“You okay?” Evan eyed me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go. I want to help them and then get going. We might be able to hit the road before dark.”
He frowned. “Not sure if that’s such a good idea.”
He was right. But as with any of my decisions in life, once I make it I want to act immediately. Patience is a virtue, but I never claimed to be virtuous.
“Eleanor!” Mrs. Delaney came rushing to me. I saw her son—Todd, if I remembered correctly—glance around nervously. He was trying very hard not to let his mother see his worry.
“We came to help,” I said, keeping my voice low, hoping she’d take the hint.
Todd threw me a grateful glance, and I nodded. Best to get them loaded up and out of here fast judging by the last 24 hours. With any luck, they’d reach a patrolled haven before nightfall.
She hugged me, and I hugged her back, realizing suddenly how much I’d miss her. We’d bonded these last six months. “Who’s this?” she asked, looking very pleased.
I blushed. “This is Evan Blackwood, Mrs. Delaney.”
“Evan from high school, Evan? You two were quite the item back—”
I blushed harder. “I…um, yes, we dated. Let’s get you moved,” I blurted. “We don’t want you on the road in the dark.”
Another grateful glance from Todd, so my rush wasn’t entirely self-serving.
“Good save,” Evan murmured in my ear as he grabbed some boxes. He was grinning. “But we were quite the item—”
“Shut up!” I hissed, picking up a milk crate full of picture albums.
I loaded a few more things in the truck. Between the four of us, we made quick work of it. Todd still gave a sigh as Mrs. Delaney put Belvedere in the cab of the truck. “Ma, too much stuff.”
She blinked at him. “There’s a lifetime in this house Todd Allen Delaney. This is good considering what’s in there.”
He nodded. “I suppose so.” Another nervous glance and he said, “Say your goodbyes, Ma. The kids and Julie are dying for us to get back.”
She came at me with spread arms, and I returned the hug with a tight throat. Todd and I shook then he shook hands with Evan. Mrs. Delaney said, “Oh, come here, boy!” and grabbed Evan in a death grip. I heard her whisper “take good care of my girl” but pretended not to.
I watched her drive away with her son, happy she was going to be safe. Sad to see her go.
“Come on, El,” Evan said, taking my hand. “Best not to stand here like sitting ducks.”
“That would be sitting.”
He snorted. “Always the smart ass.”
“Better than a dumb ass,” I laughed.
“Still? You’re still saying that?” He groaned.
“Why not? Did something give you the impression I’d actually grow up? Silly boy. Maturity is highly overrated.”
“Let’s get you inside,” he said. The way he said it made me think of him entering me. His body sliding into mine with extremely pleasurable ease. My body grew hot, and I tried to draw a deep breath.
“I want to show you my plan. I told you…once she was gone we’d move forward.”
Evan glanced at his watch. “Okay. Show me but we’re not getting on the road tonight. Not now. First thing in the morning.”
“Fine.” I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew he was right. Getting on the road too late would make a spectacle out of us. There were recommended hours for traffic nowadays. Folks tried to travel between nine a.m. and five p.m. In the winter, when the sun went down earlier, the roads, barring official vehicles, were deserted before five.
We needed to wait until morning. Like it or not. I was more afraid of humans than hollows. Hollows were just hungry, propelled by need. The humans were deliberate about their violence.
“Come on. Let’s stop standing here.” I turned away from him, feeling him close by as I wiggled into a thicket of dense shrubs. I glanced around, stopping, listening, hearing very little but the distant sound of cars on the freeway. Hopefully, Mrs. Delaney was already on her way.
When I felt all was clear, I moved back toward the neighbor’s home directly behind me. Mr. Peterson was dead. He’d died at the beginning of the outbreak, actually becoming a hollow. His mother had shot him when he tried to attack her. Then she had died a month later from what some speculated was a broken heart. She’d simply died—as if she’d given up.
“Mr. Peterson was a bus driver for the county school district,” I whispered. We stood on the perimeter of the deserted lawn. Nothing moved. No sound.
