Too antsy to sit for the next five hours, I sneak my cigarette pack and slip on my grandma tennis shoes. It’s a good thing Gideon loves me, because I’m sure it makes it easier to accept the ridiculous attire I sport every day. I need to find some new threads and kiks–Granny can have her St. John’s Bay “Nike” wannabes back.
My idea of a supply run consists of cute clothes, panties, toothpaste, deodorant, chapstick, baby wipes, mascara, and some Converse. That’s what this life has been reduced to. All of those things I once took for granted are all the things I’d pay any amount of money to have now.
With cigarette in mouth and AK strapped over my shoulder, I slip behind the tarp doorway of the hideout. I stand tall to peek out over the boarded-up stairwell, and when the coast is clear, I start my descent. About halfway to the bottom, I light my cigarette. It’s not that I’m lying to him . . . Sleeping is kind of being “away.” I’m left alone with me, and that can be a dangerous place.
In my defense, I’ve been sober—soberish—for the past two months. That’s the longest I’ve been without narcotics in my body since I was ten years old, so I really enjoy my cigarettes. Gideon gets that, and I love him for it. For the first time in my life, I feel accepted and unconditionally loved by someone other than Evie and my parents.
When I get to the bottom step, my cigarette is already halfway gone, and my small meal threatens to regurgitate itself. After a sweep of the area, I sit, and the nausea hits so strong, I have to prop my elbows on my knees and drop my head until it passes. The stress of surviving in this world, along with our meager eating habits, is most likely to blame. But after Riverbend, I’m hoping like hell that’s the only cause for the nausea.
I push the thought away, eyeing the fresh scars that dot my hands, wrists, and arms. Gideon says they’ll fade with time, but honestly, they don’t bother me too much. As if their absence would change what happened. Those events are already scarred in my memory and across my timeline. Having their visual representation is like wearing a badge of honor, to remind you of what you went through, how brave you were, and that you made it out alive. And that you can heal. If anything, these scars remind me every day that I’m still alive, and that things can change. And they will.
“Hey there.”
Adrenaline’s hot in my throat as I reach for my AK, trying to pinpoint where the male voice came from.
“Don’t do that.” To my left, resting in the shade of The Wacky Racer, is a guy in all black with short brown hair and a goatee, rifle held snug at his chest, not aimed at me, but could easily be in seconds. I drop my hand from my weapon, contemplate calling for Gideon, but decide to play it cool.
“Hi.” I wave.
He sits up, crosses his legs in front of him. “Hey. You got another cigarette?”
“Uh . . . yeah.” My heart thumps as I head toward him, preparing to bolt and/or shoot at the first red flag. I hand him the cigarette, then my lighter.
“Thanks.” He lights the cigarette, takes a drag. “I’m Fletcher. Friends call me Fletch.”
I shake his outstretched hand. “Grace.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds, leaning against a support beam. “Never thought I’d be so happy for a goddamned Virginia Slim, man. Thanks, again.”
“No problem.”
He takes a long drag, then French inhales. “Who ya here with, Grace?”
“My husband has a rifle aimed at your head from the tower behind me.”
He glances toward our hideout, amused. “If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already. Chill.”
“Can’t be overly cautious these days, am I right?”
“Oh no, I agree one hundred percent. In fact, he’d be stupid not to have a rifle aimed at my head. I get it. But I’m a firm believer in ‘make love, not war.’ The world may be fucking dead, but at least those of us who are fortunate enough to still be alive can be neighborly and civil, know what I mean?”
He’s a smooth-talker, charismatic. He reminds me of this door-to-door satellite cable salesperson who came to our house a couple weeks before the injections.
“This might be a strange question,” I say, “but did you used to sell cable?”
He takes another drag, jerks his head toward me. “Yeah—how’d you—?”
“I remember you. You came to my house a few weeks before Black Saturday.”
