"No, the house wasn't empty. There was a rich couple in a car parked in the garage. My guess is they gassed themselves before the bug had a chance to take them out."
"Oh. Well, where are they now?"
"What do you mean? It's not like I left them there."
"I meant, how did you…dispose of the bodies?" My chest heaved as I attempted to regulate my breathing.
"What the hell kind of a question is that?" The kitchen stool scraped along the floor as he pushed away from the bar counter and snatched up his bowl and spoon before walking around me to the sink. It was rare to see him in a short-sleeved top and the t-shirt clung to his upper body like it was half a size too small. I knew how many push-up's he did a day, it was probably hard for him to fit his arms into any shirt that didn't hang around the waist.
"I'm just curious, is all," I said, picking up my own dishes and setting them beside his in the metal drop down sink.
He groaned before facing me with a look of displeasure seeded deep in his eyes. "I buried them - kind of. Happy?"
"No," I muttered.
Buried, not burned. This meant they could still be hanging around the property. Most likely, they were and that's who I heard walking down the hallway earlier. I sighed and cleaned my dishes, ignoring the questionable looks that Drake shot in my direction every few seconds. He was hiding things from me, so it seemed only natural to hold my own secrets close to my chest for the time being. It wouldn't be the first time I was guarded with Drake. No doubt, it wouldn't be the last either.
***
A little alcohol was all it took to loosen Drake up and get him talking. And once he did, he wouldn't shut up. We sat on the sectional - me tucked under a throw blanket, half-buried beneath a mound of different shaped pillows and him in the opposite corner of the sofa. His feet propped up on the delicate coffee table, a large glass of wine in one hand. The rain had stopped but the wind made it seem even colder. There was only enough dry wood in the garage to last maybe two more fires. The next day we would have to bring home some more, or the week would end up with one or both of us freezing in the night.
"So you left your dog there? Why'd you do that?"
"Well, it didn't make sense to bring her when we would be on horseback. I don't know if she could walk that far." I sipped slowly from my own glass.
"Shit. If my dog lived, I wouldn't let her out of my sight."
"There are others at the lodge that need her."
I almost believed that to be true. The real reason I didn't bring Zoey with us was because in my heart, I was worried one or none of us would make it back. At least she was safe at the lodge with everyone else.
"Right. And this lodge, you think it's safe up there, tucked away in the mountains?"
He lifted one of his arms and propped it behind his head before leaning back into it. I was almost certain the gesture was done to show off his bicep. Impressive at it was, it wasn't enough for me to forget about Connor and the last time I saw him sitting in that same position.
"It's been safe there for the most part. No one else has found it. And we have solar power too, plus the lake."
"Huh."
"What?" I asked.
"It's just…what if there's a fire or some other natural disaster. You really want to be stuck on the top of a mountain for that?" He took a large swallow of wine.
"Where else should we go? Into the city, with all the-" I abruptly bit down on my lower lip, then tried to hide my slip by bringing the wine glass to my mouth, but Drake wasn't drunk enough to miss what I almost said.
"You mean, with all the dead people?"
I nodded. And sipped wine.
"In the city with the bodies…or the shadows?" He wasn't teasing me, he was waiting for me to confirm that he wasn't the only one that had seen or heard something paranormal.
I shrugged, trying to play off my reaction like neither option bothered me, "Both, I guess."
"Right," he huffed, "Something tells me it would take more than a dead body to spook you."
"I guess that's true now. It wasn't nine months ago."
The day I found my mother dead in her apartment flashed through my memory. And the baby still strapped into the stroller inside the bus depot. That day brought me face to face with enough death to last one hundred life times.
"It wasn't for any of us." Drake's eyes glazed over as he stared at the wall.
"Who was the person you were traveling with?" It was a personal question. One that I intended to lead into the conversation about what he saw over the last few months.
"Someone I met on the road. He was a nice guy. A good guy. Had a family before the bug hit. Was a couple years older than me."
"What was his name?" I asked.
"Lewis. Lewis something." He finally blinked and looked from the wall to me again. "More?" He leaned forward, snatching the bottle of wine - it was our second - and poured some in my glass before waiting for my answer.
It was as good a time as any to bring up my questions. "Drake, do you know where the asshole that nearly killed you is?"
His hand tightened around his glass, but instead of getting defensive or shutting down completely, he surprised me by nodding. "Yup. I've known where that fucker's been hiding out for a while now."
"Really? Mind sharing?" I sipped my wine and tried to stay calm. But I felt like my intentions were written all over my face. I didn't want to tell Drake that the moment I knew that information would be my last moment with him.
"There's not much to share. They mostly hang out at one of those food warehouses. It's smart, really. There's enough packaged grub in that place to last the lot of them for years. They stay the night there in shifts and took over a housing complex near the building."
I looked away from him, lost in thought. A warehouse. A housing complex. It was a lot of ground to cover by myself.
"How many of them are there, exactly?" I chewed on the inside of my cheek. This would take more thought than I first imagined.
"There were thirteen men. Now I think there's eleven or so," he said with a crooked grin.
"Were?"
