We passed a few Feeders, digging at old remains. They barely lifted their heads as we sped by. Humanity died out completely on the fringe of civilization. Soon there was nothing but highway and vegetation.
I stared out the window for a long time and marinated in the silence. Nobody could find anything to say. Our battle wasn’t worth reliving, because it was more of the same… a lifestyle we could never escape.
Vaughan’s ragged breathing was the only thing that broke up the grumbling roar of the engine.
Hendrix stayed wound tight. I didn’t know how to approach him or calm him down. I didn’t have the right words to comfort and encourage him. I didn’t know what to do.
I wanted to fix this, but I couldn’t and it was driving me crazy.
After a while more, when soft snoring added to our road trip soundtrack, he reached across the center console and took my hand.
“This is too much for me,” he said in a low voice so only I could hear. His voice broke with strangled emotion. “He’s my big brother. There hasn’t been a day in my life when I haven’t looked up to him.”
Sorrow hit me so suddenly I didn’t have time to stop the tears. They spilled over my bottom lashes without remorse.
Hendrix was my hero. There was no greater man than him. I looked up to him, I respected him, I revered him and I loved him. He was everything to me.
But a close second on that list was Vaughan. I felt all of the things for Vaughan that I did for Hendrix, only at a friendship level. Vaughan was one of the greatest men I knew and to watch him struggle through this sickness was painful at a level I thought could break me. After everything I had been through, it was the current hazard to his health that threatened to snap whatever strands of sanity I had left.
And yet, my feelings for Vaughan were nothing compared to what Hendrix felt for him.
I squeezed Hendrix’s hand and tried to think of the right thing to say.
“He’s my best friend, Reagan.” His words scratched in his throat, as if he had to fight to get them out. “I don’t know what will happen if he…”
“He won’t,” I whispered harshly. “Hendrix, he won’t.”
But even as I said the words I could feel the sickness darken inside him. He was a fighter. Strong. Capable. Determined.
And if all of that failed him, he was still a Parker.
That was enough.
Hendrix followed the compass on his dash and the road in front of us. Most of the road signs had been knocked down and so we had to rely on Adela’s fragile knowledge of the area and hope we were headed in the right direction.
Nobody spoke as the hours ticked by. Eventually we climbed out of the mountains and the lush jungle-like vegetation gave way to a more tropical kind.
I watched in fascination as the scenery changed around us. The cloudy sky evolved into puffy pastels that stretched over a burning sun low on the horizon.
“We need a place to stay for the night,” Nelson announced from the back. “We can’t keep going. We need a break.”
Hendrix’s jaw ticked with frustration, but he didn’t voice his protests. I could see in his dark expression that he would have driven straight to Colombia if he could have. He wouldn’t have stopped for anything but his family.
I hadn’t let go of his hand for hours. My fingers ached where our bones pressed together, but I knew he needed this.
I needed this.
“Hendrix?” Nelson asked.
“He’ll stop,” I answered for him.
I sensed movement in the back and I thought it was Nelson leaning forward to talk to Hendrix, but then Page spoke up. “Why is the sky glittering?”
I looked at the horizon again and blinked. “That’s not the sky, Page. That’s the ocean.”
A ripple of excitement vibrated through the van. Hendrix shifted and blinked at the road.
“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Miller declared.
“Me either,” said Page, clearly fascinated.
I hadn’t either.
I had hoped to glimpse it when we went through Texas, but apparently my US geography was way off. We never got near it.
Now it stretched out like a sparkling blanket, not stopping until it met the sun in the sky.
“Veracruz,” Adela announced. “We must be near Veracruz.”
Nobody said anything because nobody knew what that meant.
“Is that the name of the ocean?” Page asked innocently.
I felt myself smile and my cheeks stretched uncomfortably after frowning for so long.
“Veracruz is, was a resort area,” Adela explained. “It’s where you would have come if you had visited Mexico before the infection.”
“Resort town?” Page asked. “What is that?”
Haley laughed, “It means the city was very nice. There were big hotels and all you can drink margaritas. Cabana boys.”
“What’s a margarita?” Page asked.
“What’s a cabana boy?” Nelson echoed.
Hendrix’s lips twitched and I counted that as a win.
The lower foothills never really ended. The road sloped down to wind around near the beach, but the landscape never really flattened out.
I didn’t know why I expected it to be flat, but it was prettier than I imagined.
I had seen plenty of pictures of the ocean and tropical places before the Internet and TV died, but nothing I had seen before could compare the vastness and beauty that stretched before me now.
I sucked in a breath and held it, hoping to keep my awed tears at bay.
It was such a stupid thing to cry over the ocean or beauty in general. I’d been fine when we walked into the cathedral.
But I had nothing to prepare me for this. I hadn’t expected to run right into the ocean. I hadn’t expected to witness something so startling and lovely.
Golden sand glistened prettily as white waves crashed on the shore. Palm trees of every size waved in the breeze, welcoming us to paradise.
“I have never been here,” Adela told us in a voice that sounded as awed as I felt. “The desert is a different kind of place than this.”
True story.
“Where should I go?” Hendrix asked in a subdued voice. Somehow the ocean had even calmed his restless soul.
