Bryan started to protest, but Anderson cut him off. “She’s right. Plus, she’s the one who was in the hive and saw what was going on.” His gaze moved to Daisy. “What about you? You want to go to another settlement and convince some people to come back with you too?”
Daisy looked toward Tyler. “As long as I can get a personal escort.”
“I’ll protect you, baby,” he said, draping his arm around her shoulders.
Daisy rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a guard, I just need someone to keep me warm at night.”
“You’re worse than a bunch of horny teenagers,” Anderson muttered. “Fine. Daisy and Tyler will head toward the Riverside settlement. Bryan and Diana will head to Oakwood.”
My stomach dropped. There were very few places in this world that I wouldn’t want to travel to with Bryan, but his hometown of Oakwood was one of them. I could tell by the way he shifted at my side that he wasn’t thrilled by the idea either.
“While they’re gone we need to scrounge up supplies,” Anderson continued, oblivious to the awkward situation he had just flung at me. “We need rope and climbing gear so we can get down into the crater, and we need to gather more flowers to take into the hive with us. We have a good haul now, but the more we can get, the better odds we’ll have.” His gaze moved to where Bryan and I were sitting. “If anyone you run into has gas masks, we need them.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Bryan said.
Anderson went on about what we would do next, but I found myself thinking instead about the trip ahead of us. Oakwood was less than ten miles from where we were, so as long as we didn’t run into any trouble it shouldn’t take us more than four hours to reach it. Possibly less.
I’d known since the beginning that there was a settlement up that way, but I had purposefully avoided it when Daisy and I decided to leave the militia and settle. Mainly because it had occurred to me that if Bryan and his parents had survived, that would be where I’d find them. But there were other reasons too. Oakwood had at one time been a well-to-do neighborhood. The homes had been expensive, the school nationally ranked, and I’d been certain that people like that wouldn’t make it long. They’d been pampered before; there was no way they’d be able to handle the rough life we were now faced with. Even worse, if I’d gone there I would have found a bunch of spoiled, formally rich people depending on me to get them through.
Now that I knew what had happened to Bryan, I realized I’d been wrong. The will to live and the adaptability it took to survive wasn’t confined to one class, it was an individual thing. I’d seen plenty of people who had come from hard backgrounds give in under the pressure of this new existence, and I’d seen plenty of formerly wealthy people thrive. Just like Bryan had.
The meeting broke up and we headed to my room to get some things together. The shock of learning that we were headed to Oakwood had overshadowed Bryan’s annoyance at me volunteering to head out, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever. We’d deal with the past and then he’d ream me out, of that I had no doubt. I could only hope that making up would follow.
We said very little until we made it to my room and the door was shut. Bryan lit the candle, using the pieces of flint like a pro, and turned to face me.
“You okay with this?”
“Yes. We need people and Oakwood is one of the closest groups.” I paused. “Have you been there?”
He nodded slowly, almost hesitantly. “A few times.”
“You know a lot of the people there?”
“Not really. A couple guys I went to high school with ended up there, but things are different between us now. I’m out on the road and they’re hiding away—” He gave me a sympathetic look, letting me know that it wasn’t a dig at me. “—and I just don’t get it. I don’t get sitting back and doing nothing.”
“I know.” I sucked in a deep breath to prepare myself for the next question. “Have you been back to your house?”
His smile was sad. “Not in years.”
“Would you like to go while we’re out there? I’ll go with you.”
There was a part of me that wanted him to say yes. A part of me that felt like it would be going full circle. Like I’d be taking Michael home, helping him make amends with a life and a family that didn’t exist anymore.
“We’ll see.” Bryan looked down. “Maybe it would be good.”
“Maybe,” I whispered.
When he looked up I expected him to start in about me putting myself at risk while I was still healing, but instead he reached out and grabbed my good arm so he could pull me against him. I rested my head on his chest while he wrapped me in his embrace, careful not to jostle my bad shoulder.
Then he kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I hate thinking of you being there again, of how I was back then.”
“It’s in the past,” I said. “It’s over.”
We set out the next morning as soon as it was bright enough to see the road in front of us. Thankfully there was only a light mist, and I found myself praying that it stayed that way. Daisy and Tyler left at the same time, but we only walked two blocks together before we had to split up.
We stopped in the middle of a vine-clogged street. Around us buildings towered, their windows long ago broken or cracked, their walls now obscured by greenery. Standing in the street with the mist falling on our heads, empty and broken buildings surrounding us, I suddenly found myself terrified to say goodbye. When I’d volunteered for this little mission I’d never thought about Daisy heading out as well, and the idea of her being in danger had my stomach tightening in an unpleasant way. I knew she could take care of herself out there, and that she’d have Tyler with her for backup, but life was too uncertain to not worry about little things. Plus, we’d been together nearly every day for more than four years, and I didn’t want that to change.
I threw my good arm around Daisy and hugged her, shocking her so much that at first she didn’t hug me back. When she did it was one armed and a little awkward, but I knew it was only because she didn’t want to hurt me.
