He nodded and the mere lift of his chin seemed bleak. “It’s not going to be easy leaving this place. There are Feeders everywhere.”
“Do you think that means Matthias’s men succumbed?”
“That or they figured the Feeders would take care of us. Who knows?” We both chewed that over until Hendrix came up with a third option. “Or they’re still out there fighting. Kane’s trick with the slaughtered deer worked better than anyone hoped. And now there are enough dead men out there to attract every Feeder in Oklahoma. Maybe Matthias had to call in reinforcements or take a break before they got back to the cleanup.”
I shrugged and wondered if we would ever find out or if our lives were as good as over as soon as we stepped back into the Zombie fray.
Last night, I had pushed through my despair with the promise that dawn would bring a better tomorrow.
So far, none of this felt better.
In fact, I was more distraught than ever.
We faced an impossible dilemma.
Of course, we’d been in plenty of impossible situations before and managed to scrape through. I hoped that was the case this time. I hoped all our miracles aligned and the sky parted so the sun could shine down on us.
We were due to catch a break, right? Things had been shit for long enough. I just wanted something to go right for us for a change. And I hoped that something meant finding Vaughan, Haley and the others and escaping the clutches of Matthias Allen for good.
I wasn’t sure how far we would have to run from him or how wide his reach stretched, but I would go wherever I needed to keep these people from ever running into him again.
“The real question is, where’s Vaughan?” I asked on a whisper.
Hendrix’s body stilled and seemed to silently fill with all the tension and fury in the entire world. When he hit me with that intense gaze of his, I felt the physical weight of it, all of his power and energy being locked into that one expression. He promised pain and a universe of hurt for whoever touched his family. “That is the real question.” He looked away from me, toward the bathroom where Page was now locked away and murmured quietly, “I don’t know. I honestly expected him to be here by now.”
“Do you think Matthias got to him?”
“He’d better not have. I can’t think of one reason for Matthias to let any of them live after everything that’s happened. And now with Kane gone…”
“Matthias doesn’t know that yet. Probably.” My heart cracked open at those final words. “Are you sure he’s gone?”
Hendrix stared at his feet when he nodded. “He’s still out there, Reagan, but he’s definitely… not alive anymore.”
I had caught myself before I collapsed on the ground. I braced my hands to the side of me on a long stretch of counter and used all my strength to keep standing. Hot and demanding tears flooded my eyes. I tried to push them back, but there was nothing in me strong enough to ignore the piercing agony pulsing through me.
I had forced myself not to think about the gruesome details of Kane’s death. It had been enough to dwell on his sacrifice and his now forever absence in my life. I hadn’t allowed my mind to recreate images of his pain and suffering, of the detestable way he would have slowly been ripped apart, clawed at, bit into and shredded until he lost enough blood or his heart stopped beating.
But no amount of will power or rational reasoning could stop the bevvy of images now circling my fragile mind.
God, I hated that he died like that. I loathed that he’d suffered so absolutely and that his body couldn’t even be respected after death. He deserved so much more.
He deserved a full life and some happiness. He deserved peace and the warm blanket of hope.
He deserved me. He deserved me completely, and in a way I wanted to give myself wholly to him.
And maybe if someone were looking in from the outside, they would argue that he didn’t deserve me or any of the things I wanted to give him. They would see him for the horrible things he did and the way he lived his life. And I wouldn’t blame them.
I couldn’t ignore all the things that I’d been a part of unwillingly, the way he forced himself into my life and the danger he put me and my loved ones in. Those things were real and I couldn’t deny that they’d happened. No amount of love would erase the pain and suffering we’d lived through.
However, it was that same love, the love that burned through my veins and filled up my chest that let me believe he also deserved more than what he’d gotten. Love covered that multitude of sins and made him deserving of me.
I didn’t know what would have happened if Kane had lived. I couldn’t say that I would have abandoned my feelings for Hendrix and dove into something permanent with Kane. And if for no other reason, then I’d freaking learned my lesson about relationships during a Zombie Apocalypse.
However, there was something real with Kane. And I had learned over the past few weeks that I couldn’t stop something like that. It came at me like a tidal wave. It washed over my head and picked up my feet in its rushing current. It swept me away violently but cradled me in the swell of its wave so even while I couldn’t fight it, I felt safe.
That was Kane. My tidal wave. My tsunami. And that would never change. Maybe I could blame the immortality of death. Now that he was gone, I would be stuck in this same place forever. I couldn’t talk myself out of loving him, and honestly I didn’t want to anymore. Maybe, one day, I would be able to cherish these feelings and be thankful for the time we did have together.
I couldn’t say at this point. It was taking everything in me not to disintegrate into the floor and disappear forever. Or follow after Kane in the hope of a better life on the other side.
I wasn’t exactly suicidal, but the desperation for five minutes of peace and quiet was a siren’s song I had a hard time smothering.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist and dragged me up against a firm chest. Hendrix buried his coarse beard in the curve of my neck and I inhaled the clean scent of him.
