But more, how often would I get that in my life?
I may not have loved her back, but I did care for her a lot, and I could make that work for both of us.
“I’m not letting her down at all,” I said firmly, holding his gaze so he knew I meant it. “I’m just working through some shit in my own head.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Almost getting eaten alive twice will do that to a man.” Aiken chuckled and I laughed back, but there was no humor in my laugh because I didn’t find it funny. My stomach twisted like it wanted to hurl. Memories of almost dying. Of almost being beaten to death. Of almost being eaten alive. Of almost having limbs cut from my body… So many almosts for one man. I swallowed and somehow managed to hold my shit together.
“Sure will,” I agreed. I stood up straight. “I better get back to her, she’ll be wondering where I am.”
“If things change, I need to know,” he said, his expression completely serious, and I nodded in agreement. “That woman is smitten with you, and it won’t be pretty if things go sideways.”
He didn’t stop me when I jogged down the steps and headed off down the street, though I expected him to. I kept on walking, passing Stormy’s empty clinic and the houses lining the street. I had the urge to go up to the platform to keep watch for a couple of hours—I found it peaceful up there, killing deaders—but I didn’t do that. Instead I went straight home to O’Donnell. Because just like Aiken, she could smell bullshit a mile away too.
So that night I needed to be with her, calm the storms that were building and put her mind at rest that I was happy. That I was staying there, with her, and that I didn’t miss Nina. Not even a little bit…and that was another lie too.
9.
Mikey
“She shit in my bathtub again,” SJ said as I pulled the front door open. I was bare-chested, a pair of boxers on that had seen better days and a scruffy towel draped over my shoulders from attempting to towel-dry my too-long hair. It was reaching my shoulders now and I could just about tie it into a small band at the base of my neck. SJ pushed past me and stormed into my front room without waiting for an invitation. Probably because she knew she wouldn’t get one.
O’Donnell had already left for an early morning meeting with Aiken, so I’d hoped to grab a quick shower, some food, and have a little time to myself to clear my head of all the shit in it before we headed out on the supply run. No such luck.
“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.
SJ glared at me. “That’s the last time, Mikey. She’s your responsibility, not mine.”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, I don’t know why she keeps doing it.”
SJ glared harder and I couldn’t stop myself from smirking, even knowing that she would quite happily blow my brains out if I pissed her off too much. She might have come across as the calm and caring mother, but she had a real nasty side.
“She’s like a puppy that keeps trying to hide its shit so the owner doesn’t yell at it. Only I’m not her owner, she’s not a puppy, and it’s my goddamn bathtub she keeps shitting in!” she yelled. “I don’t even know how she’s getting in! I lock the door whenever I leave.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll speak to her,” I promised, shrugging again.
“Speak to her? Oh, no no no, Mikey, we are way beyond just speaking to her.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a black plastic bag and a cloth before handing them over to me. “No, you’ll clean Joan’s shit up. I’m not doing it again. I’m just not. Moo was out of diapers by the time she was nine months old, so my crap-cleaning days are long gone.”
I grimaced. “I’d rather not, SJ.”
Her eyes widened so much I was sure they were going to pop straight out of her head. “You’d rather not?! Are you kidding me right now?! Clean up her shit, and tell Joan that if I catch her in my goddamned house one more time I will kill her myself.”
SJ turned and headed back to the door. She opened it and looked back at me. “I’m not kidding, Mikey. She’s a royal pain in my ass, and her contribution to Haven isn’t worth finding her presents all over my house.” She slammed the door on her way out, and I winced as the sound reverberated around me.
I stared at the closed front door and sighed, having no intention of cleaning up Joan’s shit. Absolutely none. Hell would freeze over before I did that. Though I did believe SJ when she said she’d kill Joan if she didn’t quit with the special deliveries. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past Moo to do the deed either.
“Fuck,” I grumbled, knowing that I was going to have to do it if I wanted to keep Joan safe. I mean, I didn’t want to keep her safe. Crazy old coot was long past her sell-by date and was way more trouble than she was worth. But I’d made a promise to Nina to keep Joan and Adam safe. I hadn’t protected Adam, so I was damned if I was going to let anything happen to Joan.
Maybe it was stupid and pointless. It wasn’t like Nina would ever know; she was dead after all. But either way, protecting Joan was almost the same as keeping Nina alive within me. If I kept my promise then I didn’t have to really say goodbye to her.
*
I opened the door to the truck, more than ready to hit the road after the morning I’d had. Joan was nowhere to be found, true to her usual style when she did something like this, and I hadn’t even puked while cleaning out SJ’s tub. It wasn’t a win, exactly, but I was taking it as one all the same. You didn’t get many wins in this life, so something even remotely close to one, you grabbed with both hands.
“I want you back before nightfall,” Aiken said, his expression serious. “Anything fucks up, you get back here. Anything don’t seem right, you get back here. If you don’t think you’ll get back here before nightfall if you keep going toward your destination…guess what? You head right the fuck back here. Got it?”
“We’ve got it,” O’Donnell said, slamming her door closed.