"Let's just say an opportunity presented itself," he laughed. His wine glass was empty again. I watched him refill it and take another gulp.
"What did you do?" I was genuinely curious and leaned toward him while he spoke.
"About a month before you came along I followed a pair of them across town while they were on one of their patrols. Pathetic really, the two of them were. They spent an hour talking about naked women and golf. Golf. I mean fucking really? It wasn't hard. I waited for them to split. When the younger guy went to take a leak, I snuck up behind him with my hunting knife. The other one got it in the back. Right between the shoulder blades." With one hand over the other, he made a swift, downward motion in the air between us.
"Really? It was that easy?"
"Taking a life, or taking out those two idiots?"
"I don't know, both?"
He shifted around in the seat and for a moment, I thought he was going to get up and leave me there alone with the wine. "I'm not sorry. Fuckers deserved it. I know they've taken down more like us, who were just passing through here. And I think they have a girl or two tucked away in that building. Haven't stuck around long enough to find out what for, but I can imagine."
I sat upright so suddenly that wine sloshed out of my glass and Drake flinched. "What do you mean, like they have them there as prisoners?"
"Why the hell is that exciting?" he asked, looking at me sideways with an arched brow pointing toward the beamed ceiling.
"Oh, you have no idea," I jumped off the couch and nearly broke the stem of my glass as I slammed it down on the table. After pulling the magnetic notepad and pen off the refrigerator, I hurried back into the sitting room to find Drake just where I had left him, with the same surprised expression on his un-groomed face.
"Here, show me," I said, handing the notepad and small pen to him.
He waved them at me. "Show you
what?"
"Where this warehouse is."
The wine had gotten to him, I could see it in his foggy eyes but he wasn't at all fooled. After setting his own glass down on the table with a clink, he stood to face me and tapped his finger into my chest almost hard enough to make me sway.
"What are you doing here, Riley?" he asked, emphasizing each word with another sturdy poke of his finger.
"Stop that!" I said, slapping his hand away.
"Are you looking for someone?"
"Maybe. It doesn't matter. Just…just please tell me where this warehouse is. And I promise you won't have to worry about me anymore."
He rocked back on his heels like I had struck him in the face. "I'm not forcing you to stay here, you can leave whenever you want," he said through gritted teeth.
"That's not what I meant," I sighed. "Don't you think that I'm just as mad at them as you are? They took Connor and Kris from me. And, yes, if you really want to know, we were looking for someone. A woman."
"I think I'm entirely too drunk to have this conversation right now." He turned to walk away and I grabbed at his arm, getting a fistful of shirt instead.
"No. Let's talk about it now. Why won't you tell me? What does it matter to you?"
With a shrug, he loosened my grip on his shirt and snapped at me, "Because you'll fuck up my plans! Damn, you're nosy!"
"You are planning something. I knew it! Why else would you stay here after what happened? Oh, this all makes perfect sense now. What is it, what are you going to do? And don't think you can just walk away and not tell me, I'll beat it out of you if I need to." Drake was half-way up the stairs with me hot on his heels, reluctant to allow him to end the conversation by escaping into his room. Which is exactly what he was trying to do.
"I'm sure as hell not telling you! You'll go out there and get yourself killed. Stop, let go!" He growled at me as I yanked at the back of his shirt, efficiently stopping him in the hallway before he could get to his room.
"No way, tell me. It's not your right to keep this to yourself," I hissed back.
In a blur, I was slammed up against the wall and nearly lifted off my feet before I realized Drake's mouth was on mine. My first instinct was to kiss him back but, seconds later, it was Connor's face that I saw. In a panic, I squirmed out from beneath him, pushing firmly on his chest but getting no leeway. When we parted, he brought the back of his hand to his mouth and I noticed it was shaking - just like my knees were.
"Shit," he mumbled, "I didn't mean to do that. Sorry." He turned away and left me standing in the hall. His door closing behind him so softly that I barely heard it click.
"I'm sorry too," I whispered. Unsure if I meant it for Drake or for Connor.
CHAPTER eighteen
I wasn't surprised when I heard him stomp down the stairs at dawn. It sounded like he left through the front door and I didn't dare go downstairs till I knew he was gone. The spacious house seemed too quiet with just me inside it. Full of nervous energy, I cleaned the kitchen, the sitting room and took several bags of trash out into the garage. Drake didn't return until I was finally sitting on the couch, peeling back the wrapper to a stale granola bar.
When he opened the front door, he seemed surprised to see me. "Hey," he said awkwardly.
I nodded, covering my mouth as I chewed. He propped the door open and stepped back outside, pulling a wagon full of chopped wood bundles into the house. A gust of cold wind followed him inside and I shivered, pulling my sleeves down to my wrists.
As if he felt an explanation was needed, he grumbled under his breath without looking at me, "We're almost out of fire wood."
"Okay," I managed to say, with a mouthful of food tucked into my cheek.
After a few minutes, there was a wooden bundle at the foot of every fireplace and then he promptly disappeared into the kitchen. I waited for him to come back out but after nearly twenty minutes, I figured he wasn't in a hurry to speak with me. I found him leaning against the counter, flipping through a luxury boat magazine with an open jar of dill pickles within reach.
