My gaze moved to Gideon when I said the last sentence. He was shaking in his Nikes. Literally.
I looked to Brady, who was also studying the teenager. The older man’s brown eyes met mine, and he frowned before glancing at Ava. I almost laughed. He may have accepted the fact that Matthew had been the instigator behind the arranged marriage, not the trembling teenager in front of me, but he still didn’t look thrilled about leaving them alone together.
“Perhaps,” Brady said, turning to Ava, “you and Gideon should stay near the car? You could gather some wood so we’re ready to start that fire when it’s time.”
The girl, like us, had noticed the teenage boy’s terror, and to my relief nodded without hesitating. “Yeah. That’s a good idea. We can keep an eye on the station wagon, too. Just in case.”
“Perfect,” Brady said.
With that decided, I grabbed the bag of empty water bottles sitting beside me on the ground and started walking. Beth followed, with Brady coming up last. I kept my steps short both to allow him to keep up and to avoid making much noise. The faint crunch of long dead leaves and the snap of branches joined the other sounds of nature. The rustling of branches as a breeze swept through the forest, the chirp of birds perched in the trees above, and the scurry of smaller feet as they ran for cover at our approach. Every sound had my pulse quickening, but none of them were out of place, and every few steps I would pause to suck in a deep breath through my nose, analyzing every odor.
But there was nothing but the smells of nature. Earth and trees, and the musty scent of damp leaves. No death or rot.
Like me, Beth and Brady were quiet and alert, making it easy to hear it when the trickle of water was finally audible.
I stopped walking, lifting my hand to indicate the others should as well, and paused to listen. It was faint, making it hard to figure out where it was coming from, but after a few seconds, I started moving again, this time veering to my right.
The sound got louder, and I found myself moving faster. I was already unscrewing the lid of my canteen when I broke through the trees and nearly stumbled into a brook. It was shallow, probably only ten inches at the deepest point, but clear, the water moving fast as it slid over rocks.
“Marvelous,” Brady said as he and Beth stepped through the trees behind me.
“Thank God,” Beth replied.
I knelt and dipped my bottle, facing it downstream so there was less chance of sand or dirt getting into the water, and allowed the cool liquid to fill the container. “I know. I was really worried we wouldn’t be able to find anything.”
“I only wish we didn’t have to wait to boil it,” Beth said from beside me where she, too, knelt filling a canteen.
“While I understand your eagerness,” Brady said as he dipped his bottle into the water. “I would advise against risking it.” He smiled up at us, his bottle still in the stream. “At the beginning of the apocalypse, I foolishly drank from a stream much like this one out of desperation. Water had been hard to come by, and I was parched. I thought the risk was worth it. I was very wrong.”
“It was bad?” Beth asked.
He let out a low chuckle. “I’m honestly surprised I survived it, considering I was already slightly dehydrated by the time the symptoms started. Let’s just say it was a torture I would only wish on my greatest enemies.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if we ever bump into Andrew again,” I muttered.
We filled our bottles before doing the same with the others we’d carried from the car. By the time we had them all full, my backpack felt like it weighed a ton, but I was already thinking about how amazing that first sip of water would be.
Of course, I was a long way from getting it. First, we’d have to wait until the sun had set, and then we’d have to build a fire. Then we needed to boil the water. Even once that was done, we weren’t in the clear, because we’d have to wait until it had cooled enough to drink. I almost groaned at the thought.
With the bottles full, we headed back the way we’d come, moving as slowly as we had on the way there. Before we’d even reached the station wagon, the sound of quiet voices was audible. Recognizing them, I veered to the left where we found Ava and Gideon in a clearing.
The boy stood over a kneeling Ava, a bundle of sticks in his arms while she worked to organize the wood. She’d already made two teepees out of the branches, putting smaller wood for kindling in the middle. A pile of dry leaves sat at her side, as well as another pile of old, brittle branches. The girl knew what she was doing.
