Waking Up Dead eodl-1

by Emma Shortt

  “I know,” she said without so much as blinking. “Just as an FYI, I stomped my brother’s head in before he could eat me.”

  Luke started in surprise. “You serious?”

  “No, just thought I’d lighten the mood.”

  “Your brother…” he said, ignoring her sarcastic tone. “That must have been horrific.”

  “Don’t want to talk about it,” she said in a singsong voice before aiming and firing. The bullet missed, lodging in a nearby window.

  “But—”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Luke.”

  “With that aim? I don’t think I have to worry.”

  “Try me.”

  He sighed. “Okay subject closed…but you get what I’m saying—”

  She shot a second zombie just as Luke took aim, effectively halting his words. “Yes, I get what you’re saying, but that doesn’t mean we know how they think,” she said. “Part of them could be looking on, horrified, watching it all happen, unable to do anything.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  She shrugged. “In the end it doesn’t matter, I guess. We kill them all the same.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And if they are looking on, trapped, they’re probably grateful for it.”

  “I suppose…” He sighed and watched as the zombie he was aiming for jumped from building to building. They were so flexible and so strong. How he hated them.

  “In the end, I guess nothing really matters anymore,” Jackson said slowly. “Nothing but finding that camp and seeing what’s left. If there’s anything we can do to change things.”

  “To change things?”

  She nodded slowly. “I’m fantasizing that it’s an army camp. Full of scientists and doctors all busy working away on a cure.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I said fantasizing.”

  She sounded so glum that Luke wanted to reach out and grasp her hand, partly because he felt guilty for telling her a story she clearly didn’t want to hear, for making her remember her brother, and partly because he just wanted to. But he was all tied up with the gun and the steering wheel. Instead he shot the jumping zombie, for her, and smiled as it fell to the ground. A quick look in her direction and his heart sort of juddered. She wore her hat covering her pixie hair, her coat zipped right up to her neck, and a scowl split her face. She was probably pissed with him and with them, hell, he got the impression she was pissed with the whole fucking world.

  But she was so damn pretty.

  “No,” he said after a moment. “You’re wrong. Some things still do matter.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  That evening they had no choice but to stop and hide. Another super-size pack was out, and they were waiting on the only clear road out of the area. Jackson had spotted them as they scouted the route through and suggested they hole up for a while until the zombies either dispersed, or until they were both rested enough to go for a full-on showdown.

  They found a restaurant with metal shutters on the windows, parked the Batmobile out front, and went in through the back door, closing it and securing it with a large table, before splashing it with Gucci Cool. They made sure the front door gave them a clear escape route to their wheels, grabbed the blankets they’d taken from the abandoned house, and settled down on the mezzanine level right next to the window.

  Jackson was cold but far from tired. Like she had told Luke, her sleep requirements were minimal. Maybe it was due to constantly being on high alert. She guessed it didn’t really matter. Like everything else, the cause was irrelevant. Only the effect counted anymore.

  “Tell me something I don’t know about you, Jackson,” Luke whispered, the moment they were settled, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything.”

  “Well when the zombies—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Something before them. Something from the real world.”

  Jackson paused and searched her mind for something lighthearted, and non-people themed, to share with him, but nothing immediately presented itself. Even discounting the people memories, looking past the last two years was almost like looking through a veil. It was gauzy and difficult to really see. Maybe it was her mind’s way of protecting her psyche. Not wanting to recall things or else it would become too depressing.

  “My life before this feels like a dream now,” she said honestly. “I already told you about the things I miss, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but you tell me about things like food and places you liked to visit. You haven’t told me anything about you, not really. I know you don’t want to talk about the people. I get that. But there must be some things you can share with me. Things about you.”

  “Well I already told you about everyday stuff.”

  “Tell me about your job,” he asked. “You worked in a bar, right? How did you get that job?”

  Jackson’s heart stuttered and a clamminess washed over her. Her eldest brother had found her that job and the memory of it was suddenly vivid… him walking her to work on her first day, them laughing… She pushed the memory back where it belonged and shook her head.

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Because it’s too hard?”

  “Because it’s pointless.”

  “Jack—”

  She scowled and tucked her blanket under her feet. Why didn’t Luke realize that if he pushed her down the rabbit hole, then a whole lot of nasty stuff would come spewing out and maybe it wouldn’t go back in? It was far easier to just live in the moment, think about the rest of the day, surviving for a little bit longer. It was what she’d done for the past two years. Taking each day at a time…

  “No, Luke, serious,” she said, because it was important to her that he understood this and clearly right now he wasn’t. She was never going to be Alice tumbling down that rabbit hole.

  Never.

