“Shit. That’s not what I would have guessed you were going to say. Enough secrets.” Oliver said. “Our lives are obviously in danger, and we deserve to know what we’re up against.”
He wasn’t wrong. His life was in danger, as was everyone else’s.
“Before the Fall, there were men who obeyed laws only because they were forced to obey the laws.” I leaned against the cabin and rested the tips of my machetes on the sod. “My stepfather was not that kind of man. He cared nothing of laws because he saw the end coming. Not that he was always like that. When he first married my mom, he was kind and gentle. But at his work in an auto body shop, a piece of metal hit him in the eye. Broke clean through his safety goggles. Blinded him in that eye.
“That day he started having visions of a dead world. He claimed that his missing eye gave him The Sight and that we needed to prepare for the coming end times. He used me to train his sons. But I watched them and picked up everything they did. From observing them, and practicing in secret, I learned to hunt, to scavenge, and to fight. My stepfather won’t outright kill us. He’ll wear us down first. He’ll test us for weakness. Once he knows us as he knows himself, then he’ll kill us.”
“He wants revenge.” Oliver’s shoulders were relaxed, but his face was scrunched up. He didn’t need me to tell him he was right. He turned toward the cabin. Before closing the door, he asked, “Could you at least bury your brothers—stepsiblings—so this place doesn’t seem so morbid?”
When the door closed, I considered it. I wanted them to rot where I had killed them. They didn’t deserve a proper burial. But, for Oliver, I’d place them in a shallow unmarked grave.
I TOOK OLIVER TO THE gibbets first, just to give him a sense of what we were dealing with. Oliver stopped at the edge of the woods, staring at the lifeless men inside the cages. Behind me were the sounds of Oliver gagging, puking, and finally coughing up whatever was left in his stomach. I stopped near one of the cages and remembered the fellow I had seen strung up in the town. I had wanted to throw up, too.
“What the hell is this place?” Oliver asked, as he sidled up to me.
Before I could answer, the clang of a tin bucket hitting against someone’s leg interrupted us. The walk sounded casual, so I guessed the fight earlier hadn’t upset the routine at the resort. Meant my stepfather’s people were cocky and confident.
We were too far into the bushes to see them, so we made our way through and out of the woods toward the noise. To where the resort opened into a series of cabins. Where a sports field once stood, cows grazed inside wooden fences. A few kids were milking those cows, and the slapping of the tin bucket against a leg turned out to be from another kid heading off to do her chores. As quietly as possible, we crept along the edge of the woods around the field.
Near the barn, several men started shouting. Then we heard the echo of fist on flesh. I scurried to the side of the barn, keeping low to the ground, with Oliver following. A ladder led to the roof—possibly a lookout spot. I hadn’t seen any lookouts yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. I climbed the ladder slowly and carefully. No noise came from the roof, and after peering over the top of the ladder I saw that no one was at the top. I waved for Oliver to follow, and he did.
From our vantage point, we saw a burly man being pushed to the center of another field between the barn we were on and what looked like the main house. He was blindfolded and gagged. But even with the coverings, I clearly saw bruises. A man stood on either side of him. One with a rifle and the other with a broom pole attached to the man’s neck by a noose—like those mancatchers dog catchers used on vicious dogs. The rest of the colony had gathered as if watching a show.
I glanced around the yard, searching for lookout spots. The attic window on the house had no glint from the sun, so I guessed they must have removed the glass. An obvious, strategic lookout. Knowing my stepfather, I guessed his guards were most likely scattered throughout the woods, sitting in hunting seats, camouflaged so they wouldn’t be easy to spot. We were just plain lucky we hadn’t yet been spotted.
I scanned the crowd to find my stepfather, my heart beating fast. A tall man emerged with a machete in one hand. When his face became visible, and I saw the scar that replaced his eye, all I wanted to do was run away.
“Do you know what the hell is going on?” Oliver whispered to me, tugging my shoulder to get my attention.
