by Siara Brandt
“Probably close to a year’s worth. By myself. If I ration it.”
He sat back in his hair and stared at her. “You mean you’re a prepper? Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
“Because, when you stockpile food and weapons you don’t go around telling everyone. For exactly the reasons you already mentioned.”
“Weapons? You mean you have guns?”
She nodded.
“Ammunition?”
She nodded again.
Who would have figured? The woman was full of surprises.
“What?”
“I didn’t figure you for the prepper type. We might be safe there for a while,” he said thoughtfully. “Especially since it’s outside of town.”
Officially then, they were in this together. At least when it came to surviving.
“We have a very long walk ahead of us today,” Ailin said as she stared down at her hands clasped on the table. It was not a walk she was looking forward to. Not with the zombies out there. Now that she knew what they were actually capable of.
“Not necessarily.”
She looked up.
“There’s a motorcycle in the garage.”
“Really?”
“And a can of gas,” he added. “I’ll look at it after breakfast. If it runs, that’ll make things a whole lot easier.”
After breakfast, he was leaning against the rail, gazing out over the mist-veiled landscape and the scenic pond in the distance. He heard her come out onto the porch behind him. He turned and froze.
Whoa.
She’d changed into the new set of clothes. She didn’t look like any boy he had ever seen. He wasn’t sure why, but he found the plaid shirt and the faded jeans sexy as hell. And the hiking boots she’d found apparently were a better fit than the gym shoes she’d been wearing.
He turned back to his contemplation of the pond. The view seemed a lot safer out there.
“It’s nice and peaceful here,” he said, congratulating himself on saying it as smoothly as he did. “Hard to believe the world is falling apart out there. Your family must be worried about you.”
Ailin was still standing in the doorway brushing her hair. The sunlight was filtering under the porch roof and lighting the lower half of those dusky curls.
She made a soft, noncommittal sound in her throat. “Actually, I’m what you would call the black sheep of the family.”
“What’d you do to earn that title?”
“It’s more like what didn’t I do. I didn’t do what I was expected to do. I went my own way, had my own dreams which no one else understood. And- ” She paused a moment. “Now that I’m divorced, I’m sure my sister thinks I’m more vulnerable.”
Divorced. He thought that over.
“And she likes you vulnerable?” he asked.
The brush in Ailin’s hand paused as she thought that over. “I hate to admit it, but yes, I think she does.” She shrugged one shoulder and resumed brushing. “It’s been like that forever. I don’t think things are going to change at this point. The truth is I think my sister came down here to get a little target practice in.”
“And what exactly is her ammunition?”
“That I’m alone.”
“That’s not a crime.”
As Ailin stepped up to the railing, she glanced at Eli’s sun-lit profile. “I think that having a successful marriage makes Edmina feel like she’s more desirable than I am.”
Eli frowned down at her. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Whether it makes sense or not . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “I just hope she’s safe at the inn. I don’t know where else she would go.”
“Your house maybe?”
“No, that’s not even remotely possible.”
Eli was curious but he didn’t ask.
Ailin explained anyway. “For one thing, I don’t have air conditioning. And for another, the accommodations at my house aren’t nearly as luxurious as they are at the inn.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It’s not really. For me. But my sister is used to a higher standard of living.”
“Ah.” Eli nodded. “And your style of living doesn’t quite measure up.”
So he was intuitive, too.
“Then this can’t be easy for her,” Eli commented thoughtfully.
“No. I’m sure she’s extremely uncomfortable. Going for a day without air conditioning would be an almost unbearable hardship for Edmina. And- ”
He waited for her to go on.
“I’m not at all certain that she’s not going to try to find a way to blame me for all this when I finally do find her.”
“Let me guess. She visits you out of a sense of obligation.”
“Maybe. But this time I think there’s more to it. Knowing Edmina like I do, she didn’t come down here just to hold my hand now that my divorce is final. My marriage was actually over a long time ago. No, Edmina is here for a different reason entirely.”
“And what would that be?”
“I have no idea.”
“And your sister-in-law?”
“Two-against-one is always a tactical advantage, isn’t it?
A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Eli’s mouth. “Maybe it sounds weird, but I’m kind of looking forward to meeting them.”
Chapter 18
_______________
Edmina rushed across the lobby with her arms held out before her. “Ailin!”
Ailin and Eli had made good time on the motorcycle. In fact they had reached the Willow Grove Inn with only a few delays. They had seen zombies everywhere along the way but they were able to avoid them a lot easier than when they had been walking.
When they had reached the inn, there had been no one at the front door to let them in so they had parked the motorcycle as close to the door as possible and took a chance that the door was unlocked. There were about half a dozen people in the lobby when they arrived, besides Edmina and Bevanne.
“Where have you been?” Edmina didn’t give her a chance to answer. She grabbed Ailin in a stiff, clinging embrace. “It’s been awful here,” she said. “Just awful.”