I still felt safer going through all the trees and shrubs instead of walking right across the open lawn. I took Evan’s hand and pulled him along after me. “We’ll go in the side door.”
“The side door?”
“Of the garage.” I nodded to a towering cinderblock structure with sagging wooden doors that had been boarded shut.
“That’s a garage?”
“He had a hobby,” I said. The garage had a regular-sized side door with a padlock on it. I knelt by a stack of used tires and fished around inside the bottom one. The key was wet from recent rain but fine. “Voila!” I said triumphantly, waving the key.
“What was his hobby?” Evan asked, smiling.
“You’ll see.” I popped the padlock and turned the rusted doorknob. The door gave a hearty shriek as I opened it, but it made me feel better because it meant no one had opened it in a while. So no one was in there.
I gave one more glance around and tugged Evan inside the structure. I shut the door quickly and caught my breath. “There’s a light switch right by the door,” I whispered.
There were no windows so now that we were in I wasn’t worried. “Hold on.” Evan moved to the wall. Finally, the lights flickered on.
“Holy shit, “he said.
I grinned. “I know! He bought them at auction for a steal, he said, and then this!” I did a Vanna White flourish.
There were two school buses, but neither resembled the old yellow banana buses we rode to school. One was done completely in camouflage. The other was done up close to the American flag. Pristine paint jobs and pimped out, the buses were impressive.
“Thank god it’s this one that appears to be ready.” Evan pulled the door wide on the camo bus. He stepped up as I pulled some dust cloths off the front end. Some of the back windows were blacked out for privacy.
Evan whistled. “Come in here, girl.”
I grinned at the ‘girl’. It was often what he’d call me our senior year of high school. Usually post sex. It was an intimate nickname that sounded ho-hum and common.
“Why? Are you going to do naughty things to me on the bu—” I stopped short. “Holy shit,” I finished weakly.
“Was this man Peterson by any chance friends with your dad?”
I blinked. “Yeah. They would tinker. Drink a few beers together.”
The bus was a prepper’s dream come true. There was a whole wall of shelves that had been stocked with cans and jars and dry goods. Beneath the benches that went to a built-in table rested big plastic-sealed tubs of freeze-dried food. I went to the table, slid two chains down a bracket screwed to the wall, and the top lowered to line up with the benches. I scanned the bus.
“Over there.” Evan pointed.
I found the foam roll, unrolled it and laid it flat over the table and benches. “A bed.”
“Everything is useful,” Evan informed me. “There are bungee cords to keep the cans from rolling off and these…” He unrolled cream-colored fabric from the ceiling to drape over the food units. It blended in with the inside of the bus.
“That’s why these back windows are blacked out. The front ones look in on normal seats. Which makes sense…” I petered off.
“If you’re transporting a bunch of folks at once.” Evan wandered toward me, then stopped when his boots gave off a hollow sound. He chuckled, squatting down. He slipped his fingers in a recess, tugged and pulled the trap door up. “Escape hatch,” he sighed. �
�Brilliant.”
“He was,” I said. I had the sudden urge to laugh until I cried.
“What?”
“Mr. Peterson! Him and my dad! I guess they did this kind of stuff together. I didn’t know that part. Just that he’d let me come hang out sometimes. He’d shown me some of his bus modifications. But I never knew it went that far.”
“Your dad always worried you’d think he was nuts,” Evan said. “They must have kept this their little secret.”
“I didn’t think he was crazy. I had fun with it. Learning to shoot, learning the bow and arrow, learning to store food and cook and track and all that. I lost a lot of my skills…” I patted my gun. When I found him watching me, I tried on a smile. “But a lot of them I didn’t.”
“I know. Let’s see what else we have in here.”
I followed him to the very back of the bus. There were camping rolls that included insulated sleeping bags and foam mats. A small camping stove. Some firewood. Also toiletries and several large duffel bags. All stacked neatly in a corner taking up as little space as possible. Evan unzipped one then a second.
