I flipped my feet over the side of the bed and pushed Connor away from his urine. I could stop him from tracking it everywhere, and at least the concrete wouldn’t stain. I grabbed a rag from one of the nooks and threw it over his mess—just as he started to poop. That, I could just toss into my trash can toilet, which smelled as if it hadn’t been changed in more than just a few days.
No time for a sponge bath or my morning routine. I had to find out what my guests were doing before they got themselves—and me—killed. I put on a pair of sweatpants, my T-shirt, and the bicycle armor. I grabbed my machetes and headed for the door, with Connor close on my heels.
I opened the door and saw the three cots, the sleeping bags on them unzipped with no one inside. A cool breeze whispered through the open cellar doors, and sunlight flooded the room. I stepped closer, cautiously. Connor tried to get ahead of me. I grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him back. He had to remember that I was the alpha male, else I couldn’t protect him. The same for my guests, if they were still around.
As I placed one foot on the steps, I wondered if they had taken off in the night to get others. Maybe they had lied to me. Maybe they did have a colony set up somewhere. I could always move myself to Kady’s, but what message would I be sending if I just gave up this place?
I finally reached the top step and looked outside. I heard them now, talking to one another. Mostly about how much better the air was without the stench. Did they understand they had left me vulnerable by propping open this door? Anything could have gotten inside.
Oliver was lying in the grass, propped up on his elbows. Skinny and Big Guy were throwing around my stepfather’s sons’ football. None of them had noticed me as I exited the bunker. I slammed the door shut, and the clang startled them all.
“What the hell?” Big Guy yelled as the football spiraled into his face.
“This isn’t a game!” I yelled back. Connor made a show of it with a growl. I guessed his enemy was whoever I made out as my enemy. “If I can surprise you, anything could have gotten in there. And gotten me!”
“You were locked away,” Skinny argued.
I started to regret bringing them back with me. If I needed to undo this, I would have to kill them.
“We just wanted to air the place out—” Skinny said.
“It smells like ass in there—” Tom said.
“But you’re right,” Oliver said. The others glared at him, and I started to see this as “them” versus “him.” He glared back at them and added, “We should have been more careful. We will be more careful.”
Oliver walked up to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. It was awkward, and I wasn’t sure how this action was supposed to make me feel. He looked directly into my eyes with his head tilted a little.
I glanced down at Connor. He was also looking up at me with his head tilted. The dog was curious, but that couldn’t have been Oliver’s intent. When he spoke, he did so with such a soft tone that I couldn’t help but feel calmed.
“We’re sorry we let you down. We’re new to this, but you seem to know what you’re doing. Please help by teaching us.”
He smelled—and bad. He had dirt under his cracked fingernails and what looked like grease staining his face. Could have been deader blood. They all had it on their faces.
“I’m your only hope,” I said. “You’d best remember that.”
He took his hands off my shoulders and stepped away. I wondered if he was startled by my words or by the truth of what I had said. This wasn’t high school. Being good at a sport, or dating a jock, or being the geekiest of the geeks was not going to make anyone king. All I needed to do was to get Oliver to trust me. Once he did, all of them would regard me as leader. A good start would be bringing Kady there, and getting her to tell them how I had saved her.
“I need to leave you all here for a day. The windows in the house are bulletproof, and the siding is fire retardant but not fire proof. There’s a lookout at the top, but don’t think you aren’t vulnerable. The house is only safe so long as someone is keeping watch. Slack off even for a second, and it could all be over.”
They all nodded, but only Oliver spoke. “Where exactly are you going?”
“To get someone I promised to help.” I picked up Connor and handed him to Oliver. “Look after him while I’m gone.”
“And what if you don’t make it back?” The fear in Skinny’s shaking voice was unmistakable.
“Then assume I’m dead. Do not come to rescue me.”
Not that I believed my dying a possibility, but this was a good test for my three new companions. If I left them and they did well, that would mean I could leave them alone for longer trips and seek out other colonies. See who our competition for resources was, and possibly where my stepfather had gone. Once we established a real settlement, one with a garden and a few animals, maybe we could find trading partners. The end of the world could be the best beginning for the four of us.
I WALKED EAST DOWN Loon Lake Road, thankful that it took less than a half hour to get to Kady’s place. When I arrived, her hatch door was wide open. Of course it was. She was sitting on the grass with her hands clasped in her lap. When she saw me, she jumped up and ran toward me. I stopped when she wrapped her arms around my neck. She was crying, and for a second I just stood rigidly. I remembered seeing my mom pat my sister’s back once when she cried, so I tried that. It seemed to calm her.
“I thought you were dead,” she said, sobbing.
“Clearly I’m alive.” Even without anyone around to see her crying, Kady’s affection made me immensely uncomfortable. “I found other survivors. We need to move you.”
She pushed me back and crinkled her nose. With her forearm she wiped at her tears. “You obviously don’t have showers where you live.”
