“Sorry about that. Not used to being around guns without ear protection, eh?” Luke said with a grin.
“More like, just not used to being around guns at all.” Paxton put his arm around Luke’s shoulder as he helped him walk.
Paxton looked around at the small fort he was inside. It looked like there was another wall, made from random debris and another big rig truck on the other side. The entire place stretched the length of two houses on the residential street. There were two houses on each side of the street that looked like had been fortified on the backside. He could see the sheet metal sticking up high from the cinderblock fence behind the houses.
“What is this?” Paxton asked.
Luke laughed. “It’s my neighborhood. Well, part of it at least. A few of us got together and put it all together when it all went down.”
“That fast?”
“It’s not like it was overnight. But yeah, pretty quickly.”
“How did all of you make it?”
“You mean, like, why are none of us dead? Or dead and walking?” Luke asked. Paxton nodded in response. “I don’t know. Lucky, I guess. I don’t want to waste my sleeping time watching some lights in the sky. The job is stressful enough with enough sleep. As for everyone else…” Luke shrugged.
Paxton had been friends with Luke since high school. They were better friends back then, and life started happening. Still, he managed to always keep in touch and still grab a beer from time to time. Luke was a police officer and had odd hours with his schedule. At least he did when he first started, so it was hard to get together. Now, he seemed to have a good grip on what was going on, or at least how to deal with it. Paxton was grateful. “How many of you are there?”
Luke pointed to Ben up on top of the truck. “Ben up there, he lives in that house with his two brothers, Ryan and Matt. That house over there belongs to Larry and Gina.” Paxton followed Luke’s finger canvasing the neighborhood. “Then this one is Wendy and Peter, they have two teenage boys, Will and Mark. Then of course, next door is me and Sherry.”
Paxton nodded. “Sherry?” He raised his eyebrows at Luke.
“Yeah, it’s been some time hasn’t it. Sherry and I moved in together a few months ago. Although, if she hadn’t, I’m sure she would’ve now.” He laughed.
“I just can’t believe none of you turned soulless.”
“Soulless?”
“Yeah, it’s this thing this guy called them.” Paxton felt the stab wounds on his back when he thought of Daniel.
“Well, I think that sounds fuckin’ dumb. Let’s call them what they are. Dead motherfuckers that walk.”
Paxton laughed. “It’s good to see you, Luke.”
“Come on, I want you to meet Sherry, and we’ll sit you down, get you a beer or something.”
Inside the house, Paxton sat at the kitchen table with his arms flat, trying to stabilize himself. He had taken his shirt off, and Luke was looking at his back.
“Dude, this looks fuckin’ nasty.”
“Nasty like, infected nasty?” Paxton asked, worrying.
“Nah, just fucked up. That dude sliced you up good. I would probably take some anti-b’s just in case, though, so it doesn’t have a chance to get infected, but I’m also kinda talking out my ass about it.” He took a big swig from the bottle of beer he held and set it down on the kitchen counter.
“Do you have any?”
Luke smiled and went to the cabinet. He pulled out a bottle and tossed it to Paxton, who barely caught it without falling over. “I keep a stockpile on hand for apocalypse type situations.” Luke grabbed a beer from the fridge and put it in front of Paxton after opening it. “Down the hatch, buddy.”
Paxton took a swig of the beer, letting the cold, sweet bitterness flood over his tongue. He swallowed, along with the pills and set the beer down. “That’s delicious. What is it?”
“Dude, it’s a grapefruit wheat beer. This nano-brewery just opened up not far from here, and they’re making some awesome shit.” Luke paused and thought for a moment. “Well, at least they were making some awesome shit. I suppose all of that is done with now.”
Paxton nodded. The comforts and life they had known before was definitely never going to be the same again. Things like going to the store to get a beer, or sitting down at a restaurant for a meal, or even going online to get something shipped to you. Those things were all gone. He hadn’t thought about it as much since he was so focused on getting to Stacey. It didn’t depress him as much as he thought it would, but he supposed he could be in an endless loop of shock.
