“Jesus Christ,” we all mumble uncomfortably in unison.
“I have no choice but to trust you with my children’s lives. I’m probably not gonna make it, I realize that, but Anthony and Sami, they deserve a chance. I’m begging you, human to human, you have to take them with you. The things they’ve seen, what they’ve been through, please.”
I nod and hand her my sword. “You’re gonna need this. Decapitating them is the only thing that works. That and saltwater. You know what to do if you get infected?”
“I do. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t even know your names.”
“I’m Noah, Noah Britton. This is my girlfriend Felecia Harmon. And you already know Neil and his brother, Scott Buckley. We’ll do everything we can to keep your kids safe. If we had more time, we’d help you find your daughter, but we’re cutting it close as it is.”
“I understand. I know this is a fool’s errand, but she’s my daughter, and for all the years she didn’t get my undivided attention, I owe her this much. Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. Anthony is… he’s a lot to deal with, but Sami’s great with him. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I’m gonna go say bye to my kids. Can you give us a few minutes? I know we’re under a time crunch here, it’s just, I’m never going to see them again.”
We all nod, wishing we had a chance to say goodbye to our families, no matter how dysfunctional they are. I don’t think anyone with a heart could deny her this moment. And the men she was on this island with, apparently that’s something they were severely lacking. We didn’t know how right Felecia was when she said that it’s the evil men that survive in this world. A world people like us have no part in.
Our kindness is a weakness, I know that, and it won’t be long before it gets us killed. We can’t stay here, where infects will soon be the least of our worries. People like that, and people like Buckley, they’re the ones who are going to rule this wasteland. And I, for one, am rooting for the zombies.
“Yeah,” I say, before any of them can ask. “I know how stupid this is. Neil, you work with special needs kids every summer, level with me here.”
“He seems somewhat high functioning. Autistic, I’m guessing. He’s not gonna talk, or let us touch him. He’s gonna need constant care, and we can’t do it. We’re gonna need all of us out there fighting. We just gotta hope she’s right and the little girl can handle it. Do you guys think,” but he stops before finishing his thought and cradles his face in his hands as if he’s breathing into a paper bag. “Should I stay behind?”
“What?”
“Let’s face it, Blake messed me up last night, I’m not too ashamed to admit it. I can barely see. I don’t know how much good I’m gonna do anybody. I feel like I’m only gonna hold you guys back. This is my fault, because I couldn’t control my anger. I picked a fight and I lost. Maybe I should stay here and help Ellen search for her daughter.”
“Neil, no,” Felecia pleads. “You were fighting for me, for my honor. You didn’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I did. Felecia, I wasn’t there for you that night. You gave me one chance, finally, when you were down at your lowest, you gave me a shot. And I blew it, to get wasted and party with my friends. You were supposed to get drunk that night, I was supposed to protect you. And I didn’t. This is my fault. Blake was like, he was one of my best friends, and I didn’t know what kind of person he was. I didn’t see it.”
“None of us did. I dated him, and I didn’t see it either. We’re not leaving you here, in a world that’s gonna be full of people just like him and your dad. We need you with us, we’re already down three. And you know damn well that whoever’s not on that chopper when it leaves, is never gonna get to leave. In a matter of days, America doesn’t exist anymore. It belongs to them. This is our one chance, and I’m not letting you pass it up because you feel guilty.”
“Besides,” I say, patting his shoulder, “you’re only gonna slow her down Squinty. That’s one determined mother and you can barely walk.”
“Fine. But if I have to give up my seat for those two to get on, I’m doing it.”
I remember when Neil was the most selfish person I knew. We really have changed. All of us. We’ve lived a lifetime since this all started, and with any luck, it’s not over yet.
CHAPTER 22
“I get it,” Marty grumbles, “they’re kids, but Noah man, we’re out of room. And special needs, how the hell are we gonna care for him?”
“What was I gonna do, leave them? She begged us. How many survivors have we come across?”
