Quite frankly, I was glad that I didn’t have the brain capacity right now to consider the ramifications, because this was not something I wanted to consider. One thing was sure: we needed to take care of this problem, just as Minerva had said—likely not getting exactly how much of a problem it really was.
As much as I wanted to waste all my ammo on any undead asshole, it was obvious that we needed to conserve it for the harder-to-kill targets, so what had started out as a quick sequence of strafing runs soon ended in me and the scavengers jumping off the truck close to where the settlement defenders had rallied, and joining the melee fray on foot. I could feel that two beacons were close, so it didn’t exactly go against our initial plan. As it turned out, so could one of the girls. We decided to split up the larger group, with her going for one target and me aiming for the other. Even though we couldn’t get infected, we could still get killed, so for now our immunity was only so much of an advantage. Thankfully, one of the defenders was happy to trade his light ax for my bat, making my work a little easier. Somewhere on the other side of the mass of undead was a car with the rest of my gear, but until we’d either dispersed the crowd or killed enough of them to get through, I’d have to make do with this one.
Even with the need to conserve ammo, the cars still had the huge advantage of being both fast and a large target, getting the shamblers to run after them as soon as they drove close by. A pass or two were usually enough to loosen up a knot, and distract the stupid ones so they were easy killing. As soon as that tactic worked twice, the com frequency was alight with people relaying the news, Nate and Pia both updating us with strategy solutions depending on where someone got bogged down, or someone else managed to pull more than a handful of zombies away from the mob. That meant a lot of running for me, but also a lot of hacking; the latter got easier about an hour in when the Ice Queen came screeching by and dropped off my spare pack, complete with my tactical tomahawks and plenty of water for everyone else to hydrate. By then, I’d lost count of how many shamblers I’d killed, but there seemed no end to them.
Just before noon, we managed to decapitate the last of the zombies wearing beacon vests, and then things got a little easier when we dragged all seven outfitted corpses onto the pickup truck and had it race off across the plain, hundreds of shamblers running screaming and groaning after it, never mind the gazillion degrees and blinding sunlight out here. That, in turn, allowed us to take a break to refuel and rehydrate, although more than one valiant fighter hurled water and food right back up, considering that we weren’t just splattered but drenched in zombie guts. I doubted I’d ever feel clean after this again.
Leaving the slower, more stupid shamblers to those more concerned about getting infected, I hitched a ride on another truck following the one with the beacon zombies to where the first of the corpses had been dropped, around two hundred shamblers now flocking around it. Half an hour later, the last one lay dead for good on the cracked dirt. One group down, six more to go.
By the time the plain was aflame with the rays of the setting sun, the only ones left standing were alive and mostly human, and not a single one of us wasn’t either limping or favoring one arm over the other, or in desperate need of a long beach vacation.
And still, adrenaline was roaring in my veins as if I’d only just now crawled off the ATV, leaving me very concerned and deeply disturbed.
I tried my best to hide both as I joined the throngs of fighters slowly making their way back to the settlement. A lot fewer people came dragging their stinking asses through the gate than had left it. The three female scavengers were still alive, having more or less fought right beside me the entire day. But the marine was gone, as were about half the defenders from the settlement who’d ventured outside. Pia had earlier done a tally of our people, coming up short by three more marines, two army soldiers, and five scavengers. None of my friends, and sadly, Hamilton was also still very much alive and looking surprisingly unscathed when I walked by him to where troughs of water and bottles of bleach had been set up as a preliminary cleaning station. I didn’t even get as far as sneering at him as the mere sight of his smirk aimed at me got my harpies to close ranks and glare right back at him. Still covered in gore and weapons in hand, they made quite the impression—although less on Hamilton and more on the male half of the settlement people who had come to lend a helping hand wherever possible. That gave me an idea of why Nate had stopped making fun of me whenever I got all angry and feral. If I hadn’t been very dedicatedly married, I’d have hit that in a second, and I doubted that the ladies would have to seek long and hard for food and entertainment tonight.
