“They helped save your life today,” I remind her. “Maybe you forgot about that.”
Lorento ignores the comment and spreads her arms, laces her fingers together behind her, and rests her head. She closes her eyes and lets out a deep breath. The painkillers must be kicking in. It almost appears she has fallen asleep, but I still have a hard time believing that she actually needs rest. She seems like nothing more than some government robot programmed with a mission.
“You should get some rest,” Hoff tells me. “No offense, but you look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I laugh. “You sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”
“I’m just saying,” Hoff shrugs.
“Yeah, yeah,” I sigh. I get up from the chair and scan the room for some place to lay down, but there aren’t many options. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot bath and a warm bed right now.”
“Sorry,” Hoff says. “Neither one of those are in the cards tonight.”
Suddenly I notice a strange sensation in my ears. A change in air pressure causes them to pop. Stitch begins to bark and whine again in the other room. An uneasy feeling settles in my gut as I walk over to the window and stare at the rain trickling down the glass through the condensation. With my palm, I wipe away the moisture and watch the wind whipping around the branches of the trees outside. I gaze into the dark clouds to the west and notice a funnel cloud drifting up to the sky.
“Holy shit,” I gasp.
“What is it?” Hoff asks.
“There’s a tornado coming,” I tell him.
Twenty-five
Lorento’s eyes snap open and she hops up out of the chair. Hoff hurries over to help her. She loops an arm around his big shoulders and he helps her toward the kitchen.
“Stevie!” I yell in the direction of the dining room.
“Get to the kitchen!” Hoff yells.
I look over to see Midhun standing in the doorway of the kitchen and waving frantically for me to follow him. I ignore him and race toward the lobby. The clubhouse begins to tremble as the tornado nears the building. The windows rattle in their frames and debris crashes through the glass. The sound is like a freight train roaring right at me. I try to call to Stevie again but can hardly hear the sound of my own voice. There isn’t time to get back to the kitchen anymore. I fall down to the floor and take cover behind the counter at the front of the dining room. I cover my head with my hands and bury my face in my knees. The raging winds seem to go on forever, but in reality it couldn’t have lasted for more than a couple minutes.
When I lift my eyes, I expect to see the building gone, but to my surprise there is a roof still over my head. My eyes quickly scan the room to survey the damage, although I am afraid of what I might find. Leaves, glass and all sorts of debris cover the floor now. I glance back out at the lobby and notice the wall on the far side of the building near the lounge is gone and a golf cart is sitting amongst the wreckage in the lobby. My heart races when I see the devastation in the lounge where I last saw Stevie.
“Stevie!” I call out. I scramble to my feet and stumble over a pile of menus, some golf clubs and a potted plant on my way to the lobby. From the opposite direction I hear Hoff calling my name. I glance into the bar and notice Blake and the others coming out from behind the counter. He picks up Stitch and carries him over all the debris strewn about the floor.
“Is everyone okay?” Blake asks.
“I need to find Stevie,” I say. “Stevie!”
“Hang on,” Blake says as he stumbles over broken glass and boards and toppled chairs. “I’ll help you find him.”
The damaged building groans. Rain pelts the roof and the wind howls through the open windows. I try to block out the noises and listen for sounds to help locate Stevie. I move carefully across the lobby so I don’t lose my footing. Falling down would mean landing in a pile of jagged sticks and sharp glass. I notice an arm amongst the debris and the sight causes my to cover my mouth with my hand. My eyes search the surrounding area for the body that the arm belonged to, but I don’t see anyone nearby. I step over the limb and move into what remains of the lounge.
The roof has partially caved in along one side of the room and rains pelts me as I sift through the wreckage looking for any signs of Steven or his son or Val. A pile of insulation covers the couch that they had been sitting on when I had left the room. I grab the pink padding and toss it to the side only to find nothing but Stevie’s wet clothes on the floor. I pick them up and clench them in my fists and look around. I stare outside into the junk in the grass that was left behind by the twister. Maybe it carried them off too. The thought makes me so weak the wet clothes slip out of my trembling hands.
