Love and Decay (Season 1): Episodes 1-6

by Higginson, Rachel

  “That’s what I thought,” the guy nodded his head intuitively. “You can’t stay with us permanently. But you can spend the night,” he explained. “We will give you a full night’s rest before you move on in the morning.”

  We were stunned silent.

  Hendrix spoke up from the back of the group, “Explain the raping thing, Vaughan.”

  A slow smile broke out across Vaughan’s face and now I was muted by how gorgeous he turned out to be. That wasn’t exactly fair. “Oh, and my little brother would like to assure you that you will not be raped.” He gestured out with his hands and said in a comforting voice, “This happens to be a rape-free zone.”

  “But what if we’ve changed our minds about that?” Haley whispered to me as she stared down at the floor.

  A nervous laugh burst out, but I found myself nodding excitedly. “We’ll take it.” I was smiling now, meeting Vaughan’s eyes. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning, but we will take your offer.”

  “Definitely,” Haley echoed. She hopped down from the counter and helped me down since I couldn’t use my hands. Once we were settled on the ground she gestured between us in a friendly way. “Oh, and I’m Haley and this is Reagan,” she announced to the dispersing room.

  Her introduction was met with a few half-hearted head nods. It seemed the brothers didn’t really care who we were and it probably didn’t matter. We would be leaving first thing in the morning, so why make pleasantries? It wasn’t like we’d become pen pals or anything.

  “Nelson, get Page. She’ll be safe from these ones,” Vaughan ordered before turning back to us. He took three steps forward until we were face to face and his expression turned serious. “I’m Vaughan; you’ve met Hendrix and Nelson. My other two brothers are Harrison and King. Nelson went to get our sister, Page. Best you stay away from her.” He warned, his eyes flashing with a striking protectiveness. “If anything happens to my little sister, all responsible parties will suffer before they die excruciating deaths, got that?”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” Haley bravely patted his shoulder before walking off and asking either Harrison or King where we’d be staying tonight.

  I looked up at Vaughan, whose eyes were a deep blue, almost navy. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I don’t believe all of humanity is lost,” he whispered back somberly.

  “Good for you,” I smirked and walked off to find Haley. A thought struck me and I turned around and asked, “Stevie Ray?”

  Vaughan’s face broke out in that breath-taking smile again and he nodded. “My dad was a guitar teacher. He named us all after the greats.”

  I laughed at that. Stevie Ray Vaughan was an iconic guitarist and Hendrix suddenly made sense as well. “Jimi?” I asked just to be sure.

  “Yep.”

  “Uh,” I thought about it for a minute before pointing at Nelson. “Willie?”I asked on a laugh.

  Vaughan’s grin widened; then he nodded. “George Harrison,” he explained while pointing to the second to youngest brother.

  “Wait,” I held up my hand. I thought over the remaining names for a moment before I came to my conclusion. “BB?” I asked, referring to King.

  A genuine look of surprise flashed across Vaughan’s face before he said, “Ok, now Page.”

  I thought about that for a minute longer while walking backwards towards Haley, “Jimmy Page. Led Zeppelin.”

  “Very good,” Vaughan admitted. “I’m impressed.”

  “What? You guys think you’re the last of the eclectic musicians?”

  Vaughan let out a bark of laughter and shook his head at me. “I guess not. Welcome to the Hotel California, Reagan.”

  Chapter Three

  Haley and I got set up on our bed, a queen-sized Tempur Pedic that we decided to share. We’d been sleeping back to back for almost two years now. It was how we protected ourselves, using our guns as pillows and taking turns sleeping.

  I stretched out on the bed for a few minutes, the sheets were new, procured from the bedding section of this very floor; and the bed felt like pure heaven. I couldn’t even believe how long it had been since I’d slept in an actual bed. And when I truly processed how Haley and I had been living, how we’d been just barely surviving, I didn’t want to admit this was what my life boiled down to.