“Wow, how crazy. Small world, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Guess it’s even smaller now,” he mumbles. “That is so fucked. You’re the first person I’ve run into out here from before. That was a whole ’nother life, know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“Whoa!” Fletch holds his hands up. “Hey, I come in peace.” He exhales a nervous laugh.
A glance back finds Gideon with an AR trained on him.
“He’s okay.” I signal for him to lower his weapon. “He tried to sell me cable once.”
“I did.” Fletch hotboxes his cigarette, then mashes the cherry on the metal railing beside him. “But I swear I’ve changed my ways.” He seems to get a kick out of himself.
Gideon shares my apprehension, but lowers his weapon still.
“Gideon, this is Fletch. Fletch, Gideon.”
They share a stiff handshake.
“It’s just you two?” Fletch asks.
“Yeah.” Gideon still grips his weapon. “What about you? Are you with a group?”
“A small one. We got split up last night.”
“We heard you. Before that herd came through.”
“The correct term would be ‘horde.’” Fletch taps his chest. “Sci-fi word nerd, here. Anyway, yeah, that was us. We needed a place to camp for the night and couldn’t find a quick way in here. My two buddies I was with took off in a different direction. I wanted to hang out around here for at least twenty-four hours in case they showed up.” He shakes his head, takes one last drag from his cigarette before flicking the butt. “Fuckers didn’t even come back for me.”
“Where are you staying?” Gideon asks.
“We were headed to a community northwest of here—the Tunnels. Heard of ’em?”
“No.”
“Ah, well . . . you oughta go. I’m sure they’ll let you in, you’re an attractive couple.” He stares at me a little too long.
“The fuck does that have to do with anything?” Gideon takes a step forward.
“They don’t let everyone into the Tunnels, man; there ain’t enough space. They’re very selective. You have to bring something to the community . . . even if it’s just your fine ass.” He winks at me.
Gideon steadies his breath. “I think it’s time for you to go, dude.”
“Oh, I can’t leave yet, bro.” He snorts a laugh this time. “What are you, nuts? It’s fucking daylight. But no worries, I’ll head to the other side of the park. No harm, no foul. It was nice to meet you.”
I stop him as he walks off. “Hey, where are they? The Tunnels.”
“The entrance is six hundred yards from highway sixty-five, midway between exits thirty-two and thirty-three. It’s an enormous, old, rusty, grain silo, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
With a nod, he strolls off over the bridge. We stand there and watch until he gets a good distance away, then we head back up to our hideout. But Gideon’s tense, and I am, too. Something about Fletch makes me uneasy.
When we get upstairs, Gideon peeks through our west window. “I don’t trust that guy.”
“Me, neither. Do you see him?”
“No.”
After a long watch, he sits facing me, leaning his rifle against the wall beside him. “Why were you down there? You said you wouldn’t wander.”
“I’m sorry, I was . . .”
He holds my gaze for a moment as I stumble.
“What? You were smoking?”
I blow out my held breath. “Yeah. I’m sorry. We had a deal, and I—”
“Grace, it’s fine. If you want to smoke, please, just do it up here, okay?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, baby. I’m here to make sure you keep living it.”
We hold heated eye contact while my body warms. He drops back on his elbows, showing me the growing bulge in his pants. “You see that? That’s what happens the moment you look at me and I know you want to fuck me.”
I crawl over and straddle him, massaging his dick beneath our clothes. “Then you must get hard a lot, because I always want that.”
“And I love that about you. You’re one sexually talented woman.”
“I’m getting good at quickies,” I say, sitting taller.
Gideon chuckles. “It’s cute how you’re proud of yourself about that.”
“I mean . . . times have changed. Gotta have new goals and aspirations in life, right?”
“Right.” He laughs again. “You’re one funny chick. I didn’t realize that until recently. You’ve opened up a lot. You’re this . . . exotic flower that just keeps blooming . . .” He scratches his nose with his thumb and drifts off into a grinning, love-induced daydream. In this moment, I see he’s where I am, falling hard for me, too, and there’s no doubt in my mind I’m the luckiest human on the planet.
