Divided We Rot (One Nation Under Zombies Book 3)

by Raymond Lee

  She raised an eyebrow, earning a bark of laughter in return.

  “I know, I know. I have one too. I was born here but my family is Venezuelan. We moved back there when I was a toddler and didn’t return until I was in high school. English isn’t my first language. Go ahead with your story.”

  Sky studied him for a moment, wondering how old he was. She thought late twenties or early thirties, maybe. He seemed nice, but he still put out a vibe that said he’d break anyone who crossed him like a twig and she wondered again if she should trust him, but what choice did she really have? It was him or no one at the moment. “We were staying in one of the really tall hotels on this street way down there,” she continued, tilting her head in the direction she’d ran from. “The meet and greet got canceled. Everything shut down. We were told to stay in our rooms. We ran out of food. Raven tried to call room service but no one answered. She went out to get food from the vending machines and then there was screaming. I heard a gun go off. Raven ran back and said there were zombies like in The Walking Dead, and there were. Or, they were infected, anyway. We jumped off the balcony into the pool to escape.”

  “That explains why you’re wet.”

  She nodded. “They were everywhere in the hotel. We got stuck in a closet and they were trying to get to us. Raven couldn’t get the door closed because they were pulling on it. She gave me a sweeper and told me to run for it, that she’d catch up to me. I didn’t want to run and leave her there, but she told me to, she made it sound like it was the only way we’d make it.”

  Torres nodded. “That’s when you got separated?”

  “Yeah.” Sky sniffed as fresh tears spilled forth. “I ran outside and there was one of the zombie women. She was eating a girl in the street, what was left of the girl. She looked about my age. I couldn’t see her face but she was twisted and bloody, and I think pieces of her were missing. I screamed and the woman came for me. I threw the sweeper at her but she kept coming. I ran and locked myself in a car.”

  Torres angled his head so he looked at her sideways. “You saw your sister leave the hotel?”

  Sky nodded. “I was in the car but I saw her through the windshield. She saw the girl and dropped to her knees crying. She cried really loud and the zombie that was trying to get in the car moved her way. When I looked up again there were more. They were all walking toward Raven. A couple saw me though and I tried to hide, but they knew I was in the car and they wouldn’t leave until this woman yelled down from a balcony for me to run. She got their attention so I could get out of the car and run away. I ran in the same direction Raven had ran. She went the wrong way to look for me. She didn’t see me in the car.”

  Torres scrubbed a hand down his face. “The girl you saw dead in the street, you said you couldn’t see her face?”

  Sky nodded, her nose scrunching in disgust at the memory. “She was on her belly and she was covered in blood. Blood was all over her.”

  “Could you see what color her hair was?”

  “It was brown,” Sky answered. “It was about as long and curly as mine.”

  “Shit,” Torres almost whispered. “Honey, why do you think your sister dropped to her knees and cried when she saw that little girl in the street?”

  “Because it was awful.”

  “Well, yeah, I’m sure it was,” he agreed. He set the bat on the floor and clasped his hands together, studying them a moment. “If your sister told you to run and heard you scream after you exited the hotel, then came out and saw a girl about your size with the same curly brown hair face down, dead in the street, she more than likely thought that little girl was you.”

  Sky shook her head, considering his words. “No. She’d know it wasn’t me.”

  Torres stared back at her, saying nothing. His eyes spoke for him. His eyes apologized for the harsh truth he’d delivered. Sky recalled the girl, forced herself to get beyond the ugly horror of the memory and look at the girl as her sister would have. Same size. Same hair. She remembered seeing a sliver of purple, but it was so small. The girl’s shirt had been drenched in blood. Sky looked down at the blue U of K shirt she wore and panic rose from deep within her, escaping in an audible gasp. “She thinks I’m dead.”

