“What? What are you talking about?” I ask, helping Kristen’s mom out of the chopper, Kiwi’s cage clutched tightly to her chest.
“Noah, I haven’t been completely honest with you. Your mother,” he exhales deeply over his quivering lips, unable to get the words out. “We’ve been… I, I’ve been having an affair with her. For the past few months.”
“What? With my mom?”
“I’m a selfish man. I don’t mean to be, but I am. I should have left my wife years ago, but for the sake of our family, I didn’t. I lied to your mother. I told her… that I planned on getting a divorce. But I didn’t. She died not knowing the truth.”
Paul knew. It hits me all at once, like a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. He knew about the affair. He blamed me, as if I had any control over it. That’s what he meant, about me not caring that his family was being torn apart. He accused me of not giving a damn because I was selfish, and as long as I got what I wanted, nothing else mattered. He thinks I just wanted my mom to land a rich doctor, so I wouldn’t have to live in that tiny apartment off Main Street anymore. He thought I was trying to steal his life. It’s all starting to make sense now.
“Maybe it’s better she didn’t know,” I say, unable to look Dr Hopkins in the eye, but trying to let it go. “To have died, believing the lie. I had no idea. She never mentioned it.”
“I should have done more to save her. But I panicked, and I ran. I know now that it was too late, but for those days, locked in that room, my decision haunted me. A decision I didn’t choose to make, but that I let fear make for me. The same way I’ve made most decisions in my life. I’m choosing to stay here. Finally. I realize it’s too late, but I’ve put myself here. I understand why you can’t let my son get on that plane with you, and I think you’re doing the right thing. And for once in my life, I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to stay here and be his father.”
All I can manage is a head nod that I hope says more than any words could. Because I understand. I forgive him. I don’t blame him for what happened to her. Or what happened between me and Paul. I can’t find the words to tell him any of that right now, but I think he understands. The subtle sigh of relief tells me he does.
“Noah,” Felecia whispers, “you got this? I’m gonna go give Sami a hand over there. She’s wailing away on them with the spiked ball thingy.”
“You need help?”
“Nah,” she says with a smirk, “the girls got this one. Besides, there’s like four left and they’re in pretty rough shape.”
I peak in the chopper for the first time as she skips across the rooftop, ponytail swinging, god I love that girl.
How the hell did everyone fit in here? Most of them are out of the cabin and it’s still cramped.
“Kristen, what are you doing?”
“We can’t just let him get away with it.” She’s sitting there, calm as can be, gun aimed at her boyfriend, currently cowering in the corner.
“It’s okay. Just let it go. Like Jenny taught us. He knows what he’s done wrong,” I say, glaring at Shane, trembling, his leg straight out in front of him. “He’s suffering for it. If you pull that trigger, he doesn’t get to suffer anymore. That’s you putting him out of his misery. Let him live with it. Let him hobble through this wasteland for as long as he can, waiting to be eaten alive, while the guilt eats him alive.”
She closes her eyes, breathing deeply. “We’re really leaving?”
“We are.”
“Okay. Shane, you were my everything. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you.”
“Kristen, baby, I didn’t–”
“Shut up! I may not have been enough for you, but I get the chance to be enough for someone else.” She lowers the gun, leaving the chopper that we all should have been in together. “I hope the pain you caused her is the last thing you think of while they eat your insides.”
“Noah,” he pleads, knowing Kristen won’t have it, “it was a mistake.”
“I know,” I say coldly. “Followed by another, and another, until you couldn’t even see what was right anymore. This was your chance to start over. You chose Blake Oliver, and Joseph Buckley. You have to live with that, Shane. With the fact that Doug’s dead because of you. Your decisions killed him.”
He drops his head in shame, unable to hold eye contact with me. A part of me feels bad for the stranger on the other side of the helicopter, who watched his life crumble away, one bad choice after another. The excuses didn’t make it right, they just reminded him that what he was doing was wrong. Until he lost himself in mistakes there’s no coming back from.