Just as I am about to completely lose it, I hear Steven’s voice.
“You okay, Scout?” he says.
For a moment it sounds like it is only inside my head. Then I hear it again. I turn my head and find Steven pulling open the door of the restroom. I climb over the furniture in my way to get to him, a smile creeping onto my face as I see Stevie peering out through the doorway.
We all managed to survive, for now. Even though we move everyone into the dining room, the cold air swirls into the building through the lounge. Leaks drip down everywhere from the damaged roof. The unstable building could still come crashing down on top of us at any moment. Even though it is still early afternoon, the massive storm blankets the skies and fills the world with an eerie deep green light.
“We need to get out of here,” Blake says. “This building isn’t safe anymore.”
“What? There isn’t anything around for miles. Are we supposed to go wandering around in this storm?” Hoff raises his voice just short of yelling to be heard over the sound of the wind.
“I can’t believe this shit,” Fletcher complains as he shoves a toppled dining table out of the way with his foot. He pauses and whirls around and jabs a finger toward the service counter where Lorento stands beside Hoff. “We were doing just fine until she showed up. Then everything went to hell again.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Lorento scoffs. “You’re blaming me for the weather now?”
“This isn’t helping,” I speak up.
Fletcher waves a hand dismissively in my direction. I lower my eyes and spot Stitch cowering under a table.
“She’s right,” Blake backs me up. “We need to stop arguing with each other and figure out a plan.”
“A plan? Yeah, sure. I got a plan,” Fletcher says. “We all get as far the hell away from that bitch as we can before she gets us all killed.”
Stitch sniffs at the air and lets out a low growl. The hair on the back of his neck stands up.
“Quiet!” Quentin urges everyone. “Listen.”
At first I only hear the sound of the wind whistling through the clubhouse. Then I notice the moaning outside. The dead must have made their way over from the airport. Maybe they could even hear the sounds of our voices from outside. Glass fragments fall to the floor as the dead push their way inside the building through the damaged windows of the bar. I spot several figures pushing their way through the wreckage of the lounge and grab on to Stevie and pull him close to me. I look around the dining area, but the dead are already approaching the windows along the back walls, emerging from the darkness to swarm the glass. We might already be trapped inside.
“Holy hell,” Steven gasps.
“We need to find a way out of here,” I whisper.
“This way,” Midhun says.
I turn my head and spot him near the entrance to the kitchen. We hurry through the swinging doors and Midhun leads us between the stoves and counters to a long dark hallway with tile floors. He reaches a steel back door and pushes the handle, but the door doesn’t budge. He tries again and throws his shoulder against the door without any luck. The moans of the dead grow louder as they surge forward through the dining room. I feel around the dark hallway and find the handle for the walk-in fridge. We could get in, but we’d never get back out. On the
opposite wall I feel around and the wall falls away from me. It must be another swinging door, but I have no idea where it leads.
“In here,” I say.
We rush into a big room with large banquet table. Along the wall is a long row of windows that face the road, but there is no door to get outside. The others follow me through the doorway as the dead push into the hallway. Val finally hobbles through the doorway, but the dead grab onto her before Blake can get the door closed. She lets out a scream as she clings to the doorframe to avoid being pulled into the hoard. Blake reaches out a hand and grabs hold of her wrist momentarily, but the dead pull her back into the hallway as she screams.
Blake pivots and fires several rounds into the dark hallway before he slams the door shut and presses his back against it to hold the dead off. Stitch barks angrily at the dead on the other side of the door until Blake tells him shut up.
Quentin scoops up a wooden chair and swings it up over his head and flings it through the large glass window. He waves Hoff over before he places a foot on the window sill and hops outside. Hoff uses the muzzle of the rifle to clear away some broken glass from the bottom of the frame then scoops Lorento up in his arms and passes her to Quentin outside.
