Wheels and Zombies (Book 3): Aground

by M. Van

  Warm waves of his breath tickled my neck as he stood behind me. At the sound of a click, I flinched and turned around. He just stood there flashing that great smile.

  “What?” I said. His hand lifted to my side, and I heard another click.

  “You’re still wearing your load-carrying system,” he said as he continued to open the vest, and he lifted it from my shoulders. With a thud, the vest dropped into a corner and the he went to sit down on the lower half of my bunk.

  Nervously, I glanced around the room for somewhere to sit, wondering if I should sit across from him on Angie’s bunk. He made the decision for me when he grabbed my hand and pulled me down to sit next to him.

  “I have a confession to make,” he said as he wrapped both his hands around mine.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Yeah, I kind of already know everything there is to know about you,” he said casually.

  My eyes grew wide at his admission. He perked out his lower lip and nodded.

  “Clothes, shoe size, family, schools, number of boyfriends—” he said before I interrupted him.

  “What!” I said in a raised voice.

  “Well, not exactly about the boyfriends,” he said, “but in my defense, I work for an agency that deals with information, and I had a lot of time on my hands.”

  I didn’t know what to say and just glared at him for a moment. Was he serious?

  “Why? And didn’t you have anything better to do?” I asked a bit dazed.

  “Well, not on my downtime, and you got stuck in my head,” he said, “and I wanted to know.”

  My mouth dropped slightly open, but before I could speak, he placed a finger on my lips.

  “But to level it out,” he said as he reached into a pocket to remove a piece of paper, “I’ve done the same search on me … for you.”

  I narrowed my eyes on the piece of paper as he handed it to me. Mars shifted on the bed and suddenly seemed nervous. His eyes flickered from the piece of paper to me and back. Seeing him nervous made such a difference from the cool, collected man that could face anything in the field—it made him look adorable like a little puppy.

  “This isn’t exactly the best way to get to know each other,” I said softly.

  “I know, and I know I promised you that date, but the zombies kind of screwed up the dating scene, so I improvised,” he replied.

  For a fraction of a second, my mind transported me back to that darkened hallway somewhere on the grounds of JFK where he had first promised me that date and felt it brighten my spirit.

  He returned my smile with one of his own as I fiddled with the piece of paper between my fingers. I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me who this guy was. I could see it in his eyes, and I could tell how he had fought to rescue us from that lab. The resolution I had made on that bus came back to me, and while Mars’s calm demeanor seemed to disintegrate, I knew what to do.

  “You want me to read it to you?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I could just tell you.”

  I shook my head again. He opened his mouth to speak again and this time I pressed my finger to his lips.

  “Shh,” I said at a whisper, “we need to do this first.” With that, I leaned into him and pressed my lips to his.

  My hands slid up his arms and shoulders until they wrapped around the back of his neck. I pulled him closer. I wanted to feel him.

  Mars deepened the kiss, and with the gentlest force, he eased me backward until my head hit the pillow. He released me for a moment to catch his breath.

  “About that date,” he said in a breathy voice.

  “Shut up and kiss me.” It was the last thing I said for quite a while.

  | 17

  I wondered if Mars had informed Angie of his intentions, because she took her time before she returned with Ash. She didn't say anything when she found Mars and me sitting next to each other on my bunk. Although I could see her gaze drift over the disheveled blankets and sheets on the bed. She merely smiled and helped Ash onto the top bunk.

  I followed Mars outside into the hall but could count on about the same measure of privacy there with the two airmen placed at our door as inside the room. The look on those men’s faces made me blush in an instance. Mars didn’t seem to be bothered with it, but then I think I might have been the louder one. In my defense, it had been some time.

  After an awkward good-bye, he crossed the hall and entered his own room. I closed the door behind me and then had to face another pair of curious eyes. Ignoring both Ash and Angie, I crawled under the blankets of my bunk.

  Although I had hoped to get some rest, I couldn’t sleep, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Ash and Angie were on a roll. After they had informed me of their sightseeing tour of the base, which included a trip to the mess hall and to one of the bigger control rooms, they started to exchange stories. They just couldn’t shut up and had to drag me into their conversation. I was grateful, though, that they had thought to bring me some sandwiches from the mess. My little exercise routine with Mars had left me hungry. I was even more grateful that they didn’t mention the fact I had spent over an hour alone with him.

  “So then you stayed at the beach,” Angie said.

  “Yeah,” Ash replied, “it was great, the weather was great, and I even learned how to swim.” Angie shot me a friendly smile before she turned on her side to look up at Ash.

  “That must have been some sight,” she said, “flapping around in the water like a puppy.”

  “Hey,” Ash replied before she chugged a pillow down from her bunk. It hit Angie square in the face, and I couldn’t help but snort a chuckle. That awarded me with the same pillow in my face. The room filled with laughter.

  After a moment, I glanced at the clock and noticed it was almost twelve.

  “So what did you do all summer,” Ash asked Angie. Before she answered, she perched her head up on a hand and shifted glances between the two of us.