“Bug-out bags,” he said, shaking his head. He gave a low whistle. “Man, they had their shit wired tight.”
I grabbed one of the bags. An extra set of clothes—sweat clothes so they were unisex and the pants were drawstring. Some MREs, first aid stuff, compass, emergency blanket, waterproof matches, hatchet, pocketknife…the list went on.
Tears sprang to my eyes. In that moment, I missed my dad—and my mom—more than words could describe.
Evan caught the look and came to put his arm around me. He always could read me like a book—it was comforting, it was also infuriating.
He bent his head to whisper to me. “It’s okay.”
I shook my head. “It hasn’t been okay for a long, long time.”
It was the first I’d really said that to anyone since I’d been alone. The first time I’d admitted aloud things were not okay. That the world—for all intents and purposes—seemed pretty fucked at the moment. Infected people—sick fucking people—were preying on each other. To add insult to injury, so were other ostensibly healthy people. People who took survival of the fittest to heart a hundred and ten percent. On top of that, the military would not hesitate to shoot you should you exhibit any signs of illness.
The one story that had not died dealt with a young girl who was so inconsolable at the death of her family, she could not stop crying or sobbing. When they demanded she did, she whimpered. Her sounds were too close to the sounds of the hollows, and while her horrified travel companions watched, she was gunned down in the streets. Most likely by a terrified rookie soldier, but still, gunned down is gunned down.
The world was a mess. Food, economy, social relations. TV reports assured survivors tests were done before any action was taken against the infected, but people weren’t stupid. Sometimes there was just no time for tests.
Evan held me. What made it better was that he didn’t try to change my mind. He just held me.
In the secret, womblike dark of the bus, I turned fully to him. I pressed my body flush against his, trying to absorb his warmth—his calm. I turned my face up to him, and he kissed me. Gently. Hands smoothing back my hair, lips moving sure but soft over my lips. Our tongues touched and electricity coursed through me. I shivered because I was suddenly hot and cold at the same time.
I put my hand on his fly, and his hand came down on mine. I smiled. Until he pulled my hand away.
“I don’t want to be your drug of choice, Eleanor,” he whispered.
I pulled back and stared into those warm eyes. “What does that mean?”
He threaded his fingers through my hair and gave it a soft, friendly tug. “Just what I said. I know the sex, it comforts you—makes you feel connected. It does the same for me. The sex with us, pretty much everything with us, was always so good. But being with you…” He shrugged and looked away from me. He seemed part angry, part sad, part embarrassed.
“Tell me,” I said, feeling hollow on the inside. Is this what they felt like? Out there in the streets searching for something to fill them? No wonder they cried and whimpered. No wonder they were lost.
“Being with you has brought it all back. How much I loved you.” He stared at the floor of the bus. The wall. Anything but at me. “How much I still do.”
It was a punch to the gut. Some things never die. Grudges, mildew, fear of public speaking, first true love…
I sighed. “This is not the time in our world for romance and love,” I snapped. I was angry because when he said these things to me, my heart felt light. For a split second, I felt happy. And there was no room for that shit. It was a betrayal to the people we’d lost. The lives that were cut short. This life was about survival.
He looked down at me and gave me that half-smile of his. “Maybe this is exactly the time for it.” His hand traced soft circles on my back. “But I know I can’t change your mind or convince you. I wouldn’t try, to be honest. I want you to feel things for me because you feel things for me.”
I do.
I left it unsaid. Anger was easy to cling to, and as I watched him, it rode in on its black steed, and I grabbed for it. “I’m sorry you feel as if you’re a booty call,” I snapped. “It’s not like that, but I don’t have a place in my life for a happily ever after, Evan. This life is not the life I used to have.”
“That doesn’t mean it has to be all doom and gloom and pain,” he said.
“Actually, it does.” I pulled back and moved away. My body mourned the sudden absence of his warmth. I cleared my throat. Back to business. “I think when dusk starts to fall, we should go ahead and fire this thing up and take it through that thicket to the back of my house. There are some things missing from here I know my dad would have packed. I assume they were going to load when needed.”