  “Honey—”

  Sky pushed aside the hand Torres extended to her. “She thinks I’m dead. She ran and she wasn’t looking for me. She isn’t looking for me. She’s going to keep running and I’ll never see her again!” She lunged for the doors.

  “No!” Torres grabbed her around the waist and lifted her again. This time she screamed bloody murder and kicked out viciously, not caring who heard her.

  “I have to find my sister!” She rammed her head back as hard as she could, connecting with Torres’s chin. He muttered an oath but held tight to her writhing body. Something slammed against the glass. They couldn’t see beyond the large poster taped there but whatever it was, it was big.

  “Quiet!” Torres growled. He scooped the baseball bat off the floor and walked backward with one hand clamped tight over Sky’s mouth. She continued to cry, unable to stop. Her sister was gone and she had no idea where and she wouldn’t be looking for her. Raven thought she was on her own. She’d keep moving and the more she moved the farther she’d get from her.

  Torres crouched behind the checkout counter, close enough to the edge that he could keep an eye on the glass at the front of the store, and rocked back and forth, cradling Sky as he did his best to muffle her wracking sobs with his hand. “Quiet, pequenuela, quiet,” he whispered, his gaze laser-focused on the glass. “We will look for your sister tomorrow but first we must survive tonight.”

  Sky didn’t know what pequenuela meant but Torres’s voice had softened when he said it and although his hand covered her mouth he was gentle enough not to hurt her. She slowly came to a calm place, accepting there was nothing she could do. From her vantage point she could still see out the doors and the sky was steadily darkening. An infected man shuffled past the door and she felt the tension ease out of Torres as his hand hesitantly lowered from her mouth.

  “Better now?” he asked.

  Sky nodded, using her palms to wipe the wetness from her face.

  “You can’t get loud like that, honey. It draws them.”

  She remembered Raven telling her the same thing and sucked back a sob. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. This isn’t easy for me either. I promise I will keep you safe but we have to keep calm and act smart. Can you help me do that?”

  Sky nodded. “Will you really help me look for Raven?”

  He stared at her for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, honey. I can’t promise we will find her, but I promise we’ll give it our best shot and if we can’t find her right away I will keep you safe until this blows over and the two of you are reunited.”

  Sky perked up at this. “Do you think that will happen?”

  He gave her the smallest hint of a smile. “It’s what I pray will happen.”

  “If we find her will you stay with us?”

  This got a full grin. “Is that what you want? I thought I was a dangerous stranger.”

  “Yeah, but you have muscles.”

  He chuckled. “I will protect both of you. First, we need to get you in something dry. It looks like that zombie moved along.”

  “Are they really zombies?” Sky asked as he released her and stood.

  “They act like the undead,” he said, shrugging. “From what I gathered off the news they have some virus that kills them and after they die they rise up and start eating people. Zombie, infected, whatever you want to call them, they’re bad news for sure.”

  “Could we have the virus?” Sky followed him across the store to a rack of T-shirts in various sizes.

  Torres studied her for a moment before returning his attention to the shirts. “You’re not Russian, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you been in contact with anyone who is Russian?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t
know any Russians.”

  “Russian women brought the virus here when they came over to marry American men. If you haven’t had any contact with them and haven’t had any blood transfusions you shouldn’t have to worry about that at all. I haven’t been in contact with any or had any blood transfusions so I’m pretty sure I’m safe. We just need to keep from getting bitten by anyone who is already infected, all right?” He handed her a dark gray shirt that said Hollywood on it. “You can put that on in the bathroom. You’re out of luck for new jeans and underclothes, but the shirt is long enough you can take the jeans off and we’ll let them dry overnight. There are blankets here. I’ve been sleeping on a pallet I made out of some but there’s enough left to make a pallet for you and you can wrap another around you.”

  Sky held the shirt tight to her chest and backed away. “No.”

  “No, what?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “There isn’t a bed here. A pallet is the best I can do for you.”