But first, cleanup, and then more thorough time with soap and warm water and less public displays of nudity, covered in scrapes and bruises as we peeled ourselves out of our gear and layers of clothes underneath, dumping everything that was ruined for good in a growing heap by the gate. Since I didn’t see Nate anywhere, I decided to stick with the harpies, sure that sooner or later he would track me down.
The settlement wasn’t just large enough to have separate bathhouses for men and women, but also a decontamination station set aside just for the ladies, which made sense as a good fifth of their guards and fighters were women. I’d seen very few of them in the melee fight outside, but most of the guards keeping watch up on the palisades turned out to have been women, same as the drivers, and all but one of the snipers up on the harvesters as well—pretty much everywhere it wasn’t all about superior strength maybe being a survival advantage. Most of them didn’t even have single marks on their necks, making me guess that they’d never joined the ranks of the scavengers—and had also not gotten infected with the faulty serum. The one time I’d been to the Utah settlement before, I’d already gotten the sense that everyone here was very self-sufficient, but having to wait for an hour until we could get into the decontamination station to do our thing down to scraping zombie guts out of our toenails hammered down just how few actual civilians the settlement harbored. In a sense, I was almost miffed that I would be dead in a few months’ time and couldn’t accept the offer Minerva had talked about in the past—finding a secluded hut for Nate and me where we could do whatever the fuck we liked, for as long as we didn’t get bored of it. Ah well.
Tired as fuck didn’t mean that the three scavengers weren’t still very much up to being their vivacious selves. Jokes rang loud and lewd between them, and I had absolutely no qualms joining in. We were among the last few out of the station, down to pretty much our underwear, as a concerned matron shepherded us into the normal bathhouse to get a good soak—and escape our stupid chatter while she and her squad hosed down the remains of blood and grime in the other.
Bathhouses, plural, really, and we quickly found one that we had just to ourselves, which I was kind of glad about as I peeled myself out of the last of my layers, the landscape of scars that was my body now on full display, with a few new ones added to the collection. I spent some quality time with a sponge in front of one of the floor-length mirrors provided, cleaning what scrapes needed extra attention, doing my very best to ignore the stares of the others—and stare they did, quite unabashedly so, which I figured came with the territory of being all brash and honest. At least my hands were mostly out of the picture with the sponge and the suds.
When I turned around, the three of them were still staring at me, but with frowns on their expressions rather than the curious fascination I’d noticed before. With my temper barely in check and my pulse still going way too high, it was hard to try for diplomacy—so I didn’t. “What?”
While the other two exchanged glances, the Asian girl—I still didn’t know their names, and by now it was beyond awkward to ask—narrowed her eyes at me. “Why are you so damn self-conscious? So what, you have scars. How you got them is beyond legendary. Hell, I’ve been known to flaunt the few bite marks I’ve gotten over the years. If I had yours, I’d probably run around in a halter top and cut-off shorts to show as much of that off as possible.”<
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“Yeah, and then we’d all need brain bleach constantly,” the Latina sitting next to her on the bench piped up, earning herself a sponge in the face for her trouble.
The third shook her head at her friends before she looked back at me. “Your husband, he’s not making fun of you because of it, right? All hero worship aside, if he does, he has one hell of a beating coming from us, just saying.”
The very idea of that made me laugh, and I was almost tempted to let them try. The outspoken, semi-nudist girl spoke up then. “He does have a certain reputation. No judgment from us. Nice and gentlemanly only gets you so far in this world. Particularly if he makes up for it elsewhere. Which, presumably, he does. Because, you know. Reputation.”
It was a damn shame that Nate wasn’t here to listen to this. I had a hard time not to roar with laughter—but should maybe set them straight. “All his many flaws and admirable qualities aside, he actually gets mad at me if I show even a hint of self-doubt.”
The women nodded at each other in shared satisfaction, as if they’d expected no less. They also seemed a little let down that I didn’t expound on what qualities I was referring to—and there was no question what either of us meant by that—but quickly got over it.