I climbed in and did the same, checking behind us and making sure Aimee and Freddy were ready to go too. We’d decided to take two vehicles out in case we did find somewhere with good supplies. At least that way we could load up without worrying about space. And if we got separated, at least no one would be stranded out there with the deaders with no way of getting back home.
O’Donnell had wanted to drive, so I sat in the passenger seat with my gun in my hand and my eyes on the road as we pulled out of Haven and headed toward the next town over on the map. It was a good hour or two drive before we got there, with nothing but empty landscape on all sides. At least, I reasoned, the scenery might have been boring, but we’d be able to watch for any herds on all sides.
We drove in silence for much of the drive. Not much to say, and we were both keeping our wits about us to make sure there were no surprises. I spotted a couple of stray deaders that were heading one way but turned to follow us as we drove by. That made me feel better. It was predictable and definitely their usual behavior.
I wasn’t sure why there had been fewer deaders recently, but I didn’t trust it enough to be glad of the reprieve. When something like that happened, it was, as the saying goes, usually too good to be true.
As the town approached, I checked my safety again before sitting up straighter and winding my window all the way down. These little towns seemed to have popped up everywhere when the apocalypse began. I mean, they must have been there previously, but with populations less than a thousand, no one had really noticed them. Now, though, they could be goldmines when it came to scavenging because they hadn’t been completely overwhelmed by the dead and no one really paid enough attention to them to steal everything.
“Movement at three o’clock,” O’Donnell said, spotting the group of three deaders.
“Got them. They haven’t spotted us,” I replied.
She kept her pace even, driving past the ‘Welcome to Northbanks’ sign’ and heading down the main street. She pulled over outside of an old bowling alley that looked like it had been closed way longer than it had been the e
nd of the world. But then, things didn’t weather too good out here so it could have been brand new, for all I knew.
We both jumped out as she switched off the engine and Aimee and Freddy joined us by the side of our truck.
“Let’s stick together. We need to find the pharmacy first—hopefully it hasn’t already been raided. Grocery store is second, and then we can hit anything else after that,” O’Donnell said, looking around at us all. “Prioritize what you take. We have the list that Alfie gave us, and Kelli gave us a list on what we’re short of food-wise, but of course, any food is good food so basically just grab anything and everything.”
“Let’s do this,” Freddy said with a firm nod, his bright ginger hair flickering in the sun as he bobbed his head like it was a flashlight.
Freddy was only young—barely eighteen—and he didn’t talk very much, which I found strange because when he did talk he was hella funny. O’Donnell had mentioned briefly that he’d had a pretty crappy time of it before he’d been brought to Haven, so maybe he just had nothing to say anymore. I could understand that.
We headed down the center of the street, all of us holding our guns out ready to shoot the first thing that moved, but thankfully there was nothing. A slight breeze shifted in the air and I took in a lungful of the pungent scent of death that we’d all become familiar with since the start of this living hell. Aimee glanced back at me and I nodded to let her know that I’d smelled it too.
The further we walked, the more we realized what a dead-end little town it was. With only half a dozen boarded-up stores and a few cars parked haphazardly on either side of the road, there wasn’t much there. The store signs had faded in the sun, so at each one we had to stop and take a moment to work out what they might hold within. A comic book store seemed like the most pointless thing for this town, yet there was one right at the end of the first block. I knew right away that I wanted to stop in there if I could before we headed back home, because I had—a long time ago, at least—been a huge Marvel and DC fan. It was strange how I hadn’t even thought about comic books, or how hot Wonder Woman was, in absolutely years.
I felt a little spark of the old Mikey flare to life inside me, memories coming to the surface that I hadn’t thought about in so long I wasn’t even sure they were my memories anymore.
“Hey, you okay?” Freddy whispered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost and you’re about to ask it out for a cocktail.”
I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just… I dunno.”
He offered me a sad smile. “Ghosts are fine, but if you see a zom you make sure to blow it apart and not share your room card with it. She may say she wants you for more than just your brains, but it’s a lie.” He winked and kept on walking. I shook my head, chuckling.
At the end of the row, O’Donnell pointed across the street to a white brick building—or at least what was once a white brick building. Now it was a faded gray splattered with brown smears that were most likely years-old brain stains. Either that or shit, but it was likely blood and brains if I was being honest. What was visible, though, was the faded green cross indicating that it was a pharmacy.
Once directly outside I attempted to look through the dirty windows to see if there was anything within, but the windows were covered from the inside with something blocking my view. Still, it was worth a shot because if we only found a handful of the things on Alfie’s list we’d be a hell of a lot better off than we were now.
“Jackpot,” I muttered, my gaze moving over to the door and checking out the lock. It was a simple two-minute lock pick, if that, and I holstered my gun and pulled out my lock-picking kit before setting to work on it.
The lock popped and I slid my kit back away before pulling my army knife out so that I was ready for whatever lay within. A gun was good when it was from a distance, but close encounters required a knife or something equally precise.
