by Mary Martel
The gorilla's next words stop me cold just as I make it to the hallway.
"Is this some kind of book porn thing I've never heard of before? Where the hell did it come from? Did one of you get this to beat off to when we went out on our last run?"
Jesus H. Christ, they weren't all supposed to know my secrets like this. It doesn’t seem fair to me.
"It's mine," Joseph rushes to reply.
"Liar," Grandma Ross yells. "It's Emerald's. She was reading to me about hard cocks, and I enjoyed it. Until she turned back into an asshole. That girl, now, she really needs a bar of soap for her mouth, it's atrocious."
Fuck it, I run.
Call me a coward. I don’t give a shit.
They can keep the damn book for all I care. At this point, I don’t want it back.
I rush down the stairs and go in search of the old woman's whiskey.
Joseph can’t be all that creative, so I’m hoping I won’t have to look too hard to find the alcohol. I’m not legally old enough to drink, but it’s the end of the world. Who’s here to stop me? Besides the footsteps now pounding down the upstairs hallway, anyway. Damn it all to hell. Fuck the whiskey.
Charging out the door, I take off around the house in a hurry, all while trying to make sure I don’t push my ankle too far. Heading into the woods, I know it’ll be harder for any of them to track me through here. Maybe it’s wishful thinking that they’ll trust me enough that they won’t bother coming after me at all. Either way, it won’t be difficult keeping a good pace away. The dead leaves already littering the grass-covered floor would be a giveaway. Even I’m having trouble keeping my footsteps completely silent as I maneuver around them like a minefield.
Once I’ve put a good distance between myself and the house, I duck behind a tree to patiently squat and listen. When I don’t hear any signs of being followed, I let out the breath I’d been holding and plop my ass right on the ground.
If I was a fucking smoker, I’d be firing one up right now. That mother effing heifer threw down the gauntlet and humiliated me in front of an entire house full of dudes. It even beats that stupid stunt back in middle school when I’d gone to my friend’s pool party and half my class had seen my tampon string hanging out of my bikini bottoms. Not to mention, it was one of our first preteen boy girl parties. My crush had been there and witnessed everything. At the time, it was mortifying, but the sweet boy that he was acted like it never happened and still asked me out. I seriously don’t see the silver lining of my current situation. Hopefully, there’s a yet in there because I’ve never been more tempted to smother someone in their sleep before.
Scrubbing my palms over my eyes, I sigh, realizing the wild man might actually be on to something. I legit might be a psychotic sociopath. I mean, who the fuck thinks about smothering a granny? As I ran, I’d kept the lake to my left, so I wouldn’t get lost in the woods.
Glancing across the water from my location, if I squint my eyes real hard, it looks like there’s smoke mixed in with the clouds right above the trees. But if there was a fire that close, I should be able to smell it. There’s nothing hitting my nostrils other than the scent of stagnant water and a natural woodsy tinge. Nonetheless, unease stirs in my gut. That damn thing has never steered me wrong before, so what had originally started as a getaway quickly becomes a recon mission.
I’m not dumb enough to move any closer without backup from the guys, so I drop belly first into the dirt and leaves, keeping my body as low as possible. Adrenaline spikes through me, and I swear I can hear every sound within a seventy-mile radius at least.
A couple hours later, my stomach starts to growl. That’s when you know you’re being spoiled in the apocalypse. When your belly growls from not having eaten in a few hours. I’ve laid in the dirt so long that everything feels numb. My tits are even protesting as I come to my knees before standing. The only thing I have to show for my paranoia is my numb limbs. With the sky slowly filling with clouds, it makes those small puffs of smoke appear practically invisible. There wasn’t any kind of movement on the other side of the lake other than what the breeze created either. I’d love to chalk this shit up to simple suspicions, but my gut says otherwise.
Which is exactly the reason why I slowly back into the tree line even further before turning in the direction of the house. Keeping my eyes trained on the other side of the lake makes it a perilous walk back, but I don’t want to miss it if something happens to come out of the woods over there. Not like I’d be a sitting duck or anything. This lake is huge and oddly shaped, so it’d take someone at least half a day to walk around the damn thing. Unless they’ve got a small boat stashed somewhere.
Then another thought hits me. What if they’re hunters? One of us could easily be mistaken in these woods as a deer or one of the fuckfaces. Maybe we should start wearing a bright color or some shit. I’d legit haunt any bastard who killed me after I survived this long with the stench fest.
As the house comes into view, a feeling of safety washes over me. It kickstarts my heart into overdrive. All this time spent trying to save myself from these dudes and here I am, happy to see their stupid faces. I am so fucking fucked.
Would that be such a bad thing?
Shit. I’ve got to get a handle on things before it starts getting more out of hand than it already is. Kemp and Sam are already to the point of acting like archnemeses. How would the rest of them act if they knew what the wild man and I did in the shower? Things to be pondered and discussed later. Right now, I need to tell them about what I may have seen.
No one is outside, which is strange, but I head into the house without searching for them. If they aren’t inside, they’ll eventually wander back. Should’ve known I wouldn’t have to worry about it. They’re all posted in the kitchen in what appears to be a family meeting. I knew they’d been having them without me since I shut them out, but no more. Clearing the air will do us all some good, but first we need to check into that smoke.
