Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12

by Higginson, Rachel

  Maya and Kent nodded. They seemed courageous enough to be here, but I knew how easily that could be just bravado. Not that it was a bad thing… I was more than a little guilty of faking it when I had to.

  “Ready?” Hendrix asked me gently.

  I nodded. “Ready.”

  “You know where to stay?” His voice was low and rough with his determination to get me to answer him correctly.

  “By you,” I answered just as passionately.

  “Hell, yes, by me,” he agreed.

  And then we were out of the car and running into the gas station with weapons raised. Nelson kicked open the door, not that it was locked, and we descended on the shelves with a single purpose in mind. Hendrix and I secured the back of the store, while Nelson and Haley kept an eye out, and Maya and Kent started filling bags with everything they could find.

  Kent was a fit enough guy in his mid-thirties… late-ish-thirties? It was hard to tell exactly how old he was because his hair was mostly gray, but his face seemed young. I gave up trying to decide. He took orders well and seemed to have a keen awareness of his surroundings.

  Maya was as proficient with her gun as she’d appeared back at the compound. Her shoulder length curly black hair made me wonder if she’d been cutting it herself or if had been much shorter before Feeders took over. Yes, my thoughts were obsessed with the haircut I was looking forward to later in the day. Her coffee colored skin was gorgeous and suffered not even a little bit from a lack of sunlight in our lives. She looked super bad ass with her eyebrow piercing, and if I had to guess her age, I would put her at twenty-five at the oldest? Maybe?

  Once we’d declared the gas station Feeder-free, Hendrix and I joined in the hunt for supplies. Haley and Nelson went about searching for gas or keys to the pumps outside, but came up empty handed.

  Eventually, we moved onto the auto body shop, where the boys commandeered plenty of tools and supplies for working on cars. Apparently, this was another trick of the Parker brothers. They could fix minor issues with cars when given the right utensils.

  Who knew? Although, when it came to cars, my dad wouldn’t let me near the engine. It probably had something to do with the one time I tried to add oil to my beat up Plymouth Sundance. I might have ignored the dipstick and filled the oil until I could see it… Apparently that was a terrible idea.

  After we’d weighed down the back of the Suburban with a hydraulic lift and enough wrenches to give every man, woman and child one back at the compound, we picked our way down the strip mall.

  I found several pairs of scissors and even a spray bottle at the hair stylist. Haley packed bags full of shampoo and conditioner and some random products that might be nice every once in a while. Hendrix picked up plastic gloves and some extra-strength soaps; while Nelson, Kent and Maya tore apart the office and storage room for everything else that could be of use.

  We picked up plenty of paper and writing utensils at the H&R Block, along with calculators, a ruler, some coffee cups and a heavenly supply of chocolate in the bottom drawer of one of the desks.

  My conscience was happy that Kent and Maya had tagged along, because if it were just me that stumbled upon this, I would have set up camp right under that desk and eaten every last piece of chocolate until my stomach felt bloated and ten pounds heavier.

  And then I probably would have gone back and eaten the wrappers.

  Not one of my proudest thoughts.

  Finally, we were ready for the grocery store. We entered the building the same way we had entered all of them, but something was off with this one. I immediately covered my nose with my sleeve.

  Ammonia.

  And it was strong enough to make my eyes water, and my tongue go dry with an uncomfortable sensation that something was terribly wrong.

  “Why does it smell like that?” I gasped while barely containing my gag.

  Hendrix shook his head. He ignored the painfully burning in the nostrils and took the store in with shrewd, discerning eyes.

  “This is recent,” Maya said. “It smells too strong to have been sitting for any length of time.”

  Nelson’s hand shot out and stopped Haley from stepping further into the store. He pointed at the floor that was coated with some kind of liquid. She shrunk back next to me and raised her eyebrows as if I had an answer for her. I shrugged and looked longingly at the shelves heavy with supplies.

  But they were also… too heavy.

  “There’s a lot of crap here,” Nelson commented and then sniffled. The odor was so pungent my eyes were watering, and my lungs burned with the effort to breathe through the noxious smell.

  “This is not right,” Hendrix confirmed. “We should go.”

  In a very stern, authoritative voice, Kent said, “We can’t leave until we get this stuff. There’s too much of it to leave it behind.”

  “There will be other places…” Hendrix started but was cut off when Kent stepped forward and immediately slipped on the ultra-slick floor.

  It wasn’t just an inch of liquid that covered the floor; it had been… greased.

  Kent’s legs flew out from underneath him, and he flew backwards before any of us could reach him. The back of his head smashed onto the hard tile floor and immediately split open. Fresh blood oozed out into the glistening liquid underneath him.

  He looked up at us with apologetic eyes filled with fear. He seemed to be mostly all right, but his hand went to the back of his head and came away covered in his own stupidity- aka blood.

  We had thirty seconds to take in his injury and wonder how to get him off the ground while it was so slippery. Suddenly the Feeders burst into the main part of the grocery from a room in the back.

  Their screaming pierced through first, but we didn’t have more than a second to prepare before they rushed through the door- literally through it- that had been holding them at bay. They were wild and furious with their red-eyed rage and helpless hunger.