"You don’t have to avoid me, you know," I said, startling him.
"You don't have to sneak up on people like that," he said, not taking his eyes off the open magazine. "Plus, I'm not avoiding anything."
"Can I have a taste?" I asked.
"What?" He looked almost panicked as I moved toward him with my hand out.
"A pickle. You're not going to eat the whole jar, are you?"
"Oh. Sure. Here," he said, handing the open jar to me.
"What did you think I meant?"
He shook his head, returning back to the magazine. I tried not to laugh at how intently he was staring at an advertisement page for some sort of medication.
"Look…about last night," I started.
"It was stupid, I know. Won't happen again," he said quickly.
"It's not a big deal. It's just, I can't."
"Really, I didn't mean it," he said, glancing over his shoulder. "Think I was just drunk and being stupid."
"You were mad at me," I pointed out.
"Maybe a little," he laughed. Finally he closed the magazine and dipped his fingers into the jar I was still holding. After biting a pickle in half, he gestured at the front of me. "You wouldn't get far."
"What do you mean?" I tried not to sound insulted.
"You're all balls-out. These shits have been running this town for months. They've got a system down. There might not be a lot of them, but you won't get five feet if you just try and storm the place."
"Oh."
He lifted his eyebrow at me. A gesture I was beginning to become familiar with. "I'm sure I could manage. Especially with a little help," I said.
Both his eyebrows shot up that. "You aren't serious."
"But, I really am," I winked.
Shaking his head, he took the pickle jar from me and walked into the sitting room, kicking his shoes off before propping them up on the glass table.
"So, tell me about this plan you seem to be hatching," he said with a grin.
***
After a considerable amount of arguing from Drake and pathetic begging on my part, he finally agreed to take me to one of his lookout spots. The safest way to go unnoticed was to sneak in at night, he told me.
"We're only going to watch, unless something unplanned happens, understand?" Drake asked as we quietly walked down the sidewalks until the darkness of the nearby golf course came into view.
"I got it," I whispered back, adjusting the straps of my pack on my shoulders, making sure they were tight enough to stay on if I had to run.
Both of us were armed but our guns were tucked inside our packs, buried under the modest rations we would need for our overnight stakeout. Strapped securely to my right thigh was a six-inch hunting knife with a wicked serrated edge. It was an exact match to the blade that Drake wore on his left thigh. He spent several hours showing me how to properly thrust and maintain a strong hold on the blade. After a day of practicing with it, I was confidant I could use it if I had to.
It was a moonless night, perfect for creeping through shadows and around buildings. But still, I was nervous about being seen or worse - caught. I followed Drake closely. I stepped only where he stepped, touching only what he touched. Within a half hour, we were crouched at the fence that bordered the backyard of a residence and the course. Except at that particular spot, there were trees obscuring my view of the wide area between our side of the Santa Ana River Trail and to the side we needed to get. It was the perfect place to wait for a safe time to cross.
"Got your scope ready?" he whispered.
It was already out of the pack and in my hand, so I held it up for him to see. I nodded at Drake as he signaled at the tree and watched him scale the trunk in silence. The night was dark enough that all I could see around me were the shapes of structures. It was hard to tell in the distance if they were houses, apartments or office buildings. If it was hard for us to see, hopefully it was equally as hard for a
nyone else looking out along the golf course to spot us.
A hiss sound came from the tree above me, so I flattened myself onto the damp grass and pressed the pocket scope against my eye, scanning the buildings across the way with the night vision tool. The rooftops were clear but it was impossible to see inside each window. I stayed on the ground, sweeping back and forth across the buildings until a soft thump landed beside me.
Drake crouched at my elbow with his own pocket scope held to his face. "It looks clear, but we have to hurry just in case." He tucked the scope into the front pocket of his camouflage jacket and waited for me to do the same before standing. "We'll run straight that way, through those trees," he pointed northeast. "Don’t stop until you get to the last one and then we'll check with the scopes before crossing the water."
"Okay."
"Are you really ready? Once we get out there, we'll be exposed and if they see us…well, you know the plan."
I did know the plan. We would separate - one of us fleeing east, while the other went west until we were certain we weren't being followed. Not until then, would we work our way back to the house.
I nodded but Drake squeezed my arm until I said the words out loud, "Yes. I'm ready - let's go."
Without another word, he rushed into the trees, following the curve of them across the south side of the course. I pumped my legs hard to keep up with him. Within seconds, we were huddled behind our last bit of cover. After doing another sweep of the nearby buildings, Drake sprinted out across a weed-filled sand trap and I bolted in line behind him. When our feet hit the riverbed, we ran through less than an inch of water but it still sprayed noisily up around us. The sound seemed to echo through the entire area but I didn't stop until my feet hit the north side of the course and I almost collided into Drake as we both came to a stop under the same tree. He was barely out of breath but my lungs were on fire. My nostrils flared as I kept my hand clamped to my mouth in an attempt to stay quiet, but what I really wanted to do was double over and breathe like a woman in labor.
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