Ava looked up, smiling. “I thought two fires would be better. One to boil water, and the other for whatever Kellan and Logan manage to bring back.”
“Good thinking,” I told her.
Beaming up at me, the girl didn’t look toward Gideon when she said, “Hand me another one.”
He passed her a stick, and even before Ava looked at him, I knew it wasn’t going to work. It was too green.
“This isn’t dead enough,” she said, putting it aside. “You need branches that have been on the ground for awhile. They’ll light faster.”
“Oh.” Gideon looked down at the branches in his arms. “I cut all these.”
Ava let out a sigh.
“I’m sorry,” the teenage boy replied.
“No worries,” Brady said, drawing the teens’ attention his way. “We’re back now, and between the five of us, we’ll be able to find plenty of wood.”
“That’s right,” I agreed, setting the bag of water beside the soon to be fire.
Gideon was still holding the branches. “I haven’t been outside the stadium in years,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know how to do any of this.”
“It’s okay,” Beth said, a twinge of impatience in her tone. “We’re here to help.”
“None of us can do this on our own,” Brady told Gideon, but his eyes were on Ava. “Isn’t that right?”
She gave a little eye roll before jumping to her feet. “Yeah, whatever.” Brady watched as she turned away. “I’m going to find some more logs. We’re going to need more than this if we want to boil all that water and cook whatever Kellan and Logan bring back.”
She stomped off, muttering under her breath.
“Teenagers,” Beth said, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“I guess that’s one thing the apocalypse can’t change,” I agreed.
“I don’t think anything can,” Beth said. “I’ll go help her.”
Brady watched as Beth charged after Ava, a frown on his face. “She used to be such a sweet kid.”
“She’s still sweet,” I assured him, “she’s just hormonal, too.”
I turned to Gideon, who was staring at the forest where Ava and Beth had just disappeared. The expression of defeat and humiliation on his face was enough to make me want to hug the kid. Ava wasn’t being fair.
“Let me take those,” I said, easing the branches out of his hands.
Gideon allowed me to take them, saying nothing.
“It’s really okay,” I told him. “You think any of us knew how to do this before the zombies?”
“No?” he said, the word coming out more like a question.
“No,” I assured him as I put the bundle of branches on the ground—away from the ones we’d be using for the fire. “Well, Kellan knew a lot, but that was more because his father was very outdoorsy. I’m not sure if it was because he was Kiowa or it was just something he liked to do. I only know Kellan already had a lot of useful skills when the zombies came. I got lucky he survived.”
“You two knew each other before?” Gideon asked.
“We did.” I knelt beside the teepee of wood and unpacked my bag, lining up the now full water bottles. “He was my brother’s best friend, and he lived right across the street from us.”
“It must have been a comfort to have him,” Brady said, kneeling on the other side of the wood so he was opposite me.
“It really was,” I said as the memories of those few weeks
we’d spent alone swept over me. “I wouldn’t have survived without him. I know that with complete certainty. And now that we’re together, I can’t imagine finding anything in this world worthwhile if he wasn’t here.”
Brady exhaled, and there was something so broken about the sound that I had to look up. He’d taken a seat on the ground, and although he was still right across from me, the expression on his face said his thoughts were a million miles away. Or, more accurately, nine years in the past.
“What about you?” I asked, wondering if I was overstepping. “Were you married?”
Brady’s lips twitched, but I couldn’t tell if the expression was a smile, or a frown. “I was married, to a woman I loved very much.”
Gideon finally sat, his eyes on the man beside him.
“Christine was the light of my life. Something I never thought I’d have. She didn’t just give me her love. She gave me hope and a future. She made everything seem possible simply because she loved me.” Brady looked up, and despite the fact that he was speaking about someone who’d been dead for nearly a decade, his eyes still shimmered with tears. “She was average size and so beautiful. For a dwarf who’d spent most of his life in foster care, it seemed unbelievable that she’d look at me twice, let alone fall in love with me. But she did.
