by K. M. Raya
I still don’t really get how these things are even walking. Back in the day, even before my military years, my dad, brothers and I used to almost religiously watch The Walking Dead. We’d Nexflix binge that show like our lives depended on it, but I never expected it to become our reality. Thinking about my dad and brothers is enough to have my chest tightening. Not for the first time, I wonder how they’re doing back in Nevada… I wonder if they’re still alive.
Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I curse my stupid doubts yet again. Of course they're alive. Dad runs a civilian militia that consists of around sixty or so retired military men, cops and firemen. There are some civilians with no training here and there, but most of them are farmers and big game hunters. Where we come from, though, everyone knows how to shoot and live off the land. Especially my family. Mom died when I was six years old, so dad basically took over the role of both mother and father. Not to mention my three older brothers, Travis, Niko and Scottie. They’re triplets, a meager three years older than me, and all of them are firemen. Needless to say, I grew up in a pretty male centered household. The ranch house we have in Nevada has everything we ever needed to learn how to take care of ourselves. Dad’s an ex army ranger, and since I was the only one to follow in his military footsteps, we’ve always been incredibly close.
“Where are we going?” asks Missy from the back seat, snapping me out of my own head. In the mirror, I can see her holding Nina’s hand, their fingers are intertwined like always. They’ve been together ever since they fell head over heels back in Iraq.
The medic with the goggles speaks up, his deep voice is soothing and lilted with an almost Spanish accent, but only barely. “We got a bunker a few miles out. Well head there for the night and wait out this storm.”
“What are your names?” I ask, looking at the man next to me. “I’m Helana, and they’re Nina and Missy. The monster back there is Anubis.” I’m trying to act civil now that the car is uncomfortably quiet. He guides the huge vehicle around debris, fallen trees and rusted out husks of what used to be cars. It’s tough to navigate in the dense fog, but it’s become the norm after a year of moving through it. The city's in ruins. Plants and trees have already started to encroach on the concrete jungle that humans thought would last forever. We we’re so fucking confident about what we’d created.
“I’m Wyatt, and the medic back there is Dante.” He nods his head in the vague direction of where the man with the goggles sits with Nina in his lap. Dante is a fitting name for him, I decide, all suave and much too handsome for his own good. “The dickhead next to your dog is Alex, and that’s Beretta in the back.”
“You can call me Ret,” the female interjects. Our eyes meet in the rearview and hold. Her’s are light almond brown, filled with a warmth I hadn’t expected. Her skin is olive toned, and her lips are full and wide. Dark, raven hair is swept off her strongly angled face in a long ponytail. She’s incredibly pretty, in a sort of badass GI Jane way.
“How’d that fire start anyways?” Dante asks.
Sighing, I sit back in my seat and attempt to get comfortable, not knowing how much longer we’ll be forced to stay crammed in this stifling car. “I’m pretty sure a fuse blew in the boiler room, it’s the only thing I can think of,” I lie. “I didn’t have a chance to check it out, but we barely got the generator running enough to keep the heat on.” I think back on our short time at Costco. I’d been surprised the generator even worked. Gasoline was hard to come by these days, and when you found some, you took it for your vehicles. We’d learned long ago how to live without electricity and running water. But traveling long distances is a necessity. We hadn’t come across a working vehicle in months. Still, I have this nagging worry in the back of my head that the fire wasn't an accident.
“That's some bullshit luck. Where were y'all headed?”
“North,” I say quickly, not wanting to give away more than that. Just, North. “You said you have a bunker… are there more of you back there?”
Wyatt shakes his head, his blonde hair sweeping his shoulders after falling from his bun. His big hand flexes on the steering wheel. “Nah, it's just us,” he says quietly, eyes flicking to the mirror and back again quickly. I follow his gaze and meet Alex’s haunted glare before he turns away with stiff shoulders and a tick in his jaw.
Something just passed between the two men and I can't tell what. Wyatt continues as though the interaction never happened. “There were more along the way, but some of em couldn’t hack it for long. We’ve lost a few, but the four of us have been together since before the end.”