I turned the handle and pushed the door inwards. It silently swung open and the smell of stale air wafted out to us all. Creeping into the darkness, I pulled out my flashlight and held it with my left hand so I could shine it around the pharmacy. Aimee, O’Donnell, and Freddy did the same behind me and we split up, each of us heading down different aisles to make sure the place was completely clear. At the end of the row stood two doors: one that led to a back room where the drugs were dispensed for in-house prescriptions and the other I presumed was either the bathroom or maybe the staffroom. Either way, the only one any of us were interested in right then was the pharmacy and getting our hands on anything we could.
There was no lock on that door, so O’Donnell moved forward and took lead since it was her operation. She turned the handle and pushed it inwards and we waited for the scent of stale air to hit us again, telling us that inside was nothing more than boxes and packets of life-saving drugs and maybe some nicotine patches for the unlucky sons of bitches that still got the craving.
Instead, my stomach creased as the smell of decomposing flesh hit me like a slap in the face. I heard Freddy gasp from next to me, and I felt sorry for the poor kid because the last thing you wanted to do with a smell that bad was breathe any more of it in than necessary, and a sharp gasp like he just took… Shit, he’d be tasting that for days.
O’Donnell was a machine, though, and she stepped inside the room barely acknowledging the smell of decomposing flesh that hung in the air like a shit that just wouldn’t flush no matter how many times you tried.
I followed her in, lifting my shirt to my mouth and nose to cover them so I wouldn’t have to breathe in the vileness. It did little to stem the stench and I gave up after only a step or two because it was hindering me rather than helping.
Whatever was in there, it had died recently and now it was rotting.
That sounds bad, but really, that could only be a good thing.
At least it was dead.
Like real dead.
Not like those fake fuckers still wandering the streets in search of fresh meat.
At least, that’s what I hoped.
10.
Nina
“Get on the fuckin’ bike, woman.” Shooter glared at me, his eyebrows pulled down so hard it was a wonder that he could see anything.
“And how, pray tell, do you expect me to stay on this big ol’ manly bike of yours? With my goddamn teeth? I’ll cling on to you like a toothy minion as you speed around corners. Or maybe I’ll use my one good arm, my thighs of steel, and your sheer arrogance to keep myself from falling backwards and cracking my skull open, shall I?” I scoffed.
“That cut your wearin’,” he drolled, a smirk rising when my eyes narrowed on him… The leather he reminded me I had to wear while with him was still a huge issue for me. It wasn’t exactly apocalypse attire, not to mention that the words Shooter’s Old Lady were emblazoned across the back like I was his property. “It says you’re mine, right? And you know how much I look after my property, Nina,” he said with a wink.
I shook my head in exasperation. “Oh, don’t you dare even start with that again.”
He chuckled momentarily. “Just trust me, I’ve got it covered,” he drolled, not rising to my bait. He gestured with his head for me to sit behind him, but when I made no move to get on the Harley he dragged a hand through his hair and sighed angrily. I didn’t even know it was possible to have an angry sigh. Tired, sad, exasperated, frustrated, yes, but not angry. But there you have it. Shooter had just invented the angry sigh. Give that man a medal. “Now, Nina, or you’re stayin’ here, because I’ve got better shit to be doin’ than this.”
I relented because I really did miss being on his bike—the wind blowing through my hair making me forget what a hellhole this world was—and of course I did trust him. It had nothing to do with his angry sigh. Nothing at all. Because Shooter may have scared many men, but he didn’t scare me.
Once I was firmly behind him, my thighs straddling his bike and my body pressed close to his, I waited, my heart beating wildly in my chest with worry and excitement. My phantom
arm ached with the desire to wrap itself around him and hold on tight, and tears sprung to my eyes because of course I couldn’t.
“Now what?” I snapped, half angry, half just so damn sad.
Shooter reached across his body with his right hand and gripped the end of my gross stump. I gasped audibly; he’d never touched it before, and the urge to pull my arm out from his grip and beat him with my stump was overwhelming.
“Death by stump” was going to be carved on his headstone if he didn’t let go of me!
“Trust me,” he growled, and I nodded because I couldn’t find my words at the moment. My head was spinning, my heart was racing, and there was the huge concern that I might puke if he didn’t take his hand off of me… And then I realized he wasn’t holding me…it…anymore.
“What is that?” I asked, trying to look around his huge body to see.
“Another little present from your good friend Highlander,” he said casually, “so you can still ride with me.”
I tugged on my arm and realized that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was firmly locked into place—into Shooter, somehow—and I reached around his waist with my right arm and gripped him tightly, pressing my cheek to his back and forcing myself not to be that girl and cry. He’d thought of everything: a way for me to be me again, a way to fight and be strong, and a way for us to be us again; a way for me to ride with him and for us to be close.
“Thank you,” I said, inhaling the scent of leather and sweat as I pressed myself closer to him.
“I want to keep my woman with me, and like I said, you’re my woman, right?” He turned his head so he could look over his shoulder at me. “He even fitted a bar to your seat so you can grip that if you want, but I like this better,” he replied, his callused hand stroking mine as I held him tightly.
The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7 Page 7