While Colin wasn’t thrilled about their current situation, he had to admit one thing: sleeping on top of a billboard advertisement would definitely go down as one of the most unique experiences he’d ever have. Frowning a moment later, he realized his days of wanting to be the life of the party were over. But there wasn’t anyone left in the world who would want to hear his stories anyways.
He pulled out the thin “sleeping pad” Johnny B. had given him, which he was pretty sure was actually a pink yoga mat, and rolled it out toward the edge of the billboard landing, away from the others.
Kennedy handed him a granola bar, her steps so light he barely heard her come up behind him. “Eat. Sleep.”
Colin gave her a mock salute and sat down on the mat, chewing the granola bar thoughtfully. He stared out over the foreboding necropolis until he could see the hills that lay beyond it. The sun dipped lower behind the hills, its rays setting fire to everything in its path as the light retreated from the city. He pocketed the wrapper and lay down, shifting around until he was somewhat comfortable. Pulling his jacket tighter around his body, he shut his eyes and wished he could be engulfed by its flames, letting the fiery tongues lap at his flesh, numbing his nerves until they seared even his heart.
The view from the driveway was still the same. Like nothing had changed, like she was coming home to Grandma’s for the holidays after finals.
Haven closed her eyes and imagined her grandmother rushing out to meet her. She would help Haven carry in her bags, and then they’d all sit down to a hearty, home-cooked meal.
The moon dipped behind the clouds, the shifting of light causing her eyelids to flutter and open, and suddenly, the ravaged details of the home revealed themselves to her. The front door was torn off the hinges, and the windows were broken, glass shards scattered around the porch.
Things were nothing as they once had been.
But maybe Faith would have come back. Maybe this would be the first place she would go. In spite of how it looked now, it would be familiar. It was home.
With a heavy heart, she neared the porch, pausing, her fingers tracing the trellis. Not long ago, she had been yanked up by her brother and sister as she escaped the frantic clutches of dozens of ravenous zombies. Blood was somehow still visible from that day, thickly smeared across the rusted metal. She leaned in for a closer look and noticed a jagged fingernail wedged between the spiral designs of the trellis.
Grimacing, she moved forward and cautiously stepped over the threshold of the home. A strong gust of icy wind sent leaves swirling about through the open entranceway. The place looked impossibly decrepit, as though it had been sitting abandoned for a long time instead of just the weeks since they had fled it.
Haven briefly wondered if her grandmother’s ghost lingered there, if it would follow her, haunt her, as she made her way through the house.
Bile rose in her throat as she recalled that tragic day, her grandmother getting yanked from her hands by flesh-eating monsters… watching them pull her into the depths of the lake, the water churning red with her blood as they tore her apart. Just as she pushed the feeling down, something scurried under her boots, and she jumped back and yelped. A little gray mouse disappeared under the couch, and she exhaled in relief, slightly embarrassed she’d been scared by such a harmless, tiny creature.
She fingered the worn tribal print material of the couch, remembering the many times she’d done homework there or dozed off after school on its comfortable cushions.
Her grandmother’s worn purple cardigan rested on one of the armrests. She took it and held it up to her face, desperate for the faintest scent of her grandmother’s perfume.
It was still there, just barely, a brief whiff of gardenia, and then it was gone. Wrapping the cardigan around her hands, she sat on the couch tentatively, almost anxious for the memories it would bring. She closed her eyes again, trying to pretend that she was in the before.
Her vision blurred with tears as one particular occasion stood out in her mind. It was her senior year of high school, and she had just gotten home after soccer practice. Rosemary had been outside gardening when Haven came running down the driveway, practically colliding into her grandmother, flustered and in tears. Her crush, the captain of the boys’ soccer team, had cheated on her with another girl because Haven wouldn’t have sex with him. Looking back, it had been silly to get upset over such an arrogant, worthless jerk who hit his peak in high school. But her grandmother didn’t tell her that; she didn’t minimize what she was feeling. Instead, she’d immediately dropped what she was doing and helped Haven inside, beckoning her to the couch before filling the tea kettle with water and bringing her a plate of freshly baked cookies. Through her incoherent sobs, Haven had vowed she would never love again, and at the time, she had believed it to be true. Her grandmother listened attentively, nodding with understanding, and stroked her hair until she stopped crying. And grandmothers gave the best advice. Rosemary explained that sometimes God had other plans, plans that would make sense later, with an outcome that would be so much better than she could ever imagine. Haven wished she could tell her grandmother that she’d been right. God had taken her down a different path indeed, and it was on that path that she’d found Houston who was everything Captain Scumbag was not.
It was bittersweet to reminisce, pleasing and painful at the same time, but because the pain from loss was so fresh and her grandmother’s death so grisly, Haven was eager to move on and stood up and walked to the hallway.
So many pictures rested along its walls. She took a step forward and gazed at the first one. It was a photo of herself with her siblings from at least a decade earlier. She smiled wistfully as she took in every aspect of the picture, from the silly matching outfits her grandma had made them wear, to Brett’s unflattering bowl cut, to the rubber bands on her braces that matched her school colors.
