by Kate L. Mary
We’d been driving for maybe fifteen minutes when Blake leaned forward and pointed out the driver’s side window. “Check that out!”
I leaned forward, too, trying to get a look as Kellan slowed to a stop. In the distance, a horde was gathered around the decaying remains of a house. There had to be a couple dozen of them. We were a good way off, far enough that we weren’t in any danger, but whoever was inside the building probably couldn’t say the same.
“You think someone’s trapped?” I asked even though I had no doubt in my mind.
“Probably,” Blake said. “Poor bastard.”
“Can’t we do something?”
“No.” The word was firm and final, and Kellan didn’t even bother looking my way.
He reached for the gearshift, but I grabbed his hand.
“We can’t just drive away and do nothing.”
“We can.” He turned his eyes on me. “We have to. We can’t draw enough of them away to make a difference without getting close, and doing that would put us in danger.”
I turned to Blake. “You’re okay with driving off?”
“No.” He shoved his hand under his hat and scratched his head. “But Kellan’s right.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “If we make noise, they’ll head here.”
“Some of them,” Kellan elaborated. “Not all of them.”
“Isn’t that better than doing nothing?” I snapped.
“Target practice,” Blake said.
Kellan and I turned his way, and he grinned.
“You said you needed practice.” Blake shoved the door open and hopped out. “It’s the perfect opportunity.”
I slid across the seat after him, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re a genius.”
“I don’t like it.” Kellan hadn’t moved, and his hands were wringing the steering wheel.
“This is a hell of a lot safer than any other scenario.” Blake had to raise his voice when he said, “And she’ll get to practice with the scope.”
Before Kellan could argue again, I slipped out of the truck.
Blake was at the back already. He lowered the tailgate, and I pulled myself into the bed of the truck as Kellan shoved the driver’s side door open. He came out grumbling to himself, but I didn’t pay attention to him. My focus was on Blake and the rifle he passed me.
“Kneel and use the side of the truck to steady the gun.”
I did as I was told, positioning the rifle with the butt securely wedged against my shoulder. I’d closed one eye and was peering through the scope at the distant horde when the truck rocked and groaned, telling me Kellan had decided to join us. I didn’t look his way, too focused on the mass of dead clamoring to get inside the house.
“How many?” Blake asked.
I moved the rifle around, counting the dead through the scope. “Twenty. Maybe a couple more.”
“Shit.” Kellan dropped to his knees at my side and put his hand on the small of my back. “Be careful.”
Despite the tingles that moved through me at his touch, I pulled away from the scope so I could shoot him a glare. “Will you stop being so overprotective? They’re not even close to us.”
“Good,” he said. “Keep it that way. If even one of them gets close, I’m driving off. Hear me?”
I went back to looking through the scope without answering him.
“I’m going to start,” I said, focusing on a zombie at the back of the crowd.
His head bobbed in and out of the crosshairs as he fought the rest of the pack to get closer to the house. I exhaled slowly, my finger poised over the trigger as I waited for the perfect shot.
“Concentrate,” Kellan said, his face so close to mine that his breath brushed against the back of my head.
His fingers brushed my spine, and I jerked, my own finger twitching on the trigger. The shot rang through the air, echoing as the rifle kicked back, slamming into my shoulder. The bullet smashed into the house, missing the zombie’s head by a good foot.
I let out a hiss of annoyance.
Kellan chuckled. “Did the kickback hurt?”
“No, you prick.” I cocked the rifle, and the empty casing dropped to the bed of the truck with a metallic clang while a new bullet locked into place. “Irritated is more like it.”
I shrugged his hand off before repositioning the gun and peering through the scope once again. This time when I pulled the trigger, the zombie’s head exploded.
A couple of the creatures turned from the house and began stumbling our way.
“They’re coming,” Kellan said.
“I can see them.”
I cocked the rifle again and another casing dropped out. When I pulled the trigger, the head of the zombie in the lead jerked back. He dropped to the ground as I cocked the rifle again and set my sights on the next zombie.
I repeated the process ten times before Kellan got too antsy. He’d jumped down from the truck after the fifth zombie hit the dust and started pacing. Most of the horde was now headed our way, and I couldn’t shoot them fast enough to stop them from coming. They were still a good forty feet away from us, but Kellan had had enough.
“I’m going.”
I was still looking through the scope when he walked right in front of me.
“Shit.” His head appeared in front of me and I jerked the rifle back, my heart pounding harder than a drum. “Way to practice gun safety.”
“Holy shit, man.” Blake let out a low whistle. “You almost got your brains blown out.”
Kellan jerked the door to the cab open. “No, I didn’t.”
“I beg to differ,” I muttered.
“It’s fine,” Kellan snapped. “They’re too close. Let’s move.”
Blake was shaking his head when he took the rifle from me. “You have to let her grow up sometime.”
“That’s not what this is about.” Kellan hopped in and slammed the door.
My sweaty skin was stuck to the floor of the metal truck bed, and I had to pry myself off it when I stood. It still felt like my heart was going to explode. Thinking about Kellan’s head being in my sights, about what could have happened to him, made me sick.