  “No, I’m not taking my pants off,” she clarified, taking another step back while her brain started doing the math on how many strides it would take for her to reach the front doors and how many strides it would take for him to snatch her.

  “Your jeans are wet. You don’t want to stay in wet clothes.”

  Sky looked around for a weapon but all she could find was the baseball bat in Torres’s hand. She inched away, putting more distance between them as her heart thumped savagely.

  “What’s wrong, kid? I’m missing something here.” Torres eyed her curiously, seeming to focus on her feet as she slowly backed away from him.

  Sky opened her mouth and snapped it closed. Raven had always told her not to trust strangers, especially men. Her mother had also taught her early on about stranger danger and that there were sick men who liked to touch girls and do things to them. She clearly remembered Raven complaining about men who would do anything to get a girl out of her pants and how you couldn’t trust any of them.

  Torres’s eyes widened and his expression changed to one of understanding as he nodded his head. “I think I understand.” He walked over to the next aisle and returned with a pair of socks. “These may be a little big but they’re dry. There’s an automatic hand dryer in the bathroom. It’s loud but not loud enough to carry out here and attract those things outside. There’s also a lock on the door. You can switch out the shirt and your socks and drape the jeans over one of the stalls. In the morning you can use the hand dryer to finish drying them since they should be mostly dry by then. You’ll be locked inside the bathroom, safe. Understand?”

  Sky slowly nodded. She’d be safe from the monsters and safe from him, but she’d be all alone. “Where will you be?”

  “I’ll be watching the street until it gets too dark for me to see anything. I’ve been sleeping on a pallet in the manager’s office but I’ll move it to outside the bathroom door tonight.”

  “The power went out at the hotel. Is there a light in the bathroom?”

  “This store shares a generator with the little bank next door. I already checked all that out. There’s a light in the bathroom but it’ll be bright. How about we use a candle? We can put it in the sink so you don’t have to worry about knocking it over and burning us out of here, and we’ll use a scented one because, well, it’s a public bathroom.”

  Sky scrunched her nose up. She hadn’t thought about the smell.

  “There’s no lock on the door to the manager’s office. It’s either lock yourself in the bathroom and let your pants dry overnight or stay out here with me and be extremely uncomfortable in wet jeans. You need a good night’s sleep if we’re going out looking for your sister tomorrow and I don’t think option three is going to happen.”

  “What’s option three?”

  “Trust me enough to let your pants dry overnight while you sleep out here where I can watch over you.”

  Sky looked down. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t ever apologize for trusting your gut or being wary of strangers, kid. I’m a good guy but you don’t know that. If something happens to me it’s a relief to know you won’t blindly follow just anybody. There’s a lot of creeps out there.”

  Torres led her through the store, grabbing throw blankets and a candle, along with a toothbrush, travel-sized toothpaste, a bottle of water and a flashlight. She put batteries in the flashlight as he led her to the women’s bathroom near the front of the store, along the left wall, and ushered her inside.

  The bathroom had a bit of a urine smell to it but wasn’t as bad as other public restrooms Sky had seen. She cringed a little as Torres tore off the giant labels wrapped around the blankets, unrolled them, and made a pallet for her on the floor that harbored who knew how many traces of disgusting things she didn’t want to think about. “Use this one to cover yourself with,” he said, setting one on top of the pallet. He removed a lighter from his jeans pocket and twisted the lid off the scented candle he’d brought in with them. He lit the wick and set the candle in one of the standalone sinks. The smell of apple pie wafted from the basin. “Obviously, you want to use the other sink to brush your teeth. This will put off some light for you so you aren’t completely in the dark and you have the flashlight if you get scared. You also have me. I won’t go far. Do you need anything else?”

  Sky looked around. She had the pallet to sleep on. She had light. She had what was needed to brush her teeth, a bottle of water if she got thirsty, and three toilets if she needed to use the bathroom. She’d grabbed a coloring book and a pack of crayons in case she couldn’t fall asleep and needed something to occupy her mind besides worrying. All she needed was her sister, but she knew Torres wouldn’t budge on waiting until morning to look for her. “No.”