“Not entirely,” I answered in a voice meant to shush him.
My stepfather spoke, but we couldn’t hear him. The crowd responded in unison with, “The One-Eyed Man is King!” As soon as their cheers ended, he stabbed the man in the chest, and cheers rose.
Oliver covered his mouth with his hands, and I worried he might be sick again. Anger. Anger and fear. That was what I felt. The man who’d been stabbed started to rise and claw at my stepfather. The guy holding the pole fought to keep the burly man, now a deader, from getting at anyone. My stepfather spoke more words, and three men headed down the road with the deader. I wished we were close enough to hear what my stepfather was saying.
“We need to get the hell out of here before we’re caught,” Oliver said with a trembling voice.
We started back into the woods, hoping no one had spotted us. I took one last glance for the lookouts, but still didn’t spot any. At least now I knew where my stepfather was. I could return later without Oliver to figure out how to defeat him. How I could defeat him.
AS WE MADE OUR WAY to our colony, dusk was just setting in. The music was still a good half-mile away when I heard it. CDs of some band my stepfather believed “offered a good message” that my stepsiblings used to play. The lyrics rang clearer and louder the closer we got.
Once again, Big Guy and Skinny acted in a way that put us all in danger. The army brats didn’t know our location, but my stepfather did. And I knew my stepfather was close, and just waiting for us to let our guard down. Playing loud music and turning the apocalypse into a party sent the message that we weren’t preparing for him.
About halfway through the field, I saw Skinny sitting on the front stoop. He waved, Oliver waved back, and Skinny turned off the music. I didn’t wave. Anger was boiling inside me. My colony was completely blind to the danger that we just saw of the gibbets and of the man we had just watched get executed. I needed to calm myself.
“You don’t want to go in there,” Skinny said with an odd smirk when I opened my eyes and approached the stoop.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Let’s just say that Kady and Tom have realized they just might be the last quarterback and cheerleader on Earth.”
I had no idea what that meant. I stepped back so I could see the roof.
“Who’s on watch?”
“Uh, I am. From down here . . . No way I was going to walk through the house with them two—”
A bulky man tackled Skinny from behind. It happened so fast that Oliver and I didn’t have time to react. A deader! And he had his mouth right on Skinny’s neck.
I ran around them. Grabbed the burly deader by the shoulders. Yanked hard to get him off Skinny. He turned and snarled at me. He was the man my stepfather had executed. This realization startled me, giving him just enough time to lunge at me. Connor jumped and knocked him away. I drew my machete and stabbed the deader in the brainpan.
Skinny was on the ground holding his neck. He was screaming, but I didn’t see any blood. He should have been covered in blood.
Just then Big Guy emerged at the door, looking rather disheveled.
“Skinny is now dead!” I growled, running to stand chest to chest with Big Guy. “And it’s all your fault!”
I turned back to the others and said, “I’m the only reason any of you are alive. Without me, you would all be dead. When are you going to listen to me?”
“What’s your problem?” Big Guy said through pursed lips, puffing out his chest and glaring at me. He didn’t see the deader or what had happened to Skinny. His attitude reminded me of the time
in the schoolyard when the football team had ganged up on me. I remembered how he had mocked me, and how merciless he was in making sure everyone knew he was going to pound me. I remembered not being able to fight back.
“It’s the end of the world. Excuse me for wanting to live a little.” Big Guy turned to go back into the house.
I let the sensation in my chest build. That urge to strike back. Strike harder. You are too weak to strike back; you need to learn pain, my stepfather would have told me.
The next thing I knew, I was rushing the quarterback.
He was used to taking hits. He knew how to roll with a tackle, and I wasn’t heavy enough to bring him down. He dug his feet into the ground and hunkered down low. This was where I wanted him. Where I had wanted him to be when I’d had to let him pound me. I stopped just short of hitting him. I jumped into the air and brought my knee smashing into his nose.
I heard Oliver shout at me as Big Guy grunted and fell back. I sidekicked him in the chest. He staggered until he landed on his back, his red face contorted as if he was shocked.