And then there was the ridiculous Christmas ornament hanging on the corner of their family holiday photo, an ornament her grandmother insisted on displaying all year long. It was a homemade school project, the one teachers had kids cobble together so parents could “ooh” and “ahhh” over it even if it was just a clumsily crafted wreath made of dried beans or a reindeer fashioned out of a clothespin and a red pom-pom for a nose.
Lifting it off the frame gingerly, she remembered how the three of them would wait for Santa on Christmas Eve, trying so hard to stay awake until Christmas morning. They’d read books under the sheets with their flashlights, play games, do jumping jacks… anything to keep from falling asleep. And no matter how many times they tried, they always failed to stay awake, opening eyes heavy with sleep just as the first rays of sunshine peeked through the curtains.
Haven felt a twinge of sadness knowing it was her fault the tradition stopped. When she became a “grown-up,” twelve years-old and too cool to wait for something silly like Santa, the Santa-sighting trio disbanded, her sudden disinterest in their tradition killing the enthusiasm of her younger siblings.
If she could do it all over again, she would take so much of it back. She would never be too cool to wait up all night for Santa Claus.
Haven hung the little ornament back on the frame where it belonged and stepped back.
Her eyes flitted from the photo to the room at the end of the hallway that she shared with Faith. The door was wide open.
She felt frozen in place, so many memories flashing through her mind. She remembered when Faith was too stubborn to brush out her own hair as a little girl. To get Faith to sit still while she brushed out the tangles, Haven had to tell her stories, wild stories about a land far away where she was a princess, and there was a dragon, and instead of being rescued by a prince, Haven preferred to spin the story so that Faith slayed the dragon all by herself, no rescuing needed. Faith loved the stories, always begging for “just one more” when it was already past her bedtime.
I just need one more chance.
One more chance to make it right with her.
Wh
en she got to the room they’d shared, there were grisly droppings on their comforters and bloody handprints smashed against the walls. Both of the lamps on their nightstands had been knocked over, their matching stuffed teddy bears trampled by dozens of dirty, mushy feet. She didn’t care and picked them both up, clutching them tightly against herself. She sat on the bed, suddenly feeling very small and lost.
Something bright sticking out from under her twin bed caught her eye. She reached down to investigate, producing a shoe box.
Removing its dusty lid, Haven felt a burst of excitement. Photographs she had collected over the years, but had been too lazy to put into photo albums, lay stacked on top of one another, their corners slightly wilted from the passage of time. Some of them were blurred and unfocused, and she chuckled when she flipped over the awkward ones from her adolescence, wild hair and braces and baggy, tomboy clothes. But the memories they elicited were priceless, a portal to a past she would never get back with people she would never see again. They were everything.
The first traces of dawn began to fill the room, soft pastel light inching across the floor toward her. Selecting a couple of pictures of her parents, brother, sister, and grandmother, Haven folded them in half and put them in her back pocket, unwilling to ever forget their faces.
She closed the door to their bedroom for the last time, sealing it off from any further desecration from the undead.
With a heavy heart and crushed spirit, Haven continued searching through the ruins for a sign, any remnant, of her beloved baby sister.
The house was empty, a skeleton closing in on itself. Eventually, nature would creep through the broken doors and windows and reclaim it once more.
Haven went outside to the backyard, needing to breathe. Pale pinks and yellows glittered along the surface of the lake, the sun beginning to peek over the horizon.
Her grandmother had an old bench that sat beneath a massive sycamore tree. She settled onto it, relishing how peaceful she immediately felt, no sounds except for the creaking branches swaying in the wind and the gentle waves lapping at the shore.
An unwelcome smell made her pause to sniff the air.
The breeze wafted the scent her way again, and her eyes watered.
Rot.
Decay.
She whirled around, knife in hand, dreading that hungry hands would be waiting just behind her, that she had been found.
But there was nothing.
Her nostrils flared. The lingering, offensive smell was still there.
She took a deep breath, trying to salvage her composure.
Then she saw.
Haven dropped the knife as though it had scalded her.
Her heart stopped its steady thumping in her chest.
Up ahead, a young woman sat slumped on the ground against a tree just in front of the lake.
No.
No, God, please no.
But she knew who it was; there was no doubt in her mind, no mirages to deceive her.
She had been drawn back to this place, one last time. Even after death, the bonds of sisterhood remained strong.
Her baby sister, her beloved Faith.
She had finally found her.
The figure before her was thin, so very thin, with leathery gray skin that clung to her bones, hideous and disfigured.
But there was no mistaking the identity.
The long blonde locks, Faith’s beautiful, coveted trait, still remained, but it wasn’t the same shiny golden hair Haven remembered. Instead, it was patchy, matted, and caked with crusted blood.
The blue dress, the last thing she’d seen her sister in before she vanished, was torn and ravaged with holes. There were bite marks all over her body, and some areas were completely devoid of flesh. Dried blood could be seen all along her thighs, disappearing under the tatters of the dress.
When the poor creature detected her, it slowly looked up, head lolling back and forth, mouth opening and closing, dry tongue running along empty black spaces where teeth should have been.
