“And it didn’t.”
“It didn’t.” He smiled down at me, but it was tinged with sadness. “A week ago, we finally went into Albuquerque and applied for travel papers. We only made it this far before the first one of us came down with symptoms. So we stopped. Then someone else got sick, then another person. Soon they were all sick but me, then they were dead, and I was alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, genuine remorse for his situation tightening my insides. “How many of your friends died?”
“Seven of us left New Mexico together. I’m the only one who made it.”
He exhaled and without warning lay back, stretching out on the cement so he was staring up at the sky with his feet still in the water. I stayed where I was for a moment before taking the opportunity to swim to the side of the pool, pausing when I reached the ladder so I could look back at him. I’d told myself stripping down wasn’t a big deal, but I was grateful he was still focused on the sky.
Water dripped off me as I pulled myself up, splashing against the pool and onto the cement. Once I was out, I paused so I could wring out my hair, focusing on the puddle at my feet so I didn’t have to think about the guy at my back who now had an excellent view of my ass. Even so, my scalp prickled as I thought about how skimpy my underwear was and the way the wet fabric clung to my skin.
The sound of a door opening drew my attention, and I looked up to find Kiaya heading our way, one of the scratchy motel towels in her hand.
“I thought you might need this,” she said when she reached the gate.
She moved to open it but paused when she spotted Devon sprawled out on the ground, her eyebrows lifting.
He shifted so he could see her and gave a little wave. “I’m Devon.”
“Kiaya,” she said, opening the door.
He watched her for a moment as she headed my way, then his gaze shifted to me. It was dark now that the sun had disappeared, and in the absence of electricity to illuminate the area, making out his expression wasn’t easy. Still, I knew he was checking me out, and a flush moved up my neck to my cheeks, eventually spreading throughout my body when he didn’t look away. I did, though, choosing to focus on Kiaya when she stopped in front of me.
She shot me a questioning look but didn’t utter a word.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the towel.
I avoided looking at either of them as I wrapped the tiny towel around my body. It didn’t do a very good job of covering me, but it was better than nothing.
Devon pushed himself to a sitting position with a grunt. “What’s the plan now?”
“Sleep,” Kiaya said. “Then tomorrow we can go back to figuring out how we’re going to get out of here.”
“Any ideas?” Devon asked.
I worked to keep my expression blank even as my back stiffened. I wanted to look at Kiaya, to give her some sign that she shouldn’t tell this guy anything, but I was too afraid it would give us away. We didn’t know him, had no idea if we could trust him, and the last thing I wanted to do was tell him about our plan for siphoning gas and have him go behind our backs and empty every gas tank he could find before we had a chance to.
“Not at the moment,” Kiaya said, her voice even and her expression unchanging.
She was a hell of a liar.
“Me neither,” he said with a dejected sigh. “Maybe if we put our heads together tomorrow we can come up with something?”
“Maybe,” I said, working to sound as cool as Kiaya.
I must not have pulled it off, because Devon’s eyes narrowed on my face.
“I’m beat,” Kiaya said before anyone else could speak.
She lifted her arms and stretched, letting out a loud yawn. As usual, the gesture was catching, and only a moment passed before I yawned as well. Devon followed suit, turning his head and covering his mouth.
“I could use some rest,” he said once the yawn had ended. “See you in the morning?”
He looked right at me.
“Sure,” I said, sounding more enthusiastic than necessary.
I wasn’t a good liar.
Devon shook his head but didn’t call me out. “Okay, then.”
He headed off while I started gathering my clothes, taking my time about it so we didn’t have to walk back with him.
Once he was out of earshot, Kiaya whispered, “A friend of yours?”
“Hardly,” I said. “We’ve bumped into one another a couple times, that’s all. I didn’t see him sitting here when I walked up. He must have been in the shadows.”
“Can we trust him?” she asked as I pushed the gate open, holding it for her.
“I don’t know him, so I can’t say one way or the other. I do know I’m not willing to risk it.”
“Good,” she said, “then we’re on the same page.”
Devon had reached his motel room—which was right beside ours—and paused outside the door to look back at us. I gave him a smile that wouldn’t convince anyone, but since it was dark, I was counting on him not being able to get a really good look at it. He gave a little wave before going into his room, and the door shut with a click.
“We need to get moving early,” Kiaya said. “Get the car loaded and gather any other supplies we might need, then siphon as much gas as we can.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I need to check how much cash I have left. I don’t know if it will be worth anything on the road. Who knows what we’re going to come across, but it will make me feel better to have it.” I glanced toward Kiaya. “How much do you have left?”
She looked away. “Not much.”
“What’s not much?” I asked, suddenly remembering all the times she’d declined things like coffee and how she hadn’t even had change when we stopped at the Coke machine. I grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn and face me. “Kiaya, how much money do you have?”
She still wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I’m not sure, exactly.”
“Kiaya,” I said more firmly this time.
She only hesitated for a few more seconds, before sighing and saying, “I have less than five dollars.”
Less than five dollars? She couldn’t be serious.