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” I whispered.
“You act like we’re saying goodbye for good.” She rolled her eyes when she pulled away, but the moisture in them told me she was touched. “I’ll see you in two days. Three tops.”
“Yeah you will,” Bryan said from behind me. “We’ll be there in no time and when we come back we’ll have an army with us.”
“Let’s hope,” I said with a laugh.
We parted ways, Daisy and Tyler heading north while Bryan and I went south. Other than the sound of water dripping from vines and buildings, the city was so quiet that it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. I held my gun in my left hand, the one that was in the sling, and Bryan had my right hand grasped firmly in his. In his free hand he held a gun that would only be useful if we ran into people who wanted to cause us problems, but it made both of us feel better to have it.
The rain held off and the businesses gave way to houses as we made it out of the city. We were making good time, talking quietly as we walked. It had been a long time since I’d left my little area of Dayton—with the exception of the bug dragging me to its hive—and I was amazed by how different everything looked. The maple trees I’d grown up with were long gone, replaced by vines and orange moss and trees with black trunks that had long spikes protruding from them. The landscape was similar to a rainforest, but more alien than that. The vines were different than anything that had ever existed on earth before and the flowers were several inches wide and such vibrant colors that they didn’t look like they should exist in the real world. It really did feel like I’d been sucked into a science fiction movie.
“So this is your life,” I said as we approached the outskirts of Oakwood.
“Pretty much. We go from settlement to settlement, checking to see if there’s anything new from the bugs in that area or if anyone needs anything. Sometimes they need something that we know another settlement h
as, sometimes they heard a rumor, sometimes there’s no news at all. It gives me something to do if nothing else.”
“I was only in the militia for about six months,” I told him. “Back when we still thought we could fight. After we realized there was nothing we could do I just didn’t see the point, but I get where you’re coming from, I guess. It’s nice to know what’s going on.” I looked around at the foreign landscape. “I hate not recognizing anything anymore.”
“I get why you pulled out.” Bryan squeezed my hand. “We were fighting a losing battle.”
“No,” I said with a little shake of my head. “We weren’t even fighting. We were doing nothing. That’s what I hated. It gave me too much time to think.”
He nodded but didn’t respond, and I was glad. Even though we’d slept together and both acknowledged that something was going on between us, it still felt like a shadow was hanging over our heads. I was sure that Bryan thought it was Michael, but it wasn’t. Not exactly. It was more than that. It was me and who I’d been for the past five years, the pain I’d let fester inside me, and some unfinished business that had been keeping me up at night lately. This trip had been my idea, but when I’d volunteered I’d never considered that Anderson would send us to Oakwood. Now it felt like fate, and I was hoping that by the time we headed home I would feel more whole.
We were still a good mile from the settlement when we spotted a few people in the distance. It was clear from the weapons in their hands that they were out on patrol, and having little experience traveling the state over the last few years, I was suddenly afraid that they would shoot us before we’d had a chance to tell them who we were. Scavengers were rare, it had been a good seven months since we’d had to fight a group off in Dayton, but it happened. One thing I’d learned since the aliens came was that good people weren’t the only ones to survive a disaster, and the apocalypse brought out the worst in some people.
I slowed when the men turned our way, but Bryan whispered, “It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“They won’t shoot unless we give them a reason to.”
He gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go so he could put his gun away. I followed his lead, using my good hand to tuck my gun into the waistband of my jeans. Not having the cold metal pressed against my fingers made me nervous, but I trusted Bryan. Especially when it came to this.
We were still a good twenty feet from the men when the one on the right raised his gun. “Slow down.”
Through the watery mist that fell from the sky it was hard to see what they looked like, but I could tell that the one who was pointing his gun at us was on the young side, maybe no more than eighteen. If we didn’t live in a world this uncertain, I would find it unusual that his hands didn’t shake, but I knew that things like this were just a part of life now. I’d run into people out on patrol myself, I’d pointed guns at them as well, knowing that I might have to pull the trigger if they ended up being someone who wasn’t trustworthy. I hadn’t had to do it, but I knew people who had. Not everyone these days was willing to play nice, and as much as I wanted the aliens to be our only enemies, it wasn’t true.
Bryan slipped his hand from mine and lifted his arms into the air. “We’re not here for trouble. The opposite, really.”
“What’s the opposite of trouble?” the man who hadn’t raised his gun said. He was older than the other and seemed calmer, more relaxed, maybe a little too trusting. Or maybe that was just the impression he was trying to give us. I didn’t miss the way his hand twitched, as if he was ready to lift his gun at a second’s notice.
“We have news about the bugs.” Bryan glanced toward me before looking back. “I’m with the Oakwood militia. Bryan Foster.”
The man with the gun lowered it, but only a few inches.
The older man smiled. “Shit. Where’s your platoon, Foster?”
Bryan lowered his arms. “Most of them are gone.”