It groaned a low, pitiful, almost plaintive sound, but made no attempt to hurt her, the life force drained from its body, any energy or drive to feed long gone.
“Faith,” she wept, slumping down defeatedly in front of her. “Please forgive me.”
The sun had crested the trees around the lake when Haven finally lifted her head and gazed at Faith. Without hesitation, she reached out and clasped one of her sister’s hands.
Smiling through the tears, she whispered, “Do you remember when we were kids?” She wiped her face with her sleeve and sniffled. “I wish we could go back to that, back to warm summers on the lake, picnics, canoe rides, Christmases... I miss all of those things so badly.” She squeezed Faith’s hand gently, the fingers so small and thin they felt as if they’d break in her grasp.
“Sometimes I think this was all a dream, but then I wake up and realize I’m still living in this nightmare, and I keep trying to get out of it… And I can’t.”
Her lower lip trembled and tears streamed down her face, dripping onto both of them. “But most of all, I wish that I could take back what I said to you. I am so sorry. What I said… how I treated you… it was so wrong. No matter how much I missed Grandma.” A jolt of pain stabbed through her heart. “Everything about you was so good, so perfect. You always wanted to help people. You should have been able to grow up into whatever you wanted to be, found the love that you always dreamed of… The world needed more people like you. And now it’s all gone, and you were the best chance we had of starting over, of making right everything so wrong in this world.”
Haven tenderly placed a hand on the hollows of Faith’s cheek, skin that had once been youthful and glowing. “Grandma’s death was never your fault. But yours was mine. And I’m so sorry, Faith. I’m so sorry!” she cried.
Faith stared at her. Eyes that once danced with merriment and happiness were now empty, a cloudy gray instead of a vibrant blue. But any sign of hunger had faded from them entirely. And for just a moment, Haven thought she noticed a spark of recognition.
She had her sister again. God had given her the opportunity to see her one last time.
Wrapping an arm around Faith’s body, Haven said softly, “I love you, Faith. You’re so much braver than I will ever be.” Her cheek touched her sister’s, not caring that it was rotted and cold.
The withered fingers in her hand moved ever so slightly around her own.
With one last choked sob, Haven held her tightly. She didn’t want to let go. Even if this was all that was left of her sister, she didn’t want to do it. But it was cruel to let her suffer, her soul trapped in a festering body.
She held her breath and raised her knife to Faith’s temple, pressing it forward, hugging her desperately until her sister went limp in her arms, lifeless.
Haven lay down on the forest floor, pulling Faith into her embrace so that she could cradle her sister’s body.
The fight had been drained from her, any will to live gone. All she wanted to do was stay beside her little sister and never leave her again.
Chapter Four
“Haven!” Houston yelled, shoving past branches, ignoring when they slashed his skin and drew blood.
“Haven!” he called out again. He kept running, thoughts of Haven in danger plaguing him.
Then he saw the long dark hair mingled with strands of blonde. He stopped dead in his tracks.
It was Haven.
Beside her was Faith.
He collapsed when he reached their bodies, immediately pulling Haven into his lap.
“Haven,” he murmured.
Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open. She stared at him blankly.
“Leave me here,” she whispered. “I just want to die.”
“No, baby,” he said, swallowing hard. “No. We’re all here now. It’ll be okay.”
His gaze shifted to the slight figure next to them, torn skin and gray limbs unmoving.
She’d been dead all along. She didn’t make
it.
He felt ashamed that he wasn’t surprised, that he hadn’t expected to find her alive. Not Faith. She wasn’t cut out for this horrible new world.
But he couldn’t have admitted that to Haven while she poured so much of herself into finding Faith. He couldn’t break her heart with the truth, so instead he went out with her each day to help, knowing somehow, deep down, this was how they’d find her.
“Haven, I’m so sorry.” He clutched her close to him.
Brett ran up to them moments later. Houston’s muscles tensed, wanting to pull him back and shield him from everything.
“No,” Brett gasped. “No. No. No.”
Tears streamed down his face, and he sank to his knees beside his little sister, burying his face in his hands.
Some time passed before Brett tenderly covered Faith’s open eyes. His hand fell to hers where he held it momentarily before carefully folding both of her hands on her chest.
“I’m going to bury her,” he said determinedly, lifting Faith into the air and walking toward the lake.
Houston wordlessly watched him leave, the image of Brett carrying his dead sister’s body, her butchered arms hanging limply and her long blonde hair streaming down from his embrace, one he’d never be able to erase from his memory.
They buried Faith in the backyard, in a spot overlooking the lake.
Houston, the only one who could hold his emotions together long enough to speak, told stories about her goodness, kindness, and inimitable spirit. He loved her as the sister he’d never had.
Haven sat motionless beside the dirt-covered mound marking her sister’s final resting place, even after the sun dipped beneath the horizon and gave way to darkness. The hard finality of knowing she wasn’t coming back, that this wasn’t a terrible nightmare, that she wouldn’t wake up and find Faith safe in her bed… it felt like a stab to the heart, and even if it healed, there would always be this raw, tragic angst she couldn’t quite shake.
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 4