A murder of crows suddenly flew from the nearby woods. Kady jumped back. I stared hard at the tree line. Birds didn’t fly out like that without someone—or something—disturbing them. Could be something alive. Or something dead. Could be lots of people. Could be one.
No matter what, we had nowhere to defend ourselves from if attacked. Too big a coincidence to assume someone might have arrived just when I did. If it were people, they would be waiting for me. They might even have run back to their colony to say I’d returned. My first instinct was to run.
Of course it is. You’re a coward!
“I am not a coward!” I growled at my stepfather’s voice.
Kady stared blankly at me for a second, obviously unfazed by the birds. She blinked before she said, “I never called you a coward.”
I didn’t even realize I’d spoken out loud.
“There’s someone watching us. I don’t want them to know we know. You need to pack a bag, and we need to leave.”
“I don’t want to leave. This is my home! All my stuff is here!”
“Tom. Tom is back at my shelter.” This was the one thing I hoped would get her to listen. Head cheerleader, head football star. Just like Flash and MJ in Spiderman. It just made sense.
“He’s alive? Does he know I’m alive?”
I shook my head and she slapped me. I wondered how we had gone from a hug to a strike.
“How could you not tell him?”
I would never tell her why, knowing Tom the way I did. A Tom she didn’t know. Or rather, a Tom she chose not to know. The one who picked on kids smaller and weaker. The one who made himself stronger on the backs of those he considered beneath him. In a world like this, how could I know for sure that he wouldn’t see all of us as weaker?
Kady didn’t wait for me to answer and, as I’d hoped, she climbed back into her hatch. Whoever was watching might have realized we were onto them. We were paying too much attention to our surroundings. If it were a deader, wouldn’t it have run at us by now?
With Kady, I’d now have four people to look after. I should have been worrying only about myself. You’ll be the end of us all, my stepfather’s voice reminded me.
But this time
I didn’t believe him. These others were key to my survival.
THE WALK BACK WAS MORE like what I’d expected an apocalypse to be like. Quiet, no people. As we walked onto the driveway that led to my home, I wondered what my companions were up to. A horrid feeling that I was about to find Connor dead and the homestead stripped bare consumed me. I stopped just out of gunshot range.
“I want you to wait here,” I told Kady.
“But what if one of those things comes out of the woods at me?”
She was not wrong. These weren’t like the ones in movies who wandered slowly. Some ran like track stars, and my guess was they didn’t get tired in the same way we did. If their bodies could move even with half their chests blown out, then they must not have abided by the same laws of physics as we did. If one spied Kady, she was done for without me. Giving her a weapon was useless. Even if she knew how to use one, I didn’t think she had the guts.
But since this was a small community, I doubted hordes of deaders were waiting for us anywhere. With some proper training, I could probably take this crew back to the town and clear out the few dozen we’d encountered the day before. The few left wandering the woods and farms and popping out of nowhere would always be of concern.
“You see anything, you just start running as fast as you can.”
She nodded, and I started for the house. I considered drawing my machete, just in case. But I also didn’t want to look like the crazy person returned to kill the colony. If I’d had my binoculars, I could have seen if anyone was in the roost. Now I would just have to find out the hard way by walking home.
I started over the field, keeping watch over my surroundings—the house situated atop a slight hill, surrounded by a field, surrounded by woods. One road in, which meant one road out. Anything else had to come by foot. I was within two hundred yards of the house when Oliver walked out the front door. Connor came tearing out the front door when he saw me and ripped through the grass until he was at my side.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled at Oliver, who stumbled backward a few steps at my outburst.
“It’s okay. Blake is in the roost with a rifle. Shit. Relax,” Oliver said, sounding exasperated.
“I’ve been watching you since you pulled up,” Skinny . . . Blake . . . whatever his name was yelled down at me.
I waved Kady to come, and then knelt to pat Connor. He licked my face and jumped all over me—and while his happiness to see me made me feel good, this recklessness was going to get him dead. I grabbed him and made him sit.
“Stay!” I told him firmly, and he did. “Sorry. Just a little on edge, I guess,” I said to Oliver just as Kady ran up to us.
“Oh my god, what’s with the dead bodies?” she whispered to me.
“You could introduce us,” Oliver said. He gave me a small smile, and then faced Kady. “Or I can do it myself. I’m Oliver.” His voice was weird, as though he was angry. I didn’t get why he was smiling if my bringing Kady there upset him.
“Kady.”
I started for the house with Connor walking obediently by my side.
“We’ve been busy while you were away,” Oliver said as he ran up to me. “We can make this place work.”
I didn’t cut off his enthusiasm by reminding him that because this place was such a fantastic shelter it would become a major target. I followed him inside.
They had made themselves at home. Skinny and Big Guy had taken Kyle and Zeke’s bunk beds; my cot looked untouched. I gathered Oliver had taken the master bedroom since they’d dragged the bloody mattress into the hallway.
“Oh my god . . . Kady!” Big Guy exclaimed when he saw her.
