Love and Decay, Volume One

by Rachel Higginson

Nelson dropped his hands to his knees and let out a huge breath of relief once she was safely off the ladder. “That woman is going to kill me.”

  Hendrix slapped his back. “You’ll be fine, you big baby. Well, until tomorrow morning when she has to climb back down again.”

  Nelson stood up to glare at his older brother.

  Vaughan went next with Page on his back. She held on so tightly to his neck that his face turned red even before Hendrix and Nelson even lifted him up. Watching those two climb was worse than watching Haley. Page slipped once, but Vaughan already had his footing and managed to grab her arm before she could fall.

  I was just as bad as Nelson by the time they reached the top.

  I went next. Nelson and Hendrix each grabbed a leg and hefted me up. Their hands dug into my ass and legs, but they managed to keep me stabilized.

  They would have made excellent spotters on my high school cheer team.

  I grabbed the bottom rung and tried not to be sick when it swayed and creaked unhappily. I hung there for a few moments trying to work up momentum to swing my legs up when something smacked my ass. Hard.

  I looked down to see Hendrix land on his feet.

  “Hey!”

  He grinned up at me, like what he had done was the most adorable thing in the world.

  It was not. My butt cheek still stung.

  “Was that really necessary?” I heard Nelson grumble at his brother.

  Clearly gloating, Hendrix said, “It was absolutely necessary.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Would you have passed that up? That ass?”

  Nelson’s tone changed to be more understanding and impressed. “Alright. You have a point.”

  That was all the incentive I needed to get moving. Dummies.

  Once I got to the top, I spun around to see how Nelson and Hendrix planned to get up here. And I had to say, I was pretty impressed when they both took running starts and jumped up to the bottom rung. The entire structure shook with each of their attempts, but they got the job done.

  Now we just had to hope that Zombies didn’t have the Parkers’ vertical.

  I moved out of the way so Nelson and Hendrix could swing over the railing. Our group spread out onto both billboards, resting our backs against the worn signage and stretching out our legs.

  For hideouts, this one actually wasn’t so bad. There was one very sturdy side, the back of the billboard. The railing would keep us from tumbling over the side although it wasn’t foolproof. As long as we were safe, this could definitely work.

  The metal catwalk shifted and groaned beneath our weight. The air smelled like a sweet earthiness and the sun dipped low over the horizon. It glowed with a brilliancy I hadn’t admired in a long time. Clouds appeared in the sky in beautiful pinks and purples, hovering over the burnished gold of the sun. I inhaled a deep breath and took this moment to enjoy being alive.

  When was the last time I did this?

  Sure, after a near death experience, I would take the time to appreciate the fact that I was still alive. Or maybe not alive, but at least not dead.

  The truth was, I hadn’t noticed life in a long time.

  “Whatchya thinking about?” Haley poked my thigh over and over until I pulled myself from that fleeting happy place and looked down at her.

  I stepped over her and the peanut in her stomach and sat down next to her. Our backs rested on the back of an advertisement that had been washed away with time and weather, and our ankles dangled off the ledge. We faced the other billboard, but our attention was on the vastness of the Mexican desert.

  Had there ever been this kind of hopelessness before? Had anyone been caught in such a desperate snare?

  It didn’t feel like it. It seemed like we had found the direst circumstances in all of history to try to live through.

  Did that make us brave?

  Or stupid?

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I told Haley. “I was just… breathing.”

  “It’s getting more and more difficult, isn’t it?”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, “Not all of us have children sitting on our lungs, Hales. It shouldn’t be hard for me.”

  She laughed unexpectedly. “First, I don’t have children sitting on my lungs; I have one child in there. And I don’t think he’s technically sitting on my lungs. But I am way less informed about this pregnancy than I should be, so I guess it’s a possibility. And second that’s not what I meant. It’s harder to breathe because there’s more to care about, more to love… more to protect. This life just keeps getting harder and harder. I don’t know how to cope with it sometimes.”

  “Do you ever think about when it was just the two of us? I sometimes think it was easier then, even if we were all alone.”

  Her head dropped to my shoulder and she let out a long sigh. “I’ve thought the same thing, but I would never go back.”

  “Me either.”

  “Really? Even after Kane? After what happened with Matthias?”

  I let her words settle over me and my spirit sift through the too-many feelings swirling around inside of me. “I’m glad I met Kane,” I finally admitted. “Even after everything. In the end, whatever he added to my life significantly outnumbered what he took from it. I wouldn’t give him up.”

  “Sometimes it still shocks me that you actually fell in love with him. I don’t think I’ll ever understand everything that happened between you two.”

  That made two of us.

  But I didn’t know how to explain that to Haley. I couldn’t seem to find the right way to put the words together. I thought maybe I would figure it out someday, maybe it would all click together and the emotion and depth of heartache I felt could be easily defined. But not today. Today, I would hold it close to my heart and hope it somehow healed me instead of ripping me apart.

  “Oh!” Haley exclaimed suddenly. She grabbed my hand and smashed it to her stomach.

  “What are you-”

  “Shh!”

