Unfortunately, being a backup meant he didn’t have priority for training like the regular team did. Cam probably would have been a better choice.
Jim would let him take over when he got back.
Angie was tired and dirty, but she didn’t want to quit. He didn’t know where this drive to improve came from, but it was a good thing—as long as she didn’t overdo it.
He picked up their makeshift range box and returned the cleaning kit and extra ammo to it. He had shown her techniques for holding and firing a very small caliber pistol. She wanted to use the AR, but he was afraid it would be too heavy for her wrist and jostle her ribs a little too much.
They walked back to the lodge, him carrying most of the gear, and her barely able to keep her eyes open. After a couple of sandwiches for supper, they went upstairs.
“I’ll run you a bath, Ang,” he said, running a hand down her hair.
She had let down her ponytail and her hair was falling loose down her back, shining in the light of the setting sun. She was breathtaking. He stepped away to the bathroom.
“Jim, do you think they’re okay?” she said, sounding uncertain.
“I think they’re fine. I’m certain of it. Cam is indestructible.”
Nobody is indestructible, but he did sound sure.
Jim ran the bath, adding Angie’s bubbles. She would smell like a vanilla cookie later, and that was going to be hard to resist.
The tub filled and he went to bring her in the bathroom.
She stopped in front of the tub, and he tried to control his pounding heart.
He wanted more than anything to stay in there with her. To sink into the tub and give her pleasure. It was almost scary how strong the need was.
He needed to leave.
Angie
Jim stood next to the tub wearing an expression of want so strong that it startled her.
She stepped back and considered the best way to handle the situation. Her feelings for him were all tangled up. A small part of her wanted to accept the comfort that he was silently offering. The purely physical reaction was unexpected, but not something that she had to act on.
A larger part of her knew that if she did, she would destroy her future with Cam.
She could never do that. She realized the thought of losing Cam hurt worse than anything else in the world. It was worse than any of her physical pains.
It was worse than the thought of losing Jim.
She knew then that there hadn’t really been any doubt at all. Jim was precious to her, as her friend— maybe even her best friend, but he wasn’t the missing piece of her soul.
Cam was.
“Jim, I can’t. We’re going to have to have a talk.”
“About what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
“About me and Cam.”
She saw the unhappiness on his face. His misery practically filled the room with its heart-crushing weight. She felt her chest ache, and it had nothing to do with her broken ribs.
He sighed and hung head for a moment. “All right. Later?”
She nodded.
He gave her a last searching look before he left. Then she undressed and slid into the tub, more unhappy than she had been earlier, and more resigned than ever to toughen up.
She had chosen Cam. Now she wanted to be a woman worthy of a man of his strength. She wanted to lessen the burden that protecting her caused him.
Jean
Jean saw the wave of dead beginning to engulf the cruiser and heard Cam yelling for her to go.
“Go where?!” she shouted to the inside of the car.
She turned the key and put the car in gear. She floored it, shooting for an opening between two converging herds. Her knuckles were white on the wheel.
She barely made it through, losing a passenger mirror in the process.
THUMP
She looked in the rear-view mirror, seeing a body lying on the pavement, hips smashed into the ground. The upper half was still waving around, seeking the prey that had so recently evaded the others.
“Dang it all!”
She looked around, seeking a safe place to go. So far, only a few dead stragglers had attempted to follow her away from the store.
She drove back down the empty road they had taken on the way in, stopping in front of a small old house. She looked over into the passenger seat, she only had her pistol on her hip and the rifle she had left leaning against the console, with hardly any ammo to speak of.
“Damn,” she said. This situation warranted strong language, though she’d never say so to Ed.
If only she had taken the rental truck instead. She could have had a whole arsenal.
Heck, she could have sat up on top of a building somewhere and took out the whole crowd.
She turned and looked in the back. It was empty too.
She faced the road again and saw a few Zulus staggering out of the trees. She frowned. They were coming from the opposite the direction the store was in. It was a new group.
She decided to wait. They wouldn’t see her for a while, and she wanted to see how many there were.
Ten minutes later, she realized her mistake.
These weren’t stragglers, drifting and wandering through the woods. These were the vanguard for a larger herd that was now marching— uncoordinated, clumsy, and terrifying.
She could see that the herd had the road cut off further down, and these stragglers had unknowingly tricked her into being trapped.
Dear Lord, she hoped it was unknowingly. The thought of an intelligent Z made her want to faint.
She would have to make a dash for the old house.
She took her pistol, rifle, hatchet, the small bag of ammo, and opened the cruiser door. She crouched down, her back paining her something awful, and gently shut the door.
She hadn’t tried to run while crouched down in over forty years, and it was terrible.
She managed to make it to the porch and had a flash of panic. It’s probably locked!
Why didn’t she think of that before?
But it wasn’t, and she thanked God for it, and for the trusting people that lived here.