“Tom!” She ran to him and they hugged. Oliver started humming a tune as if this were some romantic movie. Big Guy shot him a dirty look.
“I thought I would never see you again,” I heard Kady say as she and Big Guy parted.
Big Guy looked at me. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew where she was?”
“Could you go meet Blake in the roost? I’ll get Kady settled here,” Oliver said, stepping between Big Guy and me, and leading Kady by the arm to my sister’s room.
Big Guy kept his gaze steeled on me, and as I walked past him I said, “I was thinking of her safety, not about you.” I climbed up the ladder to the roof, where Skinny was watching the area with binoculars.
“You’re right, a fence would solve a lot of our safety issues,” Skinny said when he saw me.
“We’d need supplies. It means a trip back to town—”
“No”—Skinny cut me off—“it means a trip to the city. The town was picked over weeks ago when all this shit started going down. Most people hit the electronics store first, but someone was smart enough to hit the hardware store.”
My stepfather, I said to myself before Skinny finished talking.
“They cleaned it right out.”
“The city is too far. We can scavenge from our neighbors. We’ll find the ones who didn’t survive.”
“We also need a generator,” he said, “and considering how windy it is up here, we could run it off a wind turbine.”
“And who’s going to build that?”
“I think I can figure that out with all the books your dad left behind.”
“Stepfather.” I said this firmly so he wouldn’t forget. “Do we have all the tools you’ll need?”
“I’m going to make a shopping list of supplies.”
“That sounds reasonable. Then we’ll go scavenging while the others stay here to keep this place defended.”
I made a mental note that I was starting to lose command here. While their thinking for themselves was great, their making plans without asking for my agreement was dangerous. I couldn’t tell if scavenging was a request, suggestion, or a command from them. It was still them versus me, no matter how congenial they might have seemed now.
“Make your list,” I said in a very authoritative voice. “Then you and I are going on a trip.”
He nodded, but after puffing on his puffer he said, “Maybe you should take Tom.”
He was scared. He was putting up a good tough act, but when push came to shove he just didn’t have what it took to survive. I watched him hold the rifle, and I was betting that, if he had to shoot it, he wouldn’t know how to aim. Thing was, I couldn’t leave him here. I had to take him because, of the three, I trusted him the least not to stir up trouble.
“You know what you need. You’re the one who’s coming. We can’t make mistakes here. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. I grabbed the rifle from him and nodded my chin to the exit. “I’ll take the next shift.”
Keeping them busy had to be a priority. As long as they were working, they wouldn’t be thinking about how scared they should be. And they should be scared.
Chapter Nine
Over the next few days, Big Guy and Oliver chopped down trees to make fence posts. I put barbed wire on the wish list, watching them from the roost with the relentless sun beating on us. Sweat beaded on my face as my pen scratched the dash code for tarp in my notebook. The summer was promising to be hot.
A patter of footsteps sounded up the stairs, followed by Skinny’s voice. “I put together a water filtration system, thanks to those books your stepfather kept. No idea if it works. I used an old plastic garbage bin and cut holes in the bottom. I found charcoal and sand bags at the back of the shed and I made about three layers, each a couple inches thick. We can boil the water on the wood stove.”
“You and I will trek down to the lake and bring back a few buckets.”
He paused and his face scrunched up. I turned away to face the field so my command could sink in.
“How far is the lake?” Skinny asked.
“We’ll want to get water where there’s no chance of human contamination, so a ten-minute walk.”
Even not facing him, I knew he was struggling with this. Was he waiting to see if I was joking? Or did he expect the water to co
me to us?
“Do we have a wagon? A wheelbarrow? Anything to cart the water back in?”
I sighed. Not quietly, either. How had he survived so long being so lazy?
“No cart. No wheelbarrow. We have to walk through the woods. Be thankful there’s a path.”
“Every day? We’ll be constantly going to get water!” Skinny yelled this at me.
Oliver’s head perked in our direction. Of course, he left what he was doing to come see what was going on—as if he were in charge.
“And what do you suggest we do?” I asked calmly as Oliver joined us on the roof.
In my head, my stepfather whispered, You need to kill them.
“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, stepping between us.
I imagined myself face kicking Skinny and knocking Oliver down the stairs. A simple rifle shot could finish Big Guy, and Kady would just cower back to where she came from.
“Ethan expects us to spend all our time running back and forth to the lake for water.”
Oliver looked at me, maybe to give me a chance to explain myself. At this point, I was angry enough that I considered taking my stepfather’s advice. Well, the advice my stepfather would have given me. About killing them . . .
Oliver turned back to Skinny and said, “The lake is where the water is. Where do you suggest we get water?”
Skinny started wringing his hands and stared at his feet.
“Go help Tom cut wood for the fence,” Oliver said.
Skinny took the order and left me alone with Oliver. A part of me was angry that Skinny hadn’t obeyed me so readily, but mostly I was impressed with Oliver’s confidence.
“You need to build trust with them,” Oliver said softly. As before, he placed a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed. It calmed me.
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