“Great timing,” Noble all but grunts, making all heads swivel my way.
Noble
Watching Emerald stroll into the house like she’s as carefree as a bird has me torn between wanting to hug her tiny ass or strangle her. I’d called us together to decide what we wanted to do about getting her back. She’d raced out of here hours ago like the devil was on her heels and I’m the least of the worriers in our little group. I thought Sam and Kemper were going to start smashing shit when the latter said to give her space. They’d argued long and loud enough that Gramma upstairs had even struggled her way out of bed to find out what was going on. Honestly, I think she was just checking to make sure we weren’t yelling at Emerald like that. She’d given us all an earful for sure before we could backtrack out of her room, saying we don’t know how to treat women and all of that. I guess some habits are hard to break, or maybe she’s living in denial and doesn’t want to admit to the world changing the way it has. No matter, though, because she got her point across real quick.
We are a household full of men with one girl. Any of us would have to be blind to not see the way she reacts with the others. It’s going to have to come down to making her choose, and I can only hope that we can keep our little family group intact afterwards. In no possible way have I put myself out there on the option table for her because I’ve got to have at least a good eight years on her. Kemp isn’t too far off from that number, but he’s made his interest blatantly obvious. I’ll have to be the one trying to hold us all together once everything is said and done.
Always the sacrificial lamb, as my mom used to call me. She’d prided herself on the fact that she had a son who’d fought on foreign soil in the Army. Even as I’d risked my life to save my squadron and almost didn’t make it back to her, she’d still tell anyone that would listen.
But with all the training I’d received while serving two tours, it wasn’t close to being enough preparation for something so catastrophic as walking dead. That shit is reserved for books and movies, not real life
. By the time I made it back to the States, I’d just signed my release papers from the military when hell broke loose. I thank God every single day that my mom passed away a couple years ago. If the debilitating rheumatoid arthritis hadn’t done work on her body, I’m sure the stress of being constantly on the move while fighting for our lives against monsters would’ve caused her a stroke in the least. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her. I’m just glad she doesn’t have to be here for this.
When I realized how bad it was about to get, I packed my duffle and gear into my Jeep, not looking back in my rearview when I left the house I’d grown up in with my mom. That only lasted a day or so before the devastation really hit home for me. The streets were packed with vehicles also trying to make an escape from the city. I’d had to abandon mine on a side road off the highway and book it on foot from there. Not like I wasn’t used to it or anything. I just wasn’t expecting to come home and be thrust face first back into a war zone.
That’s when I met Kemp. Trying to stick as close to the highway as I could while still avoiding the swarms of bodies, living and dead, was almost impossible. Over twenty hours on foot without stopping to sleep, I’d heard screams from kids on the road and hadn’t hesitated to take off toward the sound.
The scene I’d stumbled upon will haunt my dreams for years to come. Fucking Zs were everywhere. They weren’t the slow, rotting corpses they now are either. In those early days, they’d still had the ability to run, driven by the desire to feed. People, parents and children alike, were trapped in their cars with no place to escape. Some had tried to make a break for it and were now lying in pools of blood being devoured by the cannibalistic monsters. I had my AR-15 to my shoulder with the safety off before I could process what the repercussions of my actions would be.
Without wasting a single shot, I spent almost two whole clips on the Zs around us. I’m not even sure I took a breath until that last one dropped. By that time, sensing the immediate danger was over, the living started flowing out of their cars. I’m sure I looked every inch the savior in my murdered-out camos with a rifle in my hand, but I wasn’t. I’m still not. Doing the best I could, I directed them to the nearest military base I knew had been set up for civilians then left them standing there trying to figure out their next move. There was nothing else I could offer them. Especially not safety when I wasn’t even sure if I could keep myself alive.
Half a mile up and off the road I’d caught onto having a tail. Turned out to be a red-headed savage, looking meaner than a viper and asking if I wanted company out of the city. Just as I’d opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t interested, he’d yanked the sleeve of his shirt up, displaying the Special Forces tattoo on his bicep. One brother to another, it would be nice having someone to watch my back. Then maybe the next time we came upon people needing help, I wouldn’t be flying solo and might have a better way to assist them.
From that point on, we’d found the doc first and then the others that now make up our little family. I’m surprised they’ve all taken to Emerald and Sam the way they have. We’ve all been through some traumatic shit and lost people close to us, so I wasn’t expecting the two of them to work their way inside the circle so easily. And I know for a fact, it’s more than just having a woman in the house that isn’t Gramma. They’d been drawn to Em from the moment she’d slashed that Z in the alley, saving Dex and Joseph. Can’t say it doesn’t turn me on having a woman around that knows how to defend herself either. I’m just as bad off as the others, but I’m not putting my name in that race. Nor will I be betting on the winner.
“We’d been just about to send out a search party,” I tell her, crossing my arms over my chest. I know it stretches my shirt at my shoulders and biceps, making me look huge. It’s not an intimidation method with her like it would be with someone else. The move is habit and one of my only defenses with the tiny woman. Of course, the spark of pride in my chest is a bonus as I see her eyes flick down to my arms then back up, leaving a slight blush on her cheeks.