  I raised my weapon and prepared to shoot, as I put the pieces together in my head; this was a trap.

  A planned, well-thought-out, malicious trap.

  The oiled floor, the promise of supplies just beyond our reach, the harsh scent of ammonia and something like soap to keep the Feeders locked up until one of us stepped onto the floor and slipped. Did they know one of us would crack our head open? Did they plan for that blood to trigger the Zombies? While the ammonia might have masked the usual scent of our humanity, blood would overpower their trained, single-minded noses.

  That was a lot to absorb in the ten seconds I had to process, but there it was.

  Or at least my theory.

  I would think more about that later… after we got out of here alive.

  Chapter Three

  The burning ammonia combined with the Feeder’s rotting stench sent my stomach spiraling into angry upset. I gagged and coughed, before burying my nose in my bicep while continuing to pop off bullets into the incoming hordes’ heads.

  There were at least ten of them, although it was hard to find a solid total when they were dropping to the ground or moving so inhumanly fast. They ripped into the shelving that separated us from them, tossing metal racks and canned goods to the floor in clattering disarray. Their arms flapped in an effort to push everything out of the way, but then they would trip by the things at their feet.

  Feeders were such an oddity. And while this was no place or time to study them, I couldn’t help but notice their contrasts. There were moments where their limbs and bodies moved with a preternatural grace that defied human capabilities and proved them to be the bloodthirsty killer-cannibals that would eat our faces if we gave them half an opportunity. But then there were times when they proved to be the bumbling no-brained monsters that couldn’t pick their feet up to step over something in their way.

  I had a theory that this had something to do with the degenerative stage of the disease that infected them. While cognitive thinking ended almost immediately after they were exposed to the infection, it was a slowe
r slide into the final stages of Zombie-ism. The brightness of their red eyes could indicate how far gone they were- the deeper the red color, the more likely they were to be able to leap high buildings and outrun a speeding train. The newer guys were the ones fumbling around, bumping into walls and moaning, “Braaaaainnssssssss.”

  Well, okay, they weren’t exactly saying that.

  My breathing rushed loud with fear and panic in my ears, but I kept my gun trained and steady as I aimed for the decaying heads filled with black teeth and covered in hair that fell off in wet, tangled, flesh clumps. Their skin was pasty white but peeled back in places to reveal fleshy, dark red muscle and bright white bone. Their blood dripped from their open wounds in a thickly, cloying liquid that was more dark brown than healthy crimson. They were disgusting.

  And hungry.

  “Reagan, on your right,” Hendrix called evenly.

  I followed instructions immediately. It was a woman, impossible to tell her age, but dressed in business clothes with one low black pump still on her left foot. Her other foot was naked and bared to the elements. I glanced at her toes but knew they weren’t all there even while I didn’t take the time to count them. Her legs had been just as exposed to whatever she’d been through over the last two and a half years. There was barely any skin left, mostly frayed tendons and gristly bone. She stumbled after me, bow-legged with the effort to support her weight. Her clawed hands reached out for my face with yellowing, jagged fingernails.

  I winced at the horror this woman had become and then aimed for her forehead. It took two shots for me to get her dead center, above the bridge of her nose. But the moment the bullet entered her useless brain, she dropped to the floor. She twitched for a couple more moments before whatever life was left in her leaked out and abandoned her to an empty, hollow vessel of gore.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on her before I swung my handgun back to the rest of the horde. Kent was their obvious focal point because his head gushed so much fresh blood. He slipped and slid on the floor in an effort to crab-crawl backwards and get away. The floor was seriously slimy preventing him from getting enough of a grip to move anywhere. He looked like a cartoon on the ground, trying to get out of harm’s way with flailing arms and legs.

  His gun had clattered somewhere out of his reach, and he flopped around completely helpless and hysterical.

  “Just stay down!” Nelson shouted at him. “We’ll take care of these guys and get you out of here. You’re going to hurt yourself even more if you keep that up!” Bang, bang, bang went Nelson’s gun, proving his point.

  Kent settled some; at least he stopped tossing his appendages around, but I could see how panicked he was.

  We continued to beat back the Zombie assault; they kept multiplying. At one point, I swear, I thought I was going to have to use my next bullet on Kent, but Hendrix caught the Feeder right in the temple before he could land on Kent and bite his face off.

  Kent let out a freakishly high-pitched scream and then went back to floundering in an attempt to get the limp Feeder off him. Eventually, he was able to push him to the side but his shrieking did not end.

  “It’s burning!” he yelled! “It’s burning me!”

  I looked down and convulsed with a disgusted shiver. The liquid, which was clearly not something as simple as water, tinged pink with blood. It had to be from Kent… he was bleeding from somewhere besides his head.

  And despite the ungodly scent of ammonia in the air, the fresh blood sent the Zombies into a ravished frenzy.

  In a level tone that twisted my insides with how carefully controlled he sounded, Hendrix came to the same terrifying conclusion that I had. Only when he said it out loud, in that voice that made it seem like he was barely holding it together, the situation seemed oh, so much worse. “This was a trap. They oiled the floors and poured some chemical mix over the top.”