“You’re going to make it, Reagan.” His voice was rough and commanding against my skin. His facial hair scratched when he spoke while his lips whispered over the column of my throat. “You can face what’s out there and you can help me find Vaughan. You’re stronger than this. You’re stronger than grief and despair.”
I shook my head in disagreement. I wasn’t stronger. And even if I wanted to believe that I was, how could I stop feeling these things? I was anything but callous or unemotional. In fact, if I’d learned anything over the last year, it was that I was way too emotional. Way too emotional.
“You are,” Hendrix swore. The words exploded out of his throat and hit me like a physical blow. He pulled back to meet my watery gaze. “You are, Reagan. You’ve helped keep my family safe for months now. You protect us. You fight for us. You were wise enough to see that Page would be all right when nobody else would have given her so much time. You are strong. And capable. And when the time comes to kick ass, you kick a shit ton of ass. I need you to do that now. We need you to do that. It’s going to be hell out there, but it’s nothing we can’t survive. We’re in this together until we find Vaughan. I need you by my side in order to do that.” I must have looked like I was going to say something to his familiar command because he quickly shut down my argument. “Not by my side like before. I need your help. I need you to fight with me and get these kids somewhere safe. I can’t do this alone. I can’t do it without you.”
He’d been slowly rallying my spirits with his pep talk, but it was those last few thoughts that truly drove home his point. He wasn’t asking me in that chauvinistic, alpha-male, caveman way he had because he wanted me to stay by him so he could protect me. He was making me a partner. We would go into this together and fight through this together. I would stay by his side to fight for him as much as he fought for me.
Survival. That was the keyword today.
My life was all about survival and today was no different.
I slowly nodded and
pulled back from Hendrix. It turned out he was right. Grief and despair were just different forms of adversaries. They wanted to make me as weak and vulnerable as all my other enemies. They wanted to see me fail. But I would not. I would fight them as fiercely as I fought everything else in my life.
“I can do that,” I promised him.
“I know.” He stepped back further and I felt his plea for me click into place. Whatever was between Hendrix and me, or whatever had been, disappeared at this moment and we became the partners it would take to get us to safety, keep Miller and Page alive and find his brother and the rest of our family.
“Let’s find these guns and kill some goddamn Zombies,” I suggested.
He visibly shivered in front of me. “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I laughed before I could stop myself and watched a small smile lift his lips. I ignored his flirting, neither one of us had the time for that. But he accomplished what he set out to. He pulled me out of the spiraling vortex of gloom and helped me focus again on the rest of the day.
It was going to take a horrible amount of work to live through this day. And even more work to make sure everyone I loved also survived.
But I knew by sunset tonight that it would be worth it. It had to be. Because all my other options basically sucked and I was not okay with any of the alternatives.
We fought. We killed. We survived.
Until we didn’t need to anymore.
Chapter Two
“Ready?” Hendrix asked with his shoulder pressed against the bunker door.
I cut my eyes to Miller. “Don’t look at him.” Miller’s eyes glossed over with tears at the same time his jaw ticked with frustration. He knew exactly who I meant. “We have to get out of here, Miller. I won’t look if you won’t.”
That seemed to rally him some. He nodded and turned those hard eyes to Page. “Fine,” he said gruffly. “Let’s just go.”
Page looked up at him and offered a sweet, encouraging smile. Hendrix raised his eyebrows at me and I nodded too. Let’s do this.
We burst from the bunker with extreme determination, replenished weapons and clean skin. We couldn’t have come out of there any better off given our circumstances. Seriously, we were ready to face the impossible with our health bars completely full.
If only we had a few extra lives to go with it.
Despite our due diligence and battle-ready-states-of-mind, nothing could have truly prepared us for what met us outside.
First, a horde of Zombies converged on us the second the door open. Second, Kane’s dead, half-eaten body lay much too close for me to keep my promise to Miller. And third, it was raining.
It must have started not that long ago because Hendrix hadn’t mentioned it earlier. He’d continued to check throughout the morning to see if Vaughan had miraculously shown up, but he had not once mentioned the torrential downpour happening outside.
The sky had darkened to almost completely black with no sun in sight. Rain pelted my skin with a driving force, freezing me to the bone immediately. The soppy forest floor had been turned into a mud pit that would be impossible to sprint through. And somehow the Feeders weren’t slowed down at all.
Their rotting heads perked up at the sight of us. I didn’t know how smell carried through the rain, but it didn’t matter. They could see us and all our living, fleshy glory. And they were hungry. Well, they were always hungry.
But today, specifically, they seemed extra hungry.
Hendrix started shooting immediately and I followed his example. A few Feeders had been close by, gnawing on their own arms and ignoring the rain bombarding them in the face and open, festering cavities. Their red eyes seemed to glow through the hazy gloominess and their mouths immediately began salivating with black mucous.
I aimed and fired. Page pressed against Hendrix’s back and Miller pushed against mine. We’d given Miller a gun and told him we expected him to kill as many Zombies as we did. He seemed determined to keep up and that was a good thing. We needed all the firepower we could get. Hendrix had also given Page a gun, but as usual, it was only an emergency weapon for the eight-year-old.
