by Raymond Lee
Torres glanced her way and the infected woman reached for him, gripping the shoulder of his coat. Sky screamed, but as soon as Torres registered the woman’s touch he swung reflexively, the first strike of the bat knocking the woman to the ground and leaving a big indentation in her forehead. Torres brought he bat down again and again, repeating the action until the infected woman’s head was completely bashed in and what was left of her face was covered in blood and viscera. Torres raised the bat once more, but lowered it, gripping his bicep with his opposite hand. Sky hadn’t failed to notice each of his swings had been slower than the one before. He was wearing down.
He shook the blood off the bat as best he could and scanned the area before walking over to the car and opening the door. “You shouldn’t have screamed,” he said as he tossed the bat over the passenger seat in front and turned to grab their backpacks and the stringed jugs of water.
“You were just standing there. I didn’t think you were going to swing the bat,” Sky explained and scooted back as he stored their supplies on the backseat.
“I swung,” he said as he stepped into the car, pulling the door closed behind him. He squeezed in between Sky and the supplies, resting his head along the back of the seat. “It’s harder with the women. I was raised not to hit women. I didn’t even do it when I was with the gang.”
“I thought it was because it was a girl. That’s why I yelled.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hesitated.” He angled his head so he could look out the window. “Fortunately she was just a straggler. It’s going to get dark soon and it’s going to get even colder. Now that I’ve taken all that weight off my shoulders I don’t think I can pick it back up for a while.”
“I told you it was too much, Mr. Mega Muscles.”
Torres smiled. “No pain, no gain.”
Pain was right. Sky tried to wiggle her toes but even that was tiring. Her lower body ached from shin to toe. Inside the car felt better than out in the chilly air, but it still wasn’t very warm. She burrowed inside her coat and fought to keep her eyes open. She hadn’t been sleepy at all until she’d gotten into the car, off her feet. “We need to find somewhere to stay before it gets dark.”
“I don’t think we will find a place tonight,” Torres said as he lowered himself onto the floorboard, groaning as he stretched his neck and unzipped his coat. “However, it is going to get very cold and we can’t walk all night long. We definitely can’t sleep out in the open. Come down here, baby girl.”
Confused, but always willing to follow the man who’d saved her life, Sky lowered herself down to Torres, allowing him to tuck her inside his coat and wrap his arms around her. “We will sleep here tonight,” he said, resting his head against the door. “Down here, we are out of sight and as long as we are quiet anything infected that comes this way should pass us by. Between my coat, your coat, and our body heat in this small space you should stay nice and warm.”
Sky snuggled into Torres, turning to wrap her arms around him like a big teddy bear. She had a flashback of doing the same on Sunday mornings with her father as he watched TV in his recliner and held on to Torres tighter. “You’re my family now, Torres.”
“And you are mine.”
My family leaves me, she started to say but the fear of speaking the words into life kept her silent. She snuggled deeper into his coat and let her eyelids drift closed as his body heat and steady beat of his heart against her ear lulled her to sleep.
She woke sometime later, shifting just enough to see what had awakened her. She looked toward the window to see dark silhouettes passing by the car.
“Don’t make a sound,” Torres whispered so quietly she just barely heard him. “They’ll keep walking. Go back to sleep, pequenuela. I got you.”
The next time she awakened, it was morning and she was being lifted onto the seat.
“Sorry, hon, but I gotta move,” Torres said, pulling himself up from the floor. He rotated his neck and scanned the area around them. “Looks clear. There was like a whole freaking herd of infected passing by here last night. It’s a damn good thing we bunked down in here when we did.”
He opened the door and climbed out of the car to stretch, groaning as he did. Sky watched him roll his neck around again, working out the kinks as she crossed her legs and rocked back and forth a bit. Once again she found herself in desperate need of a bathroom and none to be found.
“It’s still pretty nippy out here, but the sun is warm,” Torres said turning back toward her. “We should get some breakfast, drink some water and head out toward…. You have to pee, don’t you?”
It took all of Sky’s willpower not to hold her privates. “I am not going on the road.”
“Honey, we don’t have a serviceable car and there is no bathroom remotely close to us. You’re going to have to.”
“No.” She shook her head, her cheeks growing warm. “I can hold it.”
Torres shook his head on a sigh and leaned in to unzip his backpack. “If you piss yourself I hope you know you’re walking in your mess. Your spare jeans are at the bottom of one of these packs and wet wipes only do so much.” He pulled out a box of Pop-Tarts and gave her one of the pastries. “I also expect you to drink some water before we start walking so you really should use the bathroom.”
“I said I can hold it until we find a bathroom.” Sky unwrapped the Pop-Tart and bit off a piece. It was blueberry, not her favorite, but she ate it anyway.
“Honey, we might not find a bathroom. Even if we do, it might be too disgusting to enter. It’s been a couple months since this started, there’s no running water anywhere and there’s diseased people leaking God knows what all over the place. We lucked into a decent bathroom at that gas station in Utah. I imagine most are probably infested with rats by now.”