I can relate. “Same here. We traveled with a small group about three months back, but we were overrun. Some of our people split without looking back, but a few got lost in the horde.” My eyes stray to Missy and Nina guiltily, but their faces remain stoic, giving nothing away. I’m not necessarily lying, just choosing to keep the whole truth close to home for now.
“Sorry to hear that,” Wyatt says. He’s being sincere, I can tell. I glance over at the man and our eyes connect fully. He gently smiles under his mask. I can see the way his cheeks lift his respirator straps up on each side. He turns back to the road as we pull through a set of broken down wooden gates that lead towards an old farm house just on the outskirts of the small city. All around us are barren fields that probably used to be corn at one point. Crops don’t grow any longer without humans to tend to it. A dirt road takes us behind a barn that looks like it’s been burned down a time or two.
“Home sweet home,” Ret chimes in from the back. The suv barely comes to a full stop before she throws the door open and hops out into the light, rainy evening. The storm is already dissipating, and I can’t help but glance over my shoulder every so often and stare at the orange glow of the Costco fire through the fog. It worries me, with all this dry grass and barely any rain. It's a recipe for disaster, and I know in my heart that we need to get out of this podunk town as soon as possible.
The rest of us follow Ret’s lead, and I immediately stop to make sure Nina can balance before slinging my bag over my shoulder. Missy helps her balance better, but Dante just comes right up behind them and swoops Nina into his arms. Her brown eyes roll as he struts. “Saving damsels in distress is my favorite pastime,” he announces proudly.
I can’t help but snort. “You’ve got another thing coming, buddy.” I shove past them and follow Wyatt, Alex and Beretta behind the ramshackle old barn.
Wyatt uses his boot to kick what used to be a burn pile of sticks and old orchard tree scap out of the way, revealing a soggy wooden door that he pulls open with a big heave. Beretta heads down first, taking a staircase down into the pitch black dark. Alex follows after her without a look backwards. I’m hesitant to go down there. We don’t know anything about these people, but from that grimace on Nina’s face and the darkening sky, we’re running out of options. Night time is the most dangerous in this new world. For some reason, the dead seem to thrive when the sun goes down.
“I know you don’t trust us yet, but I swear we’re not gonna hurt any of you,” Wyatt says. He places a hand on my shoulder and for some reason, I don’t pull away. His dark blue eyes shine with nothing but truth and kindness. A part of me feels like a naive little girl, so easily letting my guard down around a pretty face and some muscles, but Wyatt really does seem like a good guy with good intentions. All I can do is hope my instincts are right. Besides, if they were bad dudes, Anubis would already be munching on one or more of their faces by now. “We don’t meet many decent people out here these days, but we’re not about to turn away three women who clearly need help. But if it makes you feel better, you can keep your weapons on you at all times.”
That's rich. “That was never negotiable,” I tell him and he just smirks with his eyes. They shine a little more blue than before.
“You and I are gonna get along just fine, I think,” he says and he removes his hand from my shoulder. Cold replaces the warmth of it so I just awkwardly roll my shoulders. He
taps his temple with his gloved finger. “I have a pretty keen sense about people.”
“Do you now,” I drawl, making my way over to the hole in the ground.
He just hums silently as my body brushes his. He doesn’t step out of the way for me to walk. I smile under my mask, thankful he can’t see it. “Ladies first.” He gestures to the staircase.
Snorting, I make my way into the hole, taking the stairs one by one as carefully as I can manage with Anubis following closely behind. The lower I get, the colder the air grows. It probably smells like mothballs down here, but further below I can see a glowing orange light. It doesn’t take me long to get to the bottom. A wave of warmer air hits my face as my eyes adjust. Both Alex and Beretta have gone to different corners of the front room, and are unloading their weapons carefully. The others file in behind me. The room is musty and dark, and the only source of light seems to be coming from a small camping lantern hanging from the ceiling. Two dusty sofas are in the center of the living space, and an old coal burning stove is situated in the corner of the far wall with some sort of venting system that probably filters out above ground somewhere. It doesn’t look like much more than an old storage basement.
“It’s not much, but we’ve managed to keep warm here for about three weeks,” says Wyatt. He stands next to me with his hands on his hips. “Y’all are welcome to share it with us while your friend heals up, we’ve got some medical supplies in the back room.”