“Rodriguez, are you guys alright?”
“I am,” he says, groggily. “Collins, not so much. He hit his head, I don’t think he made it. I’m just too scared to move, I think if I do, this whole thing’s tipping over. Get the gurneys out first. The kid’s been asking about you.”
What? Sami’s brother? He speaks?
“You fuckin’ did it.”
Tyrone! That was Tyrone’s voice. He’s alive!
“Tyrone? Oh my god, you’re up? You’re alive?”
“Turns out, the brothers don’t always die first.”
“Holy shit, are you alright?” I ask rushing in to see him, strapped onto his stretcher, which is strapped onto some kind of foldout bed in the wall. He is so going to make fun of me for crying right now.
“Define alright. I’m alive, because of you. Thank you Noah, for not leaving me. I know it woulda been easier.”
“Come on, let’s get you out of there. You gonna be able to walk, if I hold you up?”
“After what you’ve been through, I have to. I’d look like a wuss if I didn’t. Can we just pretend I’m holding you up though?”
“You got it buddy.”
The door to the roof flies open as we step off the helicopter, Tyrone holding me up because I wouldn’t be able to walk without his assistance right now. Shhh, just play along for him.
Buckley stops dead in his tracks when he realizes where he is. But it’s too late to turn around, Maxwell and Scott are stepping out after him. A wild animal, cornered, knowing damn well what’s coming.
He just reached the end of the line. And there’s no one here to save him. No one left to do his fighting for him. His followers have fallen.
Men like him don’t need to fight. They just need to persuade others to. The most dangerous kind of man there is, the kind that never needs to lift a finger. The kind that preys upon the weak. The kind that truly believes wrong is right and convinces those around him to believe it as well. Wicked men have always ruled the world. But it’s not theirs to rule any longer.
CHAPTER 44
“What in the holy hell are you doing here? I don’t know how you did it Britton,” he growls between helpless wheezes. “This is my victory! Not yours. You’re a poison to everyone around you.” He spits at the ground, but the gentle breeze blows it back onto his leg. “You’re no hero. You’re no leader. You’re not even a fucking man! I won, god dammit! I outsmarted all of you. I led us to safety. And this is the thanks I get. Burn in hell. Every last one of you.”
He’s too fired up to notice Felecia creeping her way closer from behind. He doesn’t notice until it’s too late. Until her boot is colliding with his big Buckley balls. It lifts him off his feet, crumpling him into a heap on the roof, howling in pain when he lands on his dislocated arm. The kind of agonizing squeal you expect to come out of a wounded animal. He can barely even breathe, coughing more than he can inhale.
Kristen and her mother take Tyrone from my arms, I mean, he helps hold the two of them up, while I approach Buckley. Felecia yanks the chainmail vest from his torso. Caylee’s vest. The one he stole from her when he knocked her out in the hall. Because that’s the kind of man he is.
He tries to crawl away, digging his bullet hole hand into the gravel, blood seeping from his bandage, too injured to fight back.
I know what he’s going to try to do, he wants to
throw the small stones at me. But the others see it before I even have a chance to react.
Maxwell presses her heel into his forearm, forcing him to release the rocks with an agonizing yelp. Scott and Felecia each step on an ankle, holding him in place. For the first time in his life, he’s defenseless.
I squat down beside him, nope, body’s too sore for this, we’ll drop to one knee instead. “I never understood it. It just didn’t make sense. Even as a kid, I knew you hated me. But I finally get it. All this time, you’ve been scared of me.”
“Ha,” he tries to laugh but winces in pain, his face smooshed into the sharp edges of the small stones by Maxwell’s foot.
“Oh you can deny it all you want, but you’ve been terrified of me since the day we met. I thought it was because you didn’t want me breaking all your precious records. I was naïve. I see now, it’s because you didn’t want me breaking your way of life. I thought it was a competition between me and Neil, and you were just trying to give your son the upper hand. But it wasn’t that at all, was it? You were trying to break me because you knew I could beat you. And you were right. You weren’t helping your son, you were helping you.”
