We’d gotten away from them as soon as we could but not before they took most of our weapons and all of our gas.
I was not going to be Gary to these people.
I would not force them to prove themselves worthy before we helped them. They were human beings and that was all I needed for motivation.
I reached down and grabbed three guns that were placed strategically at my feet and packed my body for war. A semi-automatic rifle and two handguns. There were similar weapons at Tyler’s feet but if I had to guess, I would say the back seat was empty. Kane would be on his own if this car were attacked.
I found ammo next, in the side pocket of the door. I mourned the loss of my knives, they made great last resorts. But there was nothing I could do about that now. I started to load my weapons while the attention in the vehicle shifted from the Zombie battle in front of us to me.
“What?” I demanded.
“How do you know they’re not part of the Colony? How do you know this isn’t a trick?” Hendrix demanded. He was almost completely turned around in his seat and his tanned skin had gone deathly white.
I gripped the door handle and readied to jump out. “The women are fighting. That’s not Matthias.”
I threw the door open and happened to glance back at Kane. He wore a satisfied expression on his face and I thought I heard him mumble, “The woman has a point.”
I ignored him and prepared my sleepy body for more Zombies. I felt sluggish but well-rested. I just needed to start moving so my body would wake and catch up with my brain.
I crept around this Suburban and then the other one. The people hardly noticed we’d stopped because they were so involved with saving their own lives. I wasn’t even sure they noticed when I jumped in the fray.
Or at least not at first. I crawled up to the hood of Vaughan’s Suburban and took a sniper position on the bending metal. The vehicle so did not appreciate my weight on it, which wasn’t fair since I didn’t weigh all that much.
I took aim and started popping off shots. The Feeders in front of me moved in such rapid motions that I couldn’t always get a clear shot, and when I did, they seemed to dodge out of the way at just the last moment.
They were hideous, festering beasts with bright red eyes and slavering jaws. Their clothes were all but nonexistent and I decided there was nothing worse than a Feeder peep show. Yeesh, cover that stuff up, guys.
Naked Zombies equaled the opposite of sexy.
Vaughan’s window rolled down behind me. “Glad to see you came out of your coma, Reagan.”
I threw a smile over my shoulder. I was too. I had started to feel like myself again. I began to realize how deeply exhaustion played into the role of my pathetic cry-baby-ness. Killing things made me feel much better.
“Need some help? Or are you releasing some steam?” He sounded so casual back there. If lives weren’t at stake and if the Feeders hadn’t caught my lovely human-flesh scent and turned their hungry attention to me, I would have laughed.
“Oh, I’m definitely releasing some steam,” I hollered over the roar of my bullets. “But maybe these people would appreciate your help.” As an afterthought, I quickly added, “They’re not Colony!”
“I know,” Vaughan shouted back. “There’re women.”
Okay, so I wasn’t the only one with remaining logic.
The Suburban’s doors opened and Nelson and Vaughan hopped out armed and ready. Harrison and King swung out the windows in normal Parker fashion and we went to work.
We would eventually have to get closer to the Feeders but for now there were enough of them on the fringes that we could avoid trying to shoot between civilians.
I heard more doors open and shut behind me and I hoped Hendrix had decided to help, but I couldn’t take the time to find out.
I landed a shot right in the temple of a frail female creature. Her shoulders had been stooped like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and she dragged one clubbed foot after her. What skin she had left shimmered papery white in the bright sunlight and wrapped around jutting bones and exposed muscle. She was hideous; I gladly took her out knowing I had just put her out of her misery.
When my position was no longer an advantage, I hopped off the hood and moved forward. A body appeared at my side immediately and I felt more than recognized Hendrix’s presence.
He didn’t acknowledge me or say anything. He just moved into line with me as we pushed into the tight circle of other humans.
“Thank you!” a short, redhead called over the whizzing bullets and Feeder screeches.
Not one of us replied, we just kept fighting. They were actually a pretty talented little group. They had made this lined formation and stuck to it stalwartly. When a Feeder would push forward, one of the people on the ends would drop back and make a half-circle. That meant they always stayed forward-facing with their backs to each other. I imagined that they would make a tight circle if they were surrounded in every direction. They might not survive if that happened, but they would provide the best defense possible. The most impressive part was their practiced ease with which they moved.
Either all five of these people had amazing instincts or they had practiced this. Or maybe they’d just been in enough similar scenarios that practice could really be defined as survival.
Hendrix stood on my right and the rest of the Parkers spread out horizontally on the highway. This battle was fast moving with rapid fire shooting and a paranoid feeling that a Feeder could come at you in any way.
Despite the fact that we were almost matched one to one, these Feeders were not going down easily and some of the bigger guys had to be shot in the head more than once.
I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that they seemed able to withstand a bullet to the brain. They were supposed to be easy to kill if you could get something in their soft skulls. That was the balance. They were the superior killers but they went down easily. We needed that. Humanity needed that insurance.
