Collin knew that sound. He’d lived twenty years with ERI-Milan, and four as a Walker. He knew what a contact infection could do to a body, what damage it would inflict.
Dustin would change—not as quickly as if he had been bitten, but staying here and waiting for Finn to return with Ren was no longer an option.
Once he decided that, on that third morning, as the sun rose and zombies screamed on the cliff top, he felt a weight shift off of him. Sitting still wasn’t natural to Collin, and now he has a plan. Forward momentum, and all that shit.
He didn’t give much consideration to the fact that Finn would be furious. If any thought crossed Collin’s mind as he packed their gear and water and food, it was that Nurrin would be terrified to return and find him missing.
He wonders, not for the first time, if he will be forced to kill his sister’s lover.
She would be pissed, if he did. But in the zombie apocalypse, these things did have a way of happening.
Dustin stumbles out of bed that third morning looking a little grey. “You’re packing shit,” he rasps.
“We’re going to find you medicine. You’ll die if we stay,” Collin says bluntly. He’s at the rough wood table, carving something into the wood.
“What about Ren?” Dustin forces out.
Collin hesitates, the only indication that he has doubts about this. His lips thin, and he finishes carving up the table. Dustin sees the design—four lines slashed in half, an i slashed diagonally. Dustin stumbles toward the table, and Collin can feel the heat rolling off of him. “Can you get to the cliff top?” Collin asks, seriously.
Dustin shrugs. “I don’t have much of a choice do I?”
Collin stares at him, and nods sharply. “Exactly.”
The decision is easy to make. Executing it, however, is another thing entirely. Dustin looks ready to pass out, so he drops on the beat up couch. Collin ignores him, moving quietly around the Hole as he gathers the rest of what they need. Finally he pauses, and looks at Dustin.
“I’m going to secure a tether on the surface. Clear it out a bit—get ready to go.”
Dustin blinks at him, pain covering his face, and Collin has a moment to consider that killing him now might be the safest recourse.
He isn’t an infect—not yet, and as long as there is that slim chance of hope, he will hold onto it. Finn always laughed at Collin’s stubborn belief in hope and small chances. Hope will fuck you up, every time.
A grim smile turns Collin’s lips. He creeps along the edge of the cliff—he can hear zombies on the top, screaming and darting around. His right hand clenches down on the mess of bloody bandages as he shifts his gun slightly.
Collin is not as driven by violence as Finn. In their partnership, he is the one calm and cool. The voice of reason when O’Malley would wash the walls in blood. But after seeing his home fall to the horde, and his sister disappear with Finn, there is very little that will calm his temper now aside from blood.
A zombie screams again, a blood curdling wail, and Collin shifts, coming off the cliff path to crouch near the edge. It takes him three seconds to kill the first infect, and four for the others to realize he’s there. They shriek, bolting toward him, and he tosses the blood soaked bandages wide. It distracts two, and they plummet from the cliff, snapping at the bandages with mindless hunger.
Collin feels a small thrill of satisfaction as he empties his clip into the four infects charging him, putting them down with brutal efficiency, until he is all that remains.
That and Finn’s battered motorcycle.
Travel seemed like a brilliant idea, until it was actually happening. Then, Collin is forced to wonder what the hell he had been thinking. Taking a man with a broken ankle and a live infection into the Wide Open is asking for trouble.
Finn will kick his ass for this. The thought makes Collin grin behind his helmet. Bastard will have to come back with Ren before he can get angry.
He hit another bump, and Dustin groans, the sharp jolt shaking his leg. Collin curses softly and guns the bike forward, trying to avoid the worst potholes and dead bodies.
“We have to stop,” Dustin shouts in his ear.
Collin bites down on his sharp response—they’d been traveling for less than two hours, and couldn’t afford to stop already.
“I’m going to be sick, man,” Dustin yells.