Oliver stepped between us. “Are you two crazy? We don’t have enough problems?”
Skinny took his hand away from his neck. He was sobbing and breathing in heavy rasps. “He didn’t bite me.”
“What?” Oliver ran to examine him. “We saw him . . .”
Skinny showed us his neck and sure enough the skin wasn’t broken. I left Big Guy on his back and walked to the deader. Through its open mouth, I saw just blackened gums where teeth should have been. Before or after my stepfather had killed the deader, he must have pulled out all its teeth.
“He’s toying with us,” I said under my breath.
“What do you mean? Who’s toying with us?”
I ignored Skinny and walked toward my shelter. Connor gave a short bark, and I looked over my shoulder at the house. Connor was sitting on the stoop, his tail wagging only slightly and his head cocked.
“Come!” I shouted, and he tore through the grass to me. He stopped at my side.
Oliver was at the front door, watching. Big Guy pushed past him, holding his nose. Before Oliver disappeared inside, he said, “I’ll tell them about your stepfather. About what we saw.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next day, I watched from the roost as Oliver and Big Guy worked on the fence. I kept a keen eye on the woods, listened to the birds, and kept note of changes in scent as the wind brushed by me. But I also watched Oliver and Big Guy work together. I heard Kady and Skinny carrying the water jug from the lake long before they emerged from the forest, their voices making me think back to the toothless deader from the day before. Did the men who meant to kill Kady have anything to do with my stepfather? And if so, was she a part of their colony?
I took out my notebook and flipped through the pages to when I had rescued her. She was hurt. Blood was on her right shoulder. When we got to her shelter, she insisted I shower before I came inside. Was it to keep me from tracking in dirt or was there another reason? What hadn’t she wanted me to see? Kady circled the house until she was with Oliver as he held posts in holes that Big Guy was securing by filling the holes with dirt.
“Hey, Ollie, can we talk?” Kady had her hands behind her back and was swaying her hips slightly.
“Ollie?” He spat the name out as if he had just tasted rotten meat. “Facebook status: ‘Cheerleader crossed the line today.’ Promise you’ll never call me that again, and I might say yes.”
“Fine. Oliver, can we talk?” Kady said, standing up straight. I started to like Oliver even more. He was just such a straight-to-the-point guy.
I barely heard as Kady asked, “Can you teach me to fight?”
Oliver’s face was not hard to read— he was both satisfied and disappointed. Knowing him now as I did, I guessed his satisfaction came from Kady wanting to be more than the cheerleader who got what she wanted by flirting. But, no doubt, that the world had become a place where violence seemed the right answer to every question still disappointed him.
“Why not ask Tom?”
“I did. But I don’t think he takes me seriously enough. You’re more patient, too. I’m tired of being a clichéd cheerleader, I want to be more of a warrior like Katniss.”
Oliver reached out and felt her bicep. “All that water you’ve been carrying from the lake has given you some good muscle. Bet all those cheers you do mean you have strong legs.” He paused for about five seconds before nodding. “Tomorrow I’ll switch my free time with Blake so you and I can train. I’ll be patient, but I’m not going easy on you.”
“Thanks,” Kady said as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. I found myself turning red, and just as I looked away Oliver caught me watching.
“Hey, General!” Oliver had an I know you were watching me tone to his voice. “We scavenging today?”
Inside the house, Skinny filled the filter with lake water. Big Guy still dug holes for posts, sweating under the hot sun. I didn’t want to admit I was watching Oliver and Kady, or that watching them together made me . . . jealous.
Why would it make me jealous?
This could be the perfect timing to find out what Kady hadn’t said about her family. My stepfather had never known about her place, or all the things worth scavenging: the generator, the other bike armor, and all the canned goods inside the shelter. Possibly more inside the house. Without a truck, we could get only the canned goods home, but we needed the extra food.
“Yeah. We’ll head to Kady’s. This time, for her supplies,” I shouted down to Oliver.