“What are you guys talking about in here?” a woman’s voice said from around the corner.
“Hey, babe, this is Paxton. He’s been a longtime friend that—”
“The youth pastor, right?” Shelly said as she stepped into the room.
“That’s me, I guess,” Paxton said, taking another swig of beer. “I’d get up from the table and shake your hand, or even hug you, but I don’t know how easy it would be for me to get up since I’ve sat down now.” He smiled at her, looking at her thin frame. He noticed she was a very attractive lady but lacked the amount of class he liked. She wore a tank top with her bra straps showing and her stomach showed between her short top and her low jeans. It didn’t bother him any, and he thought that she was probably perfect for Luke.
“It’s great to meet you,” she said and went in anyway for a hug, bending over in front of Paxton to do so. He embraced her, and when she pulled away, he noticed her top hang low and gave him a good view of her breasts. It could have been an awkward situation, but he forced himself to look away when it happened.
“Luke filled me in on the gist of things, and I’m really sorry about what you went through,” she said, and Paxton could tell how genuine she was with her words. He liked her immediately.
“Thanks. That’s a little bit why I came here.”
Shelly grabbed a beer, giving Luke a playful squeeze in the pants when she walked by him. “No problem, man, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. We’re setting up a more permanent solution soon.”
“I appreciate that, but it’s actually more than that. I need to get to my wife. I wasn’t with Stacey when it all went down and now, well, I have to find her.”
Luke nodded his head, seeming to understand. “I hear you, man. But, and I hate to say this, have you thought about, what if—”
“Luke, do not say another word,” Shelly chimed in, her voice stern. “I would hope you would do the same exact thing if this were you in his situation. His wife is gone, and we need to help him. Whatever the outcome, he needs to find her.” She looked at Paxton, smiling, and gave him a wink. Paxton’s opinion of Shelly only skyrocketed.
“Alright,” Luke said, not defeated, but also not happy he was put in that position. “I get it, man. But we’ll do it. Tomorrow, we were going to do a supply run, and we could really use the help. So, we do the run, then we get to your wife. Deal?”
“Deal,” Paxton replied. He hated having to wait, but it was fair and the only way he was going to get to Stacey. He needed the help. He chugged the rest of the beer, hoping he wouldn’t be too excited to not sleep. But he was sure the exhaustion would win that fight.
17
It was thick and red. He could smell the iron, the metallic nose floated in the air, hinting the taste on the back of his tongue. Like copper or sucking on a penny. The taste was never something he was used to, but it was almost an addiction when it came. The thickness. That was the pureness to it. It was hot and not runny enough. Still, it was carried down, drifting himself off. Hot, thick, sticky, metallic. It was always a part of him.
Daniel opened his eyes and shot halfway up from the floor. His hair was matted in the back, stuck to himself from the sweat. It was hot in the building, but he also never liked sleeping somewhere he wasn’t familiar with. He hated being surrounded by people, which is why he chose the office to sleep in. It gave him a small sense of security, maybe a false one, b
ut it helped anyway. His dream had woken him up but also comforted him. At least nothing was changing for him.
He had always dreamt in senses. And most of the time, it was always blood. He wouldn’t say he was obsessed with it, but some might say the opposite. Something about it, about what it was, where it came from, the act of getting it out was a big one. At one moment, it wasn’t there, then a quick slice and it appeared. Blood was always a part of him and everyone else, yet it was never there to see. He wanted to see it.
He looked around and saw a few people moving around. It looked like Courtney and Jennifer. If only they knew about him, they wouldn’t be so happy to have him sleeping in the same building. Hell, they’d probably try to kill him, or at least leave him for dead. He didn’t think they had it in them to kill someone who hadn’t harmed them, but he did know one person who would probably be able to. He scanned the room but couldn’t find Alan.
