by Dani Worth
“I’d ask if you’ll be okay going alone, but—” he broke off.
“Silly question, I know. I’ve been alone for years.” She took a few steps away from him, then looked over her shoulder. “Maybe not anymore.”
His eyes widened with her words, then they narrowed and the heat that zapped between them made her shiver.
“Maybe not,” he agreed.
Chapter Three
Nighttime was the worst.
Hours in the dark with only the memories as company. Memories and the image of Keera in her wet top.
Chase choked back a groan, put his hands behind his head, and propped his feet onto the back of the built-in couch. He and Tripp had decided to drive on to the plantation in the morning, so now he stared at the peeling ceiling of the RV. Nothing he’d seen in his entire thirty-three years before or after the Crux compared to the beauty of that woman in a soaked shirt.
His hands ached with the need to touch.
Louisiana nights carried crazy sounds. He supposed it would be worse in summer with the crickets and the katydids, but even now coyotes howled, layering over each other like they were competing for a trophy for the loudest. Barred owls joined the chorus with their disjointed, quivering hoots. He wondered if it was mating season because some of the whooping and barking sounded like they were holding important conversations. Possibly marital arguments. Didn’t owls mate for life? The worst were the screams.
He didn’t want to know what the owls were doing then.
The RV’s presence probably rocked their people-less worlds. The first night he and his brother had spent this far south had been a sleepless one. It was like most of the creatures that stayed awake at night had moved south. It had to be hard to find enough food in the winter with their numbers so blown out of proportion. These days, humans were a bit lower on the food chain. People needed other people to survive.
And to feel alive. Their lonely reality had been so much more tolerable when Maggie had been with them. She’d been the sunshine, the humor—even with her weird love for zombie movies and comic books.
He glanced at the top shelf at the row of movies that Tripp dusted regularly—a constant reminder that she’d been a real, living and important presence in their small world of three. Then five when he’d found Jeff and Mooch. After the three had been killed, Chase and Tripp hadn’t seen many people, and the last time had been months. For a time, Chase had started to wonder if they were all that was left.
But today, Keera had proved there were more. More survivors other than the men and women who had turned to taking and killing in their bid for survival.
The vibrating croak of a bullfrog joined the outdoor symphony. It was warm enough for them to be poking their noses in others’ business.
Chase still missed the city noises at night. The engines revving by, the occasional voices—the sound of the television in the living room because their mother had insomnia. She’d tape soap operas all day while she was work. Watch them in the middle of the night. The scent of clove cigarettes would drift down the hall and he’d know she was up, sitting in the window seat and holding her cigarette outside. She’d believed her kids didn’t know she smoked, but the cloves were invasive, seeping into the furniture cushions, the curtains…her soft, blonde hair.
She’d died in the first Crux wave. For months afterward, he’d catch whiffs of those damned cloves and think he was losing his mind. Then he’d found her cigarettes stuffed inside his little brother’s pillowcase.
To this day, he didn’t know if Tripp had put them there for the smell or the hope he’d see her if she came back for them. The little boy had become obsessed with seeing her ghost.
Grief slashed into him, as if fresh and not eighteen years old. Tripp and Maggie had been so young. Rula Hawthorne had worked the books at a pediatrician’s office when the first sick kids started coming in. The Crux had been sneaky, disguising itself as a flu, and turned deadly fast. It picked on the youngest kids first, the elderly, then swept through the rest of the population with a vicious hunger that took two waves to appease. He still remembered the terrified look in his mother’s eyes the day she came home with a fever.
She’d lasted a week.
Nothing of their life now was easy, but the week he and Maggie had been shot and that week with his mother had been the worst. It had been such a slow, painful and horrific death. All around them, people had suffered. He could hear hacking coughs, cries and screams of grief as people died. Every house on their street, every street around theirs…the illness had spread through Oklahoma City like a wildfire. Television had let him know it had spread through other cities and countries. It had told them about the new groups of people who tore through everything left. The newscasters called them raiders, and raiders had stuck.
Then the television had gone off. Radios had stopped.
Life as they’d known it had mostly come to a stop.
A thump sounded from the back of the RV. Surprised the noise made it through the noisy night creatures, Chase grimaced. Tripp’s long legs didn’t work in that small bedroom. Every night he inevitably hit a wall with his feet. But it would be harder for him on this couch because he was taller than Chase.
Chase forced himself to make a list of things they needed. Things like another solar-powered RV—a bigger one, a better one. One with working appliances since a lot of theirs were long past life. RVs weren’t easy to find. Early survivors had scarfed them up as fast as they had canned goods.
The thought of food made him think of Keera again with her dark hair, big eyes and lovely, full lips.
His dick hadn’t perked up like this in longer than he could remember. He reached down and adjusted himself, wishing he still had the old comfortable sweatpants he used to sleep in. They’d finally developed too many holes to be of any use. Keera had said she had clothes, but a part of him believed he’d never see her again. Chase was braving the next mall for clothes. Malls were usually places to avoid. The raiders had set up housing in them early, turning them into base camps.