My empty stomach rolled when I thought about their evolution so far. Could they be developing a tolerance to head wounds? Or had their infection developed so thoroughly in their bodies that not even their brains could be considered a functioning organ. Ugh. I decided to stop thinking about that. I preferred denial at this point.
I was so sick and tired of Feeders.
I saw movement to my right, but it wasn’t Hendrix. I swung my gun that direction and almost shot Nelson. My hands shook unsteadily as I realized how close I’d gotten to shooting another Parker. It seriously unnerved me more than it should.
Suddenly I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of that moment in the bunker when I’d raised my gun to Page and felt certain I would pull the trigger. My steps faltered and I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind but the haunting images would not give up.
I became lost in my own thoughts. I had just decided to get over myself and back into the problem at hand when Hendrix’s big hand came down on my head and he pushed me to the ground.
His move was not gentle or kind. He shoved me to the ground with rough, hurried movements. My neck strained against the force of him and my body protested. But as soon as he put me where he wanted me, he stepped in front of me and shielded me with his body.
His aim was nearly perfect, as usual. He took out Feeder after Feeder with expedited precision. I watched in awe, too stunned and too jumbled to move as he wiped out the entire line of Feeders directly in front of us.
When I was in the middle of the battle, they took forever. The moments would drag on while I fought every second for my life.
In reality and depending on the battle, they never lasted as long as I thought they did. They couldn’t. Either you took a shot and killed a Zombie or he took a lunge and ate you for dinner. There was no way to prolong an open-field battle like this because there was nothing interrupting their direct path to us.
Hendrix ended the conflict almost as soon as he joined us. And before I knew it, the highway had fallen silent again and we stood in
the middle of a sea of sticky, oozing blood and rotting corpses.
I stood up at the same time Hendrix turned around. His eyes were ablaze with fury and his expression made me take a step back. I expected him to be mad at me still. I could feel his tension and coiled aggression standing this close to him. It rolled off his body in simmering waves of heated emotion. I could almost imagine him as an oasis in the middle of the desert. Despite the fact that it was a cool fall day, Hendrix appeared as if in the middle of a thousand-degree heat while the air hazed and wavered all around him.
“What’s happened?” he barked at me. “You gave up.”
In the two seconds it took him to spit all those words at me, my anger rose lightning fast to match his. “I didn’t give up! I got distracted!”
“Wrong place, wrong time, Babe,” he growled at me. “If you’re unfit to handle this, next time wait in the car.”
“I’m anything but unfit, Babe! In fact, judging by my body count I did pretty well for myself.” Yes, I was a little smug. But I was also right. I wasn’t exactly an amateur when it came to killing things.
He snorted. “Right, I forgot how ruthless you can be. Oh wait, except when it’s about things that really deserve to die. Then you become all save the children. Maybe you should get your priorities in order and I wouldn’t have to save your ass!”
“Why are you saving my ass?” I demanded. I took a step closer to him, ignoring my body’s instinct to put as much distance between us as I could. “Why did you even bother getting out of the car? We had this. The people that actually wanted to help had this.”
His deep blue eyes narrowed into furious slits and his jaw ticked while he ground his teeth together. “I’m mad at you, Reagan, not murderous. I can be angry with you without wanting you to get hurt. I’m already watching one person I love die. That’s enough for me.”
I clenched my hands into fists. If my pride had been less hurt or my mind less keyed-up from all the adrenaline surging through my body, I would have not just listened to his words but heard them too. Instead, in one last effort to prove myself to only God-knows-who, I said, “I didn’t need you to protect me, Hendrix. I had it.”
He stepped into me so we were only a few inches apart. I basked in the heat of his body and the radiance of his presence. I couldn’t believe how mad at him I felt. I hadn’t even realized it yesterday before I fell asleep. But now it was all I could feel. I wanted him! No, I needed him. I needed him to hold me and tell me everything would be alright. I needed him to promise me that Page was not my fault. I needed him to kiss me and rub my back while I cried. And most of all I needed him to tell me he loved me as much as I loved him.
But he was withholding all of that from me. He was punishing me because I had been kidnapped and thrown into a confusing situation and I was still trying to claw my way back to sanity.
He didn’t understand what I had gone through. And while I understood that he had gone through something as equally hellish, he needed to look at things from my point of view and back off with the guilt trip.
But that was apparently too much to ask.
“I’m not protecting you for you, Reagan. Protecting you is for me. It’s self-preservation.”
He pushed by me and hit my shoulder with his as he went. I gaped after him, not at all sure what to do about any of this. More confusion swirled around in my head and I wondered if my feet would ever touch the ground again. I felt sucked into a black hole or a tornado or a tsunami or anything that destroyed everything in its wake and ruined lives. I was right in the center of it. Maybe it was calm and quiet here but I was forced to watch it destroy everything and everyone around me.
Realization that Hendrix and I just had a blow-up fight in front of all of his brothers, those watching us in the Suburbans and all these newcomers brought a fierce blush to my cheeks. I was so not the girl who brought drama into every situation. I liked to imagine myself calm in the face of uncertainty, cool in the midst of danger. I didn’t like fighting with Hendrix one bit and I really didn’t like airing our dirty laundry in front of an audience.