Hendrix and I, on the other hand, had been very generously outfitted. The bunker had a copious amount of various guns and ammo and although I knew it wouldn’t last us long on a day like today, I at least hoped it would be enough to get us through the day.
“Count your shots,” Hendrix shouted after it took me three attempts to stop a Feeder running toward me.
The rain made it harder to aim precisely. It also made moving around extremely difficult. We couldn’t run; we were all too badly injured to move quickly and in order to outrun Feeders, you needed a decent head start. Since they had been waiting on the other side of the bunker door, a head start was out of the question. Besides, there was the slimy mud to contend with. Even walking and turning around proved difficult. My feet sunk down into the thick claylike mud and cemented immediately in place.
I tried to take a step and my tennis shoe started to slip off. I slammed my foot back in and my shoe filled with mud and didn’t go on right. I cursed under my breath and ignored my shoe issues to shoot at the next monster attacking me.
However, it should be said that there are few feelings worse than gritty, sticky mud squishing in between sock-covered toes.
An ugly beast of a Zombie lumbered toward me, clearly intent on eating my face off. His legs were the size of tree trunks and his torso had to be bigger than a car. Well, maybe he wasn’t that big, but in my panicked, hysterical mind’s eye, he looked like the Zombie version of the Hulk. Except, he didn’t have any hands. Which I thought was weird. His arms ended at bloodied wrists. His haggard, half-decaying face dripped pus and thick, coagulated blood. I shuddered at the sight of him. He was the opposite of human, so completely gone there was nothing but undead brains to direct his addiction. When I shot at him, he flailed his arms around his body. Instead of his forehead, my bullets found purchase in his forearms and biceps- which did not deter him in the least.
How did he know how to do that?
I dropped down into a crouch and tried shooting up at him. I wasn’t ready to abandon my shoe to the mud just yet. I blinked against the heavy rain and ran my hand over my eyes before I took aim again and fired.
He nearly collapsed on top of me when I finally hit that sweet spot. I had managed to put him down at just the last second and he fell at my feet like a Zombie-version of Goliath.
“Holy cow, that was close,” I hissed.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Hendrix shouted over a long clap of thunder. “I had hoped Vaughan would be nearby and hear our gunfire, but he’s not here.”
“Where are we going to go?” I shouted back.
“Compound.”
I had anticipated that answer, but really wished Hendrix would come up with a better plan. I did not want to go back there for anything. I would, obviously, if that meant saving Haley, Tyler and the rest of the Parkers. But that didn’t make facing that place any more appealing.
“Cover me,” I ordered. I ducked down and fixed my shoe, then pulled it from the mud. The rain quickly washed away the sticky clay left on my fingers, but the peace I’d gained by my earlier shower was gone.
At least my legs were shaved.
Oh, wait. The goose bumps that covered me from scalp to toes thanks to the driving rain ruined that too. It was hard to say what I hated more at that moment, Matthias, Zombies or Mother Nature.
“Watch your feet,” I shouted back at Page and Miller. “The mud is really sticky.”
They nodded and worked to keep their feet free. The longer we stood in the same place, the deeper we sunk into the saturated ground. Hendrix and I continued to shoot and kill while we worked our way to the left. We kept our backs to the cliff wall for now. Eventually, we would run out of rock and have to figure something else out. But for now, having a sheer cliff at our back was the perfect way to protect us.
Or so I thought.
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A hideous screeching sound screamed out overhead and I looked up just in time to see a Feeder launch himself over the rocky ledge up above and take a nose dive onto the ground right in front of us. Hendrix started shooting before the Zombie hit the ground and the creature was dead before it could lift its disgusting face out of the mud.
“Lookout for flying Feeders,” Hendrix warned us.
I heard the smallest amount of macabre amusement in his statement, but I decided not to acknowledge it. We were all on the edge of sanity right now, it was probably better not to bring attention to it.
We started to curve around the cliff, and I took one last look at Kane’s dead body. I couldn’t make out what was left of him from here. The veil of rain was too thick to see him entirely. His body had been pushed into the mud and lay lifeless and still. Not an inch of him moved or twitched.
At least he was truly dead.
That gave me a peace I didn’t think it would. I realized then I had been terrified he would become a Feeder. A Zombie Kane running around the woods would have been a true nightmare come to life and I would have been forced to kill him myself.
Knowing that he was gone, completely, gave my spirit some rest.
“Reagan!” Hendrix called to me.
And in the next second I was back in action, fighting off the horde in front of us.
The guttural groaning of converging Zombies roared over the heavy rain and consistent thunder. Lightning lit up the sky overhead in bright flashes of white light. My arms ached from the effort to hold up my gun.
My body had been beaten up from yesterday and the cry-fest I’d endured through the night hadn’t been exactly the healing rest I needed. Reasons to give up barreled down on me from every direction and only my willpower to help Page, Hendrix and Miller survive gave me the strength to fight on.
There weren’t that many Feeders near us. Just enough to keep us constantly busy. Most of them had been involved with Kane when we came out of the bunker, so we had just enough room to fend them off, but not enough to make a run for it.