And Mark could hold his own when it came to dealing with her.
The two of them scrambled up the stairs and Kyle found himself walking among the bookshelves, searching for something.
What exactly was he looking for?
Hope?
Is that what he wanted?
He wouldn’t find it here.
He knew that.
The world didn’t have hope anymore. It didn’t have joy and it certainly didn’t have pleasure, at least not that Kyle could see. That wasn’t really fair, though, was it? It certainly shouldn’t have to be that way.
He perused the books, running his hands over the spines of the cool-looking ones. He thought about bookstores, remembered the way he used to spend way too much time looking for good used books that sold for a decent price.
Once he’d found an amazing little store that had stacks of books everywhere, along with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Once he’d discovered the books were $3.00 each, though, he’d simply left. He couldn’t bring himself to pay more than a buck for a used paperback, and even that felt like a huge rip-off.
After awhile, Kyle realized he was no longer walking around. He was just standing there thinking about the woman across the road.
Was she all alone?
Had she called out in an attempt to meet them?
Was she actually, truly irritated that Kyle and Alice had been waltzing around in their underwear?
It was such a little thing, really. They’d bloodied their clothes killing zombies, so they stripped down. They didn’t think anyone would see, so it wasn’t really a problem.
Only, apparently it had been a problem.
The woman had seen.
The girl.
How long had she been watching them for?
Had she seen them arrive yesterday?
Had she watched them fighting?
Did she think they did well?
It was an odd thing to wonder, Kyle thought. Why should he care if a random stranger thought he was good at killing things? Only, he knew exactly why he cared. He knew exactly why he wondered.
He’d felt weak so often and so long. The idea that someone had seen him in his moment of glory made him feel good, made him feel big. He felt strong when he was killing. He felt fast and swift and efficient.
He hoped the woman had seen, that she thought the same thing he did.
There was only one way he could find out, he realized, and Kyle had nothing but time. He might as well go meet her, might as well go introduce himself. He knew what Mark would say. Mark would hate it. He wouldn’t trust someone new, wouldn’t like the idea that he wanted to talk to the woman.
Mark would think it was a trap because Mark thought everything was a trap.
Maybe it wasn’t, though.
Maybe she was just an ordinary person with ordinary dreams and an ordinary life.
Maybe she was just normal.
Maybe she was just bored.
There was only one way to find out. Alice and Mark had gone upstairs, so he went outside. He was still in his boxers, but that didn’t matter. She’d already seen him in his underwear. The woman could handle him a little bit more.
At least, he hoped she could.
It would be good to talk to someone new. It would be good to talk to someone different. It would be good to see if anyone else knew what was going on in this messed up world because, honestly, Kyle sure as hell didn’t.
He walked across the road and as he made his way over what was so recently a battlefield, he wondered if she was watching him.
He rather hoped she was.
Chapter 4
One of the new people was wandering over, Torrance realized. She peeked out the little corner of the window that wasn’t covered with cardboard. She’d tried to hide herself away, tried to shut out as much light and noise and dead people as possible, but she couldn’t do it completely.
That was what the cardboard was for.
It wasn’t as good as boarding up the windows. It wouldn’t keep anyone out. Not really. It simply gave her a little bit of privacy, a little bit of darkness. It gave her a little bit of space where she could be alone and pretend things were normal.
Somehow, she knew things weren’t going to be normal again for a long time.
If ever.
Now, she stared out the window as the door to the library opened quietly, slowly. She could tell the man was being cautious. He kept looking over his shoulder as though he didn’t want to be seen. His friends didn’t know he was leaving the building, did they?
Of course not.
This was the boxers guy: the cute one. His blonde hair was shaggy and unkempt, and she kind of completely wanted to run her hands through it and just tug. That was weird, though. That was uncool. This was the apocalypse, not some bar. She wasn’t at a high school party and she wasn’t hanging out with her friends.
No, Torrance was trying her best not to die, not to be killed, and not to go completely insane.
The man closed the door to the library behind him and carefully walked down the steps. He seemed methodical in everything he did. She’d watched him kill Z’s just this morning and she’d been surprised at how he did it.
He watched, figuring out how they were going to move. He held his weapon high and ready, and when it was just the right moment, he swung. He almost always hit his target. He almost always took them down quickly.
The other two people in the group, the man and the woman, were good, too. They were all good, Torrance thought, and they made a solid team. They’d obviously been friends before the apocalypse. They had to have been. No one could assemble a team that good in a matter of days.
No one could meet other survivors they meshed with so perfectly, at least not that quickly.
Torrance tried not to feel jealous.
She’d been in the courthouse offices for days. When the infection first hit, the town thought it would be a good idea to evacuate. She still didn’t understand why. Where would anyone go? What was the point?
