Love and Decay, Episode 10

by Higginson, Rachel

  “We’re coming too,” Hendrix announced. He took my hand and pulled me to my feet.

  “We are?” Confusion made my brow pull together.

  “We’re going to talk to him about Kane. I want him gone. Gage is going to make that happen.”

  I gulped. I didn’t know exactly what Hendrix meant. Was this like a mob thing? Was Hendrix putting a hit out on Kane?

  Was that even how you used that term?

  I shook my head, “Gone as in….”

  “Released into the wild, babe,” Hendrix explained. “I need him out of here.”

  I let out a breath of relief, “Me too.” I felt one hundred percent fine with Kane removing himself from my life completely- in any way other than actually killing him. I drew the line there.

  At least for now.

  I hadn’t seen much of him lately, as we were staying in a larger storage facility that usually served as a community activity room. Gage kept Kane locked up in a different unit. He had no privacy, his hands were bound with plastic ties and armed men kept watch over him twenty-four-seven.

  I felt a little unnerved with the level of paranoia Gage felt concerning Kane. Gage’s precautions and extreme measure made me think I had severely underestimated my stalker. Sure, I was afraid of him and knew I needed to keep him at a distance.

  But I hadn’t exactly done that.

  I’d more or less done the opposite of that.

  “And you’re coming too,” I asked Tyler.

  “What? No,” she shook her head, seeming a bit distracted.

  “I thought Gage wanted you to find him?” I pressed, hoping she just needed to be reminded.

  “Oh, right.” She let out a nervous laugh. She seemed a little out of it.

  “So you’re coming?” I pressed.

  “I guess,” she shrugged and turned around to find Miller. “Mill, stay with Page. I’ll be back soon.”

  Miller looked over at Page and then back to Tyler, eyes full of concern. “I can come with you.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she assured him. “There’s enough of us going as it is. You stay. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t go see Kane without me,” Miller asserted.

  “I wouldn’t,” Tyler immediately agreed.

  She was lying. I could see it all over her guilty face. Although, I didn’t blame her. I wanted Miller absolutely nowhere near that sociopath either.

  “Haley and Nelson are in charge, children,” Vaughan called out his final order. “Stay together. We may feel safe here, but that doesn’t mean you can go running off by yourself.”

  “Vaughan, seriously,” King complained. “We don’t need a babysitter!”

  “Seriously, Vaughan,” Nelson was quick to echo. “They don’t need a babysitter.” Clearly, this man was at the end of his rope for some alone time.

  We all were.

  “Nelson, come on, give me a break,” Vaughan groaned. “We only feel safe. But we are not safe. It takes one breech, one mistake and this is gone. You saw what the van ran into. We’re nowhere near being out of the woods yet. We stick together. We protect each other.”

  Nelson let out an exhausted sigh and finally agreed with a simple, “Even in here.”

  “Even in here,” Vaughan repeated firmly.

  Nelson pulled Haley into an affectionate hug and whispered something in her ear that made her giggle. She buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. I needed to help them. Not right now of course. I had to deal with Kane first. But Nelson and Haley deserved to spend some time together away from Zombies and little kids and…. anybody else.

  I caught Hendrix’s eyes and saw the fire lit behind his hooded gaze. He was thinking the same thing. We needed alone time too.

  I wasn’t exactly insecure about my feelings for Hendrix- I mean, he’d almost uttered the L word only a week ago.

  But I needed him. I needed him to reassure me. I needed him away from the responsibilities of his family, away from the military-slash-soldier version of his personality. I needed him with his arms wrapped around mine and his lips urging my reservations into oblivion. And even with my realistic outlook on a world in which only death prospered and decay thrived, I desperately needed to hear about love and promises of a beautiful future that would survive the choking tangles of disease and depression.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a bit, Hales,” I called over my shoulder and she lifted her head to acknowledge me.

  “Reagan, what we talked about, yeah?” she called out cryptically.

  “For life, babe,” I grinned at her.

  “Well….” she blushed a little and then cleared her throat. “Not for life.”

  I laughed and turned around, realizing I agreed with her.