Maxwell raises her hands to stop our bickering. “They don’t weigh enough to affect anything, but they’re gonna take up valuable space. Have either of you ever seen the cabin of a Huey? You think the Stryker is close quarters, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Our knees will be touching as it is. We’re each gonna have to sit with a scientist on our lap.”
Norwood asks what I’m sure we’re all thinking. “You’re absolutely positive we need to pick them up?”
“If we don’t have them, they’re not waiting for us at the airstrip outside of Yuma. They’re gonna beat feet and get the hell out of there. We need to get them outta that dam or we’re getting left behind. Wolfe was right, we’re not important enough to wait around for. If we make it, we’re piggybacking off someone else’s rescue. There’s no way around this. This is our one option, it’s this, or stay here. Let’s roll, we still got a ways to go. We’re gonna need someone to drive the tanker.”
“I’ll do it.” Paul steps forward, a look of determination on his sweat covered face. By the looks of it, he held his own out here, fending them off while Maxwell and Norwood got the fuel truck out of the ditch. “I’ll drive. Let’s go.”
“Someone should go with him,” Maxwell says, nodding approvingly at the fact that he’s stepping up without being nudged into it. “We’re getting pretty cramped in the Stryker.”
“I’m doing it alone,” Paul shouts over his shoulder, climbing into the driver’s seat. “Honestly, I’m sick of you all and I need some time to myself.”
“Must be on his period,” Norwood snorts. “Anyone got a tampon he can shove up his vagina with his little girly fingers?”
“You know what, fuck you Dustin.”
“Fuck me?”
It takes both me and Marty to hold him back, but if Norwood really wanted to get to Paul, I don’t think we’d be able to stop him. What the hell is he thinking? He knows better than to piss off Norwood.
Paul’s world is falling apart, I understand that more than he realizes, we all do, because all of our worlds have. With Shane and Doug gone, Darius left behind, his girlfriend and his family dead, being at odds with me and Kristen, his last two friends left, his anger is warranted. And now, being expected to share a space with so many people he despises, Neil and Norwood, Felecia, his dad, me, it’s no wonder he wants to be alone.
“Just let him go,” I say, leaving Marty to make sure Norwood doesn’t attack as I approach Paul in the tanker. “Dude, you gotta get over this, you have to. I get why you’re so mad but–”
He slams the door, nearly hitting me in the process. Was he aiming for me?
“Paul,” I shout, pounding my palm on the glass. “Don’t fuck this up! We’re counting on you.”
“Trust me,” he says through the closed window, not even bothering to look at me, “I want out of here worse than you do.”
He starts the truck and I take that as my cue. Our conversation is over. Was he always this moody and I just didn’t notice? I know I was pretending everything was fine between us all, but I never imagined this is what would become of our tight-knit group of friends.
We all grow and change, and eventually grow apart. I figured that would happen when we all went off to different colleges, and we’d keep in touch sporadically, commenting on each other’s posts here and there. We’d become nothing more than little images in each other’s newsfeeds. It’s part of the evolution of friendships. I’m
not delusional, I didn’t think we’d all stick together for the rest of our lives, but I didn’t picture us ending like this. These were my forever friends, not casual acquaintances.
It makes me wonder, if life had continued on like normal, how long would it have been until we were at each other’s throats? This has clearly been building for some time now. When would Paul have lashed out at me for kissing his girlfriend? Would he even be mad if Jenny had just told him the truth, or if I had?
Clearly, I didn’t know any of them all that well if Shane could do what he did to Felecia, and Paul could cover it up. I know for damn sure if Junior Prom played out the way Felecia wanted it to, friendships would have been destroyed that night.
My life was about to be turned on its head this week, zombie apocalypse or not. It’s oddly comforting, knowing that the world falling apart around me was happening no matter what. Everything’s changed, but let’s face it, it was changing with or without the outbreak.
“And you’re sure you two were friends?” Marty asks as we climb into the Stryker.