  “All right. I’ll be close by right outside if you do. Get those wet clothes off and try to catch some sleep.” He left the bathroom and Sky immediately locked the door behind him. She stood there staring at it until the feel of her heavy, wet jeans grew too irritating to put up with and she decided she would have to trust that he wouldn’t kick the door down and attack her in the middle of the night.

  She brushed her teeth quickly and peeled the wet clothes from her body. A shimmy-shimmy dance under the automatic dryer took most of the wetness out of the underclothes she refused to remove and the T-shirt from the store covered her from neck to beneath her bottom. The socks were a little big, but warm and beat her squishy socks by a mile. She flipped the light switch and stood still, rationalizing as her mind tried to find monsters in the dark corners of the bathroom where the candle glow couldn’t reach. She switched on the flashlight and sat in the middle of the pallet, aiming the beam in all the spots she swore she could see zombies.

  She was being silly, letting fear and her imagination get the best of her. She heard rustling outside the door and knew Torres was positioning his pallet there. At least she hoped the sounds were coming from Torres. Unable to bear the limited light any longer, she tiptoed to the sink and picked up the candle. She placed the jar in the middle of the floor and instantly felt relieved as it cast off light much better. There were still dark shadows but the halo of light around her helped her keep a grip on the nightmare images that liked to form in her head. She knew Torres was afraid of her knocking the candle over and setting the store on fire, but there was no chance she would be coming off the pallet during the night. Even if she started to roll around in her sleep she’d wake up shrieking if she touched the gross floor.

  Half a completed coloring book later she let out a yawn and thought about actually trying to sleep. Then she thought about milky-eyed people eating her face. She cut a glance to the door, noted the absence of light underneath and the lack of noise.

  “Torres?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Just checking. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Sky jackknifed into a sitting position, awakened by shattering glass. Her heart lodged in her throat as she heard Torres shouting. Someone shouted back. She couldn’t make out t
he words but she could tell Torres and the two other men she heard were angry. Their voices elevated and she realized they were speaking in Spanish. There was a loud thud followed by more thuds and crashing. When the men weren’t shouting they were grunting. All the while, Sky’s entire body shook. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew it wasn’t good and it was far too reminiscent of her last day with Raven, all the chaos she heard before her sister forced her to jump off a balcony and into a living nightmare.

  The unmistakable bang of a gun set Sky in motion. She grabbed the damp jeans she’d hung over one of the stall doors and shoved her legs inside, grimacing as the cold material touched her skin, and quickly pulled on her shoes, tying the laces in record time. Another shot rang out and she whimpered, praying Torres wasn’t dead.

  There was another loud crash, a monstrous growl that may or may not have come from Torres and then someone was banging on the bathroom door. “Sky!” It was Torres. “We gotta go now, baby girl. Get your pants on and get out here quick!”

  She stood frozen, fearful of what she would find outside the safety of the bathroom. Torres wasn’t alone, or at least he hadn’t been. Either she would find other men out there, men who could hurt her, or she would only find Torres, and what would that mean? What had Torres done to the men? Why were there gunshots?”

  “Sky! I will bust this door down if I have to. Some assholes broke out the glass. There’s nothing keeping the infected out if they come. You’re not safe if you get trapped in there!”

  Trapped. Like the closet at the hotel. Sky opened the door and Torres’s hand instantly clamped around her upper arm and tugged her out into the store. “Don’t look at them,” he ordered as they stepped over a man face down on the floor. He flipped a light switch and she saw a puddle of blood pouring from beneath the man’s body.

  “You shot him?”

  “Bastard pointed a gun at me. I tossed my flashlight at him, hit him in the head and we wrestled for the gun while he was disoriented. It went off and got him in the gut. I knocked the other guy out with my bat.”