  “Not that much,” she said. “My leg had to heal, which ran into trouble infection-wise. Mars had to do all the hard work, like avoiding being discovered by Dr. Warren. That didn’t work out that well.”

  “He found you out?” I asked.

  “Yeah, his watchdog had sought us out.” I remembered her mention of the word watchdog before I figured it out.

  “You mean William, beefy guy with the head the size of a cantaloupe,” I said. Angie nodded with a smile.

  “Yeah, seemed nice at first, but turned out to be a mean motherf…” she said but swallowed her last word with a glance at the upper bunk.

  “Fucker,” Ash chimed in. I knew Ash wouldn’t shy away from completing the word. From the moment we met, she’d had a very uncensored vocabulary. Still, I couldn’t give up on a chance to shuck the pillow at her. Of course, it was followed by a grunted “Hey.”

  My eyes fell on Angie’s pale face as I leaned back. She smiled up at Ash, but dark circles underlined her eyes. She didn't look well.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked in a soft voice. The curses coming from the upper bunk died down.

  “Okay, I guess,” she said as her head lowered to the pillow. “Still here.” Silence filled the room for a moment until Ash spoke up.

  “You could get yourself get bitten by a zombie,” she said. Her words tightened my throat. Angie knew what had happened to us, but she also knew the risk. She had seen the victims of Dr. David’s trials in Florida. Most of the cancer patients he had infected with Mortem had turned into a newer version of zombies. They seemed similar to the brain dead, but at a closer look you could see them thinking behind those white, fogged-up eyes. They still craved living flesh but knew what they were doing, unable to stop themselves. I couldn’t imagine a worse fate, along with withering away until death found you, which was something I had feared for most of my adult life. They had to face what their bodies did to other human beings. Even the slimmest chance of becoming that would stop me from trying. I wasn’t hard to imagine Angie woul
d feel the same way.

  “It doesn’t work that way, kid,” Angie said and turned to her other side to show us her back.

  “Don’t call me kid,” Ash said annoyed.

  “Then don’t say stupid shit,” Angie retorted. “You know you were lucky for Mags to be around or else you’d be crawling around on your stomach like a freaking zombie.”

  “That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work for you,” Ash fired back. I poked my head out and looked up at Ash.

  “Does it,” she said as she looked down. A glassy sheen filled her eyes. I shook my head. We didn’t know why we hadn’t turned. Dr. David had done some extensive research on it, and he still hadn’t figured it out. With a hurt look on her face, Ash’s head disappeared from my sight. I reached for the lamp standing on a side table and switched it off.

  The silence felt uncomfortable as I lay in the dark, unable to fall asleep. Too much had happened in not enough time, and it crowded my head. In the bunk above me, Ash’s breathing had evened out, but in the other bed, Angie grunted and kicked the sheets of her legs to sit up. Her elbows perched on her knees, she hid her face in her hands.

  “What is it?” I whispered. Her head perked up, looking surprised at the sound of my voice.

  “You’re supposed to be asleep.” Without a word, I shifted to lean on an elbow and waited for her reply.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you … but I’m scared, you know …” she said.

  I considered turning the light on but didn’t want to wake Ash.

  “Tell me what?”

  “There is a doctor here, and she thinks she knows what’s needed to make it work,” she whispered. The concerned look on her face told me there was something else to it.

  “But,” I replied.

  “She needs more data.”

  “Angie,” Ash said in a tiny voice and poked her head over the side of the bed.

  At the sound of Ash’s voice and the knowledge that she was awake, Angie kicked her foot out, and her boots placed next to the bed scattered across the floor.

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Ash said.

  I flipped the switch to turn on the lamp and glanced at Angie. A single tear ran down her cheek. She gripped the side of her bed and gave me a hard look before her eyes flicked up at Ash.

  Then she refocused on me, and it wasn’t easy to hold her stare. Her words hadn’t been meant for Ash’s ears; they were meant for me.

  “She hasn’t been able to test her theory, this Dr. …” I asked.

  “Matley,” she said and shook her head. It wasn’t a hard thing to figure out what Angie was asking. She was looking for a way to survive, and this Dr. Matley had handed her an option. Considering the fact Ash and I had been Dr. David’s favorite research subjects, I figured this Dr. Matley would welcome us with open arms.

  “Wait, what tests,” Ash asked.

  Angie sprang to her feet and reached a hand out to Ash.

  “This is not for you to worry about,” she said in low voice.

  “But do you think we can help?” Ash replied.

  “No, I’m sorry, kid. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  I blocked out the rest of the conversation and turned to face the wall.

  Angie would never ask Ash. She would never put Ash through more anguish, and I appreciated that, but she hadn’t asked Ash. If this Dr. Matley were to come up with something to help Angie, then she would need ways to test it. And I would need to step up.

  When I woke the next morning, Ash had found her way into my bunk. In the Knight, we had slept next to each other for quite some time, and I felt grateful for the familiar wake up, although the Knight was a bit more spacious.