Sky forced herself to swallow the chunk of Pop-Tart she’d already bit off before Torres had started his spiel and groaned as it hit her belly with a sickening thud. “Are you trying to make me throw up? Because talking about infected people leaking stuff is how you make me throw up.”
He grinned. “I’m trying to make you quit being silly and use the bathroom before you go on yourself.”
“That’s not going to happen. I can wait.”
He looked down at her legs tightly crossed and locked together and shook his head again. “Well, I can’t.” He stood outside and looked around. “Stay in the car and keep your head down.”
“Where are you going?” Sky asked as he started walking away, out of her view.
“To use the bathroom!”
Sky sat back in her seat and finished off her Pop-Tart. She crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it on the floor of the car. Once her breakfast was done she had nothing to focus on except the pressure in her bladder. She clasped her hands around her knees and rocked harder.
The door opened and Torres squeezed back in. “You’re ridiculous, kid. Go freaking pee. I’ll make sure nothing attacks you.”
“Where am I supposed to pee?”
“You can pee on the road like I just did.” He grabbed one of the gallons of water and twisted off the cap.
“Ew! You didn’t wash your hands.”
He stopped with the jug halfway to his mouth. “Seriously? Where am I going to wash my hands?”
“You could at least use the hand sanitizer.”
“Sky, the whole country is pretty funky right now. We haven’t bathed in over a month and probably aren’t going to get to for who knows how long. Is not washing my hands really that big of a deal?”
“You didn’t even take toilet paper.”
“I just pissed. I didn’t need any.”
Sky’s mouth dropped open. “That’s so gross.”
“I’m a guy. Guys don’t wipe. We shake.”
“Shake what?”
“It.”
“It?”
“Yes, it.” Torres raised the jug to his mouth and started drinking.
“You shake your ding-dong?”
Torres choked, water dribbling out of his mouth as he tried to gather himself. “Yes,” he finally said, coughing.
“Ewww, you just flop it all around sprinkling pee everywhere and don’t wash your ding-dong cooties off your hands?”
“Oh for chrissakes.” Torres capped the jug of water and set it back on the seat before getting out of the car.
“I’m not drinking out of that jug,” Sky informed him as he leaned back in and started rooting through her backpack.
He extracted a roll of toilet paper and withdrew from the car. “Get out here now. You’re going to pee.”
“No I’m not.”
He leaned back in. “Get your ass out here or I’m going to grab you with my ding-dong hand and pull you out of there.”
Sky scooted back against the opposite door. “I’ll scream.”
“Really? You’ll draw a bunch of zombies to us rather than just use the freaking bathroom?” Torres raised his right hand and wiggled his fingers. His jaw was set, his eyes hard. “I’m counting to three and if you’re not out here you’re getting the ding-dong cooties because I will drag your ass out here. One…two…”
Sky saw the frustration growing in his eyes, looked at the hand he’d just held his ding-dong in, and raised her hands. “All right, all right.”
Torres backed away from the car and waited for her to slide out before handing her the roll of toilet paper and walking her around to the other side of the car. He opened the rear and passenger side doors and pointed to the space between. “Think of this space like a stall. If by some chance someone actually drives past they will not see you. You’re blocked on this side by what looks like miles of terrain. I’ll be on the other side of the car where I can’t see you but will still be close enough to make sure nothing creeps up on you. Now piss, damn it.” He turned and walked to the other side of the car, grabbed a protein bar out of the bag in the backseat and ate it while standing with his back to her, the car providing a barrier between them.
Sky looked at the road beneath her. She was standing between the two open doors but with no third wall, she was exposed, and Torres was way too close. She understood he needed to be, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull down her jeans and squat on the road, out in the open. She thought about taking her coat off and draping it over the doors but they looked too far apart. She’d still be squatting on the road with Torres hearing everything. Her face warmed just thinking about it.
“I don’t hear any peeing,” Torres said. “Come on, kid. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Once you’re done you can have some water and we can start moving.” He waited a moment, then huffed out an angry sounding sigh. “Damn it, kid. Just pee!”
Sky jumped a little at the harshness in his tone and unbuttoned her jeans, tears running down her face as she squatted and urinated on the road, her face fully aflame knowing Torres could hear her and she was partially exposed. She thought of her bathroom back home, her bedroom, and her sister. For the millionth time since the infected people took over she wished she’d never won the trip to Hollywood. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t be squatting on the road by a man she’d made angry, her bare butt hanging out and her dignity shattered.
She finished as quickly as she could, adjusted her clothes, and walked around the side of the car, sniffling as she fought to keep her emotions contained. She looked where she was walking, mortified at the thought of making eye contact with Torres.
“Hey,” he said softly as she reached the side of the car he stood on. “What’s the matter, honey?”
Sky lost the battle to control herself the moment Torres spoke. She squeezed past him and climbed into the backseat of the car, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed. She crammed the toilet paper roll into her backpack and removed a small bottle of hand sanitizer from one of the side pockets.
“Hey.” Torres squatted outside the door, leaning in. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“I peed!” she snapped as she sanitized her hands. “Aren’t you happy now?”