“I love you.” I kiss his nose.
“I love you, too, baby.” He kisses my lips, then taps my thigh. “Let me scope things out again.”
I move from his lap, and the wind picks up, rattling the tarps, and a piece whips up and away from the railing.
Gideon checks the west window again, then faces me. “We need to think about where we’re going next. We can’t stay here.”
I snatch another zip tie and go to work re-securing the loose section to the railing. Looking around the little hideout, knowing we’re about to leave it, makes me sad. Wipeouts was a beacon calling me home, and when I arrived, it brought me in, kept me safe. It gave me Gideon. I fell in love, became strong, discovered my reasons for living. I learned that inside every hell there’s a heaven waiting for you to find it. And though we can never avoid the inferno completely, we can find temporary solace, an oasis in the desert, or a rest stop along a thousand-mile road trip. Wipeouts gave us refuge, shelter from the storm. It helped us grow strong enough to survive out there.
I’ll miss this place.
Five
I awaken from my sleep shift at dusk, and Gideon has us packed and ready to go.
“Wow, already, huh?” I yawn, and sadness meets adrenaline. I’m about to be outside of these walls for the first time in nine weeks.
“Yeah. Rain’s comin.”
The tarps whip in the wind to hint that he may be right.
“I feel the barometer change in my head,” he adds.
“Uh . . . ?”
“When I was younger, I used to get migraines a lot before it rained.” He sets his small handgun down to re-tie a shoelace. “Plus, I don’t like people knowing our location.”
“Wow—is that the gun you pulled on me at my house?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles.
“Where has that been? I forgot you had that. I was thinking you left unarmed.”
“It was in my pocket. I’ve had it in my bag. Not that it’s much protection, it was my dad’s boot gun. I happened to be at his house when the shit hit the fan, and that’s all I could find.”
“You had that on you when I was whooping your ass.”
“I did.”
“And you just . . . let me? Why?”
“I knew how much you needed to.”
I stare into my lap. I’m positive he was divinely bestowed upon me, though I’m not sure why any divine entity would bestow anything or anyone upon me . . . I was such a piece of shit. He didn’t deserve that, and I can never take it back.
“You do that a lot,” Gideon says.
“What?”
“Drift off to sadness.”
We’re silent for a moment, listening to the wind whistle outside. “You do it sometimes, too,” I say.
“Kinda hard not to, right?”
I sit up and stretch, then collect my grandma sneakers. “Yeah. But I could probably drift off to less sadness if we could find me some clothes that fit and some new shoes—either a badass pair of combat boots or some Converse.”
“Oh, is that it?” He laughs. “Anything else?”
“Yes, I have a mental grocery list.”
“Of course you do.”
“Do you have any clue how long it’s been since I’ve had a proper bath or shower? I reek of sex leftovers.”
“Mmm . . .” He slips a playful jerk of his unit.
“I’m glad you think so. But if we could find some baby wipes, I would be absolutely thrilled. Maybe even enough water to dump on myself again? That was nice . . . those two times we did that. Oh, and a toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant would be awesome. And either mouthwash, or some bourbon. Either/or.”
He laughs. “Well, I’ve got a place in mind, speaking of bathing. But I doubt they have bourbon or any of that other stuff. We’d have to get that stuff first, then go there to camp out. There’s a strip mall nearby that has a smoke shop, a liquor store, and some kind of clothing store, I think.”
“Oh my God, that sounds great. Where? And where’s the hideout you had in mind?”
“A mega church a few miles from here. I’m thinking it will be relatively clear inside. The shit hit the fan on a Saturday, so I doubt many people made it to church the next day.”
“Think we can get in?”
“It’s worth a try. But there may be someone camped out there already. We’ll have to be on guard.”
“That’s the name of the game these days, right?”
“Right.”
“So what about the strip mall? Where’s that?”