“I asked if you had money before I agreed to let you travel with me, and you said yes. Were you lying?”
“I thought I had enough to pitch in, but I wasn’t sure,” she said, her gaze still on the ground. “I spent most of my money just getting permission to travel. You know how much that cost. I thought I had enough, but since I wasn’t positive, I found someone else to go with us.”
“That’s why you invited Kyle.”
“Partly, yes. Plus, he needed to get home too, and I figured between the three of us we could pool our resources and make it.” She finally looked up, and even though it was dark, her expression was apologetic. “It was my only shot. I had no idea how expensive things had gotten.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I get it. It’s okay.”
“It is?” She blinked, looking uncertain.
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s not great since I have no idea what we’re going to face and how much money we’ll need to get through it, but we can make it work. It’s not like there aren’t businesses we can break into if necessary.”
I grimaced even as I said it. It wasn’t easy adjusting to the mindset that we weren’t stealing when we took something, but I needed to because I had to make it home. Mom was counting on me.
“Kyle had money,” Kiaya said suddenly. “It’s in his book bag.”
“In the other motel room,” I reminded her.
We both turned so we were facing the first motel room we were given. The one that contained our traveling companion’s body.
I shuddered. “We’ll worry about that tomorrow. When it’s light.”
“Good idea,” she said.
We continued walking in silence, and it hit me that sometime over the last two days this had become almost normal for me. It was strange considering how much it had annoyed me when I’d first met Kiaya, but so mu
ch had changed since then, and I found I was glad she didn’t have to fill every moment with chatter. It wouldn’t feel right in this new world. It would be irreverent and wrong, and unnerving to have noise when surrounded by so much death.
Thinking about it made me shudder again, and I grabbed Kiaya’s arm, moving faster so we could get to the safety of our room.
9
I’d set my alarm for six o’clock, wanting to get the jump on Devon, but getting up early had become a habit with me over the past few days—probably because I was so focused on getting out of here—and I was awake before it went off. Without power, I had to use the flashlight feature on my phone so I could see what I was doing, but even that wasn’t going to last for long. I was at twenty percent on low power mode, and I hadn’t been able to charge it the night before thanks to the lack of electricity. Unless we got some gas soon, I was going to be screwed. Charging it in the car was the only option left at this point.
I took a quick shower—both because I smelled like chlorine from my swim the night before and because the days of being able to do it were numbered. Without power, the water wasn’t even lukewarm, and I was out in record time. When I came out of the bathroom, dressed but my hair still dripping, I found the curtains open and the room filled with early morning light, Kiaya ready for the day and waiting for me.
“I’ll only be a minute,” I said as I towel dried my hair.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, watching me from where she sat on the foot of the bed. “Maybe we should try to get to know Devon a little. If he’s a nice guy, he could help us. Plus, it seems shitty to leave someone in the middle of nowhere when you can help them.”
The warning Angus James had given me came back, and I paused in the middle of trying to soak the water from my hair. Kiaya had a point. Even if Devon hadn’t been a man, there was safety in numbers. But I wasn’t sure if we had the time necessary to get to know him, and I wasn’t willing to risk inviting him along without being a hundred percent sure.
“We’ll see,” I said instead of committing to anything. “Let’s follow through with the plans we made and see what happens after that.” Accepting that my hair was as dry as it was going to get for the moment, I tossed the wet towel aside and tucked my blonde locks behind my ears. “Ready?”
Kiaya got up, nodding. “Where to?”
“Let’s go to Kyle’s room first and get that out of the way.” I blew out a long breath.
I was dreading it but trying not to let my nerves over seeing another dead body get the best of me. It was time to get used to things like that. Time to toughen up.
You can do this, I told myself.
I repeated the pep talk over and over again as we headed across the parking lot, but it didn’t really help. My stomach was a ball of nerves.
We paused outside the motel room again, longer this time than we had before. Almost two days had passed since Kyle succumbed to the virus, and although I didn’t know much about decomposition, even I knew he’d be ripe by now—especially with no power—and my stomach was churning just thinking about it.
This was going to suck.
“I wish we’d thought of this last time we were here,” I muttered, taking a deep breath.
“We’ll make it fast,” Kiaya said. “You can hold the door open, and I’ll run in. I’ll grab his bag and run out. Less than a minute. That’s all.”
“Yeah,” I said, but I sounded as unhappy about it as I felt.
“Let’s do it,” Kiaya said, a little more impatient this time.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” I grumbled.
I turned the key, sucking in a deep breath and holding it before shoving the door open. The blinds were pulled shut and the room was pitch black, and now that the power was out there was no opportunity to even flip on the lights. If only we’d been able to find a couple flashlights at the gas station. With the battery on my phone as low as it was, I didn’t want to risk using it unless absolutely necessary, so I didn’t bother pulling it out. As soon as we had our gas and got out of this damn town, I was going to take Angus’s advice and load up on supplies. This was Texas. There had to be a gun or camping store around here somewhere, right?