Collin swerved to a stop, and Dustin falls off the bike, stumbling away and retching. It’s disgusting. Collin watches—he’s moving fast, too quickly for a sick man. Blood is caked on his palm, from the night before, and the cuts on his arm.
“Dustin,” Collin snaps sharply. “Tell me when you met Ren.”
Confusion clouds the younger man’s eyes. “When y’all moved to Hellspawn—just before the harvest fest.”
Some of the tension eases out of Collin. He’s still in the safe zone—his speech is clear. He might be showing the other two signs of infection—speed and unusual bleeding—but they were still in the safe zone.
“We have to move faster than this.” Collin murmurs.
But they can’t.
Dustin stares at him, surprisingly lucid. “You should leave me behind.”
Collin gives him a disgusted look, and Dustin laughs. “You look just like O’Malley, when you do that.”
“We’ll camp here tonight.” Collin says.
That it’s suicidal to make camp in the Wide Open, without some kind of shelter, is obvious, but neither address it. Collin moves to the road, and begins stacking the dead. They’ll form a barrier. He works silently for almost an hour, and then motions for Dustin to situate himself on one curve of the wall of dead.
It’s macabre, but it will serve its purpose.
“Say something,” Collin says sharply. Dustin blinks at him.
“Finn will protect her.”
It’s not what Collin expects, and he goes very still, fear slipping across his face. Finally, he nods. “He would die for her. More importantly, he will kill for her.”
Dustin smiles and closes his eyes. Collin sits on his side of the wall, for a long time, staring at the wide expanse of open sky. Wherever the infects are, they’re left alone for the night, and near dawn, Collin falls into a fitful sleep.
He wakes when a shotgun nudges against his ribs, and he blinks sleep and confusion out of his eyes. A silver truck idles a few feet away.
A Black robed Priest smiles down at Collin over the barrel of his gun.
The Girl Who Faugh The East
The air stinks. That's what they didn't tell us, when we were training. Because even having lived through the end of the world, when you're tucked behind haven Walls, it's easy to forget. Forget the smell of ash and decay and blood. Forget the way your boots stick to the ground in mud puddles that aren't mud, their blood mixed with bits of decayed flesh, all that's left of an infects meal. And the sounds--in a Haven, of your lucky, it gets quiet. There are nights when it's deep enough, dark enough that you can forget the zombies, even for a few minutes, and just listen to the quiet. The sound of the air moving through your lungs and the beat of your heart the loudest thing in the universe.
It doesn't last--it never lasts. But there, you could bury your head and hide behind those bleach stained walls and you could pretend.
That's what we've been doing. All we've been doing since the fucking fiasco in Atlanta. We've pretended that life can go on.
Even with our dead screaming at the walls, life can go on.
But this isn't the Haven. It isn't safe, behind a wall, where the zom repellant is so thick you can taste it with every breath and when you bite into am apple.
Here, there is only death and the screaming and the stench of decay and ash.
And as I lean my head against the cement pillar holding up a blocked underpass, I have to appreciate the unflinching honesty of that.
A soft body lands next to me, a gun pushing unforgivingly into my side. I push back with my shoulder and I’m rewarded with a soft huff of laughter.
> Maybe that’s why we follow her into the bowels of hell. Because when it’s over—even on days that are epically shitty like today—she lands next to you with a smile and blood on her hands, and extends a MRE that makes you want to puke, but that you don’t turn down, because field work means spotty rations.
I take it and she looks at me sidelong through blonde hair. “You ok?”
I shrug, and poke at the spaghetti and meatballs. Take a couple bites before I put it down. “Why the hell do they send this shit? It looks like guts and every apocalypse baby knows it. You’d think your father’s people could get their act together and sends something decent for us to eat.”
A frown twitches across her face, and she shrugs. “Because my father’s people are busy trying to save the world.”
I give her a grim smile, and motion at the city. The one we’ve been sent to clear and reclaim.
Fucking idiots want a staging ground, moving troops in and out of the East.