“You okay?” Blake asked.
“No.”
I hopped out of the truck and charged to the passenger side door, ripping it open.
“Get in.” Kellan stared straight ahead, his hands on the steering wheel.
I did, but only because I was still too shaken to argue with him.
The cracked vinyl seat stuck to my sweaty legs, making it impossible to slide over. I wiggled my butt across until I was pressed up against Kellan. Since I didn’t want to look at him, I focused on the house in the distance. All the zombies had now fled and were heading our way. I only hoped it helped whoever was inside.
Blake climbed in next to me and wordlessly shut the door, and a second later Kellan took off, leaving the house and the zombies behind.
We drove in silence the rest of the way, and when we reached one of the rocky areas where the guys usually went hunting, Kellan pulled to a stop.
Blake looked between us and sighed before throwing the door open and jumping out.
“You need to stop treating me like a little kid,” I said, staring straight ahead. “I know that’s hard for you, and I know you’ll always see me as your responsibility, but I’m not a child anymore.”
“Regan,” Kellan whispered.
I turned and found him staring at me, his brown eyes intense but unreadable. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then shut it again.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “I don’t think of you as child. I haven’t for a long time.”
Something in his gaze, or maybe even the space between the words, made my stomach jump. “Then why do you insist on being so protective?”
“Because I want to keep you safe.”
Because he feels responsible for me.
I exhaled as I turned away from hi
m, wiggling my way to the open passenger door. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
Blake was waiting at the back of the truck, the rifles and packs ready. I loaded up, slinging a bag over my shoulder, followed by a rifle. Kellan once again said nothing when he reached us at the back of the truck.
Once he was loaded up, we headed out. Whether Kellan was still upset or had simply switched to alert mode, I didn’t know. What I did know, however, was that I had my eyes and ears open as we walked and was doing my very best not to think about him at all. The last thing I needed was a distraction.
We had to climb. The terrain in front of us was rocky and dotted with boulders bigger than I was, but it wasn’t quite large enough to be called a mountain. Despite the terrain, the guys had had good luck hunting in this area. Zombies didn’t have the coordination to maneuver the rocks, meaning we had to keep an eye out for the dead less than we did on flatter ground. The animals seemed to know it was safer as well, and the coyotes and mountain lions were ripe in this area.
“Keep an eye out for rattlesnakes,” Kellan said as he pulled himself over a rock.
He turned, holding his hand out for me, and I grasped it without hesitating. Sweat slid down my spine as I hauled myself up, and when I reached the top, I had to pause so I could take a drink from my canteen. In the distance, the rumble of thunder made me turn. The horizon to the west was dark gray and menacing, the clouds lit up by the occasional burst of lightning.
“Storm will be here soon,” Blake said.
He grunted as he pulled himself up behind me.
“Could go right past us.” Kellan was a few steps ahead of me, and he didn’t look back. “Just in case, though. We need to hurry.”
I moved faster, hopping from boulder to boulder, while at my back Blake did the same. In front of me, Kellan moved at a pace that reminded me of a soldier on a mission.
We neared the top and the rocks grew closer together and easier to move across, and I picked up the pace so I was walking at Kellan’s side.
“I want to take the shot when we come across something.”
“If.” Kellan glanced my way, but it was brief. “With this storm coming in, we might not find anything.”
“Are we good on meat?”
He nodded, then shook his head. “Yeah, but in case we do run into trouble with that group, I want to have some more.”
“That makes sense.”
We walked in silence for a few seconds before he said, “You mad at me?”
“No. I only want to be treated like an adult.”
Kellan hopped to another rock and then shot me a grin. “Maybe if you acted like one…”
I rolled my eyes, and when I caught up to him, gave him a playful shove. He let out a low chuckle, throwing his arm around me as he did, and the laugh echoed through him, and me in turn. This was the Kellan I adored. The one with the easy laugh and childish smile.
“I like you better like this than when you’re bossing me around,” I said.
Kellan leaned over until his mouth was inches from my ear. “I like being like this, too.”
Something in his tone made my insides buzz, and I turned to say something to him as we reached the top where the ground flattened out. I froze at the sight in front of me, and just like that, whatever I was going to say vanished from my mind.
9
The dusty remnants of a small plane lay in front of us, debris scattered behind it and half-buried by dirt. The front window was cracked, half of it missing, and through the opening, the skeletal remains of the pilot were visible. He was still strapped in, the headset still sitting atop his skull, and his mouth open in a macabre grin.
Behind us, Blake reached the top of the mountain and paused to take a breather while Kellan and I moved toward the remains.
“Looks like its been here for a while,” I said.
“Early days of the apocalypse. We’ve come across it before.” Kellan paused at the front of the plane so he could peer inside. “There’s a body in the back, too.”