  “What was that about?” Tyler asked when we started climbing the staircase to Gage’s office. It was on the second floor of the four floor complex and actually an office. The staircase, just like the rest of the building was lit with candles spaced evenly apart that hung from makeshift lanterns. Gage had outfitted this place to surprising functionality and despite needing to be careful you didn’t run right into one of the low hanging lights, made this upgraded-garage rather comfortable.

  I heard rumors that there were solar-paneled generators that they sometimes used for electricity too, but so far I’d never seen anyone use them.

  “Haley and I sharing a room,” I replied in a low voice. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Oh,” she paused midstride and then caught back up to me although we started to lag behind the boys. “You’re not moving in with Hendrix?” she whispered and our echoing footsteps hopefully covered the question from Vaughan’s super-hearing and Hendrix’s curious ears.

  I shook my head, “Not yet.”

  “Huh,” she grunted resignedly.

  “Ty, we’ve known them for like three months.”

  “Yeah, but that’s like….” she paused to calculate in her head, “that’s like a decade in Zombie Apocalypse years.”

  I snorted a laugh. “Not quite.”

  “Hey, you’re both still alive, you can’t keep your horny hands to yourselves, and you still have all your body parts. If this isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.”

  I just shook my head at her. “I’ll start having that conversation with you when you tell me what’s up with you and…”

  “There is nothing going on with Vaughan!” she hissed.

  I pressed my lips into a straight line to keep from smiling. I was not at all expecting that from her. And even though I found it mildly amusing, I didn’t really know what to make of her non-feelings for Vaughan.

  I cleared my throat and tried again, “I was going to say Gage.”

  “Oh.” Even in the dim light I could see her face flame with embarrassment. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “He kind of…. he just seems interested in you, that’s all.”

  “No, he’s not,” she answered immediately. “He just, he knows me. That’s all. We grew up together. He knows what a psychopath my father is. He’s probably just making sure I’m Ok.”

  “He can see that you’re alright,” I pointed out. “And he can see that you’re not with your father anymore. There’s something else to it.”

  “He hated Logan,” she confessed in a rush of words since Gage’s office was just down the hall. Hendrix and Vaughan were already engaged in conversation with him.

  “What?” I asked when she didn’t offer any more of an explanation.

  She glanced over at me and repeated herself, “He hated Logan. Hated him. They were rivals all through childhood and high school.”

  “Ok, so what does that have to do with you?” My words were careful and slow. Tyler’s dead boyfriend was a very, very sensitive subject for her and one that I would always treat with the utmost respect- except maybe with that one question.

  “Gage left, right after Logan died. He was one of the only people that actually had my father’s perm
ission; although we still don’t know why my dad let him go. Gage is…. capable. He would have an asset to my father. He’s just good at whatever he does. Which is one of the reasons he and Logan never got along. They were alike in that way.”

  “I’m still not understanding,” I pressed.

  Because we were almost caught up to the boys, Tyler said quickly, “He feels guilty. He hated Logan for his whole life, but not in that way- not in the way that wanted him dead. Logan’s death was so…. unexpected I don’t think even Gage knew what think about it. So he just left. He left us all behind and found success somewhere else. I think when he looks at me he feels guilty. He got what Logan wanted, he found freedom, found safety, got away and didn’t have to lose his life in order to do it. He’s living the life Logan should be living.”

  I had a hundred more questions to ask and things I wanted to say to Tyler and her messed up view of even this deranged world we lived in, but we were at Gage’s office door and all three boys were looking at us expectantly.

  “Done telling secrets?” Gage asked suspiciously.

  Oh geez, I really hope he didn’t overhear us. That would be awkward.

  “Yep,” I smiled sweetly.

  “Anything you want to share?” Vaughan pried.

  “Oh you know,” I cleared my throat when Tyler seemed to clam up and turn a deeper shade of red. “Just girl stuff.”

  “Uh, huh,” Hendrix grunted.

  “Should we get started?” I changed the subject.