Thankfully, having the door open allowed enough light into the room to illuminate everything we needed to see. Kiaya darted in the second I had the door open, and I stayed where I was, leaning against it with my breath held and fighting the urge to exhale as I waited for her to come back. She knelt to grab Kyle’s bag, and a zip followed, then she was standing. She started to turn, and I was ready and waiting for her to make it back outside so I could shut the door and breathe again, but instead of heading my way, she froze beside the bed. Staring at it.
I shifted, trying to figure out what she was looking at, but only the foot of the bed was visible.
I let all the air out of my lungs in a burst and sucked in more, nearly gagging at the putrid scent, and said, “Come on! What are you doing?”
“Kyle?” Kiaya said, not looking at me.
I took a step farther into the room, leaving one hand on the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Kyle—” Kiaya looked back at me. “I thought he was dead.”
The hair on my neck stood up as a feeling I couldn’t describe came over me. It was familiar, but at the same time so foreign I couldn’t put a name to it. When had I felt like this? When had I ever been in a situation when dread had pooled in my stomach? When my heart had beat in such an erratic rhythm? I didn’t know.
Kiaya was back to looking at the bed, and she dropped the book bag as she took a step closer, her hand out as if reaching for something. “Let me help you, Kyle. I’m so sorry we abandoned you. We thought you’d died.”
A moan sounded, and all at once I remembered when I’d felt this way. In the dorm after watching that stupid YouTube video. I’d walked to the lobby and hadn’t been able to stop looking over my shoulder. It had freaked me out so much.
Sounds like a fucking zombie.
The guy’s statement came screaming back, filling me with dread. It hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been. Zombies were fake.
Weren’t they?
Kiaya stepped closer to the bed.
“Stop,” I called, reaching for her with my free hand while holding the door open with the other. “Don’t go any closer.”
She looked my way. “I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is. He’s sitting up. The sheet is still over his head, but he’s moving. I can see him moving, Rowan.”
“Kiaya,” I warned, “don’t go any closer. That isn’t Kyle.”
“Of course it is.” She looked away from me, her focus on the bed as she took another step toward the thing that used to be Kyle. “I’m going to help you.”
I wanted to run to her, but letting go of the door would plunge us into darkness. Then what? How would we fight Kyle off if he was a zombie?
The thought struck me as so absurd that I let out a hysterical-sounding laugh, earning me another look from Kiaya. She was at the very end of the bed now, her gaze focused on me, so when he made his move, she didn’t see it.
But I did.
I saw the blankets shift, saw the bed dip and shake, saw the hand reach from the darkness. Inches from Kiaya.
“No!” I screamed and dove without thinking.
My body crashed into Kiaya’s a second before the door slammed shut, and we went down in a painful thud of arms and legs, hitting the ground as we were plunged into total darkness. A growl echoed through the room somewhere to my left, while beneath me Kiaya swore and groaned.
“Rowan, what the hell are you doing?”
“He’s a zombie,” I said as I rolled off her.
I was already reaching for my phone, tucked in my back pocket, but when cold fingers brushed my arm, a scream ripped its way out of me. It caught me off guard, and I dropped my phone as I scrambled away from the cold hand of death, losing it in the darkness. Kiaya’s heavy breathing sounded to my right, while somewhere in front of me were other no
ises. Inhuman noises. Moans. A snarl. The bed squeaking as zombie Kyle tried to find us. A growl, followed by a shriek from Kiaya.
“What’s happening?” I screamed, still scrambling to find my phone.
A second later, a snarl sounded inches from my face, and cool, moist breath hit my arm. My body was trembling as I ran my fingers over the carpet, searching for my phone. It was all I could think to do. The room was too dark to make a run for it—for all I knew, zombie Kyle was between me and the door—and I couldn’t find anything to fight him off with if I couldn’t see. Plus, I had no idea where Kiaya was, and I couldn’t leave her. Wouldn’t leave her.
She let out a yelp, and my mind conjured up images of decaying teeth sinking into human flesh, blood going everywhere in the process. A sob shook my body, but I didn’t stop searching the darkness for my phone.
Seconds later, Kiaya said, “Rowan? Where are you?”
“I dropped my phone.” I moved a little to the right, and my fingers brushed something cool and soft, sending me scrambling back again. “We need light.”
“Hold on,” Kiaya said.
My hand was still sweeping the floor when the light from her phone flicked on, illuminating the room and lighting up the distorted and decayed face of Kyle only a foot from me. He lunged, snarling as he slammed into me, sending me back. I hit the floor, my head slamming into it and him on top of me. He was stronger than I thought a zombie would be, stronger than he probably would have been in life, and desperate to get at me. I did my best to hold him back, my hands on his chest as he snapped his teeth in my direction, trying to take a bite out of me. To my right, Kiaya was shouting, and I yelled in response, barely registering what either of us was saying. I was probably yelling for help, telling her to hit him. I didn’t know. I just knew my arms ached, and he wasn’t going to let up any time soon.
Far Series (Book 1): Far From Home Page 11
