It was what he did to Gage.
It was what he wanted to do to us.
So maybe for no other reason than abstaining from murder saved me from becoming someone like Matthias, I would never do it. Not unless I absolutely had no other choice.
And I really wanted Hendrix to be on the same page as me. It was very important that we agreed on this one major issue.
I didn’t know why it mattered more than anything else I believed or thought about him. Maybe because I respected him so very much that I couldn’t imagine thinking less of him. Maybe because he had looked so very determined when he said those words.
He had been fierce with conviction.
And that had terrified me.
“We knew what you meant,” Vaughan offered weakly behind me.
When Hendrix’s attention focused back to me, I nodded. “Yep.”
Slowly conversation and activity began again behind us. Hendrix held my gaze for a long time though, searching my face for the truth.
Finally, I couldn’t stand just staring at him. He was too intense, too serious, too vulnerable… too everything. I turned back to the road and searched the flat landscape for any signs of life.
Vaughan scooted by us and practically ran to check on Page. Left alone with Hendrix felt jolting. We obviously weren’t truly alone, but we might as well have been.
The air around us vibrated from his energy, shocking my system. He stood two feet away, but I felt him on my skin, I breathed him into my lungs; my thoughts centered completely on him.
Would he always do this to me? Would I ever get over him enough to be able to do simple things like speak to him? Or stand next to him?
I had a memory flash of my earlier self-struggling against this attraction to Hendrix. I knew this would happen. I knew I would ruin us.
And that’s exactly what I did.
“Reagan, I didn’t mean to scare you earlier, I just-”
“You didn’t.”
“Obviously, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. I mean you didn’t scare me. I’m not scared of you. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that. You surprised me.” My words came out too fast, rushed and jumbled. There was a part of me that had always thought of myself as a good liar. There was another part of me that laughed at how bad at lying the former part of me was.
“Sometimes I don’t think you know me.”
I whipped my head around and glared at him. “I know you.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you ever knew me.”
“Hendrix-”
“I’ll enlighten you.” His words were serious despite the impish curve of his lips. I was momentarily stunned by the expression on his face. He leaned toward me, closing the little space that separated us. “I will do anything to protect my family. I will do anything to protect you. Those people don’t want to chat with you, Reagan. They want to tie you up, throw you in the bed of their truck and take you back to Matthias. And we both know that Matthias doesn’t plan to sit down to dinner with you and work out your differences. It’s time to toughen up. The road ahead is going to be hard and filled with gray areas your ethical conscience is going to struggle to accept. That’s too bad, because you want to survive. I want you to survive. So that means I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you alive. Toughen up, Babe. That’s the only way we’re moving forward.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. He grinned at me like he’d just won the lottery. It wasn’t until he’d given me his back and started walking away that I finally thought of a brilliant response. “I thought you were going to tell me something about you!”
With a dismissive glance over his shoulder, he said, “That was about me. That is probably the most important thing you need to know about me.”
I stood there staring at him, trying to figure out that ambiguous puzzle for another six minutes. I didn’t move until dinner started and figured if I didn’t jump in and claim some food, I wasn’t going to get any.
I navigated the metal catwalk and found a spot sandwiched between Tyler and Page. We dug into stale crackers and Slim Jims. I grabbed some Pringles when they were passed around and ended my well- balanced meal with a Snickers bar.
All of our meals lately had been courtesy of our looting trip in that last American town. We still had lots of water to drink and if we rationed it carefully, we could keep up with a minimal cleaning routine.
There were so many of us though. If we weren’t vigilant this water would go fast.
Too fast.
We had no idea what to expect in Mexico.
There hadn’t been any places to find food since we crossed the border and our gasoline supply was also quickly dwindling. If we didn’t find supplies soon, we would have to venture back into civilization.
Nobody wanted that.
“I wish we could build a fire,” Nelson announced after dinner had been cleaned up and packed away. “This is perfect campfire weather.”
I tipped my face to the nice breeze that cooled my heated skin. The days were brutal in this desert, but the nights cooled off and kept me from melting.
“And some marshmallows,” Harrison added.
“Hendrix could play his guitar and serenade us with his cheesy girl songs. Remember when Dad threatened to take away his car if he didn’t stop playing that time we hiked Estes?” Vaughan added.
Instant curiosity peeked in all of us non-Parkers. I sat up straighter and waited for the rest of the story to unfold.
Nelson, Harrison and King burst into laughter. Even Page started giggling.
“I didn’t play cheesy girl songs; I wooed the girls with those songs. And it worked.” Hendrix leaned back and stretched out his long legs. His shoulders stayed relaxed and his lips twitched as though he wanted to laugh too. He was a picture of cool and laid back.
But I knew better.
There was nothing easy about him.
And I kind of liked that.
Okay… more than liked that.
“Top Forty is a disgrace to your manhood,” Vaughan put in.
“Not true!” Half of his brothers yelled back at him.
“Sometimes the masses get it right,” Hendrix argued. “The Beatles for instance. The Grateful Dead. Nirvana. Nsync.”