“Aren’t you? Don’t you feel a lot better?”
“No!” Sky flung the sanitizer bottle at him, sat on the seat and pulled her knees to her chest so she could hide her hot face.
Torres was silent a moment and then she heard him get inside and close the door behind him. She sensed him kneeling on the floor before her. “I disinfected my cooties. Does that make you happy?”
“Boys are disgusting,” she said in-between sobs.
“Yeah, I know, but we can’t help it. It’s how we’re designed.” He ran his hand over her head, stroking her hair. “Is that why you’re upset?”
“I’m upset because you made me pee on the road! It’s embarrassing.”
“Honey, we all have to pee. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” He scooped her up and took her seat, resting her on his lap. She pushed against him, but was no match for his muscles. He held her tighter. “Boys and girls have different stuff but we all pee. There’s nothing funny or embarrassing about it. I’m not laughing at you.”
Sky sniffed and wiped her eyes. “You yelled at me.”
“I may have snapped a little bit but I did not yell at you.”
She rested against him, her head tucked under his bristly chin. “You’re mad at me.”
“No, I’m not. I was frustrated for a moment, that’s all. It’s my job to take care of you. I need to make sure you are fed and hydrated, and I couldn’t make you drink water knowing you had to pee. I can’t let you hold your bladder all day while we look for a bathroom. It’s not good for you.”
“You were going to give me ding-dong cooties.”
Torres laughed, his chest vibrating against Sky’s side. “I was desperate. I admit it was a dirty move, but I’m new at this taking care of little girls thing. It doesn’t come with a manual.” He reached over and grabbed a different jug of water than the one he’d drank from earlier. “We need to get moving so please drink from this cootie-free jug of water so you don’t get dehydrated. Hopefully we’ll find a vehicle today and I’ll be able to successfully hotwire it. Otherwise, we’re looking for a building to hole up in and I don’t know if we’ll last through winter since no buildings will have heat. My teeth were almost chattering last night and I’m pretty sure it just turned November. I do not want to be stuck out here in December. We’ll freeze to death for sure.”
“I was warm.” Sky looked at him. “You kept me warm while you were cold.”
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m the adult. You’re the kid. It’s my job to keep you warm. Now drink so we can get a move on while the sun’s shining. If we have to walk I want to do it while it’s at full strength, warming us.”
“How long have we been walking?” Sky asked, shifting her plastic bag to her other hand. She had no idea how Torres managed to carry two backpacks and the jugs of water without complaining. She could see in the strain on his face that it was hard to do despite his muscles and boasts of being able to lift much more weight than that. She didn’t know a lot about working out, but she knew weightlifters didn’t carry their weights for hours.
Torres glanced at his watch. “About an hour and a half.”
“Do you need a break?”
He looked over at her. “Do you need to rest?”
“No,” she said, despite the tightness in her thighs. “You’re carrying a lot more.”
“I’m good. I can see an exit ramp up ahead. Depending on how it looks we might get off. Any cars we’ve seen on the interstate have been wrecked too badly to drive and when we run across an infected straggler we have nowhere to hide.” He looked behind them. “I keep thinking about that herd that came through last night. We do not want to go through that again while we’re in the open like this.”
They’d come across three infected people earlier and Sky thought for sure they were dead. With no close exits and no cars at that particular point to hide behind, the infected came straight for them. Torres had dropped the packs and jugs and used his
bat to kill them, but there had been a moment when one had gotten dangerously close to him while he’d been beating another. Sky had almost fired her gun, which would have drawn anything within earshot closer to them.
“What happens if we do come across a herd and there’s nowhere to hide?”
“We drop everything and run like hell the opposite way. There’s no way to fight through a group that big. I mean, I’m awesome as hell, but I have my limits.”
Sky rolled her eyes. “You brag a lot.”
“But do I lie?”
She grinned. “No. I guess not.”
They continued walking in silence, Sky’s legs feeling more and more like overstretched rubber bands with each step she took, but as long as Torres continued walking with the weight of both their packs and the jugs of water on him she wouldn’t complain. The more breaks they took, the higher the chance they’d be spending another night outside and she didn’t want him freezing through another night. She thought again of Raven and wondered if she were still alive. She’d been afraid of her sister being eaten or turned, but hadn’t thought as much of her dying from the cold or starving. As they neared the exit buildings started to come into view. Sky squinted to make out the signs. She saw a cluster of hotels which immediately chilled her blood, a gas station and some fast food restaurants mixed among buildings without signs that could be seen from the interstate.
“Holy shit, Sky, do you see what I see?” Torres picked up the pace, walking faster toward the exit ramp.
Sky quickened her step to keep up with him, trying to pinpoint what had excited him. Once they reached the exit ramp a large one-story building came into view. “A mall?”
“What’s next to that mall?”
“Cars!” Cars, trucks, and SUVs, to be exact. She saw dozens of them filling the parking lot and the lots around the mall.
“Not just any cars. There are three dealerships next to that mall. Those vehicles will have keys so I don’t have to hotwire anything. Plus, they’re new vehicles so more than likely in better condition than what we’d find on the street.”
