I implanted in the council’s system is paying off. Since they lack the knowledge, they aren’t getting anywhere with the information on the vaccine.” This is good news. I can report it to the general and make him happy for the time being, but I keep this to myself, since Kyle obviously doesn’t know about the general. He continues, “There’s also a platoon in Birmingham trying to gather information on you. There’s back and forth communication with the council.”
This surprises me, since the general already has everything he needs on me. I sit in silence a long moment, trying to figure out what to say. “Uh, do you know who is involved with the platoon?”
He shrugs, “I don’t know, but they’ve mentioned Mac.”
“Get me the info. I want to see the communications for myself.”
“On it.” He jumps up from the couch. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
After he leaves, I sit at my set up of computers, decoding, mapping, and planning. This is what I spend the majority of my time doing. Kyle sends me info through our own rigged system. Going through it, I don’t learn much and Kyle was right, neither has the council. They are still trying to decode most of the shorthand. What they don’t know, or anyone for that matter, including the general, is I’m trying to decode it all myself. The communications from the platoon leave a lot to be desired, so I’ll have to think about how I can go about coming in contact with them. And soon. There’s no mention of Rudy, and I assume this group has no idea of the real situation or what the general is up to, but it seems as though they are desperate to talk with me.
The general has yet to give me any kind of incentive to keep this going, only a chat here and there to let me know Rudy’s alive and vice versa. What’s so fucking ironic is Rudy and I would have done this without needing to be bribed. There’s only person I can think of to blame, and that’s Mac. He tried his damnedest to protect Rudy and I both, and it killed him. But I’m done. I’m done doing this everyone else’s way. Neat and clean. It’s about to get dirty and messy. Dex jumps up on the desk, and I scratch his ears. “Real fucking messy.”
After a shower, I go to bed so I can count the seconds that tick by. It’s August, with roasting temperatures, so my little fan osculates back and forth, sending a slight breeze my way.
Dex purrs loudly, the vibrations tickle my side as a hand travels up my stomach and stops between my breasts. The familiar sensation sends a burst of anguish through my chest. Squeezing my eyes, I suck in a breath and turn over to face the wall. His hand travels down my arm and side in a featherlight way. When he grips my hip, I gasp.
The bed moves as he climbs out of it.
Fingers pluck a string on the guitar, and my eyes fly open. It’s a guitar I had a wood worker make to replace the broken one, and it’s sits on a stand next to my bedroom door. Footsteps move through my room and into the hall. I freeze as blood rushes to my head when I think I recognize the heavy steps. The back door slams, but the screen door doesn’t squeak. Adrenaline spikes in my body as my heart starts to pound. Jumping up, I wrap a sheet around myself and run down the hall. I burst out onto my back porch, looking both ways and seeing nothing.
I run my fingers along the screen door hinges. My eyes burn as I stare at the sheen of oil emphasized by the moonlight on my trembling fingertips. Climbing down the steps, I walk around the house. All the air rushes out of me as my hope dies. Pain slices through my chest, and I clutch the sheet tight. I lean against my house and let my tears escape within the confines of the shadows. It’s late, so it’s not like anyone will see me anyway. Of course, I don’t sleep the rest of the night.
The next morning, my resolve has strengthened. I can’t take it anymore. It was him last night. I know it and he wants me to know it. My body starts to tremble at knowing he was so close, which only pisses me off. Why didn’t he say anything? What was he doing here? I’m tired of keeping this from the team and getting nothing out of it. I need them on my side like I know they will be if only I spill the truth.
I wait patiently for Reece to make an appearance outside his house. “I need to talk to you,” I tell him, standing next to his garage door.
He startles at seeing me awake so early in the morning. “Shit, Kan!” He’s still angry at me for not knowing what happened to Rudy or myself, probably because everything I’ve spewed out to them is complete bullshit and he knows it. His grudge thickens our air. I’ve tried to hold it together, but I’m scared of the consequences this conversation will wreak and tell him so.
He glances at me sharply and peers around. Finally, he grabs my arm and leads me around to his backyard. “Kan, you look like you’ve eaten some bad peyote. What the hell is going on?”
As everything I’ve been holding in rises to the surface, I start trembling. “You’re the only person I can trust right now. This has to stay between us until we can figure out how to go about things.” He nods his affirmation. Taking a deep breath, I start with, “Rudy’s alive.”
KAN’S STORY CONCLUDES IN LIVING WITH THE DEAD
A GIFT FROM THE AUTHOR
Everything I found in the house is the least of my worries. Her soft sobs float between the houses, through the shadows, and straight to my heart. My back stings as I slide down the stucco of a house next door. I’m not leav
ing this spot until she’s okay, even if it makes this fire burn through my chest for the rest of my life. And she will be okay. Eventually. It’s what makes Kan, Kan—her ability to adapt in any situation is no surprise because of her strong will.
Something bumps my leg, and I startle a bit as Dex sits next to me. He must have followed Kan or me out. I run my hand down his back and he lifts himself with the movement.
It grows silent for long minutes and I watch the shadow she disappeared into. I get a shock when she steps into the moonlight with her head held high in determination. I’d smile at her tactics, but it’s quite tempting since the sheet is now in a ball as she carries it toward the clothesline in the nude. This isn’t a nudist colony, Kan. I try to will her back inside like she wills zombies to do what she wants. There’s nothing to do but sit here and soak in the scene as she tries to lure me out. Coyote howls carry through the air from the distance, reminding me that at least it’s the middle of the night.
She tosses the sheet on the line, straightening it out as if it needs to dry. I quickly catch on when she bends toward the tin can full of clothespins. My body jerks at the sight, and I want to do something that would make her scurry back inside, but knowing Kan, it wouldn’t happen that way. She makes her way around the line, slow and purposeful, making sure to bend over in all directions. Fucking vixen.
I don’t miss any of her subtle actions. Her eyes scan around constantly, and she stays quiet to catch any sound. Nothing to catch, however, because as much as I want to, and fuck knows I want to badly, I can’t make myself known even if she knows I’m here. Even with the information I gathered inside the house. I’m counting on her loyalty and her love for me to wait. She will, she’s proven it already.
She saunters up the steps and pauses for a long time, and I let out a breath when she opens the screen door and walks through.