He watched me but said nothing. A brief nod was all I got as acknowledgement.
I felt sick. I felt as if I were a traitor. And those feelings made me angrier. What a fucking mess. Part of me wished he’d never shown up. I’d be alone in my house just as I’d been for months, and I wouldn’t know the fucking difference. I certainly wouldn’t have a steady ache in my chest as relentless as a rotten fucking tooth because of what he’d said to me. And what it made me feel.
“Right. Don’t talk to me. That’s fine.”
“It’s not that I’m not talking to you, El. I just don’t know what to sa—”
“Save it,” I snapped. “No time for feelings.”
He shut his mouth.
I had that surreal moment where I could hear my mouth and wished it would stop. Wished the venom coming out of me would just cease, and I could talk to him for real. Be honest. But that would mean admitting things I did not want to admit. Feeling things I did not want to feel. So I didn’t.
This world was full of loss. It was full of pain. You had something and you loved it and you held it close and then…it was gone. I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t want to. I simply said, “I’m going back to the house to evaluate supplies. You can come or you can stay. Whatever you want.”
Chapter Seven
He followed me without saying a word. A respectable distance separated us, but it felt like miles. Evan was trying to give me space, but his courtesy felt like betrayal. I stomped through the trees, forcing myself from time to time to stop. I didn’t want to alert anyone we were out here. My anger and my pain would have to wait.
I tripped over a tree root and felt his steadying hand on me, but he didn’t speak. I wanted him to speak. I wanted him to talk me out of my nasty disposition. I wanted him to tell me it would all be okay and he’d be right there and nothing at all would happen to him or me or us.
I wanted him to hold me.
Instead, I unlocked the back door after a fast sweep of the house and porch. I held the door wide for him, and he ducked inside, passing close to me but not touching me. Inside, he checked the house and motioned for me to come i
n.
“We can gather everything up here, and at dark go back over and start it.”
“Are we sure it will start?”
I shrugged. “It should. They used to keep their toys in pristine order.” I leaned over, hands on knees. I was suddenly exhausted. “I guess if it doesn’t, worst case scenario, we come home and regroup. Hammer out plan B.”
He moved to the cabinet and withdrew two instant noodle bowls, then he put the kettle on. “You need to eat,” he said.
“No need to baby me,” I snapped.
“I’m not babying anyone. We both need to eat,” he said, facing the stove. He didn’t look at me, and for some damn reason that hurt me more than anything. Only problem was I’d created this rift. Not because I didn’t want what he wanted, but because the minute my true feelings became clear, I had pushed him away.
“Fine. I’m going to go…” I shook my head. What? What was I going to go do? “See what else we need,” I sighed. “I’ll be downstairs.”
I went down and began by watching the external cameras. Nothing at all. No movement on the street. I took a deep breath and let myself relax for a moment. I sat on my bunk and caught my breath.
“You should go up and say you’re sorry, Eleanor,” I told myself. “You should go apologize to him. Tell him the truth. You’re angry because you feel the same way. You’re angry because you’ve wasted—” My throat felt as if I could barely suck a breath down its narrow passage. A sob ripped out of me, and I shoved my fist in my mouth. “You’ve wasted all this time,” I finished.
It might be too late. It felt too late.
“El?”
His voice was soft as it drifted down to the basement. I came out of the safe room and called up. “Coming.”
I dabbed my eyes, caught my breath—put my game face on.
Upstairs we ate our noodles and waited for dark.
* * * *
We’d gathered, without speaking much, a stockpile of guns and ammo in the kitchen. We were still working on the foodstuffs. I wasn’t even letting my mind consider the other stuff in my house. It had been hashed out we’d stock the kitchen overnight, sleep in there so we’d hear anything, should it happen. It would give us the option of making a break for the bus if we thought we could make it. We’d also leave the safe room open and ready for entry should we need it, of course.
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