“I’m Aaron,” he said with his hand out, which he quickly took back when he realized she couldn’t shake.
“Paula,” she replied curtly.
His mind swam through all the things he could say to break the rest of the ice, but the best he could do was, “That’s a nice name. Are you from around here or—”
“I’m married,” she said, still mesmerized by the ceiling, or annoyed.
“You don’t look happy about it.”
Those deep brown eyes found his with another familiar feature he hadn’t seen on a woman’s face in a long time: contempt. Without a word, she resumed etching the lines in the ceiling with her eyes. A blow-off, another long-lost treat from the fairer sex.
Sensing there was nothing more he could do here, Aaron left the dubious company of the prissy bitch and rejoined his brother.
“Get her number?” Alan quietly prodded with a smartass grin.
“Shut up, asshole,” Aaron hissed. His libido now cold as the air blowing onto his neck from the supposedly shut window slits, he leaned forward to keep warm.
*****
The Gamesman watched the bus disappear over the horizon, seething at his men’s failure yet smiling at his new fortune. Neither the cold air cutting into his face, the first snowflakes falling before his eyes, nor even the thought of losing Mercer right before it all could take away his grin. All he had seen and done up until now had merely built up some of the means to meet his ultimate goal, but this post-apocalyptic legend fleeing south may have been exactly what he needed to hit it home. And he would be home again, no matter what.
The hum of an engine rose and fell as a small fleet of trucks stopped behind him. He reveled in his fortune enough to face his men without tearing them apart for their … simple mistake. No, he needed them for his next move.
Gallahue rushed up to him and stood tall, a fresh scar stretching across his giant cheek and through part of his trim beard. “We threw everything we had at ‘em,” he said apologetically with that thick British accent. “What else could we do?”
The Gamesman just chuckled as he grasped and shook his lieutenant’s shoulder. “It’s okay, brother. We couldn’t have seen this one coming, but I assure you it’ll go our way.”
Gallahue looked past him before gawking at him like he was on crack. “But … they’re gone.”
“And we know exactly where they’re going to be,” he said calmly.
Gallahue’s eyes widened in shock. “If that’s true, then we’ll lose them to the Mountain Men.”
The Gamesman chuckled again as he passed his lieutenant to board the nearest truck. “That won’t be our problem.”
*****
Rachelle felt nauseated. It could’ve been leftover adrenaline, but she believed it was watching her mentor hold Cody’s pale forehead and the juice box he labored to drink, which was both sweet and sickening. She wasn’t sure if he was going to puke or drop dead, but she chose to believe God would keep him safe. The Lord had to be at work if they had survived a gladiator arena run by psychopaths.
Cody shook his mouth away from the straw. “I can’t.”
“You have to,” Didi insisted, following his mouth with the straw.
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You’re not on an I.V. anymore, either. You need to stay hydrated.”
“Hey, I’m a medic, too, you know,” he slurred as he tried to force the box away.
“Yes, you are, aren’t you,” Didi teased in a cutesy voice. “Now, drink up, Big Medic.”
Rachelle chuckled, but Isaac belted out.
“What are you laughing at?” Cody snapped, which made the big man glare back.
“Hey,” Didi hissed, drawing her partner’s ire back to her. “From what Gilda told me, you’re burning up, so I have no problems putting you outside to chill for a bit. Now, either you cooperate or you’re riding in the gun turret for Max. Capíche?”
Cody’s eyes narrowed at his deadly friend before he opened wide to receive the straw.
Didi happily placed it in his mouth, and the drama ended.
“Are we there yet?” he droned through the straw.
Isaac glanced at the tablet map above Bob’s radio. “Like another fifteen minutes.”
Cody’s eyes fell. “Great.”
“What’s the matter?” Rachelle asked.
The wounded warrior locked eyes with Didi, whose playful smile faded as she faced the nearest gun slit. He took a breath through his nose and spit the straw aside. “I was T.D.Y. in … Fort Carson … about seven years—”
“You were what?” Isaac asked.
“Temporary duty; visiting another unit for training. While I was there, I met this woman named Heather, a med student at Denver U. I mistook her for someone else at first, but we got to talking and … we hit it off like magic. We even wanted to get married.”
“What happened?” Rachelle asked after glancing at Didi, who seemed more interested in her closed window port.
“Training ended. I had to go back to my unit. I asked her to come with me, but …” His eyes fell again. “Things got ugly from there, and we agreed that getting married … wasn’t the best idea.”
“So, she dumped you,” Isaac said, which got more ire from Didi’s eyes than Cody’s.
“We broke it off,” Cody said. “I transferred to Germany soon after.”
“What happened to her?” Rachelle asked.
Cody shut his eyes and took another deep breath, speaking as if going to sleep. “Last I heard, she … got a job at Avera … Neuroscience Institute.”
“Where’s that?”
“Sioux Falls,” Didi said grimly.
Rachelle shuddered. “Oh, man. You think she got nuked?”
Isaac flinched. “Nuked? What’choo mean nuked?”
“There was a nuclear waste spill there in the middle of the outbreak,” Didi said. “Driver swerved to miss zombies or something; I don’t know. Clarissa told us when we first met her. According to her, the fallout killed half the city; the dead got the rest.”