He and Tripp could get lucky in the next small town. They could check the sturdy houses. Chase had nearly fallen through too many floors in element-wrecked buildings. Without access to medical, he had to be careful. If something happened to him, Tripp wouldn’t go on.
His heart skipped a beat. His brother’s silences were getting longer. And that look on his face earlier, that blank yet strangely terrified look—it had scared Chase.
But before…when Keera had showed up, there’d been a light to his smile Chase hadn’t seen since before their sister had been killed. With thoughts of Maggie, his grief came back. She’d been so like their mother, with the same blonde hair and small, frail frame. From birth, Tripp and Maggie had been together, like two halves of a whole.
Chase believed Keera could help fill in Tripp’s missing half. Not in a sisterly way, but in a new, vibrant way that would spark true life back into his brother.
He was just going to have to ignore the way she made him feel.
“Chase?”
Glad he’d let go of his crotch, Chase turned his head as Tripp crept into the room. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Tripp plopped into the recliner at the end of the couch. It was a small one and had long since lost the ability to recline. There were four boxes of freeze-dried food stacked behind it.
Chase waited for him to speak, watching the way his brother hugged his arms to his chest.
Another screech outside made Tripp shudder. “Why do you think they scream like that?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re mad at all the coyotes.”
Tripp nodded and moved aside the old blanket they were using as curtains. He stared out of the window.
“See anything?”
“No. It’s too dark.” He looked at Chase, frowned. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
Chase sat up and scooted down the couch to face his brother. “I would have told you about the raiders. Promise.”
Tripp ju
st lifted an eyebrow.
“I would have…just later.” He leaned forward. “Look at me. There isn’t a mark on me.”
“You’re covered in marks.”
“Old ones. Not one is fresh. These were stupid raiders and Keera was doing a pretty good job of taking them out herself before more showed up. And guess what? One was another woman.”
“There were women raiders in the group that shot at us.”
Chase’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”
Tripp met his gaze and there was nothing blank about it. Something fleeting passed over his expression—something like fury—only stronger. It made Chase’s breath catch.
“Maggie, Jeff and Mooch were gone and you looked like you weren’t going to make it. I went out to find them because I wanted to kill them.” Faint red filled his cheeks. “There were too many. But there were women there.”
“Willing ones?”
Tripp nodded. “Most definitely.” He picked at a loose thread on the arm of the chair. “Do you ever think about it, Chase? Think about what it would be like if something happens to one of us? To be that alone?”
“I have. But today, we met another person and there are more out there, Tripp. I know it. We’ll find a community—a strong one that can fight off the bottom feeders.” He touched his brother’s knee. “Then, if something happens to one of us, the other won’t be alone.”
“You say that like we wouldn’t always be alone without the other.”
Warmth filled Chase’s chest. Truthfully, he would want to die if he lost Tripp. He’d barely recovered from losing Maggie and he had only because of Tripp. He still had his responsibilities. Still had a reason to keep surviving. A brother he loved beyond life itself.
“Did you like Keera, Chase?”
His gut clenched and his mouth went dry as he thought of the best way to answer the question.
Tripp chuckled. The sound didn’t carry a lot of humor. “I saw the way you looked at her.”
“I’m a human man and she’s the first woman we’ve seen in a long time. Of course I looked at her.”
“She’s really pretty too.”
Chase nodded.
“She looked at you too.”
“It’s the scars. Kind of hard to look away. It’s nothing but natural curiosity.”
“Nah, the way she looked at you had nothing to do with curiosity about your scars and everything to do with wondering what’s in your pants.”
Chase rolled his eyes.
His brother quirked the corner of his mouth. “I may not have had the chance to see what’s in a girl’s pants—outside of these.” He waved his hand at the shelves of movies. “But I do understand how it works. She likes you.”
“We just met the woman. She stared at us both and yeah, she stared at me longer, but that probably had a lot to do with the scars whether you believe it or not. Why are you saying all this?”
Tripp moved his picking to the threads in his jeans.
Chase’s constant fear, the one that lay simmering at all times, hit boil. “Hey, what are you getting at?”
“Nothing. Just noticed she seemed to look at you.” He traced the hole in the thigh of his jeans. “I’m excited about the food.”
“Me too.” If she showed. He let his brother change the subject even though he made a note to not leave Tripp alone anytime soon.
“What could we give her? You know, to pay her back for it.”
Chase deliberately looked around the inside of the RV before grinning at his brother. “There are a few packets of the freeze-dried ice cream left, some movies in a format that was obsolete years before they stopped making movies. What could we possibly have to offer her?”
Tripp wiggled his eyebrows.
Laughter came up to stamp down the fear. “Give her a little time to get to know you and feel safe before you offer that, okay?”
Tripp sighed. “I did say I know how it works. Videos, you know.” He waved his hand again at the double shelves of ancient VHS tapes that fit into the built-in player in the small television—which had given up the ghost five months ago.