  I had three more weeks of high school when the initial infection broke out. I had three weeks left before I would graduate. I had a partial academics scholarship to the University of Iowa and I was going to play intramural volleyball. I had this entire life planned out in my head, where I majored in elementary education, graduated in four and a half years after student teaching and got a job in Des Moines. I would have this cute little apartment, the only roommate I had would be this rescue cat I picked up at the Humane Society and I would go out with my girlfriends on weekends. I would have eventually broken up with Quarterback-Chris, because if I was honest, that wasn’t the forever kind of love.

  Obviously, since I popped his head off like a dandelion.

  Then I would have met this really great guy one morning while I was getting coffee before school. We would have bumped into each other and he would have made a joke about it; we would have fallen into easy conversation until I had to go before I was late for my teacher’s meeting. He would have gotten my number and the rest would have been this epic love story that ended in my dream wedding, four perfect kids and a house in the suburbs.

  Okay, so maybe my ideal future had been a little less reality and a lot more chick flick. However, it was worth pointing out that I was not even living a straight-to-DVD version of that life.

  Hobo-ing around the country, living off scavenged canned goods and cleaning up the Zombie infestation was more like the opposite of how I pictured my life going.

  “Let’s dump out our brand new baubles and organize,” Haley suggested while pulling herself into a sitting position. “Besides, it wouldn’t hurt you to change. Your big ass is totally hanging out.”

  I squeaked and slapped my hands back there, trying to cover myself up. We were hidden behind the make shift curtain walls, but still, my ripped-up jeans were embarrassing with all these hot boys running around.

  I pulled myself up so that I was sitting on my knees- my ass mostly hidden while I sat on it- and watched Haley dump out her backpack. Rolled up jeans and all kinds of t-shirts tumbled out, making a messy pile of treasure in front of me. I couldn’t hold back my smile- loot, glorious loot.

  Possibly, I was a pirate in a former life.

  I dumped my bag, as well, with the makeup and the excessive amount of underwear I’d grabbed. Holding up a pair of bright pink boy shorts that had “lickable” written across the ass, I waggled my eyes at Haley.

  “Those are horrible,” she groaned but took them from me anyway.

  “The joys of shopping in the junior department,” I smirked.

  A throat cleared from behind us and Haley practically sprained her wrist trying to hide the provocative panties, shoving them underneath her thighs. She blushed bright red as we turned our attention to Nelson who was standing in our makeshift doorway, looking amused. I almost laughed out loud. Haley had never blushed, not even when we were in school. She owned her hotness and her sassiness; boys hardly ever stood a chance against her. And now Nelson, in all his sexy-stranger-glory, was giving my poor girl friend a run for her money with his lifted eyebrows and barely contained smirk.

  “I just wanted to tell you ladies that there’s a bathroom if you want to clean up. We don’t have running water, but you can do the whole sponge bath thing. Then there’s food if you’re hungry.” His dark hair was hanging over his forehead, his dark blue eyes sparkling with humor at Haley’s odd behavior.

  Haley seemed unable to speak, so I answered for her, “Thanks, but the bed is enough. We don’t want to deplete any of your supplies. We’re really not here to take from you.”

  Nelson cocked his head back like I’d surprised him, and scratched his scruffy beard thoughtfully. “Reaga
n, we have an abundance of supplies and when these run out we’ll just move on and build it up elsewhere. We know how to survive and we know how to scrimp when we need to. We offered you a place to stay because we had one to give to you. Now we’re offering you a bath and food because we have that to give to you, too. If we didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

  I pressed my lips together trying to accept his explanation, both because he was being so generous and because I was afraid to analyze what it would have meant for us if they didn’t have space for us. This family seemed fiercely protective of each other and I truly believed they would eliminate any kind of threat to any part of their family.

  Including Hales and me.

  Best not to become a threat.

  “Alright,” I finally relented. “Thank you, for everything.”

  “Sure,” Nelson smiled, but his eyes were on Haley, not me. Not that she would know since she was busy picking invisible lint off the bedspread.

  Nelson disappeared and I nudged Haley with my knee. “So, bath?” I couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear.