Raven was already a small town. If you were going to try to find a smaller place, you might as well just not even try. You simply couldn’t do it. A town smaller than Raven wasn’t a town: it was a private ranch.
Those were simply the facts.
Still, people had fled from Raven in record numbers, surprising even her.
“It’s the end of the world,” people said.
“Everyone is going to die,” they told her.
She wondered where everyone went. Torrance wondered what had happened to them. Surely some people must have made it to safety. Surely there were camps or survival areas set up already where people could go be safe. The Red Cross must have set something up, right? That was kind of their job.
She wasn’t holding her breath, though.
Torrance knew enough about people to know they made choices they thought were best for themselves with little thought as to how their choices affected others. The people who left Raven didn’t care about their neighbors or their loved ones. They cared about themselves.
They cared about getting to a place where they’d be away from the virus, away from the ravaging infection.
They cared about getting to a place where nothing could touch them.
She didn’t believe it existed.
Suddenly, Torrance heard a strange sound. It was one she hadn’t heard in days. At first, she thought it was her imagination, but then she realized what was happening.
He was knocking on the door.
The fucker in blue plaid boxers was knocking on the damn door.
She should probably answer.
It would be rude not to, she reasoned. Torrance stood up and took a deep breath. She went to the door of the office where she’d been hiding and turned the knob. She peeked her head out cautiously. She knew there weren’t any zombies up here. She’d hidden alone. No one knew where she was or where she’d gone or why she’d chosen this place as her haven.
Not that it mattered now, any
way.
The people across the street knew she was here because she’d been too stupid to stay quiet. After all of their noise, though, after all of their killing, they had the audacity to prance around in their skivvies. It was ridiculous, really. What was wrong with them? Were they that bored that the world had become their fashion runway?
Torrance didn’t bother bringing her flashlight as she entered the open area in the center of the building. This floor was clear. There was nothing up here. There were no monsters lurking in the darkness. The skylight let in enough light during the day that she didn’t have to worry about darkness or wasting batteries.
She went down the wide staircase and made her way to the front door where the man was still knocking.
“Who is it?” She called out. It was a stupid question, wasn’t it? Obviously, it was the underwear guy. He still wasn’t dressed. Why hadn’t he at least put a shirt on? It was weird, really, to be walking around in the apocalypse without a shirt on, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Kyle.”
“Are we friends now, Kyle?”
“I’m always happy to make new friends.”
“Maybe I don’t want a friend.”
“I think you do.”
“What else do you think you know?”
“I think you’re lonely and maybe a little desperate.”
Bingo.
He’d nailed it, but she wasn’t about to admit that. Not to this guy. Not now. Not just yet. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway? Her friend? The fucking Welcome Wagon?
Um, no.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Torrance said.
“Open the door,” he said. “It’s cold outside.”
“Maybe you should put some clothes on then.”
She smiled even as she tried to frown. This guy was persistent, she’d give him that. The truth was that he was right, this Kyle guy. He was right about her. She was lonely and bored out of her fucking mind.
And to be honest, it’s not like Torrance had anything left to lose.
Everything she loved had already been torn from her.
She pulled the door open.
“Why, hello,” Kyle said. Then he held out his hand.
“Hi,” Torrance said. She shook his hand awkwardly. It had been less than a week since she’d touched another human, but it felt like so much longer.
“Can I come in?”
“There’s nothing to see in here.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be standing out where anything could come get me.”
“How do you know I’m not going to get you?”
“Call it intuition.”
She stepped aside and the man walked by her.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” he commented, looking around at the marble floors and the highly decorated walls. There were paintings of government officials and artwork depicting the town from years ago.
“Yeah,” Torrance closed the door and locked it. She had barricaded the other doors, but this one only put a chair in front of. It wasn’t very smart, but she didn’t want to completely lock herself inside. She wanted to have a way to escape if she needed to. She knew what was lurking outside and she didn’t like it. “Thanks.”
She turned and looked at the man. Up close he was quite handsome and she wondered why he was here. It’s not like she had anything to lose, so she just asked.
“What do you want?”
“Just to chat. I heard you yell at me.”
“I yelled at you and your little friend.”
“Alice? She’s a good friend.”
“How good?”
“Jealous?” Kyle asked, raising an eyebrow. “Really? You didn’t strike me as the jealous type.”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“I’m not sleeping with her, if that’s what you mean.”
“Who was the other guy?” Torrance asked.
“Mark. What about you? Have a name?”
“Ashley,” Torrance lied. Kyle raised an eyebrow.
“Try again,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. I’m not going to bite you. What’s wrong with your real name?”
“Torrance.”
“Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“It shouldn’t have been. Torrance is a beautiful name.”