  “Thinking about the world as it used to be, the real world you called it, is stupid. I can imagine the food and the places I liked and the books I read, the movies I watched, because that stuff isn’t really important, not anymore. But the other stuff, the actual reality of that world—the people and the activities, and the everyday tick tock of it, does not fly. It’s gone and nothing we will ever do in our entire lives will ever change that. It is what it is now. Everything we knew, everything we loved, is gone. You have to let it go, too, let them go, and the only way to do that is to not think or talk about it.”

  “Psych one oh one would say to let things go you have to think about them, talk about them, let them rest,” he argued.

  “Well, I was just a waitress and I never took a psych class or any other classes, for that matter. But I know what works in my head and you have to respect that. You have to give it up.”

  “But you haven’t given it up, Jack, not really,” he insisted. “You’re still looking for a bit of normality. It’s why we’re heading south. Hell, you’re hoping for a fucking cure.”

  Jackson shifted. “Because I have to,” she said. “And you know maybe it’s time to tell you why.”

  “Okay…”

  “One time, long before I met Tye or made it to Chicago, I was walking down some street. I can’t even remember where it was, but it must have been a city, because there were skyscrapers.”

  He nodded for her to continue, probably imagining she was going to tell him something quirky or amusing. Jackson almost stopped right then.

  “A city?” he prompted and she took a deep breath and nodded.

  “I’d been alone by then for months, I was ridiculously lost and lonely, and I was…” She paused and shifted. “Having a moral dilemma.”

  “What sort of moral dilemma?” Luke asked.

  “It makes no sense now,” Jackson said softly. “Not considering the person I am today, but I was having trouble dealing with the whole murdering people issue.”

  Luke inhaled sharply. “They’re not people.”

&n
bsp; She shrugged. “But they were and I’d killed so many. It just came, comes, naturally to me, I don’t even know how it works, but I kill them so easily. What do you think that says about me, Luke?”

  “That you’re a survivor.”

  “Or something else.” She sighed, not wanting to think those thoughts again, because she hadn’t resolved them all those months ago and she probably wouldn’t be able to now. “Point is,” she continued, “I was not in a good place mentally or emotionally.”

  “We’ve all struggled to accept the way things are,” Luke said.

  “I know. Anyway so there I was walking down this street. I don’t even remember what I was thinking, but as I walked past I looked inside the bottom floor of the skyscraper, there was a big reception desk, and I just stopped. Right there in the middle of the street I just stopped. I don’t know why or for how long, but before I knew what I was doing I went inside. The front glass was shattered so it was completely open. It was so quiet, just so quiet. The only sound was my boots on the glass.” She pulled her blanket a little closer as that memory undulated through her brain, aware that Luke was perfectly still as she spoke. “I don’t know what was wrong with me for taking such a risk, but before I knew what I was doing I was walking up the stairs. There were so many, flights and flights of them. I think it took me over an hour to get to the top and if there had been any zombies, they would have got me. There was no way I could have fought them off in such a tight space. But for some reason I wasn’t thinking about the danger, not at all. It was like something was pulling me upward.”

  “What?” he whispered and Jackson frowned.

  “When I got to the top I found an observation deck. The type with little telescopes for people to look out across the city. It started snowing a few seconds after I stepped outside and it was so beautiful, so magical. The flakes were falling and swirling and I was enchanted. I stood there on the deck, and Mandy was in my hand, and I looked around and I realized why I’d come up. It seemed perfectly obvious to me then and I laughed. I laughed so hard my side ached. The snow got in my hair and whipped around my face and I stood there, all those floors up, and I just laughed.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I was going to jump off,” she stated.

  Luke’s eyes widened and he reached out, maybe to take her hand, but he stopped just shy of where it was bundled under the blanket and shook his head. “You wouldn’t have.”

  “You have no idea how close it was,” she whispered. “I went right to the railings and I looked down and every single part of me wanted to jump. It would all be over then. All the fear and the worry and the panic. I’d die but it’d be on my terms. It would be an end at last.”

  “Then why didn’t you? What stopped you?”

  She smiled a little as that memory blossomed. “I saw smoke.”

  “Smoke?”

  “From a fire I think. It was faint, in the distance, and I could only just make it out, but it was there.”

  “Other people?”

  Jackson shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it was just an exploding transformer. Regardless, something in my mind clicked and I realized that I had another option.”

  She moved her hand through the gap in her blanket and took Luke’s. It was resting right there as if waiting for her, and as always it warmed her the moment their skin met. She shivered slightly even as their fingers interlocked, and she looked into his eyes as she said the next words, entreating him to understand. “I could keep walking and keep looking, that was my option. I could try and see if there was anything left, and if I died before I got there, it didn’t matter. Do you get that, Luke? It did not matter. Part of me died a little on that deck and I let it.”

  “I understand,” he said, brushing a thumb along her wrist. “It makes sense now, why you’re so fearless.”

  She laughed softly. “I’m not fearless. I’m always scared.”

  “But not of dying,” he said.

