There you are, old friend, he thought as he pulled it down and set it on his lap. He didn’t open it right away. This box held so many memories for him, and none were pleasant.
The gun had been his father’s, and his father’s before him. He didn’t even know why he’d accepted it from his mom when his father died. There was no love lost between Jax and his old man. It apparently had been too much for him to have a son that was ‘half a man’, as he loved to put it. At least his mother had never made him feel like less of a person with his disability, but even at a young age he’d been able to see it was hard on her, essentially raising a disabled son by herself because her husband was too thick-headed to be there for his family.
Jax sighed as he lifted the lid. The piece was old, but it was in immaculate condition. His father had kept it in perfect working order. He loved his guns, that man. Jax wondered if his father had ever put it to his own head, weighing the value of his life.
The wheelchair-bound man knew what that felt like. When his father had drank himself into an early grave, he’d blamed himself. Blamed his mother’s depression on himself. Blamed so much on himself and his useless legs.
He remembered the feel of the cold steel, unforgiving against his warm flesh. He hadn’t even had the courage to pull the hammer back. The saving thought had been picturing his mother’s face, finding him dead of a gunshot wound to the skull.
That, and the fear. He hadn’t really wanted to die. But it was a low moment.
He caressed the gun, debating whether to pick it up or not. They won’t make it very far with me. They won’t make it out at all, he thought. I might be able to convince Marcus to leave me… but not Skylar. And there’s not enough time to argue. They need to get to the roof, get up there and escape.
He clenched his jaw. What life is there for a cripple in the apocalypse? He let out a dark laugh under his breath. It’s not like the zombies will give me handicap parking.
“Hey buddy, I figured it out, I—” Marcus stopped short in the doorway, staring at his friend’s guilty expression, hand resting on the gun in the box.
Jax blushed crimson, jerking his hand from the box like it was on fire.
Marcus took a deep, shuddering breath, and rushed over to him. He snatched the box from his friend’s lap, putting the lid back on it, and then held up his other hand, a series of fabric strips in his hand.
“We figured out what we’re doing,” he said hoarsely, and then stared down his nose at the wheelchair-bound man, “and I’m not going to tell Skylar what you were about to do.”
Jax opened his mouth to deny it, but snapped it shut again. He knew it was no use to try. He simply nodded.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, and then straightened his shoulders. “What… what are we doing with these?” He reached out to touch one of the strips, realizing they were thick chunks of his living room curtain.
Marcus turned and waved for him to follow. “We’re gonna make you into a backpack,” he declared.
“A backpack?” Jax blurted, rolling his way out of the bedroom in disbelief.
Skylar emerged from the kitchen with a few butcher knives and a tenderizing mallet. “Well, we can make schnitzel out of those things at least,” she announced, dropping the weapons on the coffee table with a clatter. “What have you got?”
“You remember those baby slings your sister used to make and sell on the internet?” Marcus asked, holding up one of the strips.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, the wrap carriers!” she exclaimed. “Good thinking!”
“I’m sorry,” Jax cut in, raising his hand, “baby slings?”
Skylar nodded like a bobblehead. “Yeah, but you could use them for bigger kids too,” she explained as she took the fabric from her boyfriend. “It’s all about proper weight distribution. It’ll help hold your legs up so you can piggyback on Marcus’ back.”
“Well…” Jax stammered, shaking his head. “I’m not light… I’ll weigh you down too much.”
Marcus rolled his eyes. “I know I don’t look like much dude, but I can carry you up a few flights of stairs on my back,” he said. “Skylar will have to do the bulk of the fighting, but we got this.”
“You bet your ass we do,” she added, and motioned to the floor in front of the wheelchair. “Kneel down, babe, it’ll be easier to do this if you’re closer to the floor.”
Her boyfriend smirked at her, a wicked glint in his eye as he got down on the carpet, back facing Jax.