“Funny, I thought that was our job.”
Kelsey tilts her head, a tiny birdlike gesture that earned her the nickname with her Secret Service detail, so many years ago. She finally nods. “It is, Finn.”
Chapter 2.
I wake up cold. The night watch let the fire burn down. Which means they’re either eaten, or asleep, and either way—we’re exposed. I roll out of my sleeping bag and to my feet, snatching up my gun. Movement across the camp stops me, and I watch as the giant black man prowls through the early morning gloom. Even in the dimness and the distance, I can see anger written on his face.
The night watch are asleep by the perimeter, and I allow myself one brief moment of pity for them before he kicks them awake. “What the fuck are you doing?” Omar growls.
“Sir.” One of them is scrambling to his feet, pale and terrified. “We did perimeter sweeps. The area is Clean.”
“Nothing is ever fucking clean, you dumb shit. We’re in a war zone.”
“We’re in rural Virginia.” That’s from the other solider as he rolls to sit, and his face is creased with skepticism. Riggins. I haven’t liked that man since Kelsey and I joined the company, six months ago. He’s cocky and disrespectful and he watches Kelsey more than I like to think about.
“And right now, rural Virginia is a war zone, solider. Might not be the sandbox you’re used to, but it’s still a war zone.”
“Then why the fuck do we have those kids with us?”
His gaze flicks to me and I tense. I knew some of the unit resented us. Some have welcomed Kelsey with open arms, because of who she is. They tolerate me because I’m a fixture in her life, an arm’s length away.
I can remember life before Kelsey was my center. But it’s like life before the change—distant and not quite real. It belongs to someone else. Since the change—Emilie sitting up and eating that morgue attendant, and the horde clashing with the Army, the bombings—she’s been my gravity. She keeps me grounded and focused. As long as she’s here, I know what I’m here for.
That’s important, in a world that doesn’t make much fucking sense.
“We’re here because I’m the best sharp shooter in 1, and because your commander decided we were an asset to his team.”
Her voice is cool, almost cold. She grew up in the White House—being trotted out for the campaign trail and the cameras, and she learned early how to hide her emotions. This cold reserve she perfected when we were evacuated from Washington DC.
“Don’t need another sharpshooter.” Riggins spits. Kelsey glances at him, and then to Omar. The lines of authority are usually clear and clean—Omar outranks the president’s daughter and she follows his orders.
But that’s not always true, and though she hasn’t flaunted her position before, I can see it in her eyes, the slight stiffening of her spine.
She could be standing anywhere—a ballroom in the White House, the Oval Office, our tiny hideaway in 1—she’s fucking regal and untouchable. “Exile him.”
Chapter 3
The company is quiet—a tension has settled over the other men that I understand. We can’t sustain like this, and I know it.
“You going to talk to her?” Omar says. I glance at him from the corner of my eye. The black man is still, almost a year after meeting him, a little larger than life. But he picked up on the dynamics pretty quick—Kelsey keeps me moving. I keep Kelsey in line. The rest of the world can fuck itself, for all I care.
“She’s shutting me out right now, Omar,” I say, leaning back against a tree. We’ve moved steadily all day, and cleared a small town before making our camp for the night. The rest of the company is inside a barn that proved clean and sound. I can smell the fire they have crackling.
Infects don’t seem to care much about scent, unless it’s blood and meat. If we can keep our flames contained, we’ll manage the night warm and safe.
“She never shuts you out,” Omar protests.
I laugh, because that’s so far from the truth it’s the only real option. Laugh or curse.
“She shuts me out on a regular basis. She’s just generally good about keeping our dirty laundry in our closet.” I say. Omar grunts softly, and I stare into the gathering darkness, watching for any sign of infect activity.
“She can’t exile everyone who questions her place here.” Omar says softly.