“Give me the kid,” Hoff barks.
Even though I hear what he said, my arms stay wrapped around Stevie as he clings to me.
“Come on!” Hoff urges me. He pries the boy off of me and hands him to Quentin through the broken window.
Gunfire erupts behind me as the dead push into the room. Stitch stops barking and turns and sprints across the room and leaps through the window into the night.
I step on the window frame and hop outside, but when I land on the muddy ground, I lose my footing and end up on my back. Steven crashes to the ground beside me and helps pull me to my feet.
“Shit,” Lorento gasps as she raises a pistol and begins firing.
More of the dead appear around the corner of the building. A flash of lightning briefly illuminates the hideous faces of the dark figures shambling toward us. Stevie wraps his little arms around my waist and buries his face in my belly. I scoop him up in my arms and clutch him close to my chest. He had always seemed so heavy when he would ask me to carry him before. Now, I barely notice him in my arms. For some reason, at that moment I worry that he has not been getting enough to eat.
“Come,” Midhun urges me.
He walks beside me as we follow Stitch toward the road. I resist the urge to look back at the country club and instead I peer over Stevie’s shoulder to make sure I don’t lose my stumble on the tricky terrain. Midhun spots a corpse in the road and raises the handgun and fires a round into the thing. He twists around and fires a second shot dropping another one to his left. For a pacifist, the guy seems pretty capable with a gun.
“Wait,” I urge Midhun. “We have to wait for the others.”
I turn back to look at building and spot Steven scrabbling up the embankment on the side of the road. Fletcher, Blake and the rest of their group move through the grass behind him. A gust of wind blows my hair across my eyes. I push it away as a flash of lightning strikes and I spot the large silhouette of Hoff helping Lorento. They are trailed by a crowd of corpses. Thunder rumbles across the sky and Stevie’s arm squeezes my neck.
“It’s okay,” I console him. “I got you.”
“Keep moving,” Blake urges me as he reaches the road.
The dead stagger towards the street, stumbling into the ditch as I take one last look toward the building before following the others down the road.
“Let me take him,” Steven tells me. He reaches out to lift Stevie out of my arms but the boy clings to me even tighter.
“It’s all right,” I say, as much to Steven as to his son. But the truth is, I am so exhausted that I am not sure I can go on much longer. Thick drops of rain pelt my face and I lean into the force of the strong winds that seem to be pushing me backwards. I struggle to keep up with the rest of the group as they walk down the road. Steven slows down his pace to stay beside me and keeps glancing back over his shoulder to keep an eye on the dead. We walk in silence through the rain until the wind finally calms and the dark skies begin to clear.
“Yesterday, I didn’t think things could get any worse,” Steven complains. “Boy, was I wrong about that.”
“It can always get worse,” I remind him.
He looks at the boy in my arms, then shifts his gaze on the road ahead of us.
“Anyone got a clue where we’re going?” Steven asks. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
No one answers him. We just keep trudging forward to stay ahead of the dead. I can’t help feeling like we’re trying to play a game of solitaire without a full deck of cards. No matter how smart we are or how hard we try, we can’t possibly win.
Twenty-six
Even though we are exhausted, we manage to gain some ground on the dead. We round a curve and the corpses disappear from sight for the time being, but I know they are still back there. Stevie relaxes in my arms and rests his head on my shoulder. After the road winds passed a cemetery, we spot the overpass that crosses the expressway in the distance.
“Maybe we can secure some transportation up ahead,” Hoff says.
“Might be a little risky,” Quentin says.
“You not feeling lucky?” Blake asks Quentin.
“Not after what we just went through,” Quentin shrugs. “But still it’s worth a shot.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Fletcher complains.
“Chuck,” Danielle groans in agony. “Get over it already.”
“Get over it?” Fletcher scoffs. “We just lost everything.”
“Here we go again,” Danielle rolls her eyes.