Despite the pieces littered across the ground, the tail of the plane was remarkably intact. Standing at Kellan’s side, I peered in through the opening. The body in the back wore a pink shirt, telling me it had been a woman, maybe even the pilot’s wife. An open suitcase was just visible, its contents scattered across the interior. Clothes, mostly, from the looks of it.
“Maybe they were trying to get somewhere safe. Away from the virus,” I said, straightening.
“I considered doing that,” Blake said from behind us. “When everyone was dying, I seriously considered trying to fly out of here.”
Kellan turned to face him. “A C-17? Could you have done that alone?”
Blake shook his head, and then shrugged. “Maybe. Probably not. There was that little airport outside town, though. They had some small planes like this one.” He paused. “Maybe that’s where they were coming from.”
“If so, they didn’t get far,” I said.
“No,” Blake whispered.
“You miss it?” Kellan asked.
Blake’s gaze was pulled from the plane to him. “Flying?” Kellan nodded. “Sometimes. Sometimes, though, I wonder what would have happened if I’d decided to try to get home.”
“They were all dead,” I reminded him.
“Probably, but I never knew for sure.” Blake let out a deep breath and lifted his gaze to the overcast sky. “Things might have turned out better if I’d gone.”
Not for the first time, my heart went out to him. He wasn’t supposed to be here, had only come to Altus Air Force Base a few weeks before the virus got bad—here for training on the C-17 cargo plane—but had gotten stuck when travel was suspended. That was how he’d met Emma. Her parents had owned an old house on the opposite side of Altus from where Kellan and I had grown up, and they’d had a guesthouse in the back yard that they’d rented out to incoming pilots. He was staying there when Emma’s parents died. It had made sense when they got together. They’d been through a lot before they’d even known one another, but it hadn’t lasted. Maybe it was never supposed to. Maybe Blake should have hijacked a plane and tried to make his way home. I was glad he’d decided to stay, but I knew if I were in his shoes, I’d have a difficult time not wondering if I’d done the right thing all those years ago.
Giving in to the urge to comfort him, I crossed to Blake and threw my arms around him. “We’re glad you’re here.”
He hugged me back, kissing the side of my head. “I am, too. Most of the time.”
I patted his back before pulling away.
“We might get hit.” Kellan had moved to the back of the plane. He wasn’t looking at us, but was instead staring at the dark sky.
Like his words had been a cue for the storm, a rumble of thunder cut through the air.
Blake rolled his eyes. “I think someone already said that.”
“We should stick close.” Kellan turned to face us. “If it gets too bad, we can take cover in the plane.”
“The plane?” I turned toward it, and the skeleton grinned back at me. When I looked back at Kellan, my mouth was hanging open.
Like the skeleton, he grinned. “That bother you?”
“I think curling up with a skeleton would bother anyone,” I retorted.
Kellan belted out a laugh as he turned his back to me. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find some animals brave enough to come out in this weather.”
We hiked a little farther, keeping an eye out for anything moving while the sky above us grew darker and more menacing. The wind picked up as the temperature took a nosedive that was probably very similar to the one the plane had taken the day it crashed. My skin cooled until I began to feel almost chilly. It would have been a nice change from sweating my ass off if I wasn’t worried the clouds would open up and pummel us with hail at any minute.
A fat raindrop hit my nose, and I lifted my head. Above me, the sky was gray. “Kellan.”
He turned as two more raindrops slammed ag
ainst my head. The wind whipped hair into my face, and I had to hold it back. I twisted it around my hand, hoping it would help, but the loose tendrils still got in my eyes.
“It’s going to get bad,” Blake called.
A bolt of lightning cut across the dark sky, bright and jagged, and a boom followed less than a second later.
“It’s right on top of us!” I yelled.
Kellan swore as he jogged our way. “Come on! We can make it to the plane!”
More lightning lit up the sky, and it wasn’t until that moment that it hit me how dark it had gotten. It couldn’t be much past noon, but it felt like night was closing in on us as we ran for the plane. More drops fell, hitting my head and face. They were fat and spread apart, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the clouds opened up. I hoped it only dropped rain on us, and not something far more destructive.
Kellan charged past me when we neared the plane and jerked the door open. The aircraft was small, made for only a handful of people, but would be big enough for the three of us. Even with the bodies in it.
“Sorry about this,” Kellan said as he leaned inside.
I stood behind him, staring up at the sky as the rain picked up. Lightning lit up the clouds and thunder rumbled through the air as the wind slammed into us, soaking us as we waited for Kellan to move aside. When he finally did, though, I froze instead of rushing to get into the plane. He’d wrapped the skeleton woman in a jacket so he could remove her body, and she was in his arms, stiff and brittle in her decayed state.
“Get in!” Kellan called.
Blake moved, but I stayed where I was, watching as Kellan gently laid the woman out. She was long dead—nine years now, probably—but he treated her with a reverence few people would have bothered with. That was Kellan, though. Sensitive. Caring. A heart bigger than the virus that had ended the world.
I looked away when tears clogged my throat, instead focusing on the footprints Kellan’s boots had left in the damp dirt and tracing the crisscross pattern with my gaze.