“Yeah,” she starts slowly. “Sorry about that. I just needed a minute to decompress, but that’s not important right now.”
Her words seem to have lit Sam’s very short fuse because he yells, “What do you mean, it’s not important. You can’t just go running off like that, Em. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in hell on Earth.”
She takes a step toward him, but Dex’s hand reaches out to grab her inner elbow. Lips pressed tight, she doesn’t shove him off, nor does she comment on Sam’s admonishment.
It’s not like she really gets the chance to anyway as Joseph sitting on the counter between Kemp and I, announces, “You shouldn’t be ashamed to read that kind of stuff. It’s lonely times. We’ve all got to get off somehow.”
If I wasn’t so curious about her response, my face would be hitting my palm. Hard.
“That’s right, crazy,” Kemp says with a grin creeping across his face. “We’ve all got to get off.”
He can’t possibly mean…by the glare of death she sends him while that blush turns cherry red, I’m going to guess that he meant it exactly the way it sounded. My heart feels like it drops straight to my dick. There may be a smidge of jealousy in there, but to know she’s been finding pleasure makes me feel the one hundred percent male that never died with this disease-infested world.
“Why the hell are you talking to her like that?” Sam demands, moving to stand in their line of sight of each other.
Doc, standing off to her side opposite Dex, glances my way. That one look says he knows as well as I do what’s about to go down.
Then Kemp opens his mouth again and throws the room into chaos as he proudly states, “We helped each other get off in the shower yesterday. Didn’t we, crazy?”
“You motherfucker,” Sam snarls, charging around the table.
Kemp meets him halfway and ducks just in time to miss the fist thrown at his jaw. Shoulder dropping into Sam’s stomach, he shoves him backwards, practically running over Emerald in the process. Luckily, Dex still has a grip on her arm and pulls her out of the way so it’s only a shoulder graze. But I still see red when it almost takes her off her feet. If it hadn’t been for Dex, she’d probably have ended up on the bottom of that pile of assholes.
Does that shit stop her? Not this hard headed ass girl.
“Stop fucking fighting, dickheads,” she yells, jumping out of Dex’s arms to barrel into Kemp’s hip. The intent was probably to break them apart, but all it successfully does is stop the punch he’s about to land on Sam’s face before they roll, giving the latter the upper hand. Crashing into a small table beside the couch, they send some crystal bowl thing to the floor with a shattering of shards. Kemp flinches like one catches him, and I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for him if it did. It’s what he gets for starting this shit.
“Noble!” Russ demands, his eyes dropping back to the fight.
Damn it all to hell.
As I move toward them, the doc goes with me. He locks his arms in a chokehold around Sam to yank him off Kemp. I reach out a hand to help the dumb fuck up off the floor, knowing he won’t be going after the hothead again with me standing here. A drop of blood drips down his temple as he gets to his feet.
“That’s how it’s going to be, huh?” Sam snarls at me, fighting to get out of Graham’s hold. “He can go around touching innocent girls, and you’re just going to help him up?”
I step to close the distance between me and his smart mouth, but Emerald squeezes in just in time. She shoves him in the belly hard enough to steal his breath and rock Graham back on his feet. “You do NOT get to dictate what I do with my body. I’ve put up with your stalker shit, Farmer Ted, because you’ve had the best of intentions, but this is where I draw the fucking line. I’ll do what I want, with who I want, whenever the damn hell I want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Kemp’s snicker reaches my ear, and all I can do is crush my eyes closed with an internal groan for the dumbass be
fore stepping out of Emerald’s war path.
She whirls on him so fast, I’m barely out of the way
“And you, shit-stirring asshole,” she starts, stomping over to him and poking him in the chest. “Just because you wanted a quickie in the shower does not mean you should throw it in their faces.”
Her chest heaves as she turns to the rest of us, making sure to lock eyes with each of us in turn. “This thing we’re in isn’t normal, so I’m not going to pretend it is. Call me fucking crazy, but I’m not choosing between any of you. It’s simply more than limited options for me. So, if the thought of me being with someone else in this room pisses you off, you better not come knocking on my door. Otherwise, keep your fucking traps shut about what we do behind it.”
My dick presses against my zipper painfully as her eyes find mine again. I didn’t think I was in this race, but that gaze says differently.
“You’re more than a limited opt—” is all Kemp gets out before her hand closes over his lips with a loud smack. His eyes narrow, but it’s from the fucker’s smile underneath those pretty fingers.
Turning a fierce glare on Sam who’s no longer fighting the doc, she holds the room’s attention. “I’ve been shutting everything out to make it easier when I run as far away from here as I can so that I didn’t have to face this.”
Tension floods the room so thick it’s visible in each of our postures. The frown that mars the doc’s face. The way Sam’s muscles go rigid. The angry drop in Kemp’s eyebrows.
A deep sigh slips between her lips. “I should’ve said when I try to run. Surviving this long on my own, I didn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff and thought I never would again. I want to stay, but no more fighting each other, especially over me. We’re in this as a team.”