  Gage swung his body to the side and we all marched into the small space. There was a filing cabinet shoved in one corner covered in candles and a waist high buffet that lined his back wall- also covered in candles. His desk was simple, metal and potentially an antique of the time-capsule-before-the-world-went-to-shit variety. There was no paperwork littering the top- although it seemed like the type that would be- except for one notebook he used to keep a record of everyone staying here. There were two, burnt orange chairs sitting in front of the desk that had been salvaged from the seventies and a fake Fica plant decorating another corner.

  The plastic greenery should have been tacky… but it wasn’t. It reminded me of life.

  And that small symbol that there were still living things in the wake of a Zombie-takeover was a strong reminder to remain one of those living things.

  “What did you decide?” Gage asked pointedly when Tyler and I sat down and Hendrix and Vaughan took their places behind us.

  “We’d like to accept your invitation to stay,” Vaughan answered cautiously. “We can’t promise we’ll make this our permanent home. But we’d like to get off the road for a little bit, figure out our next move.”

  “Do you know how long you’re thinking you’ll stay for now?” Gage’s eyes narrowed with disapproval and his words sounded a little mocking.

  I was instantly on edge.

  “No.” Vaughan apparently didn’t like his tone either by his matching irritation.

  “Well, I need at least some indication of how long you intend to stay. I’m not going to give you units if you’re just going to turn around and leave again. The activity room is for temporary guests, so if that’s what you intend-“

  “Gage,” Tyler cut in. “At least six months, if not a full year. We’re not going to leave tomorrow. Relax.”

  And he did seem to relax. “Thank you for clarifying.”

  The tension seeped out of the room and Vaughan apologized, kind of. “I should have clarified. I’m not used to answering to someone else.”

  “And normally you won’t have to,” Gage promised. He met each of our eyes. “This is a community, not a concentration camp. The only thing I ask is that you put in your time in the watch-rotation and you respect everyone else.”

  “We can do that,” Hendrix agreed at the same time Vaughan said, “Absolutely.”

  Gage’s shoulders finally softened and his hard eyes became welcoming again. “It will be nice to have more skilled gunman around. While we have plenty of weapons, you’ll soon see that not very many people know how to use them.”

  “How do you know we’re any good?” Hendrix pressed.

  “A group that size,” Gage shrugged. “And you don’t belong to a settlement. You escaped Matthias’s colony. You’d have to be good.”

  “We are good,” Vaughan asserted a little impatiently.

  “I thought so.” Gage opened his notebook and moved a candle over so he could read it. “I have room for you on the third floor. Is three units enough space for you all?”

  “Reagan?” Vaughan looked down at me.

  I didn’t know why he was deferring to me, but I mentally calculated in my head who would be staying with who- Haley and me, with Page and possibly Tyler was one unit. That left six boys. They could share two units easily. Or if Tyler wanted to stay with Miller, then the five Parker brothers would have to stay in one unit. It would be cramped that way, but they could work it out.

  “Three is enough,” I answered finally.

  “It is?” Hendrix asked quietly. Apparently he’d been over the same statistics as me.

  “For now.” I avoided looking at Hendrix just in case there was something besides a confession of love he wanted to talk to me about. I might be able to work up to the L word, but there was no way I was ready to move in with that boy.

  “For now,” Hendrix echoed easily. At least we agreed about that then.

  Whew.

  Gage looked at us curiously, but finally offered, “Well, when it’s not enough, just let me know. I might not be able to keep you on the same floor, but there are other units available.”

  “That works,” Hendrix confirmed.

  Gage moved on, “There’s more. How meals work, bath schedules, guard rotation, all that, but I’ll let Clara brief you later. Right now I want to talk about what we are going to do with Kane Allen.”

  Chapter Two

  Gage paused to gather his thoughts while we waited in repressed silence to hear Kane’s fate.

  This could go a couple ways and I wasn’t going to relax about our future until I felt like I could control at least some small part of it.

  Right now, Kane made me feel absolutely powerless even locked up and under constant surveillance. His presence here lingered in every one of my thoughts, haunted my hopes of safety and security. And it was those feelings more than anything else that spurred an obsession to get rid of him.