“There,” Haley squealed. “I see… huts? Do you think anyone lives there?”
Our eyes collectively scanned the shoreline for signs of life. Fishing boats lined the shore, some tied to trees, some crashed and broken against rocks. Haley was right about the huts. There was a cluster of them not far from where we were. The edges of their thatched roofs flipped up in the breeze like streamers.
I didn’t see any movement, not even as we drove closer.
“What’s our weapon situation like?” Hendrix asked.
Nelson searched the bags that we brought and let out a weary sigh. “There’s not much here. But if we need it… just don’t miss.”
Hendrix pulled into a sand-covered parking lot and shut the car off with the sputtering of the engine. We sat in silence while we waited for something to happen. Weapons were passed around to those who needed them and we waited patiently for anything to move.
The crashing of waves drifted through the closed windows and sang a song that I could listen to for the rest of my life. The sun dipped lower in the sky and threatened to wink out completely.
“If we’re going to explore, we need to go now,” I suggested.
The doors opened and we climbed out of the van. I doubted we would get it to start again. I had a feeling this was the end of the road for her.
But what a good place to die.
I glanced back at Vaughan and hated every second of that thought train. Shaking my head to banish those thoughts, I carefully followed Hendrix, Nelson, Harrison and King toward the huts.
The first thing that hit me was the salty breeze that stuck to my skin and lifted my hair. I breathed in the freshest air I had ever put in my lungs and nearly cried from the cleanness of it. No Zombi
e rot drifted over me. There wasn’t even the scent of decaying bodies to taint this perfection.
A front office greeted us with boarded up windows and a caved in roof. The huts, which were really more like glamorous cabanas weather worn and dilapidated from neglect, curved in a large semicircle with a collapsed gazebo in the middle. They were all built on stilts, sitting several feet above the sand with wraparound front porches that looked heavenly. A pathway led from the center straight to the ocean with small sidewalks connecting each residence along the way.
I could picture this place in its former glory. I could see how the teak siding would have gleamed in the sun and welcomed visitors. The straw roofs would have added that exotic rustic-ness that was so enticing to people who could afford it. And the cozy atmosphere was both private but not lonely.
We searched each cabana one by one and found no one living there. It was evident that these hadn’t been touched in a very long time.
Some of them were useless. The roof had crashed in and water from rain and the ocean had destroyed everything inside. Some were just messy from wild animals or tourists leaving in a hurry. All of them had a thick layer of sticky grime over everything and smelled of mold and mildew.
Still… it was better than nothing.
So much better than nothing.
We picked out several huts that we could use for the night. We righted furniture, opened windows and used straw brooms to sweep out what we could. We stripped the beds until there was nothing but the bare mattress. Thankfully they had all been covered with plastic, so all we had to do was rip that off to have a non-moldy place to sleep.
King ran back for the others to help and let them know it was safe. As soon as we fixed up the first hut, Hendrix and Nelson carried Vaughan in and laid him on the bed.
On a real bed.
Tyler sat down next to him and her face crumpled. She had been so strong over these last few days, but everything had finally caught up to her. Haley handed Nelson Lennon and wrapped her arms around our friend.
“Will you hold him?” Nelson asked me softly. “I’ll help Hendrix get the rest of these in order before nightfall.”
“I’d love to.” Nelson passed me the baby, who was fast asleep and in the mood to cuddle. I held him against my chest, nuzzled his neck and realized that babies were the best therapy there was.
Or that I would ever get.
I sat down next to Haley and Tyler and cried too.
We were quiet for a long time. We could hear Page and Miller running around outside, exploring the area. Adela must have gone to help the rest of the Parkers set up rooms because she was nowhere to be seen.
Or maybe she wandered off by herself for a bit. We had to be overwhelming for her. We were all short on alone time, but she was an outsider still. It couldn’t have been easy for her to tag along with us.
When the rooms were in order everyone came back inside and found a place to sit. Nobody really said anything. There wasn’t much too say.
We listened to Vaughan whimper in his sleep. Each of his breaths was a struggle, wheezing in and out of his rattling chest. His skin had grown even paler over the long day.
Eventually, I handed Lennon back to Haley so she could feed him. I curled up next to Hendrix on the floor and we started our vigil that had followed us from the cathedral.
“We need to talk,” Tyler rasped after the silence became too heavy. All eyes turned to her, but she didn’t look at us. It was like she couldn’t look at us. “His arm,” she said. “It’s different than Page’s.”
She extracted herself from Haley to turn Vaughan’s arm over for us to see. Sure enough, the bite Vaughan had gotten looked nothing like Page’s open wound that festered and pussed.
Vaughan’s had dried out. Or that was what it looked like. The wound wasn’t that big, a thin half-moon maybe the length of a finger. It was like the Feeder had only been able to sink its top teeth into Vaughan’s forearm before he got away.
The skin around the scab had turned an ugly gray color, heavy with bruising and bulging veins. They stretched up to his biceps and down to his wrists as if whatever poison had been injected inside of him was spreading.
“I… I… don’t know how to treat this,” Tyler admitted. “I don’t know if it can be treated.”