The people here had settled into the old high school, which made me squirm all over again when I thought about how Michael had been a student here when we’d met. Despite what Bryan had said, it seemed like everyone we ran into knew him by name. I told myself that it was from the militia coming in and out, not because he’d grown up here, but it was hard to know for sure. It had been a small world before the aliens invaded, and now it felt positively miniscule at times.
We’d only been in the building for five minutes when we found out we’d gotten lucky. A militia was in Oakwood taking a few nights off, and it only took one conversation with the sergeant to get them on board. There were thirty of them in all, and they were not only armed and had a small cache of gas masks, but they were more than eager to inflict some pain on the aliens. If we could get a handful of people from the settlement who were half as enthusiastic, we would be well on our way.
Back home Sergeant Anderson was the unofficial leader, but here it was a woman in her fifties who acted more like a politician than the head of an apocalyptic settlement. Her gray hair went down to her shoulders and barely moved when she walked, and even though I told myself it was probably held in place by dirt and grease, I couldn’t help wondering if she had somehow managed to keep a salon up and working just so she could get her hair done on a regular basis.
“Bryan.” She held her hand out when she stopped in front of us and offered him a less than sincere smile. “It’s been too long.”
“Melody,” he said, taking the woman’s outstretched hand.
The woman’s gaze moved to me and my scalp prickled. I had the strange sense that she knew who I was, but I didn’t know how. I’d met very few people in Michael’s life—a side effect of how awful that first meeting with his family had gone—and I’d never been to this settlement before, but I couldn’t deny that there was a knowing almost familiar expression in the woman’s pale, blue eyes.
“This is Diana,” Bryan said by way of introduction. “Diana this is Melody Thomas. She used to be the principal here.”
Melody nodded once, reminding me of a queen who was giving her subjects permission to approach her throne. “I’m told you had an interaction with the aliens?”
“They dragged me to their hive,” I said.
There was a lot more to it than that, but I wanted to get right down to business so we could get home. Especially now that I was standing in front of this snooty lady who acted like I should bow down to her.
Melody’s eyebrows jumped up in a way that made me think she thought I was full of shit. “We’ve never met anyone who’s survived a direct encounter with them.”
“Well, now you have,” I snapped.
Bryan shot me a look that said play nice and I let out a sigh.
“Look,” I said, much more calmly this time. “They attacked Bryan’s platoon, and then they attacked our building, so we tried to draw them away. That’s when they got me.”
People had gathered around to listen and I knew that like Melody they had to be suspicious. She was right, in five years we’d never met anyone who’d been in the hive and lived to tell about it, but I had and it very well could change the course of things. If I could convince these people I was telling the truth and get them to help us, which meant taking Bryan’s unspoken advice and playing nice.
I worked hard at staying calm under her steel gaze as I relayed what had happened. It was hard at first because her expression told me that she still didn’t believe a word I was saying, but the more I talked, the more her face relaxed until her expression had changed completely. By the time I got to the part about using the claws and flowers against the creatures, there was a pretty big group of people gathered around, and when I told them all about my theory that there was a queen, an audible gasp broke out through the crowd.
“We have a plan to take them out, but we need people,” Bryan said when I’d finished talking. “As many as we can get.”
Melody nodded twice. “We’ll call a meeting.” She glanced over her shoulder at a pale-faced man who reminded me of an
accountant and he hurried off. “If we have a chance of taking even a few of them out, I want to be involved.”
The meeting at the Oakwood settlement was nothing like the ones we had back home. There most of the people living in the building were content to do nothing as long as they had a roof over their heads and food, but here everyone was involved. When a meeting was called, they crowded into the school’s auditorium, anxious to find out what was going on and giving me a glimpse of just how big the group was.
Bryan and I sat on the stage with Melody and four other people who I learned were part of a council. To my shock I learned that this group had a system set up for making decisions that involved voting on big issues while leaving smaller ones to the group of four. In case of a tie, Melody was there to take on the burden of deciding what was best for the group. Democracy was rare these days, and finding out that something resembling one existed in Oakwood surprised me. Even after five years of trying to recuperate, most groups out there were still so focused on trying to get by on a daily basis that they hadn’t yet considered the big picture.
I stood awkwardly next to Bryan while the seats filled and the council talked quietly to one another. Melody was in the center of the group, but she stayed quiet while the other four discussed the issue at hand. As I watched, my opinion of her began to change, and I realized that she wasn’t the cold bitch I’d first thought, but instead had taken on a role that was closer to the mother of all these people. It’s what she’d been before, back when she’d been a high school principal, only now the decisions she made were life and death, and me coming in had threatened the daily mood of the people here. Depending on what I’d said, I could have disrupted the balance they worked hard to maintain, which was why she’d been so skeptical at first. Now that she knew we’d brought important news, she was more than willing to cooperate.
Once everyone was seated, Melody called the meeting to order. It had already been decided that she would be the one to relay the news, and once she started talking I was glad. She not only had a commanding presence for such a small woman, but she knew how to spin her words so they came out as important, but not terrifying. And she kept some of the more grotesque details to herself, which I might not have thought to do.
The Blood Will Dry Page 21