  I had heard Ash toss and turn for most of the night. Sleep hadn’t come easy for me either. The conversation with Angie had reawaken the gloom I’d been trying to fight off, and although my time spent with Mars was anything but gloom—and it was probably the one thing I did want to think about—my mind kept shifting to Angie’s unspoken request. She had barely said anything, and I probably should have asked more questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it—especially not with Ash inside the room. Even the thought of drawing blood made my stomach lurch, and the word test made a shiver run up and down my spine. Our time spent with Dr. David had turned me into a testophobic or something.

  Ash turned, and her elbow hit me in the face. I groaned and prodded my jaw as Angie turned on the light.

  “Rise and shine,” she said. My eyes snapped shut at the bright light that filled the room. I pried an eye open to look at her. She seemed perky enough for as far as Angie could ever be perky.

  We got ourselves ready, and along with our two chaperones, who had changed during the night, we made our way to the mess hall. Ash, having learned the route yesterday, took the lead. The fact she had her own transportation today made me feel grateful. Although Ash wasn’t the greatest burden to carry around on one’s back, my shoulders felt tight enough without carrying her around all day. Our trusted guards walked behind us with enough space to have a conversation without needing to fear they would catch every word.

  “Are you okay?” Angie asked while we trotted along a corridor. I glanced at her sideways and shrugged.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dropped this on you like that,” she added.

  I couldn’t reply. Anything I’d say would be the wrong thing, and I didn’t even know what that thing she dropped exactly meant. All I could think of was what Dr. David had done to us—the needles, the cutting into my body, the pain. I shuddered at the memory.

  Angie grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. The two soldiers walking behind us closed in, and Angie shot them a glare.

  “Do you mind?” she said in a hard tone. One of the men lifted his hands in surrender, and they both took a couple of steps back. Her hardened look softened as she glanced up at me.

  “Would you please talk to me?” she said more tentatively.

  I stared at her—unable to think—what should I say. I’m sorry, you’re my friend and I like you, but I have to think about it. Could I say that to someone who had risked her life to save me?

  After a moment, her gaze dropped to the floor, and her shoulders slumped.

  “Please, I don’t want you to consider talking to Matley,” she said at a whisper. “It was stupid of me to mention it. They don’t know who you are, and they will never find out from me. I was just …”

  “Scared,” I said filling in the blank with a half-hearted smile. “I know that feeling.”

  She glanced down the hall. Ash hadn’t noticed our sudden stop. Angie’s gaze darkened as she stepped in closer so her words would stay between us.

  “I hadn’t thought it through,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder to where Ash disappeared around a corner, “not until this morning when I saw how she crawled down that bunk—that kid needs you to be okay.”

  Facing me she added, “She likes me, but she doesn’t need me. I can’t give her what she needs, so whatever you do, don’t make it about me. Make it about her.”

  Some of that darkness lifted, and although her words were amiable, they felt a little threatening. Still I nodded in agreement. Angie had a point: I wasn’t on my own anymore. Whether I liked it or not, I had a kid to take care of even if she wasn’t my own. Angie started to walk, and I watched her for a moment. Just what I needed, another conflict in my life. With a shrug, I started to follow with the two airmen in tow.

  The mess hall seemed quiet when we entered. It turned out most of the men and women working here had already been in and out. Some of them worked in shifts, but for most, nine o’clock in the morning was a late start. While we sat down and ate, I kept an eye out for Mars. A bagel and some fruit later, he still hadn’t shown up. Although the food was great and the abundance of it blew my mind, I felt like some stupid schoolgirl waiting for her prince to arrive. I didn’t know whether Ash noticed, but I think Angie caught on after about a minute of sitting down.

&nbs
p; I returned from a restroom break and noticed Ash had left the table.

  “She wanted hot chocolate,” Angie said when I asked her about it. I scanned the room and saw her sitting several tables down in conversation with a messy head of red hair that obscured, presumably, the woman’s face. As I plopped down in my seat across from Angie, my eyes automatically scanned the mess entrance. Angie rolled her eyes at me and then shook her head.

  “What?” I asked as I refilled my coffee.

  “Romeo is working,” she replied. “Probably in cahoots with the top brass around here.”

  I scowled at her for the Romeo remark and then sagged in my seat. I glanced around my new surroundings and didn’t know what to make off it. Although the mess hall didn’t show it, the knowledge I was on a military base, combined with the fact I sat inside a mountain, gave me the creeps. It all added to the claustrophobic feeling that threatened to crash down on me. Even the blue air force flight suit they had me wear reminded me of being stuck in that cell all those months ago—although that suit had been orange then.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Our plan hadn’t developed into that stage yet,” she said as she leaned in. I sat up to follow her example and edged closer.

  “How were you able to find us anyway?” I asked.

  “You dad’s plane raised some flags around here, and we kind of had to act in a hurry,” she said, her voice barley a whisper. “Mars had an inkling you might show up.”

  “How they’d find out about the plane?”

  Angie raised her eyebrows. “You do know where you are, right?” she said incredulously. “It’s kind of what they do around here—you know, watch the sky. Besides, Warren was on that plane. It said so on the registered flight plan.”

  She paused as if to gauge my reaction to the information.