“I’ll come. I can get my clothes and make-up,” Kady shouted back at me.
“No. We’re going only for food and necessities.”
“My make-up is a necessity!”
It surprised me that she didn’t stomp her foot. Still, I tried to remember when Oliver had talked to me about hobbies. About feeling normal. I understood that what she asked wasn’t really about make-up. It was about feeling like the whole world hadn’t just collapsed—her make-up was my comics. Oliver looked up at me with that same look he had when he’d first explained hobbies to me, and I nodded to him to let him know that I got the message.
“Kady,” Oliver said, “I promise I’ll get your stuff if you write down what you need.”
“Thanks,” she said. And this time when she kissed his cheek she kept an eye on me.
OLIVER WALKED A FEW paces behind me and Connor, with his crossbow loaded. He’d been different since killing the little girl we’d found on the farm. . . quiet. Almost solemn. After an hour had passed, we emerged from the woods into the meadow where Kady’s house was. Oliver nearly walked by me, but I held out my arm and stopped him short.
“What?”
I pointed to one of the basement windows, and he saw the broken glass. I stuck along the tree line so I could see the shed. Sure enough, the door was open. Not much chance of us finding anything left of value in the house.
“Good thing Kady came to stay with us,” Oliver said, as he relaxed his crossbow for the first time since we’d been walking. Seemed off to me that he’d relax his weapon now, just when danger presented itself.
“They could still be here.” I drew my machetes. “Stay close to me.”
I ran, crouched, across the lawn toward the back of the house. Connor was right on my heels. It was a big two-story house, plus attic, no doubt with plenty of rooms to hide in. Having seen what Kady was like in my colony, I imagined my stepfather’s men had caught her without a struggle while she was sunbathing. I didn’t understand why they hadn’t looted her shelter—or, if it was locked, why they hadn’t forced her to open it. More and more evidence was pointing to a connection between Kady and my stepfather’s colony.
A crash from inside the house stopped us in our tracks. Oliver and Connor watched me, as if waiting for me to move. Oliver readied his crossbow. Connor only sniffed the air, so it wasn’t deaders. If it had been, Connor would have been barking and growling and backing away.
“Co
uld be squatters. Could be the army brats. Could be the ones who murdered the Jeffersons.”
Oliver nodded. What I didn’t think he understood was that we most likely had to kill whomever we found inside. Kady’s home held valuable information, especially if her dad, as a scientist, knew the virus was coming. He might have left behind papers or a hint as to where he might have disappeared to. And while Oliver may have had it in him to kill deaders, I was sure he didn’t have it in him to kill the living.
“Stay here. I want to check things out first.”
I left Oliver and crept around the house with Connor beside me, matching my speed. I neared the front of the house. Heavy steps running down the front stoop, followed by lighter steps. Two people were outside. I steeled myself to kill them. I wished Oliver wasn’t with me. That he wouldn’t see how easily I fit into a world that scared him. Even before I peered around the house to get a full view of the front yard, I heard a man speaking.
“Open up your glove more, and wait until you feel the ball before you close your hand.”
Peering around the house, I saw an old guy in his forties tossing a baseball to a kid no more than six, a year older than my sister. They were throwing the ball overhanded, back and forth. The boy smiled and laughed whenever he missed and had to chase after it. What a strange sight seeing them playing a game instead of training for survival. I tried to imagine my stepfather throwing a ball to me. That nearly made me laugh.
My attention was so focused on the father and son that I didn’t notice Connor whimpering and scurrying backward. I didn’t know where the deader had come from, but he suddenly rushed the boy, whose laughter then turned to screams. The dad shouted, but the deader was nearly on top of the child. I rushed out, but the dad was between his son and me. The deader grabbed the boy, lifting him toward its open jaw. The monster was about to chomp the boy when a bolt slammed through its head. Oliver had shot it from behind. The dad slowly looked over his shoulder at me with my two machetes. Then back at Oliver with his crossbow.
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