“I’m Adalynn, by the way,” the Asian girl—very belatedly—introduced herself with a bright grin. “And this is Tessa,” she nodded at the Latina, “and Snow White here is Ingrid.” The—actually very fair-skinned—woman scowled at her for that. Judging from the hair south of her neck—what little was visible—the jet-black of her mane came from a bottle.
Grinning, I nodded at them in turn. “I’d say nice to meet you, but since we’ve been on the road together for weeks now and spent the entire day bashing in zombie skulls together, I’ll leave it at that.” Come to think of it, it was entirely possible that it had been the three of them who I’d seen getting really cozy with Hamilton back at the camp, before we’d split up and set out to Dallas. While slightly revolting, that made their show of scorn toward him an hour ago all the more hilarious.
Adalynn and Ingrid exchanged glances, until Ingrid finally said what seemed to have been on her mind for a few minutes already. “We know who your husband is. I mean, obviously. But I mean, about the arena. None of us made the connection before you came down on that shithole and closed it up for good.” I just looked at her, not quite sure what to answer to that. Good for her? When she saw my confusion, she offered me a mirthless smile. “We are aware of the fact that any food he gets from the provisions is usually what you end up eating. We’re cool with that, is what I’m saying.”
Adalynn, clearly at the end of her patience, punched her in the arm to make her shut up before she turned to me. “What the bitch is trying to say is, if you need some help with procuring something else, just let us know.”
The third—Tessa—gave a nasty little laugh. “Our collective star-struck hero worship may not go as far as a willingness to donate a juicy ham, but I know a wicked recipe for extra spicy jerky seasoning. Pretty much tastes the same for whatever meat you slap it on.”
Once more I was hard-pressed not to laugh, but maybe with a note of hysteria now. “I appreciate the team spirit, ladies. And I might get back to you on that eventually.”
“Anything you need,” Adalynn enthused, chuckling. “Within reason. We may be crazy, but everyone has limits. But you can count on us. When we pledge our loyalty, we don’t just mean it at face value.”
I took that with another nod—and then paused, when something they might help me with came to mind. “Actually—”
“Just spit it out,” Tessa enthused, a step away from gleefully clapping her hands.
I grinned. “Any of you ladies got any red hair dye in your packs?”
I’d expected them to be on board. I’d not expected them to erupt into shrieks of glee, with Ingrid jumping up and running outside—clad in nothing but enthusiasm—while the other two fell over themselves letting me know that, absolutely, the dish-water blonde I was naturally blessed with so wouldn’t do. I couldn’t help but smile to myself—what my life had turned into that in almost the same breath we could talk planned murder for cannibalistic purposes including spicy recipes and beauty advice. But, really, after spending the last couple of days feeling like I’d again lost a part of my soul that I’d never get back, it was good to have a few silly laughs.
Chapter 12
I remained soaking in the by-now cool water of the tub I had commandeered after the girls had wrought chemical warfare on my hair, and after rinsing it until the water ran clear again, had also braided it up once more, cutting down any maintenance I’d have to do for the foreseeable future to simple dunks, unless I decided to get drenched in gore again. They’d seemed disappointed when I wasn’t ready to follow them quite yet on their mission to get some food, get high, and get laid, but were quick to reassure me that it was okay for me to want some alone time to decompress. In Adalynn’s case, I had a feeling like she knew exactly what I was talking about—but if she could feel the beacons, she was probably not going to be around by winter herself. I didn’t ask, but I got a sense that she knew exactly what was in store for her—and her devil-may-care attitude seemed all the more genuine for it. Maybe I should simply take a page from her playbook and be done with overthinking everything.
But as I slid into the tub until the water was up to my chin, and then deeper so that my entire head was submerged, cutting me off from the rest of the world, I couldn’t help but face the truth: I was hearing it, too, that roar in the distance. Not just hearing it, but feeling it thrumming deep inside my bones. That final, eternal rage that I knew I would eventually succumb to, throwing off the last vestiges of what little remained of my humanity.