I dropped my face into my hands and let out steadying breaths. When I picked up my head again, it was because Vaughan had made an attempt to move on and started introducing himself to the strangers.
“I’m Bobbi Jo,” the redhead said. She seemed to be the leader of the group, even though there were three men with her. She was short, really short, but her body was in excellent shape and she held the weapons in her hand with confidence and experience.
“Hi, Bobbie Jo,” Vaughan replied. “We ran into an abandoned sedan yesterday on this highway. Did that happen to be yours?”
She let out a short bark of laughter. The lines by her eyes wrinkled for just a moment before her face moved back into that calculating mask everyone at the end of the world seemed to be able to pull off when faced with unknown variables. To her, we were the unknown.
And we felt the same way about her and her people.
“That was ours. I had hoped it would get us out of the south, but what can you expect when you steal something from a Mexican chop shop?” She ran a hand through her semi-greasy hair and her lips twitched with the hint of a smile.
“Did you say Mexican?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She nodded but didn’t offer any more information. I didn’t know how much I should press, but my curiosity had definitely been peeked.
“So you’re not from around here?” Vaughan asked slowly. We weren’t a threat to these people unless they were a threat to us and I was certain they felt the same way. Now it was just a matter of establishing a baseline with them. We won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt us.
Easier said than done.
She shook her head once. “No.”
Vaughan offered the first line of good faith. “Neither are we. My brothers and I,” he made a gesture at his brothers who had taken up position in a tight group behind him, “were headed south when we got sidetracked and pulled into some local drama.”
Her eyes narrowed and I saw her internal debate over what to tell us. “Why did you want to go south? Surely you’ve heard of the organized Feeders. Plus, you’ll have to deal with slavers and militia. Mexico is a terrible place to go.”
Vaughan scrutinized the small woman. She was somewhere in her thirties and didn’t have a trace of an accent so I wanted to place her originally from the Midwest. She was clearly American, but her friends were of more ambiguous ethnicity and I wondered if they were from the south where she’d said she came from or originally from America too. It was impossible to tell until they spoke, but I felt myself speculating anyway.
“Mexico was never our plan,” Vaughan told her. His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. A quick glance over my shoulder showed that all the windows were open on the vehicles and that anyone could be listening to this conversation, namely Linley and Kane.
“Why?” Bobbi Jo demanded.
“You tell us where you come from and I’ll tell you why.” Vaughan made an excellent negotiator.
Bobbi Jo looked back at her people and then at Vaughan. With careful consideration, she sucked in a long breath and blew it out slowly. “Colombia,” she confessed. “Or what used to be Colombia. It’s taken us a year to get back here.”
“Why?” Vaughan demanded. “Why did you come back?”
Bobbi Jo looked around again and her group of people stepped closer behind her with their guns suddenly raised and ready.
“We run a research station,” she told us. “We study Feeders.”
“Why?” I echoed Vaughan’s demand.
For as stingy with information as she’d been, she didn’t hesitate to tell us the truth. “We’re developing a vaccine.”
Chapter Four
Silence hung in the air while we absorbed her declaration.
A vaccine? Isn’t that what got us into the whole mess?
I kept those thoughts to myself because I was too busy gloating. I did that internally, too
. I didn’t have Haley’s IQ level, but I did remember that Colombia bordered Peru, and I developed a meaningless sense of satisfaction that I had been on to something.
“You have a research station down there?” I asked with a whisper of hope. If they were conducting research, then that meant some kind of technology, some kind of a community was working together for the greater good.
Or it meant a Matthias Allen situation… and research was code for torturing and killing innocent life.
My stomach clenched with nerves. There were too many unknowns to decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
“We do,” Bobbi Jo confirmed. “We study the process of Zombieism in all its progressions. We are trying to develop something that would build human immunity to a bite.”
“So what are you doing here?” Vaughan asked. “And if it took you a year to get from Colombia to here, then how did you get down there to begin with?”
She smiled at Vaughan’s open skepticism. “We started down there. Before the outbreak, I was a lead scientist for a pharmaceutical company. We were in South America studying different kinds of genetic mutation in some of the indigenous tribes in the Amazon. We had moved up to Bogotá during a break in funding. We were waiting for more money to continue our research when the world fell apart. Thankfully, we knew other scientists in the area and were able to set up a research center while the rest of the world fell apart. It’s rudimentary at best, but from what we’ve gleaned over the last two years, we have it easier down there than what it’s like up here.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. Vaughan shot me a look that said to back off and let him do the talking, but it was almost word for word what my dad had learned right before he died.
“For whatever reason, we’ve witnessed the Zombies migrate toward Mexico. We’re not sure what’s drawing them up there, but where we’re stationed there is a significantly less number of specimens. That’s one of the reasons we’ve come up here. We want to study how the disease has evolved in larger communities and… among other things.” Her abrupt end of the topic revealed that they were looking for something else. There was more to their trip than a study of Zombies in their natural habitat.