“When she died, it felt more like the end of the world than the virus had, more apocalyptic than the zombies. It felt like my life had been ripped in two. I confess,” he said, sucking in a deep breath with the words, “that I didn’t handle her death very well.”
“I’m sure you weren’t alone,” I said.
Brady paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yes, there were other people who couldn’t move on. I saw strong men crumble under the weight of loss and take their own lives. Saw people push a new chance at happiness away because they couldn’t stand the idea of losing again. There was a lot of that back then. But what I did—” He shook his head. “It was something else altogether.”
Silence hung between us, and I couldn’t look away. I waited for him to explain as my mind spun, wondering what he could have done that he found so repulsive, but unable to bring myself to ask. But I could tell he wanted to tell me. Why, I wasn’t sure, but I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to get something off his chest. To confess or maybe even unburden himself. I wasn’t sure.
“What did you do?” Gideon was the one to ask.
“When Christine died, I didn’t know a thing about the zombies. It wasn’t something anyone would have considered. Why would we? So, I did what was normal. I buried her.”
My throat tightened. It was something I’d wondered about many times over the years, but a question I’d never gotten the answer to. What had happened to the people who’d been buried before they hand a chance to turn?
“It was a couple days later when I learned the horrible truth. I was alone in my small, gated community, trying to make a go of it but still in shock, and when I saw my first zombie, I thought it was a man. It wasn’t until he tried to attack me that I realized the horrible truth.” Brady shook his head. “When I thought about Christine, covered in a sheet and buried in the dirt, possibly reanimated and trying to get free, I knew I should dig her up. Knew I should put her out of her misery. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stomach the idea of putting a knife through her skull.”
“You left her?” I said, realization dawning on me.
“I left her,” he replied with a sigh. “I took care of everyone else in my little neighborhood, every night returning to my wife’s grave so I could talk to her. Every day telling myself I would do what needed to be done tomorrow, but never going through with it. A new group moved in, the one Angus James was with, and I lied to them about what I’d done, all the while still visiting her. All the while telling myself I would take care of it one day. Even after they left, I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t bring myself to let her go even though I knew it was crazy. She wasn’t there. That wasn’t Christine. Still, I couldn’t.
“Then Ava showed up. It was the middle of the night, and she was filthy and bloody, crying and heartbroken. It took days for her to calm down enough to fully explain what had happened, and every night she slept with me, curled up in my bed like I was the only thing keeping her safe. We fell into a pattern, she and I, me taking care of her, her keeping me sane.
“It wasn’t until one day when we were out on a run and a zombie almost got her that I realized things had changed. The creature came out of nowhere and was on top of her before either of us even saw him. She was young, had just turned eight, and was so tiny, and, well,” Brady waved to himself, “I wasn’t much bigger. I was terrified, but somehow managed to get the thing off her and kill it. It was as I held her while she cried that the realization hit me. We hadn’t been together long at that point, only a few months, but already I’d taken on more than just the responsibility of keeping her safe. She was my daughter, I realized, and it suddenly hit me that I had something new to live for.”
He stopped talking, a small smile on his lips and his eyes focused on the fire.
“What happened to Christine?” I asked. “Did you take care of her after that?”
“I did.” Brady nodded twice before sucking in a deep breath. “I dug her up one night after Ava had gone to sleep. It took forever because I was shaking and crying so badly, but I did it. She’d been buried for over two years by that point.”
“Was she—” It was my turn to pause, and I had to swallow before I found the strength to go on. “Was she still alive or whatever they are?”
Brady lifted his eyes to meet mine. “She was. I didn’t unwrap the sheet. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her like that, but she was moving around. Not a lot, but enough for me to know I needed to put her to rest. So I did.” A tear slid down his cheek. “I stabbed her in the head then buried her once again.”