“Honestly, I don’t really know anything anymore. Norwood, I know you were gonna ride on top, you mind if I take your spot for a little? I just gotta clear my head before we get to Sonny Valley.”
“Room for two bro, one on each side of the cannon. We’re gonna need two of us up there anyway to clear a path through zombie central. I have a feeling it’s gonna be loud as fuck though, so I don’t know how much thinking you’re gonna get done.”
Have you ever felt like nothing’s what you thought it was? You go through life thinking you have some inkling of an idea as to what your purpose on this earth is, if we even have one, and then to watch it get ripped away. I put so much effort into everything I’ve ever done. All my friendships, my hobbies, my goals, my relationships with people in general, I’ve always tried.
None of it mattered.
Nothing I’ve done in these past seventeen years has any bearing on today. I tried so hard to be a good person, to do what was right, and in this world, it’s somehow become a detriment.
My friends hate me. My enemies like me. My future is so up in the air I can’t even fathom a possible scenario that might be close to reality. If we make it out of the US, what awaits us? Because I have no clue. Everything I once knew, I don’t anymore.
I grab a grenade launcher and make my way over to Felecia and Caylee, helping Sami get her brother situated. “You guys mind if I ride up top? I don’t want you to think I’m trying to avoid you or anything.”
“You okay?” Caylee asks, a warmth in her voice that almost convinces me I am okay.
“I just need to get my head clear before we walk into a war there’s a good possibility we may not walk out of.”
“Oh we’re walking out,” Felecia says softly, sliding her hand up to my cheek. “We didn’t make it this far to die here. If you need to talk, you know I’m right here. You don’t need to go through anything alone.”
“I know. You’re the one thing I don’t question. I just gotta try to wrap my head around everything else. You’re gonna be alright down here?”
“I’m good, I got little Miss Martinez,” she says with a smile, pulling Caylee into her arms. “We’re just trying to comfort Sami, she’s been through a lot.”
“Hey Noah?” Caylee says quietly, stuck in Felecia’s side hug. “If this has anything to do with me, don’t worry, I’m not gonna like, try to get in the way of what you guys have. I don’t mean to be–”
“No, Caylee, you’re amazing,” I say so sincerely it causes her eyes to mist up. “Nothing to do with you, everything to do with my friends and family and every day I lived before this all started.”
“If it’s any consolation, I think we’re your friends and family now. We’re all we have left.” Caylee wiggles out of Felecia’s grip to plant a kiss on my cheek. “And I wouldn’t wanna go through this with anyone other than you two. Thanks for letting me be a part of this.”
“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Felecia says, placing her hand on Caylee’s knee. “We’ll be fine Noah. Take as much time as you need up there. When you’re ready, your family’s here waiting for you.”
I mouth a quick thank you to them both because that’s all I can muster right now. If I talk, I can feel it, I’m gonna burst into tears.
How could I have been so wrong about friendship for so many years? About love? And family? And everything that matters in this world? You think you know until you find it. I just assumed my friends were friends. Until now. The bond I shared with them is nothing compared to what I feel for the two girls sitting in front of me.
I don’t want things to go back to normal, and I feel so guilty for that. I was ready for a life change, maybe not the one I got, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through another year of high school. It’s not like anything was bad, it was just, over. After that feeling creeps into your brainwaves, it all goes stagnant. Nothing that comes after is of any importance.
I could have packed up, left and never looked back, and been okay with that. Now, in a way, I have, and I can’t help but feel like this is all my fault. Like I wished for this and the world ended because of that wish. But I never wanted to disrupt their lives, I just wanted to change my own.
And I was. I asked Caylee out. This past weekend, I didn’t get together with the guys, I ate at the buffet alone after work. I was rekindling my friendship with Tyrone and Darius, not that we ever weren’t friends, we just weren’t as close as we once were.