I just nod noncommittally as Nina and Missy hobble around his massive form. It’s a struggle, but they make it to one of the sofas and Nina collapses in a heap, closing her eyes and hissing air through her teeth. I rush to her, bending down and laying a hand on her forehead. She feels clammy with sweat dripping down the side of her face.
“Nina, I gotta take a look at that ankle, that alright?” Dante says from over my shoulder. Her brown eyes crack open and she takes him in from head to toe skeptically. She hesitates, but then nods.
Moving out of the way, I let Dante gather his supplies and squat down in front of her. Beretta is sneaking glances from over on the other sofa, and Alex is pretending to clean his gun. I watch him from the corner of my eye, wondering what makes him so pissy and rude all the time. His dark hair is swept back in a loose bun now, and without his jacket and gloves, I can’t help but notice the toned muscles of his tattooed arms as they flex. He may be a prick, but he sure isn’t hard to look at.
I’ve been with a few men in my life, the last one having been only months ago, but him I’d like to forget. The bastard wormed his way into my heart only the slightest, and the next week he was gone. When he and his buddies turned on our camp and outed us to the trappers, Liam was among the first to be taken out by the horde that followed the noise. I watched him die and pieces of my heart and all that’s left of my trust died with him. Good riddance.
After what happened, the last thing I need to be thinking about are Alex’s arms… or Dante’s smile, Ret’s plump lips and Wyatt’s lush, golden hair. Nope. No more dick for Hell. These legs are closed for business as far as I’m concerned. No trespassing, no exceptions.
A hand on my shoulder makes me flinch, but I look up and meet Wyatt’s concerned eyes. His mask is off, revealing a trim but thick blonde beard that matches his hair. He’s incredibly handsome, but I try not to focus on that fact yet again. He smiles tightly. “Dante’s a skilled medic. Don’t worry, your friend’s in good hands.” I shake my head, loosing a shallow breath. I hope he’s right. We’ve had some injuries along the way, but nothing too life threatening. We’ve come close a time or two, but somehow we all managed to stay relatively healthy despite every kind of obstacle popping up in our path.
“What are the chances we run into a medic out here?” I ask Wyatt, narrowing my eyes on him. “Not a single soul to be found in seven cities, and we find a medic in the middle of bum fuck nowhere?” Stepping closer, I poke a finger into the big man’s chest. “I swear to god, Wyatt, if you’re…”
“Calm down,” he interrupts, placing his hand over my finger on his chest. My whole body tenses and tingles at the contact, and it’s a fight not to show any reaction. “Just let him do his job.”
“Alright, Nina, just hold your breath cuz this is gonna hurt like a bitch,” Dante warns and it tears my attention away from Wyatt. Missy grabs her girlfriend’s hand and squeezes as Nina takes a gulp of air and holds it. Dante tugs her boot off and she shrieks in pain. A shiver runs through me—the kind I used to get while watching videos of people getting hurt—second hand pain and all that. “Shit, she’s bleeding,” he mutters.
Bleeding? Why would she be bleeding? I swear, not a single zom got close enough. I would have known.
Suddenly, Alex is there, ripping Dante away from Nina and shoving a small handgun in her face. Her eyes go wide and her neck cranes back away from the barrel, and I see nothing but red. Everything after that happens in slow motion. I don’t even think about it, I just twirl around, knocking the weapon from his hands before wrapping my arm around his neck while bringing the tip of my hunting knife to his throat, right below his ear. He struggles for a minute, but when the tip digs into his skin and a trickle of blood drops onto his collar, he slowly raises his hands in the air.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I hiss in his ear.
“Just calm the fuck down,” Wyatt warns. His hands are in the air too with his palms facing me, like a scared man trying to calm a wolf. Speaking of… Anubis is growling at Alex’s heels, not moving a muscle until I give him the signal, but we all know what that rumble means. He’d tear Alex apart in two seconds flat if I felt like it was necessary. Wyatt turns to Alex. “What the fuck, man, we’re pulling guns on people now?”