  I obeyed. I had been conditioned to shut up when someone I trusted told me to; it was the nature of this world I lived in, even if I didn’t immediately understand.

  “Do you feel it?” she asked in an excited rush after a few moments.

  “Oh, is the baby moving?” She nodded and stilled so she could wait for my reaction. Pretty soon, her hard, rounded stomach started to flutter. It was like ripples on a pond. The soft rolling movement that probably felt incredibly different to Haley seemed impossible to someone like me.

  There was life in Haley. She had created something real, something living… something beautiful. And yet that miraculous creature would be born into a world of death and destruction. It would never know peace or safety. It would be forced to fight for survival from the second it took its first breath and joined an Apocalypse that it had no part in.

  “Are you scared?” My voice was a whisper and revealed the fear that I felt. I didn’t even want to voice the question; I didn’t even want to speak it into existence. But Haley was more sister than friend and I couldn’t let it hang there. I wanted to be there for her no matter what, even in the hard places.

  Even with the hard questions.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “And every day it gets worse.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. She took a steadying breath, “I thought it would be easier once the pregnancy progressed. I don’t know why I thought that. I guess I was just so worried about losing the baby first. I thought if I could make it a few months, I might have a chance. But now… I don’t know. I’m more afraid of losing the baby now than ever. And what happens if I don’t lose the baby? I mean, I honestly can’t even comprehend what labor will be like. My brain refuses to even accept the possibility of giving birth. And after that? If I live through that? I have an infant! Me! I will be in charge of another human life. A tiny human life. Then what? Reagan, this… I can’t do this. I can’t even think about doing this! I’m completely freaking out and I-”

  I slid to my
knees and faced her. “Stop, Haley. Stop, please.” Her chin trembled and her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but she quieted. We were far enough away from everyone else that they didn’t seem to be overtly listening to our conversation and that gave me some courage. My hands still shook though when I gripped hers tightly and my voice quavered because I was just as afraid as she was. “Do you remember the first days we were on our own? Do you remember how scared we were? We didn’t even know how to shoot a gun! We cried ourselves to sleep every single night! Well… when we could sleep. I was a hot mess and you were just as bad. We couldn’t picture the future or what it would look like when we finally figured out how to load a gun, shoot it and aim it. We had no idea we would meet all of these people and that they would make our lives significantly better, more livable. We’ve already been in this same place, but somehow we survived. We pushed on, we took each day and each night as they came and we figured it out.” She pressed her lips together and nodded. Queasiness washed over me as I remembered those early days, but what I said was true. We hadn’t thought we could survive beyond that first week, but somehow we had. And we kept surviving. And we would keep surviving. “That’s what we’re going to do with this baby. We’re just going to keep pushing on, taking each day as it comes and each new challenge with the same determination we’ve done everything else. Hales, we taught ourselves to kill, to survive at any cost. This baby is in good hands.”

  Her smile wobbled, but it was a start. “Just keep telling me that, okay? I don’t think I can do this without you.”

  “Obviously, you can’t. You’re so lucky you have me.”

  “I really am.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and we hugged. The baby continued to kick at us both, reassuring us that he or she was still alive and well.

  “I’m lucky to have you too, Hales. So lucky.”

  “I know, Babe. I know.”

  I squeezed her tightly for another thirty seconds and then let go. “It’s okay to be scared, Haley. But I promise we’re going to make it through this.”

  Her expression sobered and her voice quieted when she asked, “How do you know?”

  “Because we’re survivors, Hales. That’s what we do.”

  She didn’t get the chance to agree or disagree. A familiar sound made every single one of us pause. All of us pressed our backs against the rusted metal and fell immediately silent.

  This danger grew closer, the noise increased in volume.

  Not a Zombie horde this time, but a vehicle. The purr of an engine broke up our soft conversations and made us feel all of the fear and anxiety that came along with living in such a dangerous world.

  The billboard construction hid us from sight. The opening of the V faced away from the road and our monster truck should be hidden from sight. Besides, it was too dark now to see far.

  The new car had its headlights on while it sped down the highway. The yellow lights bounced off the rock and cacti, breaking up the peaceful twilight we had been enjoying.

  Vaughan and Hendrix moved over to peek through slits in the metalwork, watching the progression of the vehicle closely.

  The car seemed to slow down when it passed by the billboards. I prayed they couldn’t make us out, hidden behind Mexican advertisements. The engine roared and sputtered as the driver punched the gas and drove off.

  The engine sounded vaguely familiar, but my mind had to be playing tricks on me. I didn’t know engine sounds. At all. And I never would have remembered the distinct sound of one. Besides, our engine was the only one I’d even been around lately.

  It made no sense why I felt that way.

  I brushed off the feelings and went back to my silent vigil until the car decided to be on its way.

  I couldn’t see what it looked like or who happened to be driving it, and chances were I didn’t even know who they were, but the very idea gave me chills. I pictured faceless humans behind tinted glass with a trunk full of weaponry and psychotic intent to track us, find us and take us back to Matthias.

  It was safe to say that the Colony had forever damaged my opinion of humanity.