She held Ailin at arms’ length and looked her over critically, from the plaid shirt all the way down to the hiking boots while Bevanne snapped a picture of them both.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ailin began, relieved to finally see her sister safe and unharmed. “I wasn’t sure- ”
“The police were here yesterday,” Edmina cut her off. “They told us to wait inside until someone came for us. But as you can see, no one came.”
She looked at Eli. “You don’t know how good it is to finally see the military come to rescue us.” She looked expectedly towards the door. “Where are the rest of the soldiers?”
“I’m afraid I’m it,” Eli told her.
“I don’t understand. Why would they send just one soldier?”
“Nobody sent me. We were making our way here on our own to try and find you.”
“But someone will be coming to help us, won’t they? Besides you?”
“Not that I know of.”
Confused, Edmina looked from Eli to Ailin. “You mean you’re not here on official business?”
Eli shook his head.
“This isn’t a rescue mission?”
“I hate to disappoint you, but we barely made it here alive ourselves.”
Edmina stared up at Eli. “Then who are you?”
“I know it must have been difficult for you, but I’m glad you waited here for me,” Ailin said after she sat down on the flowered sofa in the center of the lobby.
“Waited here for you?” Edmina echoed, looking even more confused. “It wasn’t like we had a choice. The police that were here yesterday had to respond to another call, so they just left us here. The military never showed up, either. Some people decided to leave on their own because they wanted to get back to their families. But someone said that with the power out, the gas pumps wouldn�
��t work. No one wanted to be stranded with those- things out there, so the rest of us made the decision to stay here until we knew what was going on. We heard explosions. And sirens. We didn’t know if some kind of terrorist attack. Is that what this is all about? A terrorist attack?”
“In a way- ” Eli began. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, trying to get a word in edgewise, but not having much success.
“It’s over isn’t it?” Edmina asked. “I mean they must be getting things under control by now. You can’t imagine how hot it’s been without the air conditioning working. The sun literally bakes through the windows in the afternoon. And we’re hungry. We haven’t eaten a decent meal since yesterday. There’s a vending machine, but- it’s in there with him.”
“Him?” Eli questioned.
Edmina visibly shuddered as she stared at the pool room doors. “We’ve been waiting for the police to come back. Or soldiers to show up . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “Hopefully the doors will hold it. They have so far. But we don’t know if those things can break through glass.” She looked around at the windows. “So far they haven’t.”
Eli got up to see what was in the pool room. Someone had tried to tack a sheet up, but it looked like it could come down at any minute. It appeared that they were trying to hide something, or maybe there was something nobody wanted to look at in the pool room. He wondered if there was a body inside there. There was a small group of people watching whatever it was.
It was something dead all right.
The people collectively gasped and stepped back from the glass as the zombie drifted closer to the shallow end of the pool and splashed around like it had gained its footing on the steps for a few seconds.
“He’s been in the pool since yesterday,” a man told Eli. “We thought he was dead. He hadn’t moved for hours. Then last night he started moving again. So far, he hasn’t been able to get out of the pool. But he wasn’t close to the steps, either.”
Another man approached and stopped a little behind Eli. He was a heavyset man who was hunched over and holding a hand over his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Eli asked the man.
Penndle jerked his chin in the direction of the thing in the pool. “He came at me with a knife.
“Were you hurt?”
“Yes, I was hurt,” Penndle answered as if Eli should already know that. “It was a big knife. I’m lucky to be alive.”
Eli turned back to the pool room. It was a zombie. There was no doubt about that. And quite possibly it was the primary source of infection he had heard about yesterday. The bearded zombie flopped around on the steps like a walrus trying to get onto a sheet of ice.
Eli watched through the glass doors, wondering if it was eventually going to be able to get out of the pool. He saw the zombie flail its arms like it was trying to crawl but its face remained, for the most part, in the water.
Eli made a mental note. It looked like zombies couldn’t drown. Probably because they were already dead. This one floundered around like a fish on a boat deck and made it up another step, slipped a few times but finally managed to drag itself out of the water like a new life form emerging from the sea.
It hunched there on all fours, clothes and beard dripping wet. It fixed its pale gaze on the people watching from the other side of the glass, looking like he must have been his entire life, pissed off at the whole world.
Eli drew his weapon. To Penndle, he said, “Get these people out of here.”
“Me?”
Penndle didn’t like being ordered around. He huffed indignantly for a few seconds, and then muttered something under his breath as he backed away.
Eli ignored him and opened the pool room door.
The zombie looked up at him in snarling rage. Before he could get to his feet and charge, Eli put a bullet through his brain.
“Get your food and your drinks and then get out of there,” Eli said when he came out of the pool room. “Nobody go near the body.” He didn’t think he had to tell anyone not to go swimming.
“Ailin, who is he?”
Ailin was sitting on the sofa in the lobby. Edmina sat at the edge of one of the upholstered wing chairs that faced the sofa.