“Don’t even, you dirtball,” she scolded, swatting his shoulder as she reached out her hand to Jax. “Okay, so you wrap your arms around Marcus’ shoulders, and I’ll get you wrapped up like a snuggly bundle of joy.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that, and reached forward, but paused. “Wait,” he said, “how low is my ass going to be hanging here? I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach back far enough to kill anything that comes to take a bite.”
“Hmm,” Skylar mused, tapping her chin, and then raised a hand. “Hang on,” she said, and dropped the fabric, running back to the kitchen. She emerged with a roll of duct tape in her hand, and rushed off to the bedroom, coming back to the two dumbfounded men with the comforter from the bed.
“What the…” Jax wondered, blinking at her.
“We’re gonna make you into a burrito,” she declared. “You’ll be warm, but your ass will be safe.”
Marcus laughed and shook his head, clapping Jax on the shoulder. “True MacGyver treatment today, my friend.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“How are you feeling?” Skylar asked as they entered the hallway, glancing back at Jax.
He held up his meat tenderizer, giving her a little salute with it. “Swaddled,” he replied.
“My back is sweating already,” Marcus added. “I can’t imagine how warm you are in there.”
They’d wrapped Jax in the comforter up to his armpits, and duct-taped it securely around him. Skylar had cut a slit up between his legs, and they taped the armor around his thighs so that everything hanging off of Marcus’ back would be sufficiently padded.
He patted his marshmallow leg with the revolver, which they’d decided he would hang on to given his lack of mobility. “Toasty,” he admitted, “but if it keeps me from being zombie food, I don’t care if I’m running a fever after this.”
Skylar smiled at him and adjusted her grip on the butcher knife she’d selected. “Good,” she said. She was pretty proud of her handiwork with the fabric, having created a makeshift seat around Marcus’ torso, held up by criss-crossing straps up and over his shoulders. She wouldn’t be winning any safety awards anytime soon, but if they were able to pull this off and get Jax to safety on the roof unscathed, then she counted it as a win.
Marcus raised his two knives, having decided to don two since he had limited mobility. Skylar would be the one opening doors and such, so she needed a free hand.
“Let’s do this,” he said, and she nodded, taking a deep breath.
This was it. They had to make it through two floors of flesh-eating monsters in less than an hour in hopes of meeting a helicopter to get them out of here before the military bombed them.
Yeah, just another day in the apocalypse, she thought to herself, forcing the panic back down her throat. We got this, she urged herself, and led them down the hallway.
She opened the stairwell door as quietly as she could, and they slipped inside. The emergency lights still worked, albeit dimly, so they had a view of the silhouette of the barricade she and Marcus had built just before the landing on the penthouse floor.
She paused at the door to the fourteenth floor, chewing her lip for a moment. Time. Time was something they didn’t have much of… but there was something she couldn’t leave without.
“I just need to grab one thing,” she whispered, and opened the door to their floor, ushering Marcus to follow her.
As she quietly closed the door behind her, he furrowed his brow.
“Babe, what are you doing?” he a
sked. “There’s nothing in there that can help us.”
She pressed her palms together, eyes begging. “I’m sorry, I’ll be quick,” she said, and ran down the hallway to their condo.
She slipped inside and went straight for the office, kneeling down in front of the bookshelf. On the bottom, next to a set of vintage Tolkein’s, was a little wooden box. She flipped the latch and opened it, wrapping her hand around the silver coin inside.
It wasn’t an actual coin, or at least not one used for currency. She ran a finger over the etched mountain drawing on the front and then flipped it over.
Skylar, my heart, my life, my world.
She clutched it in her palm, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Her father had given her this when she was fourteen, when he was diagnosed with cancer. She’d been sure he would pull through, but he knew better, and as an adult she understood how naïve she’d been.
It was never easy to lose a parent, especially so young, and he’d gifted her the engraved coin as a reminder of his affection, even after he was gone. She’d carried it during every marathon. It was her lucky charm.
She kissed it and then stuffed it into her pocket, heading for the door. “Need your luck today, daddy,” she whispered, and then slipped back out into the hallway.