“Fuck you,” he groans, voice too frail to be threatening, despite his best efforts. The sick smirk on his pained face is enough to tell me I’m right.
“I thought I was crazy. How could someone like you, the great Joseph Buckley, be so scared of someone like me? I get it now,” I say ruffling my fingers through his hair, patronizingly, knowing how much it’s pissing him off. “It’s because of this moment. You knew I was gonna take you down, apocalypse or not. And just think, it wasn’t even me, it was your own flesh and blood. The heirs to your throne. You were so close. If only you didn’t get tackled off the helicopter by a little Latina.” His entire body tenses up at the word. “You could have ruled this world.” Fire rages in his eyes as I lean in to whisper, “but you failed.”
His angry whimpers are enough to let me know, he understands this is the end. He understands even more when Maxwell grabs his ankle from Felecia and nods at Scott. Together, they drag him, kicking and screaming as best he can, across the jagged rooftop. The sounds of a man who knows it’s over.
Felecia presses her forehead against mine, holding my neck tenderly with her free hand, no words needed. We lost more than we should have, but in the end, we won. We overcame every obstacle thrown in our path, and somehow, we won. I’m not sure I believe it, I don’t know how long it’ll take for it to sink in.
When I turn around, Sami’s helping Dr Hopkins and Rodriguez pull her brother out of the chopper. Even from here, I can see the relief in her eyes, and the burden. The burden that’s hers to bear now. I’m going to make sure she doesn’t have to. We’ll get him the care he needs, the care that will allow her the chance to be a kid for the first time in her life. So many things have been stolen from her, I won’t let her childhood be one of them.
A door to some sort of command tower slams shut as Maxwell and Scott walk away. She pulls him into her, wrapping her arm around his shoulder as they make their way towards us. He takes the grenade from her outstretched hand and nods, knowing what he has to do. Knowing that we can’t leave his father the way I left Paul. The way I left Shane. The threat he poses to this world, even if it’s no longer ours … he has to go. His sons understand that more than anyone.
“This is for you Neil.”
He pulls the pin and tosses the grenade, putting an end to his father’s lifelong reign of tyranny. It doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. Because he’s not saying goodbye to the villain we’ve come to know, he’s saying goodbye to his father. To the good times they had. To the bond they shared. To the past we all have to let go of.
The explosion shakes the building, sending the broken helicopter crashing to the ground below. Shane, still in it. I can read it on Kristen’s face. I can hear it in the heavy breath that leaves her lungs. Ridding her of the past. Erasing what was. And allowing her to begin again.
This is a new beginning for all of us. A chance to be who we couldn’t. The amount we’ve had to sacrifice for this moment, it’s immeasurable. But here we are, leaving our world behind.
We file down the stairs in contemplative silence. What do you say in a moment like this?
It’s over. It’s finally over. It doesn’t feel real. Then again, none of this has felt real, not since Tuesday morning. It’s like waking from a dream despite not falling asleep. An out of body experience inside your own body. It all feels foreign yet familiar, no clue what truly lies ahead for us. The day one survivors.
Oh no, what’s that rumbling? I know Felecia feels it too because her grip tightens around the handle of her sword as we push through the front doors. I swear to god, if it’s a thousand of them looking for revenge for what we did to their relatives, I am going to be one unhappy camper.
“Go,” I shout over my shoulder. “Try to get everyone in the Humvee.”
“We’re gonna see something we don’t wanna see, aren’t we?” Felecia asks, jogging by my side as we warily round the building.
We’ve heard this before. When you put enough of them together, they sound like a jet preparing for takeoff. That low rumbling of a thousand corpses groaning is something you feel vibrate through your core. Every time I hear an engine start, the first thing I think is mob of infects. And I probably always will.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
It’s a school bus. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a parade of them chasing after it, but that’s a school bus racing around the back side of the small town airport. I don’t need to see the puffy gray mustache to know who’s behind the wheel. That son of a bitch, he got us a vehicle big enough to fit everybody.