“You mean Eli?”
Edmina looked at Bevanne, rolled her eyes, then looked back at Ailin. “Who else would we be talking about?”
“He’s- ” Ailin frowned suddenly. “What difference does it make?”
“What difference does it make? We’ve been stuck here this whole time, while you’ve been off doing who knows what with him.”
“Do you know what I went through to get here, Edmina?”
“Do you know the nightmare that we have been through? If we hadn’t come down here to comfort you,” Edmina emphasized the words. “We would be safe at home right now and we wouldn’t have had to go through any of this.”
Edmina gripped the arms of her chair. She had changed her clothes. She had even changed her nail color. She was wearing designer jeans with a tailored, russet-colored top. She had her gold earrings on and she was still wearing high heels. She probably didn’t own anything that was more practical. Why should she? She’d barely done anything more strenuous than filing her nails in her entire life.
But as Ailin looked closer, she saw that her sister was a far cry from the perfectly-made-up beauty that Ailin was familiar with. Her faded makeup had obviously been applied yesterday and merely touched up today. There were faint smudges of mascara under her eyes. And were those actually several hairs out of place?
Bevanne didn’t look any better. Her puffy face was also smeared with day-old makeup. Her stiff, short hair was bunched unevenly to one side and pushed up a little higher than usual. There were even darker rings of mascara under her eyes. She didn’t have the red blazer on, but she was wearing a red and white silk shirt that looked like it had come straight out of the 1940’s.
“Here we thought you were all alone, and needed us- ” Edmina let her breath out suddenly and glanced at Bevanne for support. “Well. I didn’t think you would come right out and lie to us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Him.” Edmina waved a hand with a chipped fingernail. Her diamond rings sparkled.
“How could I lie about Eli? I haven’t said a word about him.”
“That is precisely the point.” Edmina continued to hold her sister’s gaze. “I’m glad you had protection. For your information I was assaulted yesterday and my car was stolen.”
“Your new BMW?”
“Yes. A man shoved me down in the parking lot, stole my keys and took it.”
Ailin glanced over at Eli who was standing with a group of people by the pool room doors.
“Was Bevanne with you when it happened?” Ailin asked absently. She was still watching Eli.
“No. She was in the room. I was going out to get the antiques that I had just bought.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” Ailin murmured as she watched Eli open the pool room door. “But at least you’re all right.”
“Barely,” Edmina informed her. “He ruined my outfit. I’ll never be able to get the stains out of the knees. Do you know that there isn’t even any running water to wash up with or clean anything? And that overnight we’ve gone from eating strictly organic to surviving on leftover donuts in our room? You didn’t happen to bring any food with you, did you?”
“No, I just wanted to get here- ” Ailin began, but like everyone else, she stopped when she heard the gunshot.
Edmina had also turned to watch Eli who was walking back across the lobby. She continued to stare at him as he slid his gun back into his leg holster. Then her gaze shifted to the people now swarming into the pool room.
“Bah!” Penndle grunted under his breath. “Does he think he can tell us what to do just because he has that gun?”
The people had quickly cleaned out the vending and the soda machines and they were about to distribute the food among themselves. Th
ey ignored Penndle’s latest round of complaining. They had something far more important to think about. Warding off starvation.
“I think that the men need more food,” Penndle said.
Everyone looked at him.
“We have a larger body mass,” Penndle informed them.
Nilah was mortified. Did he even know how that sounded?
“Hey, chubby,” one of the men spoke up. “If you think you’re getting more food than my wife and kids are getting, you’re dead wrong. It gets split evenly.”
There was a low murmur of agreement among the other hotel guests. Penndle didn’t say another word.
“It hasn’t been a picnic for me these past two days, either,” Ailin pointed out quietly later that afternoon.
Bevanne looked up from her bag of chips.
Edmina’s chin went up and her lips thinned with a brief display of temper. “Is he the reason you left us yesterday morning?”
“Why would it even matter to you, Edmina?”
“Why? Because we have been enduring all this- ” She flung her hand dramatically to indicate the entire hotel lobby. “While you were off doing who knows what. Obviously, since you don’t want to answer me- ”
“What I’ve been doing is trying to survive,” Ailin informed her sister.
“While we’ve been trying to endure a nightmare. All because we came to this godforsaken town to give you some emotional support. All of this could have been avoided if you had stayed up north where you belong, you know.”
Belong? Ailin frowned and said, “You can’t seriously be blaming me for everything that has happened, Mina.”
As usual, Edmina ignored her. “You do know that if you jump from one relationship right into another, things are liable to end badly. And a military man, Ailin?”
“What’s wrong with- ”
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Startled, Ailin jerked her head around to see Eli standing on the stairs. His combat boots had been muted on the carpeted steps, so she hadn’t heard him coming. He was frowning as he stared at her face. The frown vanished as he said smoothly, “Hey, honey. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