She darted through the door and shut it behind her, locking the deadbolt. The interior was dim and musty. Dust coated surfaces, but it was clear people still lived here.
Where were they?
She heard ticking coming from the room to the right. Peering around the open doorframe, she saw an old clock sitting in the corner.
The furniture had been new in the sixties, but was sadly worn and faded now, lending the room a nostalgic and gloomy air.
She saw framed photos of an old couple on the side table and knew that this was their home. She saw older photos of babies on the wall, babies from a different era. They likely had their own babies by now.
She crept through the house. It was a one-story house, but she found a door that either led to a closet or a basement, and she hoped it was a closet. Basements gave her the creeps. She opened it.
“Crapola,” she said aloud. It was a basement.
A waft of stale, moldy air rushed toward her. It was so strong. It was almost overwhelming. These people had a serious mold problem.
She saw a switch on the wall, the outlet sitting exposed on the bare boards. It was an unfinished basement, which meant creepy crawlies. She flipped the switch faint illumination came from below.
The old wooden steps creaked as she descended to the dirt floor.
As soon as she reached the bottom, she heard a faint groaning. Her old heart leapt into her throat, and she raised up her hatchet. A large, lumbering man came from a dark corner. He shuffled past a mound of dirt that looked suspiciously like a recent grave.
“Oh hell,” she said, and ran up the stairs as fast as her aging legs could carry her.
She thanked her lucky stars that she still ran for exercise. She started running in her forties—just for something to do, and never imagined that it would save her life some thirty-odd years later.
> The dead man was huge. He was fat, but she could see that he still had a lot of muscle under that fat, making him extra dangerous to her.
She needed to barricade the door! She couldn’t shoot him, not with the others outside.
So now she was trapped in a creepy old house, with a creepy old basement, containing a very large, creepy old zombie. Just her luck!
Fortunately, the door was solid wood, and not one of those cheap hollow core jobs.
Unfortunately, the door didn’t have a lock on the outside. But really, what kind of creeps had a lock on the outside of their basement door anyway?
She saw an armoire in the hall and ran to it. She put all of her force behind it, but it didn’t budge.
She cursed her slight frame. Why couldn’t she be one of those sturdy old women, like her grandmother had been. She went out plowing fields until she was sixty-seven years old!
She looked around, seeking out anything to block the door. There was nothing. She tried moving the armoire again, but still wasn’t able to.
She heard thumping on the stairs, eventually getting closer to the door. She girded herself and decided to try to kill it while it was on the stairs. Maybe it would work to her advantage.
She waited a moment longer, wanting the Z to be about halfway up before she jerked open the door and lost the element of surprise.
Thunk! THUNK!
Now!
She jerked it open, seeing the obese corpse attempting to gain another step. She rushed down and raised her hatchet. As she brought it down, the dead man lifted his hand and reach up toward her, knocking off her aim. The hatched lodged in the base of his neck with a meaty thwack.
It stuck.
She groaned and stepped back, falling onto the step above her.
The corpse took no notice of the tool buried deep into his neck and shoulder muscle. He stumbled on, finding the next step up.
Jean scrambled back, gained her feet, and lunged up the stairs.
She slammed the door and piled as much smaller, but still heavy, loose junk that she could find against the door. Hoping it would slow him down at least.
She hurried into the kitchen, hoping to find some food and water. She wanted to put some in her bag in case she needed to make a run for it.
The kitchen was clean, though cluttered with old mail and newspapers. The paper on the table was dated the day before this whole thing started.
People had been worried about the declining economy.
She laughed at the irony of that, there was no economy to speak of now. Perhaps people should have been concerned with more important things.
The fridge held some bottled water, and she took them all. The rest was useless to her. Some of the food had already gone bad.
She realized her glasses were fogging up and took them off to clear the lenses. Studying the cabinets, she grabbed a few fiber-enriched snack bars, a bag of cookies, a couple cans of soup, and a package of crackers.
Pounding came from the basement door now, muffled through the thick wood.
She didn’t delude herself into thinking it would hold too long—the door might, but the frame and walls were old plaster. They would crumble under the force of that one.
She found a bedroom nearby, probably belonging to the homeowners, and saw that it had a lock on the door.
This is where she would retreat to if she had no other choice. She dragged a chair into the hallway, and sat down to wait, and watch.
◆◆◆
Several hours passed, and the sun had set. Jean was still watching the door. She was surprised it had held this long.
Occasionally, she glanced furtively outside. They were still out there, loitering around in the street, the yard, and in the woods beyond. The back was the same.
She went to the kitchen and opened a new box of cereal in the pantry, returning to the hallway and eating it dry. She wasn’t about to touch the milk in the fridge, or the dishes in the cabinets.
No telling if these people were infected before they turned.
Later, she began to doze off, the relentless ticking of the clock fading into the background.
Her head dropped forward, and she slept. She dreamt of Virgil, and their old home.