  My heart thudded in my chest, one solid boom that hit so hard I had to believe it would bruise. A trap. Who would intentionally make the Zombie Apocalypse harder?

  “We have to get him up,” Nelson’s voice held only bleakness. “His skin is going to strip off.”

  My stomach twisted harder.

  I chanced a glance down at Kent now writhing in the inch-thick liquid. The pinkish hue had turned sickly red. We fired faster and faster, but not all our shots were accurate enough to make this quick. More often than not we had to put the Feeder down just a few inches from Kent or one of us.

  My heart had picked up pace again until I was dizzy with the speed it was pounding out. The adrenaline pumping through my blood was hot and intense and sharpened all of my other senses into superhuman abilities. One clip emptied and I immediately refilled with another.

  Hendrix, Nelson, Haley and I worked as a seamless unit. By now, we’d been in more than enough life and death situations than should be humanly possible. The outcomes so far had all been in our favor, but it was because we could come together in a unified line and work together to end the danger as quickly and efficiently as we could.

  Kent’s tortured screams faded into high-pitched whimpers that were somehow infinitely worse. His body had almost given up the fight. He’d managed to get his upper torso onto the mat at my feet, but the lower part of his body stayed half-submerged in the dangerous chemical-based liquid.

  “Reagan,” Hendrix’s voice still held that cold control, “Nelson and I will cover you and Haley while you get Kent outside. Do it now.”

  Haley and I immediately followed orders, tucking our guns back into easily reachable places. We avoided stepping in the ammonia and oil mixture and started to reach for Kent.

  “Do not reach underneath him,” Nelson ground out. “Try to lift him from the dry parts of his clothes.”

  Psht. Easier said than done.

  I tucked my hands inside my sleeves, and Haley followed suit. We struggled to move as quickly as we could, but it was difficult. We couldn’t quite reach the dry parts of his chest, and the only accessible part of him was his head. Although, he was in enough pain, so we were hesitant to start yanking on his noggin. The other part that made this so difficult was that he had splashed almost his entire body with the chemical during his thrashing.

  A man’s life hung in the balance though so we reached forward and grabbed him. The first few seconds almost ended in utter disaster. I pulled as hard as I could on the front of Kent’s shirt expecting him to move with me.

  It’s not like I didn’t have muscles… I had muscle tone. I was practically a freaking body builder after living on the streets and then being forced to survive by hunting, gathering and running for my life on a day-to-day basis.

  But Kent was a man- a tall man, with the same kind of lifestyle as me.

  If I had to make an educated guess, I would say he probably weighed around seven hundred pounds. Fine, call me out. That was probably something of an exaggeration, but he might as well have weighed the same as an elephant for all I could lift him.

  Plus, he’d completely passed out by now- from fear or pain, I didn’t know.

  Probably a little of both.

  “We’ve got to work together, Reags,” Haley panted past her fear and panic.

  Taking her advice, I huffed, “One, two… three.” And we pulled together.

  We slid him a few inches, paused and slid him some more. When he was mostly out, Maya jumped in and helped. She grabbed his belt, with her hands tucked into her sleeves as well. Once his feet were the last thing to remain immersed, she jumped up and opened the door for us.

  We continued to drag him out of the store, while the last of the gunshots fired into the air. Outside in the still-warm autumn air I sucked in gulping breaths of fresh air. I’d somehow managed to grow accustomed to the burning in every one of my pores, eyes, nose, mouth and lungs from both the strong ammonia scent and the light tones of rotting flesh that floated through the air after that surprise Zombie invasion.

  My lungs shook in my chest and the effort to breathe felt agonizing. At th
e same time my air passage burned, the oxygen I sucked in felt ice-cold and splintering.

  This had to be aftereffects of the chemical we’d been inhaling since we entered the store. It felt like my chest was compressing, and my throat was completely closed. The fresh air felt agonizing on my burning lungs, but I couldn’t get enough of it.

  Kent lay still on the ground, pushed next to the brick wall of the convenience store. We needed to get him into the Suburban, but the guys would have to help us move him. Meanwhile, Maya had taken some surprising initiative and ran off for the SUV. I hoped she was headed for some water.

  “We need to get his clothes off,” Haley wheezed. She bent over her knees, hands planted firmly on her thighs to hold her body upright. If her head was spinning as bad as mine, I knew this was a huge effort.

  Realizing how dizzy I felt, I turned to watch Maya stumble to the side but catch herself.

  This was so stupid.

  The world in front of me dipped and turned and then flushed with little black spots that danced in my vision.

  “We need to prop the door open, too.” My voice sounded reedy, strained and rasping to my ears. “If they stay in there any longer they’re going to be worse than us.”

  Haley nodded, and I stumbled back to the glass door that had somehow remained unbroken in the two years since Feeders took over the world.

  I yanked back and stumbled with the heavy door when the momentum took me with it. I waved an arm around, hoping to send in some fresh air, even while the faintly functioning rational part of my brain told me that it was a useless effort.