“Find what you need?” Jax asked, his voice a little on edge.
Marcus looked down at her pocket, seeing the outline of the coin, and offered her a sad smile, reaching out to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Skylar smiled back and then squared her shoulders.
“I’m ready,” she replied. “Let’s go.”
She led them back to the stairwell, and they moved back in as soundlessly as they’d moved out. She took a deep breath as they crept up to the penthouse barricade.
The shuffling feet and moaning from above was enough to make Skylar’s blood run cold, but she steeled her resolve and slid her knife into her belt, making sure it was secure. The last thing she needed was to drop her only weapon.
She grabbed onto a fancy-looking ornate chair, giving it a little wiggle to make sure if she removed it that the whole pile wouldn’t fall down on them. When nothing else shifted, she tugged it free and set it aside. She moved up and did the same with a nightstand, pulling it down and passing it off to Marcus, who set it down a little harder than he’d meant to on the landing.
The resounding smack gave the zombies above something to get excited about, and moans erupted. They echoed down and down the stairwell, and soon hungry moans from below the bottom barricade responded, brethren calling back that they wanted a snack too.
Skylar swallowed hard and tugged on a coffee table they’d stood up on its end as a makeshift wall. A snarl sounded on the other side of it, and as she pulled it down, a ghoul on the other side reached over a tv stand, clawed fingers snatching at her.
She pulled her knife while propping the table against one shoulder, using it as a shield as she stabbed forward. She managed to catch the zombie in the eye socket, and wrenched the blade free. She was glad she’d aimed for soft tissue as the blade scraped against the skull on the way out. She wasn’t sure the kitchen knives would cut through bone, and she didn’t need to be missing at a crucial moment or having her blade glance off of a head.
Skylar aimed again, stabbing another in the face, this time into the soft rotted flesh of the ghoul’s nose. As it slumped down, the ones behind it got even more excited and pressed against the barricade.
“Sky…” Marcus hissed, stepping up behind her.
She shook her head. “I don’t think we can pull this down without getting overrun,” she replied. “We’ll have to climb over.” She pursed her lips, thinking of how he was going to be able to do that with his Jax-pack. “Or, I’ll need to climb over, and then once it’s clear we can dismantle the barricade.”
“Here,” he insisted, holding out his second knife. “I’ll take your spot and try to get at them from here, distract them while you get up top.”
She nodded, glad that he hadn’t taken the time to argue with her. That’s why I love you, babe, she thought as she found a foothold on a thick bookshelf. You don’t waste time trying to talk me out of shit when I know what I’m doing. Time, time was what they needed to make the most of, and the danger of their situation didn’t really matter, considering if they didn’t make it to the roof they’d get blown up anyway.
She balanced on her knees at the top of the pile, and Marcus did what he’d said he would, waving his knife wildly at the ghouls.
“Yeah, come get some, bitches,” he snarled, and Skylar stifled a laugh. Her sweet Marcus using the word bitches? This truly was the end of days.
She inched her way over, as the bulk of the group clustered around her boyfriend. She’d hoped that she could just stab down from the top. But she wouldn’t be able to reach.
Here we go, she thought. Don’t freak out, babe. She studied the five ghouls and their positioning, and then took a deep breath, and jumped down to the floor.
Despite Marcus’ cry of protest, he managed to stab a zombie in the face, cutting the count to four. “What are you doing?!” He bellowed, but she didn’t answer because she didn’t want the group to realize there was a fresh meal behind them.
Skylar grabbed a fistful of one’s hair, jerking it back and reaching around to drive her blade into its temple. She dropped the body immediately as another turned towards her, snarling, and she lashed out without missing a beat, stabbing it in the eye.
“Hey! Right here!” Jax cried, Marcus’ voice yelling something unintelligible. Both men flailed, but couldn’t reach either of the two remaining ghouls as they turned to Skylar.