  I would rather run into Feeders than other humans. At least I knew exactly what to do with Zombies. At least I knew exactly how they felt about me and what their intentions were with my friends and me.

  Humans could not, under any circumstances be trusted. But we weren’t to the shoot-on-sight stage yet either.

  The gray area that surrounded other people wasn’t acceptable. I either wanted to kill them all or save them all. I hadn’t decided yet which way I was leaning.

  By the time the sounds of the engine faded completely, I had to suck in a quick breath. I hadn’t let myself even breathe with a new threat so close. Thank goodness it didn’t last long, or I would have passed out.

  I gave Haley a relieved smile and she returned it.

  “Shit,” Hendrix cursed, effectively killing my good mood. “We should have killed them.”

  I felt the movement as we collectively turned to Hendrix, silently demanding an explanation. His back stayed to us as he continued to watch the road. His attentiveness toward the highway raised the hairs on the back of my neck and sent nausea spiraling through me.

  Vaughan tried to keep his cool when he said, “We don’t know it was them.”

  Hendrix’s head snapped toward his older brother and his shoulders tensed until it looked like he had turned to stone. “Vaughan, don’t-”

  “Hendrix, that isn’t the only truck like that left in the world. We don’t know anything yet, so we’re not going to panic.”

  “Fine, we won’t panic. But we sure as hell are going to be prepared. If I see that truck again, I’m taking it out.”

  “You’re just going to start killing people? That’s your big plan?” Vaughan didn’t try to disguise the disgust in his voice. Clearly his gray area was bigger than mine.

  “First, I’ll shoot the tires. Does that make you feel better?”

  “No,” Vaughan shot back. His voice softened when he said, “But it does make me feel safer.”

  Hendrix didn’t have a snarky response to that so he nodded once and turned back to the road.

  “What is it?” Nelson demanded when Vaughan didn’t immediately offer an explanation.

  Vaughan ran a steady hand through his wild blonde hair and invoked the role of our leader with a fast breath. A second before he had appeared nearly distraught with his indecision, but something clicked inside of him. He was absolutely in control now. It was amazing how quickly he could take charge. Probably one of the reasons we found it so easy to follow him.

  “We think it was those bounty hunters. The truck looked identical to the one they were driving a couple days ago.”

  “Wait.” He had my full attention now. “The bounty hunters from before we crossed the border?”

  “Yep,” Vaughan confirmed. “But we don’t know for sure. It’s all just… speculation at this point.”

  A maniacal laugh escaped my chapped lips and I felt the hysteria leak through me. “Hendrix is right! We should have killed them because now they’re just going to kill us.”

  Chapter Two

  I jumped to my feet and pushed through Vaughan and Hendrix to peer at the road. The truck had been gone for several minutes by now, but I couldn’t stop staring at the place it used to be.

  The bounty hunters had followed us.

  Why hadn’t we thought of that possibility?

  God, I had never felt so stupid!

  We had let them go and taken off to Mexico, but those assholes knew where we were headed. They obviously couldn’t predict our every directional decision, but we had been stopping overnight. They could catch up with us and then pull back and wait for us to take off again.

  We had been on the lookout for humans and Zombies alike, but it had never crossed my mind that humans would purposefully stay out of sight.

  “They’re gone now,” Hendrix reminded me.

  I spun around and glared at him like this was his
fault. It wasn’t. But I wanted someone to blame. “For how long? They’re going to realize they passed us along the way at some point. Then they’re going to come back. Then what?”

  “Then I kill them!”

  The rest of the group had been silent during our exchange already, but after Hendrix’s words left his mouth, I could feel the silence still. It was as though he had sucked all the air from the room and left us frozen and confused.

  He shook his head once and ran a hand through tangled hair that had become long and untamed over the last couple months. He needed a haircut. Or maybe he didn’t. I kind of liked the shaggy, over-the-ear-brushing-the-shoulder look.

  He refocused and met my shocked gaze. He dropped a heavy hand to my shoulder and dipped his head a little so that I would hear him clearly. “I didn’t mean that. At least not in the cold-blooded serial killer way I said it.” He looked at the rest of the group spread out on the two sides of the billboards. “Really, I didn’t mean that I would… kill those people. Not unless they seriously provoked me. I just meant… I just meant that I would do whatever it took to keep us safe. I will protect us no matter the cost. But it’s simpler to shoot out their tires. So that’s what I would do first.”

  We took a collective breath of relief and I relaxed under Hendrix’s touch. It wasn’t as though we weren’t above killing people that threatened our safety or our lives. But no matter how much killing, shooting, savage self-defense became a part of our day-to-day, saying it out loud still bothered us. All of us.

  I wasn’t the only one that had an internal outcry of the heart at Hendrix’s harsh words. It was like my moral compass dug its heels into the ground and stuttered to a stop. I was not against self-defense. And I was not against killing in the name of self-preservation. Or, really group-preservation. But Hendrix turned it from something that we were forced to do into something we wanted to do. He evolved killing for the sake of survival into murder.

  And I was not okay with murder.

  What I used my bat and gun for kept this group together and kept myself alive. Murder was what Matthias Allen did to Tyler’s dead boyfriend.