“Man,” Isaac muttered. “That why y’all came this way to Cali instead of going south?”
“Very perceptive,” Didi said at the window with a broken voice. Cody was passed out.
Rachelle nearly reached for her mentor but stopped herself. She hated that she couldn’t offer any real comfort. “I guess he just had to know, huh?”
A brief laugh escaped Didi’s sad grin. “Believe it or not, I’m the one who convinced him to try after I caught him looking at her picture, which he still has in his wallet,” she added faintly.
“Still carryin’ that torch, huh?” Isaac teased the sleeping Cody.
Didi looked away again, which made Rachelle pop the tactless dickhead in his meaty arm.
“What?” he asked cluelessly.
Rachelle shook her head and watched her best friend sulk in silence, a miracled corpse unable to shed a single tear or feel a hug. She may have wanted to be as badass as Didi, but she never wanted to feel that lonely.
CHAPTER 12
GHOST TOWN
Snow flurries lightly coated the city of Colorado Springs, a place tragedy did not seem to touch. The only damage on any of the buildings Didi could see from the northern city limit was distinctly more elemental than panic. Yellow grass stood tall and undisturbed in every residential yard that snow worked its way to blanket. Not a single corpse littered its streets. The eeriness of the calm left her curious, which blessedly eclipsed much of her hunger.
“I’d say it looks like a nice place to live,” she said to her Panel and defenders in front of the reunited convoy, “if I had any proof of life here.”
“Where is everybody?” Isaac muttered under his binoculars. “I can’t even see no face-munchers here.”
“You think they all got out?” Rachelle asked.
Didi shrugged. “If they did, where did they go?”
“Anywhere with more warning that the Sioux got,” her pupil said contemptuously, then she c
ringed at the nearby descendent. “Oh, God, Bob, I’m sorry.”
The man seethed in his place. “Probably right.”
“We are close to an Army base,” Hashim pointed out, “so maybe that’s why.”
Bob’s clinched jaw remained unconvinced.
“Could they be the ones sending those signals from here?” Jerri asked anxiously, her hands fidgeting as she glanced all around.
The tension falling over the group thickened so much, even Didi sensed it. “Whoever may be here, we don’t know anything about them. They could be these Mountain Men.”
“Mountain Men?” Gilda asked.
“People in Denver talked about ‘em,” Isaac replied. “They take the young.”
“And if that’s true, we need to keep our young out of their way,” Didi added.
Hashim flinched. “The young? What happened to going to California?”
“I want to check out this whole signal business.”
The silence that followed left her uneasy, as did the terrified looks in her cohorts’ eyes.
“Nick got me curious, so I’ll leave the bus here in town and take a few people with me to check the base.”
“Checking out Denver didn’t work out too well,” Gilda said. “Why risk it?”
“If we don’t find out who’s behind these signals, we’ll never hear the end of it from Nick, and I’m not kicking him out for that,” Didi added before the elders could rebut.
“But what about these Mountain Men?” Craig countered anyway. “They could be using these signals to find young people to snatch.”
“They could have eyes all over this valley,” Hashim added.
“I don’t care how many they have, they’re not taking me,” Rachelle said.
“Good,” Didi said, “because I’d rather you stay here and defend the bus.”
“You mean like she stayed with us in the tunnels?” Jerri asked with a narrow glare at the girl in question, who sneered back defiantly. “She’s better off with you.”
Rachelle’s scorn gave way to vindication aimed at Didi, who rolled her eyes and gave in. “Fine. Craig, keep them safe?”
The blond lumberjack smirked. “Me and every gun with me. Right, Hashim?”
The kindly chef shook his head at the ground, as if he couldn’t even look at the guy who just volun-told him for something.
Didi faced her other defender. “Isaac?”
The Chicagoan scanned the mountains and shrugged. “I’d rather be lookin’ than waitin’.”
“Alright, then. I’ll leave Nick on the bus. We’ll use the tablets to keep in touch.”
“My computer can pipe through all your comms,” Nick’s voice demonstrated, making everybody smirk, “which picked up about twenty hits on that base right now.”
“Rude,” Gilda muttered, likely referring to the hacker’s eavesdropping.
Didi shook her head with an amused grin. “Where is the nearest one?”
“In the center of the base. I’ll give your tablet a mirror app, so you can track them, too.”
“Why not throw in some current satellite imagery while you’re at it?” Isaac asked.
“What am I, the N.S.A.?”
The big man grabbed the tablet from Didi and snapped at it. “You better be. You asked to come wit’ us.”
No response followed.
Isaac shoved the tablet back into Didi’s hands, which took some effort on her part not to drop.
Didi tried not to grin too widely. “Okay, then. Let’s find a good place to hide the camp.” Then something occurred to her. “Hey, Nick, are you on speaker or an earpiece?”
“The latter. Everybody in here thinks I’m talking to myself.”
She got a brief chuckle out of that. “Good.” She lowered her voice but made it firm for the benefit of all listening. “Don’t say anything about this whole Mountain Men thing. We don’t have enough info, and I don’t want to start a panic over it. Just keep everyone together, and we should all come out of this fine.”