I snorted a laugh that I was not proud of. Hendrix making jokes never ceased to surprise me.
Vaughan slumped over and tried to control his giggling. Yep, Vaughan had been reduced to giggles.
Nelson, on the other hand, had apparently been inspired. In a voice that was out of practice, but still very impressive for the Zombie Apocalypse, he started off the Parker brother boy band with, “I’m doing this tonight.”
Harrison jumped in immediately, “You’re probably gonna start a fight.”
Vaughan struggled through his laughter, “I know this can’t be right.”
Then all together in semi-perfect harmony, they sang, “Hey baby, come on.”
“Oh, my god,” Tyler groaned. “They can sing.”
“And harmonize,” Haley added dryly.
They boys went on to finish the first verse. At the chorus, King stood up and danced the choreography, which I vaguely remembered to be correct. The metal shook underneath him and shouted its protest, but we were laughing too hard to care. Harrison jumped up to join him. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard.
The song labored on, with talented male voices joined in sweet synchronization. The more they sang, the better they sounded. Page leaned her head against my shoulder and watched her brothers with rapt attention. I joined her. This was just too good.
My only regret was that they hadn’t shared this with us sooner.
Every person should experience Parker brothers singing and dancing. Oh, my gosh. This was by far the best moment of the entire Apocalypse.
The group entirely fell apart when Hendrix took a very emotional, very overdramatic Justin Timberlake solo. I laughed until I had tears and stopped making any sound.
“How do you even know
that song?” Tyler demanded through a huge grin. “It’s so far before your time.” She pointed at the younger Parkers with an accusing finger.
“Our mom,” Nelson explained, sobering some. “She loved boy bands.”
“She really loved boy bands,” Hendrix echoed.
The light mood from earlier depleted until it was only a memory. The atmosphere grew immediately somber. The moonlight played on their faces, revealing faint smiles and lost boys that missed their mother.
Boys that could carry a tune and put on a show like these guys made my heart go pitter patter. Boys that mourned their mom as severely as they did made my heart crumble with longing and the desperation to give them all hugs.
I wiped the joyful tears away before they became sympathetic ones.
“Dad had always insisted we learn the piano and the guitar. Besides all of the other things he wanted for us, he demanded we be as musical as he was. Mom didn’t want a house filled with beginner musicians. She dreaded forcing all of us to practice and listening to nonstop Jingle Bells or whatever. So they compromised. She told my dad that if he taught us to play, then he would have to teach us to sing too. I think she secretly hoped one of us would become a rock star or something.”
“And so she made you sing bad pop songs?” Haley guessed.
Hendrix chuckled at the question. “No, she just made sure we could sing bad pop songs if we wanted to. When she got sick, and her health really started to decline, we decided learning her favorite songs might cheer her up.”
“And?” Tyler demanded.
The brothers looked at each other, nobody wanting to admit what happened next.
“They put on a concert for her!” Page squealed. Then she tucked herself into my side in case any of her brothers decided to attack her for spilling the dirt.
“How do you know that?” Vaughan demanded. “You were too young to remember.”
“I remember,” she said defiantly.
Harrison dropped back to sitting. “We are also awesome at A Bridge Over Troubled Water and Stand By Me. But you’ll have to pay us if you want more.”
“That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Haley sniffled.
“God, that was such a long time ago.” Nelson pulled Haley into his side and kissed the top of her head. “I honestly can’t believe we remembered it all.”
“You two kids were practically still in diapers.” Vaughan pointed at his younger brothers who just rolled their eyes.
“Can you sing?” Miller asked Page from her other side. He watched her with a kind of fascination I had never seen from him before. He was young too. Music had been pretty much non-existent over the last three years. I wondered when the last time Miller had heard something that pretty.
Or hell, any of us.
Page shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ve never tried before.”
“You should try,” Miller encouraged. “I bet you have a pretty voice.”
Page didn’t say anything else. She snuggled closer to me and turned her attention back to her brothers, who had started sharing more memories of their deceased parents.
I loved listening to them and the stories they told about their pre-Zombie life, but I felt the need to process their song first.
I had the strangest reaction to their silly performance. I knew it was just a joke, but I felt it so profoundly that it became so much more than that to me. Parts of my body and soul felt nourished after a long, harsh famine. My soul felt replenished. My mind felt satisfied.
I might start making them perform for me on a daily basis.
Their goofy song was a therapy session I had needed badly.
Eventually, we settled down for bed. We stretched out on the harsh metal grate on top of thin blankets we kept tightly rolled in our backpacks. We used our packs as pillows and divided up the night’s watch.
I wasn’t first watch, so I turned to my back and tried to relax. Not surprisingly, that didn’t happen right away.
Instead, I stared up at the incredibly vast and star-speckled sky and let my thoughts run wild. I rarely gave my mind the freedom to wander, but something about this emotional night encouraged me to give it a chance.