Tears pooled in my eyes. Was that her final diagnoses? No way!
Vaughan was a fighter. Vaughan wouldn’t give up, no matter what the nature of his fight was.
I looked around, hoping someone would be as worked up as me, but his brothers, all four of them, looked like ghosts. They stared at their oldest brother in horror, despair already evident in each of their features.
“Don’t give up,” I ordered them with a sharp, harpy like voice. “How dare you give up on him! This is your brother! This is Vaughan! He won’t leave you,” I promised them, opening the floodgate of tears. “He won’t leave us.”
I hadn’t realized how badly I’d started shaking until Hendrix pulled me to his chest. His strong arms wrapped around me and pressed me against his beating heart. I cried into his shirt, hating that he was the one that had to comfort me. It should be the other way around.
I should be the one comforting him.
More time passed. The sun fully set and the stars came out to shine. Out of the opened window I could see the brilliance of the full moon glow on the endless ocean. The waves swished against the shore and soothed my threadbare nerves.
Hendrix’s hand moved over my back. He slipped it under my shirt and pressed his bare hand to my naked skin. I loved the heat of his body against mine. I would never grow tired of how electrifying it felt to have him touch me, caress me… put his hands all over me.
“How about we take a break?” I whispered in his ear after hours of sitting on the floor. My butt ached from the hard floor and I was tired of imagining bugs crawling over my skin in the darkness. “Let’s go find a bed and get a couple hours of sleep. Vaughan will be okay for a while.”
Hendrix looked up at me with dark, unreadable eyes. I couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light, but instinct sent a shiver down my spine.
I had no expectations of this night. We were both devastated by Vaughan’s condition and exhausted from today and yesterday, last week, all the weeks before that… basically from this life in general.
But Hendrix and I hadn’t been alone in a very long time and not once since we said our vows.
The promise of spending time with just him held a host of possibilities and intimacies.
“Okay,” he whispered against my temple. His full beard scratched my skin. I closed my eyes, loving the feel.
He stood up slowly, working his legs to get feeling back in them. Then he held out his hand to help me up. I thought he would explain our departure, but that didn’t seem necessary. I wasn’t sure if anybody noticed that we left.
We walked quietly through the door and down the stairs to the path. I had expected Hendrix to choose a close bungalow so that he wouldn’t be far from his brothers, but he surprised me by picking one directly across from us, the furthest away he could take me.
The moon and stars lit up our path and the cool ocean breeze danced around us. If it wasn’t the Apocalypse and his brother wasn’t gravely ill, if we weren’t running from Feeders and hadn’t just killed a crapload of men and Zombies, this would have been incredibly romantic.
Okay, even Zombies couldn’t ruin this. It was still beautiful. The ocean was still moving. The anticipation for what was yet to come tonight still thrilling.
Hendrix’s hand slipped into mine and he pulled me up the creaking steps and through a cock-eyed door. The room was sparsely decorated with a table and chairs, two end tables, a couch that had been shoved against a wall and a bare mattress.
Hendrix closed the door behind us and latched it. “Finally,” he breathed, leaning against it. His shoulders collapsed and his head dropped back against the door.
I moved to wrap my arms around his waist. I couldn’t stay away
from him.
His hands ran over my back again and slipped beneath my shirt. I tipped my head up to ask him if he was ready to go to sleep but before I could get a word out, his mouth descended on mine, capturing it with a kiss.
I opened for him, not having any reason to resist. As soon as our tongues touched, he moaned the most masculine, most virile sound into my mouth and I practically burst into flames.
I pulled back, panting and desperate to give him an out. “We can wait,” I breathed. “If you’re too… if you’re not up for this, we can wait.”
His voice was nothing more than a primal growl and the sexiest sound I had ever heard. “I’ve waited, Reagan. I’ve waited enough.” His mouth captured mine again in a needy kiss. We escalated from zero to sixty in a half second and I couldn’t get enough of him. Teeth, tongue, lips, we were nothing but feeling and desperate kisses.
He picked me up by my thighs and I wrapped my legs around his waist to keep from falling. He stalked to the bed, his mouth never leaving mine.
A fire started inside of me, strong enough to burn me alive. But it felt amazing. It felt like nothing I had ever felt before.
I had waited a long time for a moment like this. Sometimes because of my circumstances and sometimes because of my choice. But everything, all if it, every decision and bad-timed interruption had led us to this moment, to this night we could spend together.
I couldn’t have picked a better man to give myself to. I couldn’t have predicted that we would make commitments first or that I would fall so irrevocably in love with him, I couldn’t define myself without this love.
But here we were now. And it felt amazing.
It felt right.
I couldn’t wait for another second.
My hands tangled through his hair and our mouths worked to fan this consuming flame. I couldn’t get close enough. My thighs squeezed around his waist. I felt his hard body pressed to mine, his heart beating a frantic rhythm, and his muscles flexed to hold me in place. We were as close as we could get like this, but I needed more.
I needed so much more.
He ripped his mouth away from mine and just when I started to complain, I fell. Or not so much fell, as Hendrix tossed me in the middle of the bed. My back hit soft mattress and not a second passed before he pounced on top of me.