All that time underground without feeding—or whatever they did—and she was still moving? I couldn’t believe it. What did that mean for this world? For our future? Would these things ever die?
23
The sun was behind the trees when Beth and Ava came back with an armful of old logs, and by the time Kellan and Logan returned, the sky above us had darkened enough that it was safe to start the fires. One rabbit was all they managed to get. It wasn’t a lot, but it was protein, and that was the important part.
Ava worked on getting the fire going—teaching Gideon what to do under Brady’s insistence—while Kellan skinned the rabbit. The teenage boy didn’t seem to be able to stop looking at the animal, and each time he did, his skin turned a little whiter. He really had been sheltered.
I already had the pot Matthew had graciously given us for boiling water filled and ready, and once the fires were going, I set it on the flames. It should boil fast. Or at least that was what I was hoping. I was parched.
Kellan had fashioned a spit out of sticks and had the rabbit over the fire, turning it slowly so it cooked evenly. The aroma of roasting meat was enough to transform even Gideon’s opinion of eating the animal, but it also meant we had to keep a close eye out. Zombies probably wouldn’t be drawn by the smell, but animals or even people would.
Once the water had boiled for the appropriate amount of time, Ava and I managed to get it poured back into the bottles to cool without scalding ourselves too much. With that done, I refilled the pot and set it back on the fire for round two. Three bottles were full now, but still steaming, and it would be a while before they were cool enough to drink. Too long.
Kellan had the rabbit done before the second batch of water had boiled, and we dug in. I’d had rabbit before. They were easy to come by in Oklahoma and tended to be bigger than the one the guys had killed tonight, and despite the gaminess of the greasy meat, the familiarity of it was more than welcome.
It didn’t take long for the seven of us to pick the bones clean, and once we had, we were left staring at each other as we waited for the water to cool. It was taking forever.
“I’m dying of thirst,” I said as I transferred the hot water from the pot to a canteen.
“Always the drama queen,” Kellan said, grinning,
I shot him a look. “You know you can actually die from lack of water, right? It’s called dehydration.”
“Yes,” he said, his dimples deepening, “but you have a good two days before you have to worry about that.”
All I could do in response was roll my eyes.
“If we took it down to the stream,” Beth said, breaking in, “we could cool it off faster. We can set the canteens that aren’t insulated as well directly into the stream so the water cools it.”
She was right.
“You’re a genius,” I said, getting to my feet.
Kellan half stood. “You’re going now?”
“You want water, don’t you?” I asked.
At the expression of panic in his eyes, his words came back to me. I don’t ever want to let you out of my sight again.
He couldn’t be serious.
“I’ll be okay,” I said firmly, yet soothingly at the same time.
“I’ll be with her,” Beth added.
Like Kellan, Logan didn’t seem thrilled by the idea.
“You’d think women wouldn’t have to fight to be equals these days,” Ava said, getting up.
Like the other men, Brady looked stricken at the thought of her heading into the dark forest.
“I know, right? It’s like feminism never happened.” I jerked my head in the direction of the stream before giving Kellan a pointed look. “We’ll be right back.”
“Be careful.” Brady was the only one brave enough to speak.
“We’ll be fine,” Beth assured him. “No one else is around.”
Before the men could argue more, I headed off, only venturing a quick look back to blow Kellan a kiss. He didn’t look any happier.
We talked quietly about nothing in particular as we made our way through the now dark forest. Slivers of moonlight penetrated the leaves above our heads, giving us just enough light to see our way. If we lived in times when electricity was a normal thing, walking through the blackness might have been difficult, but we’d long grown accustomed to living in a world of darkness. At least tonight the sky wasn’t overcast. When that happened, there wasn’t much you could do other than carry a lantern or flashlight—assuming you were lucky enough to be able to get your hands on some batteries. Something that was getting more and more difficult with each passing year. If it wasn’t for this crazy new government out in Atlanta, we probably would have run out of them years ago.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 79