Suddenly, a loud scream came from the main room. Daniel watched Cole scramble around and feeling all the sleeping bags. He was a mad man with a mission. “Where is Eden?” He started yelling for her. Everyone in the room shot to high alert. “Eden? Where did she go?”
Daniel felt something move next to him. What the hell was next to him? There was no way the soulless had gotten in, and even then, he was sure it wouldn’t be cuddled up next to him. He pulled the sleeping bag down and saw her. Eden was sleeping like a rock. She didn’t snore, but she breathed heavily. He must have been so tired, or put off by his dream, that he hadn’t noticed the girl.
Cole continued to yell. Daniel held a hand up in the air. “It’s okay, Cole. She’s over here.”
Cole ran over to the office where Daniel was. “What happened? How’d she get over here?” Cole asked.
Daniel shrugged. Eden slowly opened her eyes with a smile, then quickly sat up when she saw the panic on her dad’s face. She looked around at the room, seeing where she was. “It’s okay,” she told her father, her words coming off tired and not very comforting.
Cole grabbed her and squeezed her tight, stroking her hair. “I thought I’d- I don’t know, but don’t do that again, please. Why are you over here?”
She shrugged. “It felt safer.”
Cole smiled and picked up his daughter. She was fairly tall, but somehow Cole still managed to make the twelve year-old seem four at times. Daniel watched him carry her to the center of the room, where Courtney and Jennifer began boiling water. He hoped it was going to be a good breakfast, but really, he didn’t mind whatever they made as long as it lasted in his belly. Daniel climbed up, deciding he needed to put in a little work with these people if he was going to be traveling with them for some time. He knew it wasn’t going to last, but still, he was going to need their numbers to get further north.
“Smells good,” Daniel said to Courtney.
She laughed. Was it that funny? He didn’t think so. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, if you knew me, you’d know that was something that never gets said in my direction. It’s also twice as funny because of what I’m cooking.”
Daniel looked down and saw what was in the pot. Water and nothing else. “Well, it’s good to know that you can make a good pot of water,” Daniel said, forcing a friendly grin. Courtney smiled back, taking the banter as genuine. “What’s the plan then with that water?”
“We have some powdered eggs, and I figured we could use some of this Mexican rice in the bag,” she said.
“Sounds good to me. Thank you.” Daniel watched her dump some of the mixture in the boiling water and hoped his thought about just filling his belly wasn’t going to ruin him for the day. It would be nice to taste something with a little flavor.
Daniel took notice of the room. It was only the two women, Cole, Eden, and himself. Where had Miles and Alan gone? It was a question he didn’t care much about, but knowing Alan was involved, something just didn’t seem right.
As if she was reading his mind, Jennifer piped up. “Miles and Alan went out to get some gas.”
Daniel stared at her for a moment before saying, “Oh.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
Daniel shrugged. “What’s that?”
“Why did Miles go out? Why did I let him go, or maybe why didn’t I go instead?” She smiled at Daniel, watching his face match her guess. “Miles is a good man. Sure, he isn’t the most manly man. But still, he does a lot of good. I harp on him out of love. He probably deserves better than me, but he’s too stupid to know it.”
Daniel nodded in appreciation. Self-realization was something Daniel could respect. “So that gas then?”
“They decided they needed to get some buckets together before we hit the highway. There’s a lot of cars around they can siphon. Once we’re on the open road, we may not find much for a long time.”
“Smart.” Daniel agreed that it was, but he would have rather gone out there himself. Even with Alan, he was much better off outside than in here, making small talk and around more people. Besides, it was another way to earn points with the group without having to do much.
Daniel walked over and sat with his back against a row of washing machines. Cole brought over a bottle of water and plopped down next to him. Cole offered the bottle, and Daniel took it. He opened it and guzzled down about half of the bottle. “Thanks.”