“A couple miles from the church.”
I glance around at all of our belongings with a sigh. “There’s no way we can take it all.”
“Only what’s absolutely necessary.”
I nod, rise to my feet in my “pajamas,” which is a pair of black yoga pants that are about two sizes too big, and an XXL gray T-shirt. So sexy. I make my rounds, checking all of the windows like I do every time I wake up, lingering for a moment at my water tower. How I wish I could still see it from whatever window I end up at next.
“How ya feelin’?” Gideon asks.
I turn into his outstretched arms behind me. “Good. A little sad to be leaving, but also ready to move on.”
“My sentiments, exactly. I’ve grown attached to this place.” He kisses me, then leans to collect his backpack. “But time to go.”
“We using the katanas? Since they’re quiet?”
“Yeah. Once we get downstairs, we’ll go over a couple of things with it to refresh your memory.”
I pick up my backpack and strap it on, then remove my almost empty pack of cigarettes from the side. Gideon takes a look around, then collects our duffel bag with the weapons in it, and he grins at me. “Wanna race one last time?”
“Hell yeah.”
With a full load, I slip into the left tube, as he enters the other one. I click on the tiny flashlight strapped above my wristwatch to light the way in front of me. The dark blue tunnel dips, curves, and drops, and going this speed, I can’t imagine how fast it would be if there was actual water in it.
Gideon wins—again—and greets me with a salute before hopping over to help me up. He shoulders the duffel bag, holds his AK at ready, and I unsheathe my katana.
“Hang on.” He unzips the bag, takes out an AR-17 and hands it to me. I copy him, strapping the weapon to my shoulder.
Without making a sound, Gideon unsheathes his katana. He shows me how to grip it, how to use it, and how to sheathe it above my shoulder again. We may have a world full of guns and ammo, but these things still hear noise somehow; therefore, silence is golden. As long as we stay quiet in the shadows, we have a pretty good ch
ance out there.
We make our way through the park with Gideon on high alert, scoping the area for our visitor from earlier, or any others. He’s on higher alert now that he has me to protect in real time. When we get to the ticket booth, the fear hits me. I’ve been safe in here for a while, but that’s about to end. Anything can happen when we climb over this gate. And there are many more bad things than good that could happen.
Gideon helps me up onto the ticket booth, then he climbs up himself. After a scan of the perimeter with no bodies in sight, we climb from the roof to the fence, then down the other side. I follow at Gideon’s heels, toward where we heard Fletch and his buddies last night. We cross an intersection to a Shell gas station, then duck between a maroon Lincoln Continental and a gas pump, nozzle still inserted, as if they’d died filling this dinosaur boat up with gas. Lucky for us.
Sure enough, when I peek into the car, a writhing corpse with gold teeth and a line shaved in his eyebrow mauls the passenger side window.
I pivot toward Gideon. “Can we take it?”
“Yeah.” He unsheathes his katana with his right hand, and with his left, he opens the driver’s side door. The dead thug—clad in a black Adidas hoodie and baggy jeans—springs, and Gideon punctures his skull with the blade. He shoves his body aside, ushering me in through the driver’s side.
I climb over the center console and into the passenger seat, kicking aside a slew of empty America beer bottles. The stench of death overpowers my senses, and I gag. But despite the foul stench, my stomach spins with excitement. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a car.
Gideon locks the doors, cranks the key in the ignition, and it starts right up. “Score. Hey, grab that nozzle, will you?”
“Sure.” I open the door and step out to the side of the car, yanking the blue gas nozzle from the tank and dropping it to the pavement.
When I get back in and shut the door, Gideon cracks our windows and exits the gas station to the main road. Another cloudy night. I’m grateful for that, and for our new ride and its darkish paint. We see the infected as we pass by, but they can’t see us. We’re a blur to them. And if we can outsmart them, blend in with the shadows, stay sharp like the blades of our katanas, we can survive.
Murray's Law Page 3