  “Uh, no thanks,” she shook her head. “I prefer the filthy, street urchin look. I think it brings out my eyes.” But then she was wearing her own grin and grabbing all kinds of new clothes and the lickable undies.

  I had some travel-size shampoo and conditioner we commandeered at the last safe settlement we’d stayed at. I traded three packs of Marlborough Reds for them. Haley and I were always on the lookout for things like that, cigarettes, bottles of alcohol, fingernail paint. People would pay dearly for their vices, or to just feel normal for a few moments.

  This was kind of how I imagined the bartering system in prison to work.

  Turns out I would have been a very profitable inmate.

  We got to work in the bathroom as soon as the swinging door shut behind us, and made the best use of our opportunity. Since I was still bandaged and broken, Haley washed my hair and I took care of the rest with the tips of my fingers that weren’t covered and a wet wash cloth. It was mostly a pansy effort as far as the deep scrubbing should have gone, but it was the best I could do with lacerated palms.

  The water was room temperature and came from a multitude of plastic bottles, but it was better than ice cold and we knew it was clean. I would never complain since we looked human again. Our hair actually smelled good, our nails were clean, our skin not sticky, sweaty and stinky. We dressed in some yoga pants and tank tops that would be comfortable to sleep in, but utilitarian too, just in case we had to leave suddenly. And we even used the mirror to apply some of the makeup I grabbed. Not that we were trying to impress our hosts, but it felt good to have mascara on again. And Chapstick, oh, sweetness, my lips felt fantastic.

  Back in our borrowed space, we found some more bandages and Neosporin lying on top of the bed. Haley helped change my dressings and we both breathed out a sigh of relief at how well my wounds seemed to be closing up. We both slipped on socks and lined up our shoes at the end of our bed.

  It was weird to be without shoes. We never walked around barefoot anymore, there just wasn’t that option. The only time our shoes ever came off, was just so we could change clothes; but immediately they went back on. And we were never barefoot at the same time. We were always ready to run or fight. We had to be. This was the nature of the world we lived in.

  We set some better traveling clothes out next to our freshly organized packs and tidied up the small space we shared. Even though this place felt safer than anywhere we’d been in years, we always had to be ready to run- always.

  Finally, we left our living space to raid the kitchen. My hair was down and floating around my shoulders; it tickled my skin and felt cool and refreshing since it was still damp. It was longer than it ever had been and I reminded myself to be on the lookout for some scissors so Haley could trim it for me sometime.

  “Oh, my gosh, Reagan, they have peanut butter,” Haley groaned. She lifted a jar of creamy Jiffy and started to unscrew the red cap.

  “Wait, Haley,” I gasped before grabbing a plastic spoon and jumping to stand next to her. “Ok, go.”

  She slowly twisted off the cap and we sat there staring at the untouched peanut butter for several moments, just inhaling the scent. I honestly wiped at my mouth because I was afraid I was drooling.

  “Knock yourselves out, we all hate that stuff,” Vaughan offered.

  “What?” Haley snapped her head up to stare him down. “You all hate peanut butter? Are you sure you’re not Zombies?”

  Vaughan laughed. “Pretty sure.”

  “So you don’t mind if we….?” I gestured at the peanut butter and swirled my spoon over it.

  “Like I said, knock yourselves out,” he smiled at me. “We just found it the last time we went raiding and thought why not? If worse comes to worst, right?”

  Haley and I made sounds of agreement but were already spoon deep in the deliciousness and moaning over the taste on our tongues.

  “When’s the last time you girls had anything to eat?” Vaughan asked, clearly amused with our reaction to good food.

  I looked over the top of my spoon at Haley, feeling the familiar instinct to be careful with what I revealed to others. “What’s it been, Hales? Three days?”

  “Four,” she corrected quickly. “And it was a tuna and cracker pack that we shared.”

  I shuddered at the memory. Tuna was so gross, but we seemed to find it the most often. Plus, it did have protein, which we needed desperately.