  “No,” she agreed. “I accepted that a long time ago. A few months later I met Tye, and when he told me about the Laredo camp I knew that I had been right not to jump. That there was something left. I just needed to find it.”

  “And the moral dilemma?”

  “I learned to ignore it.”

  Silence settled between them and Jackson released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Their fingers stroked back and forth, the heat continuing to sizzle between them.

  “Jack?” Luke sighed, laying his other hand on her arm. “Thank you for telling me that.

  Jackson gave him a weak smile. “So now you know just how freakful I can be.”

  “Barely any freak at all.”

  Another smile and she squeezed his hand. There would be no more confessions tonight, but he’d taken her revelation so well, that Jackson felt like she had to give him something else. Share just a little of normal, not quite so fucked-up Jack, even if it hurt.

  “Would you like the story of my backpack?” she asked.

  A pause and she knew if she looked up he’d be smiling. “Is it good?”

  “Enthralling.”

  “Then shoot.”

  “Being all coddled in your bunker and all you didn’t have to worry about supplies,” she began, and Luke ruffled her hair.

  “Coddled?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’ll pay for that comment, sweetheart.”

  “Bring it,” she said. “So when I left my apartment I had one bag, and it pains me to admit that it was not the survival type of carryall.”

  “What was it?”

  “A knock off Gucci. I know. I know,” she said, holding up a hand. “But I did live in New York. It was tiny, and the type you have to carry. I stuffed it with way too many clothes and not enough of other things.”

  “What happened to it?” he asked, pointing to the backpack at her feet. “I’m assuming it’s not simply stuffed in there.”

  “I ended up using it to throttle a zombie.”

  He sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “It was an accident more than anything. I held it up in the air and the damn thing ran straight through the straps, headfirst. And so then I had to find another bag, and I was starting to learn by that point. Guess what the shop was called where I found this baby?”

  “I hate guessing games.”

  “It was called Jackson’s.”

  “You serious?”

  She smiled. “Yep. I got the backpack and a bunch of proper supplies from there. You asked me once where my name came from?”

  Luke nodded slowly. “I did.”

  “I was named after the guy who owned that shop.” Deep breath. “He was my dad’s best friend.”

  Without a single word Luke shifted, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her against him. Jackson took a deep, slow breath, her chest aching, her body flustered already to feel his warmth against her again.

  “Don’t you want to sleep first?” Luke asked, and she sighed.

  “No. I slept first last time.”

  “You sure.”

  “Yep. It’s your turn.”

  He settled against her, his body warming hers. A whole week of man-arm action and she was still finding it…difficult. They’d settled into an easy relationship up till now, but it was odd parts of teasing, affection, and holding back. Jackson understood it all perfectly but couldn’t help but wonder what it meant for them. Despite his insistence on getting her to open up—clearly his worst character trait—and his urge to protect her in his slightly goofy way, she liked Luke.

  A lot.

  But they lived in the land of the dead. A place where jumping off a building seemed like a perfectly acceptable action. Where a man and a woman could never just be.

  Jackson risked a glance out of the window. It would be dark soon but for the moment there was enough light left to see. The street was quiet, still. The breeze blew against the rubbish in the street, and into the buildings where the windows and doors
were cracked or open. The emptiness hit her forcefully and she frowned, shocked to feel it. How weird was it to be in Luke’s position and imagine things how they might have been two years ago—because she was sure he often did. The scrunch on his brow, the frown that chased across his face…all indications that he was rewinding the months. If he was in her position, he’d be looking at the building directly opposite and thinking that it had once been a bakery. Jackson squinted to make out the sign, Magnificent Muffins perhaps? God, she’d kill for a croissant.

  Despite herself she couldn’t help her gaze going to the next building. It looked like it might have been a bookstore. Though there were no books in there now. They’d probably been burned for fires in the very early days. And the other one, maybe a deli? Her mouth watered and her stomach rumbled. She imagined salami and ham and cheese…oh God cheese…and crackers, and a pickle…

  Who had owned those stores? Who had lived in the apartments above? When had they been eaten? Or were they even now running around dead? The questions ran through her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Pointless, remember? Get those barriers back up.

  Luke grumbled against her and she opened her eyes, tore her gaze from the deserted buildings, and turned to look at his profile. With his eyes closed, and his long lashes fanned against his cheeks, he looked peaceful. Peaceful in a way she knew she never was. She wondered if Luke was right. If she’d spent too long on her own. If she’d become too independent, too prickly, too quick to think that the worst was going to happen. But then that was hardly surprising, was it? The world was a nasty place and nasty things happened all the time. Every single fucking day.

  Maybe as the days wore on, as they made their way farther south, that would change? Jackson hoped so. Luke was the perfect companion for her. She’d been so lucky to find him, so lucky he’d agreed to come with her. Surely eventually, if she really wanted to, she’d become…a little bit normal again? If anyone was going to help her to do so, it was the man now holding her in his arms.