Alex hisses as my blade digs in a little deeper. “She’s bleeding, you idiots! What if she’s infected?” I can’t see his eyes, but I can imagine the way they blaze. “These bitches are putting all of us at risk just by being here.”
Tightening my grip on this dickhead, I lock eyes with the others one at a time. They stare back at me, wary and on edge. I get it. They don’t know me, so they don’t know that I have no plans to actually gut their friend, but I’m not going to be the one to let them know that. He crossed a line, and there’s no other way of making sure they know not to fuck with us.
“Hmm, would you looky here—Alex is bleeding, too.” My knife draws a few more drops of his blood. They land on the floor one by one with a very audible splat. Soft tendrils of his dark strands begin to curl against his flesh, soaking in the deep crimson droplets. Flickering my eyes back up, I smile bitterly, tilting my head sideways. Tauntingly. “Maybe it means he’s infected and we should just shoot him here and now. Like a fucking dog, right? No offense, baby boy.” I cut a look at Anubis and he whines, but his sharp eyes are still stuck on the man in my grip.
“You’re psychotic!” Alex wants to struggle, I can tell by the way his shoulders shake with so much pent up rage that I’m surprised he can manage it. This man has a stick shoved so far up his ass he might as well be a scarecrow. “You’re making me bleed, you bitch, let me go!” Still, he barely moves a muscle. Good.
“You were ready to shoot my friend before even checking her wound.” Bitterness courses through me. He’s a hothead. A trigger happy hothead.
“You’re putting us all at risk,” he argues, clearly not getting the point.
I laugh darkly. “We live our whole miserable lives in a constant state of fucking risk, asswipe. If you haven’t realized that by now then I can’t help you. Now slide that pretty little weapon on over to Missy while your artery remains intact.” I look up to Wyatt again. I don’t know why I keep feeling the need to track him, but he still watches me with shrewd navy eyes, as if he’s afraid I’ll slice through his friend’s neck at any moment. For some reason, the thought of him seeing me as a killer makes me recoil inside. I won't examine that feeling too closely, though. I don’t have time for that particular dilemma.
Grunting against my blade, Alex kicks
out his foot and the gun slides over the dusty floor, the sound of scraping metal filling the tense silence. Missy swipes it and stuffs it into the waistband of her cargo pants before moving in a little closer to the couch. She’s standing in front of Nina protectively, and I know there’s not a soul on this earth that could get past her. Missy’s always been the more protective of the two, while Nina has a softer side. I can see the primal need within my friend to keep her safe, and I know without a doubt in my mind that Missy would kill every single person in this room if it meant keeping Nina alive.
“That’s better,” I singsong, loosening my grip on Alex just the slightest. Now that his weapon is gone, I feel my shoulders relax and the tightness in my chest begins to dissipate. Wyatt is still to the side of me, watching my every move like I’m some sort of rabid animal. He tracks every twitch of my finger against his friend’s neck. I’m really not going to kill the guy, but I like watching them sweat a little.“Are we gonna play nice and check on my friend, or are we going to keep making assumptions and slaughter each other?”
Silence meets my question. I expected it. They don’t know what to do, that much is obvious. We’re at an impasse of sorts, but we’re running out of precious time. My friend is hurt, and we have no idea just how bad. In the world we live in now, there’s just no room for error anymore. A scratch or even a papercut could mean the difference between death or losing a limb. This whole thing just goes to prove how utterly fragile humans really are. How precarious our place on this planet is. It reminds us of who’s in charge. It’s definitely not us.
Wyatt steps forward, his massive self seemingly dwarfing everyone else in the room. His presence alone draws the eye wherever he goes. “He didn’t mean it—” he starts to say, but Alex cuts him off.
“Fuck yeah I meant it.” His shoulders tense, as if he anticipated some sort of physical reaction out of me. It’s probably what he wants, in all honesty. He wants me to fight him back. Anything to give him an excuse to say he was right. Well, I won't be the one to give him that excuse. He’s going to look like a massive douchebag when all this is over. I roll my eyes at his loose tongue, wishing I didn’t have to deal with a moody manboy after such a hellish day. I’m tired, and all I want to do right now is take the world's longest nap.