Cole nodded. “No problem.” Cole took a deep breath and let it out with a heavy sigh. “You know, she’s always been kind of an outsider. Growing up, she was never part of the neighborhood kids that ran around. Her mom and I always wanted her to go out and be a part of things, but she never really wanted to. Just kept to herself, nose in a book sometimes. Sometimes, she just played with dolls and other kind of action figures, or whatever you’d call them. Even when she was older. No real friends.”
“Sounds rough,” Daniel said, remembering being in that position growing up. Still, as he got older, he learned to talk to people, but he never really connected with them.
“It was. But I’m glad she has found a friend now. She feels safe, and that’s more than I can wish for her right now. About back at the house, I—”
“Me too,” Daniel said, cutting off Cole. Daniel rolled his shoulders in his shirt. It started to feel tight, and he began to sweat a little. If there was one thing more than having to talk to people and relate, it was a sappy heartfelt moment with someone else. The sooner it was over, the better.
Cole offered his hand to Daniel. He took it, and the two men shook hands. “Thanks, I mean that truly,” Cole said.
Daniel nodded and raised his water bottle in appreciation when Cole got up. He was glad to be over with the moment and was looking forward to a few moments alone. But things don’t always work out how he’d like them to. Eden sat right where her father had a moment ago.
Daniel put his head back with a drawn-out sigh. Finally, he decided to open his mouth and say something to the girl, who was just staring up at him with no words. “Sleep well?”
She nodded her head and said nothing. Great conversation, he thought.
“Good, looking forward to eating?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Why not?” Daniel asked, hating the need to follow up with another question just to pull information out of the girl.
“I don’t really like eggs much. And rice seems like it should be for dinner.”
Daniel didn’t disagree. It wasn’t that he didn’t like eggs, but he didn’t have much faith about the powdered eggs, especially being cooked by a self-proclaimed terrible cook, like Courtney.
“What kind of cereal do you—”
“Were you going to kill my dad when you were in our house?” the girl blurted out, immediately changing the subject to something Daniel normally wouldn’t have been asked.
“Uh, well,” Daniel thought. Maybe this was a good time to shoot someone straight, and so what if she was a young girl. “I was thinking about it.”
Daniel watched Eden process his answer for a moment. “So why didn’t you?”
Daniel was actually a little shocked at her question. “Why didn’t I kill your dad?”
“I mean, I didn’t really want you to. But what made you stop? You didn’t know us, and he did put a gun in your face. I think he would have killed you.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe not.”
“I don’t think he would have. He was scared.” Daniel believed that to be the truth. Cole was a good man, and good men don’t kill. He was just sad, confused, angry and most of all, scared.
“It’s not like you aren’t killing other people, though.”
Daniel stiffened up. What was she talking about? There couldn’t be a way that she knew anything about him or his past. “What do you mean?”
“All of you. You keep killing those soulless people, or whatever you call them.” She began to pick at the back of her shoe where the fabric was coming undone. “It’s what you did to the rest of my family.” Her eyes lifted from the shoe and locked onto Daniel’s eyes.
“The soulless aren’t people. They used to be people, but now, they’re just that. Soulless. They’re empty, there is nothing inside them. They’re just dead.”
“Then why are they walking around?”
“I have no idea. But believe me. They are already dead. They aren’t people like you or me or your dad, you know that, right?”
“I guess so. But how can anyone know for sure? I mean, they don’t talk, so I see what you mean. But they still look like us.”
Daniel never thought he would ever be having a conversation with a girl about people being dead or not. And he definitely never thought he would be acting as counselor to her, making sure she knew the difference between who was a person and who wasn’t. Times were definitely different. “Look, I get it’s all a little confusing and different. Especially happening all at once. But you need to know to stay away from everyone. The soulless will hurt you, but you can see it coming. People you don’t know, that’s the challenge. They may seem like friends but could, in the end, really try to hurt you and you’d never see it coming. You need to stay safe.” He patted her leg. “Can you do that for me?”
Soulless Wanderers: Soulless Wanderers Book 1 Page 13