What surprised me was the realization that I wasn’t afraid of it anymore.
I couldn’t help it; in my mind’s eye it was as if I was suddenly standing in front of the embodiment of all that—a feral warrior, uncompromising, ready to face her end with her head held high—and as such things go, it could have been so much worse. It was easy to imagine her cocking her head to the side and smirking at me. “Really, this is what you’re shitting your pants over?” she’d say. It really wasn’t. And with loss so fresh in my heart, being able to divorce myself from all that didn’t sound so bad, either. What remained was something akin to grief—for those I’d leave behind, for whom I couldn’t cushion the blow, but that had always been one of humanity’s cruxes. We all die, and we seldom get to say our goodbyes first.
My lungs were slowly starting to remind me that I wasn’t quite there yet and thus needed some oxygen to keep fighting the, if not good fight, then the fight that needed to be fought. But I didn’t quite want to let go of that pervasive sense of tranquility yet that, slowly but surely, pushed the roar in the distance farther back until it had almost subsided, little more than a low-grade buzz that I was barely aware of, if I concentrated on it. Truth be told, it was a familiar sensation, only the intensity and stubbornness to ebb away completely new.
So I stayed under water just a little longer, until I felt a slight burn start at the very ends of my extremities and in my lips—
A face appeared above the water as someone leaned over the tub, staring straight down at me. My expectation went with either one of the female scavengers, deciding that I’d had enough me-time, or Nate, investigating along similar lines but with likely other intensions. But while painfully familiar, those weren’t features I associated with spending an entire day neck-deep in zombie guts. That soft, wavy blonde hair up in a messy bun, gentle light-brown eyes wide with concern…
Sam.
I had, of course, known that she was still living here. I hadn’t outright inquired, but between Pia and Martinez, I’d snatched up enough throw-away comments clearly aimed to make my curiosity rear its stalker-y head. With Martinez in particular I was sure he’d been fishing, knowing way more than he let on. I’d refused to ask because this was one mess I’d decided not to deal with. She had
her life and I had mine, with zero overlap. On our trip to the Silo that fateful late fall, she’d made herself scarce when we’d spent the night there, and I figured had come to the same conclusion as I had. Yet here she was in what was obviously a very deliberate act of tracking me down. If all she’d been after was a casual greeting and five minutes of small talk, she could have done that any time later tonight or tomorrow.
Dealing with my possibly still pissed-off ex-girlfriend? Not what I’d thought would be on my agenda tonight. But then again, what I’d had planned—get food, jump Nate’s bones—would have been too easy.
Listening inside, I waited for the anger to roar back to life, but except for that pervasive sense of unease preceding potentially uncomfortable emotional situations, my mind was quiet. I was kind of proud of myself that my immediate reaction hadn’t been jumping into the—possibly quite physical—defensive.
And, just maybe, it was about time that I resurfaced and let my oxygen-deprived mind have some of its necessary fuel, or else things would get really weird really fast.
Gripping the sides of the tub, I heaved myself up while simultaneously drawing my knees to my chest, then underneath me so that I managed to go from lying fully submerged to vaulting out of the tub in one glorious splash of water, coming with the twin benefits of not just being super dramatic, but also making sure that Sam, anticipating getting drenched any moment now, quickly retreated several steps, giving me the physical space that I definitely needed. Joints cracked, tendons complained, muscles burned, but overall my body was responding as it should, which gave me a hint of satisfaction—which was much needed considering that I now found myself facing the woman who, with Nate being the exception, knew my body better than anyone else in this world… or had known it, before it became hard and tough and then mutilated and covered in scars. It was one thing to feel slightly silly with the scavengers who made fun of my unease, knowing full well that this was the best balm on my soul available, but quite another to see the appropriate amount of horror in Sam’s eyes now. Like them, she stared at me unabashedly, familiarity long gone, allowing her to forget that it wasn’t the modest or appropriate thing to do as her mind was cataloguing all the many changes from what she remembered.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 93