“I told you all this was bullshit a long time ago,” Fletcher points a finger at Blake. “Nobody ever listens to a goddamn thing I say.”
“Are you finished?” Lorento sneers.
“Oh, I’m finished,” Fletcher throws his head back and laughs. “We’re all fucking finished thanks to you, doll.”
“Look,” Stevie says. His head lifts up off my shoulder. “Scout, look, a rainbow!”
I don’t know why but I pause and turn around. We all do. In the distance there is a rainbow arching above the road behind us.
“We better keep moving,” Blake says. I notice he is focused on Stevie.
Stevie twists in my arms stare at it for a few moments as I continue walking.
“Mom used to say if you follow it to the end you’d find a big pot of gold,” he smiles.
His words leave a huge knot in my throat, so I just force myself to smile.
“Can we go look for it?” he asks.
“Sorry, champ,” Steven says. “Not today.”
“Come on, dad,” Stevie whines.
“They’re just illusions, son. Like a mirage,” Steven explains.
I glare at him but the idiot is too busy staring at the sky to realize he is about to traumatize his child by ruining one of the few goddamn decent memories his kid has left to hang on to.
“See,” Steven continues. “The sun reflects off the water and sort of tricks your mind into seeing something that isn’t really there.”
“They’re not real?” Stevie asks.
“Of course they’re real,” I say before Steven has a chance to open his stupid mouth again. “But some people made up stories about how they aren’t real to trick stupid people out of finding the gold. And one day when we aren’t so busy, we’ll follow it. Okay?”
Stevie smiles and nods his head. We continue down the road and I can feel Stevie’s chin digging into my neck as he stares at the sky behind us.
“I probably should have kept my mouth shut,” Steven says to me apologetically. “I thought I should—”
“Shut up,” I interrupt him. “I know you can’t help being an idiot.”
Steven lowers his eyes and stares at the pavement as he walks.
“You mean well, though,” I say. “That’s all
that really matters.”
The dead have fallen back far enough that we are able to stop to rest for a few minutes when we reach the overpass. I set Stevie down to give my arms a break, but he clings to my leg. He refuses to let me go until Stitch comes over and starts to lick his face and playfully pounce around. As much I want to keep watching them, I turn around to scan the expressway in the fading light.
“Which way?” Blake asks.
Hoff raises his rifle to scan the road through the scope. The dead wander along the highway in either direction. Although I spot twenty or thirty of them immediately, they are pretty spread out down there. Still, we can’t afford to waste more ammunition than absolutely necessary. We don’t have much left. Hoff turns around and scans the vehicles in the other direction.
“Let’s check out that delivery truck over there,” Hoff points his finger down the highway to a large brown truck in distance. “Hopefully it has some fuel in the tank.”
We move down the ramp toward the interstate. Stevie reluctantly agrees to walk so I can keep my hands free in case we run into any trouble. Stitch trots along beside Stevie, and I can’t help but stare at his tail that seems to never stop wagging.
“I’m sad about Val,” Stevie sulks. He stares at his shoes as they move beneath him. Other than his dad, I’m the only person left that he even sort of knows. Val was the first person he really seemed to connect with, aside from me or Steven, and now she is gone.
“She was really nice,” I tell him.
Several corpses close in on us as we step onto the highway. Steven moves away from the group to meet the closest one and swings the machete in the neck of the thing and sends it flopping to the ground. Fletcher pulls out a Bowie knife and meets a corpse as it approaches from the median.
“Look at me,” I tell Stevie.
His eyes lift up to meet my gaze. He doesn’t see it when his father swings the machete into the dead flesh of another zombie. He hears it though. The boy flinches slightly at the sound of the blades striking the dead, and the moans they let out the moment before they go limp and collapse in the street. I know it isn’t anything he hasn’t already had to see, but he doesn’t need to see it again and again and again.
Rise of the Dead (Book 2): Return of the Dead Page 16