Yet Tripp kept all the movies in their cases and dusted them several times a week. He remained optimistic that they’d find another working player. He hated zombie movies but had watched his sister’s favorites over and over.
Inwardly, Chase sighed again. He missed Maggie too—so much that the hole she’d left in his heart felt like an open wound that never healed—but he couldn’t imagine Tripp’s loss. He watched his brother stare at the videos, wondered what thoughts were going through his mind. Wished he’d talk about Maggie.
He hadn’t talked about her once other than to mention her name—not since the day she died.
Tripp looked at Chase, his blue eyes so like his sister’s, Chase’s chest ached. Tripp smiled. “About what we have to offer Keera? I won’t be offering. She wants that from you, big brother.”
Keera stood under the moonlight, face lifted to the sky as she did on so many nights. Most spent wondering if someone else stood under the same moon at the exact same moment—if they too wondered if they’d be alone forever. Wind swept down into the little clearing, cold on her face. She lifted her fingers to find tears, hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. Closing her eyes, she listened to animals calling to each other until the noise melted into the night and all she heard was the deep silence of her own loneliness.
It had been worse than usual lately.
So bad she’d moved the urn into the bomb shelter next to the box.
Shrugging off thoughts of that damned box, she took a deep breath and wondered about the tears on this particular night. She had proof she wasn’t alone. Logically, she’d known she wasn’t, but night after night, day after day with all the hours upon hours of silence…they messed with the mind. Plus, the one and only time she’d ventured out and come upon other people, they’d killed her Dax. Her husband. She and her father had managed to live here hidden, completely off radar for many years after that, until he’d tripped down a damn hill.
She reached down to pick up the oil lamp she’d set by her feet and continued toward the hidden shelter. Her father had put it in the ground a ways from their warehouse apartment on purpose. Before the Crux had come through and killed off most of the people in this town, her father had been known as the local crazy doomsday prepper. Silus had spent most of her life storing for the end of the world and because of him, she’d never gone without. She knew how to grow her own food and she had airtight storage for so many more things in that shelter.
Her sore muscles reminded her of the fight with those men earlier as she pushed aside the big rocks she kept over the shelter entrance. She hooked the lamp to her belt and slowly climbed down the ladder, wrinkling her nose at the mustiness of the place. She hadn’t been down here in weeks. Not since she’d brought Dax down here.
It was a bomb shelter but her father had called it their Earth condo. He’d given it the nickname because of the built-in wall-to-wall bunks and because he’d dragged two futons inside and set them up against the far wall. He’d always thought they’d end up living in the thing, but the warehouse he’d set up with an apartment was camouflaged enough and had kept them, and then just her, safe all this time.
The bunks were full of boxes of items they’d collected. And the walls of goods had come in handy so many times in the years since his prediction had come true. Right after people had started dying, her father’s storing had gone into overdrive. This wasn’t even their only stash—there was another underground shelter a two-hour drive north. Or it had been two hours when the roads were intact. Who knew how long it would take these days.
She’d never needed anything in that shelter anyway. This one provided. It was pretty much airtight, so things lasted longer. The purchased canned goods were long gone and would have been rotten by now anyway, but she’d been storing her own canned food down here and in her root cellar every year. She used up the older before storing the new.
She crossed to the shelf that held nothing but a small brown urn. She and Silus had gone into the crematorium and taken care of Dax’s body themselves. It had been a crazy thing to do, to set up the electricity for that. They could have attracted more raiders. But Dax had wanted to be cremated…and she still felt guilty for not following what she knew he’d wanted afterward. His ashes spread on Georgia ground.
“Hey honey.” She touched the cool marble. She’d picked the one that had probably been most expensive before money became nothing more than paper and metal. “It’s been a while since I came down here. It’s still strange not to have you up at the house. Guess you know why I brought you here…but I lost my nerve. It was just a bad night, that’s all.”
She purposely didn’t look at the small, wooden box on the shelf above him.
“I don’t need the things down here so much anymore. I’ve become completely self-sufficient. Dad would be proud. You’d probably laugh. I still can’t sew for shit.” She shrugged. “But there’s no one to see some of the things I’ve made.”
Lifting the urn, she bit her lip. “Until now.”
She carried it to the small table next to the futon, sat on the mattress, and wrapped both arms around her raised knees. “People showed up today. The first ones were bad—just like the gang we ran into. I used your moves, fought them off. But another man came and helped me.” She rested her cheek on her knee, stared at the urn.
“I know I said forever when we spoke our vows in the clearing under the moon. I still mean it, Dax. I’ll love you forever. But I might have a chance to not be alone anymore.” She swallowed the rest of what she wanted to say. It was possible she’d never see Chase or his brother again, but the thought made her gut clench. She didn’t think that would happen. Not with the way Chase had looked at her.
“His name is Chase. He’s scarred up, been through a rough time. Like any other survivor, I suppose. But he and his brother are the first I’ve seen who didn’t come at me with a weapon. I’m going to meet them tomorrow. Take them some food and some clothes. The brother is about your height, though he’s a lot skinnier.”