It was Thanksgiving and she was getting the supper ready. Virgil sat in his easy chair, watching some sports game or another. He didn’t really like sports but watched it because he always had. It was tradition. They were expecting guests, and soon they arrived.
A knocking at the door alerted Jean.
“Virg, can you get that? I’ve got turkey grease all over my hands!” she shouted.
He didn’t answer. The knocking turned into pounding. “Virgil!” she yelled again.
“Dang it,” she said as she wiped her hands on a paper towel.
“Virgil, why didn’t you get the…”
She stopped her rush into the living room. Virgil was dead, his head back and eyes open wide. His skin had started to turn dark and dusky, and his eyes were cloudy. His arms started to move.
Jean gasped as the pounding became louder and more frantic. They were going to bust down the door, and Virg was dead! She covered her mouth with her hands, containing her sobs.
What should she do?
She couldn’t think clearly, she was panicked, and her brain felt cloudy.
Suddenly, the door cracked…
…and Jean snapped awake.
The doorframe was finally giving way beneath the relentless onslaught of the dead man’s bulk. It was time to retreat.
She glanced again out the front windows, a nearby utility light illuminating her deadly predicament.
She would have to stay. She ran to her latest, and possibly her last, refuge, locked the door, and barricaded herself in.
Ed
Ed startled awake in the night, sweat dripping from his body, heart pounding in terror. The dream had been a bad one, but it was fading fast.
What was it?
Something about the woods behind the lodge. He couldn’t remember.
He swung his legs over the side and sat on the edge of the bed, resting his hands on the mattress. He heard voices in the night and realized that Nick and Bradley were awake, probably changing watch.
He looked at the time. It was still several hours until his watch started, but he wasn’t going back to sleep now.
He pulled on his pants and added a light flannel shirt on top, then grabbed his boots and went downstairs.
In the dark kitchen, he used the faint glow of the moon to guide him to the lantern they kept nearby. He flipped the switch, and the warm white light illuminated the immediate area.
He started a pot of coffee on the stove and sat down at the island to wait.
He wanted to take Peg outside today if it was nice. She needed to get out of that bed. It wasn’t helping anything.
He thought about all the things she would enjoy seeing around here.
He got up and made a cup of coffee using the single-serving size French vanilla creamer he preferred. He would miss it when they ran out. Maybe they could find the powder somewhere. He hadn’t thought to take any from the store.
Maybe he could sneak it onto their next supply list.
Bradley came down and sat bleary eyed at the island with Ed. He looked a little rough around the edges. His hair was down loose around his shoulders, starting to form knots, and his clean-shaven face wasn’t so clean shaven anymore.
He was starting to look a bit like that pirate character off that popular movie, albeit a more diminutive version.
“Morning Brad, couldn’t get back to sleep?” Ed asked him.
“No, once I wake up I usually can’t. These early watches are killing me,” he answered tiredly.
He did really look exhausted.
Shadows gathered under his eyes, and he wasn’t as engaging as he used to be. Maybe the seriousness was really dawning on him.
Ed hoped he adapted well. He liked Bradley.
“Nick said he’s going to do a p
atrol around the lodge and cabins, said he felt well enough,” Bradley mentioned.
“That’s good. We should all be doing that. We need to make sure we don’t all follow the same path though. It ain’t good to get too predictable. Being predictable gets a lot of folks killed in wartime,” Ed imparted.
Bradley scratched his newly-growing goatee. “How do you think the team is doing?”
“I think Cam and Jack will keep things under control. It’s always a risk though, leaving here. Hell, it’s a risk staying here. Folks will find it eventually.”
He hummed a noncommittal noise.
“I think I’m going to go out and help Nick keep watch, might as well,” Brad said, tying back his hair.
They looked up as they heard a door close upstairs. Ed figured maybe someone else had too much on their mind to sleep. He stood up and went to the library.
There was a manual on those solar panels that he wanted to look over.
He knew of a place a county over that sold them. It would be a hell of a job getting some transported though. It was further than they should probably travel and right outside a larger town.
Still, the knowledge may come in handy one day.
Jean
Jean was sitting in the corner of the bedroom with the blinds over the window closed. Occasionally, she looked out into the street. Her car was still surrounded, the dead milling aimlessly around.
She wished a darned rabbit would hop by, or a cat, or something…
The sun was beginning to rise, and the room was heating up.
“These folks must have kept the thermostat way up,” she murmured to herself.
She looked around, seeing more photographs. They used to be a good-looking couple. It was a shame they ended up the way they had.
For all her years, Jean had resisted old age.
She hated to think her body was failing, and her mind might one day follow. She did what she could to stay in shape. She ran regularly, she ate healthy mostly, she drank plenty of water, she took her vitamins and supplements…but age comes to everyone eventually.
Refuge From The Dead | Book 2 | Dead Summer Page 10