“Then control your men. I’ll do my best to keep her leashed, but keep your men from pissing her off. Because her safety matters more than your guys—cross her and you won’t need to exile them. I’ll kill them just to make her happy.”
I say the words coolly, not bothering to look at Omar. I can feel the stillness that takes him, something I’ve watched him do before when he’s threatened. I wait until he releases his breath, and then I head back inside.
Kelsey is sanding in the doorway of the barn, and she stares at me for a long moment. I can see the questions in her eyes, and I know she overheard me. But I’m not ready to talk about it yet, so I just brush past her and climb the ladder to the hayloft she claimed as her own when we found the barn.
Mine, too. Because neither of us have been able to sleep in the field if the other was far away.
“What was that?” She asks, when she’s standing in the loft.
I shrug. Toe off my boots and pull her down to rest against me. Some of the tightness in my chest eases. “It was me explaining to the general where things stand. It’s a good thing for him to know.”
“You can’t always put me before the company. We’re not here to stay alive. We’re here to make a difference.”
I laugh. “You make a difference. I’ve only ever been here to make sure you stay alive. That’s what I do.”
Chapter 4
Kelsey is screaming. I can hear her, even if I can’t feel the thrashing limbs. I mutter a curse, and roll over, catching a slap to the face before I pin her down. Below us, in the open area of the barn, the rest of the company is coming awake, cursing and asking questions. I tune them out, and focus on Kelsey. She’s gone limp beneath me, her eyes wide and blank.
She’s stopped screaming.
I know what this is. I’ve held her through this before, shaken her awake. I ease my weight off her and she shudders, a full body shudder before she blinks. Some of the tension eases in me, for a heartbeat, before her eyes fly wide and she stares at me, terrified.
“What happened?”
“Nightmare. You were screaming.”
“And you let every infect in a mile radius know we’re here.” A shout comes from below.
Her eyes are wide and scared as she stares past me, into nothing.
Sometimes, Kelsey is ice—regal and untouchable and damn near painful to look at.
Other times, she’s this—a terrified girl locked in the memories none of us should have lived through.
After Buchman dropped his dirty bombs on Atlanta, the country went insane. It wasn’t just the infected—although that eventually stopped the wave of fury—it was every red-blooded American who couldn’t un
derstand bombing our own cities to hell and back. The White House spent three weeks under siege before the infected took all attention away from Andrew’s mistake and back to the problem at hand.
I remember those weeks. We both do. And the convoy they put us on, the way it raced through the night filled with screams, the way our motorcade guard was picked off, stopped by the horde, until it was only us and a single Secret Service agent on a bike, hoping the dead would let us pass.
We survived. The whole world survived. That’s the thing. We did. And because we did, because we were safely tucked away behind the walls of that SuperMax turned safe haven, we were supposed to count our blessings. Forget that the dead were there and enjoy what we could of the life that we scraped out.
But it’s not that easy. Surviving isn’t easy, and it’s never pretty. It’s what you do because you have no choice—because lying down and waiting to die isn’t a choice.
I can hear the infected screaming, racing through the night to find us, and I hear the unit killing the fire, and preparing to defend us. I should rouse her—she’s the best sharpshooter we have. Should go and help the people whose lives we just endangered.
But in the end, I do what I will always choose to do. I ignore all the rest of the shit going on around me, and pull her into my lap, not moving, not talking.
Just holding her until the tension eases from her body and the world around us falls apart.
The First Kiss
Sleeping in the same bed as Nurrin is a special brand of torture. I twitch every time she moves, and fucking hell, she moves a lot. I've never known a girl to be so mobile in bed.
A grin quirks my lips, and I roll onto my back. So that might not be *strictly* true. I glance at her in the gray pre-dawn light. Desire tugs at me, and I shove it aside. There isn't time for that, not right now, and even if there was there are two really good reasons why seducing Ren is a bad idea: Collin would never forgive me. And she'd sooner stab me than kiss me.
The World Without End [Box Set] Page 59