“If these Mountain Men are fine with that,” Isaac muttered.
Didi nodded grimly. “I hear ya.”
*****
“And we’re just supposed to sit here?” Paula blasted Didi, making Sean worry she was about to overstep again.
“We’ll be done before you know it, and then on to sunny California,” Didi assured every shivering body huddled around her in front of the massive hotel.
“Are you sure it’s safe in there?” Chuck asked with a nod at its grand entrance, holding his young Leticia close to him like Sean wished he could hold his wife.
“We went th’ough da whole place, man,” Isaac said. “They ain’t no bodies, no blood, no nothin’. It looks like no one’s ever been here before.”
“Shouldn’t that be strange enough?” Clarissa asked, which got a lot of support from the camp. “What if someone set up this place to look safe so they could lure us in?”
Didi put up her hands to calm everyone, reiterating her point. “The building’s already clear, so you’ll each have a room to yourselves. You may conquer or share it at your discretion, as long as you don’t fight each other,” she added in the twins’ direction.
Sean wasn’t sure he could live up to that if he approached his wife. She hadn’t even looked at him since they stepped out of their vehicles for this meeting.
“Trust her,” came from Cody behind the group, which parted to allow Pepe to help him into the center of it all. “She’s more thorough than I am.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Gilda snapped.
“I’m going with Didi,” he replied resolutely. “I know the terrain.”
The elder nurse looked offended. “You are in no shape to do that. You need to take it easy.”
“I’ll be riding in a truck … with the best defenses anywhere,” the other boss insisted despite grunting through his words and each step he needed help taking. “The rest of you will be fine here … as long as you keep your guard up … and your heads clear.”
Didi stepped up to the stubborn veteran. “Cody—”
“I can help you,” huff, “even if I’m just sitting in the back.” Huff. “I know my limits.”
The crowd grumbled, some saying they’d be a better choice despite the fear in their voices. Sean considered it again, but he was already in enough trouble with his wife. Then silence fell as the bright gray sky sprinkled snowflakes.
Didi stepped aside and waved toward the Ford. “After you.”
The grateful Army medic nodded and had Pepe take him until Gilda blocked their way. “Hold on,” she snapped, which made everyone pause. Then she huffed under that glare. “If you’re going, I’m going with you. I’ll make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
A brief laugh escaped Cody as he reached for her. “How can I argue with my surgeon?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered while taking him from Pepe and leading him to the truck, followed by Didi and her two sidekicks.
Slowly though warily, the rest of the camp filed into the hotel.
Sean cautiously followed his irate wife inside and found its faded candy stripe walls and lavender ceilings littered by spider webs. A thick sheet of dust dulled the finish on all the beige and maroon furniture, but nothing was broken in any way. The air was frigid and stale, which was far better than rotten. He wanted to take that as a good sign, but he kept his eyes peeled.
Then he realized he was alone, and he missed which way Paula went. He tried the left hallway.
All doors remained open, giving him a chance to see which rooms were occupied. The further he went, the warmer—or, rather, less cold—he felt. All he saw in each open door was someone or some family examining their temporary lodging. Hashim plopped onto a twin bed like George Washington’s cherry tree hitting the grass. The A-twins bickered over who would sleep where, while Craig rolled his eyes at them outside their door. Clarissa rolled her eyes at everything they said through the wall in the next room while pacing with her baby.
Pepe and Dawn arranged medical supplies around the next room while Roy grumbled on the bed. Chuck pretended to body slam Leticia into one of two beds, the gangly little girl giggling the whole time.
The last door in the hallway was guarded by the spiky-haired woman who had been riding shotgun in the tanker, a redheaded Night Shift guard whose name Sean couldn’t remember. Inside the door, Paula stared out the window of a room with a queen bed. He wasn’t sure if she was waiting for him or sulking again, but he dared to knock. The redhead just watched him.
Paula faced him with no warmth or ire. “Hi.”
“Hi,” was all he could say.
A grin crossed her face as she looked around, but he could tell it was forced. “Crazy day, huh?” she asked with a fake laugh.
“But we made it.”
She nodded awkwardly, making him worry about what she wanted to say … or not say.
“Are you okay?”
Paula put on another brave grin. “I’m just surviving, again. I should keep my mouth shut and go along, but I’m so afraid for these kids and I don’t get to watch them.”
“I am, too, but I’m more afraid of losing you.”
She smiled briefly, but a bitter darkness crossed her face. “It would be easier if you didn’t run off every chance that came along.”
Sean recoiled. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”
She looked like she wanted to fight and held back. Another forced smile. “Yeah, you are.”
He smiled, too, and approached … until she spoke again, almost absently.
“Always here, even when I don’t want you to be.”
His head spun trying to figure out what the problem was now. “You don’t want me here?”
A sad laugh escaped her. “Sean, I don’t even know why I’m here anymore. I can’t keep anyone with me. I can’t keep these kids safe. I can’t keep the few friends I made here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He died because of me, you know,” she said somberly. “Xing. I left the chain in Isolation, when we first got there. They found it because I left it, and they killed him with it.”
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