He smiled at her and she was caught off-guard by his handsome, boyish grin. She could get used to this. He seemed sweet: too sweet for the apocalypse. He seemed too sweet to be the type of guy who had just been outside slaughtering the undead.
“Why are you here?” She asked again.
“In this town? Or here with you?”
“Either.”
Kyle walked over to a bench and sat down. He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankles as if he was completely comfortable, as if he didn’t have a care in the whole damn world.
“Have a seat, Torrance, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
Chapter 5
Alice began rummaging around the bags they’d brought in the day before and found something to wear. She dressed herself, then went into the bathroom. She stared in the mirror and tried to turn the sink on. Nothing came out, so she finger-combed her hair and imagined she could brush her teeth and wash her face.
She felt different.
Calmer.
Less terrified of everything.
She went back into the room where Mark was also getting dressed and she just looked at him. He was handsome and kind, and she owed him her life. She wasn’t under any mistaken impression that this was love. It wasn’t. That was okay. Maybe the world was too broken for love anymore.
“We should go find Kyle,” she said.
“It’s no rush. He’s probably just reading somewhere.”
She nodded and walked to the window, then placed her hand on the glass windowpane. She looked outside at the blood in the streets. There were no zombies left there anymore. There weren’t any creatures wandering around. There was nothing.
It was only her and Mark and Kyle now.
And the girl across the road.
She was the one who had started all of this, really. If Alice hadn’t been so determined to go talk to her and Mark hadn’t been so stubborn about not doing it, Alice wouldn’t have freaked out and grabbed the gun. Then nothing else would have happened.
She shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have been unsafe with a weapon. She knew better, but she’d freaked out.
“I need to go outside,” she said.
“We aren’t going to see the girl.”
“That’s fine, but we need to go outside. I don’t want to sit in the library.”
“All right.”
Mark finished dressing, grabbed the handgun and shoved it in the waistband of his pants, and picked up a bat. He raised an eyebrow, waiting to see what Alice would do. She walked to the table and looked at her choices. She could take the rifle or the crowbar. There was a hammer, too, but she didn’t really want that one.
She picked up the crowbar. It was good for killing, she thought, and she was comfortable with it. Either end was fine for taking out an Infected, but the hooked end was a little tough to pull out of a skull. She cringed as she thought about how many different DNA strands were now on the crowbar. During her time at the legal office, she had written numerous reports on DNA evidence and now she couldn’t stop thinking about that.
“Breathe,” Mark said, and she took a deep breath.
“I’m okay. I just started thinking.”
“Nothing wrong with that. We all think too much.”
“It’s too quiet,” she said. “The world is too quiet. I think my head fills with extra noise to counteract the silence.”
Mark took her hand and led her from the room. They went downstairs and she noticed that Kyle wasn’t around. Maybe he’d gone outside, too. Maybe he needed some time to think or just to relax after the morning they’d had.
Alice a
nd Mark went out the front door of the library and decided to walk down the road a little bit. It might be stupid, but they were going to be living here, so she wanted to explore a bit. They couldn’t spend their lives locked in a library. They couldn’t spend their lives sitting around waiting to die.
That was the problem, wasn’t it?
Outside wasn’t safe, but neither was inside.
They walked down the road past several buildings. Most of them were run-down looking and several had broken windows. They saw a little post office with two zombies out front. Alice went over and killed them quickly with her crowbar, ruining her clothes again.
“You might as well just stay in your underwear,” Mark said, looking at her shirt. Alice just shrugged. She didn’t like making a mess when she killed, but she was new to the whole process, so she was sloppy.
“I’ll just find new clothes,” she said.
“There aren’t that many shops around. Maybe we should get you a killing jacket or something.”
“What the hell is a killing jacket?”
“It’s a jacket you can wear when you kill things so you don’t dirty your damn clothes, messy.”
“I’m not messy.”
“Look at you.”
She glanced down at her soiled shirt and just shrugged. They kept walking down the road. There were a couple of roads on either side of the town with little houses. She wanted to go explore them sometime. Maybe there were other survivors, but she doubted it. The town looked abandoned, evacuated.
Where had all the people gone?
“How much advance warning do you think these places had about the virus?”
“Not much. We missed the memo to leave town, obviously, but we were also drunk off our asses and then hung-over.”
“True.” When the Infection first hit, they’d been asleep on the roof of their apartment building after a long night of drinking and listening to music. They hadn’t known there was an infection until it was too late to do anything but run.
Had they known ahead of time, maybe they could have escaped from their little town. Maybe they could have left early and found a good place to stay. They could have gone to the grocery store and stocked up on food that didn’t suck, bought extra ammo, and holed up somewhere. It would have been fine.
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 4) Page 2