The stars overhead were nearly overwhelming. They glistened in tight clusters and sparkled in every direction. The clear night opened up a view I didn’t think I had ever seen before. Or maybe I had, but I’d never taken the time to realize how purely beautiful a sky this full of stars could be.
There was a primal rarity to it. I felt as ancient as the stars. I imagined this was what the sky looked like when the first humans walked the earth. I imagined it was always clear like this, that the galaxies wrapped around this planet were always this transparent.
The view stole my breath and calmed my restless spirit.
We didn’t get to sleep outside often and never was it this relaxed. The casual night, despite the earlier drive-by, had forced me to trust this place in a way that was probably dangerous. Just because I couldn’t see or hear all of the dangers threatening our lives and community didn’t mean we were safe.
And the human threat was as dangerous as ever.
But we had each other. And, as cliché as it sounded, that gave me strength. These people gave me courage.
This bond we’d formed steeled my will and clothed me with armor.
Hendrix’s words from earlier bounced around in my busy skull. Toughen up. Toughen up because that’s the only way to move forward.
He was right. But I wouldn’t realize how right, until the morning.
Eventually, I fell asleep. I slept lightly and as aware as I could be. Page’s legs were tucked between the wall and my body to keep her from tumbling over the side during the night and that made me hyper-aware of her safety.
Plus, there was always the chance that I could tumble over too. And that did not sound fun.
I took my turn on watch, sitting up with a loaded firearm in my lap. We shared short shifts of just an hour each during the night. We wanted to be as alert as possible while getting the most sleep possible. I timed my shift with a stopwatch that had managed to survive for a long time according to Apocalypse standards and then passed it off to Tyler.
By the time dawn pulled us from sleep and announced the new day, I hadn’t had a deep sleep, but I’d had a mostly uninterrupted one. That was good enough for me. My body had learned to function with much less than this.
We stretched and brushed our teeth over the side of the railing. A small breakfast of stale and smashed Nutrigrain bars got passed around. Then we went through the semi-arduous task of climbing down from our temporary safe haven.
It wasn’t really difficult except for Haley. Unlike Page, who could drop from the last rung of the ladder with the promise of her brother’s catching her, Haley had to hang there patiently until the Parkers could manage to grab on to her, not drop her and set her safely on the cracked dirt.
She huffed and puffed dramatically, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was just trying to catch her breath and didn’t want any of us to know that.
When we had loaded up the truck again, we spent some time deciding which way to go. We could back track and try out a different side road that would take us in the opposite direction of the bounty hunters. But the maps we’d picked up from the pharmacy before we crossed the borders showed that we would have to cross a major highway and we weren’t sure how populated those places were. If we continued on the road we were on, there was a different route a few miles ahead of us.
Of course, we could run into the bounty hunters on that road too. They might have gone that way. We had no way of knowing what they did once they drove by us last night.
My hope was that they’d run into a pack of Zombie coyotes and been mauled to death.
But that was probably wishful thinking.
Either way was risky. In the end, we decided to go up against the odds of running into the enemy we knew. We hoped that gave us some kind of advantage.
We still didn’t have any idea wh
at to expect in Mexico. And none of us was anxious to find out.
We piled into the truck. This time I managed to claim a seat in the backseat of the cab sandwiched between Tyler and Haley with Page on my lap. All of us were sweaty and uncomfortable and it was barely light outside, but soon we’d be on the open road and the wind would whip through the cab and cool our sticky skin.
Vaughan took one last sweep of the area, to make sure we’d left no traces of our visit and then we were off, speeding down the highway, anxious to outrun all of the threats chasing us.
“We should look for more of those,” Nelson shouted through the noisy cab from the other side of Haley. “That wasn’t a bad night’s sleep.”
“I agree,” Vaughan called over his shoulder. “We’re going to need to head toward civilization soon though. This gas won’t last much longer. Maybe two days… tops.”
That quieted the cab. Nervous energy filled the lightness I’d woken up with. A foreboding reached inside me and wrapped its sharpened claws tightly around my throat. I felt the danger before I saw it. I sensed it.
I swore I could smell it.
“Vaughan,” the warning was a whisper on my lips.
He slammed on the brakes and the tires screeched against the rough pavement.
Three cars lined up in front of us, completely blocking the highway. Men stood in front of their vehicles, casually leaning back as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Their arms were crossed or their elbows rested on their hoods in casual poses. Two of them wore cowboy hats with red bandanas wrapped around their biceps. The third’s head had been wrapped in the same style bandana.
In a moment of utter stillness, they casually peered at us. With measured severity, they took us in slowly, as if they had time to spare. Their dark faces made no expressions or gave anything away.
Panic flared inside of me. I gasped a fast breath, but then my lungs froze and I couldn’t seem to catch any oxygen. My skin prickled painfully with a grating wash of fear and frustration. I felt doused in it. Submerged.
When they didn’t immediately make a move to speak to us or start shooting, I hoped they would let us pass. Maybe this wasn’t as ominous as it looked.
Maybe my fears were premature.