  “So you’ve just been constantly moving from place to place, scavenging where you can?” Vaughan asked slowly. His eyebrows were drawn together and his lips turned down in a frown.

  I suddenly felt protective of our lifestyle. No, it wasn’t ideal, but it was all we had. And we were surviving, which was the most important part.

  “We’ve never had the resources to set up like you guys,” I spat out defensively. “And it’s not like we can just settle into someone else’s settlement. I’m not ready to repopulate the planet with some sixty year old guy that already has seven other wives.”

  Vaughan grimaced at my words. “You obviously see how dangerous it is out there for two pretty, unarmed girls.”

  “I’m not unarmed,” I shot back.

  “Haley is,” he argued.

  “For now,” she said with a hint of threat in her voice. “Just for now.”

  “We know how to take care of ourselves, Vaughan,” I said evenly to diffuse the growing tension between us. I didn’t see why he cared, though. He had given us one night here; he’d made it clear that was as far as his generosity went. It didn’t make sense that now he was trying to convince us to take better care of ourselves. Obviously, if there was a better way, we would be doing it by now. “We’ve made it on our own for almost two years. And while we appreciate your generosity, we don’t need you babysitting us.”

  Vaughan held up his hands in defeat, but his eyes glimmered with a silent challenge. “I get it. I’m not judging you.”

  Vaughan walked away, leaving us with our peanut butter. The smooth stickiness coated my mouth and tasted like heaven. I sucked on the spoon a little, making sure I got every last bite. I groaned at the taste of something so rich and delicious. These boys could rule the world with supplies like this.

  And that wasn’t far from the truth.

  A tingle spread out across my neck and I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. My eyes snapped up and locked with Hendrix’s. He was across the room, standing in the middle of the floor just watching me. It was like our gaze had caught him mid-step and he wasn’t sure what to do next.

  After years of being chased by Zombies, I wasn’t intimidated easily, but there was something so revealing about his stare I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I pulled the spoon out of my mouth and licked my lips nervously while he just stood there, staring at me.

  Haley gave me a nudge with her shoulder and my attention was successfully averted. I looked down at the peanut butter jar and felt my che
eks heat from a confusing blush. I wondered if Hendrix would have been this strange in a normal world, or if everything normal inside of him snapped when things got bad.

  Or maybe, in the pre-Zombie world, he was just as brooding and serious. If he were cast in my Zombie version of Vampire Diaries, he so would have been Stefan, the very brother I wanted to watch die of something grotesque and gruesome. Team Daemon every single day.

  “What was that about?” Haley whispered. She opened a pack of Ritz crackers and we both dug in, spreading the peanut butter across the crackers before devouring them- this was a feast.

  “I have no idea,” I giggled.

  “You have pretty hair,” a small, unmistakably girly voice said from behind me.

  Haley and I both turned to face Page. She had to Page- the fact that she was a little girl and the spitting image of her brothers mostly gave it away. She had long, dark blonde hair like Hendrix. It curled at the ends and stopped halfway down her petite back. She had huge, bright blue eyes that were widened with curiosity and full, Cupid’s bow lips that I believed were a family trait. She couldn’t have been more than nine and she reminded me of a fairy. Her features were gorgeously exaggerated and she had the cutest ears poking through her curtain of thick hair.

  I looked from Haley back to Page, before deciding she was talking to me, since her attention was firmly fixed on my face. “Thank you,” I smiled easily. “So do you.”

  “Thank you,” she beamed back. “It’s nice to hear that. Did you know boys don’t know how to say thank you? My mama taught me, she taught me how to use all my manners. But Vaughan says most boys didn’t have the same kind of mama. And he says our mama forgot to teach my brothers.”

  Haley and I did our best to bite back laughter. “I bet your mama didn’t forget to teach them.” I leaned forward as if I was telling her a secret. “I bet they just forgot to learn.”

  Page’s eyes lit up with excitement and she bobbed her head up and down in agreement. “I bet you’re right!”

  “Do you want some peanut butter or crackers?” I asked, holding out the jar for her.