  There was some cowardly part of me that was thankful Gage had taken over Kane’s captivity- had recognized him as the true threat he was. But there was another part that urged me into action; specifically me. Kane inexplicably felt like my responsibility. I was the reason he was here. I was the reason he’d left The Colony and pursued us. I needed to handle him.

  Even if it was impossible to dissuade him from whatever feelings he’d convinced himself he held for me. I needed to make him understand that we were never, ever, not ever going to happen.

  This was one of those times a restraining order could have come in really handy.

  “Matthias is coming here.” Gage said this carefully and cautiously while he watched Tyler with obvious concern. “We have an annual meeting in which we go over boundaries, trade and expectations. Usually our business is carried out by proxy, but we agreed upon this particular Tuesday to meet in person every year. Last year I went to him. This year, he’s coming to me.”

  Tuesday was exactly two days away- if I was still keeping track correctly. Sometimes the dates, days of the week and months all ran together. I tried really hard to remember, to follow the days and numbers on the calendar and I knew Haley and the Parkers did the same. There was something about knowing the date, even if sometimes we didn’t know the exact time of day that made us feel civilized.

  Tyler tensed next to me. No, that wasn’t right. Tyler froze, became completely paralyzed by fear and anxiety. Her entire body went rigid until I was positive it would break from how brittle she sat. Vaughan tried to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder but she
flinched almost violently from the contact.

  Gage hurried to explain, “We’re not going to let him find you, Tyler. He doesn’t even know you’re here.”

  “But Kane,” she whispered in a raw, broken voice.

  He leveled his eyes at her- eyes that I thought were hazel, but I hadn’t exactly been staring into them so I wasn’t certain. Plus, candlelight didn’t show off those minor features very well. “That’s what we’re here to figure out, alright? We’re going to take care of you and Miller. I’m going to keep you safe, Tyler.”

  “What are you thinking?” Vaughan demanded from Gage.

  Gage paused a moment, holding Tyler’s attention before relaxing back into his rolling-office chair and proposing his plan. “I say, we make it look like you guys are leaving. Let Kane believe it, let the complex believe it. Make it believable. We’ll keep you in the activity room until tomorrow. Then we pack you up and send you on your way. You can even give a farewell speech to Kane if you’d like. By the time Matthias arrives, you’re long gone and Kane thinks you’re on the run again.”

  Silence met Gage’s proposal. Finally my most important question bubbled up and spilled out. “But where will we go?”

  Gage looked at his file cabinet for a few moments, his profile flickering with the warm light of the candles. Finally, he seemed to come to an internal decision and met our curious stares again. “What I’m going to offer you is on behalf of Tyler and our history. If it were anyone else, or if Tyler weren’t involved, this would not be offered to you. Is that clear?”

  Tyler reached out and pinched my thigh as if to say, “I told you so.”

  And maybe she was right. But Gage didn’t seem like the kind of guy motivated by guilt. I hadn’t known him that long, but he was pretty straight forward and definitely decisive. I just didn’t get the brooding-past-demons vibe from him.

  But I could be wrong.

  “I…. inherited this place from my uncle. He was one of those dooms-dayers before the infection. You know that type? He was prepared for the end of the world, long before it actually happened. This place is set. There are generators galore in the basement- although we’re saving them. That lobby can lock down like a true fortress and we’re set with weapons. He called my parents immediately after things went badly for humanity. Said he was moving to his storage facility and we needed to join him. But travel and safety disintegrated so quickly, we never got that chance. When I left The Colony, I came straight here. I knew he’d take care of me. But the bastard hadn’t been taking care of himself. He had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer six months before the infection. By the time I caught up with him, he was fighting strong, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. He lasted about six more months after I got here. And in that time, he taught me everything I needed to know about this place and how to keep it up and running. He also showed me his bug-out bunker. You know, before Zombies my entire family thought he was out of his mind. Turns out…” Gage trailed off, staring intently down at his still open notebook. Shaking out his head he looked back up at us and continued, “There’s a small hide-out about a mile and a half south of the creek. Complete with a steel door, plenty of food and water and more. This isn’t something I share with others. This is mine. If things take a turn for the worse, that is where I go. And I’m not inviting guests. Are we clear?”