Just last week, I hung out with Norwood, Seth and Felix, helping them, of all things, dig the hole for the underground bunker they were building in the backyard. Doomsday preppers. They knew there was going to be a war, they just weren’t expecting this one. How stupid must everyone feel now for making fun of them about it, behind their backs of course, never to their faces. They were getting ready for this.
“You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”
Norwood nods his head slowly, his eyes trained straight at the wandering corpses being run down by our massive tires. “I wasn’t expecting this though, not this. I thought, you know, Russia, North Korea, Iran, hell, a fucking penguin uprising in the arctic. I knew it was coming soon too, that’s what gets me. I knew we had to rush. I could just feel it in my bones bro, time was running out. You knew too. Don’t even lie Noah, I know you did because why else would you come out of the blue to help us build that bunker?”
“I wish I could say I did, but the truth is, I just knew change was coming. So I figured, change with it instead of watch it change around me. We always had fun together, I mean this is you, you were always doing something crazy. And I think that’s what I needed, something out there to get me away from the life I’d outgrown.”
“Yeah, your little pissant group of friends were always too vanilla for my tastes. I knew from the jump they weren’t the type to survive the apocalypse.”
“To be fair though, I didn’t exactly pick my friends based on who would live through the end of days.”
“And look where it got you. Doug, dead. Shane, dead. Jenny, dead. Tyrone, cool dude but basically dead. Darius, soon to be dead. Paul, pretty much dead to you. Who does that leave, Kristen? This whole world should have done better with how we chose friends. And how we treated each other. We were a horrible species. See that guy right there?” he asks, pointing to a middle aged man in a suit chasing after us, his left arm chewed down to the bone.
“Successful,” he continues. “Married. Devout Christian. Kind to everyone, except for his ‘faggot’ of a son who had the nerve to come out of the closet, even though he knew it’d get him disowned. Better off dead,” he growls.
The lousy father hurls himself at our vehicle, getting mangled by the tires in his failed attempt to feed.
“Ouch, but you can’t tell me he didn’t kinda deserve it. That woman there, racist, wouldn’t talk to her daughter after she married a black dude. Dead. Him, he’s a great parent, reads his stepdaughter bedti
me stories every night, except he touches her while doing it. Dead. Dude in the suit, yeah, he’s confident alright. You know how he finds that confidence? By bringing everyone else down because that’s the only way bullies know how to feel good. Dead. Kill them all. They deserve it.”
“Blake, Shane, they raped Felecia a few weeks ago, at a party. They put something in her drink, and they raped her.”
Norwood shakes his head in disgust, a fire burning in his soul that escapes through his eyes whether he wants it to or not. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t find the words, opting to spit instead, as if hawking a loogey on their graves.
“Paul knew,” I continue. “I know he did, he was there. And I think he was in on it too. Some of the other guys on the football team.”
Norwood arches his neck to glare at the tanker behind us, to look at Paul, sizing him up the way only Norwood can. I swear, he doesn’t look at you, he looks inside you. He doesn’t see your skin color or facial features, he sees your soul. I don’t know how he does it, but he does, and somehow, he’s always right. We all thought he was crazy because of it, me included, but dammit, he always knows.
“I thought Pansy Paul was alone in the truck.”
“He is,” I say, turning around to glare at my best friend. “We’ve all upset him and he’d like some personal time.”
“I swear to god I saw someone in the passenger seat. Fucking Paul Hopkins, sticking your dick where it doesn’t belong. You ask him?”
“He’d lie if I did. She knows there were more than two. He’d been hanging out with Shane and Blake and his buddies. He’s been acting weird since that night, him and Shane both.”
“And to the rest of them, it’s just another Saturday night. One big, fun, group building activity. Let’s roofie and then gangbang the hottest chick in school. Fucking disgusting! And people have the nerve to wonder why I’ve always hated those motherfuckers. How dare you,” he screams at the dying world around us.
Blood Type Infected (Book 4): Betrayal of Hope Page 14