Talk about full circle. I remember running along the sidewalk in front of the school, Felecia clinging to my back, seeing Marty and Caylee pull up in the bus, and thinking, we’re saved. If only we knew then what we’d have to go through to actually be saved. That there was no being saved, that we’d have to do it ourselves.
Am I crazy to say I wouldn’t change any of it? Yeah, fine, maybe a few things. I know Doug would be standing here right now. Norwood and Neil would be with us. Caylee would be beside us, hopping along, refusing to let us out of her sight for even a second because we always wind up getting ourselves into some shit.
If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t have let my friends become my enemies. I would have taken my dad with us, hoping the man I once knew was still in there. I would have–
“Noah,” Felecia whispers, tugging gently on my arm, staring straight ahead with a misty look in her mesmerizing eyes.
Why does she look so concerned, there’s maybe three of them? The distracted infects aren’t even looking this way. I don’t think they’ve realized we’re here, or that there’s a bus rapidly approaching. They’re too preoccupied with whatever’s on top of the storage buil–
Caylee. Caylee’s alive!
CHAPTER 45
Caylee’s on the roof of some kind of out building, a shed maybe. She’s up there. Alive. I know she’s alive because she drops to her knees, shaking her head, covering her mouth in disbelief. I can hear her relieved cries from here, pulling her hands from her face and opening them in our direction like she’s hugging the air.
It hits me all at once. We’re leaving. All of us. Caylee included. We’re leaving the apocalyptic wasteland America’s become.
We’re going home, wherever home is now. It doesn’t matter because we’re together, one big family. We’ll be a couple members short, but all things considered, we couldn’t ask for much more.
It feels like we’re walking on clouds, jogging towards the girl we didn’t want to live without. Because we’ve become more than friends, this is forever. I don’t know how long forever is in this world, but whatever it is, it won’t be long enough. These are the people I want to be around.
Girlfriend and sort of ex-girlfriend becoming best friends, with me somewhere in the middle.
Hanging out with a soldier, an eleven year old girl and an old man. I think Tyrone and Kristen would be my only friends left that no one would raise an eyebrow at. But it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, not as long as we’re together.
“I’m not even gonna pretend to know how you’re here right now,” Caylee laughs, tears streaming down her cheeks as she waves to us so hard I’m worried she might pop her shoulder out of its socket. “Oh my god, please tell me this is real. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Girl,” Felecia sings, “we’re Nolecialee. We’re forever. Now how the hell did you get up there?”
“I pole vaulted,” she chuckles, pointing to a metal pipe on the ground before wiping away her tears. “And Daddy said track would never get me anywhere. I dropped my sword though. And these three won’t leave.”
“You mean, these guys are harassing you?” Felecia shouts, clanging her swords together. “Hey, twat waffles, she’s mine!”
They stop banging on the wall long enough to face us, their eyes growing wide with excitement. You can tell they’re not the brightest when the old guy with a hook for a hand spins too quickly and gouges one of his partners’ eyes out. Pirate Jimmy Bob breaks into a sprint before the others, his hook still lodged in Overalls’ eye.
It tears from his face, goop secreting from his decimated socket as he gets dragged behind the clueless pirate. I get the impression these guys wouldn’t have acted much differently had they not been infected. Middle of nowhere desert town like this, I bet they were dating their sisters and eating people long before the rest of the country.
Pirate Jimmy Bob hasn’t figured out why he’s barely moving, pulling his lanky comrade behind him, giving the woman in her tattered pajamas the chance to take the lead. Twenty bucks says those poop stains were there before the outbreak started.
The fact that the outbreak has already claimed a small town in the desert hills, no less than an hour’s drive in any direction to the nearest civilization, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the country. I don’t see how there could be anything left.
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 27