She eyed the railing of the top floor landing and made the quick decision to barrel forward. She darted to the right, and slammed her shoulder into one of the zombies, driving it back but not far enough.
She threw herself forward, shoving with her fists into its chest, but her momentum halted as the other one grabbed a fistful of her hair in a death grip. Her knives went clattering to the ground in her shock.
No no no… she thought frantically, but she couldn’t give up. If these things killed her, then Marcus would be faced with a fresh fast zombie and it would be significantly harder for them to get out. If she was just bitten, then at least she could still get them to the roof.
She lurched to the side in an attempt to deflect a bite, figuring at least if it was on her arm instead of her throat it wouldn’t be imminently fatal. She pushed hard against the ghoul at the railing, keeping its snapping jaws away from her face.
No bite came. She managed to glance back and saw that Marcus had a hold of the zombie’s shirt—he couldn’t reach it with the knife, but at least he was holding it at bay.
With renewed vigor, Skylar shoved forward again, her scalp screaming from the pull. This time she managed to tip the ghoul over the railing, and it hit the stairs below with a wet crack.
She reached up to grip the wrist of the zombie still twisted in her hair, trying to wrench it free. Just as she turned, she caught a glimmer of steel and a deafening BOOM resounded in the stairwell. Her ears rang, and she finally wrenched the rotted fingers from her hair as the corpse fell.
“Get this shit out of the way,” Marcus grunted, pulling at the debris from the barricade.
Jax stayed stock still on his back, staring at the smoking gun in his hand in shock.
“Hang on babe, hang on,” Skylar muttered as she pulled some of the furniture aside, shoving it into the corner and out of the way.
As soon as Marcus was clear, he was on her, holding her tightly as if he’d never let her go. “What the hell was that, huh?” he asked thickly. “You could have died, Jesus…” He buried his face into her hair.
“I’m sorry,” Skylar murmured against Jax’s arm, awkwardly caught in their embrace. “But it’s okay, I’m okay. We’ve got to move.” They parted, and she looked up at the gun-toting man. “Thank you.” She blinked back tears, not wanting to think about how this all could ha
ve ended so fast.
“Of course,” Jax replied hoarsely, and cleared his throat.
She knelt and picked up her knives, giving one back to Marcus.
“If there was time to switch,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d be switching you, you little hellcat.”
Skylar smirked, trying to bring some levity to the situation. “Don’t pretend like it doesn’t get you all hot watching me kick ass,” she teased with a wink.
Marcus blew out an exasperated laugh and shook his head. He motioned to the penthouse door. “Let’s do this, ass-kicker.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Miller barked out orders, sending soldiers to and fro on the lines to continue to take out zombies. They were almost finished with the current wave.
Lennox stood between two Privates, aiming downrange and taking down ghouls with utmost precision. He’d felt like lending his bullets to the cause was a must, especially considering this was their only hope of rescue. Jax had told him about the ships that came in on the lake, although Lennox had heard them he hadn’t known where the gunfire was coming from.
Hope had been tentative that the military would be coming to save them. But of course, the military’s focus wasn’t to save a quartet of civilians. Their higher ups just wanted to clear the city.
Lennox tried not to be bitter about it. He knew how it was. The Sergeant took his orders from his Captain who took his orders from his General, and so on, all the way up to the President, if that’s who was pulling the strings here. A full-on zombie apocalypse was a special situation, and it looked like they were clearing the city to hopefully build a safe place for humanity to survive.
Of course, that mission was damn important. And the soldier needed to press on, do everything they could, otherwise it would fail.
But on the other hand, if there were no civilians left to fill the damned safe place, then what the hell was the point of all this? One big giant military circle jerk?
Lennox shook his head, taking aim at another ghoul and dropping it. There’s got to be other survivors out there, he thought. Other communities, even. People to bring back here once it’s done. In any case, this particular Sergeant was the one who’d agreed to help his friends, so he was grateful for that.
Dead America The Northwest Invasion | Book 10 | Dead America: Seattle [Part 8] Page 4
